3. A Brief Meeting

The Ultramarines' meeting room is an interesting place—or rather, only the meeting room on the Macragge's Honour is like that. It has four entrances, dividing it into four discussion areas from front to back.

Tapestries woven by the distinguished Chapter flutter in the wind on the walls, their heavy tapestries bearing witness to a rich history and all that has happened here. Every debate, every vote, takes place under their watchful gaze.

Of course, you can also use this as a basis to imagine just how noisy these meetings of the Ultramarines must be.

However, Karyl was already used to it.

The voyage lasted a month and a half, and except for the first day, every day was like this. You have to get used to it whether you like it or not.

He nodded to the Victrix Guard at the door as a greeting, then followed Roboute Guilliman into the meeting room. The Ultramarines noticed their arrival but did not stop their discussion.

On the Macragge's Honour, meetings were always held in advance, and would never be terminated or ended early unless there was an emergency—in a sense, this was a trend started by Roboute Guilliman himself.

Roboute Guilliman didn't bother with his children; everyone in the meeting room was an officer, and besides, it was just a routine meeting, so there was no need for anything too complicated.

He walked inside and came to a small cubicle that wasn't very big. He then picked up three Dataslate from the table and handed them to Karyl.

"Is that all for today?" Karyl raised an eyebrow in surprise.

"Marius gave me some advice yesterday, saying I shouldn't add too much work for you to avoid 'unnecessary verbal attacks'," Roboute Guilliman said expressionlessly. "I already told him it was your request, but he wouldn't believe me."

Karyl chuckled wryly—who would believe that? Someone who volunteered to handle paperwork.

Moreover, the Ultramarines would likely interpret this as a gesture of goodwill from the Eighth Legion's instructors towards the Ultramarines.

Although they were indeed very surprised by how quickly he handled paperwork.

"I will finish them tonight."

Karyl nodded, but didn't forget to complain—he wasn't entirely without fault. "By the way, the Imperium's paperwork is shockingly cumbersome. Every single shipment of supplies has to be recorded separately. Hasn't anyone thought about reforming it?"

"The Imperium's bureaucracy is enormous."

Roboute Guilliman sighed in frustration, finding someone he could confide in for the first time in this matter. He couldn't help but pour out his troubles.

"If you use Cogitator with a built-in search function to search for the word 'processor,' you'll find hundreds of processors with similar ranks and powers within the Imperium's bureaucracy, but there can be dozens of them in a single department."

"But they weren't wasting their time stealing tax money. In fact, these people worked diligently every day—worked on what? Naturally, processing paperwork."

"Therefore, if we intend to keep this damned system functioning properly, we must adhere to this rotten system. God knows how many times I've wanted to suggest reform."

Towards the end, he even started to grit his teeth. Karyl looked at him and felt a pang of sympathy.

Roboute Guilliman was a very efficient man—for such a man, witnessing these things firsthand would probably be more painful than being severely beaten.

"Didn't you offer your father any advice?" he asked casually, looking down at the Dataslate.

"Of course I do!" Roboute Guilliman answered loudly, sitting down on the sofa in the room.

And the result?

"He told me to implement it first within the Ultima Segmentum," Roboute Guilliman said quietly. "He didn't say why, but I can roughly guess."

Lord Macragge sighed, removed his laurel wreath, and gazed at it intently, his expression a complex mix that defied description.

"Then why?" Karyl asked softly.

"Because this matter is not important," Roboute Guilliman said solemnly, gazing at the laurel wreath. "You may already know, our mission—the goal that the Primarch, the Legion, the Auxilia, everyone from top to bottom, all yearn to achieve."

He paused for a moment. "The only goal."

"The Great Crusade," Karyl replied calmly. "I know."

"The vastness of the Milky Way is almost despairing, Karyl," Roboute Guilliman said, stunned.

"I saw a star map with many points of light obscured by darkness. It was hand-drawn, completed by a hundred artists. It stretched from Terra to the far end of the Milky Way. Darkness shrouded the stars, and I stared at it for a long time. If it weren't for my father's guards reminding me, I probably wouldn't have even attended the banquet that day."

"This star map... it's too vast for me, even frighteningly vast. Because I'm beginning to realize that without Warp travel, it could take us hundreds of years to reach another star system. How terrifying is that?"

"But in the days when the Milky Way belonged to humankind, we had the freedom to visit the stars. We discovered them, and then we possessed them. The Milky Way once belonged to us, Karyl."

As he spoke, he couldn't help but smile. It was a smile that was hard to define, somewhere between regret and longing, yet also carrying a touch of childlike, innocent defiance.

"That's why I'm willing to trap myself in this endless paperwork," Roboute Guilliman chuckled. "That's why my brothers are willing to leave their homeland, take up arms, and get their blood on their hands. We all understand what this means for humanity as a whole."

He smiled proudly, set down his laurel wreath, and looked at his guest—whom Karyl Lohars simply returned a calm gaze.

"Just a sacrifice," he replied softly. "So let's talk about the planets we're going to reclaim."

Roboute Guilliman raised an eyebrow. "You got the information before me? Who gave it to you?"

"Of course not, I just overheard their discussion as I passed by the conference room. If nothing unexpected happens, in about ten minutes, someone will probably bring in concrete information and a well-developed plan."

"You really have a very good grasp of how efficient my offspring are."

Karyl smiled gently, said nothing more, and continued to look down at the Dataslate. Roboute Guilliman, on the other hand, belatedly realized just how embarrassing his answer had sounded.

I've finally paid it off.