47th Company Era Chronicles (VIII, the First Reserve)

"Before we begin, I hope you won't apologize. ╰☆☆ Claw ☆☆╮" Sevatar said.

He was clearly prepared; his words were direct, precise, and swift. He successfully blocked Karyl's first sentence and bought himself the opportunity to speak next.

"I understand this is important to you, but I just don't want to hear you apologize, instructor."

"We went to great lengths to pull you out of the abyss, not to hear your apology. You have many things to do, and if the first thing you want to do is see the Imperium ten thousand years from now, I fully support that."

Sevatar said with utmost seriousness, his current height approaching three meters, which is considered exceptionally tall even among Astartes. The benefits of unsealing his psionic powers are clearly more than what appears on the surface, Karyl has extensive experience to share on this matter.

He understood that Sevatar's body was being subtly altered by psychic energy, and this alteration would not stop until his death.

He looked up, gazing at the first reserve officer from ten thousand years ago, now the eldest son, and for a moment, he was somewhat dazed.

For a long time, Karyl simply held his glass in silence. He couldn't find anything to say, nor did he want to refute Sevatar's words.

Seeing the Imperium with his own eyes was indeed an appealing idea, and perhaps he would have done so if he had woken up alone. However, he was not alone, nor had he been for a long time.

He must shoulder some responsibility.

"I won't apologize," Karyl said, meeting Sevatar's gaze. "At least not this time."

He received a smile that was a mixture of surprise, shock, and joy.

"Don't get too cocky, First Reserve."

Karyl delivered the warning with the practiced air of an instructor, and with a half-smile, he shoved the empty glass into Sevatar's hand.

"But then again, didn't you want to go back to Nostramo first?"

"If our great instructor, who never listens to anyone's advice, insists on going on to visit other places instead of his hometown first—"

Sevatar reached out and took the glass, giving an exaggerated bow.

"--I'd still be happy to help."

"I have no home," Karyl said. "Not even Nostramo; it's Konrad Curze Curze's home, not mine. My home is in the Warp, Jago, don't forget that."

"So, you're planning to go back to the Warp?"

Sevatar looked up with feigned surprise, then quickly masked it, adopting a serious expression that was hard to tell if it was genuine.

"Very well, my lord, I am willing to serve you. We will follow you into the Warp, though it is tantamount to suicide. But every day we live is well enough to die for, don't you think?"

"I think your ability to be sarcastic and unsettling has improved over the past ten thousand years."

"Oh, just the tip of the iceberg," Sevatar said with a smile. "I just need to imitate the officials I've met; they all speak with that same accent."

"Have you met many officials?"

"Many have seen me, but few have I seen," Sevatar said, uttering a completely contradictory statement. Karyl, however, fully grasped the metaphor, nodding slightly and gesturing for Sevatar to continue.

The First Reserve officer sighed and couldn't help but complain, "That's not much of a story. You really have nothing better to do."

"I do have nothing to do right now, but we're in Fenris, the land of ice, mead, and stories, so is there any problem with me hearing some of your own legendary tales?"

"You're not Fenrisian, why should I follow local customs?"

Karyl maintained his ambiguous smile, his eyes fixed intently on Sevatar's. This eye contact lasted for a full minute before finally ending, with the First Reserve seemingly reluctantly speaking.

"Okay, there was one time. Anyway, there was a Departmento Munitorum inspector named Kellei who, along with tens of thousands of his colleagues, roamed the galaxy, investigating the specific circumstances of those third-tier, primary tax worlds."

"Their job requires them to review the list every decade to see if those worlds need to raise or lower their tax standards. So, you can guess without me explaining that it's not a great job."

"Inspector Keke was only 112 years old at the time, but he had already undergone three life-extending surgeries and more than ten life support component replacements. He had a security team of three hundred people, all elite soldiers drawn from the military."

"They were directly assigned by the Departmento Munitorum to ensure Kellei's safety. Their line of work is fraught with unexpected dangers, therefore a sufficient security force is essential."

"He met me on his ship for a simple reason: a wild world he was investigating had been invaded by Daemon, and only one in ten of the locals remained. The governor's family had been cursed by Cultists's wizard during the resistance war, and a once-prominent family had vanished like smoke."

"This world is no longer capable of paying Tithe; in fact, those who remain cannot even survive in this world. Chaos pollution is enough to change everything, let alone this barbaric world."

"According to the rules and regulations, Kellei could declare this world Death World right now, but he decided to question us first—a group of belated and incompetent people. So I met him on his ship. The first question he asked me was..."

"What's the problem?" Karyl asked softly.

"He asked me whether the local governor had fulfilled his duties. I explained the whole situation to him, and then he said he needed to investigate and gather evidence."

A barely suppressed sneer crept across Sevatar's face, Karyl could almost hear the unspoken mockery in his voice. "Investigation and evidence gathering? Instructor, can you believe it? He's asking me for evidence."

"So I asked him what kind of evidence he needed. He told me he needed any evidence that the Alfoseni family had ever resisted—and direct evidence at that."

"I asked him why, and that bastard actually told me that my testimony wasn't enough to secure forgiveness for the surviving Salenam in this matter, so they wouldn't be enslaved."

"I should have been angry, but I realized he was right; the laws governing the Imperium were very rigid, at least at that time."

"Therefore, I must admit he was very courageous. I was covered in blood, and he dared to tell me to my face that he needed to go back to the slaughterhouse to photograph the bodies of the loyalists as evidence."

"Did you agree?" Karyl asked again.

Some quiet wolves were slowly approaching from behind them. Both he and Sevatar noticed it, but neither of them spoke up to stop them. Fenris loved stories, any story would do.

When in Rome, do as the Romans do.

"I have no right to refuse," Sevatar replied with a sneer. "The governor's soul is roaring in my ears, telling me to quickly take this damned inspector to his family's territory, finish taking the photos, and then leave Salenam with the rest of the men."

"So I led him to the ground. There was no one else, just the two of us. At this point, Inspector Kellei finally showed a hint of fear, though only a little, but I definitely smelled it. He walked behind me with his right hand on the grip of the Plasma Pistol the whole time, but he still calmly walked to the very end."

"The governor's family estate was a ancestral palace, which should have been magnificent, but at that time it was covered in blood and corpses. The atrocities committed by the Daemon bastards made it look no different from hell."

"And so, we entered the main hall, found the bodies of the governor and his wife, Kellei took photos, and we left the palace."

Sevatar turned around and handed the wine glass that belonged to Karyl to a Space Wolves, who filled it with wine. Sevatar, however, still felt it wasn't enough and snatched the stone pot from which the wine was being poured.

He casually handed the wine glass back to Karyl, then tilted his head back and began drinking directly from the jug.

The Space Wolves fell silent, waiting for him to continue. These seemingly savage barbarians always showed a level of respect for stories that was completely different from their usual behavior; even Blood Claws would wait until the story was over before speaking.

Sevatar finished the mead in the jar, then shook his head with a smile, "And then, damn it, that's how the misfortune happened."

"Daytime in Salenam is only eleven hours long. We've only been here a short while, and it's already completely dark. Plus, I can smell the Daemon's scent."

He winked playfully at Karyl.

"Note that it's not a dead Daemon."

Karyl didn't laugh, nor did the wolves; they listened, and that was all.

"Anyway, some of them came back. I thought we had killed them all and driven them away, but I was stupid enough not to think they would return. So the situation took a sharp turn for the worse, and I started fighting alongside Kellei."

"However, as a mortal, he fought like a madman. He should have joined the army instead of being an office inspector; that completely wasted his abilities."

"I felt a little relieved for the time being, at least I knew the person fighting alongside me wasn't a coward. I chopped off half of the palace gate and charged to the front, using the gate as a temporary assault shield. He followed behind me providing cover fire, and his plasma shots were fairly accurate."

"We fought our way to where the shuttle had landed, but it had already been destroyed. My communication network was also affected by the Chaos forces, making it impossible to contact anyone in orbit."

Sevatar paused for a moment with a mischievous grin, then shrugged under everyone's gaze.

"Yes, this is a desperate situation, for anyone."

"So I told Kellei that he should start telling me his last words. The examiner looked at me very interestingly at that moment. He leaned against our shuttle and asked me, if we're all going to die here, what difference does it make whether we say our last words or not?"

"I told him that for a Night Lords, death is only the beginning. He heard this, and though he didn't understand, he fell into deep thought."

"A few minutes later, he sent me several tax law reform proposals using his built-in data processing server system. He said these were his last words. I stored them in the server inside the armor, and then started my escape with him."

"The Daemon are everywhere; this is clearly a trap, but it shouldn't be aimed at me, otherwise their numbers might have multiplied several times over. We fought our way out until, forty-five minutes later, firelight finally appeared in the sky."

"At that time, there were only five minutes left before Inspector Kellei's death time. He was severely injured; even the surgically implanted mechanical components had all fallen out of his abdomen."

"I asked him if he had anything else to say, but he said nothing except complain about his job. I watched him die, and then we received reinforcements."

"I brought his body back to his ship, and finally returned with his vessel and his men to the fortress near Shattered Terra. For political reasons, I announced that the Midnight Blade would take full control of the matter."

"Then came a three-year-long political reform, during which both Lord Regent Sanguinius the Sigillites Malcador were involved, along with countless other officials."

"In short, we spent three years reforming the tax laws based on Kellei's suggestions, adding a completely new law, which was named the Kellei Law."

"It saved the Salenam from slavery, and in the years that followed, it spared many more from suffering, allowing them to continue to thrive on their homeland. In that respect, Kellei should be quite happy."

He paused, exhaled a long breath, and thus ended his story. A Space Wolves approached him from behind, respectfully bringing him a new wine jug.

"Please drink," he said solemnly in Fenris, then looked around and raised his arms to shout to his brothers.

"Let us drink this cup to the mercy of Kellei!"

He roared and was the first to tilt his head back, raising the bone-horned goblet in his hand and beginning to gulp down the mead. The dark liquid rushed down their throats, and those who drank first let out howls, one after another, like an endless interlude.

Karyl did not join the queue, but he finished his drink.

He looked at Jago Sevatarion and silently pulled away the last shred of veil from the man. He smiled, walked up to him, stood on tiptoe, and patted him on the chest.

"Well done, Jago," Karyl said sincerely. "No one could have done better than you."

Jago Sevatarion looked at him with deep sorrow, his face devoid of any pride, only showing a broken numbness.

"Too many people, Karyl," he murmured. "I've seen too many like that go."