Anna's World-Shaking Wisdom, Leon's reflections

Hero Squad?

What the hell was that?

Orco's reply left Anna utterly bewildered. But looking at the old bastard's gloomy face, she immediately realized that he had not proposed the Special Operations Division's demotion himself. In all likelihood, it had been imposed after deliberations among the Allied Forces' senior leadership.

She immediately suppressed her thoughts and casually probed:

"Minister, does this new department have that much potential?"

"... It's nothing but a stunt dreamed up by a bunch of self-important fools!"

Hearing Anna mention the Hero Squad seemed to remind Orco of the core leadership meeting several days earlier, when those shortsighted idiots had ganged up on him. The chill in his eye deepened, though frustration and helplessness outweighed it.

After all, he had personally proposed and spearheaded the establishment of the Allied Special Operations Department. Yet even after months of coordination and training, its performance in major operations had been lackluster. A framing operation that should have been completed cleanly had instead ended with the Empire uprooting their base and a traitor emerging from their ranks.

Their assistance in a capture operation had likewise ended with nothing to show for it.

After those two failed missions, it was only natural that the senior officials who had questioned his plan from the outset would kick him while he was down. After all, losers had no say.

He, too, wondered why the Special Operations Division, which should have distinguished itself on its very first mission, had suffered one setback after another and fallen into such a sorry state. But failure was failure. There was no excuse for it.

All he could do was accept it calmly, then look for an opening to turn defeat into victory when the next opportunity arose!

*Besides, compared to the Special Operations Division I poured so