Gears of Order and Heavy Firepower

The carriage passed through Blackpine Fief's inner wall and stopped outside the lord's residence. Special Envoy Priest Emon officially took up his post as the war zone's coordination officer.

Before coming, Emon had assumed Blackpine Fief was barely holding together, sustained by the lingering momentum of the blood moon season and its lord's iron grip.

But upon entering the town, he found the whole of Blackpine Fief resembled a machine freshly dragged back into working order, organized to an almost uncanny degree.

Emon had no time to investigate the particulars, however, so he kept that sense of strangeness to himself for now.

He had just sat down in his room, ready to rest, when two restrained knocks sounded at the door.

A guard entered carrying a thick stack of parchment dossiers, approached the desk, and set them down gently.

The guard bowed his head, his voice steady. "Your Reverence, the lord had these sent over for your review."

The door closed again, leaving only the faint flicker of the oil lamp, its dim yellow light dancing along the edges of the dossiers.

"Population Classification Register," "Workshop Division of Labor Ledger," "Casualty and Replacement Tables," "Work Point Redemption Ledger," "Compensation and Disabled Veterans' Placement Register," "Junior Officer Promotion Records," "Allocation and Supply Receipts for All Positions"—

He had intended to pick a few holes in the accounts and use them to put that rising young lord in his place when they met tomorrow.

But once he read the titles on the pages, his gaze stopped. He actually spread several of the heavy dossiers across the desk and began comparing them one by one.

Under the oil lamp, Emon opened the first volume, "Blackpine Fief Population and Job Records."

Yet this register broke down its thousands of people in painstaking detail.

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