"Team?"
Ed was somewhat puzzled.
Number Four nodded and pointed at Tiya:
" Tiya told us before that those powerful legions that were among the top before the Demonic Tide all had their own resounding names."
On the other side, Tiya lowered her head shyly when she heard her friend mention her.
As the hotel owner's daughter, she was almost the most "learned" experimental subject in the entire underground prison.
Seeing Ed's gaze fall upon her, she said somewhat shyly:
"Grandpa told me about it before. He said the kingdom used to have a whole bunch of legions like the ' Frostblade Legion,' the ' Red Copper Legion,' and the ' Soul-Rending Legion,' and the southern empire also had the invincible ' Starlight Army.' I'm just telling you all about it."
Ed never misses an opportunity Drain learn about the other world. When he heard about the " Frostblade Legion," he immediately thought of the Duke Frostblade to whom Xilǐ'er's original body served.
There should be some connection between the two, but I don't know how much help they will be to me hundreds of years from now.
But having more historical knowledge is always good; he put aside these distracting thoughts and looked at Number Four:
"You mean, you want a name like that too?"
Although Number Four is a girl, she seems particularly enthusiastic about things related to combat. She nodded and looked at Ed with expectant eyes.
Ed closed his eyes and pondered for more than ten seconds, his gaze softening considerably as he met the eyes of the others.
Looking at these young people whose futures were destined to be fraught with hardship, his tone became increasingly resolute:
"You will become the strongest and most loyal force in my hands, therefore I will call you..."
"' Gungnir '."
The boys chattered and repeated the Ed had found in his past life's memories, a name that perfectly suited his current needs. They imitated it in various tones, trying to capture that powerful aura.
Ed, on the other hand, got goosebumps listening to it, feeling as if someone was reading his cringeworthy diary.
After enduring it for more than ten seconds, he finally couldn't bear it any longer and gestured for the boys to stop publicly torturing him.
"From today onwards, you will need to follow Duolin and Xilǐ'er to learn various combat methods. Duolin will mainly be responsible for teaching you Directed Alienation and some techniques that only members like us with a plant-based focus can learn. Xilǐ'er will be responsible for teaching you cavalry weapons and horsemanship..."
Ed spoke at length to the infant " Gungnir " elites, and finally ordered Xilǐ'er to take them back to the castle to begin training.
So, before the eight Gungnir had even finished digesting the jerky in their stomachs, just two minutes after being assigned their unit numbers, they began their first military training exercise.
A 20-kilometer hike.
After seeing off another group of people, Ed was left with only the innkeeper who had agreed to let his daughter become a soldier.
He and Ed exchanged a glance, then he cautiously stepped forward and said:
"Sir, there's something I'd like to ask for your permission to do."
"Um?"
Ed raised an eyebrow, not feeling there was anything he absolutely needed to discuss with him.
The hotel owner said cautiously:
"Well, I roughly know the location of that 'castle'. That place is desolate and dangerous, with hardly anyone around."
"If my daughter and her friends are going to train there, I hope you can agree to let me sell our hotel and open a new one there, so that I can at least be closer to my children."
Ed looked into the man's somewhat timid yet honest eyes, and for a moment he couldn't tell if the man was just lucky or if he was truly prepared.
As he recaptured White Wax Town, a major construction project was about to begin. Once all the villagers in Upperstream Village and Midstream Village had housing, a new settlement would appear near the castle, gradually developing into a small town.
Ed could already picture the man grinning from ear to ear as he planned to buy property there, and he felt that this whole affair had turned out to be a blessing in disguise.
"Okay, if you're determined, then go for it. When you get there, you can find me, and I'll find a suitable plot of land for you to build a hotel."
After finally seeing off the last person, and sensing the players sleeping upstairs, Ed casually sat down on the altar in the Great Prayer Hall, leaning his back against the World Tree statue wrapped in gold leaf.
Despite believing he had complete control of the operation, Ed couldn't help but feel a sense of melancholy when he was left alone.
He reached out and tapped the tree trunk containing the statue, asking rather rudely:
"Dude, are you really still alive? If you were, you wouldn't have just stood by and watched all this happen, right?"
"If you die, hmph, I'm going to start using your name. I'm only asking this once; if you don't answer, I'll take it as a yes..."
With his back to the icon and his one eye closed, Ed began to focus on manipulating the Boston Ivy that had completely submitted to him within the church.
He wanted to see just how much was inside the church waiting for him to explore.
Countless vines seeped from the cracks in the rocks like mercury spilling onto the ground, Spread to every dark corner.
Some of them went into the first-floor warehouse to check if there were enough church uniforms to cover the players' rewards, while others infiltrated the basement, flipping through page after page of Yiden and others' experimental records from the past few decades on the table and storing them all in their memory space, which had transcended the human realm.
Just as Ed's CPU and GPU were running at full capacity, he suddenly opened his eyes and began to gag.
The vines paused for only a moment before resuming their movements, while Ed pressed a protruding stone and went through the steps behind the statue to the basement.
The basement level is mainly divided into a data storage area and an experimental area, and [ Zhongde ] and others broke into the church through the trapdoor in the experimental area.
But they didn't notice that in another corner of that basement, there was an even more concealed trapdoor.
Ed went to that corner and opened the wooden door, revealing a small, isolated cavern beneath it.
A huge mass of flesh almost filled the entire cavern space, and it was slowly but unconsciously writhing.
Looking at the mass of flesh and plants, Ed felt another wave of discomfort in his throat.
It wasn't because he found the thing in front of him particularly bizarre; after all, Ed's own experiences were already quite bizarre.
Instead, he could clearly sense that a part of his own body was still inside, groaning in endless pain.
Ed turned his head to look at the inconspicuous wooden sign next to the trapdoor and deciphered the words on it—
"Scrap silo".
He looked down and carefully examined the mass inside the cave, a mass composed of rotting corpses, decaying flesh, limbs, plant fragments, and other visible and invisible things. Even the chaos of the final form of the protagonist in "Inside," which Ed had once seen, was not even a tenth as great as this thing.
The deconstruction, ambiguity, and chaos brought about by the Demonic Tide are vividly reflected in it.
Looking at this mass, Ed knew that whether it was himself, Number Four and Number Four Number Seven, or Tiya, Qieli, and Darnell, everyone had a piece of flesh that had been separated from their bodies here. Just one glance would re-establish that connection, and they would feel that pain again.