Galla Godwin wore an exhausted expression as he returned to the office in the fort on Royal Castle Island.
The royal capital had been in a state of crisis ever since the incident five days ago, and now the disorder was reaching new heights.
Amid it all, he’d gotten a taste of the woes that beset middle management. Galla’s superiors had been bribed—that much was certain. Younger soldiers felt compelled to express their outrage with strong words. His job was to stand in the center and bear the brunt.
The sun was finally setting on what had been a long day. After entering the pitch-black room, he reached up to hang his lamp on a hook in the ceiling.
Exhausted as he was, he couldn’t return to his home in the city’s northern sector to rest because war was underway. To make matters worse, he had no place to sleep in the barracks. His bed was at home. Instead, he was forced to sleep here in the office.
There was a couch for guests to sit on, but he couldn’t lie on the accursed thing because it had an armrest in its center. Instead, Galla had to rest in a sleeping bag on the hard wooden floor.
He removed his uniform’s jacket, folded it in two, and draped it over the couch. Next, he began undoing his belt, ready to remove his uniform’s pants.
“Hello.”
“Whoa!”
Someone else was in the room.
When Galla looked to the source of the voice, he saw a lone woman standing by the door. He readied his body for a fight.
“Wait—I’m a royal sword. I’m here to talk.”
Regardless of whether she was a royal sword or not, he was surprised he had almost taken his pants off without noticing her. He decided his exhaustion had to be to blame. Feeling slightly awkward, he refastened his belt.
“A royal sword? Who do you work for these days?”
“Princess Carol.”
“I see... Then Her Highness survived.”
He decided to put his jacket back on too. When he reached for it, he felt the gritty texture of dirt on the palm of his hand. His uniform had gotten dirty over the past few days of turmoil. Galla lost interest in his jacket and instead sat down in his shirt.
“Well, what are you here to talk about? Let’s hear it.”
Galla had very little contact with the royal swords, but they were familiar to him. In terms of status, they were close—like soldiers assigned the same responsibilities but in different departments.
Tillet was standing with her back resting against the wall. “I’ll put it bluntly. Defect to our side.”
“Whew...”
“Defect’s the wrong word, isn’t it? Serve your rightful master.”
“What do you mean, ‘rightful master’? Queen Carla isn’t an impostor, is she?” Galla knew how foolish his words sounded as he tried to argue.
“The royal swords have recognized Princess Carol as the true heir. The witches may have declared Carla queen, but there can be no argument as to which daughter carries on the will of Queen Shimoné.”
“Haaah...” Galla was exhausted.
He was tired of hearing this kind of reasoning from his subordinates. These past five days, he must’ve heard the same thing a hundred times—maybe a thousand if he counted the times he’d overheard it.
“Rook Ho’s dead,” Tillet said. “Don’t you care that they killed your friend?”
“Of course I care, but there are lines that a soldier can’t cross.”
A soldier carried out the will of his commander—it was a rule that Galla had engraved on his heart. The superior commanded and the subordinate obeyed. It was an absolute rule within a military organization. If he was ordered to die, he would naturally obey without question.
Execution was the only fitting punishment for someone who failed to follow this rule. Since the first order mostly concerned itself with eliminating bandits, battles were generally fought under the assumption that there was a huge disparity in power between the two sides. Instances of soldiers fleeing in the face of the enemy were therefore low, but it sometimes happened. Since Galla himself had punished young soldiers for deserting, he couldn’t turn his back on the rule now.
But these were just the justifications that lived at the surface of Galla’s mind. For a long time now, he’d followed irrational orders from his female superiors on a daily basis until the chain of command had become part of his very being. Galla had to follow every order he received, no matter how idiotic. Even when he felt he knew better than his superior, or if the lives of his subordinates were at stake, he could never deviate even slightly.
In the course of decades of living with this reality, Galla had surrendered himself to it. Since he knew that an order given in a military context was absolute, his mind always came up with some reason he couldn’t question it. Though he appeared motivated in the presence of his friends and subordinates, that was how his thinking worked below the surface.
“Then you’ll never turn against Metina Arkhorse?” Tillet spat the name as she asked.
“That’s right. You’ve come to the wrong person.”
Tillet stopped resting against the wall and began walking toward Galla. Without warning, she snatched up the jacket he’d left on the couch and tore off the knight medal affixed to its front pocket. She threw it to the ground and trod on it in an exaggerated fashion.
“What do you think you’re doing?!” Galla cried out in rage as his honor as a knight was being trampled underfoot.
He reached out to grab Tillet, and rather than dodge, she let him grab her collar.
“You’re no knight. You don’t deserve that medal.”
Tillet continued to crush the medal beneath her foot as she gripped Galla’s broad arm with an unusual hold. Her thumb dug into his skin at a single point with a level of force that seemed beyond what any woman should’ve been capable of, sending a sharp burst of pain rushing through his arm and causing him to release her.
“Who did you offer your spear to when you joined the royal guard? Metina Arkhorse? I don’t think so. No, you knelt before Queen Shimoné and offered it to her. If you’ve turned your back on our late queen, then you’re no knight—you’re Metina’s dog.”
“Ngh...” Galla clenched his teeth. He had no response.