After that, the Guard Corps underwent another restructuring.
Spinoza, Fam, and all the other guards who had left were successfully reinstated. In addition, Bolton got back his commander position.
Not only had Leobolt ruled the guards with an iron fist, he had earned the ire of the citizens of the royal capital over his attempt to increase their taxes. Even the guards who had been Leobolt’s closest aides ended up deciding to follow Bolton again after witnessing his bravery on the battlefield.
Commander of the Guard Corps or not, no one could lead an organization if they didn’t have any followers. That fact ended up naturally forcing Leobolt out of the commander seat.
Leobolt hadn’t come back to the Guard Corps after being ousted from his position. He had simply vanished into thin air, just like that.
“I wonder where Leobolt ran off to,” Seira murmured in a worried voice. “Maybe he packed his belongings and went back home...?”
Presently, the Fifth Squadron was gathered in Commander Bolton’s office to talk.
“He had said he’d run away from home, so I’m doubting that. I think he’s probably still here in the capital somewhere,” Fam remarked.
“I bet that bastard had never failed at anything before in his entire life. Poor rich kid got his heart broken,” Spinoza mocked.
“We’re going to need Leobolt if we want to take on those slime soldiers. There’s no denying he’s an absolutely top-class swordsman,” I contended.
Not too long after the first raid, Rebirth had attacked us again. We had fended that one off as well, but we hadn’t been able to locate the leader and destroy his core, leaving the army free to keep attacking us over and over again after that. And each time, we failed to pin down exactly where Rebirth was located.
“By the way, there’ve been sightings of enemy soldiers snooping around outside the capital recently. I got a report from the sentries stationed on the city walls,” Commander Bolton said.
“Whoa, shouldn’t we do somethin’ about that?” Spinoza asked.
“Well, I’m not too worried about it quite yet,” the commander responded. “We’ve got sentries on watch, and we’ve also got our barrier around the entire royal capital. That’ll keep out anyone trying to push in from above or fire off any magic attacks.”
“It’s technically possible to penetrate the barrier with magic, if it’s not an attack spell,” Fam pointed out. “I tested it out with communication magic back when I used to be a spy.”
“Even so, that’s not really a huge deal. Their main goal’s probably to force us into a constant state of alarm and wear down our nerves,” Commander Bolton replied.
“True enough,” Fam offered.
“More importantly,” the commander went on, “unlike Rebirth’s army, we don’t regenerate completely after every single battle. If things keep up like this, they’re gonna beat us through sheer persistence.”
We were up against an immortal army full of soldiers that came right back to life not long after being defeated. There was no way we could win using normal battle tactics.
Our men were already exhausted from the repeated engagements. If things kept going on with no end in sight, morale would fall, and their spirits could end up breaking.
“We’ve got to find some way to drag the big boss out of hiding...” he murmured.
But as things stood, we had no idea how to pull that off.