Sword God in a World of Magic

The orange light of the distant volcano illuminated the silhouette of the corpse hanging from the spear, giving the image a dark feeling.

The soldiers could deal with a strict officer, but they couldn't deal with one that killed people without a good reason.

The officer slowly lowered his spear, the corpse of the Scumbag flopping to the ground like a sack of meat.

Then, the officer turned to the watching soldiers.

"This is a mission coming from Duke Whirlwind himself," the officer explained. "Traitors are especially devastating in such a remote location, and we have our ways to weed them out."

"This traitor," the officer said as his spear pointed to the corpse, "has fallen into one of our traps and reported incorrect information. Remember that we are not the only soldiers here."

A communication crystal appeared in the officer's hands. "We corroborate the different reports, which gives us a very clear picture of the surroundings. There is no reason to lie to us if you are loyal. After all, you get nothing out of it."

The soldiers looked at the corpse with complex emotions.

A traitor?

Some of the Rookies almost couldn't believe it, while most of the Bootlickers only narrowed their eyes at the corpse.

The Scumbags weren't present right now, but if they were, they would only sneer.

"As long as you don't try to sabotage this mission, nothing will happen to you," the officer explained. "That is all."

The soldiers didn't feel at ease, but they weren't angry enough to stage a revolution.

Even more, most of them thought that the officer had done the right thing. Traitors needed to die!

But some of them still felt very uneasy.

Had the Scumbag truly been a traitor?

Sadly, there was nothing they could do. There was no way for them to check if the officer had told the truth.

In the military, the soldiers were expected to blindly trust their superiors, after all.

Their superiors were under far more scrutiny than themselves, which made it far less likely for them to be traitors.

And just like that, this incident passed over.

Half a day later, the wall had been assembled, but many of the stones still had to be fused together.

The Scumbags and Rookies that had been responsible for building the wall were transferred to their other teams, joining them in their mission of clearing the surroundings.

And that was how it continued for the next week.

Over the next week, the surroundings had been cleaned of all the beasts in a radius of five kilometers.

There had been several more Mid General Stage beasts, which the Numbers killed.

By now, the four groups had fully taken form.

Scumbags, the Bootlickers, the Rookies, and the

of the groups

lot with each other since they had similar ideals, essentially creating the

only 28 soldiers left, excluding

Three Numbers.

Seven Scumbags.

Six Rookies.

Twelve Bootlickers.

people, the Rookies and Bootlickers made up the

had become the unofficial leaders of these two groups, and they talked to the officer

into immediate and

acknowledged the leader of the Bootlickers as

this day, the Bootlickers and Rookies fused into one group,

of

Was this the officer's plan all along?'

one unit, but as soon as we arrived, he systematically split us

single group with a leader. It's essentially the

he plan for this

very complicated and, frankly, too convoluted and

learn a ton of stuff about people. Maybe this is actually

Shang couldn't be sure.

another week, the outpost

the outpost with

a letter when the officer had

there were a sufficiently powerful

was delivered via letter, delivered by one of the

read through the letter

and the officer called some of the soldiers over. By now, the soldiers didn't need to work the entire

and get these

get, and the

warehouses where they stored all the dead

of different beasts

all the materials and

the town you saw two weeks ago," the officer ordered four of the Idealists. "I prepared one more of each material, but the town won't mind. The

but they realized why

like the Idealists wanted to impress the officer, the officer wanted to

get moving!" the officer

the things. Luckily, one of them had a Space

left to deliver the

next couple of hours,

came to

was only one person, and the soldiers

of the four that

others asked the soldier what

The soldier seemed absentminded.

officer said with