Morning light never truly reaches the heart of Heilop Central Administrative Rotunda.
It diffuses instead—filtered through tall, narrow stained windows—falling in long, pale bands across stone floors polished by centuries of boots, robes, and dragged chains. Aldo enters through the main archway, the sound of his steps swallowed almost immediately by the height of the hall. The building is gothic in the Polihland fashion: ribbed vaults like inverted ribs of some enormous beast, columns carved with saints, kings, and allegories of Law holding tablets heavier than their arms should allow. Every surface is meant to remind visitors of endurance—of systems that outlast people. He holds a folded decree in his left hand. The parchment is still clean. The seal unbroken.
Day eight since the farmland assignment.
The rotunda breathes around him. Paper rustles. Ink scratches. Somewhere, a bell rings once—short, administrative, indifferent. Clerks sit behind long desks arranged in concentric arcs, each station identical to the next. They glance up as Aldo passes. The looks are brief. No contempt. No overt disdain.
Just… pauses.
Eyes that flicker over the collar at his neck, the weapon at his side, the posture that marks him unmistakably as military. Because of being a Slave-soldier. Or, an armed slave.
Some faces soften for half a second—pity, perhaps. Others harden into something like empathy that refuses to acknowledge itself. Most settle into practiced indifference, the kind cultivated by people who process human beings as paperwork.
Aldo feels it all without reacting. His expression remains neutral, composed.
[This place doesn't hate me.] he thinks, not bitterly, just observantly. [It doesn't care enough to bother.]
He moves deeper into the hall, boots clicking against stone. The sound echoes up, then vanishes. To the right wing, the space opens slightly. Light grows stronger there, reflecting off brass fixtures and glass-covered notice boards mounted along the wall.
He spots his lieutenant immediately.
The man stands near one of the boards, hands clasped behind his back, uniform immaculate in the way only officers with too much paperwork and too little sleep manage to maintain. His hair is tied back neatly. His eyes are fixed on the mission board, but his posture gives him away—rigid, tense.
On the board itself, dozens of parchment slips are pinned in orderly rows. Each bears a seal, a location, a number. Numbers dominate the board more than words.
Aldo approaches.
The lieutenant notices him before Aldo speaks. He turns, surprise flickering across his face, then relief. They step toward each other and clasp forearms in a firm handshake—brief, professional, but not cold.
"Why are you here too, Lieutenant?" Aldo asks, looking up slightly. His tone carries genuine curiosity.
The lieutenant exhales through his nose, a sound halfway between a sigh and a laugh that doesn't quite form. "Yes, but I don't know why…" he says. "…I guess our palantine—Heilop's—debt situation got worse now."
He gestures subtly toward the board with his chin.
Aldo follows the motion, eyes scanning the parchments. His gaze pauses on one figure written in bold ink, underlined twice.
"Six hundred thousand Gold Crowns…" someone mutters nearby.
Another officer—older, with a scar pulling one side of his mouth downward—stands a few steps away, staring at the same figure. His fingers drum softly against his thigh, a nervous habit.
"It has been 6 years of high levies…" the officer adds under his breath, as if afraid the number might hear him.
No one contradicts him. The rotunda hums with low conversation now, like insects trapped beneath stone.
A sharp voice cuts through it.
"Slave-soldier leaders, forward."
The speaker stands near the central dais: Yorin, a clerk with thin spectacles and a voice honed by repetition. He holds a ledger open in one hand and a stack of sealed documents in the other.
"Company commanders only. Form a line, please."
Movement ripples through the hall.
Men step forward, each marked in subtle ways by command. Scars. Posture. The way others instinctively shift to give them space.
A carpet has been laid out for the line: dark red, worn thin in the center from decades of feet. It runs straight toward Yorin's desk like a ceremonial path stripped of ceremony.
Officers form their own line to the left, parallel but separate. Their carpet is newer. Cleaner.
Aldo steps into place among the slave-soldier leaders. Around him stand men who command roughly a hundred each: some younger than him, some far older, all carrying the same mixture of authority and disposability.
The process is fast. Yorin calls a name. A document is handed over.
No explanation unless asked—and no one asks.
Seals press into palms. Ink smears slightly where sweat touches paper. Aldo's name is called. He steps forward. Yorin does not look at him as an individual. His eyes flick to the ledger, then to Aldo's outstretched hand.
Five documents are placed there.
"Next."
Aldo steps back. The line dissolves almost as quickly as it formed. No applause. No speeches. Just redistribution of risk. He rejoins his lieutenant in a shadowed corner near a pillar where the stone is chipped at shoulder height—evidence of generations leaning there while waiting for orders that change lives.
"So…" the lieutenant says quietly, folding his arms. "What do you get?"
Aldo unfolds the top parchment just enough to skim the seals and headers, careful not to tear the edge.
"Five commissions." he says. "One from Palantine Vicente. Two from Palantine Heson. Two from Suguku."
He pauses, eyes flicking down the lines.
"All monster clearing…" he continues, "except Suguku. That one's… gladiatorial preparation."
The lieutenant grimaces faintly. "Typical West…" he says. "They're violent-rooted. Always have been."
Aldo makes a noncommittal sound. He refolds the documents carefully, aligning the edges.
"Do you need any aid from me?" the lieutenant asks after a moment. His voice lowers further. "Some troops. Medics. Ammo?"
Aldo considers. Not long but seriously.
"Medical materials and ammo, please. If possible, 200 sappers too." he says at last.
The lieutenant blinks. "That's all?"
Aldo nods once.
No elaboration.
The lieutenant studies his face, searching perhaps for something—strain, fear, ambition. He finds only calm.
"All right," he says finally. "I'll see what I can authorize."
They clasp forearms again, briefly. Aldo turns and walks away before the lieutenant can add anything else. The rotunda does not watch him leave.
Outside, Heilop breathes differently.
The air is colder, sharper. Street noise swells immediately—footsteps, cart wheels, vendors calling half-heartedly. As Aldo moves through the streets toward the outskirts, fragments of conversation drift toward him, unfiltered.
"Taxes again !" a woman mutters to her companion, clutching a basket closer to her chest. "Didn't they raise them last season?"
"They say it's temporary…" the companion replies, not sounding convinced. "They always say that."
Two merchants stand beside a shuttered storefront, arguing in low voices.
"Toll fees are going up at the west gate…" one says. "Another two silver coins per wagon."
"That'll kill half my margin !" the other snaps. "Who do they think is paying for all this?"
Aldo keeps walking.
The city feels restless. Not loud—yet—but tight, like a coiled rope.
People move faster than they need to. Faces are drawn, eyes sharp with calculation and irritation. The energy is not revolutionary, not yet, but it is no longer patient.
[Debt is so pressing even citizens need to bear it…] Aldo thinks, the thought forming without drama. It simply settles into place, another variable accounted for.
At an intersection near the outer ward, he stops.
A city guard leans against a stone post nearby, helmet tilted back, eyes half-lidded. His armor is light, boiled leather reinforced with thin metal strips. His spear rests against the wall, its tip dulled, flecked with rust.
The guard yawns. He does not notice Aldo at first. When he does, he straightens slightly, offers a half-hearted nod. No salute. Aldo looks at him for a moment longer than necessary. Not with judgment.
With measurement.
[Ungarded city ?] he notes. [Overextended. Underpaid. They don't even pretend vigilance anymore.]
The guard shifts, uncomfortable under the scrutiny, then relaxes when Aldo moves on. The road opens toward the outskirts, where stone gives way to dirt, and the city's noise fades into wind and distant labor.
Aldo does not look back.
The commissions weigh lightly in his hand, but heavily in implication.