Thirty kilometers.
The number sits inside Aldo's skull like a dull weight. Thirty out of fifty-two.
The canal stretches across the land in a hard, geometric line, cutting through soil that grows increasingly stubborn the deeper they go. Its walls are no longer raw and chaotic like the first days. Now they are straighter, braced in sections with timber from Cellon's steady labor. Slopes measured. Depth maintained.
But the cost shows. The stay team moves like men underwater. Shovels still rise and fall, but slower. Shoulders no longer snap forward with sharp discipline—they roll first, hesitate, then push. Boots drag a fraction longer through mud before lifting.
Aldo feels it in his own bones. His palms are calloused deeper now. Skin cracked in thin white lines. When he grips the shovel, he feels the tremor that never fully leaves his forearms.
And yet every afternoon, he walks. From the farmland to the road. From the road to the city. From the city to the Rotunda. The routine is mechanical. He checks the progress reports of the three detachments—Vicente's forests cleared in sectors, Heson's marshlands mapped and purged, casualty lists still blessedly short. Suguku untouched, waiting.
Each time, the numbers mitigate his exhaustion just enough.
[They're alive. Still organized. Still intact,] he tells himself.
Then he walks back. By the time the sun sets, his body feels heavier than his thoughts. But not everyone shares that discipline. The murmurs begin small. A tool dropped harder than necessary. A glance held too long. Conversations that cut off when Aldo passes.
Onaga approaches him on the fourth evening, ledger tucked under his arm, jaw tight.
"Taichou-sama, there are rumors…" Onaga says quietly, not looking directly at him. "Some of the lower ranks… they've been gathering. In the forest. In the makeshift huts."
Aldo does not stop walking.
"Gathering for what?"
Onaga exhales. "Mutiny."
The word does not echo. It lands flat.
[So it comes…?] Aldo thinks, not surprised.
That night, the farmland is quieter than usual. The wind moves through half-cut trees with a dry whisper. Most men lie on their bedrolls in heavy sleep—or heavy pretense. Aldo stands in a dark corner near the timber stacks. Moonlight outlines the canal in silver. Onaga joins him. They speak low, voices blending into night air.
"We can report it…" Onaga says. "Formally. Preemptively. That gives us authority to suppress."
Aldo says nothing.
"Or we isolate the leaders. Remove them quietly. Redistribute their followers."
Silence.
"If it spreads, we may have to use force," Onaga continues. "A demonstration. Make an example."
His tone is measured. Rational.
"We cannot allow fragmentation," he adds. "The detachments are already away. If the canal team fractures, we lose everything."
Aldo watches the moonlight reflect on damp soil.
"What do you think is causing it?" he asks.
Onaga shifts slightly.
"Possibilities?" he says. "Communist agitation. Earthling socialist ex-slave escapees have been known to spread ideology. They infiltrate, whisper about equality, collective refusal."
He pauses.
"Or our own men planning defection. Thirty kilometers of digging without water to show for it. Some might think leaving is safer than staying."
Another pause.
"Or simple opportunism. They think you are stretched thin. They test you."
Aldo listens.
Onaga continues listing—external spies, internal resentment, personal grudges.
The theories stack like dry wood.
Then Aldo speaks quietly.
"Or they're exhausted."
Onaga stops.
"Exhaustion breeds irrationality," he says.
"No," Aldo replies. "Exhaustion breeds clarity. You stop pretending you're fine."
Onaga studies him in the half-dark.
"If you're suggesting leniency—"
"I'm suggesting understanding," Aldo says.
The wind shifts. The conversation ends without resolution. Dawn comes gray and cold. Mist threads between tree trunks at the edge of the forest. In one of the makeshift huts—little more than timber frames with canvas stretched tight—a group of men huddle close. Voices overlap, urgent.
"We can't keep this pace !" one says, slamming his fist softly against a crate.
"Thirty kilometers and still dry soil…" another mutters. "We're digging a grave, not a canal."
"Detachments get combat glory…" someone else adds. "We get mud."
A shadow moves outside. Then boots. Canvas lifts abruptly. Aldo steps in, followed by three slave-soldiers carrying muskets—not aimed, but visible. The hut freezes. Hands instinctively move away from tools. Conversations die mid-word.
Aldo's gaze sweeps the cramped space.
"Heard you've been planning something?" he asks calmly.
No answer. Only breathing.
He steps further inside, forcing them to shift backward.
"If you are going to form cliques," Aldo continues evenly, "we can set up a building where we debate such matters properly. Ethics. Rules. Company direction."
The words hang there. The men stare at him, unsure whether this is mockery.
"No one wants to speak?" Aldo asks.
Silence stretches. He lowers his voice slightly.
"So… what thoughts do you have in your mind due to recent events?"
And then it breaks.
"We're exhausted!" someone blurts.
"You say rotate, but we're always short-handed!"
"We haven't seen water in weeks—what if this never works?"
"We're slave-soldiers, not oxen!"
Voices rise—not violent, but raw.
Aldo raises his hand.
"One at a time."
The command is quiet, but it cuts clean.
They fall into reluctant order.
One speaks.
"The workload is too much. Digging all day, then tool maintenance at night. Rotations are thin because three detachments are gone."
Another adds, "You check reports every afternoon. That means we lose you half the day."
A third, more hesitant: "We trust you, but we're burning out."
The muskets at the door remain steady.
Aldo kneels and picks up the paper they've been scribbling on—lists of grievances, crude schedules, half-formed demands.
He flips it over.
Pulls a piece of charcoal from his pocket.
Right there, in the cramped hut, he begins to write.
"Then we need changes." he says.
They stare at him.
He writes one word across the top:
Restructa.
"You want reduced collapse…" Aldo says without looking up. "Then we restructure labor."
He draws blocks.
"Four shifts instead of two. Shorter cycles. Strict rest enforcement."
He looks at them.
"Enforced," he repeats. "If you refuse to rest, you get removed from shift."
Murmurs.
"Tool maintenance integrated into shift time. Not added after."
He sketches rotation patterns.
"Dedicated slope-check teams so diggers don't waste energy correcting mistakes."
A man frowns.
"And who fills the gaps? We're already thin."
Aldo writes again.
"Cross-training. Every man learns two roles minimum. Mobility fighters rotate into logistics one day per week."
"That'll slow combat readiness," someone argues.
"You're not in combat here," Aldo replies. "You're in construction."
The debates begin.
They challenge him.
He challenges back.
"You think reducing hours solves everything?" Aldo asks one of them. "What happens when the canal walls collapse because slope wasn't checked? Then you dig twice."
"We're not machines !" the man shoots back.
"Exactly." Aldo says. "Machines break when overused. So do you."
Onaga appears at the entrance quietly, observing.
He expects escalation. Instead, he hears arguments about efficiency ratios. About sustainable output. About rotation math. The muskets remain lowered. The hut grows warmer with breath and tension, but not violence. Onaga watches Aldo redraw the schedule again after a valid objection.
"Fine…" Aldo says. "Then the afternoon city report becomes every other day. I'll consolidate updates."
A murmur of surprise.
"You'll skip?" someone asks.
"I'll adjust." Aldo corrects.
The tone in the hut shifts slowly.
Less accusation.
More participation.
Onaga feels something unfamiliar in his chest.
[He's not crushing it,] Onaga realizes. [He's absorbing it.]
The arguments continue for nearly an hour.
By the end, the paper is covered in charcoal revisions.
Restructa is no longer a word.
It is a plan.
Aldo stands.
"We implement tomorrow," he says. "If it fails, we adjust again. Trial-and-error."
He looks at each of them.
"But if you hide and whisper instead of bringing it here," he adds quietly, "then we become enemies. And that wastes energy we don't have."
No one looks away. The muskets leave first. The men file out slowly, not as conspirators, but as participants. Onaga lingers behind.
"That was… unexpected," he says carefully.
Aldo shrugs faintly.
"Mutiny happens when people feel unheard," he replies.
Onaga studies him.
"You realize you've just given them structural influence?"
"I've given them responsibility." Aldo corrects.
Outside, the pale edge of dawn slowly strengthens, spreading a thin wash of gold across the clearing. The air is cool, still carrying the damp breath of night. The canal stretches ahead in quiet suspension, its carved lines waiting, earth packed and patient. For a heartbeat longer, nothing moves. The world seems to pause with it.
Then the first shovel strikes the soil.
The sound is clean. Deliberate. Measured.
It is not the sharp crack of defiance, nor the reckless blow of anger. It falls instead into rhythm—steady, purposeful, almost disciplined. Another strike follows. Then another. Metal meets earth in a cadence that builds without command being shouted, without force being displayed.
Hidden behind a composed expression, Onaga feels something within him shift. It is subtle, almost unsettling in its quietness.
Not fear.
Not simply respect.
Trust.
The realization settles gradually, like the strengthening light around them. Along the length of the canal, shoulders move in unison. No one is driven by threat. No one is bound by visible chains. What binds them now is quieter than that.
Loyalty, once rigid and imposed, softens and reshapes itself. Not forced. Not demanded.
Reorganized.