Lazy Salvation A Million Strangers

Seravelle Continent, Wrath Domain, Solmara, June 25, 2029

From the outside, the command tent looked unremarkable, with its common canvas walls, redundant banner poles, and the sa listless guards posted at a respectful distance.

From the inside, it held the only sand table large enough to represent the entire front in a single piece.

Ashen ducked through the entrance and was imdiately greeted with the drunk form of his own Sin Lord.

"There he is." Cornelia did not look up from the table. A wine cup sat forgotten in one hand, her other braced against the table’s edge as she studied the layout. "Heartstealer. Co see your new toy."

"My toy?"

"Mm." She gestured at the table without elaborating.

The sand had been worked into a relief of the land beyond the Wrath Domain’s borders: ridgelines, river crossings, and the long stretch of broken ground that marked where Narkal-held territory began.

Painted markers covered most of it in dense clusters, arranged into a shape that took Ashen a mont to parse.

It was an inverted triangle, wide at the top and narrowing toward a single point near the bottom edge of the table, facing directly toward the dark sar that represented Narkal land.

"That will be our basic formation," Cornelia added before he could ask. "When it cos to moving an army of this scale, keeping things simple is the only way we make progress."

Lucia stood at the table’s far end, hands folded behind her back, watching Ashen take everything in.

"The two sides of the triangle are the flanks," Cornelia continued. "Wrath and Lust hold the right. Greed and Gluttony hold the left."

"And the bottom? Is Envy going to hold an army theater on his own?"

"That’s how it is." Cornelia tapped a cluster of green markers spanning the entire rear of the formation. "But you do not need to worry about an imbalance. That is not where the fighting happens."

"Supply lines," Lucia said slowly, working through it. "And reserves."

"Correct." Cornelia inclined her head. "Every soldier who falls on either flank gets replaced from Envy’s theater. Supply trains, reinforcents, and equipnt moving from the rear to the front all pass through there first. It is the largest section of the army by population, and the one least likely to see direct combat."

"Huh." Ashen studied the green cluster again. It was, by a wide margin, the biggest block on the table.

Cornelia stated flatly, "Envy is running logistics for five hundred million soldiers. If that fails, both flanks collapse within a week, no matter how well they are fighting."

Ashen nodded, filing that away. It made sense.

"Alright." He looked to the right flank, where most of the markers were red and a deep violet. "So where is my little contribution in all this?"

Cornelia’s lips curved. "Before that, I think Lucia here has sothing to inform you about. Would you like to do the honors?"

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"Gladly." Lucia reached across the table and tapped a cluster of markers near the very point of the triangle.

"Here."

Ashen looked at the cluster. It was smaller than the others around it, but not by much. He counted the marker groupings, the way he had learned to estimate troop numbers from any visual representation, but soon he had to stop, because the number he arrived at seed wrong.

"...How many is that supposed to be?"

"One million," Lucia said without ceremony. "Give or take a few thousand depending on the day."

The tent fell quiet for a mont.

"A million," Ashen repeated.

"You're at the point of the spear, Ashen." Cornelia finally took a sip from the cup she had been holding, watching him over the rim with open amusent. "Right flank’s vanguard. The part of the formation that goes in first, hits hardest, and creates the breach the rest of the flank pours through."

"That’s a lot of trust, my lord." Ashen did not give any outward reaction to the task beyond a vague smile and an inquisitive look toward Cornelia.

"I have never forgotten that you are the man who soloed a billion Narkals." Her tone made it sound like the most reasonable thing in the world.

"Besides… when you defeated that Outer God, Secrets, I heard how you exposed all of his secrets, even the ones he did not know about..."

"I am positive you had never t that creature before, so I wonder how you knew all of that..." Her gaze deepened. "...Almost as if you were inside his head, looking at his mories..."

"..."

"Or is it that 'future self' of yours that knows things you do not...?"

Ashen simply tilted his head innocently, as though he did not understand what she was talking about.

At this point, that was all he could do.

Play dumb.

"Well," the strange atmosphere dissipated as quickly as it had gathered, "what I wanted to convey is that you most likely have a set of skills that help you imnsely in taking command and using the n under you as though you were using your own arms."

"In short, you are built for this position."

"That's..." Ashen rubbed the bridge of his nose. "That's a lot of confidence in one guy."

"Is the vanguard position intimidating you?" Cornelia said. "Or is it the million soldiers? If it is the latter, you are barking up the wrong tree, young man."

She pointed at Lucia. "Your woman is the one who recruited that many rcenaries for you. Even if I do not put you at the forefront, they will still be yours to command."

"Right." Ashen exhaled slowly.

He had already talked with Lucia about this, and it had even been his idea to extract contacts for trustworthy rcenary groups from Edward.

He had also given her unlimited funds, so long as the people she brought over were trustworthy, but he had never expected her to bring a million.

His own soldiers amounted to no more than three thousand of that.

‘I guess she thought more soldiers ant more security for ,’ she sheepishly thought. ‘A bit cute of her.’

Still, Ashen was adaptable, if nothing else.

"Alright, what do I call myself now? Because 'Major General' feels like it is punching well below its weight if I am apparently commanding a small country."

"Marshal," Cornelia said imdiately. "The word 'general' tends to stop aning much past a certain scale. Historically, once a single command crosses into the hundreds of thousands, most military traditions switch terms entirely. You are commanding roughly the population of a mid-sized city. 'General' undersells that. 'Marshal' is closer."

"Marshal." Ashen tried the word out. It sounded strange to his ears sohow. "Great. Love it. Very humble."

"You will get used to it," Cornelia said with a dismissive wave of her hand. “A title is the least of your worries after all…”

***

"So I am leading a million people," Ashen said in a low voice as he and Lucia moved toward his camp, "and roughly nine hundred and ninety-seven thousand of them have never heard of ."

"They have heard of you," Lucia corrected. "Everyone has heard of you. What they have not done is served under you." A pause. "Though I suspect that distinction will resolve itself faster than you expect."

"How so?"

"Because rcenaries care about one thing above all else," Lucia answered flatly. "Survival."

"...And the man they have been assigned to follow has the lowest casualty rate of any commander on this continent, in a war that has killed everyone else’s friends and family for as long as anyone can rember." Her smile sharpened. "Trust , dear. By the end of the first week, they will be fighting each other for the privilege of standing closest to you."

Ashen looked ahead. The cluster of tents in his vision seed a little less intimidating now. It also felt slightly less abstract.

"Right," he said. "No pressure, then."

{None at all,} a familiar voice offered helpfully. {Just the survival instincts of a million ard strangers, riding entirely on your continued ability not to die.}

'Thanks. Very comforting.'

{I exist to serve.}