Steel, Explosives, and Spellcasters

"I didn't expect you to move so fast, now I can rest assured," said Antonio with considerable relief to Winters on the way home.

"Don't mention it, as soon as you left, I got slapped," Winters said gloomily. He subconsciously touched his cheek where he had been hit; although the physical pain had long since disappeared, the mental wound had not.

"Slapped? Were you too hasty?"

"Miss Navarre and I aren't what you imagine, she can understand Old Tongue."

"Huh? A woman also knows Old Tongue?"

"Anna is not an ordinary woman; I think her education level is higher than mine."

Antonio's tone was full of the frustration of iron not turning into steel, "How can you be so naive? You were only with her once, and you're already head over heels?"

"Why won't you believe me? I really have no intention of pursuing Miss Navarre," Winters was at a loss for words with Antonio already having a prejudice: "And I feel that Miss Navarre... is very sincere."

"Of course she's sincere! If she didn't make you feel that way, how could she manipulate you?" retorted Antonio. But he then changed his tone and laughed, "However, a man has to be deceived by a woman; you only mature after being cheated on."

Winters had now lost all desire to speak. He simply shut his mouth tightly, looked straight ahead without a sideways glance, and kicked his horse's flank with his boot heel. The steed received the command and happily took off.

"Don't be mad, what can't we talk about?" Antonio shouted at Winters's back: "Don't ride so fast in the middle of the night, be careful not to break the horse's hoof."

Winters initially didn't want to pay him any heed, but when he heard that the horse's hoof might break, he slowed down anyway, and Antonio caught up from behind: "Hey, what are you shy about? In our youth, we took these matters as matters for pride."

"Please stop, I really don't have the kind of thoughts about Miss Navarre that you think I do."

"Alright, alright, no more about that," Antonio said kindly, but his tone sounded like he was pacifying a shy young man.

Winters couldn't be bothered to explain and the two rode in silence for a while until Antonio suddenly said with a sigh, "Ah, it seems that the one thing I worried about the most has come to pass after all."

He deliberately extended the tone, waiting for a cue, but Winters didn't pick up on his line at all.

Antonio smacked his lips in boredom and continued, "Do you know what the Army Officer Academy was modeled after?"

Winters thought to himself, "Isn't it based on a university?" But he didn't feel like engaging with Antonio and kept silent.

"If you think it's a university, then you're wrong," Antonio answered his own question: "Universities are places for young people to study, get drunk, and brawl. Have you experienced that? The Army Officer Academy was directly modeled after the Monastery; in the military academy, you're essentially Ascetic Monks with a military status. With little communication with the outside world, the military school is everything to you."

Antonio went on, "When the academy was first established, this wasn't a problem. Your father and I were sixteen and seventeen when we attended, almost adults. But the United Provincials later established preparatory and juvenile schools. Now, by your generation, you're sent to the military school at nine years old and work your way up. After ten years of life in the 'Monastery,' you have almost no social experience. I'm not sure if this model is good or bad, but one thing I've confirmed now is, once you meet a Judith, all of you become Holophernes."

Judith used her beauty to get close to Holophernes, the general of the army lusting after her, and cut off his head while he was drunk, leading to a great Assyrian defeat. Although Winters was not a believer, he was familiar with this famous story from the scriptures.

But Winters didn't want to listen to a word of it, he whipped his horse and sped toward home.

————Cut————

The next morning before going to the gendarme, Winters greeted Bard and Andre.

Bard walked around the steed three times, clicking his tongue in praise. Upon seeing the steed, Andre couldn't take his eyes off it and insisted on riding it.

After Winters and his two companions showcased their new 'toy,' they arrived at the entrance of the gendarme. He saw the clerk Morlock anxiously pacing back and forth in the corridor like an ant on a hot pan.

"Good morning, Mr. Morlock? Don't have your keys?" Winters greeted him jokingly.

"Oh, you're here, Captain Montaigne," Morlock sighed with relief upon seeing Winters: "The people from the Commandant's Office are about to go mad. They sent someone to cause a ruckus yesterday afternoon. But with both officers not present, I couldn't explain. This morning they sent someone again, and he's sitting inside."

To get rid of the four stinking corpses, the customs prison worked at an astonishing speed. No sooner had Field and Winters left than the warden immediately got some thin wooden planks to make four crude coffins, placed the bodies inside, and sent them to the Sea Blue Commandant's Office.

Half of Colonel Field's words were true, but the other half was not entirely false. He was right when he said the Army Headquarters had no morgue.

But when he told customs to send the bodies to the "morgue of the Sea Blue Commandant's Office," his phrasing became ambiguous because the Commandant's Office also had no morgue.

Seeing the customs' cart carrying bodies stopped at the door, the officers of the Commandant's Office exchanged puzzled glances, not knowing what was going on.