Chapter 1627 - 101: Fox and Mouse Game (11)

Chapter 1627: Chapter 101: Fox and Mouse Game (11)

[Siegfried]

[Maplestone City Officer Academy]

Even though he was prepared, when Siegfried actually faced the entire faculty and students of the Maplestone City Army Academy, a sense of unreality encompassed his heart that he couldn’t quite articulate.

This sense of unreality initially stemmed from the absurdity of a "cat lecturing a mouse," but was quickly replaced by another source—what he saw before him.

Siegfried couldn’t believe that, under such harsh and deprived conditions, the rebels were still persisting in running a school.

"Maplestone City Army Academy," "Paratu Army Academy," "Alliance Second Army Academy"—names sounding like grand institutions yet merely consisting of four wooden huts serving as classrooms and two rows of even more rudimentary barracks as dormitories.

Upon first stepping out of the prison cell, Siegfried thought he had inadvertently entered a logging camp.

Also set deep in the forest, compared to the Royal Military School surrounded by scattered buildings and serene waters, the Paratu rebels’ Army Academy was nothing more than a kennel.

To be exact, not even a kennel—for the short-haired hounds meticulously cared for by the Royal Military School’s Duke Navarre at least had their individual rooms;

And any of the sculptures or paintings Duke Navarre used to decorate his office and corridors was more valuable than the rebel’s barracks and huts;

In the Paratu rebels’ military school, Siegfried couldn’t even find a fifth teaching staff member with all limbs intact—in the Royal Military School, these maimed and crippled officers wouldn’t even catch Duke Navarre’s eye.

In terms of facilities and resources alone, the Maplestone City Army Academy and the Royal Military School couldn’t be further apart, one in the mud, the other in the clouds.

Yet Siegfried couldn’t deceive himself—with reluctance he admitted—as a military academy, a furnace imparting skills, instilling discipline, and shaping the character of military personnel, the Maplestone City Army Academy outperformed the Royal Military School.

No fancy costumes, no balls, no cumbersome ceremonial rules;

No equality that exists only in regulations, much less a Duke’s child enjoying more equality than a bankrupt knight’s child;

Everything meaningless, worldly, and distracting didn’t exist in the rebels’ school.

It resembled more of a Monastery, but an ascetic monk’s Monastery, substituting study for prayer, training for penance, with the same devoutness, the same focus.

Especially when the old blind man spiritedly recounted how his "boys" personally carved out this Monastery little by little from the forest, the unabashed pride on the old man’s face made Siegfried’s sense of unreality even more profound.

What made Siegfried feel even more unreal were the people.

When he stood before the entire rebel faculty and students, facing the clear eyes of the "good boys" mentioned by the old blind man, he felt a bout of dizziness and disorientation.

In that instant, he seemed to return to the first time he gained command of his regiment.

In that newly formed infantry regiment, there were just as many clear-eyed young men.

Young men conscripted unjustly from various villages and communities;

Young men who had yet to shed their civilian status;

Young men who didn’t understand what twenty-five years of service truly meant;

Young men who hadn’t realized they neither had the opportunity to marry and have children nor the possibility to return to society, destined to spend their lives in the Emperor’s army;

Young men who all eventually died in the mountains of Dalmatia.

They, too, looked at him this way.

Siegfried heard Marvey’s drunken voice in his heart: "War is about wasting the best people in the most shameful way."

The rebellious impulse within him, the desire to "cause trouble for Your Majesty," in that instant became incredibly childish and ridiculous.

Replaced by a certain sympathy.

Because he suddenly realized, these young men as good as his own, would, if nothing unexpected happened, die at the Emperor’s sword sooner or later.

And that sword taking their lives, if nothing else, was his own.

When the "enemy" appeared as living beings before Siegfried, when those faces gazing at him overlapped with those in his memory, an inexplicable awkwardness clogged Siegfried’s chest.

Then Marvey’s voice sounded again in Siegfried’s heart, the once teasing and wild words now striking him as pearls of wisdom:

"Don’t get to know your enemy too well, Siegfried, or you won’t be able to continue opposing them;"

"And don’t ponder the meaning of life, once you start pondering that, your life’s screwed."

Just as Siegfried was still lost in thought, John Jeska had already stepped upon the rostrum to make an opening for Siegfried.

"Everyone—stand up," a sharp command echoed from below, and the sitting students stood up, uniform as a single shadow, "Salute!"

The sound of saluting echoed neatly in the darkness.

Jeska meticulously raised his hand to return the salute.

"Be seated," Jeska waved into the darkness.

A flurry of sounds followed as they sat down.

Once the hall had quietened again, Jeska slowly spoke: "The purpose for gathering you here has already been conveyed by your instructors, so I’ll spare the pleasantries.

"You must be very curious and quite confused as to why the grand Paratu Army Academy would invite an Imperial person to lecture, is Paratu lacking people?"