"Lower your blades! He's not the enemy!"
Lionel Johansson's voice rang out, and the knights immediately obeyed. Sheathing their swords and spears, they took a step back and lowered their heads deferentially.
"Lord."
"What? What did you just call me? I'm not your lord."
I stared at them, astonished. However, they didn't respond. Instead, Johansson came forward with a stoic expression, his white-blond hair still resembling a neat mane.
"The Knights of the Order are at your service, Commander." He met my gaze, his forest green eyes burning with resolve. "I have ordered them to respect your authority."
"Huh? But I'm not…I don't think I've earned it. I can't just command you guys."
Johansson shook his head at my protest. "You've fought alongside us and saved my men. You've helped us obtain this portal and the means to evacuate to another world if necessary. Over the last few days, I've gathered, recruited and reorganized my men. We currently have ten thousand troops, but I plan to increase the size of my legion to over three hundred thousand over the next five years."
"That sounds overly ambitious," I remarked. "Are you sure you'll be able to achieve that target? Personally, I think it's an impressive achievement even if you raise fifty thousand soldiers over the next five years, never mind three hundred thousand."
"Rest assured, it will not be a problem." Johasson wore a tight smile. "If there's one resource Carmarthen has, it is her people. we have many youths and veterans willing to give up their livelihoods in the fields and forests to take the fight to the stars and reclaim the lost glory of the Holy Terran Empire."
"Uh, cool." I wasn't sure how to respond to that. Taking a deep breath, I bowed my head. "Please express my gratitude to them for courageously offering their lives in service of the great Holy Terran Empire. And thank you too, for everything."
"I was only doing my duty," Johansson replied. He placed a hand over his polished breastplate. "Loyalty is its own reward."
"Okay, let's not get too zealous and nationalistic here," I said, waving his words away. "We're not some despotic tyrannical empire seeking to enslave civilizations or something. We're here to reunite the lost human worlds of the scattered and broken Holy Terran Empire…to unite us against the myriad alien enemies and other galactic threats, in order for humanity to survive in a hostile universe where everything is trying to kill us."
"I am aware," Johansson said. "And I have impressed that upon my soldiers. You will not find them wanting in their courage and resolve. We all know that if we falter here, at the precipice, then there will be no hope for humanity to survive among the stars."
Was the situation really that dire? It probably was. It felt so surreal to me, insulated as I was on Earth and blissfully ignorant of the alien threat. Even after facing the Saurian in my high school, their scouting fleet, and the threat of the unfathomable Abyss here in Carmarthen, I still couldn't get a grasp on how severe the situation was. It was almost as if this was a game.
Speaking of game…I felt bad. While Lionel Johansson was busily running around, putting his troops together and planning to raise a legion of three hundred thousand, as well as overseeing the installation of this portal here in Carmarthen, I was playing Starcraft 2. Yikes.
"Hey, Aegis and Arondight…is there any capsule or technological device that can strengthen me? You know, like what Chen Jun had in Xyrin Empire."
"No." Aegis was calm. "There are no shortcuts in life. You want to become stronger, you have to work hard and train for it. That's why I placed you in the training program. There is no magic bullet or convenient story-contrived solution to make you stronger without you earning it."
"We also don't have surgical procedures and gene-seed implantations to turn you into a super soldier all of a sudden," Arondight added.
That sucked. Why was it that all the web novel protagonists had cheats and easy access to powerups and boosts, but I didn't? I had to work hard for mine? I wasn't against that, but it still felt bad watching all the other web novel protagonists have it easy and conveniently get gifts and powerups fed to them on silver spoons via systems or other macguffins.
Falling to the ground, I pounded the dust and whined.
"Ugh! It should have been him, not me! It's not fair!"
"Uh, what are you doing?" Johansson stared at me, bewildered.
"Ignore him," Lin Xue said beside me. I was startled. I almost forgot that she had followed me, especially because she had been so quiet this entire time. "We're just here to check if the portal is working fine, and if you guys are all right. I'm glad to hear that your legion is doing well."
"We are, my lady," Johansson clarified. "The only thing we are missing is…equipment. Weapons. Modern armor – our antiquated armor is obsolete, and I fear they will not be practical in wider, galactic warfare. We need void-sealed armor that is capable of allowing us to operate in vacuum environments, at the minimum."
"I'll see what I can do. Never mind Carmarthen, even Earth doesn't have such technology at the moment. I don't know about weapons either. It seems that even though loud and messy, your weapons are on par with ours or even better. Miniature missiles, flamethrowers…Earth doesn't have practical working handheld laser weapons yet. Hell, we don't even have large scale laser weapons either, except for those installed on ships to shoot down missiles. They are simply too power consuming and inefficient for battlefield use."
"We could use the tanks and armored vehicles you were talking about," Johansson said, referring to an off-screen conversation. "Carmarthen doesn't have vehicles. As you notice, we still make use of horses."
"Yeah, I'll send some through. Hopefully I can get several training programs up to teach the people of Carmarthen to engineer and build their own vehicles very soon."
"I will have those prepared and disseminated," Aegis said. I nodded.
"Thanks."
"Your swords, spears and other close combat weapons are pretty good, though," Lin Xue observed, staring at Lion Johansson's sword. The knight-general drew his sword and presented it to us. I accepted it with both hands and studied it in amazement. It was exquisitely crafted, a masterpiece in both design and art. Its blade was finely honed, an elegant length of gleaming metal that Earth was definitely not able to produce. There was also a power field generator built into the hilt, similar to Arondight. I was pretty sure they were forged by the same creator, except that this sword didn't have Arondight's AI.
"I call this sword Victory," Johansson said. He tried not to smirk. "Originally, I wanted to name it Fealty, but then I was told that you would be in hot soup with copyright law."
"Thank you for not doing that," I muttered, not knowing if I should be amazed that the lord of the Order actually had a sense of humor. I thought he was some grimdark general.
"If all of your swords are fashioned like this, I don't think we need to find you guys bladed weapons," Lin Xue said, taking a close look at it. Once she was done, I returned Victory to Johansson, who sheathed it.
"Unfortunately, no. My Victory is one of a kind. I mean no disrespect to the blacksmiths who produce our weapons – and they forge fine blades, truly – but they are nothing compared to the swords you and I possess. They are unable to replicate the disruption field."
"It is a difficult technology to reverse-engineer," Aegis admitted. "And I do not think they possess the confidence to dismantle Lord Johansson's Victory and put it back together again."
"That's right."
"Well, we'll find a way. I'll talk to Aegis and Arondight and see what we can come up with." I sighed, feeling unsettled. We were still a long way from being a galactic spanning army. Hell, I doubted Johansson's legion could stand up to a full alien invasion despite their numbers and combat experience. We were thoroughly outclassed in technology it wasn't funny.
"We can't provide blueprints for weapon schematics and starship technology," Arondight said. "I apologize, but we weren't programmed with that. You will need to find a specific relic that is capable of replicating those blueprints and enacting training programs."
"The reason why we can do that for Earth's level of technology is because they are of a much lower difficulty," Aegis explained. I winced. No need to twist the knife in our gut, guys.
"There's one more thing," Johansson said. We all turned to look at him, and he continued. "When we installed the portal in this chamber, we ended up demolishing a wall and discovering a hidden room further in."
Without any elaboration, he turned on his heel and walked off. Lin Xue and I exchanged a glance before hastily following him, accompanied by the knights who had arrived with him – the welcome reception who formed a ring of blades earlier. They had been so silent this entire time I wondered if they were automata instead of humans wearing armor. Of course, it could simply be because the animation studio didn't have the budget to hire voice actors for them.
Lionel Johansson led us to a room where blinking monitors were spread across walls. I recognized the consoles almost immediately – they were the same ones that populated the bridge of the Crusader. Holographic screens slowly flickered back to life when the sensors inside the room detected our entry, ancient technologies gradually awakening and stirring back to life after spending millennia inactive. Or so Johansson told me, which was later confirmed by Aegis and Arondight.
"We didn't know what to make of this," Johansson said gravely, reaching out to brush his fingers against a holographic map. His fingertips went through the blue light, digitally rendered in a three-dimensional model of a planet. Another screen displayed a map that zoomed in on specific locations, reconstructing trees in high definition pixelized images and allowing us to essentially explore it virtually when it filled up a huge space with a setting completely built from light and special effects.
"This is an ancient combat information center," Aegis explained. "Probably the remnants of a fortified bunker, surviving through the years and preserved under rubble because it was sealed underneath reinforced materials and layers of armored shielding. Even as the fortress around it collapsed, this endured because its defense was prioritized given its role as the nerve center and operational command."
"That's good and all," Johansson said with a frown. "But we don't know how to use it. Or even what to make of it."
"We'll teach you," Arondight said. He flashed a few blinking lights. "Our commander here had never been on the bridge of a starship before he was teleported onto the Crusader a few months ago, but he got the hang of it after spending some time in space."
"We'll be grateful if you do." Johansson nodded. "This will serve as a massive asset."
"Combat information center, huh?" I was studying the area, though I wasn't as overawed by the knights of the Order or Lin Xue because I had already seen everything on the bridge of a Templar class cruiser. Rather, my attention was drawn toward the persistently blinking lights of a certain console – one that I recognized as the communication station from my time aboard the Crusader. "Hey, seems like we have a message."
Without thinking, I went over and tapped the touchscreen, playing the message. The holographic screen exploded before resolving into a grainy image of a man in an impressive looking military uniform and general stars.
"This is General Gallus of the Avalon Defense Army," he said gravely, his middle-aged face lined with wrinkles and stress. Unlike Lionel Johansson, he was clean shaven, his white and gold uniform starched so stiffly it must feel uncomfortable wearing that thing. "Calling for assistance from fellow human civilizations. Our world, Avalon, is currently under attack from an alien enemy calling itself the Sagittaurs. We are currently outmatched and under heavy pressure. For the love humanity throughout the galaxy, please help us."
The image then winked out before resuming, looping and replaying itself. no longer watching it, I turned to Johansson, Lin Xue and the other knights.
"Well, I guess we know what our next destination is going to be."