Fulin knew the drill of raising men, like a farmer sifting grain from chaff in a dry wind.

Back on Earth, he’d skim resumes like flipping leaves, catching on keywords—age, background, experience—and either tossing them aside or saving them to a hard drive bulging like a stuffed satchel.

He lacked those easy nets now, yet his hands still trusted the tide; he felt capable.

So, playing Lance, he agreed without a word, set out like a horse at dawn, and slammed into a wall.

“What, board a Celestial Spirit ship? I’m not going!” In the garrison near Shawan City, soldiers snapped back like doors slammed in a squall.

“Sorry, we’re short,” the quartermaster said, voice flat as a ledger. “Looks like many men, but the sea’s a loaded storm. They must be ready to sail anytime.”

After the regulars turned him away, Yuna offered, voice soft as rain on tiles, “Master, should we return to the central city and try locals?”

Road-worn and soul-weary, Lance sagged like a banner in no wind. “Fine. We’ll do it your way.”

Next day, they returned to Shawan City, boots tapping like drumsticks on stone.

They posted a notice along the main avenue facing the harbor, that river of bodies called the labor market.

Two silver spellcoins a day—rich bait tossed like bright fish into a green stream—and the applicants came in waves.

Still, they were riffraff, birds of mixed feathers. They couldn’t stand long watches, couldn’t obey when danger struck like lightning. Disappointment settled on Lance like fog.

“Should we try the garrison again?” Near sunset, as Yuna apologized with eyes like wet ink, a sudden uproar swelled on Golden Avenue, the day-labor street by the docks, like a kettle boiling over. It hooked Lance’s gaze.

“Let’s check it out. Take down the sign.”

“Yes, Master.” They moved, a small wake cutting through a human tide.

He expected something grand. At the street’s mouth he saw only a headsman, a clutch of prisoners, a rough scaffold—an execution stage under a reddening sky—and disappointment fell like dust.

“Come on, chop! I’m getting bored!”

“Yeah—yeah, chop already!”

The crowd urged, cheers like thrown stones, hungry for the curtain to rise.

Disappointed, yet caught by the heat of the crowd, Lance’s curiosity flared like a match.

He shouldered through, stepped before the headsman. “What’s their crime?”

“Robbery. They hit Mr. Velfort’s merchantman,” the headsman barked, voice nicking like a blade. He named a duke who’d bought his title like a badge, then said the men were fishers on the Republic frontier. Shawan’s overfishing stripped their grounds bare as bones, they turned pirate, got taken by the duke’s men. Execution was set a week ago, delayed till now by cloudy reasons.

“Cheap for ’em, an extra half month,” he grinned, while the crowd’s calls rose like crows.

“I see,” Lance said, face cool as stone. The sun slid a little lower, a gold coin rolling toward the horizon.

Daylight thinned like silk, the headsman raised his blade like a pale crescent.

The pirates burst out, voices striking the crowd like thrown spears.

“You cowards hiding in the rear!”

“You won’t face the front, and you plunder our homes!”

Insulted, the crowd only howled louder, wolves circling fire. “Shout it! Quiet heads are boring heads!”

Lance noticed their eyes. Not fear-trembling, but storm-lit. Not cursing for life, but hating with no way out, a river penned by rocks. He liked that iron in them.

“Unlock them,” he said. “You’re free.”

The sudden pardon stunned them, mouths open like fish at the surface. “We… don’t die?”

The audience roared, anger bursting like rotten fruit. “Who’s this brat?!”

Eggs and peels fell like rain. Lance didn’t care; his calm was an umbrella.

He set a bundle of standard weapons before them, wood and iron laid like oaths.

“Prove you’re braver than those cowards,” Lance said, voice low as thunder behind clouds.

A few seconds of blank faces. A few seconds of dead-silent air.

Then the pirates’ eyes reddened. They snatched the weapons and charged the crowd like a flood over ants.

“Enough. Stop.” Lance’s order cracked like a whip.

“What do you mean?!” They crowded him, realizing the weapons were dull staves, no edges, only weight. Their leader, a whisker-cheeked bear of a man, glared point-blank.

Lance let their anger drain like rain through gravel. “I am a Blazing Fire Knight of the Doran Kingdom.”

They blinked. He went on, the name falling like a seal. “Lance Morrison. Son of the commander of the Golden Eagle Legion, Sir Morrison. In my father’s name and the crown’s, I pardon you and conscript you.”

The name hit like a bell. Faces lit; the leader trembled, gripped Lance’s hands with dock-roped strength, then dropped to his knees with a thud. “You’re that hero’s child?! Are you here to save us?!”

“Not saving,” Lance said, a steady flame. “You’ll repay this grace with duty.”

“At your word, Sir Knight.” Gratitude warmed them like stew. The leader gave his name—Krick.

Lance arranged temporary lodgings for Krick and his men, roofs like cupped palms against the night.

At supper they talked, words pouring like hot wine about the days before they turned pirate, the windblown years after they left home.

“Sir Knight, not to brag—our lot was misery,” Krick said, grin twisted like a scar.

They weren’t border fishers at first. They were farmers in the Republic’s north, rich soil, good harvests, until the Shadowspirit Legion swept in like locusts.

“Land and water turned foul,” Krick said. “Crops grew black-spotted. Even cattle wouldn’t touch them.” The yield fell like a broken scale; their wandering began.

“We joined up with the rest… and they died on the front.” The army shattered like glass; that was the first step on their road.

“Down south, we fished. Not bad at first. Then the Kingdom’s people came. Nets like walls with barely any eyes. Ships bigger than our homes. One sweep on the sea, and our year was gone.”

“You held on through that?” Lance sighed, breath a winter cloud.

“In the end we turned pirate—ha ha ha!” Krick laughed loud and burned a bowl of fierce liquor down like a falling star.

Hungry men ate the table clean, plates shining like shells.

Seeing them fed and their story laid out like maps, Lance moved to the point. “Since you’ve served, this’ll be simple.”

Krick barked a laugh. “Arson and murder, kids off-limits!” His humor was a blade wrapped in cloth.

“Listen,” Lance said. “I want you with me, aboard a Celestial Spirit ship, on a classified mission.”

“What?!” Krick jolted like a tug on a line.

“You heard right. That big Celestial Spirit ship you saw today has a Shadowspirit mole. On board, you’ll serve as regular legionaries and sailors. Keep up the show. Smile at every Celestial Spirit. Watch everyone. Miss nothing. In the end, drag the Dark Spirit mole into the light.”

It was smoke and mirrors; Lance wove the lie like silk.

The weight of it made them hesitate, eyes flicking like minnows.

Fearing long nights breed long doubts, Lance sweetened the hook. “You’ll get proper rewards and wages. I’ll advance a part.”

He laid down a gold spellcoin. It rang like a bell and rolled across the wood, stopping at Krick’s hand like fate.

A brother snatched it up, eyes widening like dawn. “A gold spellcoin?!”

“Yes. That’s one percent. When it’s done, you get a hundred gold spellcoins.”

“A hundred?!” Desire flared through them like dry grass catching fire.

Krick still worried. He took the coin and pushed it back, hands rough as rope. “Sir Knight, hero’s son, Blazing Fire Knight… You know Dark Spirits are demons. We’re only ordinary men.”

Lance pressed his hand down, calm as a millstone. “Don’t worry. You won’t fight. You just patrol the ship. If anything breaks, you run first, then report to me.”

Krick stared, doubt a shadow behind his eyes, then closed them, thinking like a man counting stars.

His brothers watched him, breath held like a drawn bow.

About a minute later, he opened his eyes, grabbed a Shawan porcelain bowl, filled it with firewater, and downed it in one pour. “All right! We’ll do it! Who’s afraid of who?!”

“Good,” Lance said, approval warm as a brazier.

Next day, Lance began simple training. Not for war, but for show and steel in the gut—an honor guard’s spine, patience like rock.

They goose-stepped, called cadence, stood at attention. Morning and afternoon. One day, two days… Half a month ran by like water.

The travel company clerks grew impatient, smoothing the feathers of the Celestial Spirit elites aboard, who were also pacing like caged cranes. Then a heavy, rhythmic tremor rolled up from the deck, like drums thundering from the earth.

The Celestial Spirits poured from their cabins; worry blew off them like mist. Joy broke over their faces like sunlight.

“A detachment of the Kingdom’s Seventh Legion, at your service for the voyage!” The small unit stood in ranks, voices rising like banners in the wind.