Weaklings.

That had been Commander Sarion's thought immediately after he'd been informed that the search party he'd ordered had yielded results in the form of two corpses belonging to miners he'd sent out to patrol as punishment.

They'd stolen from him, siphoning Tora ore which was worth more than both their hides combined. While the punishment had been issued to those who'd been caught stealing from him as nothing more than a deterrent to the rest, he hadn't really expected any of his people to die on this planet—a baby world.

He was so sure that nothing would be able to challenge his miners in this baby world that he'd initially shrugged off the report given to him by the chief patrol officer stating that the pair hadn't checked in after their patrols. As far as he was concerned, the pair wouldn't be the first to rebel against being punished and eventually desert the camp.

The truth about the world was that not everyone liked being told what to do and how to do it, and there was an order that was more highly detested by the masses than the previous two: being told what not to do. Obviously, people would chafe at his orders telling them not to steal from him, and there were some who'd rather desert the camp than work for him ever again. To those, he wished the best of luck in their endeavors.

This planet wouldn't remain a baby world forever; sooner or later, monsters like him would start popping up—native inhabitants who'd begun understanding the ways of the system. Those who would excel amongst their peers in what was basically a massive free-for-all.

Then they'd probably lose their lives to such monsters or native inhabitants. They might've grown a little on their own, but at the end of the day, most of the miners were nothing but cowards who only preyed on the weak inhabitants of baby worlds. A vast majority of them never improved themselves enough to go past level twenty.

Color me surprised.

The scene in front of him threw aside all his knowledge on the subject matter; it completely upended his theories and speculations as to what had happened to the deserters or would-be deserters. Commander Sarion wasn't sure if the mismatched pair—the gremlin and dwarf—had actually intended to desert the camp, considering the fact that they'd died within the area they'd been assigned to patrol, according to the chief patrol officer beside him.

"Give me space," Sarion commanded.

The small contingent of guards backed off, allowing Sarion to examine the corpses. There were four in all: two belonged to his camp, and the other two were aliens. The more he thought about it, he realized that the husks probably belonged to the native inhabitants of the planet.

So that's what they look like.

Sarion dropped to a crouch, inspecting the bodies. Sure enough, all four corpses had turned into dried-out husks. Poking at the corpse of the dwarf with a finger, he watched as the skin flaked off at the contact. He wasn't surprised though; he'd started out as a foot soldier miner before making his way to his current position. While he'd seen fewer scenes like these in recent times, it still wasn't new to him.

Five days.

He mulled over the information. According to the report, the miners hadn't been seen since five days ago. From what he could tell, the corpses were at least that old, meaning they hadn't actually tried to desert the camp.

He scanned the husks of the natives. One seemed to have lost its head due to a bash from a warhammer. It was something of a gruesome kill, but Sarion was well familiar with the sight—after all, he himself wielded a warhammer. The other corpse sported wounds that he assumed were inflicted by the pickaxe belonging to his gremlin.

That takes care of that.

Analyzing what and how the native inhabitants had been killed was the easy part; the hard part was figuring out how his own men had died. The dwarf seemed to have lost an entire arm, nothing but a stump remained at that part of the dwarf's anatomy. The arm in question didn't lay too far away from the body; it had already dried up like the corpses.

He found it a little bit interesting how clean the severing had been. Apparently, the arm that had been cut off by what was presumably a sword had been the dwarf's hammer-wielding hand—the weapon was still in the clutches of the fingers of the severed arm. Although "clutches" was a bit of a stretch considering how the arm had degraded at this point.

The dwarf hadn't lost only its arm; by the looks of things, it had lost its head and subsequently its life to the sword strike. Its head had been cleanly decapitated. The sight ruled out any possibilities that the attack on his men had been anything lower-leveled.

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Tearing his gaze away from the dismembered corpse, he turned to an even worse one—the gremlin's. The corpse of the short bugger was way worse than that of the dwarf; its pickaxe-wielding hand had been cut off from the wrist, both its legs had been severed from the knees, which meant the gremlin had probably drawn the worst lot.

That's interesting.

Commander Sarion stood and walked closer to the gremlin's corpse, staring straight at its upper body. A couple of focused gazes on the corpse revealed the information that he so desperately sought—even if he didn't know it at that point. Right there on both sides of the gremlin's neck were two identical blade wounds.

Probably a dagger.

A sword definitely wasn't what had left those marks on the gremlin; it had been stabbed by two daggers, probably at the same time if Sarion's gut was right. Which meant there'd been at least two different weapons used in finishing off the gremlin. Luckily for him, there were also two native inhabitants' corpses. Keeping an expressionless face, he walked away from the corpses of his miners, heading towards those belonging to the natives. If he could find the murder weapon there, then he'd be done with this colossal waste of his time.

Really, the only reason he was here was because the tension between him and the miners was getting worse by the day. Already the subpar mining rate was seeing a steady decline, which was unironically the miners' way of expressing what they thought about him and his rules. The head supervisor of the mine had suggested that he visit the scene to show that he "cared" about the miners under him. The gremlin had said something along the lines of the gesture being able to win him some goodwill amongst the miners, but he saw it as nothing but a waste of his time.

A colossal waste of my time.

Eager to get the show he'd been putting on for the miners that had been part of the small contingent over, he glanced for weapons on the native inhabitant corpses. Twin daggers were near the corpse whose head had been crushed; the other corpse seemed to have no weapon on it, which gave Sarion pause.

The absence of the sword that had clearly done the majority of the damage in the fight made him feel a little uneasy. While he wasn't scared of the possibility that there was a native inhabitant somewhere in the same forest who had been able to easily take down a pair of his miners, by the looks of things, the corpse with the daggers seemed to be the one to have delivered the killing blow to the gremlin. But whoever or whatever had wielded the sword had run riot on the dwarf and the gremlin.

It's not adding up.

The entire scene felt like he was missing details—key details. Was there a third party who'd come in and taken the sword off the unarmed native inhabitant? Sarion couldn't tell. As it was, he'd already wasted a lot of time contemplating the deaths of the gremlin and dwarf, time he could've used to get through a sizeable amount of the paperwork that was on his desk at the office.

Wait a minute, paperwork.

Sarion had to resist the urge to burst into maniacal laughter at the thought—mostly because it'd be unseemly, especially with miners present. What better excuse would he get when it came to shoving away paperwork than the one right in front of him? The two morons had done him a greater service dead than they'd ever done for him while they'd been alive—they'd gifted him a route to earning back the miners' respect. It was quite simple really: he could claim that there was an attack on the camp and these two dead buffoons had repelled the attack, dissuading the other attackers from continuing.

Sure, it was a leaky story with a lot of holes that any sensible person would be able to poke through, but at the moment, tension was at an all-time high at the camp. All he'd have to do was say the words, and the bloodthirsty amongst the miners would take care of convincing the rest. So in a way, the head supervisor had been right about his appearance here winning him some goodwill.

It'll probably do more than just give me some goodwill; I'll earn their respect once more.

"Brothers," Sarion said, standing to his full height, his poise and voice commanding attention. "These two amongst our ranks have fought valiantly, defending us from what seems to be a probing attack by the enemy."

Whispers traveled amongst those gathered around him, which caused Sarion to smile inwardly. If he played his cards right now, he'd have a straight route to battle and getting his camp back in order, in one swoop. Sarion cleared his throat loudly; as a dwarf, his vocal cords were superior to the point that him clearing his throat was louder than the murmurs. But at the end of the day, he was only interested in the results that his action brought—the crowd quietened down.

"Their sacrifice for this camp, for you and me, shall not be in vain," Sarion said solemnly. "I tell you that we shall not sit idly by and waste the time given to us by the deaths of our comrades. We shall avenge them!"

Cheers erupted from the small group, and he couldn't help but let out a bloodthirsty smile to match the new vibe. Where they'd been dull and stiff towards him moments ago, they now cheered at his words, the bloodlust shining in their eyes like a bonfire. A bonfire that would fuel his ascent, a bonfire that would fuel his need, a bonfire that would make them his puppets. When it came to battles, the warriors only needed one thing: the location. While he didn't have one in mind at the moment, it was something that could be easily solved by a little scouting.

The manpower at my disposal should make this as easy as clearing the first floor of a tower.

"Before we avenge them, we must first send our comrades to eternal rest," Sarion boomed, his voice cutting through the cheers and cries for blood. "Exeter, light their path to eternity."

Sarion turned to the mage who'd accompanied them to the scene, a short gremlin even by gremlin standards, but it didn't seem to bother the gremlin who walked up to the two corpses. With an exhale, the gremlin gestured to the two corpses, the squad going quiet as two orbs of fire left the mage's outstretched hands, striking the dried-out husks. Then the fire did what fire did: it consumed the corpses with reckless abandon. Commander Sarion did nothing but watch, quiet as he let his thoughts figure out what exactly his next move was going to be.

For sure, he was going to find whoever did this and put them in their place, but to the gods, he hoped that they weren't alone and they'd give him and his miners a good exercise.

Watch out wherever you are; your life is forfeit.