October 3, 1086, 6:30 a.m.
New Reunion Movement collective dormitory, Churvik Village, northeastern Ursus tundra.
Sergei woke up.
The warm bedding and the newly plastered, heated brick bed made him feel completely comfortable from head to toe.
His previously blank mind gradually filled with consciousness. Every inch of his skin lingered on and savored this rare warmth in the tundra, urging him not to get up, but he sat up anyway.
Today was an extremely important day.
He propped himself up, put on his clothes, and walked outside.
The night of Ursus had not yet faded, but the red sun had already poked its head above the horizon. Bright yellow sunlight spilled across the earth, stretching human shadows longer and longer, adorning the entire land into a golden ocean.
Pulling open the door, the freezing snow slammed against his body along with the howling wind. Instantly, Sergei's mind was flooded with biting cold, and the Feline snapped wide awake.
"Hoo—"
He exhaled a breath, watching the white vapor rapidly vanish into the air, looking very much like a traditional *hada* scarf.
"Up so early?"
Talulah, having just finished practicing her swordplay, twirled her long blade into a flourish before slowly putting it away. With a toss of her head, she scattered a few crystal-clear drops of sweat onto the snow.
She was still wearing her non-commissioned officer uniform—though Sergei couldn't quite understand why she chose to go bare-legged.
"Aren't you?"
Sergei casually hoisted a familiar shovel by the door onto his shoulder and walked toward the nearby Nevaton River.
The water in the storage vat was still a bit low; they had to melt some ice.
There were no water pipes here, let alone large radiators.
Seeing this, Talulah picked up a pickaxe and followed him.
The very first task upon waking up in the morning was ice harvesting.
..............
As their return footsteps left two trails of tracks across the snowfield, the sun on the horizon had risen completely.
By now, life in Churvik Village had also begun.
Several villagers took a team of Reunion members onto a sled, gliding toward the deeper forests to the north.
Wood chips flew through the air, firewood burned steadily beneath the pots, and crackling pops released the purest aroma of food.
This was an ordinary day in Ursus, yet an extraordinary day for the Reunion Movement.
In the afternoon, at Alina’s house, the provisional Soviet of the Reunion Movement established the Gendarmerie system, selecting progressive elements suited for Gendarmerie duties from throughout the ranks. Sergei would be responsible for conducting their further training.
The farmland outside the village was already covered by accumulated snow, burying the vigorous vitality of next year beneath a cold exterior.
The threshing floor, having been left idle and boasting a flat concrete surface, was transformed into a temporary Reunion rally ground after obtaining the village chief's consent.
Talulah stood on the stage, holding the roster she had managed to compile with great difficulty, while Sergei continuously organized the ranks and maintained order below.
The Reunion ranks were terribly chaotic. The inherent flaws of lacking a proper military structure and relying entirely on subjective initiative through mutual-aid organizations were now thoroughly exposed.
It was not until the sky turned completely azure and the harsh winter sunlight of high-latitude Ursus cast its piercing rays down onto the ground that the Reunion forces finally finished forming up.
Even so, the entire formation remained loose and sloppy.
Aside from the personnel who had already entered the Gendarmerie, the rest looked listless and defeated, like frost-bitten eggplants.
Talulah looked at all this with a complicated expression.
She suddenly realized that leading by personal example was not bringing about the truly independent and self-reliant Reunion Movement she had imagined; instead, it was turning them into a bunch of infants wrapped in swaddling clothes.
Now, it was time to help them stand and take a few steps on their own.
"Attention, everyone! Eyes front!"
The entire formation remained scattered.
"Right dress! Eyes front!"
The Gendarmerie fighters, who possessed a certain level of ideological awareness, quickly separated themselves from the ordinary Reunion members into two distinct groups.
With a helpless sigh, Talulah signaled Sergei to stop organizing the ranks. She took a deep breath and shouted loudly:
"Comrades! What is the goal of our Reunion Movement?"
"Overthrow those who oppress us! Let everyone live a good life!"
The shouting was just as clearly divided.
The goal?
Such a goal had only been explained to everyone by Sergei the day before.
In the eyes of the others, this goal was far too dangerous and empty. Grand objectives couldn't decide anything; only the practical actions taken here were their reason for staying.
Talulah’s face began to flush, while Sergei’s face grew cold.
The wrinkles on his face seemed to deepen as a result, and the heavy bags under his eyes and dark circles added a trace of rage to his haggard appearance.
But in the end, there was only a sigh.
Training this group of ordinary people into a regular Ursus army in such a short time was simply too abstract. Even training them into a third-rate force like the Ursus Infected Inspectorate would still take time, and the only ones here capable of acting as military instructors were Talulah and Ivan. Such an idea was somewhat unrealistic.
Looking at the brighter side, at least the Gendarmerie had taken on some initial shape now. That was good enough.
"That's right! But what must we do to achieve this goal?" Talulah asked next.
Everyone fell silent. They had never thought about this question before.
Reunion was far too scattered and undisciplined. There were many reasons for this, but the biggest one was leaning on the subjective initiative of others for a free ride, and Talulah's absolute egalitarianism further accelerated this vicious cycle.
Of course, Talulah had been criticized by Sergei the night before, which was also one of the reasons why several of them wanted to thoroughly reform the Reunion Movement.
Talulah composed her mood, her expression turning solemn:
"We can no longer be as loose and undisciplined as before! We must unite and become an organized, powerful force! Only in this way can we fight those who oppress us!"
She bent down, scooped up a handful of dirt, casually placed the roster back on the stage, and threw a punch with her backhand.
Dust instantly swirled across the entire sky, and the handful of loose sand vanished into thin air in an instant.
"A sheet of loose sand can accomplish nothing, but if we unite and push in one direction together, we can overcome all hardships, forge a path ahead, and carve out a bright, clean world that belongs to us and to the people!"
"Eliminate oppression and exploitation! The world belongs to the people!"
Sergei shouted at the right moment.
And this slogan, like dropping a pebble into water, instantly stirred up ripple after ripple.
"Eliminate oppression and exploitation! The world belongs to the people!"
"Eliminate oppression and exploitation! The world belongs to the people!"
"Eliminate oppression and exploitation! The world belongs to the people!"
..........
Watching the waves of sound from the crowd beneath the stage grow larger and larger, Talulah finally pressed her hands downward repeatedly at the climax, signaling everyone to quiet down.
"I know that although many people are shouting the slogans, in their hearts they still don't know what to do, what they ought to do, or how to do it!"
She picked up the roster once more, waving it in the air:
"The Gendarmerie participates in military training because they shoulder the responsibility of defending our forces externally, conducting inspections internally, carrying out ideological reform and supervision for everyone, and weeding out traitors!
"As for our ordinary people, we cannot content ourselves solely with creating value through labor; we must also possess the strength for self-defense militarily! Only by first having the strength to protect ourselves can we protect those around us, and subsequently protect this force!
"Talking without doing is entirely useless. Only by keeping up our actions can we use our own hands to fulfill our obligations, create our value, charge toward our goal, and ultimately achieve it to create a new future!"
Talulah scanned the crowd.
In the eyes of the Reunion members below, there was confusion, incomprehension, and disdain, but more than anything, firmness and conviction.
She nodded.
"Attention, all! Gendarmerie members will undergo the most rigorous military training and study theoretical knowledge. The rest will undergo training while completing their daily labor, with optional theoretical study. If any Gendarmerie member lacks confidence, it is still not too late to quit now! I respect you for being able to recognize your own limits! If you quit later on, then you will be a coward! And when protecting everyone, the last thing we need is cowards! Is that clear?"
"Clear!"
The roar of voices rose and fell.
As the commander of this Gendarmerie battalion, Sergei nodded with great satisfaction.
At least for now, everything he had done was meaningful.
And his judgment had not failed him.
"Now! Form up according to the roster! Dismissed!"
That night, the Reunion Movement completed the internal reorganization of its combat sequence and logistics units, and officially plunged into military training.
Political power grows out of the barrel of a gun.
Whenever someone asked him why he wanted to establish such a complete militarized system within an Infected mutual-aid organization like Reunion, he would always reply with utmost seriousness:
"Seek peace through struggle, and peace survives; seek peace through compromise, and peace perishes. Without weapons, we are merely beasts waiting to be slaughtered. Only by baring our fangs and displaying our military strength can we win true respect. If others do not attack us, we will not attack them; but if they strike us with big clubs, we must at least raise wooden sticks to strike back."
The sun was blocked outside by thick layers of clouds, yet the sunlight always managed to spill down a few rays like sharp swords.
A legend—a legend belonging uniquely to the Reunion Movement—thus pierced open its prelude like a sharp sword.
............
December 1, 1086, 9:30 p.m.
Alina’s house, Churvik Village, northeastern Ursus tundra.
Provisional Reunion Meeting Room.
A dim oil lamp hung from the ceiling beam, casting its light onto a map spread across the table and the faces of several people.
Half of their bodies were submerged in darkness.
The sound of howling winds swept past incessantly, and the fierce snow, aided by the gale, slammed against the windows and walls time and again, producing muffled thudding sounds.
Meanwhile, the cotton-padded clothes and jackets they wore, combined with Talulah’s innate Originium Arts, kept the entire room warm to the point of making one drowsy.
Sergei took a sip of lukewarm water, using a whittled twig in his hand to point at a spot on the map.
Interlocking bases and various markers were concentrated on this map. Had he not gone out to do the surveying work himself, this map would likely have been nothing more than scrap paper.
"Right here, the Dmitry Nikolayevich Mine—it practically has 'Viscount' written across its forehead. A squad from our Gendarmerie intelligence group was captured by them and taken to the mine. This is intelligence from a week ago."
Sergei said with a heart-wrenching tone.
Regarding intelligence work, let alone the entire Gendarmerie, not even the whole Reunion Movement combined had a single person specialized in intelligence operations.
This had resulted in the Gendarmerie, despite attempting to make headway in intelligence, remaining nothing more than a half-baked 'intelligence group' to this day—because their information chain was far too fragile.
"I believe we should immediately launch a surprise attack on this mine to rescue them."
Sergei raised his gaze.
His sapphire-blue eyes condensed into dangerous, golden Feline slit pupils as he swept his gaze across the room, adding a trace of chill to the otherwise warm space.
"Everyone, speak freely; this is military democracy. If we practice arbitrary rule and make a mistake, the ones sent to die following that mistake will be our broad masses of Reunion members, not the initiator of the mistake."
"——I disagree."
Alina stood up.
Yes, she was participating in this pre-battle meeting in her capacity as the "Head of the Reunion Medical Group."
"The Reunion Movement is still in its developmental stage, and our troops have only been trained for two months, with their primary training subject being bayonet combat rather than marksmanship. That's the first point. Secondly, the opponent is a Viscount. If we strike, it will inevitably attract the attention of surrounding military police, private guards, the Infected Inspectorate, and even the field army. Can we survive the encirclement then? Thirdly, even if we launch an attack, how many people are we going to risk to rescue this single squad?"
"What's with all the *Ursus profanity* overcomplications?"
Ivan stood up abruptly, causing the oil lamp hanging from the beam to sway instantly, filling everyone's hearts with unease.
Although he was still wearing his old cotton-padded uniform from the Infected Inspectorate, the insignia symbolizing privilege and oppression on it had been torn off by his own hands, and the tears patched over.
"If you ask me, why the hell did we train those soldiers? To keep living pathetic lives on this wasteland? If you ask me, whatever they can do, why shouldn't we? Where is the logic in watching our own brothers get bullied and not helping out? Now that our teeth are sharp, but our stomachs haven't had a drop of oil, I say even if we shatter a couple of back teeth, we're going to take a fat bite out of them! Let's make a name for ourselves, raise our own banner, and let them see what you Infected grandpas are capable of!"
Seemingly speaking in a rush, he snatched the cup from in front of Sergei and drained it in one go, then shook his head with a sigh before continuing his full-throttle output:
"Besides, no matter what, we are an 'Infected mutual-aid organization.' Although there are ordinary people in our ranks who can't stand the nobility's ways, that doesn't affect the fact that the Infected form the main body of our group. If our surprise attack on the mine succeeds, what we get will be far more than just a pile of weapons and equipment; we'll also win people's hearts, our reputation, and our people!"
A rough-and-tumble speech directly left Alina speechless.
Admittedly, while macro-level reasoning considered and saw many things, you didn't need grand principles to understand the core truth of the matter—just some simple common sense.
Sprawling, high-flown arguments were often just a waste of effort, whereas direct, straightforward approaches proved quite effective.
Ivan's words instantly won a burst of applause.
"Since we are already here, we are destined to have friction and combat with the surrounding military police, private guards, the Infected Inspectorate, and even the field army. This is not terrifying; what is terrifying is seeing the slightest sign of risk and hesitating or standing still right here."
Talulah stood up to deliver a concluding remark.
"Alina's worries are not unreasonable, and this is indeed one of the established realities we are about to face. But if we stay put and cower just because of this little bit of difficulty, we might as well wait for others to make a laughingstock of us."
Sergei looked around and offered his own commentary as well.
Yet, his tone shifted quickly:
"However, at the same time, I need to remind everyone: do not imagine our enemies as a bunch of hedonistic, exploitative tyrants and good-for-nothings. The education received and resources controlled by the aristocratic class may far exceed our expectations, and their capabilities do as well. No matter what, they are regular Ursus troops, while we are, at best, a group of ordinary people who have picked up weapons. When the time comes, I hope everyone prepares for everything and makes the worst-case plans."
His words quickly prompted all the attendees to think deeply.
Indeed, this was the realistic problem they had to face.
Empty, abstract discussions and realizations could never compare to solving practical problems quickly.
However, the situation on the floor was now clear. The supporters vastly outnumbered the opponents, and everyone was eager and itching to give those bastards a thrashing.
Such an atmosphere was wonderful, full of vigor, and devoid of excessive timidity.
Only by daring to fight and strive would there be a way out.
As for Alina, after listening to the rounds of speeches, she nodded and quietly watched them writing and sketching on the map.
And as the moonlight outlined a faint silver rim against the hazy dark night, the debut battle of the Reunion Movement was officially clinched right in this small room.