Chapter 1027: Soldiers, Not Tools

Strax continued observing the Gauntlet of Darkness for a while longer. After all the tests, some answers had finally appeared, but each one seemed to bring three more questions with it. He knew the gauntlet could capture something originating from the soul at the moment of death, transform that essence into a shadow, and preserve at least some of the original individual’s characteristics. He also knew those shadows could be strengthened, recovered as long as enough energy was available, and could even be temporarily fused.

The problem was that he still had no idea where the weapon’s true limit was.

The experiment with the birds had barely changed the sensation coming from the gauntlet. The Wyvern, on the other hand, had been different. After absorbing it, Strax had clearly felt the amount of energy inside the weapon increase, as though some internal structure had been fed.

It wasn’t simply the presence of the newly stored shadow.

Something deeper had grown stronger along with it.

He opened and closed his hand a few times.

The black chains slowly slid along his forearm.

Lithara noticed that Strax was thinking too much again and asked,

"What is it now?"

"This thing is growing."

She moved a little closer.

"The gauntlet?"

"Yes."

Strax raised his arm in front of his eyes.

"When I absorbed the birds, I barely felt any difference. When I absorbed the Wyvern, I did. There’s something accumulating inside it besides the shadows being stored."

Lithara studied the weapon.

"Maybe it’s simply the energy from the souls."

"Could be."

"And would that be strange?"

"No. What’s strange is that I can feel there’s something there afterward."

Strax touched the surface of the gauntlet with his other hand. The sensation was difficult to explain. There was no bar indicating how much remained, nor any clearly perceptible limit, but the weapon’s structure seemed more active than before.

As though something was slowly being fed.

That immediately awakened his curiosity.

Strax turned toward Lithara.

"I need you to do something."

Lithara crossed her arms.

"Depending on what it is, I’m going to start charging you."

"Look for large concentrations of beasts."

She blinked.

"How large?"

"The larger, the better."

"You want quantity or strength?"

"Both."

Strax lowered his hand.

"Look for territories with large numbers of magical beasts, monsters, Wyverns, or any creatures with a reasonable amount of energy. You don’t need to kill anything. Just write down where they are."

Lithara began to understand.

"You’re going to feed the gauntlet."

"Exactly."

Strax looked at the weapon again.

"There’s no point continuing to test it with five birds and one Wyvern. I want to put enough energy into this thing to find out what happens."

Lithara raised an eyebrow.

"And what do you think will happen?"

"No idea."

"Excellent."

"Maybe it’ll evolve. Maybe a new ability will appear. Maybe there’s a maximum storage capacity. Maybe it’ll simply keep accumulating souls indefinitely."

Lithara looked at the gauntlet and then at Strax.

"Or maybe it’ll explode."

Strax considered that for a few seconds.

"That too."

Lithara sighed.

"You said that far too calmly."

"If it starts exploding, I’ll stop."

"That’s not the problem with that sentence."

Strax smiled.

The truth was that discovering whether the gauntlet had a limit was important. If the weapon could truly store an indefinite number of shadows, then he had something far more dangerous in his hands than he had initially imagined.

Every battle could feed the next one.

Every defeated enemy could become part of his own forces.

And if the shadows could continue growing through the energy he supplied, then even creatures that had originally been weak could become useful over time.

Even so, Strax had no intention of simply going around exterminating everything he found.

"Look for problematic concentrations first."

Lithara tilted her head.

"Problematic?"

"Beasts attacking roads, territories near cities, regions adventurers are already trying to clear. I have no reason to wipe out entire populations just to feed this thing."

Lithara smiled slightly.

"Well, look at that. And here I thought you’d decided to become a completely insane necromancer."

"I can be efficient without being an idiot."

"Sometimes."

Strax looked at her.

Lithara gave him an innocent smile.

"I’ll check the mountains first. Then I can talk to Rogue. The Guild probably has records of regions with large concentrations of monsters."

"Good idea."

"And I can send some demons to scout as well. That way, we’ll cover more territory."

"Do it."

Lithara nodded.

"I’ll start immediately."

She spread her wings but didn’t take off. Instead, she remained there looking at Strax for several seconds.

He noticed.

"What?"

"Before that, you should go see Frieren."

Strax frowned slightly.

"Because of Neris?"

"Yes."

Lithara folded her wings again.

"Now she has a real living test subject. Not just a functioning body."

Strax immediately understood the difference.

Until then, much of Frieren’s project had been centered on constructing the soldiers physically. Muscular structure, demonic core, mana circulation, reflexes, endurance, and the ability to receive orders. Neris had demonstrated that all of those things worked, although there were still problems with balance, perception, and mana control.

Now, however, Frieren could begin studying what truly mattered:

How a consciousness behaved inside that artificial body.

Lithara continued,

"She and Albedo kept working on it after I left. Frieren wants to test memory, autonomy, learning, reactions to conflicting orders, and a few other things. Especially now that Neris can respond on her own."

"Is she normally conscious?"

"As far as we can tell."

"Personality?"

"Not much."

Strax raised an eyebrow.

Lithara explained,

"She responds, understands questions, and shows some simple preferences, but it’s still difficult to tell what genuinely belongs to her and what’s a consequence of the artificial structure. Frieren is trying to figure that out."

Strax became thoughtful.

That was more important than continuing to sit on that hill testing birds.

The Gauntlet of Darkness could wait a few hours.

"I’ll go."

Lithara nodded.

"Good. In the meantime, I’ll look for your beasts."

"Don’t kill half the mountains."

"I said I’m going to look."

"I’m just reminding you."

Lithara spread her wings.

"And I remain offended by your lack of trust."

Strax pointed toward where the Wyvern’s corpse still lay.

Lithara looked at it.

Then at Strax.

"That one was different."

"Of course."

"It really was."

"I believe you."

"You’re being sarcastic."

"I am."

Lithara stuck her tongue out at him before beating her wings.

The pressure from the movement kicked up leaves and dust around them, and the succubus shot into the sky. Within seconds, she became nothing more than a small point on the horizon before disappearing completely.

Strax remained alone.

He looked at the gauntlet again.

"Let’s see how much you can eat."

The black chains moved slowly.

For some reason, that seemed like a response.

Strax narrowed his eyes.

"If you start talking, we’re going to have a problem."

Nothing happened.

"Better."

He recalled all the shadows that were still manifested. The five birds turned into smoke and were pulled into the gauntlet, while the Wyvern’s presence remained stored alongside them.

After that, Strax stepped into his own shadow.

His body disappeared.

When he emerged again, he was inside the main mansion.

A maid passing through the corridor nearly dropped a stack of towels when she saw him simply rise out of the floor.

"Sorry."

She stared at him.

Strax kept walking.

He crossed several corridors until he found the passage leading to the underground facilities Frieren used. As he descended, the environment gradually changed. The comfortable decor of the mansion gave way to reinforced walls, magical formations, protected doors, and corridors illuminated by crystals.

Strax knew the way.

Even so, the laboratory had changed considerably since his last visit.

There was more equipment.

More formations.

And far more mana circulating through the area.

When he reached the main door, he didn’t need to knock. It opened automatically after recognizing his presence.

Strax entered.

Frieren was on the other side of the room.

The former elf, now transformed into something much closer to a succubus, was leaning over a table covered in documents and magical instruments. Albedo stood near one of the walls, watching something in the center of the laboratory.

Neris.

She stood inside a large circular formation drawn across the floor.

Completely still.

Strax stopped.

Albedo was the first to notice him.

"Master."

Frieren didn’t even raise her head.

"You arrived at a good time."

Strax approached.

"I heard you succeeded."

"I managed to make one work. Don’t confuse that with the project being finished."

"I know you well enough to know you’ll never consider anything finished."

Frieren finally looked up.

"Correct."

Strax looked at Neris again.

Physically, there was nothing about her that immediately revealed her artificial nature. Her body looked alive. She breathed, made small involuntary movements, and even showed subtle changes in expression as she followed the conversation.

Neris turned her head.

Her eyes met Strax’s.

She watched him for several seconds.

Then she asked,

"Are you Strax?"

Albedo immediately became alert.

So did Frieren.

Strax, however, simply replied,

"I am."

Neris tilted her head slightly.

"My creator told me about you."

Strax looked at Frieren.

"My creator?"

"She decided that on her own," Frieren replied.

"Interesting."

He turned back to Neris.

"What did she say?"

Neris took several seconds to answer.

"That you are the highest authority I am supposed to recognize."

Strax let out a quiet laugh.

"That sounds more like Frieren."

Frieren ignored him.

Strax walked around the formation while observing Neris. She followed his movement with her eyes but didn’t turn her body.

That indicated she was waiting for a specific instruction.

"Does she follow orders normally now?"

"Yes," Frieren replied. "But I’m trying to reduce her dependence on them. A soldier incapable of acting without direct commands is useless when conditions change."

"I agree."

Albedo approached.

"The problem is teaching autonomy without destroying hierarchy."

Strax looked at her.

"That’s exactly what Lithara said."

"Because we spent hours talking about it."

Frieren picked up several sheets from the table.

"Neris can already interpret simple objectives. If I order her to cross a room, she chooses the route. If there’s an obstacle, she goes around it. If there’s a threat, she evaluates whether she needs to neutralize it. That’s good."

"And the bad?"

"She still treats some orders as absolute priorities."

Strax understood.

"Even when she shouldn’t."

"Exactly."

Frieren pointed toward Neris.

"If I tell her to protect an object and then place a person in danger in front of her, she might ignore the person because protecting the object remains the active instruction."

"Then we need priorities."

"We need judgment."

Strax fell silent.

That was an important difference.

A machine needed priorities.

A soldier needed to understand context.

He looked at Neris again.

"Do you know why you were created?"

Neris answered immediately.

"To fight."

"That’s what you do. I asked why you exist."

This time, she didn’t answer immediately.

Frieren looked up from her notes.

Albedo became attentive as well.

Neris remained motionless for several seconds.

"I don’t know."

Strax smiled slightly.

"Good answer."

Frieren narrowed her eyes.

"Why?"

"Because she could’ve simply invented something to fill the absence of information."

Strax stepped into the formation.

Neris continued watching him.

He stopped in front of her.

"Do you want to find out?"

The question produced a different reaction.

Neris blinked.

Then looked at Frieren.

Then at Albedo.

Finally, she looked back at Strax.

"I do."

Strax remained silent for several seconds.

That was already more interesting.

It wasn’t an order.

There was no immediate functional benefit.

It was curiosity.

A simple desire, perhaps still rudimentary, but one that existed.

Frieren immediately began writing something down.

Strax glanced sideways.

"Are you writing that down?"

"Obviously."

"I only asked a question."

"And I got a response I hadn’t managed to provoke yet."

"Then maybe you ask bad questions."

Frieren stopped writing.

Albedo turned her face away to hide a smile.

Strax returned his attention to Neris.

That woman was only the first.

Behind several doors in the laboratory were another thirty-five completed bodies and twelve still in development.

Forty-eight artificial soldiers in total.

If Frieren managed to solve the question of consciousness and souls, this would stop being an isolated experiment.

It would be the beginning of a new military force for Asgard.

And Strax didn’t want forty-eight dolls.

He also didn’t want forty-eight uncontrollable problems.

There needed to be something between those two extremes.

"Frieren."

"Hm?"

"Keep teaching her to choose."

Frieren slowly nodded.

"That was already the intention."

"Then add something else."

"What?"

"Teach her when to disobey."

Albedo immediately looked at him.

Frieren remained silent.

Strax explained,

"If I order Neris to protect a door while the building is collapsing, I want her to be intelligent enough to abandon the door. If I order her to attack someone and then new information shows that person is innocent, I want her to be able to stop. Absolute obedience sounds good until someone receives the wrong order."

Frieren rested her pen on the table.

"And when she decides your order is wrong even when it isn’t?"

"She asks."

"And if there isn’t time?"

"She decides and accepts the consequences."

Albedo crossed her arms.

"That creates soldiers who are much harder to control."

"It creates soldiers."

Strax looked at Neris.

"Not tools."

Neris continued listening.

Strax noticed.

"Understand?"

She took several seconds before answering.

"I think so."

"Then that’s already something."

Frieren resumed writing.

Strax stepped out of the formation and approached the table.

For now, the Gauntlet of Darkness would remain in the background. Lithara would search for the locations he needed, and once she had a sufficiently large list, they would begin truly feeding it.

He would discover whether that weapon could become full, whether it would evolve, or whether it would simply continue accumulating the dead without limit.

But that laboratory represented another kind of growth.

One that might be even more important.

Strax looked at Neris again as she began the next test under Frieren’s guidance.

On one side, he was building an army from the dead.

On the other, Frieren was trying to create soldiers capable of truly living.

And considering the war that was approaching, Strax had a feeling he would need both.