"So where exactly is that Bow and Arrow?" Roger asked.
He looked at Mr. Torin, hoping for an answer, but Mr. Torin only shook his head.
"I don't know where the Bow and Arrow is. All I know is that it's an extremely peculiar artifact. If I'm not mistaken, Dior is keeping it on his person—assuming he's aware that it is the Source of the World. Carrying it on himself is the safest, most reliable option. In that case, if you want to seize the Bow and Arrow, you have to defeat him. But if you're truly capable of defeating him, then the Bow and Arrow itself becomes meaningless."
"So what we're really talking about… is stealing the Bow and Arrow?"
Roger said, scratching the side of his nose.
Even he felt that sounded impossible.
If the Bow and Arrow was on Dior's body, how was he supposed to steal it?
Forget getting close; if Dior so much as spotted him within a few meters, he'd probably beat him half to death.
And at that point, it wouldn't just be Roger dying—everyone would.
If they all ended up dead, nothing would matter anymore.
Dior would be the victor.
Roger hated losing, so he had to come up with an absolutely solid way to defeat Dior and become the final winner.
That plan was already on the tip of his tongue, but after thinking about it, he still felt he shouldn't say it out loud so easily.
Because it required sacrifices—
and the ones to be sacrificed were the people he cared about most, the Scorpion Corps.
Originally, Roger had planned to use this corps as his personal "tool regiment."
He would have them do anything and everything for him.
But now he felt that treating human lives like worthless grass was simply too wrong.
Even if it made him seem indecisive, at least this way he could still look himself in the eye.
In the past, whipping others into a frenzy and using that zeal to make them do anything for him hadn't bothered Roger at all.
But now, when he thought about it, he felt it was no longer the best option—not the best choice.
If there was any other way, he absolutely did not want to sacrifice his corps.
Especially when this corps of powerful fighters had been built up by his own hands.
And behind Dior lurked an existence even darker and deeper. To defeat that thing, Roger would inevitably have to make use of the corps' strength.
He'd already thought of it—using the corps to turn all of its members into Titans, and then pushing Titan power even further.
Just like Zeke's Titan army, they would unleash devastating attacks upon their enemies.
The problem was that those Titans could never be turned back. They would obey only Roger, becoming monsters that knew nothing but eating people.
And that would be no different from losing their freedom forever.
Roger wasn't sure whether this plan would actually work.
He didn't particularly want to try it, but right now, it seemed like the only viable option.
So he told Mr. Torin his idea.
Mr. Torin hadn't thought of any way to break the stalemate on his own, but after hearing Roger's plan, he felt it was worth attempting. He had no personal attachment to the men and women in the corps; if they could fully unleash the power of the Titans, that would mean fully drawing on the power of the Source of the World. In a decisive battle, that might at least give them an advantage and prevent a total defeat.
"Then let's do it this way," he said.
Mr. Torin spoke and began instructing Roger on how to prepare.
Roger, however, had no idea where his corps actually was at the moment. Finding them would probably take considerable effort, and if he wanted to stay hidden, he couldn't act on too large a scale.
On top of that, he didn't really have any acquaintances in the capital.
No—
There might be one person he could use.
And that person happened to be someone he had once trusted.
Right now, though, Roger didn't know how to find him.
But based on something he'd told that man before, he at least had a rough idea: if that man had been following his instructions, he would definitely have climbed to a high position somewhere by now.
What Roger had told him back then was—
"Keep climbing upward. When you've climbed to a height beyond compare, come find me again. As you are now, you're of no use to me."
To most people, that would sound like a dismissal. But if that man—Nelly—truly understood, then he should know exactly what Roger had meant.
It was pure, cold-blooded profit.
Nelly was a smart man; he knew what Roger was really thinking.
And if he really understood, then he would definitely do everything he could to excel in his original post, slowly working his way up.
In that case, all Roger had to do was find out what rank Nelly currently held in the Garrison Regiment.
If it turned out Nelly hadn't managed to reach a high position, then he wouldn't be of much help in searching for the Scorpion Corps anyway.
After parting ways with Mr. Torin, Roger set about looking for him.
He started by asking around among the street peddlers who dealt in information, looking for news from the Interior.
But what he didn't expect was that as soon as he found the first information peddler—
He managed to ask about Nelly without any effort at all, and didn't even pay a single coin.
"You mean Commander Nelly?" the peddler asked, after listening to Roger's description. "What do you want to know about him? His background? His family? Some juicy gossip, maybe? You've at least got to tell me what you want to know."
Hearing that, Roger nodded. "You've already told me what I needed to know."
And he headed straight toward the Garrison Regiment's station.
Behind him, the peddler stared blankly at Roger's back.
"Eh?"
He froze for a moment.
Could there really still be someone who didn't know that the Garrison Regiment's commander was the famous Nelly?
The Garrison Regiment had stations all over the Interior.
In theory, as the most basic of the three branches, the Garrison had no role in protecting the regime or in external exploration.
Their job was simply to stand watch on the Walls and defend against Titan attacks.
But now, the Titans were being handled entirely by Roger's Scorpion Corps, and there was no longer any need for clean-up. There were no enemies coming to attack.
The position of the Garrison Regiment—and the corps itself—had basically become unnecessary.
It turned into a convenient sinecure for people who just wanted a soldier's pay.
Joining the Garrison meant spending your entire life—your whole military career—on Wall duty, with no future and no prospects to speak of.
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