For the Glory of Rome: Chronicles of an Isekai'd Legion-Chapter 4B2 : Dad’s Home

B2 Chapter 4: Dad's Home

Tiberius once more sat in his rightful place behind his desk in the command tent. The finely carved wood, smooth as it was, had nearly disappeared beneath stacks and stacks of new reports, orders, and other unattended work. They practically drowned the desk in their sheer quantity, each representing something he had missed or a matter that required his input to move forward.

The scene made him realize that there would soon come a point where he'd need to upgrade his accommodations—that, or establish some other place for audiences more befitting of an emperor. It wasn't something that particularly mattered to him, but if there was one thing he'd learned from politics, it was that the image one projected mattered. And evidently, that image had not been sufficient to nip trouble in the bud here. Perhaps he would put that ostentatious mansion to use after all…

Tiberius's expression remained neutral as Gaius finished his summary report. Even sitting like this, the Legatus loomed imposingly over the young officer in front of him, and he made no move to temper the effect. He wanted to impress upon the man across from him the importance of his next few words.

"So. While I was away, you allowed the town to fall into disarray and rebellion."

A bead of sweat dripped down his young second-in-command's temple. However, the boy resisted the urge to break his composure enough to start wiping it away. Tiberius was pleased at that display, at least..

"Yes, sir," Gaius said, his voice steady.

Tiberius kept his gaze locked on the boy. "Explain."

Gaius cleared his throat. "The development didn't catch us entirely by surprise. The bard," he said, with what may have been a touch of respect in his tone, "Caught wind of the plot and brought it to us with evidence. So I rallied the troops to sweep through the town, make some arrests, and deal with the matter with all due haste.

"However, they had prepared better defenses than last time. They employed some sort of witchcraft or divine magic to seal the town with a golden dome. Our best efforts were unable to penetrate it—even battering rams failed to even scratch its surface. Reports from witnesses inside the city said it was erected by priests of their god of architecture."

Tiberius slowly leaned back in his chair. He had to admit that being unprepared for such an event was fairly reasonable. Who would have expected a literal god to come down and intervene in matters like this? Though with how many strange happenings had plagued them since coming to this world, perhaps it was their folly for not expecting more magic bullshit. Still, this was a good teaching moment.

"And how was the issue resolved?"

"Well…" Gaius continued, "The forces that had been inside the town at the time the barrier went up were able to disarm it by defeating the priests. Servius played a key role, and I'm told that the bard also made significant contributions. I prepared a cohort rotating every four hours to immediately begin an assault the second the defenses fell, but the citizens were quite cooperative. They immediately expelled the rebels in an attempt to gain leniency.

"So far, I have not issued additional punishments to anyone besides those who were directly involved. Those you saw on your way in." Gaius gestured vaguely toward the newly-cut clearing outside of camp. "Though I have kept the city under martial law for the time being until you returned."

Tiberius showed neither displeasure nor conciliation, remaining silent at the summary of events. Realistically, Gaius had done fairly well. Tiberius himself would have sent extra patrols into the town immediately instead of waiting for his forces to mass, though. Such an effort probably gave the enemy advance warning and caused them to react with panic.

Still, he could see that Gaius had done well enough. Even if he'd allowed this issue to arise, he'd taken quick and decisive action to deal with it. For that, Tiberius decided he could be lenient.

"...What will you do differently next time?" he inquired after a long pause.

He saw Gaius relax, sagging almost imperceptibly with visible relief. "Sir!"

The young officer ran through a rather thorough plan to handle a similar situation that Tiberius was quite pleased with. He especially emphasized the need for them to gather even more information on this world—they had been doing well so far, but evidently there still remained gaping holes in their understanding that needed to be remedied—in particular when it came to magic and its limitations.

He did agree that the Legion needed to have a better understanding of the local gods and magical abilities. They had been working on it, but it had gotten sidelined among other priorities, not to mention that they hadn't known where to even start. But this showed that divinity in this world was an even more direct force than what Tiberius was used to.

"...We can leverage Bard Marcus's knowledge to learn the basics," Gaius continued to speak. "I've already been interviewing him about such things to get a head start."

Tiberius nodded. Gaius seemed more well-disposed toward the bard than he himself was. Still, the man had proven himself reliable yet again. Perhaps he did need to cut Marcus some slack—if only he weren't so grating…

Once Gaius had finished, Tiberius rapped on the table with a knuckle. "Good. I think you have learned enough from this that it will not be a black mark on your record. However, it was not a rousing success either." After receiving a chastened nod from the young tribunus laticlavius, he continued. "The last thing I want you to do before moving on is award merits and demerits to the men involved. You will do this in a ceremony different from the merits I hand out for the siege of Stonewake—whixh has been renamed Stonester. Understood?"

Gaius nodded. "Yes, sir. Thank you, sir."

"Good." Tiberius relaxed slightly as they moved on to other maters. "Now, how is the Legion handling the level-up?"

That report proved far more encouraging. Evidently, Gaius had managed to get almost 80% of the Legionnaires who'd stayed behind through the class stone to assign stat points, and the estimated improvements in combat efficiency were astounding.

It turned out there were differences in the number of stat points gained by each man. Officers like Gaius, most centurions, and rank-and-file Legionnaires had gained ten, eight, and six points, respectively. Officers and more senior centurions saw one point pre-allocated to each stat, while other centurions and standard Legionnaires only had points allocated to the physical stats by default. The rest were free points.

"According to my sources and research," Gaius explained, "This is practically unheard of. Even epic classes only give five stat points per level. For even our most common soldiers to gain six? It beggars belief. If we continue to grow like this…"

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Tiberius mulled that over. "Is ten the highest number of points that any man has received?"

"To my knowledge, yes."

"I see."

Gaius nodded excitedly. "We are obviously behind most in levels, of course. But tha hardly matters. At this rate, by the time the Legion reaches level ten, I expect that a single Legionnaire will be able to face an adventurer up to maybe level thirty on stats alone. And that's not including our vastly superior skills, tactics, and teamwork."

Tiberius chuckled at the enthusiasm leaking into his second's voice. "Let's not get overconfident. We haven't made contact with enough high-level adventurers from this world to know that is the case. And who can say whether they will be more difficult to combat as an army?"

Gaius reined in his excitement and nodded. "True, sir. According to the bard, Novara's army is supposedly composed of hundreds, if not thousands of individuals above level thirty. But many are mercenaries or adventurers, used to fighting alone or in small groups. On a battlefield… Surely we'd have the advantage off coordination."

"True," Tiberius allowed, letting the matter drop. "You mentioned our improved skills. How is that progressing?"

"Excellently, sir," Gaius said. "As our men accept any new skill that is offered, we have managed to amass an exhaustive list of options. Many provide no obvious function worth pursuing, but some…some show quite a bit of promise. Especially as they evolve—ah, have you been briefed on that phenomenon?"

Tiberius waved him off. "No need. I have experienced it myself."

"Ah!" The young officer's face lit up and he grabbed at his hip for a clay tablet. "Would you mind providing details, sir? I'll add it to the list I've been compiling."

"Later, Gaius," Tiberius admonished him. "Finish your report."

"Ah!" The officer ducked his head sheepishly. "Right, sir. Anyway…I have a few proposals I'd like to suggest. Given the effectiveness of high-rarity skills, we should ensure that every man prioritizes taking those over lesser rarity skills where possible. I'd also like to provide incentives for those who add new skills to our roster—particularly rare ones and above."

Tiberius considered the proposals. They aligned fairly well with what he'd already been considering on the way over. But he did have some input to give.

"Agreed. But I believe we should institute an additional policy to support those," Tiberius began. "Each man must take one skill with the express purpose of evolving it. It should preferably be a field that he already has ample experience with, and he will be expected to dedicate time each day to its advancement. The centurions should ensure we have little to no overlap or duplicated efforts among the men."

Gaius nodded vigorously. "That's a great idea, sir. If it works, then we'll expand our capabilities even faster!"

"Indeed. We should make it a priority to make any standard utility or combat skill a minimum of rare—and hopefully epic—across the Legion."

Tiberius smiled inwardly. He expected the very idea would have their bardic advisor questioning everything he'd told them about what passed as "normal" in this world. Maybe their capabilities would serve to help with recruitment as well, by conveying the Legion's power in a way that people of this world could understand. But that was another matter.

Tiberius returned his attention to the meeting at hand. "Speaking of skills, I want your input. I believe the two Legion-wide skills I've assigned, [Marching] and [Shieldwall], should be upgraded," he said. "Do you have recommendations?"

"Ah! I do, in fact." Gaius leaned forward and shuffled through the desk's contents to pull out one particular scroll. "This was something else I wanted to ask you about. For [Marching], there's the uncommon skills [Double Time] and [Overnight March]. Both of those are realistic options that improve on the basic skill, but specialize indifferent areas. There is also a rare skill that isn't exactly a strict improvement over [Marching], but I think it actually fits our needs better.

Tiberius gestured for him to continue, and Gaius referenced his scroll. "It's called [Warpath]. At a glance, it is many times more effective than the standard [Marching] skill, but can only be used when marching to battle. "

Tiberius hummed thoughtfully. "Run some experiments to determine specifics. Then we will decide."

"I already have, sir," Gaius said and plopped a report in front of Tiberius.

After skimming it, Tiberius found that it was just as the man had said. Interestingly, the size of the fight didn't seem to matter when determining if the destination of the skill was a battle—even if it was one Legionnaire fighting one of those forest rats, an entire century could still activate the skill and reap its benefits, so long as certain conditions were met. And that certainly seemed like something they could exploit.

He set the report down approvingly. "All right. I will update that skill. And [Shield Wall]?"

"That one is a simpler choice. The only real alternative is [Coordinated Bulwark], an uncommon skill."

"Good. I'll update the Legion's skills next time I have a chance." He folded his hands in front of him. "Now… There is one final matter we need to discuss—recruitment."

"What about it, Legatus?" Gaius asked. "Would you like me to summon the others for this part?"

Tiberius waved him off. "There is no need as of yet. I merely wish to inform you of my plans. I intend to officially create an auxiliary unit for the new recruits. They have been undergoing training, but I believe it's time for us to put them to use. We also need to formalize a method for them to become Legionnaires—an expedited one."

While the losses at Stonester hadn't been as heavy as he'd feared, they had suffered losses. And that was a problem. Even if they lost only a hundred men with each battle, their forces would dwindle significantly in no time at all. And since they had no way of sourcing new recruits from Rome anytime soon, that meant they needed to establish a modified method of integrating new soldiers into their number—and fast.

Gaius slid over a piece of parchment, a slight smile tugging at his mouth. "If I might be so bold… I worked with Secundus to draft this up. There are some matters that will require your input, but…"

Picking up the parchment, Tiberius inspected it carefully. His second and command and the officer he'd put in charge of conscripts had evidently anticipated this issue and written up a detailed plan including training regimens, timelines, criteria for advancement, and suggestions for how to smooth the conscripts' transitions to becoming full auxiliaries. They'd even included some details about possible skill specializations and how to utilize preexisting classes in their units.

Tiberius had to admit, he was a little impressed. Aside from the rebellion issue, Gaius was certainly earning his keep around here. Perhaps the boy would make something of himself after all.

"...What do you think?" Gaius asked, evidently failing to notice anything amiss.

The Legatus pushed thoughts of that strange sensation away for the moment. "...This is good work. As for becoming a Legionnaire…" He sighed. "We will likely need to lower the requirements, unfortunately. Two years of service and a recommendation from a Legionnaire or one of their centurions. That, or they perform an act of incredible valor. This will be the case until we—and Rome—are more established here.

"It'll be as you say, sir," Gaius said with a salute.

Gaius added the relevant information. After a thorough review, Tiberius looked down and scrawled his signature on the order. As soon as the pen lifted from the page, something shifted in his perception. The sense of unity he felt from the Legion seemed to somehow… expand. Now, beyond the solid core of his brethren, he felt something more—a fuzzy peripheral layer, connected yet not fully part of the whole.

Tiberius frowned. That was certainly unexpected. He hadn't thought that a simple change in their operations would lead to a sensation like that. Had he accidentally altered things more than they'd realized? Had the System recognized his intent?

"Thank you, sir!" Gaius said. "We'll work to implement this right away."

"Very well. Carry on."

With that dismissal, Gaius left the tent. Tiberius watched the young officer leave, then felt his gaze travel to the mountains of administrative work cluttering up his desk. He missed being on the warpath already.