The Logic of Dice and Blood
"You're right."
"Dismissal? That's absurd, Lieutenant Colonel."
I put on the most wounded, aggrieved expression I could manage.
Charming Speechcraft.
Charming Speechcraft (Lv. 3)
"I merely doubted my own ears. An inspector who values the honor of an Imperial officer above his own life would hardly make such a dishonorable proposal—asking a junior officer to slander his superior. Naturally, I assumed I must have misheard you."
"Wh-what did you…?"
Zwinger's words caught in his throat. I didn't let the opening slip away.
"Surely you didn't actually mean it? Betraying a commander who shared life and death with you in the field, all for the sake of a cheap, comfortable lie. A noble inspector of the Empire, resorting to such third-rate coercion? Impossible, surely."
"Y-you insolent little…!"
"So I'll ask you again. Did I mishear you or not, Lieutenant Colonel?"
I fired the confirmation shot.
This was a fork in the road with no safe exit. If he admitted it, he would be confessing to being a dishonorable officer who urged subordinates to commit treason. If he denied it, he would have to retract the very proposal he'd just made to my face.
Zwinger's face mottled between red and white.
"…Hmph."
In the end, Zwinger exhaled harshly through his nose and took a step back.
> Skill 'Charming Speechcraft' is influencing 'Albrecht von Zwinger'.
> 'Albrecht von Zwinger' has been swayed by your logic and concedes that he overstepped.
"You're rather skilled at word games. Fine—consider the persuasion withdrawn. It never happened."
He smoothed down his uniform, straining to recover his cold composure.
"But the substance remains unchanged. Your glorious tales of valor simply do not hold up statistically."
He snatched the report back up.
"The killing of an orc shaman. The destruction of an enemy powder magazine. The annihilation of the Chieftain's main force… All within a single regiment, and in such a short span. What probability would you assign to that, hm? One in ten thousand? No—lower still."
Zwinger's lips curled into that greasy smile again. Behind it gleamed the certainty that he had seized back control of the room.
"There are no miracles in this world. Only probability and statistics. If you rolled dice and got a six ten times in a row, that isn't luck—it means the dice were rigged. Am I wrong?"
Logical.
It was exactly the kind of airtight-but-infuriating reasoning only a rear-echelon administrative officer could produce. The expressions of the regimental commander and the other officers darkened once more. Against that kind of numerical sleight of hand, proving the uncertainty of real battle was no easy task.
But then.
Probability, is it.
I barely managed to suppress a snort of laughter.
Probability? Statistics? Every skill I possessed treated probability as a quaint little suggestion to be casually ignored. Not that I could exactly tell this gentleman that I could see status windows, of course.
Very well then. I would shatter the very logic he worshipped.
I drew in a deep breath and activated the skill again.
Charming Speechcraft.
This time, with a wider target.
Charming Speechcraft (Lv. 3)
Reading the psychology of the entire audience, lending persuasive force to your voice.
"You're right, Lieutenant Colonel."
At my ready concession, Zwinger's eyes went wide.
"Oh ho? So you finally admit it?"
"Yes. Statistically, it's impossible. I think so as well."
"There, there. Well thought out, Lieutenant. If you confess the truth so readily even now, I shall overlook this little display of insolence."
I paid the smugly smiling Zwinger not a glance as I slowly began to walk. His smile soon curdled into a puzzled frown.
"By the book, we should have been annihilated in the Ashen Forest. Caught in the orcs' traps, screaming as our bodies rotted under the shamans' foul curses, hacked in two by their enormous axes."
Only when I reached the center of the briefing room did I come to a stop. Every officer of the 7th Regiment had their eyes fixed on me.
"That is the 'normal' probability you speak of, Lieutenant Colonel."
I paused for a beat, then stared Zwinger dead in the eye. Now I was the one looking down on him.
"But Lieutenant Colonel—the battlefield is not a textbook."
The skill lent force to my voice. A voice that trembled, ever so slightly, began to rake at the emotions of everyone listening.
"Statistics? Probability? Those things only work in a warm office with a fireplace. Here, in this pit of mud, amid wave after wave of assaults and the screams of our comrades… what we trusted in was never numbers."
I clenched my fist tight.
"What we trusted in was the belief that the comrade at my side would guard my back. And our faith that our commander, Regimental Commander Dietrich, would lead us to victory."
"Wh-what sentimental nonsense is—!"
Zwinger tried to cut me off, but I raised my voice and crushed him under it.
"We do not call it a miracle merely because statistics cannot explain it! We call it a miracle because we staked our lives and turned the impossible into the possible!"
I took a step toward Zwinger.
"That victory you sneer at as a rigged dice roll was earned with the blood and sweat of all 2,500 officers and men of our 7th Regiment. It is a variable forged from the lives of the twenty-one comrades who gave everything they had!"
BANG!
I slammed my boot down on purpose, spitting the words out in a blaze of passion.
"And now you would tap a calculator a few times and declare it impossible? You would deny our soldiers' blood with a handful of paperwork? Is that the justice the Imperial Inspectorate preaches?!"
> Skill 'Charming Speechcraft' has seized the entire briefing room.
> The emotions of the audience are surging.
"…Ugh!"
Zwinger staggered back, overwhelmed.
"He's right! We fought with our lives on the line!"
Lieutenant Walter, silent until now, thrust his fist into the air and roared.
"Lieutenant Jaeger is right! You saw how our platoon fought—how my men bled!"
Lieutenant Franz shouted, his voice cracking with emotion.
"What does a desk-jockey armchair theorist know, anyway!"
"Get out of here already!"
Shouts erupted from every corner of the room. The mood flipped in an instant.
Even Major Helga and Erika were glaring at Zwinger with ice in their eyes, and Serafina watched me with sapphire eyes far more deeply stirred than usual.
I'd accidentally landed a critical hit on her affection meter. Not that I was complaining.
And now, for the true protagonist of this stage.
"…Enough."
A heavy voice split the briefing room in two.
Regimental Commander Karl von Dietrich.
The old fox who had been hunched in his chair finally straightened his spine and rose to his feet. My speech, and the thunder of his subordinates' support, had poured the steel back into his backbone.
"Lieutenant Colonel Zwinger."
The regimental commander approached Zwinger slowly, but with unmistakable gravity.
"There isn't a single word my officer said that isn't true. You look at numbers; I look at people. And the 7th Regiment I see is not a pack of cowards filing falsified reports."
"C-Commander…! Can you not grasp the situation? The findings of this audit will determine your promotion…!"
"Promotion?"
The commander snorted.
"Becoming a general would be pleasant enough. But buying stars at the price of my men's honor… that would be a disgrace to House Dietrich."
Ooooh, what a magnificent performance.
Status Analysis.
His true thoughts were laid utterly bare, yet on the surface he was every inch the model soldier.
"If you wish to continue your investigation, then continue. Ransack the ledgers. Interrogate the soldiers. As much as you like."
The commander advanced right up to Zwinger's nose and growled.
"But if not so much as a speck of dust turns up… then I will drag you before a military tribunal on charges of false accusation and contempt of command. Even if I have to stake my entire political life on it."
"……!"
The color drained from Zwinger's face.
He clearly hadn't anticipated the commander coming out this hard. And thanks to my little tirade, every officer in the briefing room was now glaring at him with murder in their eyes.
Push the investigation through in this atmosphere? If it truly turned up nothing, Zwinger might be annihilated by the commander's counterattack.
Of course, he remained convinced the 7th Regiment's victory was fabricated, so he wasn't about to retreat entirely over this.
Status Analysis.
"We shall see, Commander."
Zwinger bit his lip and roughly pushed up his gold-rimmed glasses.
"Demagoguery may carry you through the moment, but the numbers in the paperwork tell no lies. A full forensic audit begins tomorrow morning. If even a single stain surfaces… you had best be prepared to take off that uniform."
BANG!
He flung his threats behind him and kicked the briefing room door open on his way out. A silence swept through the room like the wake of a passing storm—but it did not last long.
"WOOOOAH!"
The officers erupted in cheers all at once.
"Did you see that? The look on that bastard Zwinger's face when it crumpled?"
"He demolished an inspector with nothing but talk!"
"God, that felt good! Lieutenant Max, you're the real deal!"
Amid the flood of praise, I affected an embarrassed smile and dipped my head.
"You flatter me. I merely stated the facts."
"No, no! If it weren't for you, we'd all have been dragged along in Zwinger's tempo."
Lieutenant Walter clapped me on the shoulder, again and again.
Just then, the regimental commander came walking toward me.