I'm slowly walking through the forest around the small village. After going to the mansion, I saw that it's quite simple, nothing special, and there aren't even any servants inside. It's just an empty place I'm supposed to organize as I see fit.

So I didn't want to waste time on that for now. I also didn't want to explore the village; it's small and has nothing special either, so I decided to go ahead and see the soldiers I'll be leading.

I'm also holding one of Esther's books and reading along the way to decide what to do. One of the initial tactics is to first explore the area. So, since I'm the only one who doesn't know the place while the soldiers already do, I'll do it a bit my own way.

"Could Eve and Syl'Vyr explore the village and the surrounding forest for me? And could Faye return to the village and start cleaning the place and organizing things with Clarissa?" I begin making the requests.

"Okay! I'm on my way, Lyn!" Faye starts running back to the village, obeying immediately.

"Isn't it risky for you to go without protection, Evelyn-sama?" Eve asks, but I shake my head.

"No. The area is large. It's better for the two of you to search the area together since if something happens, you can help each other. And since I'm going to see the soldiers, I'll be relatively safe."

"Let's get going then, Evelyn-chan! Be careful!" Syl'Vyr says, already starting to move off while Eve follows her after giving me one last wave. I continue onward to see my soldiers.

'I need... I need to seem strong... I just need to act... I'm good at acting... I just can't seem fragile, weak... I need to seem authoritative and serious...' I decide to copy Esther. She's the strongest image I have of someone authoritative.

I puff out my chest, keep my spine perfectly straight, and fix my expression into something neutral that shows nothing. Because I'm a puppet, controlling every micro-expression is relatively easy, similar to when I changed my voice to Ylya's.

"..." I open the book to the next chapter and read. It talks about fear and respect. Commanding through fear only works at the beginning and quickly falls apart because it destroys the soldiers' morale and will.

While commanding through respect works in the long term, it only functions as long as that respect isn't tarnished by others' lies. So Esther's recommendation in the book is to command through both.

I must be feared and respected. I must instill fear in my soldiers but also respect. A delicate balance that can't be too much of one or the other.

'Seems difficult... but it makes sense...' Esther commands like that. She's highly respected, but also greatly feared, and because of that she's easily one of the Demon King's best commanders.

It also explains here why it works like that, and all the reasons are quite logical. You can't command with just one of the two.

'Oh, so that's why modern armies have punishments done that way...' I've already read most of the books, but these parts I hadn't seen yet.

'Great... I need to seem like someone they should fear... scare them, right? It's similar to how I scared Clarissa before so she would become my maid...' I take a deep breath as I see the camp from here.

"I don't have great magical pressure, and I don't have great physical strength or any powerful magic... All I have are silly tricks I could do with threads to try to deceive them and... oohhh!!" I have a brilliant idea.

A deep, intimate "fear" that everyone has, even if they won't admit it! Something I know! And that something is the fear of the "Abnormal." An example is when I saw Esther's eyes staring at me. Her red eyes with black sclera were scary because they were something extremely abnormal to me, who was human before.

This is a fantasy world, so everyone is used to that sort of thing. But if there's something they're not used to, it's a body like mine.

'I can trick them with that...' I decide to try something I've never done before, but that might work. Besides, there's also the "Uncanny Valley" effect, which happens when the brain sees something that looks too perfect. That thing seems out of place in its environment!

...

...

...

"Hey, our commander is here! Wake up!" Someone shakes me roughly. I get up irritated until I realize what he said.

'Commander?...' I get up and follow him, seeing everyone gathering. I join them and see a girl. She's quite beautiful and has a respectable posture.

'She reminds me of Lady Esther...' I've seen Esther on the battlefield before, and this girl's posture is very similar, if not almost a copy.

"I'm satisfied that everyone has gathered here. As you should already know, starting today I will command you and defend this area from angels. We are somewhat distant from the kingdom, but we still must not let angels pass," she speaks authoritatively. Her neutral expression is... strange.

'So... abnormal?' Perfect, too perfect. A strange perfection that feels unnatural. Everyone seems somewhat uncomfortable with it.

"So, you're going to command us? You seem pretty weak and—" A soldier was about to complain, but he falls silent when our new commander turns her head almost 180 degrees. It's a very unnatural angle for a neck to make.

"I did not give permission to speak yet. Remain silent until I finish." When she says that and turns her attention back to the front, everyone falls silent.

"As I was saying, we must not let the angels pass. As our main mission, we will defend this place at all costs. And as an extra, we must capture any live angel so that... I can extract information from them." When she says that, I raise my arm.

"...Speak."

"Capturing an angel isn't easy. No one here knows flight magic, and the few with wings wouldn't have the strength or means to capture an angel," I say, thinking maybe she has some leadership capability.

"I deem your question adequate... but we don't need to capture them in fair fights, do you not think? We are demons. Why chase after them? We can easily set traps—"

"I have another question." I decide to test her then. She seems confident, but faking confidence is easy.

"Speak."

"What kind of trap could capture such winged beings then?" Let's see what she answers.

"The kind of trap that does this." She raises her arm, and then it falls, literally separating from her body. Everyone gasps in shock while I'm confused.

'I didn't see anything? How...' She doesn't express any pain even having lost an arm, something even veterans struggle with. An arm is still an arm, not a toy you can take apart without hurting.

"..." She bends down, picks up the arm, and moves it as if it were nothing. Blood drips from it to the ground as she lifts the arm slightly. When the blood falls, we see something.

"Threads..." I murmur, seeing wires. I don't know when she set them, but a line sharp enough to sever an arm yet thin enough for no one to see is indeed a dangerous trap.

"Exactly. We will capture angels with traps that don't focus on keeping them whole. We can injure their wings... incapacitate their limbs and... our main mission is to defend this place, not take them alive... Not just threads, but any other trap we can set will serve." Her serious voice makes everyone really pay attention.

She promptly fits the arm back into place, and the wound closes as if it were nothing. Everyone looks at each other, whispering. After all, she had the reputation of being a failure.

But since when can a failure do such things without anyone noticing anything? What intrigues me most is when she set the thread.

'Severing a fragile arm isn't hard... but setting a thread like that in an open field without anyone seeing?... Her magic must be quite refined.'

"Silence! No whispering in front of your commander. If you have something to say, say it to my face," she says loudly—not a shout, but with authority. Everyone stops whispering and looks at her.

"May I test the line?" With courage, I take a step forward and ask.

"Test?"

"Yes. Let me test the strength of that line. It seems impressive, but I want to see for myself." When I say that, she falls silent for a moment.

"Are you accusing me of using some trick?" she asks, her eyes staring directly into mine.

"Perhaps. So why not remove that thought from my mind? Let me test the line." When I insist, she falls silent. I stare back without any fear.

"Of course... come..." I approach her while seeing the blood dripping from the super-fine line. I move my hand, placing my finger over the line, but before I even move my finger, it's severed. Blood sprays, and everyone looks on in shock.

"!!!" I pull my hand back quickly, looking at my finger while letting out a contained sound of pain.

'I barely touched it!?' I hold my hand, feeling the pain. It's not an illusion or a trick. My finger really was ripped off just by getting close enough for contact.

"Now that you've done your test, time for your punishment. Tell me your name," she asks as I look around.

"I'm... Gallian," I say my name while watching the blood flow from my finger. I look at her face, seeing the drops of my blood on it.

"Gallian. You have a wife and two children. You came to the war because you need the money to pay debts." When she says that, I see she's looked at my records.

"Yes..."

"Since you wanted to test me, tell me: are you satisfied? Or do I need to put your head on the line?" she asks. I raise my head.

"No, Commander."

"Then get away from me, and go treat that wound. After that, gather supply reports for me. I want every last grain of rice accounted for. If anything is wrong, you will be punished with night watch duty and manual labor." She gives a punishment much milder than I expected.

"...Understood, Commander." I leave, believing in her for now. But something about her smells like a lie. Yet the facts don't lie. I lost my finger instantly.

'Strange... how did that happen? That line didn't even seem that strong...'

...

...

...

I look at the soldiers with my heart pounding madly. I feel so terrible for having ripped off a soldier's finger.

'D-Dammit, why did I have to see blood on my very first day? Is he okay? He doesn't hate me, right? I did the right thing, right?' I feel like I'm going to cry from nervousness and fear that he might want revenge.

I didn't even do anything great! I couldn't beat that soldier in a fight! All I did was give half of my magic to the thread and then made it vibrate when his finger got close! The thread basically functioned like a chainsaw that sawed through his finger via vibration.

But just for that, I used half of my magic, showing how weak I am since I could hardly use that if he attacked me.

'Haa... Haaa...' The arm trick was also fake. I just disassembled the arm before coming here. I don't need blood, so what circulates inside my body can easily leave it without me feeling pain.

So I didn't really lose the arm. I just detached it and let some blood out to look like a wound. But I didn't think someone would want to test the line's resistance and strength.

"Soldiers, I think after this demonstration, everyone understands. I will be a fair commander. I will punish you for mistakes and reward you if you do well."

"I do not accept insubordination, and I don't like these long, tedious things. So let's end this introduction here and now. I am Evelyn Ashcroft, your new commander, and that is enough."

"Now return to what you were doing, while I go manage our resources and think about how to best use them." I can't stay here any longer!!! I could barely maintain that pose for less than five minutes!!

If I stay here any longer, they'll find me out! They'll see the fraud that I am!! Fortunately, everyone disperses while I walk toward a random tent, wanting to hide to breathe properly and calm down.

I thought if they saw their commander lose an arm and put it back on without any pain or expression, that would be enough to scare them!! How was I supposed to know one of them would want to test my threads!? Luckily, making it vibrate wasn't too difficult, so I just had to make it vibrate when his finger got close.

And because the line is extremely thin, I doubt he noticed it was vibrating! He must have thought it was like a sword, where you have to apply pressure to cut. So he must have wanted to put his finger on it and press to test its sharpness and resistance! But a vibrating wire is a chainsaw that cuts even while static in place!

'Physics, you saved me!!! I love physics! It helped me so much!'

If you find any errors ( broken links, non-standard content, etc.. ), Please let us know < report chapter > so we can fix it as soon as possible.