105: Chapter 105 You didn't lose to me, you lost to the shareholding system

"Devil Accountant"?

Levi's brow twitched imperceptibly.

That nickname was quite unique.

It sounded much more professional than things like "Useless Lord" or "Spendthrift."

He shifted his gaze from his granduncle Graham's face, which was twisted with anger, to the panting guard. His tone was calm and steady, as if the guard were announcing a routine business meeting rather than a request for an audience from an enemy leader.

"Let him wait. Evelyn, pour my granduncle a cup of water first. It looks like he's quite heated."

Graham Byron could hardly believe his ears.

He was like an angry bull, his heavy breathing clearly audible in the quiet study.

He had just witnessed a "victory" that completely crushed human nature, where his own soldiers killed each other for loot, yet his nephew was here nonchalantly caring about a prisoner's request for a meeting?

"Levi!" he growled, the broken sword he had slammed onto the desk vibrating. "Are you even listening to me! We are discussing the honor of the Byron Family! The discipline of the soldiers! Not those messy ledgers of yours!"

Levi raised a hand in a gesture for him to stay calm.

His eyes were as calm as a bottomless lake, without a single ripple.

This extreme composure made Graham feel a sense of powerlessness more than any heated retort could have.

"Granduncle, everything you're saying is correct," Levi's voice was gentle, even carrying a hint of reassurance. "But the 'discipline' and 'honor' you speak of almost turned you, the Byron Family's last great general, into a cold corpse to be stepped on by your enemies. Meanwhile, my 'messy ledgers' as a 'Devil Accountant' allowed you to survive and win this war. Now, this enemy, who was armed to the teeth with 'honor' and 'discipline,' doesn't want to see you, the victorious general, but specifically asked to see me, the accountant. Don't you think that in itself says something?"

Graham opened his mouth, but every word Levi spoke hit his prideful knight's creed like a heavy hammer, leaving him speechless for a moment.

Levi stood up, walked around the desk, and gently patted his granduncle's shoulder.

"Let's go and have a look together. Perhaps after hearing the confusion of our client... oh no, our prisoner, you will have a brand new understanding of the pricing of 'honor'."

His words carried a tone that brooked no argument.

Evelyn immediately understood, picking up a stack of fresh parchment and a prepared charcoal pencil to quietly follow behind Levi.

Graham's expression shifted between anger and uncertainty, but he eventually clenched his fists and followed silently. He wanted to see for himself exactly what his nephew was up to.

The dungeon of Blackstone Castle was dark and damp.

The air was filled with a nauseating smell of rust, mold, and the lingering scent of blood from years past.

On the walls, burning torches cast flickering shadows, stretching everyone's silhouette like ghosts.

Levi's footsteps echoed through the empty stone corridor, neither hurried nor slow.

He disliked the environment here; it was too dirty, too inefficient, and full of various uncontrollable safety hazards.

It seemed it was time to put the "Prison System Upgrade and Renovation Project" on the agenda; at the very least, it had to meet the basic ISO 9001 Quality Management System standards.

At the end of the corridor, in the deepest cell, the Vanguard Officer of the Northern Army was chained to the wall.

His armor had been stripped off, leaving him in a tattered shirt stained with dried blood and dirt.

His short flaxen hair was matted messily against his forehead, and several scrapes on his face made him look quite wretched.

However, he sat perfectly straight, his spine like a spear. Even as a prisoner, the aura of an elite Imperial officer had not dissipated in the slightest.

Hearing the footsteps, he slowly looked up.

His ice-blue eyes bypassed the jailer in front and locked directly onto Levi.

It was an extremely complex gaze, lacking the despondency or malice of a loser, and instead filled with burning curiosity, confusion, and a hint of... fear that he himself had not yet noticed.

The jailer respectfully opened the heavy cell door with a piercing screech.

Levi walked in, with Evelyn and Graham following close behind.

Out of habit, Graham stood in the shadows near the door, arms crossed like a silent stone statue, observing everything in the cell.

Levi did not approach, standing at a safe distance of three meters.

He sized up the man as if he were a project manager evaluating a bid with potential risks but high potential returns.

"I am the 'Devil Accountant' you are looking for," Levi spoke first, breaking the silence.

His voice sounded exceptionally clear in the dungeon. "My guard said you know my name?"

The man, Rayton, had heard Graham's personal guards shouting orders from "Lord Levi" in the chaos before he fell from his horse and lost consciousness.

He nodded, his voice hoarse but steady: "Levi Byron. Lord of Blackstone Territory."

He shifted slightly, causing the chains to let out a series of sharp clanks.

"I don't want to waste words with you." Rayton's gaze was as sharp as a blade, piercing into Levi's core. "Tell me, what kind of magic did you use? Was it some unprecedented mass charm spell, or a curse from the abyss? My soldiers are the wolves of the North, fighting for the Duke's honor and the Empire's loyalty. Every one of them has undergone the harshest training and understands the meaning of coordinated combat. Why would they lose to a bunch of mine slag who can't even stand in a straight line? Why would they swing their butcher knives at their own people for a few pieces of scrap metal?"

This was a question Graham wanted to ask as well.

In the shadows, the old knight's ears twitched slightly.

A faint smile appeared on Levi's face. There was neither the boastfulness of a victor nor the pity for a loser in that smile, only a pure, technical desire to explain.

He didn't answer directly, but turned to Evelyn and held out his hand.

Evelyn understood perfectly and immediately handed him a blank piece of parchment and a charcoal pencil.

Levi took the paper and pencil and, without looking for a table, pressed the parchment directly against the hard wall and began to draw rapidly.

His movements were fluid, the charcoal pencil making a scratching sound as it moved across the rough paper.

Soon, a simple structural diagram appeared on the paper.

At the very top was a box labeled "Duke of the North." From this box, an arrow pointed down to another box labeled "You (Fixed Salary + Honor)." From "You," countless thin lines branched out to small circles below, representing the "Soldiers."

The entire structure was like a standard pyramid with clear levels. Commands flowed from top to bottom, and benefits were also distributed layer by layer from the top, becoming less the further down they went.

"Look here," Levi showed the drawing to Rayton, like a teacher explaining a basic problem to a student. "This is your model. Your soldiers fight for you, for the Duke of the North, and for that ethereal Imperial honor. If they perform well, they get a fixed salary and perhaps a few verbal commendations. Their gains are capped, and that cap is the cost you and the Duke are willing to pay. Their drive comes from discipline and fear."

After saying this, he flipped the parchment over and drew a completely different structure.

In the center was a large circle labeled "Blackstone Territory Development Project." From this circle, countless arrows radiated out toward hundreds of small circles on the periphery, representing the "Prisoner Employees."

Next to each small circle was the label "Personal Points Account."

At the very top, Levi drew a small version of himself, connected to the central "Project" by a line, labeled "Project Initiator/Rule Maker."

"And this is my model." Levi tapped the new diagram. "My 'employees' don't fight for me; they fight for themselves. Every enemy they kill, every piece of equipment they seize, directly increases the balance in their 'Personal Account.' How many points they get for killing a light infantryman, or how many shares of a Development Permit they can exchange for a set of heavy armor—everything is clearly priced and settled in real-time. Their gains have no cap. As long as they are desperate enough, theoretically, they could strip the entire Northern Army of their gear and turn it into their first pot of gold. Their drive comes from the most primal and powerful thing of all—greed."

Levi gently placed the parchment showing the two models on the ground in front of Rayton.

"So, do you understand now? Your soldiers are working a job for you for a fixed wage; if they lose, they just lose their job at most. But my employees are starting their own businesses; if they lose, it means bankruptcy and total ruin. You didn't lose a battle, Vanguard Officer Rayton; you lost to a more advanced and efficient Incentive Model. You didn't lose to me, you lost to the Stock System."

Rayton's gaze was fixed intently on the parchment with its arrows and boxes, as if it weren't a simple drawing but a magic circle containing terrifying power.

Fixed salary... capped gains... fighting for oneself... uncapped gains...

These unfamiliar terms were like sharp chisels, striking again and again at the military beliefs he had built over twenty years.

He wanted to argue, to denounce it as heresy and a desecration of a soldier's honor.

But what surfaced in his mind was the beast-like light of greed in the eyes of those prisoners and the frantic scenes of them killing each other to snatch loot.

That kind of drive... was indeed much purer and more powerful than the look of numbness, fear, and responsibility in the eyes of his own soldiers.

At that moment, cracks began to appear in his worldview.

Levi watched him quietly, neither rushing nor disturbing him.

He was waiting, waiting for the seed to take root and sprout amidst the ruins of the man's collapsed beliefs.

An officer capable of leading such a suicidal charge was definitely no fool; he just needed a new perspective to understand this world that had become unrecognizable.

In the shadows, Graham's breathing also became somewhat heavy.

Although he didn't understand strange terms like "model" or "Stock System," he understood the core concept.

Levi had turned a life-and-death war into a business where everyone could get a cut.

This realization sent a chill through his very bones.

After a long time, Rayton finally looked up, his ice-blue eyes bloodshot. He asked hoarsely, "So... in your eyes, war... and soldiers... are just a bunch of numbers where you calculate input and output?"

"What else would they be?" Levi countered, his tone as matter-of-fact as saying the sun rises in the east. "War is the continuation of politics, and the essence of politics is the distribution of interests. Any war that cannot bring profit is a foolish act of mass suicide. As for soldiers, in my eyes, they aren't called soldiers; they are called 'Human Resources.' They are the most valuable, yet also the item with the highest depreciation rate, among all my assets."

Ignoring the expressions of utter shock on Rayton and Graham's faces, he laid out his proposal as if it had been part of his plan all along.

"Once your battle report is submitted, the Duke of the North, in order to maintain his own 'honor,' will surely have your head and shift all the blame onto you. That is the ending your 'old model' will give you—a cold KPI Evaluation result of 'unsatisfactory, terminated.'"

Levi took half a step forward, looking down at him with a devilish allure in his eyes.

"However, I have a job vacancy here."

"Training Supervisor for the Blackstone Territory Security Department. Your job responsibility will be to train those prisoners who won their freedom through this war into a security force that truly understands the meaning of 'discipline.' Let them know that disorderly greed only leads to internal friction, and only greed under rules can maximize profits."

He paused before throwing out the most lethal condition.

"As for compensation, there is no base salary. Your income will be purely based on performance-based commissions according to the 'survival rate' and 'combat results' of the soldiers you train in future missions. The longer they live and the more they seize, the higher your cut. There is no upper limit."

Rayton was stunned.

He had imagined countless endings—being humiliated, tortured, or executed—but he never dreamed the other party would offer him... a job invitation?

Training Supervisor? Security Department? Performance-based commission?

He understood each word, but combined together, they felt incredibly absurd.

After a brief moment of bewilderment, he suddenly burst into a fit of laughter. The laughter echoed through the dungeon, filled with self-deprecation and frenzy.

"Hahaha... Hahaha! You want me... to train them? Train those madmen who just slaughtered my subordinates and would smash an overseer's head for a few pieces of armor? Are you joking? They'll tear me to pieces and use my bones to make soup first!"

The smile on Levi's face didn't change. He calmly watched Rayton laugh until he was out of breath and the laughter gradually subsided.

He leaned down, picked up the parchment from the floor, gently blew the dust off it, and then folded it methodically.

"That is your first entry assessment, and it's also the reason for the 'high-risk allowance' in your compensation package."

His voice wasn't loud, but it was like a cold awl, precisely piercing Rayton's ears.

"If you can survive and teach them to obey, I don't mind giving you a chance to personally earn back the honor you lost from the Duke of the North. After all, our future 'business dealings' with the Duke should be quite frequent."

Levi tucked the folded parchment into his sleeve as if he had just finished signing a contract.

"Evelyn will draft your employment contract. Think about it, Supervisor Rayton. Either be a failure whose head is chopped off by your old boss, or be a startup partner who earns back everything you lost, and more, on a new platform."

Having said that, he stopped looking at the man caught in a massive struggle and turned to walk out of the cell.

Evelyn followed closely, her heart racing and her palms drenched in cold sweat.

Graham remained frozen in place as if petrified. He felt like he hadn't just sat in on an interrogation, but a recruitment interview that had overturned all his perceptions.

*Clang!*

The sound of chains rattling violently came from behind them.

Rayton suddenly snapped his head up, staring intently at Levi's back as he was about to disappear through the door. In his eyes, the last trace of despair belonging to an old-world soldier was rapidly fading, replaced by a new light mixed with fear, struggle, and a morbid zeal.

His life seemed to have been forcibly restarted.

And the "Devil Accountant" who had pressed the restart button for him didn't even look back at him once.