” Reporting to Garrison Commander sir, our Garrison patrols a land area of 3 small towns sir.

The biggest problems we face are from wild animals infesting the fields and from bandits sir.

The locals are very cooperative and patient with us sir!

They have much respect for the army in general” One of Max’s captains reported as Max looked at the map of the region he controlled and realised that there was a cave within his territory that was known to be a bandit hideout, yet nobody had done anything about it in the last 2 years.

Max pointed at the bandit cave and asked ” If we know the bandits hide here, why don’t we attack them? “

” Reporting to Garrison Commander sir, there were two failed attempts in doing so sir, the caves have multiple unconfirmed entry and exit points sir and various rigged narrow passages.

Whenever we send troops inside, the bandits collapse these passages and crush our troops under the rock.

To make things worse they escape from unknown exit routes and the raid always ends in failure ” The captain reported as Max nodded and dismissed him.

Max realised that there were only 2 major things worth accomplishing in the area that he was deployed in.

One was to flush the bandits, and the other was to attack the rebel stronghold about 250 kilometres away from the edge of his jurisdiction.

While Max was living on a peaceful planet that was mostly under complete Titus control, a small rebellion had risen not far from his lands where the rebel forces had captured one major city.

For the last 6 months, the rebels had decided not to pay taxes and were acting increasingly brazenly.

Although there was no official extermination order, all garrisons had been informed to stay vigilant of rebel activities.

Max knew very well that if he wanted to gain merit points and fast, he needed to get those two accomplishments under his belt as fast as he could.

The issue of the bandits seemed simple to Max, if one created a controlled fire around the caves that they lived in, the smoke and the Ash from the fire would make breathing in confined spaces very hard and force flush out all the bandits.

By setting up a counter perimeter, Max could easily kill them all out as they popped up.

On the other hand, the issue of the rebel stronghold was much more complicated.

The rebels did not just control lands, but also had civilians as hostages under their jurisdiction.

If Max tried to attack brazenly he would undoubtedly cause unnecessary civilian casualties that would reflect badly on his resume.

The job needed more nuance and more planning, and hence Max deployed his trusted servant Severus to infiltrate the rebel controlled city and gather information for Max, as he rounded the entire Garrison and took them all out for a ‘ Walk ‘ in the meantime.

***********

( A while later in an open ground )

Max’s entire Garrison of 160 troops and 16 captains waited for him in an open ground as they had all gathered here on his command.

Max stood in front of the group and made eye contact with each and every soldier under his command before saying ” SOLDIERS!

HOW DO YOU ALL LIKE MONEY? “

His question baffled his men, as while everyone understood what Max was asking nobody could react in time to scream back the answer.

When the troops lined up for Max’s speech, they expected him to say some boring motivational stuff but Max baffled them by asking them such an unique question.

” I guess nobody drank blood properly today.

I asked you all,

How do you all like money? ” Max asked again as he stared in his men’s eyes in anticipation.

” We love money sir ” one of the soldiers said as Max looked at him and said ” Step forward soldier “

The soldier stepped out of formation and saluted Max as Max tossed him a bag of 10,000 gold coins and said ” Since you love money soldier, here is 10 thousand gold coins for you “

The soldier was baffled, this was like 3-4 months of pay!

He was clearly overjoyed.

Max asked the group once again ” How do you all like money now, eh Lads? “

As the entire Garrison replied, ” We love money Garrison Commander “

Max felt satisfied and smiled under his mask, as he brought out 16 sheets of paper from his inventory and said

” 16 identical task sheets, a team building exercise for you all today.

I’ll hand them over to your captains now and they will explain the detailed rules to you.

The basic idea is to kill some threatening monsters in the area and construct a small clearing in the area I’ve pointed out in your sheets.

There are points for the amount of monsters you kill and points for the speed at which you construct the clearing.

You can see it as a team building exercise, with the winning Unit receiving a cash price of 150,000 gold coins!

So the only question now is, which unit will take the crown and take home the price of being the best unit in my Garrison? ” Max said as he handed out the sheets of paper to all the captain’s.

Excitement was visible in the air as Max’s way of handling things had lit a fire under everybody’s ass.

Not only did all the units want to come first for pride, with the added benefit of a sizable money reward the soldiers were ready to give it everything they had got to win this task.

What they did not realise is that under the guise of fun and games Max was making them clear the forest of dangerous pets and construct a fire demarcation line all around the bandit hideout.

In Max’s genius plan, the end of the games was going to signal the start of the bandit extermination.

In his very first day at work, Max was going to solve the problem that his predecessor had failed to address, all while playing fun and games.

———

/// A/N – Bonus chapter for hitting the PS target, good job everyone! ///