It was too often, these days, that Major Tony Russo found himself staring out of his office window as he reflected on the choices he'd made, and those that were still in front of him. Not a single soul in the entire sprawling settlement was aware of the sword swinging from a thread right above their heads. It had been swinging for a while now, the thread slowly thinning with the increasing number and difficulty of Quests.

The aliens had designed a clever system that was elegant in its simplicity. It was not just the scaling difficulty of Quests; if it had been just him and his soldiers, they would easily be able to keep up. The real problem was the idle masses huddled around the town walls, adding to their population without contributing to Quests.

What was happening now, was this system working as it was supposed to. Having a certain share of productive population - artificers, healers, hunters, researchers - would be necessary to support the army, which would itself be growing ever stronger through the escalating series of Quests. But when that share was too high, the army became too short handed to keep up with the sheer amount of missions.

They should start turning people away, but that would be against his principles. New Haven needed to become a bastion of hope in humanity's darkest hour. Everything was on track for that to happen - R&D was finally cracking the code on Inscribing items, they had plenty of supplies and were expanding walls and housing at a good pace. But that would only matter if they managed to avoid a huge assault on their settlement.

If he had made a mistake, it would be his naive belief that a majority of people would have volunteered to join his ranks. They had already fought to get here, after all, had seen firsthand what was at stake. But still they refused to join out of their own volition.

The obvious next step then would be forced conscription. But how could he take such weak-willed individuals into his army? After that disgusting display of a lack of character, he'd have to test every single one of them. Otherwise, how could he possibly be sure that they lived up to his standards?

But then the trouble was, most people found his tests to be quite unpalatable.

"Sir, I have Sergeant Pitt for you," the assistant said from the doorway, bringing him out of his musing.

Tony nodded. "Bring him in."

He passed by Garfield who was standing at attention as he walked to stand behind his desk, noting that the man appeared just a tad stiffer than normal.

"Sergeant Pitt, ready to give my report, Sir!" The Sergeant gave a flawless salute and stood at attention with his jaw set. Ton thought looked resigned, yet determined.

"You failed a critical mission. Explain," Tony ordered. It was best not to beat around the bush in these situations.

"The zone was unexpectedly hard even for a Citrine, sir. Jungle environment with severely limited visibility. Fast and dangerous predators that struck from hiding and had strong defenses - some kind of shield, sir, like a turtle. Our very first engagement led to a casualty, but we pushed on, until we were down to below half our number with several wounded, at which point I decided to retreat."

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"How many casualties?"

"Four, sir. Only three of us returned."

Tony lifted an eyebrow.

"Only seven men for a Citrine Quest?"

Sergeant Pitt hesitated and Tony caught his eyes flicking over to Garfield for an instant. Tony's face went slack as cold anger began to bubble up from his stomach, but he controlled it, as he always did. Men should not act on base emotions; that was what animals did.

"Speak, Sergeant," he ordered calmly.

"It… We weren't meant to handle a Citrine Quest, sir. I'd been given a Viridian mission, but there was a change of orders at the last minute," the Sergeant said, his eyes flicking over to Garfield once again with that last statement. Tony took a quick glance over to the Captain himself, noticing a drop of sweat rolling down the Captain's temple.

It would appear that he was interrogating the wrong man.

Nevertheless, the failure needed to be addressed.

"Take a seat, Sergeant," Tony said, gesturing to the chair in front of his desk. The man looked anxious. He might already be familiar with the test, but it didn't matter.

When someone failed, as their leader, Tony had a decision to make - whether or not he could still trust them with more responsibilities in the future. It was vitally important to know that they hadn't failed out of complacency, or from a lack of willpower. Especially now, when humanity faced potential extinction, he would not abide by weak-willed staff.

So, he had devised a simple test of will. What better way to take a man's measure, than to test for something which would be impossible for even the smartest beast to do. It was man's ability to transcend our instinctive, animalistic urges that set us apart, after all.

"Place your right hand on the table."

The Sergeant was already gritting his teeth, taking shaky breaths through his nose.

"The purpose of the test is simple: you are to refrain from withdrawing your hand and from screaming for as long as you can."

With a thought, he activated [Infuse Heat], placing the targeting marker in the middle of the Sergeant's hand. As he placed a stopwatch on the desk and his PE began to tick down, he failed to keep his lips from curling up into a smile. This was the exciting part. How far would the man go?

The record of seventy-five seconds was held by none other than Captain Garfield. The man did possess singular loyalty and willpower. It was unfortunate that he was plagued by a fanatic tendency to think in black and white, far too quick and eager to designate people as part of the out-group and mark them as mortal enemies. It hadn't been a problem in the past, when he had to deal almost exclusively with army personnel, but now, with so many outsiders, it was turning out to be quite the challenge.

As the watch passed the twenty-five second mark, his eyes widened and his smile grew into a vicious grin. That was the mean. The Sergeant was doing well.

A low moan sounded from the man's throat as his nails dug into the wood, his entire body beginning to shake, but still he did not scream or pull away.

It was only at forty-eight seconds, when the stench of burnt flesh was already spreading through the office, that the man let out a bestial roar. A decent performance.

"Remarkable. Well done, Sergeant. You may report to the hospice for medical care."

After the Sergeant left in a hurry, Tony remained seated for a while, letting the tense silence stretch on as his PE Capacity recharged and Garfield stewed in the lingering stink of charred skin.

He'd be asking his old friend some questions next.

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