The Pledge

"Master, you will hurt your eyes. The sun is strong today."

The ten men walked over to him and sat in front of him in two rows of five.

'Good, very disciplined.'

Sylvie handed him ten wooden badges.

"What is this?"

The badges were identities of the men as a paladin. Only the nobility who commanded them held onto these.

"The badges were all returned, early today morning with a command."

Damien turned solemn; he had guessed right.

"The command was..."Sylvie took a deep breath before he continued, "The ones who are loyal to dogs are homeless bitches."

The air froze. Damien sighed.

"And?"

"Master, we would like to pledge the angelic faith to you."

"Why?"

"We have nowhere to go."

Damien harrumphed, "So you will leave for better prospects when you get them?"

"We will put the years in the pledge."

Damien thought for a second before nodding. Even if he did not believe in the sanctity of these rituals and wouldn't adhere to them but the same was not true for these young paladins. They were all trained in their respective arts and had achieved the Fledgling Status, that is, Level 1.

Damien took out a dagger and pricked his thumb, carefully dripping one drop on each of the badges. They started glowing.

'The rune has been activated.'

He handed the badges back.

"Serve me for a decade with absolute loyalty."

"I, Ben, a human agrees."

"I, Morty, a human agrees."

"I, Alex, a human agrees."

"I, Sugimaru, a human agrees."

"I, Reiya, a human agrees."

"I, Thormann, a dwarf agrees."

"I, Grub, a dwarf agrees."

"I, Sylvester Almond, an elf agrees."

"I, Kovorad Almond, an elf agrees."

"I, Koerchillae Von Tec Korfunne, a draconian beastman agree."

The badge hummed with their words. The insignia on the badges changed from a coiling snake to a claw before sinking into their palms.

The winged nobles had animals as their insignias. No one used an object as one. Damien's intent was clear to the ten paladins.

He was not a noble.

Suddenly a claw mark appeared on his palm. He heard a message.

-Ten Level 1 Paladin with mixed abilities have been added to your command with 70 percent loyalty

He frowned while looking at his new subordinates with a frown.

"Sir, this is the command symbol. It is supposed to have some abilities."

"Yea, some runic abilities."

"Reiya should be able to explain."

He looked at the well-built girl.

"Sir, it was built copying and integrating the Artificial Intelligence from the middle realm onto magic circuits and runes. Its interface is unique to every commander. It helps in strategizing and commanding. The rest of the information is not made public."

'I have to look into it in my free time.'