The third member of the melee vanguard was, perhaps, the second most important person in the cohort — after Sunny himself, of course.
He had agonized over that choice a lot, but eventually settled on a handsome and chivalrous man named Quentin.
Awakened Quentin preferred wearing full plate armor and wielding a sword and a shield. Unlike Belle and Dorn, he was not going to be serving as an offensive powerhouse. He was going to become the defensive bulwark of the melee vanguard… which was not to say that he wasn’t a deadly fighter in his own right, of course.
Quentin’s Aspect centered around restoration and corrosion. In battle, he was able to continuously repair his shield and his armor no matter what kind of damage they received. There were limits to this Ability, of course, but as long as his Memories weren’t outright destroyed, they would eventually regain their original shape.
He was also able to apply a corrosive property to his weapons. The corrosion was not very potent, but as long as enough of his attacks landed, the enemy was bound to eventually succumb under the weight of accumulating decay. This was a slow, but insidious and impactful Ability.
However, it was the first one that made Awakened Quentin so valuable.
That was because he was not limited to restoring only Memories. Quentin’s restoration was near universal and could repair various things… including human flesh.
He was a healer.
Of course, as far as these rare specialists went, he wasn’t the most powerful. His Ability was comparatively slow and limited. Quentin could not even hope to compete with someone like Nephis or Elyas in terms of speed and efficiency, and even among other healers whose dossiers were available to Sunny, his restorative power did not stand out.
But after thinking about it for a long time, Sunny still decided to go with Quentin. He did not want to employ a more potent healer if that meant that the healer would not be able to fend for themselves in a furious fight. Even though his final choice was somewhat mediocre in terms of healing wounds, the chivalrous man was a more well-rounded and versatile combatant.
Sunny was inspired to make that choice by his memories of Shim, the Fire Keeper healer who had eventually inherited the leadership over Cassie’s personal cohort. Despite his lack of a combat Aspect, Shim always fought on the frontline and supported his companions with his blade, his shield, and his steady presence.
Plus, Quentin was also a trained combat medic who possessed deep knowledge of modern medicine. He could even use his Ability to help repair the Rhino should Kim be unable to do it through mundane means.
Overall, Sunny was happy with his decision.
With four members of the cohort already chosen, only two spots remained.
Knowing that he would have to strengthen the ability of his soldiers to attack the enemies from distance and fight against flying abominations, Sunny spent a lot of time searching for a suitable ranged specialist. In the end, his attention was drawn to the dossier of a woman named Samara.
Awakened Samara was tall, beautiful, and aloof. She possessed a very interesting Aspect, though… Samara was capable of infusing material objects with soul essence, as well as converting soul energy into kinetic energy or heat.
What it meant was that she could turn soul essence into charged explosives. In a sense, Awakened Samara was the opposite of Master Jet — while Soul Reaper was able to deal soul damage with physical weapons, she could deal physical damage with soul essence.
She was also very inventive in the applications of her Aspect. Samara was probably the only Awakened Sunny knew of who actively utilized modern firearms. By infusing her ammunition with charged essence, she effectively made them analogous to enchanted weapons.
Nightmare Creatures of higher Ranks were more or less immune to mundane armaments, but susceptible to Memories and even unarmed attacks of Awakened. In Samara’s hands, however, any weapon turned into an Awakened weapon.
‘What a fascinating Ability…’
As an added bonus, she was also a capable spelltech engineer and technician. Since the APC the cohort would be using was chuck-full of advanced spelltech, that was going to come in handy.
The last member of the cohort Sunny had chosen was called Awakened Luster.
Staring at the man’s dossier, Sunny couldn’t help but narrow his eyes.
‘What a weird name…’
He shook his head, and then sighed.
‘Well, maybe his mother had a poetic soul, too.’
The young man was not a very distinguished fighter — that was comparatively, of course, since all the elite government soldiers were solid combatants. His talent and usefulness lay mainly in his unique Aspect.
Although Sunny had not wanted to recruit more utility specialists, he couldn’t help but change his stance after reading what young Luster was capable of. This guy was nothing short of a soul healer… or an essence battery, in more crude terms.
His first Ability allowed him to enhance the regeneration rate of soul essence, both his own and that of his allies. His second Ability allowed him to transfer his essence to others.
Sunny did not even have to think to know how vital such an Aspect was going to be in the coming months. Sure, by choosing Luster, he would be sacrificing the opportunity to recruit another battle powerhouse… but the trade-off was worth it, in his opinion.
In other circumstances, Sunny would have been reluctant to make this decision, but Luster’s Abilities synergized simply too well with that of Awakened Samara, not to mention serving as a force multiplier for every other member of the cohort.
Additionally, the young man was, apparently, an ace pilot. With him in control of the Rhino, Sunny did not have to worry that the APC would fall off a cliff or get stuck in mud.
Or be turned into an alloy pancake by a random Titan that happened to walk by.
So, the choice was clear.
Awakened Luster would be the last member of his cohort.
Sunny moved slightly and looked at the six dossiers one last time.
Kim, Belle, Dorn, Quentin, Samara, Luster.
These six people were going to be his soldiers.
He lingered for a moment, then let out a small sigh and marked the dossiers with his personal identification code.
Soon, the bureaucracy of the First Evacuation Army would approve the recruitment request.
And then, he would finally meet his new subordinates face to face.
