A staff officer caught in a doomed empire faces an impossible choice. With eight years of mandatory service looming, dishonorable discharge seems like the only escape—until a fateful decision changes everything. Each attempt to engineer his own downfall backfires spectacularly. His instinctive strategies prevent catastrophes before they unfold, earning him praise instead of scorn. The harder he fights to fail, the more the military celebrates his genius. Trapped between a crumbling empire and his own rising reputation, he discovers that the path to freedom demands something far more dangerous than dishonor—it demands becoming the very commander everyone believes him to be.