Norden II 4

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NORTHERN ARMY GROUP BARRACK 7 (WHERE THE BATTALION HAD BEEN GARRISONED)

“Major?”

The one who meets Major von Degurechaff when she returns to the barrack to notify the troops of their reassignment is Officer of the Week, her vice commander, First Lieutenant Weiss. How considerate of him to have an orderly ready an extra coat and coffee—that efficiency is skill and experience. He really is excellent material.

The best part is that he doesn’t smoke. Tanya’s nose is sensitive to tobacco. And the staff meeting is always smoky. No, I wouldn’t deny anyone cigarettes on the battlefield, but I’d like separate smoking and nonsmoking areas. Or just tell them, Don’t blow smoke in my face. It makes my eyes sting and my nose itch. I resent this assault on my tear ducts.

Limitations on individual rights are obviously oppression and, as such, difficult for people to stomach. Still, it should be fine if I murder the senior officers who refuse to stop obnoxiously huffing their smoke in my face, right?

They don’t even do any work, but the cigars they light up are luxury items. Tanya can’t help but be disgusted. The gall they must have to voice nonexistent concern for the troops. Even when I have to spout some wholesome crap, I keep up appearances better than that.

“That was truly pointless. What an utter waste of time and budget.”

We could have a phony war,9 but instead these nutcases want to fight for real. You don’t even need a consultant to point out how little can be done with scant, poor managerial resources.

Lost in thought, Tanya sets her staff officer’s bag on the desk and begins scribbling notes about the state of the war on a map. Her cover of staying in the north can’t keep her from the front lines anymore now that a mobile defense unit was no longer necessary to protect pulling supply lines back.

Not only that, but the Northern Army Group is planning an offensive that reeks of a death march. Meanwhile, the General Staff, for its part, is planning a top secret landing operation around the rear.

“These guys are too into war.”

From the bottom of my heart, I advise you to think twice about surrounding yourself with people who are overly fond of war. I can’t keep up with their notion of fighting with barely any matériel.

I can’t believe they don’t want to leisurely build fortifications while we wait for supplies and leave the fierce fighting to the others.

I’d like to suspect them of being too steeped in the romance of achievement and militarism, but now that the General Staff is planning a major amphibious operation in the rear, they, too, seem way more into the idea of fighting than I thought.

“I can’t understand this world.”

I didn’t want to confess my incompetence, but I decided there was nothing else to do.

That said, if it’s a winnable battle, then it should be fine to advocate loudly for the advance. And if we’re air-dropping in, we can just fly right back out if things get rough. Considering how uniquely mobile aerial mages are, she estimates the risk to be low and grows fairly enthusiastic about the strike on the rear.

Even MacArthur managed it. The Empire’s General Staff is way more serious about war than that guy was, so I’m sure they’ll come up with an ultraprecise plan for us. It will be my first time to fight according to an operation plan by General von Rudersdorf, but when I tried talking to him, he seemed unexpectedly easy to work with. This might just pan out, thinks Tanya, genuinely looking forward to it.

“Get me an extra map.”

“Here you go, ma’am.”

But that doesn’t mean there aren’t any problems.

She takes the map of the entire northern theater from her subordinate and compares it to her annotated situation map.

She buries her head in her hands and racks her brain, but fjords really have an optimal shape for coastal defense. You could bombard the narrow bodies of water all you liked, so if you placed as many batteries as you had along them, they would be impenetrable.

The only thing that saves Tanya is the lesson from history that sometimes a fortress built against the water is terribly vulnerable to an invasion by land, like Singapore. Having had that thought, Tanya tries moving the pawns according to the scenario she envisions.

The batteries guarding the fjords are certainly a threat to a fleet of warships. Yes, a threat—but to warships… If they all face the sea, they could probably be blown up fairly easily from behind with explosives or what have you. And coastal guns are usually positioned facing the mouth of a bay. They aren’t built with the expectation of bombardment from behind.

Can we win? To Tanya, even if their opponents were spirits who strayed from Moominvalley, the deciding factor is that their defensive shells could be shattered.

“An attack from behind… I suppose our chances of success are decent enough.”

Farewell from a sinking ship. It’s the most obvious, commonsense thing to do. But in extremely rare cases, the ship doesn’t sink, and sometimes you can even make a fortune. If that possibility exists, we should happily count it as a winning battle. With that thought, Tanya rolls up the map with the war forecast and mixes it in with the reports for the General Staff.

After all, the General Staff is planning an operation on such a large scale. You can only call them stupid if they get so far without a contingency plan in case of failure. It’s worrisome that the Operations Division of the General Staff—section chief–rank officers—are planning the operation on the assumption that the northern forces will ignore the General Staff’s “advice” and march north. Is the cooperation between the regional armies and the General Staff even shakier than I thought? This anxious thought crosses my mind.

Then again, if I think of the ill will as a legacy of their predecessors, who committed the Great Army to Norden and then pulled it out the next instant, it makes sense. Ludwig really mucked it up. Technically, of course, the General Staff is nothing more than one of His Imperial Majesty the Emperor’s advisory committees—even if the supreme authority is simply rubber-stamping things for them. Each regional army group may be nominally loyal to that committee, but if everyone isn’t cooperating well, that’s a problem.

But no, that’s exactly the point. After that realization, Tanya practically sighs. I should probably be thinking that if the northern forces’ little adventure fails, the General Staff will take advantage of the fact that the world is watching the foray by attempting a major operation of their own in Norden. And if that works, the General Staff will have taken the initiative to lead the war.

Currently, the Entente Alliance can repel the Empire’s advance with guerrilla-style interception, but they don’t have the available force to counterattack. Until some obstacle to defense in Norden appears, it’s practically a political issue to consider something that isn’t in accordance with the Imperial Army elites’ wishes.

In other words, it’s a Vitamin P problem.

“I don’t want to get mixed up in this…”

No, wait. Let’s chill for a minute. At least Tanya has a lot of experience. She won’t make the same mistake over and over.

My common sense is not always common. Might there not be some sort of religion that teaches people to love war and recommends suicide?

“Lieutenant Weiss, do you want to kill yourself?”

“Huh? Er, why do you ask that all of a sudden?” He replies with a question to confirm her intention. Well, judging from his reaction, I’m worrying over nothing.

I guess that makes sense. After that thought, Tanya reaches for the coffee Second Lieutenant Serebryakov brought. It’s cold up north. There’s no way I could stand it without drinking hot coffee. The only thing is, Northern Command has a tendency to treat me like a kid and load up every cup with milk and sugar… I hate that.

“It’s hard to believe, but apparently there will be an all-out offensive. What a waste of soldiers.”

Until the appointed hour arrives for Tanya to open her sealed orders, she tells her trusty vice commander, Lieutenant Weiss, only as much as she can. She can’t let anything slip.

In other words, to summarize what she can explain now: There will be a big offensive this winter. And with only that context, she can’t get rid of the impression that the Northern Army Group is rushing things with their sights set on an easy advance like what happened in the war with Dacia.

It’s like making a huge gamble when you don’t have much cash on hand—although since the stakes are actually soldiers’ lives, it won’t hurt the high-ranking officers’ pockets at all. If the Chicago school were to analyze it, they would diagnose a severe lack of proper incentives.

“…Is there money for logistics?”

I’m guessing Lieutenant Weiss’s incredulous reaction is an average person’s response. Unless the Northern Army Group’s commanders have some strange concept of supply lines, I don’t know what they’re thinking. Do they have a secret stash of cash somewhere?

If so, those are off-the-books resources. We’d have to dismiss the inspectors. Talk about lazy. This is why they say we can’t prevent bubble economies. Proper audits are indispensable for a market to function normally!

“How would there be? Once winter hits, the trains will stop running, too. I have no idea where they’re planning on bringing in supplies from.”

Well, in any age, there are also markets that only officials who come to collect taxes do well in. To prove it, not even believers in the free market system call for the privatization of tax collection.

Meanwhile, there’s a fountain of diverse critiques and plans regarding expenditures.

Look, even the Chicago school is against privatizing tax collection!

With that thought, however, I suddenly feel like something is off.

“So what about us?”

“When I pointed out the risk of an offensive, we were ordered to the naval base. So I don’t think we can expect funds for a victory celebration.”

And this is an absolutely miserable misunderstanding created in the name of confidentiality. Even if my intention is to be transferred according to the will of the Central Army, a Northern Army Group administrator won’t see it that way, so I’m sure the Budget section will reject the fund requisition. They’ll make the excuse that it’s not under their jurisdiction and refuse to pay out what they promised us just the other day.

I can only see it as bullying. Even if I accept the reshuffle, we have made contributions here and should have the right to commensurate compensation. Anyhow, we’ll just have to secure celebration funds by “borrowing” from the Northern Army Group somehow. Hmm…? Finding funds somehow?

“As such, Lieutenant Serebryakov, we need to dip into the battalion’s treasury, so draw up a budget.”

“Understood. Umm, how much should I use?”

I could take funds for a little party from the battalion treasury, but maybe we should avoid having a big bash in this war situation…? When she considers this, Tanya figures she is thinking too hard and shrugs. She has worked her troops hard in this freezing cold. Rather than developing a cruel reputation, it would be better to have a heart and convince them she was kind, even if they got a little wild.

“Hmm, let’s have a grand old time and not set an upper limit for alcohol spending.”

Just as she is about to tell her to get it done—

“Major, sorry to intrude, but we have enough free alcohol to swim in.”

It was Lieutenant Weiss who interrupted with a triumphant look on his face.

After inadvertently starting to ask where he’d snatched the liquor from, Tanya wills her mouth shut, somehow successfully communicating with her expression of disbelief instead.

“Umm, excuse me for butting in, but we were able to get this full complement of canteen alcohol due to the kindness of a local unit.”

Lieutenant Serebryakov jumps in to respond to my suspicious look. Partly because we’ve been together for a while now, she’s getting good at knowing what types of things I worry about.

“Oh, don’t worry. The Viper Battalion bought it with their own money as a gesture of goodwill, I guess you could say.”

Very good. Tanya nods in satisfaction. Someone is treating us because they’re pleased with our work. That’s wonderful. The only problem is that due to military regulations and my age, I can’t drink a drop even if I want to.

“Great. Go and buy some chicken or something, Lieutenant.” I’d like to sink my teeth into some roast chicken, at least. “We’ll have to toast the Viper Battalion. Thanks to them, I can treat my battalion.”

“Yeah, we can’t really thank them enough.”

Well, they’re mages. They’re well-paid. After all, there are deployment allowances, transfer allowances, hazard pay, etc. They each make enough to build a small house, so if you count the entire battalion’s funds, it adds up to quite a lot.

“Indeed. Well, this is a good opportunity. Let’s send them a message inviting them to the party.”

That’s what we’ll do. It’s not so bad to bond with our kind allies who weakened our prey for us before we arrived. More than anything, I want to clear up the misunderstanding that must have arisen due to that repugnant confession of faith.

I’m normal.

I have to prevent weird rumors from damaging my reputation.