Preparation to Move Forward 1

***

MAY 10, UNIFIED YEAR 1925

Magic Major Tanya von Degurechaff is advancing with a dismal look on her face. No, she’s forced to advance. As an imperial soldier, she should be relishing an attack deep in enemy territory with a plethora of emotions, but all that is on Tanya’s mind is the natural human desire to not die.

That is probably the inevitable thought of someone compelled to charge by circumstances. Tanya, skillfully casting formulas and causing enemies to burst into gory bloom, is doing her best so that on the surface, at least, she is an utterly fearless field major leading the charge.

“Break! Break!”

“04, Fox Three, Fox Three!”

“Fucking hell, 13 is hit!”

“01 to 10, 11. Cover him! Then hurry up and get him to the rear!”

It’s her unit’s radio chatter. The troops are less calm than usual. For them to sound upset during an operation isn’t so rare, but exchanges of struggling, frantic curses are uncommon for the veteran 203rd Aerial Mage Battalion.

That said, it’s not exactly surprising. She looks up at the sky and finds herself fantasizing about punching Being X’s head off with her clenched fist.

If God exists, he must be some inflexible being like an evil computer. With that thought, she forces herself to freeze any mental effort that doesn’t help her survive on the battlefield, and she focuses on combat maneuvers.

The sky is full of shells, and “crowded” doesn’t begin to cover it. Like pelting rain or hail, iron is being shot up from the ground instead of falling down. Just a ton of iron. A truly brutal amount of iron is flying toward a single target. If this unending blaze of gunfire in the darkness represents human activity, then I can declare that civilization has, in a way, evolved in the exact opposite of the ideal direction.

Hell exists on the Rhine. The trials of purgatory are taking place here today.

This is where a human’s life is worth the least. No, the lowest price is updated each day after hitting limit-down at this nearest station to hell. This is where the god of the dead and evil spirits make bank. A world where human lives plunge into dreadful deflation relative to lead bullets. This is a purgatory where the boundary between life and death is the haziest it ever gets.

Distinguished mages are no exception to this rule. Mages are feared on the surface, but the Rhine is also their graveyard.

“Fairy 01 to CP, we’re completely enveloped. We won’t last long. What’s the situation like?”

Only mages have trouble dealing damage at eight thousand feet. For fighter planes, that altitude even allows for some comfort.

On top of that, the high explosives fired at these aircraft and the dense curtain of anti–air shot could slaughter a mage with ease.

Mages deploy magic walls about a meter from their bodies as protective films.

If that defends them, it’s the same as the mages receiving no damage at all. But though they’re magic, these walls aren’t so strong.

The biggest ordinary single shot a protective film can defend against in a direct hit is 12.7 mm.

Of course, every mage is a little different, but in a saturation attack, even infantry small arms can weaken and penetrate a protective film. If they concentrate on defense and funnel more resources into it, a film can withstand up to about 40 mm.

Even assuming that level of protection, taking direct hits from large-caliber shells is impossible. Plus, if they do get hit, they may be dazed and unable to rely on their speed to evade.

As a mage’s last line of defense, the defensive shell, armor they build with their own power right up against their flesh, is as strong as you might think. But since they can’t bend the laws of physics, they have to be ready for shocks from impact.

Even dispersed, the shock to the internal organs from a direct hit with a 120 mm would render a mage helpless. Even if they were lucky and only blacked out, they would still crash. And probably most of them would get minced where they lie.

For better or worse, my orb, the Elinium Type 95, can repel up to 88 mm shots with its protective film. Theoretically, it can also create a defensive shell that can stand up to 120 mm grade shots. I’m not anxious to test that.

Only researchers want to test bulletproof vests in actual combat. The people who have to use them would never do that.

Plus, when my orb blocks a shot, high-density-interference factors get scattered around and obstruct magic use over a wide area. It’s possible to take advantage of that effect to make yourself nearly undetectable. A simple way to think of it is that it’s like putting an ECM24 on full blast.

It’s probably exceedingly difficult to spot flying objects with optical apparatuses at night.

Of course, since it’s so similar to an ECM, the interference in itself is a frank indicator.

If your radar whites out, it’s self-evident that something is there.

As such, the situation is not suitable for stealth maneuvers.

If we’re detected but they can’t lock on, however, guided missiles or disciplined fire won’t be a threat, so breaking through at high speed and harassing them a bit makes a great invisibility cloak.

The huge, critical side effect of that is my psychological suffering, but there’s nothing I can do about it.

“Phase two will be finished momentarily. Until phase three orders are given, each unit should continue designated operational maneuvers.”

A noise-filled radio message.

Not only is it encoded, it’s a transmission between mages that uses a special format with directional waves via orbs. You can just barely have a conversation using this system, so it only really works for practical communications.

The high density of magic remaining in the air creates ear-piercing noise.

I hate that we’re supposed to throw off the Republican Army observers when we don’t even know the positions of our fellow soldiers. After all, we’re a rear guard that is jutting—or rather, charging—into enemy territory.

Once the entire theater gets involved and large-scale maneuvers begin, concealing ourselves will become important. Although we’re withdrawing under cover of night, regardless of how it would go with a division, doing it with an army group is a different story.

As highly mobile and responsive as my group of excellent mages is, we’re not a big enough force to cover the entire Rhine area.

And with one somewhat undermanned augmented battalion, the normal methods would be impossible.

Which is why we have this deceptive plan to convince the enemy that we’re planning an offensive using a reconnaissance-in-force mission. The General Staff concluded that it wouldn’t be possible to hide the activation of the rail network that would accompany the large-scale maneuver in the theater, so instead they deliberately spread false information about it: “The Empire is moving supplies and troops in preparation for a major offensive.”

If I hadn’t heard about it when I met with General von Zettour in the capital, I would have believed it myself, they put so much effort into the story.

In the capital, a public relations officer made reference to a “large-scale operation,” albeit in unofficial settings.

There were rumors of “a major operation on the Rhine lines.”

And there were the supplies bustling back and forth by rail. It’s a huge, tricky retreat designed to draw the enemy out and destroy them. We’ll need a ton of matériel. And reports on Arene are being thoroughly censored.

Thanks to that, we’ve convinced even most of the informed people that the movement on the imperial side is reinforcements for the suppression of the revolt in Arene. The Empire admits, blushing, that it has failed to quell the situation. The parts of the story that couldn’t be blocked with a strict gag order have been turned into rumors that control had been achieved to keep up appearances. The tight plan tricks people into believing the opposite of what’s true.

We don’t have enough data to guess how the Republic is taking it, but people have a tendency to believe what they want to believe, so I think we can expect some results.

Even so, they’re probably suspicious that the Empire, which supposedly has supply line issues, is launching a desperate all-out offensive. But I can’t believe we actually fooled them, even if they are suspicious.

The trick worked brilliantly, and it seems the Republic was even on guard against our desperate offensive. The Imperial Army’s most elite mages have performed a recon-in-force on an unprecedentedly deep level and met with formidable Republican Army interception, just like the Empire wanted.

Thus, Tanya and her battalion, reflecting the desperate Imperial Army’s impatience, must pull off this deceptive recon-in-force mission with no regard for casualties.

And the report that the Republican Army is on guard against deep penetration by a recon-in-force unit was music to the Imperial Army General Staffers’ ears. They bought it, they all think, relieved by the good news. Now the retreating units don’t have to worry about getting their butts kicked.

But though she may be a staff officer, Tanya is in a fight for her life on the battlefield and thinking about awful things like a smile on Being X’s face.

In order to keep the enemy from finding out it’s a ruse, the battalion is forced to carry out this recon-in-force mission without regard for sacrifices.

The 203rd Aerial Mage Battalion is spread out along the front acting as a decoy and rear guard so the enemy doesn’t realize the army is retreating.

Behind us, they’re probably doing their best to move the clunky field guns to the rear. Once that phase is over, the infantry will withdraw. The field engineers have already laid traps. We can expect the move to be finished within the next few hours. Hence, my unit is stuck getting shot up like this while we buy that time.

The object of the recon-in-force fishing so frequently performed on this front is to find out about the enemy’s defensive preparations and positions of their forces. Since both sides see recon as a sign of a major impending offensive, the receiving end would prioritize concealing their troops and not move their reserve forces around in an aggressive way.

If that would buy the retreating Imperial Army the time they needed, then Tanya and her battalion had to go in. That’s what the orders told them to do.

Of course, in order to prevent us from gathering intelligence, the Republican Army gives us an enthusiastic welcome with dense anti–air fire. Plus, since we’re facing an interception from a base so far back, our rate of safe returns isn’t going to be very high. In fact, the yardstick for whether it’s actually recon-in-force or not is how many casualties the attacking team suffers.

“Fairy 08 to 01. I’m hit. Going to fall back.”

It isn’t uncommon for the guy flying next to me to be put out of commission. As for the efficiency of their interception alone, though, as long we have their radar whited out, there’s no way they can use disciplined fire.

Conversely, with skilled radar observers guiding the fire, they probably would have been able to intercept more effectively.

But the Republican Army, which tends to rely on radar observer fire and mages’ disciplined fire, is horrible at visual combat.

The main reason we’re still taking damage is the sheer amount of iron they’re throwing at us.

You can connect even with lousily aimed shots if you fire enough of them. It’s just terrible.

…Seeing this extravagance, I realize I should have bought stocks in ammunition companies. I can’t regret this oversight enough.

While they are consumables that cost little individually and therefore aren’t very profitable, if they’re getting squandered like this, the manufacturers must be doing gangbusters. I had been putting my salary into natural resources, thinking the profits on munitions would tend to be kept low, but maybe that was a mistake.

“01, roger. 06, 09, cover him. I’m gonna take two shots, so fall back during that time.”

What is done cannot be undone. As I reconsider the conclusion I reached back then, I need to apply what I learn to the future.

Here it is, my constructive orientation toward the future. It’s important to always have a positive attitude.

Anyhow, right now I need to fill in the hole left by my injured man. That’s only a matter of course, but it’s better if I can avoid danger. Then is not covering him because I fear danger the right thing to do? The answer, unfortunately, is no.

Amateurs tend to be scared of any danger they can see. They worry that if they do anything, something terrifying will happen, so they freeze up.

So an amateur frets that they’ll give their position away if they shoot. Certainly, they may be right to perceive some danger there. But it’s still only an amateur’s thinking.

Doing nothing means losing an opportunity to do something.

What humans should fear the most is forfeiting profit. If I offer the retreating man an escort in this situation, I attach two of my subordinates to him as support. So we have a cluster of three people. If I fire two supporting shots, the sky is still full of smoke from bursting shells and searchlights. I doubt anyone will notice a couple of shots in the middle of all that.

If anything, I can expect that the two supporters will get a great reaction as decoys. In other words, while they’re withdrawing, they’ll monopolize the enemy’s attention. If by taking a slight risk I can steer clear of danger, then naturally, that is the rational choice. And they do have the chance of falling back to a safe area, so in game theory terms, it’s not too bad. It’s not zero-sum, after all.

Best of all, if I send out decoys under the pretext of providing support for a retreating soldier, I can pursue my personal profit while caring about my subordinates. The chances that the idiot who got hit will be saved increase. This is it: a win-win scenario.

“Commander, it’s too dangerous.”

Of course, my men are pros, so they recognize the danger. They don’t want to be decoys. That’s dangerous. I understand very well why they want to protest.

“We have no choice. There’s no time. Do it.”

But oh, how sad. No, for me, I should probably say it’s happy. This is the army, and I’m the superior officer leading my troops.

Of course, when she remembers that the whole reason she’s stuck here suffering in the first place is because this is the army, she’s sorry. In the capital, her superior officer, General von Zettour, gave her strict orders in writing to operate under the direct command of General von Rudersdorf.

The orders had come down the official route in the proper format. In other words, since I have orders from General von Rudersdorf, I have no choice but to accept them and be the rear guard here. This world is quite easy to understand.

“It’s an intense mission, but I know you can handle it”?

“The higher-ups have extremely high expectations of you”?

I’m sure no one can euphemize forcibly sealing lips so well as him. Since I couldn’t get him to listen to my objections, it must be that. It could be a misunderstanding, but it’s best to be a pessimist and prepare for the worst.

So once I’m prepared like a pessimist, I’ll be an optimist. Ideally, I’d like to build a win-win relationship with the General Staff. I don’t think I have a bad reputation as a staff officer in the first place.

Then there’s a fairly good chance that I’ve been sent here out of military necessity. Thinking that, a slight grin appears on Tanya’s face. Yeah, maybe I’ve been worrying too much.

Surely it must just be that my superiors want to break out of this war situation. I want to work with both major generals again as soon as the opportunity presents itself. If possible, I’d like a chance to chat with them. Of course, first I have to get out of this. The future is important, but right now, surviving is even more crucial.

I quickly load an interference formula from my computation orb into a rifle bullet. I deploy a defensive shell in front of my troops to shield them from the disproportionate shots flying up at us.

By interrupting the line of fire, I give them temporary safety. Put another way, even the Republican numbskulls can tell I’ve used an interference formula to manifest some sort of wall that is blocking their shots. Naturally, they’ll realize there is something behind it.

At that point, most of the hail of bullets will be aimed that way.

“01 to 06 and 09. Get a move on. That won’t hold for long.”

Anyhow, if the decoys move too slowly, they won’t last very long, either, but I need to keep the enemy’s eyes on something besides me.

Hurry, hurry, hurry!

“Roger, good luck.”

“Yeah…may the Lord protect you.”

Irritatingly, instead of “may your luck be everlasting” or something like that, I say some incomprehensible nonsense about the Lord’s protection. I want to cry, but without the Elinium Type 95, my protective film would be blown away in an instant, and I’d be destroyed, defensive shell and all.

In a way, Being X is like consumer finance. I don’t want to borrow, and I shouldn’t, but I have to. Ahh, eat shit.

The only weapons that can intercept us at eight thousand feet are anti–air cannons, but if I get hit with one of those, it won’t end well.

“CP to Fairy. Report on casualties and status.”

“Fairy 01 to CP. Half of us have already dropped out. So far, we’ve achieved half of our scheduled numbers. Been looking for that Republican Army ammo dump but can’t find it.”

Thanks to that, even my battalion of tough mages is losing lots of men. No one has died, but there are probably more than a few who will never return to the lines. I’m glad I was honest about the “constant danger” when I was recruiting.

If I was accused of false advertising, I would have betrayed the first principle of sales born of the modern era: honesty. I’m not such a halfwit that I think I can fool the market by shouting about “mislabeling.” A lack of faith in a trust economy is terrifying, just terrifying.

Sheesh, I guess I should be breathing a sigh of relief. Or should I lament that just because we blew up the factory in Dacia everyone’s gone off and convinced themselves that if anyone can blow up an enemy ammo dump, the 203rd Aerial Mage Battalion can?

“CP, roger. 01, got some bad news for you.”

It’s not as if I believe in luck, but I recall that my forerunners emphasized it as a factor. Apparently, when the great Matsusheeta25 hired people, he asked whether they were lucky or not. Before I was inhumanely sent to this insane world, I didn’t understand it.

But now I do. It may only be a question of probability theory, but luck is worth researching.

“What is it?”

“A battalion-sized group of mages is rapidly approaching the Rhine lines from the edge of our radar range. Hold them off until the end of phase three.”

“…Fairy 01, roger. Transitioning to interdiction combat. Anything else?” Suppressing the rage welling up inside me, I just barely maintain a businesslike tone. They say it so simply.

I may say interdiction combat, but we’re essentially the strength of two companies performing recon-in-force. We’re not in close formation. On top of that, just passing through defended positions takes a lot out of us.

In contrast, the intercepting side is full of energy. The air we’re flying above the firing positions is their home turf, so as long as they don’t get hit accidentally, they don’t have to worry about that.

It has to be much easier on their nerves.

We may be a band of elites, but I doubt our opponents are the type to unthinkingly say “yes, sir” when ordered to intercept us.

After all, they’re a battalion scrambled from the surface to obstruct our recon mission.

It goes without saying that they’re a select team. I don’t want to kill myself by wishfully hoping the enemies are numbskulls. The only way to survive is to prepare like a pessimist.

“You have permission to immediately abort your recon-in-force mission.”

And then, hmm, that’s an interesting thing to have permission to do.

It’s a fact that permission to abort a mission like this isn’t given very often. Certainly, now that we have interdiction combat orders, if the retreat is going according to schedule, aborting this mission would be one way to limit further losses.

So it seems rational for the brass to allow it. But think about it. I definitely won’t fall back. Or rather, a little thinking tells me military practicality is a trap.

If someone offers you a paved road straight to hell, even with good intentions, it’s much safer to veer off and drive across the wasteland.

“…I hope that won’t be necessary.”

I’m not an amateur. As an economically minded person who values rational thought, I didn’t go through training for no reason. I wasn’t built to the specifications of some impractical entity like Being X. I can swear it on the honor of the intelligent winners of evolution who survived as the fittest, Homo sapiens.

“What? What do you mean?”

“The point of recon-in-force is a survey of the enemy’s interception capabilities. If we abort now, we risk revealing the deceptive purpose of the mission.”

If the recon-in-force ruse to mask the withdrawal fails, the rear guard will have to hold out and buy time till the very end. If we fail to buy time, that’s it. What is now an orderly retreat of ground troops will descend into chaos, and they could be trampled.

For that reason, we should hesitate to even transmit this sort of conversation, even if it is encoded.

Tanya’s only choice is to have them move the retreat along as quickly as possible. The side giving the orders will probably order the rear guard to buy time even if they have to get literally wiped out doing it. If I were on the side giving the orders, I wouldn’t hesitate to do it that way, either. It’s logical. If there’s a problem with this plan, it’s that I’m on the receiving side. Fucking hell.

Either way, evading this battalion only to be pursued by every Republican unit on the Rhine front would be way stupider.

In other words, considering the risk, staying here is all we can do. I’m not the kind of person who doesn’t know the folly of not investing because you’re scared of a tiny risk. What matters most is the returns.

“Since we can’t have them finding out until phase three is over, the only choice we have is to take out this intercepting unit and continue our mission.”

“…Understood. I’ll have them move as fast as they can.”

“Thanks. May the Lord protect you.”

In the end, I’m relieved that CP is cooperating. Honestly, this is so rough. Now then, in order to survive, I’ve got to be brave and do my best not to lose to this abnormal world.

I have no intention of sacrificing myself to an order to keep flying after I can no longer focus and my will is nearly broken. I’m fighting for my life, and that’s it.

“Okay, attention, all hands. We’re headed into a counter-mage fight. Let’s teach the fools challenging us a lesson.”

Geez. You could have been enjoying a nice break in the rear, but you came to challenge us? Personally, it’s hard for me to praise that attitude because I know that unpaid overtime doesn’t contribute much to labor productivity. Why would you proactively enter such a pain-in-the-ass battle?

I’m a peace-loving person, so this pains me. Surely there is no one who loves human beings more than I do. And yet. It’s rare to be ordered to kill them so often as I am. As a rational, thinking person, it would be embarrassing to curse my fate. Still, I sense some absurdity.

It’s almost as if the conceited face of Being X is about to appear in the back of my mind with all the narcissism of a transcendent existence. Oh God, if you exist, you are surely a rotten bastard.

Things really don’t go how you’d like. I just want to live a quiet life.

Nothing seemed particularly different about that day. Anyone would say so: It was a normal day. No, it was a normal battlefield.

If anything was out of the ordinary, it was that there were a few military observers visiting from the Commonwealth to foster friendly relations. But that wasn’t enough to register as a blip when everyone’s emotions were so exhausted.

After chatting with the bigwigs over dinner, the visitors were guided by one of our officers to begin their inspection. For better or worse, it wasn’t of interest to the troops. They were so tired they didn’t care, so they banished it from their consciousness and went to sleep.

At that point, the Third Mage Battalion belonging to the Republican Army’s Twenty-Second Division was already on its ascent. Whether sleeping on the ground or heading into the sky, the soldiers were faithful to their duties… To the mages who took off upon receiving the scramble order, protecting the sound sleep of our fellow soldiers was part of our job.

The mission was to eliminate the battalion daring to try recon-in-force, and we anticipated a secondary objective of assisting ground troops. Our biggest problem was troops not being able to sleep due to harassing sneak attacks, so the importance of the mission to restore tranquility might be difficult for someone who hasn’t been on the front lines to understand.

“Control to all hands. Our guests today are pretty serious. You’re going to have your hands full.”

And the words from the combat controller, though somewhat grave, were overflowing with the confidence that things would work out somehow. If a division or regiment of mages had forced their way through or infiltrated to attack, it might have been different, but repelling a battalion doing reconnaissance-in-force wouldn’t be so hard.

After all, despite the “in-force” tacked on, it’s essentially “reconnaissance.” They would probably withdraw upon making contact. Well, I genuinely had to hand it to the guys charging in that day, though—they were really going for it. It takes a lot of determination to get as far as they did. And judging from the size of the unit, they’d make quite a racket with harassing attacks, so we had to stay vigilant… Numbers is a problem in any era.

“Control, who are the invaders?”

“An augmented battalion. They’re already past the third defensive line. It’s only a matter of time till they break through the fourth.”

Usually a recon-in-force mission would sniff around the first or second defensive line positions and fall back. At an attack position, they could expect support, and from the second defensive line, it was still fairly easy to get back to their base. If that was how it went, it would have a limited effect on the front lines, since they were prepared. More than anything, it wasn’t something that warranted waking up the officers sleeping in the rear.

If we woke up the whole army for every little scuffle with these frequent recon missions done expressly as a feint or to distract us, that would be playing right into their hands.

Everyone just hoped we could get enemy engagements done quietly. The little fights between recon-in-force units and our interceptors happened so often they were facetiously treated as part of the nighttime scenery.

“They’re too fast. What are the guys on the defensive lines doing?”

Maybe that’s why we hesitated at this enemy coming in so rapidly. It went without saying that they had to be a pretty enthusiastic unit if they were already past the third defensive line. There was a good chance they had located our shelters and frontline command.

There were rumors of a desperate imperial offensive.

I was suspicious, but…unless the enemy was awfully determined, they wouldn’t usually be able to get past the third defensive lines. What’s more, usually once the second line is passed, the standby unit is scrambled. We only received sortie orders after the third line was breached, and it was fair to call that an unbelievably slow response.

“Widespread magic jamming has paralyzed our scouting network, so our response is pretty delayed.”

And of course, the controller’s voice reflected the frustrating state of affairs—how could it not? The situation was unclear; we were a bit miffed at the urgent order to intercept after being told repeatedly to stand by.

I can’t believe we’re stuck having to stop them before they pass the last defensive line. We risk damage from harassing attacks as well as them taking home intelligence. Inevitably, this state of affairs had everyone feeling ashamed.

A battalion of mages may have breached the lines, but the Rhine general headquarters should have been able to crush them easily. Considering the intelligence they had, though, this was liable to end in disaster.

I was sure a few high-ranking officers’ heads would roll because the response to the widespread magic jamming was delayed. The radio operators would surely be crawling around unrolling cable to strengthen our communications. And I bet it would be our job to cover them.

“And apparently the anti–air fire is stuck relying on optical instruments, so watch out—the enemy force might be doing just fine.”

“Roger. Don’t want to underestimate an injured beast. Do you have more information about them? Whatever you know is fine. Got anything?”

Anyhow, the future is the future. Today is today’s mission. And it was going to be more intense than the usual missions. Everyone realized for the first time how worrisome the situation was.

And we were shocked. Unlike when we repel exhausted enemy mages, this time it was possible we’d be up against a force that had been able to conserve their energy to a relative degree. The irritating veil of night made the situation we were facing even more difficult.

Since our anti–air gunners were relying on optical instruments, we would have to worry about friendly fire, too. Considering how confusing it could be to tell friend from foe, it wasn’t unthinkable.

“Due to the awful jamming, we haven’t managed to identify them, but our superior says they seem like elites. There’s also the rumors of a large-scale imperial offensive. Stay on your guard!”

“I appreciate the advice. Troops, game faces on and let’s go!”

Our commander’s encouraging voice tells us to prepare for the challenge. The determination and spirit we could hear indicated the appropriate amount of nervousness for a vigilant warrior.

But that’s only in hindsight.

They were wrong. We didn’t need game faces. What we needed was to be crazy enough about death to find a way to live through it.

“All hands, this is your battalion commander. We’ve located the enemy. Prepare to engage.”

Both sides’ fields of vision were narrower due to the dark, which gave us trouble.

We discovered each other nearly simultaneously. The battalion commanders engaged at about the same time, too. It was simple. Republican mage doctrine is to work as a group and overwhelm the individual strength of imperial mages using organized combat and disciplined fire.

It was basically an unexpected encounter battle in an area approached by the enemy. Plus, the powerful jamming caused by high mana density.

Even a conservative estimate would say this battle would be something we’re not used to. And our opponents were a unit composed of veteran mages with a wealth of experience and a talent for close-quarters fighting.

There was no way a normal unit could take the brunt of this assault honed in Dacia and Norden.

If the vanguard had held out just a little longer, maybe the rear guard could have gotten away. Or if there had been just a few more mages in the rear guard, the unexpected shots could have stopped the enemy’s approach so the vanguard could get away.

But everything fell just a bit short. The results were disastrous. The shock caused confusion. A storm of formula bullets from a submachine gun heightened it.

Things deteriorated—we’d been had, and there was no way to stop the blood or the damage.

The explosion formula, loosed by the imperial mage commander at the helm, opened a huge hole in the vanguard. At the same time the breach appeared, multiple optical shot formulas were aimed to crush commanders of each company, and just like that, the Republican command chain’s head was lopped off.

But Republican troops could still, if only barely, resist in an organized way. The rear guard began using suppressive fire; they knew they had to cover the gap in the vanguard.

For a short time, the rear guard managed to cover for the vanguard to plug up that hole. They had enough energy to attempt to reorganize their force. Their vigorous resistance succeeded in keeping the attack at bay, but as a result, they couldn’t give the vanguard covering fire. They used their full strength preventing the enemy approach, but then had no energy left to protect the vanguard.

When furious resistance interrupted the imperial charge, the mages suddenly switched targets to the isolated Republicans out front.

It was around two companies of imperial mages versus the two companies of the Republican vanguard. But the latter had been completely stripped of its leadership, so it didn’t even have support; in that cut-off state, the Republican mages were isolated sitting ducks.

As a result, the numerical balance between the two sides flipped. The rear guard had its hands full defending itself when the vanguard’s fate was decided with a swift incision. Normally, the imperial mages were prevented from approaching by the Republican Army’s obnoxious disciplined fire. Meanwhile, after their supporting volley, the Republicans would be able to stop the remnants of the enemy from breaking through. This time, when the two sides met, however, the imperial mages got to release their pent-up anger and cut the Republicans down.

“Attention, Fairy Battalion. Engage in pursuit.”

The rest happened too easily. By the time the rear guard suddenly tried to retreat after losing its shield, it was too late.

The Republicans didn’t have enough distance or speed to shake off the imperial mages, who had accelerated for the attack.

Their race to escape the theater wasn’t to be. Ultimately, the Third Mage Battalion of the Republican Army’s Twenty-Second Division was pronounced annihilated.

Ironically, the only survivors were a few downed in the initial explosion formula who narrowly escaped death.

The Republican Army ended up mobilizing the Rhine general headquarters’ select mage battalion, but they failed to locate the invaders. On the contrary, they let them burn several supply depots. At that point, the Republican Army Command shifted its full attention entirely onto the invading battalion.

Rumors of a major offensive. Whispers of the fate of Arene.

They fought bravely to the last man.

The stirring echoes of propaganda convinced the Republic that the people had sacrificed themselves and met a tragic end. We can’t let their deaths be in vain.

The distress of the Imperial Army and the cornered supply lines were simple enough for the Empire to fix, but the blow still stung. So it didn’t hesitate to choose military maneuvers as the way to break out of that horrible situation.

To secure the front, to secure the Empire.

But that’s exactly why people of both nations thought…We’re so sick of this. So the Empire was at wits’ end over its unreliable supply lines, and the Republic saw them as hope.

Little birds were twittering about the movements of the Imperial Army, and the same thing was on everyone’s minds: The Empire is not okay with the current situation. And it was the absolute truth. The Imperial Army General Staff had realized that if they focused on beating the bothersome partisans while relying on a limping rail system for supplies, maintaining an aimless front wasn’t worth it.

That objective reality fueled the Republic’s misunderstanding. Everyone firmly believed that the Empire’s powerful military organization solved problems through major offensives, like it did in Dacia, like it did in Norden.

And apart from the delaying at the beginning of the war, the Empire had always defended its territory to the end. Yes, its territory.

Nobody would withdraw from their own territory. That was the one-sided belief the Republicans had. But to the officers of the Republican Army who paid for a sliver of land with blood, it was self-evident truth. They were proud of defending their home with mountains of dead, so they wondered, Who would part with their fatherland?

And that was why they ended up misreading the Imperial Army General Staff war machine’s intentions so completely it was ridiculous. Perhaps you could say the Republican soldiers got trapped in their own emotions.

That day, as a result, the Imperial Army succeeded in abandoning the front without the Republican Army noticing.

Now then, it’s about time to talk about the seed of the Empire’s victory.

It all started with the reality of conducting recon-in-force of heavily guarded positions. The dilemma was serious: high casualties versus tactical necessity.

The fact that estimates said even the Devil of the Rhine and her elite troops would lose at least half their numbers should speak to the danger of it.

Command and staff officers all understood and struggled with the dilemma that despite that premise, there was an urgent military need for recon-in-force.

An augmented battalion performing recon-in-force created too many casualties, but any fewer soldiers and they wouldn’t be able to achieve their objective.

Facing this dilemma, the Imperial Army requested its Technical Arsenal to research a new weapon that would enable penetration into heavily guarded enemy positions and for some degree of reconnaissance. The engineers tentatively suggested a few technical solutions to the problem, and the one that seemed promising was from Aerial Technical Arsenal. They proposed developing a high-altitude recon unit to fly outside the range of anti–air fire. The aerial units that had teams for special recon missions were superior to begin with.

To the other departments, however, regardless of the latent potential in aerial reconnaissance, there was one cause for concern: Was it actually possible to achieve with their current level of technology? It may have been easy enough to talk about increasing the altitude, but the technical demands of an aircraft that could fly at high altitude presented a lot of hurdles, and they weren’t sure they could handle it.

That was the moment Chief Engineer Adelheid von Schugel suggested a methodology and approach from the magic point of view.

“…What about a special apparatus for additional acceleration during recon-in-force?”

What the heck is that?

The answer to the question that came into everyone’s minds when they saw the outline of the problem was simple, in a way.

Reconnaissance-in-force requires penetrating the enemy’s interception lines. So if one assumes an assault to perform a quick strike and pull out, sending a fast, heavily armed unit would be best.

So all they needed to do was rapidly accelerate past the enemy positions before they could intercept. According to Schugel, putting the mages in additional acceleration apparatuses would solve everything.

By doing that, they would be able to measure the enemy defenses and interception ability, so everything would work out for the recon-in-force mission as well.

The argument that they would be able to achieve their aims to some degree using mages for recon-in-force was correct. That was why foot soldiers or mages were used more often than aircraft.

But casualties had exceeded the permissible limit. That’s why the army had asked the Technical Arsenal for its opinion. This was the conclusion.

“All right. Have the mages charge at high speed.”

Aha, certainly if you change your point of view, all you need to do is increase the breakthrough success rate of the mages. So it was true that having them do it at high speed would get the job done. The only problem was that there weren’t any mages who could operate at such speeds and altitudes.

The one who offered this solution and wondered how to make it possible was one genius, Adelheid von Schugel.

His answer? Add speed and altitude with an external apparatus.

The criticism that his idea wasn’t much different from the Aerial Technical Arsenal’s only went so far. After all, altitude was a by-product in his plan, which essentially focused only on speed.

Hence, “additional acceleration apparatus.”

But rather than speak of his genius, it’s probably easier to take a look at his plan.

The apparatus would be equipped with an abundance of extra-large hydrazine fuel boosters. Of all the ways to secure stable flight, he used multiple single-use boosters. And once empty, they would detach along with their external fuel tank, resulting in an even higher speed near the end of the journey.

On top of that, he gave up on the biggest technical obstacle, regulating the boosters. With great decisiveness, he conquered the hurdle by deciding the thing would simply continue on accelerating. Yes, they would just launch it on a straight path. To put it another way, while it was operating, the mage wouldn’t be able to adjust the speed at all.

The apparatus would come with a tank of boron additive for accelerating in enemy sky, but that was different. The boron additive, estimated to be ten times as poisonous as potassium cyanide, was for emergency evasion.

To address the feared shock waves and sudden increase in wave drag, all aeroelasticity issues would be left up to the mage’s protective film and defensive shell.

(The plan was judged to be possible only with unrestrained booster consumption; aircraft definitely wouldn’t work.)

With an unbelievable supersonic target speed, Mach 1.5, they would be able to leave anything in the dust.

And from a purely engineering perspective, it would be easier to realize than a new reconnaissance aircraft. More importantly, it was expected to be ready for actual combat soon.

To add one final comment, however: Due to the single-use nature of its boosters, the additional acceleration apparatus could fly only in a straight line.

After breaking through the enemy position, mages were required to return to base under their own steam. No matter how you looked at it, the thing was a one-way ticket to hell. There’s no point in reconnaissance if you can’t get back after you go and see.

Even if it’s technically practical, a thing isn’t fit for practical use unless it can be used, right? In a way, you would expect people to voice that concern, but when the whispers started…

An officer from an airborne unit murmured an idea that sounded like it came from another dimension.

“Then what about sending a ‘unit’ to the rear of an enemy position?” he asked.

Certainly, it was incredibly dangerous to individuals. It would be nearly impossible to return. Aha, an additional acceleration apparatus that couldn’t return to base was defective as a reconnaissance vehicle. But why limit its use to reconnaissance? It would be a more reliable way of delivering mages behind enemy lines than paradropping.

And it would get them past any intercepting enemies. After all, simply launching the thing would send it way higher than a practical altitude for anti–air fire. Depending on how it was used, the army could even anticipate sending a company of mages directly to the enemy headquarters to decapitate their operation.

At that point, Major General von Zettour from General Staff Service Corps went to visit. The research itself continued under Chief Engineer Schugel, but the General Staff requested fairly detailed progress reports.

And when they understood the value of it, they were overjoyed. The guerrilla warfare proponents were especially ecstatic supporters, and they took steps to prioritize proceeding with the plan. The project received literal leverage from the General Staff.

With that assistance, a prototype was completed just before the partisans temporarily took over Arene.

And it just so happened that the Elinium Arms Type 97 Assault Computation Orb was able to make the critical defense shell and protective film.

According to the test personnel who participated in the experiments, the assault orb functioned exactly as they had hoped.

Since a measure of reliability had been guaranteed, a first run of twenty mass production models was rolled out in a hurry.

With that success, the General Staff made a slight but significant amendment to their decisive battle plan. It was great news for Major General von Rudersdorf’s strategy to lure the Republican Army in and destroy them. The apparatus Zettour had spotted while it was in development in Tech Research was written into the plan. They were both thrilled. They would achieve what was, in a way, the dream of all General Staff officers.

Schrecken und Ehrfurcht.

The first phase of the operation named “Shock and Awe” was simple.

“Attack the enemy headquarters directly to cause the collapse of their line.”

That was it.