Chapter 2: Mary Sue’s March

Chapter 2: Mary Sue’s March

CHAPTER 2

MARY SUE’S MARCH

Dropping through the gaps in the ice, the young Leuca traced the sea’s surface on its way back to open water, but with thick ice floes blocking its way, it found itself leaving the harbor and wandering into a large river.

The several-meter-long Leuca calmly drifted across the several-hundred-meter-wide body of water. Swimming against its gentle stream, the snow-white mermaid regarded the river fish with merciless eyes as it passed them by.

Surfacing, the Leuca examined its surroundings. Late autumn had come to the north with a cold, thick mist, and translucent foliage littered the riverside. Each leaf formed a mosaic of crimson, bitter orange, and yellow, and the fog hung over everything like a curtain of gauze. All across the hazy northern shore were the contours of large arachnoid autonomous machines—a swarm of multilegged tanks, walking like stacks of gray bricks.

And drifting out from deeper in the fog came a boat, floating silently along the newly opened canal.

The commander of the second northern front was quickly informed of the four transport companies’ desertion.

“What did the usurpers pillage from the Rashi Power Plant?”

“As feared, they stole radioactive waste. The facility manager testified that they took one unit of used fuel that was in the process of cooling.”

“Nuclear fuel… I know the supply network collapsed during the large-scale offensive, but did we really leave something like that so close to the front lines?”

The chief of staff cocked her head elegantly, like a swan. Her hair, long even after being done up, rustled like silk against the back of her uniform.

“The Rashi Power Plant was decommissioned eleven years ago. We couldn’t transport the fuel before it finished cooling.”

“I know.” The commander sighed. “The Rashi Power Plant was established by my grandmother. And the deserters are all originally from that region.”

“The 2nd Company of the 92nd Support Regiment’s 3rd Transport Battalion. A unit made up of Marylazulian citizens.”

Countless holo-windows opened around the chief of staff, including some displaying the deserters’ mug shots and personnel files, a few of which she magnified with a flick of her hand. Four junior officers, who still looked very much like children.

“The company commander is believed to be the ringleader: Noele Rohi, a regional knight from Marylazulia. In addition, there’s the commander of the same battalion’s 4th Company, Ninha Lekaf, regional knight of the Lukh village; and two commanders from the 2nd Transport Battalion—Rex Soas, son of the Kowa region’s regional knight, and Chilm Rewa, of the Sul village’s regional knights. Each of them is followed by the soldiers of their respective transport companies.”

“In other words, the manor lords and their people. A bunch of roosters and hens .”

The armored division commander spat out this insult through the radio. Roosters and hens —derogatory terms for the serf class, implying they bowed their heads to the ground to peck for their daily bread. As on the other fronts, the generals of the second northern front were descended from the governors of Wolfsland and its surrounding territories. They saw both the serf roosters and the manor lords managing them—whom they called watchdogs—as nothing but cattle.

The infantry corps commander spoke next.

“So they’re not combat units, only support units, and have no noncommissioned officers… Oh, that’s because the noncommissioned officers assigned to them were from another region, and they refused to join in and reported the defection… Why didn’t they have any combat units under them or any noncommissioned officers from their region?”

“Both those questions have the same answer—they weren’t capable enough to reach those ranks or roles. They couldn’t keep up with their curriculum after they enlisted, so they weren’t stationed in combat units or promoted to become noncommissioned officers.”

The equipment and tactics employed in modern warfare required even the simplest of rank-and-file soldiers to at least complete their secondary education. Operators had to pilot fifty-tonne Vánagandrs at one hundred kmh; artillery soldiers had to blow away targets hiding beyond the horizon; armored infantry had to put on armored exoskeletons that had enough force and output to crush a car. All those required not only developed stamina but also basic groundings in physics and math.

Support units included roles that required even more comprehensive education and knowledge, but with the war lasting for so long, the constant lack of personnel posed a major problem. Stacking supplies according to exact specifications or following a battalion commander’s vehicle in round trips along safe roads firmly within friendly lines were tasks that only required stamina and no particular expertise.

However, the blame for these soldiers’ desertion couldn’t be placed squarely on the deserters themselves. In the Empire, education had been monopolized by the nobles, their retainers, and the research institutes under their wings. The villagers in their domains weren’t entitled to education. Generations of serfs spent their entire lives without even being able to write their own names, and never seeing so much as a letter. This instilled certain values in the lower classes—values that the mere ten years since the Federacy’s formation weren’t enough to overwrite.

To these former serfs, learning how to read and write was pointless, an idler’s hobby. They looked down on education as a painful waste of time.

“And their commander had to ‘skip grades’ in the officer academy—she’s a disposable dog leading a unit of roosters and hens. I imagine the noncommissioned officers stuck in that unit must have had a hard time of it.”

“I see. So this Noele Rohi and the others were kept out of the main house’s unit. The Lady Bluebird Regiment is House Mialona’s treasured unit, so they wouldn’t let a dropout officer cadet—someone who barely passes for a noble—lead it.”

Much like the youth officers from the special officer academy, to compensate for the many casualties among the junior officers, some of the existing cadets in the officer academy were allowed to “skip grades” and participate in the war. However, they were not the most accomplished students, but rather the biggest underperformers. They were sent out as pawns to buy time for the academy to properly train up the more promising students.

Many officers in the Federacy military were the children of nobles, a class that prided themselves as warriors and put heavy emphasis on militarism. Any nobles who dropped out of the officer academy, the first phase of their military service, were not seen as having the same blue blood running through their veins.

The chief of staff sneered with arrogance and pride befitting a Deseria whose family had ascended to the status of major noble, despite the extreme rarity of their race within the Empire.

“House Rohi’s princess made a grand proclamation earlier. Everyone, I must ask you to brace yourselves so you don’t die from sheer anger, and listen to what she had to say.”

An armored infantryman glanced at his radio suspiciously when it crackled with a sharp noise. He was stationed in a trench located in the contested area of the second northern front.

“Hmm? Was that the RAID Device? Did someone try to Resonate?”

Everyone else in the ditch replied with a hand sign that stood for denial. While wearing the Úlfhéðnar exoskeleton, the helmet’s shape and positioning made it difficult to nod. What’s more, their gloves were mitten-shaped, limiting the variety of hand gestures they could use to communicate.

During the previous year’s large-scale offensive, the Federacy couldn’t mass-produce enough RAID Devices to go around, but with a production line now established, their use became common across the front lines. The radio, which couldn’t receive Para-RAID transmissions, was now mostly relegated to a backup tool. Any transmission being relayed through it couldn’t have been a formal one.

But as the armored infantryman looked down at the radio with suspicion, the fair voice of a young woman suddenly began issuing from the speaker.

“To our beloved comrades across the second northern front.”

This was a declaration directed to all the units across the second northern front, aiming to reach as far as the president’s residence in the capital. As her voice was blasted on all frequencies at maximum output, Noele clenched her manuscript with stiff, nervous fingers.

This was a speech meant to snap the military, the president, and the nobles in the capital out of their lull. A speech that would likely leave its mark on the history books. That thought made her throat clench up.

“To our beloved comrades across the second northern front. I am Second Lieutenant Noele Rohi, commander of the Hail Mary Salvation Free Regiment.”

Thankfully, her voice didn’t tremble. She was surprised and relieved at how clear and composed it remained. Her comrades looked over, and her best friend, Ninha, grinned proudly at her. Her precious subjects watched with expectant eyes, and seeing that filled her with strength and confidence.

Mele, her childhood friend of the same age, gazed at her with his faint-blue eyes. They were the color of the sky, a color she’d liked ever since she was little. Most of Shemno’s people were Ferruginea, and Marylazulia was occupied by Ambers, so someone with Celesta blood and blue eyes was an unusual sight.

The color of their homeland’s sky; of the sea spanning past the northern mountains; of the blue, flickering light of the nuclear reactor. It was the prettiest color in the world.

“The Hail Mary Regiment are not foul deserters, nor are we cowardly defectors. We are messengers of justice, rising up to save the second northern front, the Federacy, and all humankind.”

Justice—yes, justice. The Legion was a threat to the Federacy, and they rose up to deliver justice to that enemy. And since they were just, it meant that they were right, and since they were right, they couldn’t possibly lose.

Noele raised her face resolutely. Without realizing it, she puffed up her chest as she glared at the audience she couldn’t see.

Listen, one and all.

“We have a trump card. A sacred flame that will eradicate the mechanical foe. A hammer of justice, formed from the most cutting-edge technology.”

As a daughter of House Rohi from the Marylazulia special municipality, the holy land of technological progress, Noele knew things. She knew about the atomic reactor, capable of extracting inexhaustible energy from fuel—and of the weapon capable of converting that boundless energy into destructive power.

“In other words, the holy relic we have taken from the Rashi Power Plant—atomic fuel. The miraculous fuel that wonderful reactor consumes to produce infinite energy can be used to create a bolt of holy lightning. We will do just that. First, we will use it to win an overwhelming victory here at the second northern front. A victory that will open the high nobility’s eyes to the truth.”

And then everyone will rise up and follow in my—in our footsteps. May our brilliant victory return hope to your hearts.

“We will burn the Legion away with humankind’s most powerful blue flame—nuclear weaponry!”

The Hail Mary Regiment’s wireless transmission could not possibly extend far enough to reach the Federacy capital. Ernst paused the recording he’d received there and sighed, unable to mask his disgust.

“…She wants to use nuclear weaponry?”

It might have been seized by the Legion, but she was talking about their own land.

“The fools.”

Upon hearing the Hail Mary Regiment’s transmission, the armored infantrymen grew excited. They didn’t know what nuclear weaponry was—they were from villages in the Federacy’s frontier territories, and they only learned how to read and write and acquired the knowledge necessary for their roles in the army after enlisting. They didn’t have time to take in information not relevant to their studies, so they were clueless about the subject at hand.

But a weapon that could simply burn away the Legion?

“We have an amazing weapon like that? Is it something new they developed in the research institutes?”

“If it can beat the Legion that easily…maybe the war will end before the Holy Birthday?”

Their voices filled with expectation, while the highly experienced and reliable master sergeant and the young but educated company commander fell into bitter silence. One could almost see them grimace behind their visors.

“…Master Sergeant?”

“Company Commander, sir?”

Both of them replied as one.

““…Of course we don’t have a weapon like that.””

After the recording of that same transmission finished playing, a long, heavy silence hung over the officers of the second northern front’s army.

“…Of all things, she wants to ‘open our eyes to the truth’? I’m surprised the ignorant little girl has the gall to say that.”

There was no terror in those words, nor was there any expectation. Only exasperation.

“Even a Dinosauria wouldn’t be able to withstand a nuke, but…supposing you defeat every Legion unit in this area, that won’t bring us any closer to defeating the Legion as a whole. That’s exactly why we haven’t used nukes so far.”

Indeed, nuclear power was the strongest source of energy humankind had acquired, but that didn’t make it or the weapons it powered a silver bullet capable of solving every problem.

“Even if we wanted to use it to eliminate the Weisel, we can’t pinpoint their positions in the Legion territories. And we can’t afford to blindly fire nukes all over the place, either. Even assuming this somehow succeeded, the Legion combat units on the front lines would remain at large. It wouldn’t end the war.”

It was for this same reason that the idea of tactical bombardment, so prized at the dawn of the airplane revolution, was instantly discarded against the Legion. Even if an army bombed distant strategic bases to cripple the enemy’s production abilities, it wouldn’t immediately affect the front lines, since it did nothing to impact the supplies already delivered. And when fighting the fearless Legion, there was no hope of lowering morale.

To begin with, any guided missile or airplane platform that could possibly carry a nuclear warhead into the Legion territories would be inoperable due to the Eintagsfliege’s jamming. And since there was no way of knowing if there were surviving human countries within the Legion territories, firing a nuke ran the risk of catching any such groups in the cross fire.

And worse yet, the Legion’s metallic bodies were resistant to both heat and impact, making a nuke’s effective range much smaller against them than it was against humans. And before a nuclear weapon could burn away the Legion, the radioactive fallout would block out the sunlight, which would place the Federacy at risk.

“And to begin with…they’re going to make nuclear weapons? From the spent nuclear fuel they stole?” an infantry armored division staff officer asked dubiously. Doing something like that wasn’t technically impossible, but…

“Do they even have the means to do that? There was no reprocessing facility attached to the Rashi Power Plant, but…was there something else in the area? Or signs of one being built in secret?”

“No such facility exists, and there are no funds or time to build one, nor any staff or personnel with the necessary knowledge.”

“In other words, they don’t even know that while nuclear fuel and nuclear weaponry both use uranium, they require different enrichment rates?”

Both nuclear weaponry and nuclear fuel were made by enriching the same uranium isotope called uranium-235. At the lower enrichment rate of nuclear fuel, the rapid nuclear fission chain reaction necessary to create a weapon would not occur. Raising the enrichment rate of uranium mandates a large-scale designated facility, and reprocessing used-up nuclear fuel necessitates constant countermeasures against the decay heat and intense radiation produced.

If these soldiers were speaking of “making nuclear weapons” while lacking the means to enrich the nuclear fuel, that…

“…That just makes things even worse,” the commander grumbled lowly. “The fact that they’re so ignorant means we can’t predict what they’ll do. If their commander doesn’t know what’s necessary to make a nuclear weapon, at worst, her soldiers might not even know how dangerous the radiation is.”

“And we can’t write off the possibility of the Legion seizing the nuclear matter. We know they have a prohibition on using atomic weaponry, but…radioactive waste could be a gray area. We know some Admiral and Rabe use nuclear reactors, and the Legion have been confirmed to use depleted-uranium rounds. This means they’re capable of enriching uranium.”

Depleted uranium was a by-product produced during uranium enrichment, and if they were using it to make projectiles and armor…

“Even if they’re forbidden from making nuclear weapons, it’s not clear how much they’re allowed to use lesser nuclear matter. And while it may be ineffective against them, it is effective against humans.”

That was true whether the nuclear material was made into a full-blown weapon or not.

The commander nodded and gave the order. Before the situation became any worse—

“Continue gathering information—we must swiftly seize them and retrieve what they stole.”

The details of the Strike Package’s next sortie weren’t disclosed to them for counterintelligence reasons. Soon after the “wiretaps” were exposed and recovered, they were ordered to move to the second northern front.

This second defensive line spanned the center and western areas of the Federacy’s northern regions, with its front lines at what had once been the Empire’s border with the Fleet Countries before the war.

The bases of the armored division in this area were built with hills in front of them so as to shield them from bombardment; the enemy line of fire hit not the peaks, but the foot of the hills. Standing atop one such hill, Shin looked down on the battlefield.

He looked down on it.

“…Is the whole battlefield a basin?”

The southern end of it sloped down along the Neikuwa hills, and the area’s entire surface was wilderness, covered in mud and short grass and dotted with virgin forests. Between the southern and northern hills spanned the Roginia line, the front’s defensive fortification.

The Shihano mountains, which cut off Shin’s field of vision and marked the western side of the battlefield, ran from north to south. And though they were too far away to be visible from where he was standing, the eastern mountain district and the northern mountainous zone behind the Legion territories also surrounded the battlefield.

“The Shihano mountains cut through the adjacent first northern front and connect with the Dragon Corpse mountain range, which forms the United Kingdom’s border. The Fleet Countries are past the northern mountainous zone. And incidentally…”

Siri, who’d participated in a nearby operation in the Fleet Countries and heard about the state of combat in the northern front, continued his explanation.

“…during the second large-scale offensive, this basin was dotted with barracks and bases. It was an agricultural area before the war, which made it useful for logistical units, but a poor battlefield.”

Open areas were the preferred terrain of the Legion’s heavy-armored units—the Tank-type Löwe and the Heavy Tank–type Dinosauria. The satellite-missile bombardment forced all the front lines to abandon their defensive positions and fall back, but in this case, they had to retreat to open, agricultural land of all things, which was extremely difficult to defend.

“That’s why we were deployed here. They want to change the direction of an abandoned river to use it as a defensive line again. It sounds pretty crazy.”

The Federacy was so lacking in troops that they had to use foreign refugees as volunteers.

In much the same vein, they couldn’t afford to let a foreign armored unit remain idle, even if it was under the direct command of royalty, and Vika had no intention of standing by, either. Likewise, Olivia and the instruction unit dispatched by the Alliance were to once again join the Strike Package as an active combat force from this mission onward.

Vika looked down upon the Roginia line, the dried-up basin that was once occupied by a river. It ran from west to east parallel to the Hiyano River—the position of the second northern front prior to their retreat.

As Vika stood there, Lerche, who was always by his side, tilted her head curiously.

“It’s hard to believe the Roginia line and the Hiyano River both occupy such convenient positions.”

This vast river had enabled the Federacy to fend off the Legion on this border for a decade, and it cleanly divided the Legion and the Federacy’s spheres of influence along its eastern and western banks.

“It’s no coincidence; they were put here. They changed the currents of existing rivers of varying sizes during land reclamation, forming the Hiyano River to create a national border they could easily defend. See? There are many traces of the old riverbanks.”

Lerche followed Vika’s gaze as prompted, but the simple banks only looked like tiny, raised footpaths to her. Many of them ran across the basin, interrupted by trenches and the aftermath of bombardment.

“…So those are the traces of countless rivers, big and small, brought together like a mesh. To dig so many of them… It must have taken considerable time and labor.”

“This area was a wetland originally, since water flowed into it from all directions. Over the course of a century, the land was reclaimed for agricultural use. The Roginia line, too, was originally a river used for defense, which dried up due to the same land-reclamation process. It’s regrettable that we must undo the work of those who came before us, but…” Vika sighed softly. “This war doesn’t allow for sentimentality, it seems.”

Hearing the clamor of familiar footsteps, Shin turned his eyes to look. Walking down along the slopes of the Neikuwa hills and into the basin were Feldreß the color of dried bone—models he knew all too well from the Eighty-Sixth Sector.

The M1A4 Juggernaut. The Republic’s prided shambling aluminum coffins were, for whatever reason, here on the Federacy’s battlefield.

After a moment of silence, Shin asked, “…Are those from before, too?”

“No,” Siri replied with a dubious expression. “It’s my first time seeing them here.”

They were not, however, being deployed as armored weapons like they usually were. They were being escorted by armored infantry as they towed heavy mortars and portable anti-tank missile systems. Some of them pulled 155 mm howitzers or 88 mm anti-tank guns toward the artillery camps.

Juggernauts were, at least on paper, armored weapons. Their armor might be pathetically thin, and their tank turrets ineffective, but they still packed considerable horsepower. This certainly put that strength to good use.

“So they’re being treated like the armored infantry…,” said Siri.

“Come to think of it, I remember some were recovered from the Republic during the evacuation operation to help with carrying supplies…”

But to Shin and the others, who’d used these Juggernauts as their mounts and partners when fighting the Legion, this came across as a rather pathetic—if not downright pitiful—conclusion for the machines.

They were finally reduced to pack mules.

“—Like you said, the Juggernauts we seized are being used as four-legged, nonhumanoid armored exoskeletons,” said a woman with a sweet, slightly high-pitched voice.

They turned around to find themselves faced with a female officer dressed in a panzer jacket. She had the smoky, coffee-colored hair of a Cairn. Her flowing locks were tied into a ponytail, and her attractive facial features were adorned with light makeup. As with all officers on the field, she had her rank insignia removed, but her branch insignia was the same as Shin’s—an unruly horse, the symbol of the armored division.

“They make for useful exoskeletons. They’re tougher and pack more firepower than an Úlfheðinn, and their capacity for pulling weight is off the charts. Using them as Feldreß in the first place was a mistake, if you ask me.”

She approached them, stomping over the wilting autumn grass, and extended her hand in a friendly manner. The tall beauty, standing slightly higher than Shin, flashed a confident smile.

“A pleasure to meet you, ladies and gentlemen of the Strike Package. I’m Lieutenant Colonel Niam Mialona, commander of the Lady Bluebird Regiment, the 1st Regiment of the 37th Armored Division in the second northern front.”

“—The Strike Package’s objective in this mission is located on the western edge of the front line—destroying the dams in the Shihano mountains.”

The Strike Package was stationed in the 37th Armored Division’s base, set up only a month ago. Since the child soldiers mostly fought in foreign countries, the uniform shelter modules that formed the base were a novel sight.

The modules were collapsible, which made them easy to transport in bulk and simple to dismantle in case a speedy evacuation was in order. There were basic modules that could be linked together to accommodate specific numbers of troops, as well as unique modules that could be added for structures with special purposes, like meeting rooms, barracks, dining halls, hangars, and even medical facilities. These constituted the Federacy military’s multipurpose residential facilities.

In a well-used meeting-room module, Lieutenant Colonel Mialona moved between the Processors and the holo-screen projecting the map of the combat zone.

“To be exact, you’re to help seize and maintain control over the flood-control dams up the Kadunan floodway in the Shihano mountains while the combat engineers demolish them. This will revert the entirety of the Womisam basin to its former marshland state from before the land reclamation, rendering it a quagmire that the Legion will have trouble crossing.”

The Kadunan floodway and the dams were highlighted on the map. The artificial river and its tributaries flowed from the south, moving northward through the Shihano mountains with twenty-two dams along the way. With the dams completely stopping the flow of these rivers, only their dry traces extended east into the Womisam basin.

If these rivers were to be fully restored, the basin would indeed become a wetland that would impede the passage of armored weapons. Dinosauria would be hindered by their own weight and wouldn’t be able to move properly over such terrain.

“At the same time, the northern front army’s main force will destroy the Roginia dam at the source of the Kadunan floodway, then blockade the Tataswa floodgate at the base of the new Tataswa floodway. This will restore the Roginia line as a river, which will stand in the scrap monsters’ way in place of the Hiyano River, now under Legion control.”

Next, the path of the restored Roginia River was highlighted on the map, cutting across the battlefield from east to west. Incidentally, the old Tataswa floodway would have its stream redirected to south of the Neikuwa hills, spilling into the Roginia River, which would extend and connect into the Hiyano River via the new Tataswa floodway.

“Your operation area will span sixty kilometers from north to south, from the Roginia dam to the Recannac dam at the end of the Kadunan floodway. The fifteen kilometers from the Yosa dam to the Recannac dam is under Legion control, but the majority of the operation will take place within the contested area. Seeing how many incursions you’ve already made into the Legion’s territories, I’m afraid this operation will be a little unsatisfying.”

She wrapped up her explanation with a joke.

“However—this piece-of-cake operation has to be put off for the time being, sadly.”

Shin raised his head curiously. It wasn’t unheard of for the tides of a battle to change while on the move, but when it delayed an operation, things were usually serious.

Lieutenant Colonel Mialona’s gaze took on a distant, desperate cast.

“It’s honestly so stupid that I’ll spare you the details, but…while you were in transit, a cavalcade of idiots calling themselves the Hail Mary Regiment defected from the second northern front’s army. They stole spent nuclear fuel from a reactor with the stated intent of making atomic weapons, and they are currently lying in wait in the contested areas, their exact position unknown.”

“…Huh?” Shin said, baffled.

Raiden, who sat next to him, and some of the Processors and maintenance crew all reacted the same way. Most of the Eighty-Six simply looked dubious, and while Grethe, Vika, and Olivia didn’t raise their voices, they did look up in exasperation or cradle their foreheads as if suppressing a headache.

Lieutenant Colonel Mialona nodded in agreement.

“That was a wonderful response, Captain, much appreciated. I can now brag about how I managed to get a ‘Huh?’ out of Shinei Nouzen, the Reaper of the Strike Package and the Eighty-Six’s ace.”

Even though Shin had never visited the northern front before, unwelcome rumors seemed to have preceded him. And with embellishments, at that. Shin ruminated on the bombastic title of ace , which he’d heard here for the first time. Apparently, there were even absurd stories about him beating Legion down with a shovel and swallowing them headfirst.

I’m not the priest, you know.

“The Hail Mary Regiment is a small force and not much of a threat on its own, but we can’t ignore the nuclear fuel they possess. Especially if we intend to restore the river. In other words, we can’t go about destroying the dams until the nuclear fuel is safely recovered. Until that happens, we’ll have you all remain on mobile defense.”

The radiation from spent nuclear fuel wouldn’t decay for a very long time. If they didn’t recover the fuel and it got caught up in the river, it could turn the vast basin into a minefield of nuclear radiation. On the other hand, an attempt to recover it would require manpower. Any personnel wasted on the search might be better used maintaining the front lines. With the northern front’s army so short on people, they couldn’t possibly let the Strike Package sit idle.

“Since you wouldn’t know how to conduct yourself around nuclear fuel, the Strike Package will be left out of the search, as well as any missions to suppress the Hail Mary Regiment. However, on the off chance those dimwits blow up the fuel, we will order you to evacuate, and you are to obey at once… You have a question, mysterious black-eyed beauty? Ask away.”

“Second Lieutenant Reki Michihi, ma’am. If they blow up the fuel, would that mean they’d made an atomic bomb? Like…for example, the kind you might see in a monster movie.”

Lieutenant Colonel Mialona paused for a moment. “It wouldn’t make for an atomic bomb, but… Hmm, let’s say it’ll be something similar. Its effect on the Legion would be minimal, but it would be as dangerous to you and me as it would be to the monsters in the movie.”

“Huh? It would only be dangerous to us…?” asked Reki.

Vika answered her, looking like he had a raging headache. Not because of Michihi’s question, but out of exasperation at the defecting unit, which through their efforts to create an atomic weapon were likely to produce something else entirely.

“What you just described is a radiological dispersal device—a dirty bomb, Reki Michihi. It has none of the firepower of an atomic weapon—fictional or real. It’s nothing but an ordinary bomb, with the exception that it disperses radioactive matter that would do nothing to the Legion but would be lethal to humans. A Reginleif has some countermeasures in place to resist that kind of radiation, but it can’t block all of it, so you would have to evacuate… For the time being, understanding that much should be enough. Explaining it any further would take a long time, and it isn’t terribly relevant to our side of the operation.”

The more she listened to Vika’s explanation, the more Michihi frowned in confusion. Not because she didn’t understand the explanation, or because she was displeased at him omitting irrelevant details—but for a much more basic reason.

“If it’s just a bomb that does nothing to the Legion and is only dangerous to us…then what are those people hoping to accomplish?”

The Strike Package was relegated to mobile defense and not sent to aid in suppressing the Hail Mary Regiment, likely out of consideration for the fact that they weren’t used to fighting human opponents.

“…This is absurd,” Raiden said, baffled. “Why’re they trying to make atomic weapons? It isn’t like making an omelet.”

“They think it is, which is why they’ll end up making a dirty bomb… They have no idea what the actual principle behind a nuclear weapon is,” Shin replied tiredly.

Nuclear weapons used the chain reaction produced by nuclear fission or nuclear fusion to unleash the high amount of energy contained in a nucleus as a destructive force. It wasn’t a reaction you could create by mixing any old uranium with explosives, like you’re mixing salt into an egg.

And it was because of people with such a fundamental lack of knowledge that the dam-destruction mission was being delayed.

The Hail Mary Regiment claimed they would save the northern front, but in reality, they were the ones putting it in danger. So long as they remained in hiding in the contested area with the nuclear fuel, the army couldn’t destroy the dams and restore the defensive line along the river. And in the meantime, soldiers had to fight and risk their lives in the defensive installations fending off the Legion in their most advantageous position—open terrain.

The Hail Mary Regiment stealing that nuclear fuel was going to cost people their lives.

Raiden breathed out his nose, exasperated. They were on their way to the barracks, and the passage connecting that module to the meeting room had a low ceiling. He was tall and the space felt cramped.

“Even if they did make a nuclear weapon, it’d be useless anyway. The humans would die out before it destroyed the Legion, and even if they used it to blow away those on the front lines, we wouldn’t be able to occupy that land later.”

The ground zero of a nuclear explosion was temporarily exposed to severe radiation pollution. And by the time the radiation died down to levels where soldiers could safely enter the area, the Legion from the back lines would have moved in to reoccupy the territory.

“If you ask me, the defectors aren’t even thinking about occupying land,” muttered Bernholdt, who was walking behind them.

The two turned to look at him, and he shrugged. These young officers had combat experience that far exceeded their age but were lacking in other fields, as one would expect.

“They probably just think that beating the Legion they can see is a win and aren’t planning any further than that. Like monsters in a movie.”

“No… Would anyone be so clueless?”

“If nothing else, their leader… Noele Rohi, was it? She’s a formal officer, so she must know better.”

A modern military didn’t simply go around blindly slaying enemies and boasting over how many kills they got. It focused on enemies whose defeat contributed to the achievement of political, tactical, and strategic objectives, and considered any others wasted effort. This was taught as basic knowledge in the special officer academy, and even Shin and Raiden, who were promoted only six months into their training, knew to make that distinction.

“Like I told you before, you shouldn’t use yourself as the standard to measure other people. In this case, though, I don’t mean the standards in the Republic were shitty… Those people aren’t purebred warmongers like my kind, the nobles, or you Eighty-Six prodigies. They’re the kind that weren’t good enough to be combatants or support personnel and ended up getting sent to fill whatever job needed doing. That’s all they were good for. So to them, nukes are just some kind of superweapon, and they figured they could use them.”

“But that’s stupid… What would make them think that?”

Just then, they heard the sound of combat boots grinding to a halt behind them.

“Well, because they can’t stand the war any longer, so they jumped at any way to turn the tables in one fell swoop. I think you kids, of all people, would know what that feels like.”

They turned around, only to be greeted by a figure raising their hand to wave hello. Light, faded hair that always smelled like a salty breeze, green eyes, and a firebird tattoo.

“Knowing you could go out to face the Legion tomorrow, fearing you’ll die, and being so desperate to escape that you start clinging to any crazy thought that crosses your mind. Some people are dumb enough to try anything when they get like that.”

Just like how, for ten long years, the Republic shifted all the fear and humiliation they felt because of the Legion to the Eighty-Six and hid everything behind the cover of discrimination.

“Colonel Ishmael… You’re alive.”

“Thanks to you guys.”

He wasn’t clad in the Fleet Countries’ indigo-navy uniform but a Federacy metal-black field uniform. He must be serving in the Federacy army as a volunteer. He smiled and tugged on the collar of his field uniform, as if to address Shin’s doubt.

“Not just me, but all the Open Sea fleet survivors are here to help the ground forces clear evacuation routes. Figured that if the Federacy’s willing to take in all our people, we should offer up our firepower as tribute.”

Rather than stay behind and fight to stall for time during the evacuation, they fought to clear the way and maintain the evacuation route for their refugees, then took cover with them under the Federacy’s protection. And just like he said, they offered up their soldiers as firepower in exchange for every one of the Fleet Countries’ civilians being accepted into the Federacy.

All the while shouldering the shame of having “abandoned” the troops who’d stayed behind to stall the Legion.

“…I’m the captain, so if I died, I wouldn’t be able to look my brethren who died ahead of me in the eye. I have to keep swallowing my shame and live on.”

Those words made Shin realize something. Ishmael’s vice captain, Esther, who had always been by his side in the Fleet Countries, was nowhere to be seen. Seeing Shin gasp in realization, Ishmael smiled.

“Being a kid means you’re allowed to be blindly confident, Captain, but you need to watch yourself. We call that hubris. You can’t assume the things you failed to protect are your fault. That includes Esther, the operation you just finished, and all the operations ahead of you.”

You don’t get to shoulder the blame for my brothers and sister, boy.

Shin jerked his head in a stiff nod. The man before him stood with pride and dignity, the captain who led the Open Sea fleet and its people.

“My apologies, Captain,” said Shin.

“Aye.”

After answering with all the dignity and pride of the Open Sea fleet’s captain, Ishmael smiled and asked him a question.

“So, Captain, did you use that ambergris? I remember Esther giving it to that one pretty girl with silver hair from your squad when she heard you and Colonel Milizé got together.”

He meant Anju. Was she the one who gave Lena the ambergris? Either way, Shin paused briefly before responding:

“I invoke my right to remain silent.”

“I mean, we gave it to you, so we’re curious to hear if you put it to use. That thing’s pretty hard to get, you know?”

Shin smiled broadly, which made Raiden and Bernholdt pull away from him in fear.

“Colonel… You’re being insensitive.”

“Aye, I suppose I am.” Ishmael shrugged flippantly. “Sorry.”

To escape the Federacy army’s pursuit, the Hail Mary Regiment split up into several cells that hid across the virgin forests dotting the contested areas.

“—Good. This should be the last of it.”

Concealed in the ruins of a charcoal-making hut that remained in the woods, the soldiers of one of the nuclear weapon production cells placed the nuclear bomb they produced down with a thud . Each production cell had been allotted a fuel rod, and they opened the casing of the rod and stuffed the fingernail-sized pellets from inside it into a container along with plastic explosives, producing their handmade “nuclear weapon.”

The soldiers stared fixedly at their constructed bomb, baffled by the strange heat it gave off, a contrast to the chilly climate of autumn in the north. It looked rather slapdash, since they’d merely stuffed all the parts into a metallic bucket, but more than anything…

“I thought nuclear weapons were supposed to be some big-ass bomb, but this is pretty small, and it’s really easy to make.”

The thin covering tube was hot to the touch, but tearing it off was honestly the only challenging part. And since it was about as thick as a child’s finger, using a tool to cut it wasn’t too hard.

The hammer of blue flame that would smite the Legion was completed with almost anticlimactic ease.

“Don’t worry about it—just report in that we’re done. I’m sure Princess Chilm will be happy if it turns out that our production cell finished its work first.”

Recalling the gentle smile of their commander, Chilm Rewa, the regional knight of Sul village, they reached for the radio. The Hail Mary Regiment didn’t use RAID Devices. They didn’t know how they worked, which made them seem creepy and scary. Besides, sweet Princess Chilm told them they didn’t have to use them, which they were all happy to hear.

They all started feeling a painful tingle in the back of their throats, like they caught a cold, but none of them paid it too much attention.

Come nighttime, Olivia noticed Kurena leaving the base’s shelter modules by herself after dinner, and hurried after her. In the shadow of the Neikuwa hills, which hid the base, she held a bundle of faded leaves, likely since the flowers had already wilted in the fall.

“…Second Lieutenant Kukumila?” he called out to her back.

“I heard someone I knew from the Fleet Countries—Colonel Esther—passed away.”

The Stella Maris had to be scuttled so it wouldn’t be seized by the Legion, and she’d stayed behind in the vessel to command the operation. And with the supercarrier being as large as it was, destroying it took time. So someone had to be there to handle any unexpected developments until it was—and by the time its sinking was certain, the Legion stood in the scuttling team’s way, making it impossible to catch up to evacuees.

“I wanted to let her know that I’m all right now… I wanted her to see it with her own eyes.”

“Cap’n… Are any of the Shepherds around here Eighty-Six?”

Rito asked the question of Shin as they watched over the Reginleifs being towed into the hangar.

“I can’t tell quite yet, but I don’t think so.” Shin shook his head.

The Federacy’s and the Republic’s languages were similar, making it hard to discern which one he was hearing as he listened to the resonant wailings of the commander units in the distance. The phrasing didn’t sound like an Eighty-Six, though—the dialect was more old-fashioned, probably that of a former Imperial noble.

Shin looked down at Rito. During the battle in the Republic, Rito had fought and defeated someone he knew.

“Is this about Lieutenant Aldrecht?”

“If necessary, I’d do it all over again. But I’d rather avoid it if possible.”

If any Eighty-Six were made into Shepherds, he wanted to liberate them, but…even as Shepherds, they were still Eighty-Six, and Rito wished he wouldn’t have to kill them. Rito pursed his lips, pain glinting in his agate eyes.

“I didn’t want to kill Lieutenant Aldrecht, either. He fought his battles and died, so he said it was time he left the Eighty-Sixth Sector and joined his wife and daughter…and I think that would have been the best for him.”

Standing atop a highly visible hill was suicide on the battlefield. And so Vika stood between the slopes, looking over the Shihano mountains from a point of poor visibility, with Lerche standing by his side.

“…Your Highness,” she said.

“Father and Brother Zafar are safe. Brother Boris passed away, though.”

Boris was his half brother from a different mother, and he’d acted as a pawn in the second prince’s succession feud against the crown prince, Zafar. And though Boris was his brother, Vika didn’t grieve much for his death.

“He stayed behind in a fallen battlefield with his consort so that the royal family didn’t have to bear the responsibility of the defeat. In the end, Brother Boris, too, was a child of the house of unicorns.”

Now that the royal house had lost not just the Dragon Corpse mountain range but also the United Kingdom’s agricultural land, which was very much its lifeline, they needed a beautiful tragedy to exonerate themselves—for the Legion to claim the life of one of their own. A way for them to gloss over the anxiety and fear caused by the war with hatred for the mechanical threat.

The Federacy, which was founded only a decade ago, could not do this. But the United Kingdom and the house of unicorns, which had been facing foreign threats for a millennium, would not fail.

“We may have lost in the preliminary stages…but now that the Imperial nobles have crawled out of the woodwork, let’s see what they can do.”

Once the members of the production cells finished their important task of producing the nuclear weapons, they immediately took the chance to start celebrating. They got drunk on alcohol and consequently started vomiting profusely, so they were left to rest in an abandoned Federacy military warehouse. As such, Kiahi had to leave Noele’s main unit to retrieve the nuclear weapon.

“…I never trusted that damn president to begin with,” Kiahi said bitterly while he drove the truck with his childhood friends Milha and Rilé in the back seat.

He had pale-blond hair set in an undercut, and his light-yellow eyes gazed into the dark virgin forest as they rode through the night.

Eleven years ago, when Ernst Zimmerman led the revolution, Kiahi had high hopes, too. His parents and the village leaders all spoke of the merits of democracy, of the wonderful freedom and equality it would bring them, and Kiahi was taken in by their enthusiasm.

And where were they now? The revolution succeeded, and the Federacy was formed, but the world around Kiahi only changed for the worse. The freedom and equality he was promised turned out to be a far cry from wonderful. They were nothing but trouble and misery.

All the choices that were handled by the regional knight and the village leaders were now forced onto the citizens. This was their “freedom.” They were being forced to study things they had no desire or need for, like how to write, read, and do math. This was their “equality.”

And in the end…

“I used to lead all the boys in town; I was the strongest out of everyone…but the army can’t find me a proper role. How is that my fault? That’s the army being messed up.”

Kiahi volunteered for the armored division, believing that a strong man like him would perform well in a Vánagandr. But the army forced him to take academic exams in topics that had nothing to do with operating Feldreß and rejected him.

Even when he applied to become an armored infantryman, he had to take unnecessary academic exams and ended up being relegated to driving a truck for the transportation corps. He drove round trips within Federacy territory like some stupid duck waddling back and forth.

That was no job for a soldier. He was the strongest hero in town. Being a truck driver didn’t suit him.

“That’s what got Tsutsuri, Nukaf, and Kina killed,” Rilé replied. “Hisno passed the academic exam and became an officer just like the princess, and Ratim became an armored infantryman that way, too. I can’t believe it.”

Rilé was an Agate girl with striking chestnut-colored hair, quite unusual for a Marylazulian citizen.

“That spindly four-eyes, an armored infantryman. Why don’t they see that sending scrawny pukes like him to the front line is why they’re losing the war?”

“We’ve been tricked,” Milha spat out in his usual sulking tone. “The revolution, the army, all of it just made our lives worse.”

Out of all the younger kids here, he was the smallest and daintiest.

“They take our power plant, don’t judge us fairly, and force us to take things we don’t want… We’re being exploited. All so that the officers and commanders can profit off us.”

“Yeah. But now we’re going to put an end to all it.” Kiahi grinned, flashing his teeth.

Just past these trees, they could see the civilian home where their trump card, their bomb, was hidden. Unfortunately, it wasn’t a flashy sword or an impressive Feldreß, but an unsightly bomb. Still…

“With this, we can go back to how things used to be. We can set things right.”

He could go back to being a hero again. To the status he deserved.

At this time of late autumn, thick morning fog would hang over the basin that served as the battlefield of the second northern front. The fog, which blanked out the dim light of dawn, served as convenient cover for the attack Legion. What’s more, just a month ago, this basin served as the base of the second northern front. The barracks and warehouses built here had to be abandoned when the line fell back. And they, too, melted into the white darkness of the fog, obscuring the silently advancing mechanical silhouettes from sight.

And the same held true for the pure-white skeletons lying in wait, all their sensors set to passive.

“—Open fire.”

Once the Ameise unit and its attending Grauwolf company entered the kill zone, they attacked from all directions. Predicting the enemy’s path with the help of Shin’s ability, the Reginleifs lying in ambush sprung out of their hiding places, blocking them from running ahead or falling back.

In human army terms, the enemy group was equivalent to an infantry battalion. The lightweight Grauwolf were escorted by a few Löwe, with the Ameise handling recon and lookout.

First, they destroyed the Ameise to eliminate its sensor capabilities. The Löwe and Grauwolf had weak sensors, and without the Ameise, they lost most of their recon capability, but the Reginleif were just as impeded by the fog as they were. They set their radars to active and switched their optical sensors to infrared mode, probing their surroundings as they sped through the white mist.

On his optical screen, Shin saw a Löwe detect a directional laser and instantly swerve its turret to shoot. As the turret slashed through the fog, Shin’s Undertaker lunged at it from behind, holding on to its back.

He worked in tandem with Raiden, who purposely projected Wehrwolf’s directional laser, knowing it would be detected. Since Shin could hear the Legion’s wails, he didn’t need the radar to find his way through the fog. And his radar’s inaccuracy meant he didn’t transmit any radio waves the Löwe’s feeble sensors could detect; he was invisible to his opponent.

It was a perfect surprise attack, and the Löwe was unable to react. Shin grabbed onto the defenseless back of its turret and activated his pile drivers. The electric piles fried the Löwe’s central processor, and it crumpled to the ground with a thud . Shin hopped off it, changing Undertaker’s bearing to pursue his next target.

“—Incredible.”

The armored infantry accompanying Shin’s unit looked on in awe.

Just as infantry escorted tanks, armored weapons didn’t act alone and were normally accompanied by armored infantry, which served as scouts and eliminated enemy infantry. Since this was the Strike Package’s first time fighting in the northern front and their first time deploying Reginleifs here, they were attached to a reliable veteran unit of armored infantry.

But despite coming along, the armored infantry escorting the Strike Package didn’t have a chance to contribute to the fighting.

The armored infantrymen’s vitals were covered by armor that could withstand machine-gun fire, and their Úlfhéðnar exoskeletons gave them the strength required to carry 12.7 mm heavy machine guns. This allowed them to eliminate Ameise, Grauwolf, and occasionally even Löwe. But in the face of such rapid, high-level combat, they were powerless to help.

“However,” the armored infantry captain whispered under his visor. He’d heard the rumors about the Strike Package’s elites, their achievements, and their background. He, an ordinary man who grew up in a provincial town in the territories with a nuclear power plant as its sole asset, looked up to them like fairy-tale heroes.

But the Strike Package’s child soldiers…

“They’re amazing, but…”

Mobile defense was invoked in cases where an enemy unit broke through the first line of infantry soldiers. An armored unit positioned in the back would move in quickly, using their superior mobility to swiftly eliminate the enemy with overwhelming firepower. If they allowed the Legion to retreat, there was a real chance they would strike the first line of infantry solders from behind.

Looking over the remains of the Legion, which were quite literally wiped out, Shin allowed himself to relax inside Undertaker. The first line was made up of infantry, anti-tank impediments, and anti-tank guns. Even now, the intermittent explosions of anti-tank mines served as a kind of alarm, revealing the positions of unfortunate enemies to the armored infantry and anti-tank guns.

The combat engineers, who had retreated during the battle so as to not get in the Reginleifs’ way, once again progressed and resumed their task of tearing apart the barracks and warehouses. At the edge of his optical screen, Shin could see the engineers peering into the wreckage and crossing themselves. They stopped their heavy machinery and, remaining wary of any enemy traps, approached the debris before pulling something from within. It was the corpses of a man and a woman… No, the man was cradling a child’s body, too.

The Vargus who once lived here evacuated the area years ago, so these were likely the bodies of refugees from the Fleet Countries. They’d probably strayed from the main evacuation force and fled all the way here, their strength failing before they reached safety.

Shin saw that the child’s corpse was hugging a small stuffed toy and averted his gaze. The child had refused to let go of his favored toy even as the family of three ran for their lives. Such an innocent child, at such a tender age, was killed with no one to help or protect them. The truth of the situation made Shin miserable.

The Strike Package, dispatched to save the second northern front and its army, was thankfully under the command of the 37th Armored Division, same as he was. The white armored weapons stood lined up in the hangar, gleaming even through the dust of war.

“—That’s the checklist done. You take care of the rest, Guren.”

“Aye, you got it.”

He was apparently talking to a maintenance crewman. As the commander of the Strike Package spoke to the tall, bespectacled man, Vyov Katou, a newly enlisted armored infantryman, looked on with admiration.

The western front’s Headless Reaper. The Eighty-Six ace, Captain Shinei Nouzen.

He had the pitch-black hair of an Onyx, the crimson eyes of a Pyrope, and the handsome, fair facial features of those with noble blood. This was the living legend who led the elite unit riding the newest Feldreß models, the Reginleifs.

That unit was dispatched to companies teetering on the edge of defeat and it saved them all. It boasted first-class fighters from the Federacy, Alliance, and United Kingdom in its ranks. He’d heard the rumors, but seeing the Strike Package in the flesh, his impression was…

“—They really are amazing. So cool.”

The northern front, too, was being pushed to the brink by the scrap army and teetering on the edge of collapse. But now that the Strike Package was here, they would surely be saved. These were heroes, after all, and they would resolve everything perfectly.

“I have to do my best, too.”

The situation was swinging in the Legion’s favor, and to turn things around, they’d need to launch an operation into the enemy’s domain. To put it another way, pressure from the Legion was forcing their hand, similar to the reckless charge of six months ago to take the Dragon Fang Mountain during that snowy summer in the United Kingdom.

“I can’t hear any Dinosauria. It doesn’t seem like there are any heavy-armored units at the Legion’s front line.”

Just when he was heading back, Shin ran into Vika and Lerche in the corridor leading from the United Kingdom’s hangar block to the barracks. Apparently, they were returning for supplies and a shift change.

In order to break through the human front lines, the Legion used heavy-armored squadrons with Dinosauria and Löwe as their main force. In the United Kingdom, they hid among the Legion’s supply and transport units in the back of the Legion lines to sneak in, eliminate the United Kingdom armored forces, and isolate the Strike Package. As such, both Shin and Vika were wary of this tactic. They had no intention of falling for the same trap a second time.

“But there’s too few heavy-armored Legion at the front. There are Vánagandrs handling mobile defense in other sectors, so the ground isn’t too brittle for the Löwe to move. We have to assume they’re keeping them in the back to conserve forces.”

“If you can’t hear them, we have no choice. I’ll arrange to send out scouts.”

Lerche obeyed Vika’s words without him so much as glancing at her. Shin, however, did look her way, and she smiled and bowed elegantly, her glasswork eyes seeming to say that she would handle it.

“If they’re heavy-armored units, they can’t possibly be hidden that well…,” said Vika. “Besides, we’ve fought over a vast battlefield without an Esper like you to scout the enemy for us. We’re well aware of all the possible hiding places.”

“Thanks… And there’s something else I’ve been meaning to ask.”

Vika’s Imperial violet eyes turned to look at Shin. This concerned something Shin had no way of knowing on his own.

“Do you know some method, some trick the Dinosauria can use to get to the front lines without moving on their own or having the Tausendfüßler tow them? I’ve been keeping an eye on their transport units’ movements, but it doesn’t seem like they’re hiding there, either.”

Shin’s ability didn’t allow him to hear the wailings of Legion in shutdown mode, but the Legion couldn’t move while shut down, either. Even if the Tausendfüßler could tow them—and Shin didn’t know if it was possible for them to pull the hundred-tonne Dinosauria—Shin would hear the voices of the Tausendfüßler. And if they were moving in a group, Shin would surely notice.

Vika blinked once.

“ Yes. Or rather, one can’t exactly call this a trick. It depends on terrain, but there’s a means of transporting things in large numbers that’s much older than the airplane or the locomotive.”

As a front commander in his home country, he was well aware of supply routes and means of transportation, and as a prince, he was familiar with his country’s distribution and its history. To him, the answer was self-evident.

Then, as if realizing something, he scoffed.

“…The Hail Mary Regiment’s foolishness revealed the Strike Package’s presence here to the Legion, despite our original intention to keep it a secret. It was the Legion who forced us into this advance operation, and since we’ve sent out scouts to check the route, they must have seen their targets. So, why don’t we use that as bait while we’re at it, then?”

“If it’s worth using, I don’t mind. But answer the question I asked you first,” Shin said, narrowing his eyes tiredly.

“I’ll write you a report later, so read that. More importantly”—Vika met Shin’s glare with an upturned, teasing smirk—“I wasn’t sure how you’d act without Milizé around, but you’re surprisingly calm.”

Shin kept glaring at him, but did nothing else. This serpent wouldn’t listen to anything he said anyway.

“I’m calm because she isn’t around. With her gone, I have to take over some of her role. I don’t want to fail and have that weigh on her later, too.”

Normally, in the Strike Package, the tactical commander’s right to command passed to her tactical staff officers, so Shin couldn’t take over those duties. But he could handle her other responsibilities, such as interacting with other units or in social meetings with other officers. Since Lena wasn’t there to draw attention with her appearance or achievements, he could fill in for her. After all, his bloodline was unique in the Federacy, since he was a mixed Onyx and Pyrope, and he was the overall operations commander of the Strike Package.

These duties couldn’t be avoided, and he wanted to be capable of doing at least that much. Just like Lena had done until now… Just like the final words Major General Richard left them.

I won’t tell you to answer that with your entire way of life. Wherever you affiliate yourself, use your wits and victories for them.

He had to learn. As a member of the Federacy army, and despite being an Eighty-Six who could never quite fit in or share its values. Even if he couldn’t answer with his entire way of life, he’d have to learn how to live in the Federacy army and this country. Learn how to avoid needless discord, to put up with the confrontations he couldn’t avoid, and how to negotiate, adjust, and compromise to prevent fatal ruptures and find a path of mutual agreement. He needed to learn how politics worked, both within an organization and society at large.

Besides, he didn’t want Lena to worry when she was recovering, nor did he want his own conduct to impact her reputation, and on top of that, he didn’t want to come across as clumsy or lame.

“I can’t stay a child forever…so I’ll use you as an example, Your Highness.”

“I don’t mind, but don’t lose too much of your innocence, or Milizé might come to me to complain. I have to handle you trying to crack my head open; I don’t need Milizé chasing me around, too.”

“How do you know about—…? And I wasn’t trying to crack your head open. I was going to dispatch you with a shovel and throw you into the sea.”

“…So that chill I felt on the Stella Maris was indeed because of you…”

“That reminds me. About the Cicada…”

It wasn’t just Lena; Vika had Anju and Kurena put it on, too.

“I suppose I shouldn’t have mentioned that… Lerche, handle this!” Vika walked off with quick steps, leaving behind a flustered Lerche.

“Huh?! Your Highness, that’s cruel!” she exclaimed, but then she turned to face Shin, a tragic, brave expression on her face. “Very well… Sir Reaper. Claim my head and dispose of me here!”

“Vika’s at fault, so I’m not going to lash out at you… Besides, your head comes off, so it wouldn’t count as ‘dispatching’ you.”

“…Ooh.” Lerche inhaled in surprise, like she’d just realized some kind of profound truth.

“Don’t act impressed.”

“Your advice is welcome and understood, Colonel Grethe Wenzel.”

Seeing the northern front’s chief of staff—a well-mannered, soft-featured woman—made Grethe ponder how different her own chief of staff was. Only in terms of appearance, of course, but…

“We have also detected the enemy’s lower-than-expected numbers of heavy-armored forces and sent our scouts to investigate. We have autonomous recon devices as well as humans keeping an eye out, so I don’t believe we’ll overlook anything, but your input is appreciated.”

The Federacy military’s unmanned autonomous recon devices were useful for preventing casualties in dangerous scouting missions, but they had major flaws. Since they moved on land, their cameras were limited in range, and there were some types of terrain they couldn’t penetrate. Also, since the data was sent wirelessly, the Eintagsfliege’s jamming often impeded it. And because experienced scouts could rely on their own intuition, the autonomous recon devices were no replacement for them.