by Carlo Zen
Third Platoon had bet that no one would pass. First Platoon had bet on four pairs passing. Incidentally, Second Platoon, which had banked on at least half passing, was already out of the running. Please, somebody pass…
Thinking of the bottles they stood to lose, the MPs prayed fervently for the applicants’ success. They weren’t terribly religious, but they felt like leaning on God. No disciple is so pious as a gambler.
IMPERIAL ARMY GENERAL STAFF AFFILIATED AGENCY, RECEPTION ROOM 7, TWO DAYS LATER
“You’re saying that V601 was just propaganda all along?!”
A young second lieutenant was shouting in protest, spittle flying at this outrage. His clenched fist looked ready to pound the desk any moment. He had rushed there in hopes of helping the Western Army Group, which were still hard-pressed, only to discover that the eastern army was being given a propaganda assignment?
Everything about his body language made it clear that he thought this was ridiculous.
“Calm down, Lieutenant. Believe me, I wish I could tell you otherwise.” The major facing him bowed his head apologetically. Yes, a major was effectively apologizing to a second lieutenant. He was equally concerned about the situation. But even if he couldn’t say the words I’m sorry to the second lieutenant, he could express it sincerely through his attitude.
“…So you’re telling me to just keep my mouth shut and go home?”
“Unfortunately. I’m thrilled at your eagerness. If there’s ever an opportunity, I hope you’ll volunteer.”
The major sounded genuinely sympathetic. Maybe something in his voice reached the young officer, because he relaxed his fist, gave a perfect salute, and bowed upon exiting.
“By your leave, sir.”
No sooner had the lieutenant closed the door than the image of the major wavered and then disappeared. At the same time, chairs that had been concealed with optical formulas appeared. The young second lieutenant never had the slightest idea that he was being watched while he was saying his impassioned piece. And that was why the observers were heaving deep, defeated sighs.
“This really makes me want us to work out optical formula countermeasures already,” spat a commissioned officer bitterly. He was one of several who had appeared where there was only a wall a moment before. They had been watching the same monotonous third-rate production all day, and they weren’t happy about it.
In the test they were observing, morons prattled on without noticing the deception, unfortunately. Their frustration was understandable.
The whole thing hinged on a simple gimmick: the creation of a false 3-D image using optical types. They would project the image of a nonexistent person behind a desk in a corner of the room, then just fix up the rest of the room with camouflage and optical formulas to hide any weirdness. It was merely a matter of finagling the interior design to conceal the strange placement of the desk in the corner.
Once that was done, it looked like the desk was in the center of the room, although it did make the room seem rather small. In the remaining hidden space sat the high-ranking officers, watching everything with obvious displeasure. The second lieutenant had been so sincere, only to have his ambitions betrayed. He had been putting on a one-man show for the distinguished panel of assessors.
Their conclusion was that being a mage didn’t guarantee cognitive ability, even on a more fundamental level than common sense. The lieutenant had provided a vivid demonstration of this shortcoming and served as an apt example of the eastern army’s lack of battle experience. That would be well and good if the subject of the test were the enemy army, but no general staff would be pleased to see how inept their own forces were.
“Right? Although you can hardly blame them for having tunnel vision.”
Captain von Degurechaff shrugged. The members of the eastern army had been openly angered by her annoyed look until just days before, but now their faces were pale.
This was the test to select the members of her elite unit. The fact that almost no one from the east had managed to pass was whipping up a storm of anger.
She said exactly what she thought: “Incompetent, pitiful, lazy, arrogant, unprepared, mentally disabled, inattentive, no powers of observation—the worst kind of freeloader.” And her conclusion was “all mages of the Eastern Army Group require reeducation”?
This was no laughing matter, at least not according to the staffers who came in high dudgeon from the eastern army to the General Staff Office. And yet what they found when they arrived was this pitiful spectacle.
“Rather than tell you about it, I think it would be quicker if I showed you,” Captain von Degurechaff had said, cordially inviting officers who sympathized with the complainers to be proctors. The test was simple: If the subject could see through the basic optical trick, they passed. If not, they didn’t.
The image projected in front of the applicants had no physical form. That could be concealed somewhat by placing it behind a desk, but after watching it all day even the non-mages began to notice something was off. First and foremost, the 3-D image was only pretending to move its mouth when it spoke.
Its synthetic voice, created by Captain von Degurechaff, was spouting fictitious nonsense from the side. If one listened very closely, it was possible to tell that the sound wasn’t coming from the front.
Once the trick was revealed, it was irritatingly simple, but almost everyone was taken in by it. The majority of the applicants went to the air force base as they were told and were shipped right back to their units.
By all appearances, the eastern army was not likely to get off without an admonition. In fact, it was quite certain. The ranking officers from the regional field armies who had come to protest ended up bearing the brunt of the General Staff members’ critical glares.
“I see now. We came to investigate when you kept failing people, but now we understand.”
When Brigadier General von Zettour, deputy director of the Service Corps, turned to the men from the eastern army, his eyes were cold. What the hell have you been doing over there? they seemed to demand.
Deception using optical formulas was hardly new. It was even listed in mage textbooks as being especially effective against the Republican Army’s disciplined fire. Not only that, but since the Republican Army often used optical formulas on the battlefield, countering them was considered a basic part of every mage’s skill set. The fact that the candidates in this test failed to demonstrate even this elementary ability said something about the level of their training.
“Didn’t only about half the troops from Central figure it out, even though they’ve got combat experience?”
“The problem is that almost none of the troops from the east could.”
As the brass whispered their criticisms, one member of the eastern contingent felt compelled to defend his army and cautiously spoke up.
“If you’ll excuse me, might this not be a question of skill rather than experience?”
His indirect question was whether the situation had been brought about by Captain von Degurechaff’s extraordinary abilities. At the very least, the eastern army was aware that mages with the Silver Wings Assault Badge were a tiny minority. Hence, it was possible to wonder if the gulf was one of not combat experience but prowess.
“It’s a simple illusion created with an optical formula. Such formulas are frequently used as decoys on the battlefield.”
But Captain von Degurechaff’s matter-of-fact answer said it all. This statement was coming from someone who had survived an entire company’s fire discipline using optical deception. It carried an immense weight. And there was no changing the fact that nearly half the troops from Central who had previously seen action on the western front didn’t get tricked.
“You just saw them getting manipulated like puppets by something that doesn’t exist, a little bent light. Surely you understand why I don’t want them in my unit.”
“So what are the overall results for the eastern army?”
“Twenty-seven ou
t of twenty-nine pairs were tricked by the illusion and returned to their units.”
A nearby assistant read the report dispassionately, and even though they had spent all day watching this comedy of errors, the observers sighed.
Staff from the Service Corps were already fretting about the fact that they might actually need to reeducate the regional armies. Serious doubts had arisen as to whether they could fight a war if the troops were so easily deceived.
“Even with the five pairs out of ten from the central army that passed, that’s still only enough for a company.”
A mere twelve people passed the initial screening, which was conducted in pairs. Even if she took every one of them, she would only have enough for a company. Just 25 percent of her goal.
“At the moment, I’m hoping for better from the remaining sixty-five pairs in the eastern and southern armies.”
Her tone wasn’t entirely pessimistic, but her eyes said she didn’t expect much.
“Well, this pass ratio won’t do.”
The verdict negated any optimism. It was as bad for those who heard it as for the one who said it. The commissioned officers from the eastern army slumped in resignation. None of them would have hoped that his unit would be branded inept, but reality was harsh. The mages of the Eastern Army Group could look forward to some cold treatment for the foreseeable future.
“Could you lower your admission standards…?”
“I would have to at least get people who could be useful after retraining. It would take time to assemble.”
The openly despairing officers from the Service Corps suggested reevaluating the schedule. More than a few people were glaring at the easterners, silently asking how the hell they had been training. In any event, loosening the standards for admission would inevitably entail more time to set up the unit.
The unit’s training period, which was the trickiest part, would have to lengthen dramatically. Calm acceptance of the fact would have been unusual. Bringing veterans together was one thing; training fresh recruits from square one was something else entirely. If the disparity between the members’ abilities was too great, it could hinder their operations. Everyone in a unit had to be brought to a uniform level.
In other words, even if they founded the unit on the company Captain von Degurechaff had picked out so far, molding it into a real fighting force would take time.
“How much time, exactly?”
“About a month.”
Ironically, it was a word from Captain von Degurechaff that saved the eastern army personnel from their predicament. When she said “a month,” all attention suddenly gathered on her, the easterners completely forgotten. Selecting and retraining a unit normally took a terribly long time.
Yet she made this bold claim in front of an assembly of high-ranking officers as if it were no big deal.
She was saying that given a month, she could whip even these useless bumblers into shape.
If any other captain had said such a thing, people would think he was either a liar or an idiot. It took two years to train new recruits. No matter how experienced she was as a mage, it was madness to say this would take only a month.
The words on the tips of everyone’s tongues were: Impossible! It can’t be done. Totally unrealistic.
But the air around Captain von Degurechaff prevented anyone from giving voice to those thoughts. Just watch me, she seemed to say. If she hadn’t already demonstrated the ability to back it up, the amount of self-confidence she was showing would have been conceited.
Each of the officers there found themselves completely overawed by a girl young enough to be their granddaughter. So powerful and authoritative was her presence that the issue of grilling the Eastern Army Group was temporarily shelved.
“Go right ahead, then. Reeducate them—and be a little rough if you have to.”
General von Zettour might have been the only person in the room to have anticipated this scenario. He smirked. A little rough. That was his way of saying she could do whatever she wanted as long as no one died.
“Sir.”
Captain von Degurechaff was wearing a smile much like that of her superior. It was a savage expression, like that of a vampire with its prey in its grasp—or of a cat playing with a mouse.
“Send today’s minutes to the instructor unit as well. I want to have them retrain the southern and eastern armies.”
And they were efficient. General von Zettour gave the command almost as an afterthought, but it indicated he had no intention of letting the matter of regional army quality rest. Rather, he intended to thoroughly correct the problem.
“This does not bode well. Going forward, we need to make sure everyone is on the same page with regard to training.”
IMPERIAL TERRITORY, ALPEN MOUNTAINS, ZUGSPITZE TRAINING GROUNDS
“O Lord, show me the way to guide my sheep.”
Eight thousand feet. A height that shatters everything we thought we knew about being aerial mages. The voice that rings out is serious. Anyone who had the slightest thought of resisting has had it trained out of them. Now we are like obedient sheep, driving our half-dead bodies to fly onward. No, we are forced to. I’m partly focused on the tightness in my lungs as I gasp for oxygen, but I still retain just enough concentration to control my orb. This all started—if my fuzzy, rather unreliable sense of time is correct—something like five days ago.
“I’m going to give you all a choice. Either shoot me down, or enjoy your training.”
Our bodies exhausted, we were sleeping like the dead. At least we had beds, which was better than my time on the Rhine lines. I thought maybe this was a kinder side of Captain von Degurechaff, but after I let down my guard and went to sleep, I was woken up by a magical assault that blew the entire barracks away. We immediately grabbed our orbs and trowels and put up our defensive shells. When we crawled out of the wreckage, we were met with Captain von Degurechaff’s fierce grin. I had gotten used to that smile on the Rhine battle lines, but to encounter it first thing upon waking up was worse for my heart than one of Elya’s pranks.
The bayonet of the captain’s rifle looked as happy as a vampire on the hunt. It seemed to be waiting impatiently for some mage to carelessly pass out in front of her; despite the darkness of the night, it glimmered in the moonlight. She fully intended to attack when she saw an opening, if the vast amount of magical energy in the computation orb she wore was any indication.
“Have I got your attention? For the next week, all of you will be conducting mobility exercises here on training ground B-113.”
Three points were marked on the maps we had been given. According to the outline of the exercise, as soon as it began, we would move as quickly as possible to the first point. The time limit was forty-eight hours.
It didn’t matter how we got there—what mattered was that we not fail. Marching was basic; we did plenty of drilling in the Cadet Corps. I could have done without the observer-assisted shelling and magically guided fire bombarding us whenever our mana signals were detected.
It was extremely difficult to march while concealing the signal a mage produced. I was no exception, even though I had gained some experience with it on the Rhine lines. After all, our barracks had been blown to smithereens. Our only remaining possessions were whatever we had on us when we hastily used our defensive formulas. We barely even had any water. And now we had to march without relying on magic? An actual battle would have been easier. It made me want to cry.
But when we somehow made it to the second waypoint, we received orders to begin an optical interception. Word was the artillery had too much free time on their hands, so the training program was being changed.
“Everyone, I’m quite happy to see that not one of you has dropped out.”
The moment we saw the captain with a rare ear-to-ear smile, we all felt a mysterious chill run down our spines. I knew that smile meant something even worse was coming and cursed God in spite of myself. No, c’mon!
Her expression said
something like, You haven’t had enough yet? I didn’t realize you were such a tough bunch, or Seems like I can make this a bit harder. Curse you, God.
We had no choice but to come to terms with the fact that she would be “kind” enough to step up the training regimen according to our ability.
“You’re all so good at this, you’ve left the artillery with ammunition to spare.”
The rest goes without saying. The captain, still grinning, hurled me and all her other subordinates into a pit of despair.
“You wouldn’t want them to feel left out, would you? I think you should play with the artillery.” She immediately shot an infrared beam using a formula. A training round flew down the line of fire, straight for us—an attack from the artillery against our assembly point.
It was an artillery barrage against a fixed point. An attack so simple it couldn’t not hit. You’re all so very capable. Even I’m proud of you. How could she say such things…?
“Really quite splendid. Granted, this is training, but you’ve still done well evading the artillery’s guided fire. As pleased as I am, it won’t do for you to go without some anti-artillery training, will it? Training means being ready for anything. So as part of this joint exercise between you and the guns, you’re going to defend this foothold as practice. This is a defensive battle. You have fifteen minutes to prepare your position. Oh, don’t look so worried. They don’t have too many training rounds. I assume they’ll run out after firing for about thirty-six hours.”
She was as terrifying as she was adorable. Her tone was so sunny, it sounded like she was announcing picnic plans. An instant later, I was rushing to prepare an entrenchment, practically crying. I never dreamed there might be a day a trowel would seem so important to me.
“All right, everyone. If you don’t want to die, intercept. Additionally, if you wander off the route, I will personally conduct a magical bombardment against you.”
That was when I started to think I really was going to die. Looking back on it now, it shouldn’t have surprised me to find that there were reduced-load rounds to “wake us up” mixed in with the training shells. This was Captain von Degurechaff, after all. She was true to her word. If you don’t want to die was no idle threat.