“I’m surprised… With General Zettour’s blunt approach to conscription, when I heard trainees would be included, I was expecting to see some men with just a few dozen hours of flight time.”
Unbelievably, it looks like the general may have actually scraped together something useful for us. I am just beginning to smile at this pleasant surprise when a frown appears on the older mage’s face and I realize I am mistaken somehow. I purse my lips.
“Colonel, are you aware of the style of training carried out these days?” Warrant Officer Kahteijanen asks, lowering his voice. I honestly shake my head no.
“I do not have many connections with the rear, although I wish I did. I know they follow a program of accelerated orientation these days. With such training, I imagine many things are simplified, but… Well, you tell me.”
“Simplified is one way to put it. Basically, we’ve adopted the Federation approach.”
“What?”
The Federation approach? I’m not sure I heard him right. Or maybe I just don’t want to hear him.
“The Federation approach to training, which mixes like oil and water with Imperial Army mage tactics?”
“They’ve decided that the most efficient, reliable way to transform a bunch of amateurs—who don’t even know how to spell the word mage yet—into an effective fighting force, is to adopt the Federation’s approach.”
“Morons.” The word slips out naturally, before I can stop myself. “Don’t they know that runs completely counter to the design concept of our orbs…? Our troops have average defensive shells at best, and they want us to use them the way the Federation uses theirs? We’ll be left with a mountain of corpses on our hands…”
Imperial-style orbs value mobility. Float like a butterfly, sting like a bee. That is the crux of the imperial approach. Federation-style orbs value durability. As firm as a mountain, with the firepower of a volcano.
It isn’t that one way is better than the other, but the ideas are just completely juxtaposed. And naturally, the way the troops are utilized differs as well, just like the design concept behind the orbs mages are equipped with.
As a result, while the Empire does aim for a high-low mix…even its most budget orbs have been designed according to the presumption that they will be utilized as part of the higher end of the spectrum.
The idea of using Imperial Army mage equipment outside those parameters! To hold ground out of sheer stubborn persistence, like the Federation! That would be as ridiculous as using an F1 racecar to tow a truck. Obviously the equipment would be fatally unsuited to the task.
“This method is faster though,” says Warrant Officer Kahteijanen reluctantly, as I stand there in stunned disbelief.
“So they simplified training for time’s sake.”
Of course, I think, finally understanding. By focusing on just defensive shells and flying formulas, and assuming no activation of optical deception formulas or switching between multiple formulas, they would probably be able to cut out a lot of the classroom time. If they cut out time spent studying various book subjects and just focused on drill flight at first…it wouldn’t be impossible to drastically simplify previous training and reach two hundred hours of flight in that time, would it?
However, the price paid would be great.
“Which is better, dying because you can’t fly, or dying because you can?” asks Warrant Officer Kahteijanen, hitting the issue uncomfortably on the nose.
The aerial mages of the past were flying combat experts. Today, with this sped-up training, freshly minted mages are simply amateurs who know how to fly. To be blunt, inserting soldiers like this into battle will be an unspeakable waste of human resources.
First of all, the fact that we can’t categorically dismiss such recklessness out of hand is a clear sign the army is on its last legs. But when it comes to Tanya’s self-preservation, I am not willing to compromise one iota.
“That is defeatist talk, Warrant Officer. The water back in the capital must not have suited you.”
“I am like you, Colonel.”
“Like me?”
“I feel much more at ease on the front lines.”
I am a little puzzled by Warrant Officer Kahteijanen’s peculiar sensibilities, but choose to respect his personal opinion and remain silent. After all, there are all sorts of people out there. It is probably better to respect their freedom to think whatever they like. However, I do wish to relieve him of this notion that Tanya herself is one such person.
“I wish to correct a misapprehension you seem to be suffering from. I have the utmost respect for the busybodies who poke their noses into our business from the safety of the rear. It is only thanks to them that we continue to fight.”
Speaking of which, I would be thrilled to do such work myself, but there is no point making a fuss about that now. It is not like Warrant Officer Kahteijanen is in a position to get Tanya a cushy job in the rear.
All the same, as someone with the sensibilities of a responsible member of society, I never miss an opportunity to point out how well-suited Tanya would be to a position on the back lines.
“Seeing the new recruits gives me ideas. I think I would rather like to teach myself.”
My constant appeal to common sense seems to have left a deep impression on the other man.
“Thank you for saying that… Although I hope to lose as few of my pupils as possible on this mission.”
“I’m sorry. All I can say is that we will try our best. After all, considering the kind of battlefield we are heading into, even you and I will have to prioritize our survival…”
“Of course…”
Wishing each other well, I resist the urge to sigh. These new pawns are all rookies. Even their equipment is only what could be readily scrounged up. They must have turned the warehouses upside down to mobilize every last fossil on the shelves, and it still hadn’t been enough. It looks like they have even appropriated display pieces—what could be better called historical memorabilia—from the museums. Out of the museums and straight to the battlefields.
Forget about planting seeds for tomorrow’s harvest, we’re now dismantling the monuments of yesterday. We are living in historical times, a truly glorious sight to behold.
“What we’re facing now is a task so difficult it could cause even veterans of the past to throw in the towel in despair.”
As my complaint dissipates in the empty air, I grasp my dangling Elinium Arms Type 95 Assault Computation Orb in hand. The day is likely coming when I will have to rely on this device again.
Damn it all.
“But there is no room to be picky when it comes to survival…”
✦ ✦ ✦
Creating disarray in the rear using three mage divisions. Securing local superiority through concentration and careful selection. General Zettour showed no qualms in committing everything he had.
Was this massive commitment made with a long-term perspective in mind? Experts have argued the point for ages. More than a few have whispered that, formidable though he might have been…perhaps, at that point in time, General Zettour was thinking with the mindset of a talented army commander.
As one leading authority pointed out, “General Zettour’s experience in central military administration may have been extensive. However, that experience was largely as a strategist in the East. General Rudersdorf had previously been in charge of the overarching matters. Until taking Rudersdorf’s place after his sudden death, General Zettour’s experience in making ends meet with the forces available had, on an operational level, been limited. Perhaps he had still been thinking with the mentality of an area commander, quick to use whatever was at his disposal.”
There are many theories on this matter, including no small number that refute such arguments and see General Zettour’s choice as “a decisive strategic judgment, made with the mentality that, even if it were to bring pain tomorrow, this commitment was a necessary step in order to survive long enough to feel that pain.”
However, there is one thing that many from later generations acknowledge, and that is that his victory was massively Pyrrhic. The mages were a sleight of hand, and the almighty General Zettour, unable to resist his instincts as a soldier, lost a great number of them in his relentless pursuit of victory.
Some even say, when viewing the issue from a bird’s-eye view, that the tide of the war was decided right then and there. The Empire won a massive, temporary victory, while also sealing its fate of ultimate, bitter defeat.
In that moment, the mages of the Empire stood at the pinnacle of the world. They took the glittering center stage and, through incessant bloodshed, wrested victory from the earth by planting it with their own bleached corpses and cries of resentment.
The aerial mages of the Imperial Army won the battle, and, for all intents and purposes, died out.
Hence, what the world now knows: The utter, incomparable terror of a mage on the brink of death.
“We are the aerial mages of the Empire! No one can stand against us!”
The mages threw themselves into that battle with utter ferocity, as if flying into the very dusk in which Minerva’s owl spreads its wings. A battle that heralded the end of their age, etching their mark upon the world at the very end, before flying off toward Valhalla.