The central conference room of Elancia City Hall, requisitioned as a temporary headquarters.
A large city map was spread across the table, and through the acrid haze of cigar smoke, the key officers of the 1st Armored Division and the Jaeger Combat Group had gathered.
“Attention.”
Major General Falkenheim spoke, command baton in hand. The murmuring conference room fell as silent as death.
“We have already secured the surface, but the real battle lies below it. In the sewers.”
Falkenheim’s baton pointed to the intricate sewer network and the plans of the underground air-raid shelters.
“Valerie and the remnants of the Commune have hidden themselves in the underground sectors. Each battalion is to search its assigned area thoroughly.”
A forewarning of a vicious, muddy war of attrition. I glanced over my subordinates.
Erika was biting her lip hard, perhaps out of tension, while Seraphina was focused, taking in the map.
Hanna, standing right beside me, had her eyes gently lowered, as if gauging how to deploy her [Mana Detection] underground.
‘It’s a textbook meat grinder operation, but… if we send in the elites first and use the minimap to eliminate blind spots, we can minimize casualties in the Jaeger Combat Group.’
We had Hanna’s [Mana Detection] and my [Minimap]. That meant even the sewer network, tangled like a spiderweb, could be seen as clearly as our own living room.
‘This brings back a few months ago.’
After I became commander of the combat group, I had mostly used armor to wage mobile warfare, but… originally, I was an infantry officer. In the Gray Forest and in Rosenheim, I had personally led infantry and used our information advantage to strike the enemy from the flank.
“That concludes the briefing.”
Falkenheim withdrew his baton and turned his head toward the officers.
“Each unit is to finish resupplying ammunition within one hour and deploy through the designated underground entrances—”
That was when it happened.
Kugugugugung—!!
A massive explosion erupted, powerful enough to shake the entire headquarters. Plaster dust poured down from the ceiling, and the window glass cracked under the shockwave.
“What the hell is going on?!”
Falkenheim roared. The conference room door burst open, and a communications officer rushed in, his face deathly pale.
“C-Commander! Large-scale explosions are occurring all over the city! It’s them! The Revolutionary Army bastards have launched a preemptive surprise attack!”
“What? Those rats crawled out first before the sweep operation even began?”
“At present, the Imperial Army’s main supply depots and outer parking areas, and…”
The communications officer swallowed dryly and shouted in urgency.
“Sector Three! A large-scale bombing has occurred in Sector Three, where the temporary officers’ quarters are concentrated! They say the buildings are collapsing in a chain reaction!”
Sector Three. The area where the temporary officers’ quarters were concentrated.
It was also where my temporary residence was located. In other words… where Ellie, my personal maid, was staying.
“Communications with Sector Three are down! Connect the backup line immediately!”
“Medical corps! Send every remaining ambulance to Sector Three!”
Even amid the noise of the conference room drenched in panic, my reason was turning coldly. The situation was so clear that [Indomitable Mind] did not even need to activate.
Just yesterday, the operation to assassinate the Imperial Princess had ended in failure. The enraged Imperial Army immediately declared martial law and prepared to mobilize its troops to punish the Revolutionary Army.
With the very existence of the Revolutionary Army at stake, those bastards had launched a desperate preemptive struggle with their lives on the line.
‘This is an unexpected variable.’
I was not particularly worried about Sydney. By now, she had probably sensed the signs of the terror attack in advance and was fleeing.
Without delay, I used my skill.
‘Sight Sharing.’
[Skill ‘Sight Sharing (Lv.1)’ has been activated.]
[You will receive the visual information of the designated target (‘Sydney Wellesley’) in real time.]
Bzzzt, bzzzzzt—!
The scenery before my eyes distorted, and a black-and-white screen of noise appeared. Then, after only a moment of static, a proper image began to show.
A ringing that struck my ears, thick gray dust, and a shaking field of vision.
The protagonist within that vision was nimbly vaulting over the rubble of a collapsed mansion. Under normal circumstances, any ordinary maid would have been trembling and collapsed on the spot, but her movements had no wasted motion.
When the focus of the image turned toward the floor, her two hands came into view.
They were not white frilled sleeves. They were taut black tactical clothing and leather gloves. She was no longer Maid Ellie, but the elite infiltration agent Sydney Wellesley.
Where her gaze stopped, there lay the corpse of a young blond woman, crushed under the debris of the explosion and already dead.
‘A maid from another mansion, perhaps.’
Judging by her condition, she seemed to have been killed by the bomb.
Sydney covered the corpse with the hem of her maid uniform, then placed Ellie’s identification and the hairpin she usually used into the corpse’s pocket.
‘There isn’t the slightest hesitation in her movements. As expected of the Director of the United Kingdom.’
The physique and hair color were roughly similar, and with relics like those, anyone would be forced to mistake it for Ellie’s body.
But she did not stop there.
Sssk.
Sydney’s gaze turned back to her hand, and I saw her take a small metal cylinder from her pocket. It was an incendiary grenade.
Without hesitation, she pulled the safety pin and fixed the incendiary grenade near the corpse’s face and the hand with the fingerprints.
‘She intends to turn the face and fingerprints into charcoal, making identification permanently impossible.’
It was flawless work.
Soon, Sydney’s vision abruptly pulled back.
Flash—!
With a blinding burst of light and crimson flames filling the screen, I released [Sight Sharing].
*
“Lieutenant Colonel Jaeger, are you all right?!”
Major General Falkenheim’s call dragged me back to reality.
Bzzzt, bzzzzzt!
My vision shifted rapidly. I roughly shook my head and barely managed to dispel the dizziness.
“It seems even you were shocked. But pull yourself together. If you move, won’t you be able to save at least one more person?”
“…I’m all right, Division Commander.”
Then I rose from my seat and said,
“There is a high possibility that the command structure in Sector Three has collapsed.”
“That would be the case. For now, you should focus on the sewers. Sector Three can be handled by another…”
I cut him off.
“I will take the Jaeger Combat Group’s mobile strike force and go to Sector Three. I will personally command the rescue of survivors and the reconstruction of the defensive line.”
“You’re going there yourself?”
Falkenheim looked surprised.
“That must be where the enemy is running wild the most. Are you saying you will voluntarily go to the most dangerous place?”
“That is where the temporary quarters of the officers under my command are concentrated.”
I spoke in a firm voice.
“The fact that the rioters struck there first means they are trying to collapse our command structure. I will go personally, seize control of the broken defensive line, and cut off those rats’ retreat. We must crush them on the surface before they can flee underground.”
‘Status Analysis.’
[Name: Wilhelm von Falkenheim]
[Status: Secretly impressed by Jaeger’s bravery.]
“…Very well.”
Falkenheim nodded. A faint trace of respect appeared in his eyes.
“The Jaeger Combat Group will move to Sector Three immediately and crush the bastards’ preemptive attack! The remaining units will seize the sewer entrances as planned!”
“Yes, sir!”
After saluting, I immediately left the conference room. The combat group troops fell in behind me.
“Seraphina, Erika. Lead the infantry battalions and deploy an encirclement around Sector Three.”
“Yes, sir!”
“Leave it to me!”
“Frederica, blow away the bastards making a stand behind the rubble with tank guns.”
“Understood, Lieutenant Colonel.”
“Headquarters Company. We’re going into the center of the explosion.”
“Understood! I’ll have the armored vehicles on standby immediately!”
*
Vroooom!
The engine roared harshly as the tracked armored vehicle charged without hesitation through the streets of Elancia.
Here and there along the roads, black pillars of smoke rose in the aftermath of the terror attacks. Gunfire and explosions did not cease.
On the [Minimap] projected in the corner of my vision, countless red and green dots were tangled together, forming a scene of chaos.
But my gaze was fixed on a single red dot that was breaking away from that pandemonium alone, heading toward the outskirts.
‘She’s already gotten that far?’
Catching the fleeing Sydney was not the goal this time. She had to return to the United Kingdom as a “Trojan horse” carrying my skill, [Sight Sharing], within her.
There was only one thing I needed to confirm. The shell she had left behind.
The closer we got to the mansion, the more the acrid smell hung in the air. Half the mansion had been blown away, and the surrounding buildings were hideously exposing their frames as if they had been bombed.
“Everyone dismount! Establish a perimeter! Shoot the rioter bastards without hesitation!”
Gunther shouted excitedly as he led the soldiers in forming a defensive line. I passed them and quickly headed into the burning back alley of the mansion.
The alley was thick with acrid smoke and brick dust. As I stepped over broken debris, I sharpened my senses.
The [Minimap] projected the internal structure of the collapsed building. Thanks to that, finding the location took no time at all.
I approached the exact spot I had seen moments earlier through [Sight Sharing]. It was near the rear gate of my temporary mansion.
“…Found it.”
Beneath a heap of collapsed bricks, a corpse charred black as coal lay sprawled.
Because the incendiary grenade had burned the face and both hands intensively, every biological feature that could have been used to identify the body had been obliterated.
However, on the torso, where the flames had not reached as fully, the frilled decorations of the maid uniform Ellie usually wore were fused to the body, and nearby, her identification lay half-burned on the ground.
With an expressionless face, I crouched in front of the corpse.
‘Status Analysis.’