Red dots began to appear at the edge of the minimap.
“Three of them… at eleven o’clock, Lieutenant. Looks like an orc patrol.”
Hanna spoke at the same time. Hearing that, the platoon members immediately lowered their stances and hid behind bushes and trees.
The three red dots marked on the minimap were slowly approaching us. Reading their route precisely, I found the optimal ambush point.
With rough breathing, the creatures revealed themselves. Without noticing us at all, they passed by only a few meters ahead. Only after their red dots had completely disappeared from the minimap did I signal to advance again.
We advanced like that for about an hour. The sun had not yet risen, but the fog was slowly beginning to lift. Hanna suddenly stopped dead and grabbed my arm.
“Lieutenant… up ahead. The energy feels strange. It doesn’t seem alive….”
There was nothing on the minimap in the direction she pointed. A clean space with not a single soldier. But Hanna’s expression was serious. Trusting her, I stopped the platoon with a hand signal.
“What does it feel like?”
“It’s as if… mana like rotten pus is crouching beneath the ground. It isn’t moving at all, but it feels like it’ll burst out the moment someone steps on it.”
I immediately activated my skill. I thoroughly scanned the ground she had pointed at.
‘Status Analysis.’
[Target: Remnant of Orc Shamanism, “Swamp of Decay”]
[Status: Inactive / Camouflaged. If pressure exceeding 50 kg is applied, it will immediately activate and transform into an acidic swamp that melts the flesh of all living beings within a 10-meter radius.]
The moment I confirmed it, cold sweat ran down my back. This was… a kind of land mine.
“That was close….”
I lightly patted Hanna’s head.
“Well done, Hanna.”
“…Yes.”
At my touch, a faint blush appeared on Hanna’s face.
‘This combination’s pretty good…?’
I marveled inwardly. A kind of synergy was emerging.
My [Minimap] excelled at detecting living, moving enemies—in other words, physical threats. It was nearly perfect for grasping patrol routes or seeing through enemy ambushes.
But it was useless against threats that were not alive. Traps that operated on magical principles, like the current “Swamp of Decay,” or even simple mechanical booby traps, would not appear as red dots on my minimap. And it wasn’t as if I could spam [Status Analysis] on every suspicious spot one by one.
Hanna was perfectly filling that blind spot.
I signaled for the platoon to detour. With pale faces, the soldiers went around the trap they had nearly stepped on moments ago. Cold sweat ran down their backs.
“W-what the hell was that just now…? If we’d taken one more step….”
Private Hans, walking at the rear, whispered to the comrade beside him with a deathly pale face. His legs were still trembling.
“No idea, fuck… If we’d just stepped on it… I don’t even want to imagine.”
The veteran soldier beside him also swallowed hard and muttered. He checked beneath his feet again and again, moving as carefully as if he were walking on thin ice. In the end, whispers spread among the platoon members.
“How on earth does the Lieutenant see things like that with the naked eye? No matter how I look at it, it’s just dirt.”
“His eyes are freakishly sharp. Come to think of it, during the last reconnaissance in the Ashen Forest, didn’t he say it was a spatial trap the moment he saw the footprints suddenly cut off?”
“I told you, he’s different somehow. Hey, did you hear that rumor? That the Lieutenant can read people’s minds.”
“Come on, that’s just a rumor. But now that I think about it… maybe it’s not complete nonsense.”
The platoon members’ conversation continued, one topic leading to another. Sergeant Gunther, walking at the front, reorganized the formation with a stern face and growled.
“Shut the hell up and keep your heads on straight, you bastards! If it weren’t for the Lieutenant’s orders, every last one of you would’ve become fertilizer for those orc bastards!”
Only then did the platoon members close their mouths.
After that, we ran into the orcs’ security net several more times, but the 3rd Platoon avoided it as if it were nothing. With Hanna’s [Mana Detection] combined with my [Minimap], breaking through that much was a piece of cake.
“…Lieutenant, mana is flowing above the tree at two o’clock. It’s similar to the surveillance shamanism we saw last time.”
“Understood. Everyone, from here we detour seventy meters and circle in from the rear.”
“…The right path. On the left… I sense a trap that will collapse if stepped on.”
“Everyone, keep to the right. Kill your footsteps.”
Hanna’s and my chemistry was precise without a single error. Even the platoon members who had been half in doubt at first were now too busy being astonished.
“Holy shit… there was one there too?”
“No way. How the hell did he know this?”
“Just now, Corporal Meyer whispered something, and the Lieutenant immediately pinpointed the location….”
“…What kind of conversation are they even having…?”
“It’s like they’re possessed by spirits. How do they know what’s under the ground and what’s hidden in the trees?”
As the miracle of passing through the security net repeated, the topic of the platoon members’ conversation naturally gathered around one question.
“Don’t you think… the key is Corporal Meyer?”
A soldier catching his breath spoke cautiously. The other soldiers nodded as if they had been waiting for someone to say it.
“I think so too. No matter how incredible the Lieutenant is, he can’t see underground traps or magic with the naked eye. Whenever he whispers something with the Corporal, a path opens.”
“Then does the Corporal have some kind of special ability? Like, eyes as sharp as an eagle’s, or a nose as keen as a beast’s….”
At Hans’s guess, another soldier shook his head.
“It’s not on that level. This time, she found a magical alarm device outright. That’s… a different field, isn’t it?”
“Magic…?”
The moment that word came out, everyone was struck silent. In the Empire, magic was the exclusive domain of occupations like priests or mages. It was hard to imagine an ordinary infantryman—and a corporal at that—possessing an ability related to magic.
“Don’t tell me… it’s something like detecting mana? I read about it in the field manual once. They said it’s a talent that might appear in one person out of a million….”
Something close to the correct answer slipped from someone’s mouth. At that moment, Corporal Kurt, who had been silently listening without joining the conversation, stepped forward.
“That’s far enough.”
At his low, cold voice, everyone flinched.
“You bastards, have you forgotten how terrifying the punishment for leaking military secrets is? If Corporal Meyer has such a rare ability, that’s a Class One secret to be managed directly under the regiment commander. It isn’t a topic for foot soldiers like us to casually run our mouths about.”
Kurt’s eyes flashed like a snake’s.
“There’s only one thing we need to know. The fact that our Lieutenant is using that incredible ability to one hundred and twenty percent and keeping all of us alive. We just shut up and follow the Lieutenant’s orders. Don’t fill your heads with useless thoughts. Keep it up, and you might really lose those heads.”
His words were true. The platoon members exchanged glances and firmly shut their mouths. They had instinctively realized that any further speculation would be dangerous.
The conversation ended there, but the platoon members’ thoughts gathered in one place. No matter how incredible Corporal Hanna Meyer’s ability might be, what mattered was the existence of Max Jaeger, who saw through that ability, commanded it perfectly, and led them to victory.
Now the look in their eyes had changed. Trust that went beyond simple fear or obedience toward me. The belief that if they followed that man’s back, at the very least, they would not die like dogs on this battlefield.
“Lieutenant, beyond that ridge!”
In the midst of that, Hanna shouted. I nodded. I had already confirmed it on the minimap.
We carefully climbed the ridge Hanna had indicated. Then we looked down below. At that moment, everyone held their breath. An astonishing sight was spread out before us.
It was a vast basin so wide open that it was hard to believe it was inside a forest. At its center stood a huge encampment crowded with dozens of tents and weapon racks.
“My God….”
“This is… all orcs? They’re crawling everywhere….”
“…Is this right? I’ve never seen this many orcs in my life.”
“…Hans, that’s because you’re a private.”
At the sight before them, the platoon members murmured with expressions of disbelief.
Soon, Hanna spoke to me.
“…Lieutenant. The largest tent. The strongest energy is being detected there.”
The place she pointed to was at the innermost part of the encampment, a tent twice as large as the others and covered with crude flags stuck into it. There was no doubt that was the enemy command post.
The original plan was to raid that place and then fire the signal flare. But I had no choice but to reconsider that plan.
‘Damn it, their numbers are far higher than predicted.’
I took out my binoculars and began thoroughly scanning the encampment before me. The platoon members were right. Orcs were swarming throughout the basin, and the number of red dots marked on the minimap easily seemed to exceed a hundred. It was a scale where even an entire company facing them head-on could not guarantee victory.
Continuing the operation in this state would be suicide. Even if we somehow secretly eliminated the command post, the moment we fired the signal flare, we would be finished. There would be no way to stop hundreds of orcs rushing in from every direction.
‘Should we retreat?’
While I was agonizing, Hanna spoke to me once more.
“Lieutenant, I sense a peculiar energy from over there. It’s like… a dead space.”
‘……A dead space?’
I immediately turned my binoculars toward the place she pointed at. It was an area on one side of the encampment where wooden crates were piled up like a mountain. The orc soldiers seemed to be consciously avoiding the vicinity.
‘What the hell is that… Status Analysis.’
I focused my skill on the pile of crates.
[Target: Captured Imperial Army Gunpowder Crates]
[Grade: Consumable]
[Status: Unstable. Internal structure has been deformed due to slight mana disturbance. High possibility of chain explosion even from a small impact.]
[Special Information: This gunpowder was used by the Imperial Army’s magical engineering corps and contains an unstable substance that reacts with mana to increase explosive power.]