The situation in the strait ahead of the landing operation grew more urgent by the day.
The Imperial Air Force had seized complete control of the skies. Bombers pounded the enemy’s ports and munitions factories day after day, while the 109 fighters wiped out the remnants of their interceptors.
The sea was no different. The Imperial Navy and the government-in-exile’s fleet formed a massive encirclement, tightening around Victoria Island.
The Red Navy bastards had fallen into a miserable dilemma.
If they left port, armor-piercing shells from Imperial battleships came flying in; if they deployed submarines, destroyers with sonar active rained depth charges down upon them. If they hunkered deep inside the harbor to survive, bombs inevitably fell from the sky.
A spectacle never before seen in history.
The Empire, a continental power, was overwhelming the island nation of the United Kingdom at sea and ruling the waves.
And on land, hours no less brutal continued.
“Run! Look at you move! If you land at that speed, you’ll be minced meat on the beach!”
“Get down! Crawl under the barbed wire!”
The training grounds on the Empire’s western coast.
The soldiers of the Jaeger Brigade swallowed cold seawater day after day as they repeated hellish mock landing drills. They leapt from landing craft, broke through simulated machine-gun nests, and detonated explosives, the sequence continuing day and night without pause.
The supply lines screamed.
Tens of thousands of tons of ammunition, food, and fuel converged on the coast. To meet the supply deadline for the landing operation, the entire Empire had become one enormous war machine.
And so, while everyone held their breath and sharpened their blades for the coming bloody D-Day—no, S-Tag—
Within that great current, there was one person alone who harbored an exceedingly personal impatience and dissatisfaction.
*
“Damn it all!”
Bang!
The office of the 7th Brigade commander.
Brigadier General Karl von Dietrich slammed his desk irritably. Before him, documents awaiting approval were piled up like a mountain.
“What kind of ammunition requirement is this! The format isn’t even the same as last month’s documents!”
Dietrich flung the papers aside in annoyance and rubbed his face dry.
Jaeger.
That bastard Max Jaeger.
He had certainly been a man Dietrich had carried on his back and raised since the Gray Forest. A useful chess piece, a goose that laid golden eggs, and, in the end, the lucky charm that had put a star on Dietrich’s shoulder.
Even when the bastard went under the 1st Armored Division and became a combat group commander, Dietrich had been magnanimous. There had been the special circumstances of wartime, and the man’s achievements had been so overwhelming that he had considered it an unavoidable temporary measure.
But in the end, he had put on a colonel’s rank, founded a new brigade, and gone independent.
A commander in both name and reality.
Brigade commander versus brigade commander. Now their ranks differed by only a single step, and Max Jaeger was no longer a subordinate within Dietrich’s reach.
Yes, fine, he understood.
The man was exceptional. The better he did, the further he moved from Dietrich’s influence—it was inevitable, and Dietrich understood that in his head.
But there was one thing he could not tolerate.
“He shouldn’t have taken Major Helga, that thieving alley cat!”
Dietrich ground his teeth.
Helga von Strauss.
Dietrich had kept her as his personal adjutant and raised her from the time she was a fresh-faced company-grade officer.
She was an exceptionally capable woman. She grasped his intentions from a glance and neatly handled everything on her own. From Dietrich’s perspective, all he had to do was sign the approval documents, and that said it all.
Yet that precious limb of his had been snatched away by Jaeger.
“Haa……”
That things had come to this.
Dietrich pressed a hand to his wrinkled forehead. In truth, Helga’s transfer was not the only problem. The subtle dissatisfaction and sense of alienation that had been accumulating inside him for a long time had risen all the way to his throat.
Recently, every spotlight in the Empire had been shining on Max Jaeger alone.
His Majesty the Emperor’s lavish praise. Marshal Ludwig’s blatant favor and support. A close pipeline with the United Kingdom’s government-in-exile. Even the vanguard of this landing operation had gone to his Jaeger Brigade.
And what of Dietrich himself, a brigadier general and commander of the 7th Brigade?
He had been pushed thoroughly into a rear support role, reduced to taking care of the supplies the Jaeger Brigade would use from behind the scenes.
‘I was the one who laid the foundation for him.’
An ungrateful bastard. Who was it that had selected him and watched his back so that he could perform freely? And now he meant to monopolize the fruit all by himself?
Greed and jealousy clung thickly to Dietrich’s eyes.
‘So now he’s become important enough to survive on his own, is that it?’
Of course, he had no intention of attacking Max head-on. It was never a good idea to throw cold water on a landing operation that was right around the corner, and the bastard was still a goose that laid golden eggs.
But if the goose had grown too fat and was trying to bite its master’s hand, then its leash needed to be gripped tight and shaken.
‘He’s gotten arrogant. Jaeger, and Helga who followed him.’
Dietrich rolled a pen across the table and stroked his chin. Sinister calculations began to turn inside the old fox’s head.
He felt the need to give them one final lesson as their superior.
The military was not an organization that ran on personal might and tactics alone. A single document, a single stamp—this was military administration, a place where a man could be bled dry and killed by such things.
The railway network and supply depots on this western coast where Max’s unit was training. Primary authority over them currently rested with him, the commander of the 7th Brigade. Moreover, throughout the logistics department were old classmates and connections he had cultivated over decades.
‘With just a quiet word from me, I can slowly tighten the noose around his neck.’
He would leave alone the ammunition and rations that would immediately affect the operation. Instead, he would target luxury goods directly tied to unit morale, or spare parts for the new tanks of that vaunted armored force. Using excuses like failure to meet regulations or adjustments to dispatch intervals, he could reject the paperwork endlessly and leave them bound up in the assembly-area warehouses.
And if he bribed private informants and third-rate reporters to leak a few tabloids about the lax unit management of those young officers, it would be perfect.
Was he not afraid of the Imperial Court and Marshal Ludwig? The favor of those on high had its limits. Surely they would not criticize him for properly tightening discipline like this. To begin with, so long as he handled things with appropriate finesse, there was little chance it would ever reach their ears at all.
Good.
The bitter taste of politics, the terror of connections—he would make them feel in their bones what discipline born from the overwhelming seniority of a senior general officer was like.
A faint, fishy smile hung on Dietrich’s lips.
It was the most foolish choice of his life.
*
“Haa……”
The overall manager of the Jaeger Cartel and Max’s loyal hound, Lieutenant Aiden Hunt, was suffering a headache amid a mountain of ledgers.
Money laundering through shell companies. Adjusting shares to distribute to influential figures in the capital. On top of that, securing the military supplies that had increased exponentially with the brigade’s creation.
It was a workload too heavy for one person to handle alone. If not for the information-processing ability he had developed in his days as a spy, he would have died of overwork long ago.
It was then.
“Lieutenant Aiden. I need confirmation of the cargo volume on supply line B-3.”
Major Helga, dressed in her service uniform, approached with a file in hand. A pleased light appeared around Aiden’s mouth.
Ever since she had joined as chief of staff, the complicated administrative and supply issues had improved noticeably.
“Has some problem occurred, Chief of Staff?”
“……An intentional bottleneck is occurring in the jurisdiction of the 7th Brigade.”
But this news was different from usual.
Aiden’s eyes chilled in an instant, becoming the eyes he had worn in his spy days.
“Transport trains are being delayed, and document approvals are being rejected. On the surface, it looks like simple administrative errors or failure to meet regulations, but—”
“It will be Brigadier General Dietrich’s orders.”
Helga stated it firmly.
Because she had worked as Dietrich’s hands and feet for so long, she had seen through his petty maneuvering at once.
“With the landing operation ahead, he intends to put subtle pressure on the colonel. It likely isn’t only supplies; he’s probably up to other tricks behind the scenes as well.”
“I see.”
In that case, what Aiden had to do was already decided.
‘I protect Colonel Jaeger’s assets.’
Without a moment’s hesitation, he picked up the telephone. It was time for the intelligence network that had begun spreading not only through the capital and the military, but also into every corner of the provinces, to show its power.
Click. Whirrr!
Aiden began moving his pen without hesitation.
Meanwhile, as Aiden focused on his own work—
Helga tapped at the typewriter and observed him from the corner of her eye.
‘Aiden Hunt.’
Merely the rank insignia of a lieutenant. Yet his face carried a shadow that junior officers his age could not possess.
It was different in nature from the seasoned air one felt from Captain Walter. His ability was one thing, but…… there was an atmosphere about him of someone who had long immersed himself in something deeper, colder, and reeking of blood.
That was why Helga could not treat him carelessly as a junior officer, no matter how far beneath her he was.
‘Certainly, he is worthy of the colonel’s trust.’
Helga signed a document with a sharp stroke and sank into thought. Around Jaeger, there were only extraordinary talents.
The soldiers and noncommissioned officers who had blindly believed in him since the Gray Forest.
Sergeant Hannah, his personal adjutant, who saw through the course of battle to an almost uncanny degree.
And what surprised Helga most of all was the unit’s core combat force—the “major line.”
‘Elise. Frederica. Seraphina.’
By the standards of ordinary noble society, those genius young ladies should have looked down on or envied Jaeger, a man of lowly common birth.
And yet they sincerely respected Max Jaeger. No, they nearly worshipped him.
‘……Romantic feelings, is it?’
Helga was not dull-witted. On battlefields where life and death crossed paths, sparks flying between hot-blooded male and female officers was common. Of course, she did not know that he had relationships with all of those women.
In any case, the result was clear.
Those remarkable women were perfectly controlled around the central point that was Max Jaeger, running the unit with terrifying efficiency.
Indeed, Max Jaeger was a monster.
Not only was his own ability overwhelming, he had gathered such formidable talents together and made them offer him their loyalty.
And yet Brigadier General Dietrich dared to touch this place?
A sneer formed in Helga’s gray eyes.
She almost felt sorry for her former superior. As if the administrative network of the 7th Brigade could stand in the way of an organization where hot-blooded geniuses had gathered.
Click.
Tap, tatatat.
Just then, from across the room came the sound of a receiver being set down.
“Chief of Staff. I have the outline.”
Aiden turned his chair and spoke. Before him now lay densely written notes. As expected, his skill was no ordinary thing.
“That old man bought off back-alley informants and third-rate journalists. The supply network delays were only the beginning. He was clearly laying malicious groundwork.”
“……Impressive. To think you’ve already grasped that much.”
Helga was surprised for a moment, then soon regained her composure.
“Still, it’s ultimately as expected. An outdated way of thinking.”
Helga continued as she organized the documents. If she was to protect her new place, and if she was to prove her worth among these outstanding talents, then the desperate thrashing of her former direct superior had to be thoroughly trampled underfoot.
“Let’s report to the colonel first.”
The two of them headed to the brigade commander’s office without delay.
*
“……That is what happened.”
Beyond the office desk.
I quietly listened to Helga and Aiden’s explanation.
‘So it’s finally come.’
That old bastard.
Brigadier General Karl von Dietrich had drawn his blade. The dissatisfaction he had built up until now had burst, and he intended to do something about me.
“Colonel, are you all right?”
When I said nothing, Aiden asked carefully. Beside him, Helga also waited for my answer, slightly tense.
But I let out a small laugh. There was nothing to be all right or not all right about.
“Good work, both of you.”
In truth, I had known to some extent.
No, only an idiot wouldn’t have known.
It had already been quite some time since Dietrich’s dot on the [Minimap] had changed from green to white. On top of that, I habitually hit him with [Status Analysis] whenever we met, so there was no way I wouldn’t know what was in that filthy mind of his.
The only reason I had left him alone until now was simply because I was curious to see what he would do.
“You don’t seem surprised.”
“It was an obvious trick.”
At my indifferent reaction, Aiden and Helga’s eyes wavered.
‘Status Analysis.’
[Name: Aiden Hunt]
[Status: Awe]
[Emotion: As expected… he had already seen through everything. From where did he begin setting up the board?]
[Name: Helga von Strauss]
[Status: Admiration]
[Emotion: Is Brigadier General Dietrich’s little scheme nothing to him? He’s even calmer than I thought.]
Now then, what should I do?