The next morning.
The second floor of Weymouth City Hall, the brigade commander’s office.
Knock, knock.
“Come in.”
Click. The door opened, and Sydney Wellesley entered.
She was dressed in a suit, no different from usual. Not a single hair was out of place, but the air surrounding her was quite different from yesterday.
“You came earlier than I expected, Director Wellesley.”
“……Her Majesty the Queen has decided to accept all of your conditions, Colonel.”
She strode over and placed a document envelope on the desk.
“These are the provisional signatures on the clauses concerning monopoly rights and the colonies. The formal treaty documents will be personally stamped with the royal seal and granted by Her Majesty immediately after the mainland is reclaimed.”
“An excellent decision.”
I took out the documents, gave them a cursory glance, and set them aside. The truly important thing wasn’t a scrap of paper.
My gaze went straight to her.
“And the third condition?”
Sydney drew in a short breath.
“……Effective immediately, the Royal Intelligence Bureau of the United Kingdom grants Colonel Max Jaeger, commander of the Imperial Army’s 207th Brigade, the highest level of control authority within the bureau. Equal to my own.”
“Good. Welcome, Co-Director.”
I rose from my seat and approached her.
She did not take a single step back, but because of my build, her gaze naturally tilted upward.
I slowly reached out and lightly brushed off the lapels of her black suit jacket.
Flinch.
The moment my hand touched her, her body went rigid.
“Do not misunderstand. I have no intention of stealing the director’s authority and devouring it. This is merely a safeguard to protect my subordinates.”
“……I know.”
“I won’t interfere in the bureau’s practical operations. I’ll have Lieutenant Aiden assigned there, so communicate with him.”
“Arthur, you mean….”
“Lieutenant Aiden originally came from your side, so he should understand the system well. It should be convenient, without any need for either of you to feel awkward.”
Sydney’s expression stiffened slightly. Work on equal footing with a former subordinate? It was only natural that she would feel strange about it.
“I suppose I cannot refuse. Understood. I will cooperate with Arthur…… no, Lieutenant Hunt, and share information.”
Sydney acquiesced.
She gave a brief bow and left the brigade commander’s office as if fleeing.
Clack.
The door closed, and left alone, I sat at the table and checked the remaining schedule.
‘Three days, huh.’
In terms of the entire war, it was not that long a wait.
Until the pipelines within the United States, operating in collaboration with the government-in-exile, went into full operation and the supplies we had planned for arrived.
That day soon came.
*
Bwoooooong—!
Heavy ship horns rang out one after another across Weymouth Harbor.
Piercing through the sea fog was a massive fleet of civilian cargo ships.
“Get cranes four through seven all running! Increase unloading speed!”
The docks bustled so fiercely there was no room to set foot. When the cargo ships’ enormous hatches opened, wooden crates piled like mountains began pouring out without end.
“T-That’s……!”
A soldier from the government-in-exile who had been watching the unloading from a corner of the pier gaped.
Thud!
The moment a crane set down a heavy wooden crate, one side of the crate broke apart, revealing its contents.
New United States-made rifles gleaming with oil. Air-cooled machine guns. And even dozens of armored vehicles covered with thick tarpaulins.
They were military supplies that had come straight to Weymouth through the logistics network built by the Jaeger Cartel and the government-in-exile the instant the United States’ Lend-Lease Act passed.
“To think this is the amount they produced in just one month—I can hardly believe it, even seeing it with my own eyes.”
“The industrial power of the United States is beyond imagination. It wouldn’t be an exaggeration to call it the factory of the world.”
I lightly brushed aside Hannah’s question.
“And considering how much lobbying money my ghost companies poured into the United States ports and railroad administration, I’d be disappointed if they couldn’t achieve at least this much speed.”
Standing behind me, Aiden smiled and flipped through a file.
“Even just the first shipment unloaded today is enough to arm three infantry companies. The armored forces are being carried by the second transport fleet.”
I nodded and turned my head to the side.
Admiral William stood there silently.
‘Analyze condition.’
[Name: William]
[Condition: Resolve, anticipation]
[Emotion: At last…. There were many twists and turns, but now our United Kingdom Army can fight a real battle too.]
And behind William stood Sydney and the other members of the government-in-exile in a row. Every one of them wore an expression heavy with emotion.
“Now then, since the weapons have arrived, we’ll need to train the men who’ll carry them.”
I withdrew my gaze and snapped my fingers.
“No matter how good the equipment is, if they don’t know how to shoot, it’s nothing more than expensive scrap metal.”
I turned around and called Hannah, Frederica, and Seraphina.
“Select NCOs and officers from our brigade and immediately organize a ‘special instructor corps.’ Within one month, you will carve those rabble into infantrymen who can function like human beings.”
“Yes, Brigade Commander! Which manual should we use for the training? As expected, the one we’ve been using since the days of the 7th Regiment….”
“No.”
At Hannah’s question, I answered with a grin.
“Imperial Army regulations? This time, we’ll be using something a little different.”
Something used in my homeland.
Plop.
I took the item I had been holding behind my back and pulled it down firmly over my head.
“……?”
“Shall we go?”
As I passed between the soldiers, who seemed to have question marks floating above their heads, an extremely bright red hat was pulled low over mine.
*
From that day on, the hills on the outskirts of Weymouth were transformed into an enormous training camp.
“Move properly, damn it! You think the enemy’s gonna wait for you idiots to snap out of it?!”
A thunderous roar.
Sergeant Gunther, wearing a red instructor’s hat pulled low, was walking among the trainees.
“What the hell is that loading speed?! It takes you more than five seconds to shove in an eight-round clip? Even Imperial Army recruits can do it in three seconds with their eyes closed! Again!”
“Aak! I’ll do it again!”
For the training of the government-in-exile’s army, I drew on memories of my previous life and established a “special instructor corps” directly under the brigade.
Bright red instructor hats with deep brims to block the sunlight, black sunglasses, and sharply pressed uniforms.
I had adopted the training methods of the modern Korean military wholesale. In this world’s empire, which was at a twentieth-century level, it could be called an extremely advanced training method.
……Though as someone who had experienced it firsthand, I found it extremely difficult to sympathize with that description.
“Push-up position!! Up!! Push-up position!!”
“Listen to those voices. Trainees, does it look like the instructor is joking right now?”
In time with Gunther’s booming commands, this time Corporal Kurt, with his sly-looking face, needled the trainees with annoying quips.
“You, left end of the third row! You’re slow! Don’t look around—run properly! Roll left! Roll right!”
Kurt, wearing his red hat low, was using that brilliant cunning of his to shatter the trainees’ minds.
“Aak! Aak! Aak!”
“Your voices are too quiet! Again!!”
“Aak!! Aak!! Aaaak—!!!”
The government-in-exile recruits rolled through the mud, screaming.
Tatata-tang! Tang!
The atmosphere at the firing range was just as brutal.
“Poor breathing. Poor shouldering.”
Corporal Klaus, likewise wearing a red hat, pointed things out in an indifferent voice. Though his voice was quiet, it carried his characteristic heavy presence.
“Your muzzle is shaking. With skills like that, you’ll have a hole through your forehead before you even get near Londinium. Check your target again. Fire.”
Tang!
The infantry company commanders also moved between each training ground, hammering tactics into the men.
Captain Walter used his experience and know-how to teach methods for breaking through in urban combat, and Captain Franz threw himself into making the soldiers reproduce the tactical maneuvers he had experienced under me.
“You there! Your posture is too high when you come out from behind cover! Get lower to the ground before I come over and snap your neck!”
Among them was Erika as well. With her distinctive sharp voice, she corrected the trainees’ formations. From the command platform in the rear, Seraphina looked down and coordinated the entire training process.
“United States-made tanks aren’t half bad, either. Their reliability is pretty decent.”
At the armored training ground, Frederica wore her red hat crookedly and had a sparkle in her eyes.
‘That looks more like tank-watching than training….’
It seemed like she was doing something different from what I had ordered, though.
Well, if it works, it works.
“Tank commander of No. 1 over there! Open the hatch and stick your head out properly! Steer correctly. Do it again, now!”
Like this, the infantry rolled like dogs in the dirt while the tank crews rolled like dogs at the armored training ground.
The rabble, made up of defeated soldiers who had survived the riots and conscripts from the New World, were thoroughly remade into new human beings under the instructors in red hats.
The social personalities they had possessed under cozy civilized society were completely dismantled, and in their place emerged a new breed of stubborn bastard made solely for combat.
Rolling through mud and crossing seas of blood, they had finally taken the monumental first step toward reclaiming their homeland.
“……There is no such barbaric training method in any United Kingdom manual.”
Standing behind me, Sydney muttered in horror.
“Barbaric? This is an excellent compressed field training method.”
I smirked as I watched the training ground through my binoculars.
“On a battlefield where bullets fly and shells explode, it’s already too late if you think before moving. Your muscles have to move reflexively. You have to push them to the limit so the body remembers. And.”
I lowered the binoculars and looked back at her.
“Wouldn’t getting your shins kicked by the red hats now be a hundred times safer than going out onto the battlefield and having your head burst open by an enemy bullet?”
“……That is true, but.”
In peacetime, a strict instructor is just a son of a bitch you want to kill, but in wartime, there is no better instructor than that.
As someone once said, the best welfare for a soldier is strict training.
*
Leaving the dusty training ground behind, we returned to the brigade commander’s office prepared in City Hall.
As soon as the door closed, Sydney placed the file she had been holding under her arm onto the desk.
“This is the first intelligence report and progress update on bribery operations for the southern defensive line of Londinium, particularly Sector Four, Colonel. No.”
Sydney’s lips twisted ever so slightly.
“Should I call you ‘Co-Director’?”
I gave a soft laugh and took off my coat, hanging it up.
“Call me whatever you find convenient. What matters isn’t the title, but what’s inside.”
I leaned back in my chair and opened the file.
[List of Key Figures Within the Sector Four Boundary Whose Loyalty Has Been Purchased or Whose Weaknesses Have Been Secured]
Inside the documents were densely written the names of the officers defending Sector Four of the Londinium defensive line, along with the funds and bribes invested to win them over, and their weaknesses.
“Excellent. To think you’ve already achieved this much.”
At my praise, Sydney gave a short, dry cough and lowered her gaze.
‘Analyze condition.’
[Name: Sydney Wellesley]
[Condition: Accumulated fatigue, professional sense of achievement, cognitive dissonance]
[Emotion: Humiliatingly… with the colonel’s support backing us, the level of intelligence warfare has changed entirely. It’s vexing, but I have no choice but to admit it.]
I closed the file and smiled.
“How is it? It’s a bit different from the days when you had to worry about those old bastards in the Citizens’ Labour Party while splitting up your budget and manpower, isn’t it?”
At my words, which struck the heart of the matter, Sydney let out a small sigh.
She had always been hamstrung by Gallici’s checks. What did it matter if she had outstanding talent and passion, when all the higher-ups were rotten, the budget was far too insufficient, and experienced personnel had been purged and ground down?
But now it was different. Though she was in the humiliating position of being placed under an Imperial Army colonel, paradoxically, an environment had been prepared where she could pour out one hundred percent of her capabilities.
“……I will not deny it. With the chain of command unified and support secure, the Intelligence Bureau’s performance is exceeding expectations.”
Even if it vexed her, she acknowledged what had to be acknowledged.
I had felt this even when she had been a maid in the past, but this woman’s true terror lay precisely in that unbending spirit.
It was the sort of situation where an ordinary person’s mind would have broken several times over, yet Sydney was holding out alone even without [Indomitable Spirit].
I opened a drawer and briskly signed the authorization for additional military funds that Aiden had prepared. Then I pushed the document across toward Sydney.
“Practical work is your field, Director, so I will not interfere. Instead.”
Tap.
My finger pressed down on the document.
“Whether it is money or people, if there is anything you need, do not hesitate to request it.”
“…….”
“We cannot have such a capable intelligence director failing a mission because of an excuse like the budget, can we?”
Encouragement with a slight hint of provocation.
A faint tension entered Sydney’s jaw. She snatched up the document on the table in one swift motion.
“The Intelligence Bureau proves itself through results. You may look forward to them, Colonel Jaeger.”
I stared intently at her back as she turned and left the office.