Clack, clack-clack.
From two days later, Sydney tapped at the telegraph with bloodshot eyes.
Her blond hair, always so neatly kept, was disheveled, and her back was bent. Her once-vivid cheeks were haggard.
[Your Majesty, the advance has come to a complete halt.]
[The Imperial Army’s 9th Infantry Division, which stood at the vanguard, lost twenty percent of its strength and retreated. The exile government forces are barely holding the defensive line as well.]
Beep. Tick.
[What on earth happened? Did they not say the enemy was on the verge of collapse after Sector 4 was breached? Then how could a regular Imperial division...]
Charlotte, too, seemed flustered.
[The operation is running into difficulty. The enemy’s operational capability is entirely different from before.]
[It is because of the “International Volunteer Corps” dispatched by that Federation. The one commanding them is Major General Alexandra Brusilov of the Federation.]
“International Volunteer Corps.”
In name, it was a voluntary gathering of those who supported the communist revolution, but in reality, it was the elite force of the Federation—the greatest hidden mastermind in the world—having entered in disguise.
Because of that, even the Imperial divisions that had been certain of victory were brought to a screeching halt on the outskirts of Londinium.
Beep, tick.
[Alexandra Brusilov. Is she not the one praised as an unparalleled commander in the Federation since the imperial era? If she is the enemy commander, is there no way to oppose her?]
[Has that Colonel Jaeger not stepped forward?]
Even the queen of the New World was flustered enough to search for my name first. Sydney replied.
[As it happens, the Imperial headquarters has been engaged in heated debate day after day.]
[However, opinions are divided. There is a cautious argument that if even the Jaeger Brigade is broken by Brusilov, the Empire’s morale will plummet to the bottom.]
Charlotte’s silence stretched on.
Only after a long while did the telegraph begin to move slowly.
[So if even his unit is defeated, the recapture of Londinium will be impossible.]
Sydney’s hand, which had been tapping at the telegraph, stopped in midair. She could not bring herself to send a reply.
Because that was an undeniable reality.
*
One week later.
The front once again turned into a quagmire. Because of Brusilov’s International Volunteer Corps, the Imperial Army’s advance had come to a complete stop.
With Londinium before their eyes, the landing operation itself was in danger of stalling. In the end, the landing force headquarters, unable to endure it any longer, drew its blade.
A blade by the name of Max Jaeger.
[Your Majesty. The urgency of the war situation has finally moved headquarters.]
That night, the sound of Sydney’s telegraph was particularly swift and sharp.
[Colonel Jaeger has been provisionally promoted to brigadier general in the field.]
[The landing force has broken apart the existing unit organization and entrusted him with an entire provisional division composed of armor and infantry. In other words, they have once again staked the fate of the landing operation on him.]
Clack, tack.
[Only a few days have passed, yet he already appears to have completely seized control of the division. The chaotic communications network has been reorganized, and the defeated soldiers’ eyes have changed. Soon, he will move.]
Beep. Tick.
[May God’s protection be with Colonel Max Jaeger. Watch the route he takes, Sydney.]
Yet despite the queen’s request, Sydney and the exile government, as well as both the enemy and allied headquarters, could not follow that man’s movements at all.
Instead of leading his troops to the front, he skillfully inserted his forces along side roads and bypasses marked on the [minimap].
During the day, they covered themselves thoroughly with camouflage netting and held their breath in forests and valleys; only at night did they maneuver, avoiding enemy reconnaissance and ambushes.
Strict radio silence continued.
It was a reenactment of the breakthrough maneuver through the Ashen Forest. The pretext was to avoid enemy interception, but it was an arbitrary act that completely severed even the allied headquarters’ control.
For the first day or two, everyone took it lightly.
They assumed it was radio interference caused by the terrain, or voluntary radio silence for the sake of covert maneuvering. After all, was he not Brigadier General Jaeger? He was the man who had broken through Soissons by the same method.
“Send up reconnaissance planes. If the tanks passed through the forest, they should have left track marks at least.”
However, the reconnaissance planes found no trace. Nor were any signs of battle or the sound of artillery heard from the enemy camp.
It was the same after three days, and then after five. There was no news, not even a hint. On the operational situation board at headquarters, the marker for Jaeger’s division was not updated even once.
The composure of the leadership gradually turned into bewilderment.
And a week passed.
A dreadful silence continued, bearing neither defeat nor news of victory. For the allied headquarters and Sydney, who had to spend agonizing hours chasing that ghostlike whereabouts, it was quite literally hell.
At last, the patience of the generals at headquarters reached its limit. The air in the conference room, which had barely maintained its reason, boiled over completely.
“He has completely deviated from the operational axis! Where on earth did he vanish with his troops?!”
“That is more than ten thousand men! No matter how thick the fog was, does it make sense that we cannot even scout them?!”
Bewilderment slowly began to turn into rational pessimism, and then again into despair.
“He must be bogged down in some damned marsh somewhere! A week has passed without supplies! Far from advancing, they must be suffering from hunger and cold!”
“What if they were caught in an enemy ambush along the bypass and their communications equipment was destroyed first? We cannot rule out the possibility that the enemy is deliberately concealing the fact of their annihilation to deceive us!”
Before anyone knew it, a thick air of impending defeat began to hang over the Imperial camp.
The faces of the exile government officials, in particular, turned ashen, and Admiral William repeatedly rubbed his face with dry hands as though the blood had drained from him. The ominous premonition that even the undefeated hero in whom they had placed their hopes until the very end had been isolated in rough terrain and crushed choked the breath from everyone.
Sydney was no different.
Every evening, she went alone to Jaeger’s empty office, whose owner had vanished.
The leather chair had grown cold. There was no longer his uniquely relaxed smile, nor the heavy scent of whiskey that had driven people to the point of suffocation.
“......”
Sydney bit her thumbnail until blood welled and glared at the empty desk.
‘There’s no way he lost. A man who had always seized the board and shaken it as he pleased... There’s no way he died so pointlessly here.’
At first, it was anger. Resentment toward the one who had boasted that he would put them at the forefront, only to disappear irresponsibly.
But as one day, then two, passed, that resentment turned into bone-scraping anxiety.
‘Please, even you must not collapse.’
It was a wish almost akin to prayer.
She was afraid. Not simply because the operation had failed.
From the Weymouth landing to the breakthrough into southern Londinium. Every miracle had been an outcome impossible without Max Jaeger.
The authority of the intelligence director, the weapons of the United States, even the hope of tomorrow.
Only now that he was gone did she feel it in her bones: before she knew it, even the act of breathing had been something she accomplished within that man’s shadow.
‘Come back. Please...’
Sydney Wellesley stood alone in that empty office with no one in it, desperately begging for one man’s survival.
But cruelly, the radio remained silent for ten days straight.
The situation at the front was growing worse by the day. At headquarters, they gradually began treating the annihilation of Jaeger’s division as a foregone conclusion and started discussing retreat. They would cancel the advance on Londinium, solidify the defensive line across the south, and meet the coming winter.
For the exile government, it was no different from a death sentence.
If the Imperial Army halted its advance here and the front became fixed, the homeland would be split into north and south. They would fall into the mire of a protracted war with no promise of recapturing the capital, Londinium, and in the worst case, they might be abandoned as a bargaining chip for the Empire to secure its interests.
The sorrow of a weak nation, whose fate was decided by other countries.
Everyone was sunk in despair, holding their breath.
But at dawn on the eleventh day, a streak of red light tore through the darkness that had seemed eternal.
Tat-tat-tat-tang! Kwaaaang!!
That was the beginning.
Beyond the horizon, beyond the enemy defensive line that had been firmly shut.
From the distant rear area, pillars of crimson flame rose one after another, tearing through the dawn sky.
“W-what is that?! That’s the enemy rear!”
“The enemy’s ammunition depots and supply lines are all burning!”
Soon after, every radio in headquarters screamed at once.
“A large-scale armored unit has appeared in the enemy rear! They’re smashing their supply lines and locked in a melee with the Reds!”
“The unit affiliation! Their affiliation! Who the hell are they?!”
“Confirmed... It has been confirmed...!”
“The identity of the armored unit is... Jaeger’s division!”
A miracle had occurred.
The enemy defensive network layered in multiple rings. Rugged terrain and marshland that could not be bypassed with tanks and large numbers of troops.
But before Max Jaeger, who possessed a cheat skill, all that rough terrain was no different from a kindly paved highway.
He had simply avoided the red dots and pushed his troops into the blind spots.
The provisional division, which had crawled through mud and passed through forests for ten days to seize the enemy’s rear, cut through the weakest waist of the International Volunteer Corps.
The enemy’s main force had been completely encircled.
That night, Sydney’s secure communications room was more feverish than ever before.
Beneath the flickering incandescent light, Sydney was tapping at the telegraph as though she would smash it.
Bzzzt, beep!
Bang! Bang! Bang!
[It is a miracle, Your Majesty. A miracle has occurred!]
[I do not know what method Brigadier General Jaeger used, but he has struck precisely at a gap in the enemy that seemed perfect!]
As though she had forgotten even to breathe, Sydney continued sending the message.
[His provisional division perfectly bypassed Brusilov’s defensive line and swiftly recaptured the key point in southwestern Londinium.]
[Now the main force of the International Volunteer Corps led by Major General Brusilov has been encircled with its supply lines cut.]
[They have been driven into a corner. Now that their supplies have been cut off, no matter how outstanding a commander she may be, she will not be able to get out alive.]
Beep, tick. Tick.
Charlotte’s reply, too, revealed her explosive emotion without filter.
[Oh, my Sydney! He has finally done it. God has not abandoned us!]
[Tell me at once. How on earth did our Brigadier General Jaeger bring about such a miracle?]
Sydney’s fingers stopped in the air for a moment.
‘How on earth did he break through?’
A night march? Concealment and cover? A chance gap in the enemy lines?
It could not be explained by ordinary military tactics.
Brigadier General Max Jaeger had denied every doctrine, trusted not even his allies, and carried out a maneuver close to suicide.
As though he were a god looking down upon the entire battlefield placed in the palm of his hand, he had overcome even the issues of supply and allied morale, and perfectly bypassed the enemy defensive line. For ten whole days, at that.
“......”
Sydney swallowed dryly. With trembling hands, she had no choice but to telegraph her honest feelings.
[...It was a movement that neither I nor the military experts can possibly understand, Your Majesty.]
[Therefore, there is only one thing I can say.]
Without Max Jaeger.
[That we cannot win this war.]