5. Experience Never Goes Anywhere (2)
The children, who had gained a shocking bit of real combat experience from their very first day at the academy, could not easily calm their excitement.
In particular, Jaden’s shocking display had been deeply imprinted in everyone’s minds.
While everyone kept stealing glances at Jaden, Jaden himself sighed and loosened his trembling body.
Perhaps because he had pushed his young body too hard, his muscles had been startled, and perhaps because it had been his first proper battle, his body itself had not moved smoothly.
Maybe that was why the price for such violent movement was steep.
‘Am I looking at three days of recuperation?’
For about three days, he felt he would have to be careful not only with intense training, but even with light warm-ups.
At times like this, it would have been nice to have the parrotbill around, but ever since he had left the ducal house, it had hardly shown itself.
He was starting to worry that it might not appear until he returned to the ducal house.
Of course, before he left, the youngest had told him not to worry, saying that a divine beast would stay by its master’s side, so he figured it would return someday. Still, since it had not shown itself at all, he felt a little disappointed.
‘That parrotbill. When it comes back, I’m going to give it a good scolding.’
Thinking of the parrotbill that was surely pecking at food somewhere, ignorant of its master’s feelings, Jaden waited for the teachers to return.
Soon, additional troops began arriving at the academy, and the teachers returned to their posts one by one.
“You all did well. Since this was your first real battle, it must have been hard on everyone, so rest well today.”
After an unfamiliar teacher came over, said that, and left, everyone let out cheers and ran toward the dormitories with their blood-soaked bodies.
Jaden also dragged his exhausted body back to the dormitory and washed himself first.
After thoroughly washing off the unpleasant monster blood and changing into fresh clothes, Jaden trudged outside and looked over the academy scenery.
“Come to think of it, we can’t be the only students here… What kind of structure is this?”
No matter where he wandered, the only buildings he could see were the freshmen’s dormitory and the teachers’ facilities. Then his eyes fell on a map hanging on one wall.
“What the hell. Why is the academy built like this?”
Jaden stared at the map with an incredulous expression.
With the freshman academy where he was located at the center, academy buildings for each grade stood on separate mountain peaks, and here and there between them were buildings that looked like fortresses.
When he connected them all in his mind, they formed a kind of defensive line.
They had created an ideal structure for building a defensive line around the mountain range and confronting monsters with the minimum number of personnel.
In other words, it was a structure designed to incorporate even the academy’s students into the defensive line in order to alleviate, even slightly, the chronic problem of the Northeast’s troop shortage.
Still, perhaps they had some conscience, as the freshman academy was located the farthest from the defensive line.
It was practically on the outskirts, and as the grades went up, the buildings grew closer to the front.
Looking at where the sixth years stayed, it was situated right behind the front line. It seemed they had been placed there so they could be deployed immediately in an emergency.
‘Is it not strange at all?’
On closer inspection, it was not a completely odd arrangement.
The place where Jaden, a first year, was located was where the weakest monsters appeared, and that changed with each higher grade.
Up to the third years, they dealt with lower-level monsters but in gradually increasing numbers, while the upper years were stationed in areas where higher-class monsters appeared.
In particular, the fourth years dealt with simple large species, while the fifth years were stationed where wyverns and aerial monsters appeared.
In other words, they were teaching each grade how to deal with the monsters and methods of response for each type of terrain.
“Not bad. If this is the case, anyone who graduates without issue would become immediate combat power.”
“You figured that out at a glance?”
As Jaden immediately grasped why the academy structure was arranged this way, a female teacher walked over from beside him.
Since Jaden did not know her name, he silently bowed his head.
“I’m Selina, and I teach magical beast studies.”
“I’m Number 13.”
“The way you fought earlier was quite impressive.”
“Thank you.”
Jaden bowed his head at Selina’s words and was about to leave after greeting her when Selina smiled and spoke.
“What do you think?”
“Pardon?”
At Selina’s sudden question, asked without a subject, Jaden tilted his head.
“This deployment. Don’t you think there are any problems with it?”
At Selina’s words, Jaden silently stared at the map. From the perspective of fostering talent, it was a highly impressive structure, and the defensive line was unique as well.
For a force that continuously hunted monsters, it was an extremely ideal structure.
In fact, the Northeast’s forces were structured so that, as soon as they killed monsters, they sent the carcasses to the center and received massive military supplies in support.
The only problem was that this structure did not take a large-scale monster wave into account at all.
In truth, the Northeast had already been doomed even before the monster wave occurred. That was because, even before signs of a monster wave appeared, there had been large-scale movements of monsters in the Northeast.
‘Problems will arise even if the number of monsters increases by only five times.’
“I’m not sure.”
Jaden had noticed it, but he held his tongue because answering would only make things troublesome.
It was not that the Northeastern Command did not know about a problem he had noticed at a glance and therefore had not fixed it.
They simply could not fix it because there were various complicated issues involved.
To resolve it, several measures were needed, but at the present point in time, they were almost entirely unrealistic.
Future scholars had written papers arguing that perhaps the Northeast might have held out longer if things had been done this way, but all of them had been treated as unrealistic arguments.
He thought so as well.
The reason was that, even when he had been the head of the Leonhardt family, he had said it would have been good if the North had defended itself in that manner, but at that point, with the imperial family and various vested-interest projects intertwined, it had not been possible.
“Hmm…”
Selina narrowed her eyes as if suspicious of Jaden’s answer, thought for a moment, and then made a proposal.
“If you give me an answer I find satisfactory, I’ll give you bonus points. If you’re aiming for early graduation, this is a very important opportunity.”
At Selina’s offer, Jaden showed a troubled expression.
But when he still kept his mouth tightly shut, Selina smiled and made an additional offer.
“If you just give me a satisfactory answer, I’ll try to persuade even the military studies professor. How about it?”
When she dragged in not only herself but another professor as well, Jaden’s eyes wavered sharply, and he let out a small sigh.
Then, after briefly organizing his thoughts, he carefully opened his mouth.
“I don’t know exactly what level the current number and distribution of monsters are at, so I can’t give you a definite answer.”
“Understood. I’ll take that into account.”
Avoiding Selina’s sparkling, expectant eyes, Jaden carefully studied the map.
“The biggest problem with the current defensive line is that the Northeastern Command, which should serve as its focal point, is weak. In an emergency, it doesn’t have the strength to gather, resist, and hold out until reinforcements arrive from the rear.”
“And?”
“At first glance, it looks as though the forward and rear defensive lines have been well established, but because the number of troops is so insufficient, they’ve merely been forced into place. If the monster scale increases beyond the current level and a large number of monsters come down from the north, it will be breached in no time.”
At Jaden’s words, Selina tilted her head and said,
“Our troop strength is enough to stop more than twice the current number of monsters.”
“Yes, but the monster waves recorded in history books are usually five to ten times the current level. Even the abnormal monster uprisings that occur from time to time exceed three times that number.”
When Jaden brought up history as he spoke, Selina gave a small nod.
As Selina jerked her chin as if telling him to continue, Jaden sighed and spoke.
“It seems the Northeast is also aware of this and has taken various measures to bring in reinforcements quickly from the rear, but…”
Jaden looked at the air base in the rear where airships could land and the large-scale warp gate, but when the time came, they would be meaningless.
In a situation where monsters were descending in massive numbers, mana fog could spread all the way to the air base, and there was a high possibility that airships would have difficulty entering due to large numbers of flying monsters.
To provide proper support, it would be ideal for ground forces and air forces to move together, but the problem was that they would not be able to hold out until then.
“If a monster wave occurs, the Northeast will be annihilated.”
“Then is the answer to increase troop numbers?”
“I believe that is the most fundamental solution.”
“Anything else?”
“Strengthening the Northeast’s ability to sustain itself.”
At Jaden’s answer, Selina looked surprised and tilted her head.
That was because the answer she had expected was limited to increasing troop numbers and building rear bases for rapid support from the rear.
At that, Selina’s eyes sparkled as she spoke.
“Self-sufficiency?”
“Yes. The fundamental reason the Northeast has ended up like this is because it depends too heavily on the Central Region.”
“You mean military supplies? But we can’t farm here, and there are no people either.”
“Commerce should be possible.”
“With monster carcasses? But would merchants come all the way here?”
At Selina’s words, Jayden wondered for a moment whether he should go this far, then opened his mouth.
“Doesn’t the Northeast have a river that leads to the East?”
“Yes. But that place is overflowing with monsters too.”
“Yes, but it isn’t that far from the East.”
“But we don’t have a navy.”
At Selina’s words, Jayden nodded.
“That is why we must coordinate with the Eastern Navy. I heard that among the Eastern Navy, the units near the Northeast receive the least support from the Central Region.”
“That’s true. They don’t have as large a navy as the Southeast, nor are they as developed as the major cities in the East. There are also many monsters.”
“That’s why there’s a possibility. If we deploy the Eastern Navy’s forces to the river while using part of our own troops to subjugate only the areas around it, we should be able to secure a certain degree of safety.”
Jayden thought by applying the things he had once envisioned in the North.
It was a plan he had come up with after racking his brain, desperately trying to find a way to rebuild the North, which had been devastated by monsters at the time.
He had dreamed of stationing troops around the river that stretched from Leonhardt’s sturdy fortress to the front lines, and building an industrial complex centered on monster carcasses to export to the Central Region.
And he had planned to gradually expand its scale by building fortresses centered around the river in preparation for emergencies.
But there was no way the Central Region would simply leave that alone.
They would never allow anything that harmed their interests, and the Imperial Family was likewise a pack of scum obsessed only with strengthening their imperial authority through the sacrifices of the northerners.
He had failed because of that, but he thought that perhaps the Northeast might be possible.
Unlike the North, the Northeast was quite far from the Central Region. Moreover, the military units also possessed a degree of independence, so if things went well, complete independence was not an impossible dream.
“So?”
“If we connect our advantage—monster carcasses—with the Eastern Navy, I believe the Northeast has at least the potential to develop through trade with other continents.”
“Hmm…… That all sounds good. But excluding the amount we deliver to the Central Region every time, there won’t be that much left, will there?”
“I don’t think we necessarily need to depend on the Central Region.”
“What?”
At Jayden’s words, Selina widened her eyes in puzzlement.
“The rare medicinal herbs that grow here, animal pelts, and the like are things the upper classes go mad for. To be honest, compared to the value of what the Northeast provides, the military supplies the Central Region gives in return are paltry.”
“So what you’re saying is…… don’t give the Central Region monster carcasses?”
“We’ll have to give them some, of course. But I think we can give only a set portion, like a tax, and divert the rest elsewhere.”
“That doesn’t sound very realistic. Do you think the Central Region would just let that happen?”
At Selina’s words, Jayden nodded.
“It will be difficult at first. So, for now, based on the various problems that have occurred so far, we need to lay the groundwork and continuously request troop support. Then, since large-scale troop support will be difficult immediately, they will at least increase the amount of military supplies they provide. Using that, we secretly contact the Eastern Navy and buy time until we can occupy the river basin in the Northeast.”
“Phew…… Fine. And once we gain self-sufficiency that way? The Central Region will pick a fight with us.”
“After that, we coordinate with the North and prepare for the Northeast’s independence. Then we will become freer from the Central Region.”
“What?”