Chapter 4: A Well-Connected Noblewoman
Morin’s entire body had gone numb.
He felt that ever since he had transmigrated here, his worldview had been repeatedly smashed apart, reshaped, and then smashed apart again.
First he had been beaten half to death, then came the cheat system, followed by tin-can super-soldiers equipped with plate armor and greatswords, capable of taking firearm shots at close range. And now even the “International Brigades” had popped up.
These left-wing fighters, who were clearly “Commies” or “Anarchists,” how had they gotten mixed up with the Saxon Empire, a feudal empire that looked like right-wing militarists at first glance?
The direction of this worldline was far too absurd. It was practically like making Wilhelm II and Lenin hold hands while singing La Marseillaise together, brimming with magical realism.
Before the mush in Morin’s head could even be stirred evenly, he was already being supported by the tin-can soldiers at his side, stumbling along with the main force as they withdrew.
Right now, his whole body hurt terribly. He had no spare energy to delve into this world’s ideological issues.
At the moment, staying alive came first.
The group moved through the night and soon withdrew to the suburbs outside Seville.
Behind a dense thicket of bushes, several military trucks with rather retro-looking designs were parked in the darkness.
There were also quite a few bicycles and tall horses nearby. Some soldiers left behind to guard the area were holding the reins of the horses while vigilantly observing their surroundings.
The entire scene carried a strange atmosphere unique to the First World War era, a mixture of industry and agriculture.
After everyone arrived, there was not the slightest delay. Morin, Lieutenant General Mackensen, the rescued wounded, and those few heavily armored tin-can soldiers were all given priority and arranged into the rear beds of several trucks.
The remaining Saxon soldiers and the armed members of the International Brigades swiftly mounted horses or got onto bicycles.
With a burst of roaring engines and neighing horses, this mixed force surged away in a grand procession, speeding off in the direction away from the city.
There were no seats in the truck bed. Morin could only half-lie together with Lieutenant General Mackensen on the cold iron plating spread with a layer of hay, swaying with the jolting of the vehicle.
By the moonlight, he secretly sized up the lieutenant general beside him.
Mackensen’s complexion was terrible, and the blood at the corner of his mouth had already congealed, but he still kept his back straight, his sharp gaze fixed on the night scenery flashing past outside the truck bed.
Morin noticed that the lieutenant general’s gaze would occasionally fall on him. There seemed to be something more in those eyes now; it was no longer the purely scrutinizing look of a superior toward a subordinate.
Just as Morin was trying hard to recall the memories of this body’s original owner, wanting to figure out what connection he had with this lieutenant general, Mackensen suddenly spoke.
“The last time I saw you was at a banquet in Dresden.”
Mackensen’s voice carried a trace of age. He did not look at Morin, his gaze still cast into the distance.
“At that time, you were no different from those fallen noble sons, drifting through life on the shelter of your ancestors, with nothing but emptiness and numbness in your eyes.”
At those words, Morin’s expression shifted slightly. He realized that this general seemed to have been an old acquaintance of this body’s original owner—or rather, of the original owner’s forebears.
“But today, your performance surprised me somewhat.”
Mackensen finally turned his head, his gaze burning as he looked at Morin.
“I had originally thought that once the Britannians’ fists landed on your face, you would spill everything you knew in less than three blows.”
Morin tugged at the corner of his mouth and said nothing.
What could he say? That he really hadn’t known anything at the time?
That all he had been thinking was, “Just beat me to death already, hurry up, don’t delay my reincarnation”?
If he said that out loud, this lieutenant general would probably kick him off the truck on the spot.
Mackensen seemed to take Morin’s silence as a kind of tacit admission. He nodded, and his tone actually carried a hint of approval.
“It seems that the blood of your fathers still flows in your veins. That mettle belonging to a Saxon soldier was merely buried for too long beneath your decadent former life.”
However, Mackensen’s next words made Morin’s heart skip a beat.
“But that does not mean I will lower my expectations of you.”
The lieutenant general’s tone turned cold again, even carrying a trace of undisguised anger.
“On the day before the military observer mission set out, a telegram from home bypassed layer upon layer of the command system and was delivered directly to my desk.”
“There was a certain well-connected ‘noblewoman’…”
When Mackensen said that word, he clearly emphasized it, his voice filled with contempt and disdain.
“She hoped that I could ‘take care’ of you. Preferably by transferring you to some civilian post in the rear to ensure your safety.”
At this point, Mackensen let out a cold snort. Enduring his injuries, he forced himself up and leaned a little closer, almost pressing his face against Morin’s as he enunciated each word:
“What does she think the army is? Her family’s back garden? Or a sanatorium?!”
“What I hate most are parasites like this, who treat the army as a place to gild themselves! And those fools who try to interfere with military command through personal connections!”
He stared fixedly at Morin. That pressure nearly left Morin unable to breathe.
“So I refuse!”
“Not only will I not transfer you to the rear, I will place you on the front line! And in a combat unit at the very front of the assault formation!”
“I will make you experience for yourself what war is truly like! I want to see whether those bones of yours, softened by alcohol, can still harden again!”
The truck jolted violently, and Morin’s heart trembled hard along with it.
He did not speak. Mainly because the pressure Mackensen gave him was too strong, and he truly did not know what to say.
Another reason was that, in his memories, the original owner’s parents had passed away long ago.
And even if they were still alive, judging by the family’s current decline, his mother clearly could not be considered any kind of noblewoman.
Let alone possess the heaven-defying ability to send a telegram directly to the front line.
So for the moment, he had no idea who Lieutenant General Mackensen was talking about.
And after the old general finished saying those words, he also began hissing in pain as he drew in cold breaths, then half-lay back down again.
The convoy continued driving along the bumpy dirt road. The two of them fell silent.
Feeling that the atmosphere was somewhat awkward, Morin turned his head and saw, in the distant night sky, several huge black silhouettes quietly suspended in the air.
They were several enormous observation balloons hidden in the night. If one did not look carefully, they would be difficult to notice at all.
It seemed that the precise and deadly artillery fire from before had been guided by these eyes in the sky.
After traveling roughly a dozen kilometers, the convoy finally slowed down and eventually drove into a large, prepared encampment.
Morin turned his head to observe the surroundings. This appeared to be a camp established against a hillside and a stretch of woods, and it was quite large in scale.
Soldiers in field-gray uniforms moved back and forth between the tents. Farther away, the barrels of towed artillery could be seen, though for the time being, none of them were deployed.
From the conversations of the officers around him, Morin judged that this place should be the Saxon Empire’s frontline assembly area and temporary command post in this region.
After the truck came to a stop, Morin jumped down from the rear of the truck bed, then turned around, preparing to help the old general down.
However, the old man’s body was still quite sturdy. Ignoring Morin’s outstretched hand, he jumped straight down.
Seeing this, several staff officers immediately surrounded him excitedly. Lieutenant General Mackensen also ignored Morin and, without looking back, walked toward the largest tent in the center of the position, escorted by the staff officers.
The soldiers and officers around them were also busily occupied in tense preparation. A military doctor found Morin and simply treated his wounds before hurrying away as well.
For a time, Morin, who could not make sense of the situation, instead became the most leisurely—or rather, the most idle—person in the area.
However, Morin was still capable of finding something to do for himself. After finding a corner and sitting down, he took out the officer IDs and document pouch he had previously searched from the officers of the Holy Britannian Empire.
The writing on the officer IDs was English, which Morin was familiar with, but the contents made him somewhat unable to remain calm.
“An intelligence officer from MI9?”
“And a major from the 4th Battalion, Northumberland Fusiliers?”
As for the documents inside the pouch, although they did not reveal much important information, they more or less allowed Morin to understand the enemy’s situation.
And as Morin continued browsing, prompt after prompt flashed through his mind.
[Information Collection Progress: 10%]
[New “Intelligence” collected. Please check under the relevant entry!]
[“Information” has been updated. Please check under the relevant entry!]
After confirming that all this information had been collected, Morin walked to the entrance of the tent where Lieutenant General Mackensen and the staff officers were and asked the guards to help deliver these things inside.
Then he returned to the corner where he had been earlier, half-lay down on the ground, and began “clearing the red dots.”
In the process, he quickly figured out the current situation, and also awakened quite a few of the original owner’s memories.
This fellow whose name transliterated as Morin, just as Mackensen had said on the truck, also came from a Junker military aristocratic family.
Morin’s grandfather had even once served together with Mackensen in the “Death’s Head Hussar Regiment,” and the two had formed a deep friendship.
Even after Morin’s grandfather died in battle, and even after his father’s wastefulness and squandering caused the family to decline before he ultimately died from excessive drinking, Mackensen had continued taking care of the other relatives, Morin included.
He had even recommended Morin to the military academy. It could be said that he had already done all he could.
Morin had not wasted the opportunity provided by the old general either. After successfully graduating from the military academy, he relied on his decent overall grades and was assigned to the Saxon Imperial Army’s 9th Infantry Division, 16th Infantry Brigade, 33rd Infantry Regiment.
Under normal circumstances, Morin would have become a platoon leader in some company of some battalion under this infantry regiment, just like his seniors, becoming a junior officer of the Saxon Empire.
But the problem lay precisely with the unit he had been assigned to.
Almost at the same time the transfer order was issued, the 16th Infantry Brigade he belonged to received orders for all personnel, fully equipped, to head south and enter the neighboring Kingdom of Aragon.