Duty of the National Defense Forces Officer Corps: Episode 2
A picture is worth a thousand words, but seeing is believing—and doing even more so. Before rendering judgment on his own resolve, Grozny decided to personally inspect the hastily assembled armored battalion's mobility and gunnery drills, accompanied by his trusted aides, including Deputy Army Commander Kaif Bayern and several other generals.
Even a single division commander could level mountains and redirect rivers—what chance did frontline troops have when the Army Supreme Commander himself, with his constellation of stars in tow, showed up for an inspection? The conscripted soldiers felt like they'd been struck by lightning from a clear sky, thrown into frantic training to familiarize themselves with the new weapon before His Excellency arrived.
Who was it that said the flutter of a butterfly's wings could summon a typhoon? Who could have imagined a single girl's proposal would lead to all this?
"Fuck, fuck! Whoever designed this shit is definitely a goddamn demon!"
"They said we'd just submit the report and data, and it'd be over—how the hell is this fair?"
Kaldir had designed the new weapon's controls to mimic existing vehicles as closely as possible, minimizing training time, and even enabled unmanned operation to eliminate the need for drills altogether. But to the poor bastards now spinning in circles inside them, it was all meaningless bullshit.
Oh, unmanned operation? That feature got yanked midway through to rush out prototypes faster. So instead of hunting down non-existent AI, humans had to crawl inside and roll around until they choked on dust—what choice was there?
At least this beast, weighing twice as much as their usual "Tiger VI tanks" and aptly nicknamed the Tyrannosaurus Rex Tank, was a sluggish turtle to maneuver. Already rattled by adopting untested gear, the soldiers could only curse the faceless designer who wouldn't even budge.
What happened to the antimatter reactor clearly listed on the blueprints for propulsion? Sigh, we don't have the tech to miniaturize it for a tank chassis! So what now? Slap on diesel engines and pray, that's what!
Ah, but hauling a 200-ton frame on diesel seems impossible? Figure it out yourselves—don't come crying to me! That was the engineer's retort as the training officers grabbed him by the collar.
And since the true aces were too valuable to risk on experiments like this, the crew dragged out here were second-raters at best. To avoid screwing up in front of His Excellency, they had to sweat it out now—and it sure as hell wasn't fun.
"Hah... hah... hah... Am I... alive? How's... His Excellency's face...?"
"Uh... doesn't look too happy, sir."
"Oh god, no! After all that bullshit... We're fucked!"
If they'd earned praise during the repeat mobility and gunnery demo before His Excellency, they could've wiped the river of sweat from their brows, leaped from the tank, and breathed easy. But Grozny, having descended to the field and examined everything up close, wore an expression that boded ill.
Even the mere decree "Your company commander is disappointed in you!" meant hellish punishment—what if it escalated to "Your Army Commander is disappointed!"? And not just some field army or group army chief, but the Supreme Army Commander himself? The fallout didn't bear thinking about.
Deputy Commander Kaif, who had served at Grozny's side for years, noticed his sour mood and sidled up to whisper something. It didn't look like good news for the grunts. Sure, the tank engines drowned out voices—but that guy's face was frozen stiff!
No one expected much from a weapon designed by some girl, so Grozny's scowl never lifted, and the other generals' faces hardened in sympathy. In the end, the star-studded entourage offered no verdict on the drill and simply withdrew, leaving the soldiers' fate... well.
"Your Excellency, the designer herself is hardly credible from the start. It's no surprise the results fell short across the board."
After the training wrapped, Deputy Commander Kaif secured a private audience with the Supreme Commander in his office. Grozny had kept Kaldir's background under wraps from everyone else, but he'd spilled it all to Kaif—who was now using it to chew her out and cover for the troops' failure.
A straight-up commoner with no pedigree, no connections, no formal education—not even fallen nobility. In a military as conservative as this one, those facts alone made her a prime target. Kaif's jab wasn't off-base. If she weren't the protagonist with her buffs, she'd be toast...
"Deputy Commander—even you, a commoner yourself, speaks of her that way?"
Grozny's eventual reply shattered the silence in an unexpected way. Kaif had braced for an order to scrap all experiments, but this suggested he was still willing to push forward despite the mediocre outcome.
"It's not mere prejudice against her commoner roots, Your Excellency. But weapons with such sky-high specs on paper—coming from her hands? It's hard to buy, that's all I'm saying."
Kaif didn't sound like he was outright dismissing Kaldir, but he wasn't fully on board with his superior's faith either. Fair point—who could blame him, never having met her?
"No matter how impossible a plan seems, or how absurd the intel—no matter what, reviewing it is the duty of the National Defense Forces Officer Corps. As an honorable member yourself, you'd know that."
Grozny wouldn't be swayed by Kaif's doubts. Recall how Erich von Manstein, architect of the sickle-cut operation that crushed mighty France, was first dismissed as a madman and sidelined.
How often did plausible plans turn into meat grinders once executed, or garbage-tier schemes reveal themselves as divine strokes that saved nations? At 115, having entered the military academy at age 10, Grozny knew this better than anyone. And after 106 years of service, he pegged Kaldir not as a bratty girl or con artist, but a comet-like savior.
If God exists, perhaps He sent this savior disguised as a lowly commoner girl to test us. Easy to ignore in such a form. If He's experimenting on us, we must play along.
Recognizing his superior's ironclad resolve, Kaif wisely shifted from persuasion to contingency planning.
"If that's your will, Your Excellency, best to meet the girl yourself via the Secretary-General. I'll join you. If she dares lie, we'll make her pay."
Seeing the Supreme Commander's conviction, Kaif figured Kaldir had something special. For his deputy commander's pride, he'd even climb into her handmade tank and test it personally. Old field marshal or not, in his prime he'd smashed over a hundred enemy tanks per sortie—a super ace's fire reigniting.
"See to it. But if she proves to be the savior—what then?"
"If... just if... everything she says checks out without a single lie... she'd merit immediate appointment as Minister of Munitions."
Kaif shared Grozny's high marks for Kaldir's blueprints. He held back "not undeserving of Field Marshal," but floated the even loftier Minister post—above a mere marshal.
With minds aligned, the two briefly discussed handling the new and in-production weapons: halt further output, maintain minimal lines for upkeep, deploy what's built to the front. Then they patched through to Secretary-General Atlaine.
No sense delaying a call needed anyway. Grozny's office had a hotline. After connection tones, the Secretary-General's face materialized in hologram.
"Army Supreme Commander—calling about that girl Kaldir?"
"Indeed, Comrade Secretary-General. We tested the blueprint files you forwarded, but results were... underwhelming."
"As expected. Same here."
The Secretary-General sighed as if the ground might cave in, clearly anticipating the call. Without the hype of arming legions overnight, he could've dismissed it as a blip. You could almost hear him clicking his tongue from there.
Giving the disappointed leader a moment to breathe, Grozny requested a direct meet with Kaldir—which the Secretary-General said was no trouble at all. Talk swiftly shifted to time, place, method; agreements flowed smoothly, leaving Kaif no room to chime in. All that remained was the actual encounter.