The Youngest Armored Battalion Commander

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North of Rosenheim, along the border of the Ashen Forest, a massive wave of steel lay rippling across the ground.

Vroom, vrrrooom—!

A low, bone-deep vibration rolled through the earth. Dozens of tanks stood drawn up in ranks, belching black smoke into the pale winter sky.

"The mood's absolutely murderous out here."

The 1st Armored Battalion under the 1st Armored Division — the Emperor's own guard, and the finest armored force the Empire possessed. Beside it, mechanized infantry sat mounted in their half-tracks while the men of my own direct company loaded supplies onto trucks. Gunter's voice thundered across the assembly area, cracking like a whip over the soldiers' heads, and Kurt scurried busily in his wake. Walter and Franz ‍‍‌‌⁠​​⁠‌​​‍​​‍​‌​⁠‍‌‍⁠⁠‌⁠‌‍‌‍‌‌‌‍⁠​‌​‌​‌‍‌‌‌⁠‍​​‌‍⁠‌‌⁠⁠stood off at a distance overseeing the work, and farther out, Seraphina and Erika were already driving their infantry battalions through their final checks.

I was watching all of it when someone called my name.

"All set, Lieutenant Colonel Jäger?"

Brigadier General Dietrich. Now that I commanded an independent battlegroup, he was technically just another peer in this operation — nothing more.

"As you can see, sir. Ammunition, fuel, rations — loaded to the brim for a full two weeks."

"Good. Don't worry about the Rosenheim front. The moment you kick things off, we'll raise hell on schedule and pull every eye in the sector toward us."

Dietrich seized my hand and squeezed hard.

"Come back alive. And don't forget — my promotion is riding on you."

"I won't, sir."

Once Dietrich had withdrawn, I walked toward the head of the battlegroup's column.

Vroom, vrrroom.

Past the heat-shimmer and trembling hulls of the tanks warming their engines, one vehicle beyond the acrid haze of diesel caught my eye.

A woman stood proudly atop its open hatch.

A short grey bob, cropped neatly at the jaw. A faint smudge of oil on her cheek. Her uniform jacket was tied off around her waist, leaving a tight black sleeveless shirt that flattered a lean, well-trained frame, and a thin scar ran across the bridge of her nose. All in all, she looked young. Almost too young.

The moment she spotted me, she hopped lightly down from the hatch. With a soft thump of her boots she came striding straight up to me.

"Sir."

She stripped off her gauntlet and snapped a salute. Up close, the top of her head barely reached my chest.

Status Analysis.

I looked down at the crown of her head, planted squarely before my sternum, and activated the skill.

Hooh.

My subordinate armored battalion commander. According to the files I'd reviewed earlier, she had only just turned twenty — a prodigy among prodigies who had graduated the academy years ahead of her peers.

"Frederica von Kessel, Major, commanding officer of the 1st Armored Battalion. A pleasure, Lieutenant Colonel."

I returned her salute and, out of habit, extended my hand. A handshake.

"Good to meet you, Major. I've heard plenty about you. The youngest armored battalion commander in the Empire, I'm told?"

"You flatter me, sir."

She clasped my hand with her bare one. Small and hard, like a wrench handle. But the grip — the grip was no joke at all.

Well, look at this.

She was squeezing with every intention of crushing my fingers. A test of nerve, was it? Thanks to [Strong Mind], I didn't so much as blink; I simply stared back into her eyes, utterly flat.

...Hm?

A parachute appointment. It wasn't an unfair accusation. A mere captain waking up one morning as a lieutenant colonel with an armored battalion under his command — from the standpoint of someone who'd climbed the elite track the hard way, the resentment must have burned. Never mind that she herself was a twenty-year-old holding the same record. But that was beside the point.

What mattered was this:

I'll need to establish some discipline around here.

I let out a small chuckle, gave her hand one firm squeeze, and released it.

"Impressive grip. You could keep a driver firmly in hand with that, no question."

"An armored battalion commander holds command, Colonel. Not drivers."

Bold little thing.

Frederica sniffed, as if exhaling through her nose, and didn't look away from my eyes for an instant.

"Holds command, does she."

I brushed past her shoulder without another word — and, quite naturally, reached out a hand. My palm slid along the side armor of the very tank she'd been standing on.

Frederica's eyebrow twitched.

"Maintenance condition is excellent. Not a speck of grease anywhere."

"......The 1st Armored Battalion stands ready to sortie at any moment."

Frederica answered stiffly, from behind me. Even to my own eye, the tank was flawless.

But.

Status Analysis.

Bingo.

I crouched down and rapped my knuckles against the No. 3 road wheel — the one sitting directly on the ground. Thud, thud. The sound came back subtly, unmistakably dead.

"A commander doesn't hold the driver's hand, Major. But he'd better know the state of the tin cans his men ride into battle."

"...What exactly are you saying, sir?"

"There's play in your No. 3 road wheel bearing. And the transmission has been running hot since idle. Take this thing into rough country like the Ashen Forest as-is, and it'll seize up inside thirty minutes."

Frederica's expression froze solid for an instant.

"That's impossible! The maintenance crew checked it all night just yesterday—!"

"Then go check it yourself."

I rose, dusting the dirt from my uniform. Frederica bit her lip, then immediately summoned a mechanic and had him inspect the exact spot I'd pointed to.

"Uh— uh, Major! The bearing's shot! No — how did we miss this?!"

The mechanic's flustered cry rang out. Frederica's face went from white to scarlet in the space of a breath.

"That's a lie... there was no noise. No vibration, nothing..."

She murmured it to herself, then whirled to face me.

"How... how did you know? Visually, it would have been undetectable."

"On a battlefield, what you can see isn't everything, Major."

I stepped close and dropped my voice to a low murmur beside her ear.

Charming Speechcraft.

"I see what you cannot see, and I hear what you cannot hear. That is why I stand where I stand — and why you will follow my orders."

"I'll give you ten minutes to fix it."

I stepped back, grinning wide.

"Have it repaired and rejoin the column. Think you can manage?"

"......It will be corrected, sir."

She bit the words out. Then she was off at a bouncing run, bearing down on the maintenance crew at full tilt.

"Hey! Tear down Number Three! Get the spares out here! If it's not done in ten minutes, every last one of you is going to the stockade!"

The mechanics threw themselves at the tank.

Even in the depths of winter, the air of the Ashen Forest hung damp and heavy.

Screeeech, kriiiii—!

VRRM— THUD!

Every time one of the dozens of steel behemoths wedged itself between the narrow trees, the shriek of scraping hulls and the raw bellow of engines shook the underbrush to its roots.

Major Frederica's irritation crackled through the receiver.

I sat in the command vehicle's passenger seat, studying the world beyond the window: densely packed tree trunks and the deceptively still floors of hidden bogs. It was a labyrinth, plain and simple — and through it, dozens of tanks and armored vehicles crawled in a long, strung-out single file, threading the needle by centimeters.

Then it happened.

"...! Eleven o'clock! Range four hundred! Multiple faint mana signatures detected!"

Hannah, seated behind me, shouted the warning. At the same instant, red dots flickered to life across my [Minimap].

"...Orcs, sir!"

"Of all the damned times."

I clicked my tongue and studied the [Minimap] in the corner of my vision. The faithful old display, which had never once left my side, now rendered the dense contour lines and tree cover in full 3D — and the payoff of its [upgrade] to Lv.2 was showing itself beautifully.

Hiding behind the rocks, are we.

The first thing to catch my eye was a great grey mass of polygons veined with tight contour lines — an enormous rock formation. Behind it, red dots huddled together in clusters.

And up in the trees, too. Crafty bastards.

A textbook ambush: dug in behind a boulder field where tanks couldn't maneuver, and perched in the canopy above. If I'd sent in infantry alone, eight times out of ten we'd have been butchered.

I snatched up the radio handset.

"Hammer One to all stations. Lead tank — do not stop."

Frederica's voice came through taut and sharp. Cautious, as if trying to redeem this morning's humiliation. But in my book, careful reconnaissance did not exist.

"No scouts. Ignore it and advance."

A sharp intake of breath hissed through the static — [......!]

"Instead, slew your turret to eleven o'clock. Range four hundred. The midsection of the great dead tree."

Frederica pushed back openly. She sounded, frankly, incredulous.

And she was right. With the forest this tight, a single tank could barely squeeze through — swing that long main gun and the barrel would bury itself in the first colossal trunk it met.

That is, if I hadn't possessed a cheat skill.

I stared hard at the 3D terrain floating on my [Minimap]. Among the endless ranks of towering trees, one gap revealed itself.

"Hammer One-Four-Zero, this is Hammer One. From your current position — eleven o'clock, high explosive."

I switched the radio channel myself and called the tank directly. Every Imperial fighting vehicle carried its own set, which made this possible.

The summoned tank commander nearly leapt out of his cupola.

Frederica cut straight back in, her voice like a drawn blade. The maintenance fiasco this morning had knocked her down a peg, but when it came to armor doctrine, she would concede nothing.

"Major. We don't have time to spare."

My answer was ice.

In the end, it was Frederica who backed down.

Only then did Tank 140 begin to move.

"Good. Sergeant — advance exactly 2.5 meters and halt. From that position, slide the gun through the gap on your right and elevate to twelve degrees. The target will come into view."

The tank commander's sweat-soaked voice crackled through, and the engine began to wind up fast. The hull clawed at the earth and rolled forward — precisely, exactly as far as I had ordered.

Screech, creeeek.

At last, with a whine of strained hydraulic motors, the turret began to slew, slow and steady. The muzzle tip grazed past the rough bark of a trunk — touching, not touching, hanging by a hair.

"Whoa...?"

Hannah, watching over my shoulder, let the admiration slip out of her.

There really was a gap. A needle-thin seam in the dense canopy — and through that eye of the needle, the long gun barrel slid home, perfectly.

"Fire."

KWAAANG—!

The blast tore through the forest. The shell left the muzzle flame behind and streaked straight into the great tree — a direct hit.