This Is What They Call a Tank
This, gentlemen, is what they call a tank.
[Crackle— Main gun aligned! Firing solution locked in!]
"Fire."
BOOM—!
The detonation shook the forest to its roots. Flame belched from the muzzle and burned the surrounding leaves to ash in the space of a breath.
"Gahk—!"
The infantry riding the half-track just behind the tank dove headfirst into their cargo bed, and shaken loose by the shockwave, leaves came raining down on them like a downpour. Some of them were on fire, but thanks to the peculiarly damp air of the Ashen Forest, they mercifully didn't spread.
SHRIEK—!
Then a single ponderous high-explosive shell went carving through the forest.
It slipped for a long moment along the one and only firing lane threading between the densely packed trees — a needle's eye if there ever was one.
KA-RRRUMBLE!
Four hundred meters away, the waist of an ancient towering tree vanished in a flash of light.
The trunk snapped like a twig, and the thousands of fragments gouged out by the bursting charge scattered in every direction as shrapnel.
"GRAAAAGH!"
The orcs lying in ambush around it were torn apart like rags, shrieking hideously as they were hurled into the air.
KUOOOOH—!
A pillar of orange flame lit up the forest's darkness. On the Minimap, the red dots were wiped away in an instant.
[Crackle— …Hit! Confirming detonation! Unbelievable!]
The commander of Tank 140 reported, his voice thick with excitement.
[There was… an enemy ambush! Minimum three orcs, possibly more!]
"Good work, 1-4. Realign your gun and rejoin column."
[Yes, sir!]
With the tank commander's ringing report done, I set down the radio handset and looked through the viewport at the lead tank ahead of us.
There was Major Frederica, her upper body leaned out through the commander's hatch.
Mouth hanging half open, she was staring back and forth between the point where my shot had landed and my command vehicle.
Status Analysis.
[Emotion: Shock and confusion — and the belated realization that her authority as commander has been thoroughly upstaged.]
It was a stupid expression that sat entirely ill with her reputation as an academy prodigy, a genius armored commander.
The explanation, though, was simple. My order just now had flown straight in the face of tank doctrine — sheer madness. Fire the main gun into a forest with no line of sight, through a gap in the trees, no less.
By any reasonable standard, I was wrong and she was right. It was nothing more than a paratrooper lieutenant colonel throwing his weight around.
But the result had been the exact opposite. So it was hardly surprising that cognitive dissonance was setting in on Frederica's end.
Before long, her voice came through on the senior command channel — the frequency currently reserved for just the two of us.
[Crackle— …S-Sir, Lieutenant Colonel.]
But I answered absently.
"The tank?"
[…Pardon?]
"Is Tank 140 undamaged? Firing into a forest like that — I'm asking whether there were any irregularities with the vehicle."
[N-no, sir! Tank 140 is perfectly fine. The shot connected, and…]
Frederica stammered out her reply like a green recruit.
"Then we're done. Don't overthink it. Right now the operation comes before everything else."
I added, flat and unhurried:
"As for that misjudgment of yours just now, I'll be taking a separate report on it later."
[…Understood, sir.]
The reply came through gritted teeth.
"All units, move out. Maintain speed."
RMMM-RMMBLE—!
Dozens of engines roared to life at once. Steel tracks churned forward, grinding recklessly over the Ashen Forest's broken ground.
An impossible sight unfolded: an entire tank battalion ripping through a forest at high speed, trees packed wall to wall on either side.
And I kept commanding.
"Avoid the fir cluster at eleven o'clock. The ground's gone soft there — your tanks will sink. Detour through the fern thicket at ten. There's a rock shelf under that soil; it's solid."
[Wh-what was that, sir?! There's no proper path through—]
"Do as I say. It looks dense from the outside, but the trees are staggered in a zigzag — there's a diagonal lane exactly one tank wide running clean through. Fix your turrets at one o'clock in advance. The moment you enter, you'll have a firing angle."
[……Th-that's…]
Needless to say, my impossible orders sent the tank commanders into a collective panic. But when the battlegroup commander himself gave the word, how many officers were in any position to refuse?
[Executing! All tanks, hard turn to ten o'clock!]
The tanks plunged in, shouldering through the undergrowth. Crack, crunch-crack! And beneath their tracks, as they crushed the thick brush flat, a smooth, solid stratum of bedrock revealed itself — like something out of a lie.
[Crackle! First Tank Company reporting! Sir, it's as if… as if the trees are stepping aside for us! The muzzle passes through without so much as brushing a single leaf!]
[Second Company reporting! We just crossed a thirty-degree slope — the bedrock underneath means zero slippage! How in the world… how does he even know the geology?!]
Through the radio, the armored commanders' astonishment and cheering bursts spilled over and tangled together. At this point it was less a tactical maneuver than a full-blown stunt.
And to the orcs still lurking in the forest, that stunt was nothing short of a lightning bolt out of a clear sky.
"Contact, two o'clock! Range six hundred! Unidentified structure! Looks like an outpost for the orc remnants!"
The moment Hannah reported it, I grabbed the radio.
"Two o'clock. Hit it with HE and keep rolling."
[Copy! First platoon, traverse turrets! Target, two o'clock!]
BOOM—! BOOM!
The thirty-ton tanks poured fire on the move. The gun stabilizers hummed, and the dull thunder of cannon shook the forest.
The orcs hiding among the trees on watch duty were blown to pieces without even the time to flinch.
"KYEEEAGH!"
Green bodies shot skyward together, too fast even to scream.
[Crackle! Battlegroup commander! Ahead of us—]
"They just keep crawling out, don't they. Flatten it."
There were far more orcs than expected, but it didn't matter.
RMMBLE! BOOM—!
Every time a tank belched fire, a pillar of scarlet flame shot upward, and wherever the steel tracks rolled, they left a ponderous wake of churned earth mixed crimson with blood. The thick armor orcs so proudly wore, their shields — before the tank guns of a thirty-ton mass of steel, it was all so much paper.
"Front line, spread out! Infantry, stick to the tanks! Shoot only what pops up!"
"Open fire! Turn them into honeycombs!"
RATATATATAT! BANG! BANG!
Machine guns swept the forest like brooms, and the infantry advanced behind them, finishing off whatever twitched.
And then, at last—
"AAAAAAGH!"
"Damn it! What IS that iron monster?!"
"Th-the ancestors are wrathful! Summon the shamans!"
BOOM—!
A tank shell burst dead center in the orc horde. Primitive green bodies soared skyward amid the blast. The terrified ones started to flee without so much as a glance at their wounded kin. To primitive minds, this was nothing less than a natural disaster.
[Crackle— Hammer One, this is Steel Rose.]
"Go ahead."
[……Reporting. The battle is one-sided. It's frankly embarrassing to even call it a battle.]
Frederica's voice came through the radio. There was a faint hollowness in it, almost a sense of resignation.
"The only time a tank ever has to worry about an orc is when it's cornered in a forest like this. Drag them out into open ground like this and they're not even worth fighting. Nothing more than moving targets."
I gave the order into the handset.
"No pursuit. Remember our objective. Punch through the Ashen Forest in the shortest possible time and strike the Republic's rear — that is the mission."
The tanks accelerated, belching black smoke.
And that was when it happened.
"Sir, the mana readings… something's wrong. The scattered signatures are converging on a single point!"
Hannah reported urgently.
At the same moment, the Minimap showed red dots gathering into a single mass at its edge. The smaller dots around it kept flowing in and swelling the cluster's size.
Soon, a colossal swarm of red dots began surging toward us like a wave.
And their destination was obvious. Us.
[Crackle— Hammer One, this is Steel Rose! Urgent report from the forward scouts!]
Frederica began reporting at a rapid clip.
[The fleeing enemy has abruptly changed posture. Beyond the forest, on the wide open plain — they're counterattacking!]
With that, the reports came in like a hailstorm.
[Crackle! First Company reporting! Enemy strength uncountable! They cover our entire field of view!]
[…Forward pressure is far too heavy. Unable to secure room to maneuver.]
[Cr-crackle! Cannot hold current position! Requesting permission to fall back to the reserve line!]
"Damn it, they're endless… what are they, ants? Are they spawning out of the ground?"
"Ha."
A hollow laugh burst out of me. After Gromnar died, the forest orcs should have collapsed into a leaderless rabble — and yet someone had massed a force this size in this short a time?
"Not running, but marching straight to us of their own accord. Now that's what I call good news."
[Sir, now is hardly the time for jokes.]
Frederica pointed it out, calm as ever.
She wasn't wrong — the situation had turned on a dime. On the Minimap, the red dots were now advancing with enough force to swallow half the screen.
No matter how wide the technological gap, a number like that was nothing but a nuisance. And for us — in the middle of a breakthrough operation that amounted to a gamble — every single second was precious.
CLUNK!
And so I opened the door of the command half-track and leaned out into the open air myself.
From the far edge of the forest, from the direction of the clearing where the trees thinned out, a thunderous war drum came rolling in.
DUM. DUM. DUM—!
At the same instant, an orcish battle cry poured out, shaking the very earth.
"ZAGROS! ZAGROS! ZAGROS!"
And soon, an unimaginable multitude of orcs revealed themselves.