A Very Special Engineer

"I know an engineer."

"Silence."

My first low-spoken words crackled through the microphone and rolled across the plaza.

"Cowards, every one of you."

"Wh-what did he just say?!"

"Has he lost his mind?!"

The crowd erupted into an angry murmur. Provocation, when they should have been the ones being placated. But I didn't stop. I laughed right in their faces.

"If you've still got the nerve to shout like this, why didn't you pick up a rifle and fight with that courage? When your beloved Legion Commander knelt at my feet, where were you? What exactly were you doing?"

The jeers began to die as the blow landed home.

"Gathering in a safe plaza to spit venom after the fact — is that what you call patriotism? That's not patriotism. It's nothing but the ugly thrashing of the defeated."

"Y-you bastard…!"

A young man in the front row snarled, coiled as if to leap out at any moment — but the military police shoved him back with the butt of a rifle before he could. Just as the atmosphere curdled to its most dangerous, I shifted my tone.

"However."

I drew a single sheet of paper from my pocket and held it up.

"I couldn't care less about your petty pride. I have exactly one concern: order."

For a moment I let the paper in my hand flutter with the crowd's gestures, then I spoke.

"As of today, Imperial military administration is in effect throughout Soissons. Nightly curfew runs from midnight until five in the morning. Violators will be executed on the spot."

"Dictator!"

"We are not slaves!"

As the jeers threatened to erupt again, I produced my second card.

"And the Empire shows mercy to citizens who ‍‍‌‌⁠​​⁠‌​​‍​​‍​‌​⁠‍‌‍⁠⁠‌⁠‌‍‌‍‌‌‌‍⁠​‌​‌​‌‍‌‌‌⁠‍​​‌‍⁠‌‌⁠⁠keep the order."

I snapped my fingers.

At once, the tarps over the trucks waiting behind the platform were peeled away in unison.

A great rustling sweep of canvas —

and beneath them lay food. Sacks of flour, crates of canned goods, and freshly baked bread and meat still steaming in the cold air.

The eyes of the hunger-worn citizens began to waver.

"The Republic abandoned you and fled. The Empire will feed you."

The look in the crowd began to change.

Silence settled over the plaza. Not a single soul could bring themselves to curse me now — not with that mountain of food behind me, the food that could be sitting on their dinner tables tonight.

"Rations begin in one hour. Dismissed."

Without a trace of lingering attachment, I turned my back on the crowd and stepped down from the platform.

"That was insanity, Lieutenant Colonel."

The City Hall Underground Vehicle Repair Depot.

A sharp voice cut through the acrid smell of oil and the oppressive heat.

Frederica von Kessel, Major and Commander of the 1st Armored Battalion.

She was perched on the track of her personal command tank, her grey bob-cut smeared with grease, dark engine-oil stains streaking across her tight sleeveless shirt.

Status Analysis.

I chuckled and walked over.

"As long as it worked, that's all that matters, isn't it, Major? Thanks to me, we avoided the unpleasant business of your tanks having to run down a mob."

"…Good results don't excuse bad methods."

Even as she grumbled, she wrenched down hard on the monkey wrench in her hands. The metallic screech of meshing parts echoed through the depot.

"More importantly, why aren't you asleep? Your entire battalion must have collapsed by now."

"My beloved steed is ill. How could I possibly sleep?"

Frederica scowled and vented her frustration.

"You drove her to her absolute limit on the march to Soissons. Two road wheels are cracked, the transmission is making a metal-on-metal grinding sound, and our spare parts ran dry ages ago."

She exhaled and wiped the sweat from her brow with her forearm. The sweat-soaked shirt clung along the curve of her chest.

Her anxious silhouette. I quietly came up behind her.

"Step aside. I'll take a look myself."

"…It's dangerous. The engine heat hasn't dissipated yet."

"I said move."

I nudged her lightly out of the way and leaned into the engine compartment. The reek of burnt exhaust stung my nose.

Status Analysis.

"Grim. The teeth on your third planetary gear ‍‍‌‌⁠​​⁠‌​​‍​​‍​‌​⁠‍‌‍⁠⁠‌⁠‌‍‌‍‌‌‌‍⁠​‌​‌​‌‍‌‌‌⁠‍​​‌‍⁠‌‌⁠⁠are gone."

Frederica scoffed the moment the words left my ‍‍‌‌⁠​​⁠‌​​‍​​‍​‌​⁠‍‌‍⁠⁠‌⁠‌‍‌‍‌‌‌‍⁠​‌​‌​‌‍‌‌‌⁠‍​​‌‍⁠‌‌⁠⁠mouth.

"Don't joke with me, sir. The transmission cover hasn't even come off yet. How could you possibly know a gear is stripped without so much as looking inside?"

"Your main shaft bearing is loose too. The play is, oh… call it three millimeters. And the clutch disc is probably a lump of charcoal by now."

"Lieutenant Colonel, are you writing a novel right now? Do you think maintenance is some kind of gam—"

"I can tell from the sound alone."

I rapped my knuckles against the engine housing — thunk, thunk — and went on.

"On the way in, the drive note was irregular. That shuddering vibration at low revs had exactly the rhythm of a shaft that's slipped a fraction out of true."

It was, of course, a complete lie. I hadn't even been riding in this tank.

But the way Frederica's face went rigid told me the technical bluff had landed perfectly.

"Th-that's impossible… You're saying you can diagnose that from vibration alone? Even veteran mechanics can't do that…"

"Battlefield instinct, Major. A commander who can't hear the scream of the steel his life depends on has no business commanding."

I shrugged as I peeled off my grease-blackened gloves. Frederica's eyes were shaking.

As if under a spell, she rose from her seat, peered into the engine compartment, then looked back at me — again and again. By her common sense it was incomprehensible, yet my diagnosis was so concrete she had no way to rebut it.

"Then… then it's even more hopeless than I thought."

She bit her lip.

"If the planetary gear and the shaft are both gone, field repair is impossible. We need precision-machined Imperial-standard parts. Even if we wire the homeland tonight, it's a minimum of three weeks before they arrive. And the Republican components are built to a different spec entirely, so we can't use captured parts either…"

"Don't worry. I'll fix it."

"Excuse me? I—no, I just told you. There are no parts."

"All I need is material."

I gestured with my chin toward the wrecked Republican tanks piled in the corner of the depot.

"Isn't all that junk lying over there exactly that? Melt down the armor plates and gun barrels and you've got top-grade steel. Tear a transmission apart, and you've got spare parts."

"Ha! Melt them down? Do you think tank components are horseshoes you can hammer out at the village forge? These are precision parts machined ‍‍‌‌⁠​​⁠‌​​‍​​‍​‌​⁠‍‌‍⁠⁠‌⁠‌‍‌‍‌‌‌‍⁠​‌​‌​‌‍‌‌‌⁠‍​​‌‍⁠‌‌⁠⁠to tolerances of a hundredth of a millimeter! And how exactly do you intend to use Republican parts that aren't even compatible—!"

Frederica shot back at me, utterly incredulous.

I gave her a knowing smile and tapped her on the shoulder.

"There's a very special engineer here in Soissons that I know of. Fellow's practically a wizard."

"You're already talking like a wizard yourself…"

"You'll see soon enough. Now, Major — go wash up and get some sleep."

I let my gaze travel over her from head to toe.

"Is that any look for the youngest battalion commander in the Empire? If your men saw you, they'd think an oil ghost had crawled out of the engine."

"……!"

Only then did Frederica register her own dishevelment. Oil stains blotching her pale forearms, her black tank top soaked through with sweat and clinging to every curve. Beneath her bob-cut, mussed from field work, the deep line of her collarbone and the valley of her chest lay completely exposed above her neckline.

"Hk…!"

She bit down on her lip and hastily untied the uniform jacket knotted around her waist, pulling it over her shoulders to cover herself. Only now had it dawned on her that she'd shown a man — her commanding officer, no less — such an undefended sight.

In the end, Frederica fled the depot without another word. She'd tried to look composed about it, but I caught the telltale flush burning at the tips of her ears.

Left alone in the depot, I quietly studied my Minimap. Within a five-hundred-meter radius, aside from a few military police checkpoints, there was not a single living soul.

"Well then…"

Time to work a little magic.

I made my way toward the wreckage of the Republican Renault tanks shoved into the corner. Spare parts lay strewn across the floor, and a battered chain hoist dangled from the ceiling — a desolate, almost funereal scene.

Plenty of material.

The key to Material Conversion was similarity. It was a knack I'd earned by working the skill to death back in Rosenheim. Just as it's easier to make bread from flour than from brick, the more closely the source material resembles the target — in form, in nature — the less mana the conversion burns and the finer the precision.

I clambered up onto the tank's carcass and forced open the rear engine deck of the Renault. The stench of cordite and oil hit me harder than ever before.

But it was worth it.

Found it.

A Republican-built transmission assembly.

Hauling the whole thing out and carrying it over was out of the question — without a crane, the weight was pure fantasy. But I had Material Conversion.

I laid my hand on the transmission casing. There was no need to tear it free. I only had to extract what I needed.

Material Conversion.

Ding.

A high-pitched whine rang through my skull, blue sparks crackling at the edges of my vision. I gritted my teeth. Inside the transmission, the mass of steel buckled under the interference of my mana — melting down, and beginning to recompose itself into something new.