Welcome to the Magical Defense Bureau! (4)
Ach, yes! Welcome to the Magical Defense Bureau’s voluntary enlistment drive!
Setting aside my personal concerns about Inti, time marched on regardless. Before I knew it, we had reached the seventh day of training—the final day of the Magical Defense Bureau’s field exercise.
“Left foot! Left foot! Left foot! Left foot! From now on! We will sing! The marching song! The marching song! Heads to the front!”
“Ugh!”
“In time with the cadence—— one, two, three, four!”
“High mountains, deep valleys——.”
Watching the troops march while singing the song I’d taught them, it was clear they weren’t in the best shape. Was it because we’d set out at the crack of dawn, or had the fatigue from the past six days of brutal training finally caught up to them? Either way, the soldiers looked less like alert fighting men and more like sleepwalking zombies.
The unit trudged forward, forcibly swallowing their yawns for about an hour. By the time the faint dawn light gave way to proper morning, the men walking behind me finally seemed to realize something was off. A murmur of confusion rippled through the ranks.
“Sir Alvaro, Bureau Chief? This doesn’t look like the road to the usual hunting grounds. Did we take a wrong turn?”
“No. This is our destination for today.”
“…This place, sir? It’s just some random mountain forest, isn’t it?”
Look at them already picking up proper military speech after only a few days of training. Anyway, Hans was right—this was a completely different mountain from the hunting grounds we usually visited. The purpose wasn’t anything grand. We were simply here to conduct the final training exercise.
“There’s a saying that training should be conducted like real combat. If you flip that around, doesn’t that mean real combat can also serve as training?”
“…Pardon? Did I mishear you?”
“I said real combat. Everyone, prepare for battle!”
“What? Chief, what do you——.”
“Keruk!”
“Keruk! Keruk!”
Hmm. Now that’s a sound I haven’t heard in a while.
“G-Goblins!”
A goblin horde had appeared.
The information I’d asked Count Essenrot for had been spot-on. When I inquired about recent monster sightings within the territory, this had been one of the candidate locations. Looks like we hit the jackpot right away.
“Keruk!”
“Kelkeruk! Keruk!”
We were currently surrounded by dozens of goblins. Six humans against dozens of goblins. And unlike the situation five years ago, the humans in question were not knights.
“Unit, assume combat formation!”
“C-Combat formation!”
“Form ranks!”
Still, it wasn’t as if we’d spent the past week just playing around. The fact that they were clumsily but properly executing unit tactics showed that the training had borne fruit. Considering that most of these people had been ordinary civilians with zero combat experience, achieving this level in just one week was genuinely encouraging.
“Warrior’s Valor!”
I cast the buff spell on both the troops and myself. You know how knights have their aura breathing techniques? This magic forcibly grants the body a similar state.
It was a buff I created based on my childhood experience learning aura breathing. Normally I avoided using it because of its terrible mana efficiency, but right now I needed to keep the troops alive, so I raised their physical abilities at least. The only person here who could properly use magic was Count Rebenstiel, so the rest of us had to hold the line with our bodies. Besides, even burning this much mana probably wouldn’t change the outcome much anyway.
“Fire Ball!”
Boom!
Count Rebenstiel’s Fire Ball detonated.
“Keruk!”
“Kelkeruk! Kelkeruk!”
The goblin horde looked visibly panicked. They must have thought we were easy prey since we didn’t seem to be knights, and had charged in recklessly. Getting blasted by magic must have left them completely stunned. Well, not my problem.
“Fire Ball! Fire Ball! Fire Ball!”
Count Rebenstiel continued launching Fire Balls in rapid succession.
Boom! Boom! Boom!
Goblins were incinerated left and right. It seemed teaching him how to use the Altar Cannon over the past few days had paid off. He was handling it quite skillfully.
That said, I’d have to correct him once we returned. No matter how you looked at it, the Altar Cannon still consumed a limited amount of mana. If he kept firing so inefficiently, he’d run dry before the enemy was even wiped out.
And just as I expected, the clumsily launched Fire Balls weren’t enough to neutralize the horde effectively. Goblins began a desperate banzai charge through the gaps in Rebenstiel’s line of fire.
But honestly? I couldn’t really feel any tension from their suicidal rush. Sure, they were charging mindlessly… but it was hard to see any chance of victory for them. If I’d thought they actually stood a chance, I wouldn’t have called it a banzai attack in the first place.
“Helmut and Bruno, deploy tower shields and block the enemy! Elena and Hans, wait behind the shields and take out any goblins that get close with your long spears!”
“Yes sir! Bruno, you come with me to the right flank!”
“You’re a commoner! Don’t you dare speak to me so casually!”
Even while grumbling, Bruno followed Hans’s instructions. He moved to the right, deployed his tower shield, and began confronting the goblins. Hmm. Come to think of it, I really need to establish proper ranks and forms of address between the troops. That’s something to handle after we get back. Right now we have more urgent matters.
“Fire Ball!”
Boom!
“Kek!”
Goblins had started sneaking into the blind spots that Hans and Bruno couldn’t cover, so I fired a Fire Ball. The explosion caught several of them, sending their bodies flying.
That alone must have taken out at least five. I hadn’t originally planned to shoot any myself in order to evaluate the troops’ training results, but I had a bad feeling that leaving it alone would lead to a serious accident.
“Where do you think you’re going! Hup!”
Clang!
“Die!”
“Kek! Kek!”
A quick glance at Helmut and Elena’s duo showed they were holding their own quite well. Wow. Helmut was swinging around that heavy tower shield like it was a small buckler and charging around with it. That kind of raw physical power coming from pure muscle alone, without aura, was honestly ridiculous. It made me chuckle despite myself.
“Count Rebenstiel! Hit the center of the enemy formation now!”
“Yes sir! Fire Ball!”
Whoooosh! Boom!
Direct hit. That one must have taken out six or seven at least. At this point the goblin horde seemed to realize we weren’t easy prey. Their formation began to collapse, and after a few minutes they scattered in every direction like rats abandoning a sinking ship.
“Should we pursue them?”
“No. We won’t pursue.”
If this had been a regular knight order conducting a routine subjugation, they probably would have chased them down to the last monster. But we had no horses, and even if we did, we weren’t equipped for a pursuit-and-annihilation mission like the knights.
Numbers were one issue, but more importantly, charging forward was never an attractive option for the mage class. Mages were supposed to maintain distance and crush enemies with overwhelming firepower. Closing in only diminished their advantages and gave the opponent a chance to counterattack.
If we had proper armored vehicles like modern self-propelled artillery, maybe we’d have more options… but right now we were basically functioning as mortars or field guns. Maybe someday, once related tactics develop further or specialized equipment for mages is created, things will change. For now, this was the best we could do.
“Situation terminated! From now on, conduct individual injury checks and equipment inspections, then report! After reports are finished, you will have thirty minutes of rest before we return to the lord’s manor!”
“““““Yes sir!”””””
Five voices answered in unison. Seeing this, it seemed the past week of training had successfully instilled in them both a sense of belonging and the proper military attitude I demanded. Since this world was far more familiar with death than the 21st century I came from, maybe they adapted faster than expected. Either way, I was relieved that none of the reactions I’d feared had appeared.
In truth, while one purpose of this training had been to evaluate their performance in actual combat, the real final test was whether the troops could face enemies with resolve.
For me, the subjugation five years ago had been my first time encountering and fighting enemies. During the battle itself I’d been too focused on survival to feel much aversion to killing. But on the carriage ride home, the discomfort had hit me particularly hard.
The moment that discomfort turned into hesitation, you died on the battlefield. And not just you—your comrades would get dragged down with you. That was why I had considered this real combat test absolutely necessary to evaluate whether these people were truly suited to be soldiers.
Of course, today’s enemies had been monsters, so there may not have been any hesitation to begin with. Still, if they could continue facing enemies like this, I believed the current troops possessed sufficient qualities to serve as proper soldiers.
“Unit inspection complete. Two lightly wounded, zero fatalities, no equipment damage. That is all.”
“Mm. Good work.”
Hans was the one who delivered the report. From what I’d seen during the past week of training, while he didn’t excel extraordinarily in any one area, every single one of his stats was above average. His ability to harmonize with the unit, his initiative in carrying out missions—he was like a ray of hope in a unit full of abnormal people. If the bureau ever expanded and we needed an adjutant, Hans immediately came to mind.
Hmm. That was another matter to think about once we returned. There were suddenly so many things I needed to consider back at the manor. Since I’d heard the report and organized my thoughts, and rest time was almost over, we should head back quickly.
“Rest period over! We’re returning to the lord’s manor!”
“Already, sir?”
“Oh? Is that defiance I hear, Bruno?”
“N-No sir! Let’s return at once!”
I’m quite looking forward to seeing how things develop from here.