The Opening (2)
After the declaration of war, the front lines did not settle into a boring slugfest. They exploded outward across the entire western border.
Full-scale war.
Eventually, the division I belonged to was also thrown into the battlefield. The moment real combat began, the personal communication terminal I was allowed to use—something only commanders could have—cut off completely.
Thanks to that, I couldn’t even log into the game. I sat quietly in the command seat and left the actual commanding to my adjutant Haman and the troops.
No matter how much training we’d received, the soldiers were so tense that they looked like consumables on the battlefield.
Only the commander could be trusted, the others thought. But my commander was just the lord’s son. A game addict. The unease only grew.
I didn’t care what anyone else was thinking. I sat like a proper noble, sipping tea, and waited lazily.
“Commander, one squad from the Croisen Empire Vanguard is approaching!”
“Don’t panic. Fall back to the formation. And order the Vanguard forward to Vice-Commander William.”
“Yes, sir!”
The moment my confidence in survival returned, even the terrifying aura of the enemy Vanguard made me blink once.
That’s why the officers and adjutant Haman in the brigade command headquarters stared at me in fresh surprise—
“Why?”
I answered flatly and turned my head away immediately.
Then it happened.
“Hmm?”
The force of the enemy Vanguard’s sword suddenly concentrated. Mankyung showed it clearly.
I frowned. As I set my teacup down, I shouted,
“Second Battalion! Deploy energy shields!”
My order raced to the battalion. A sudden blue laser slammed into the red shield.
—BOOM!
A blinding flash mixed red and blue light, stole my vision, and shook the command post like an earthquake with a deafening explosion.
“Crazy!”
Even after knowing the power of the Vanguard, staring at it myself made me laugh. What kind of checkers player throws out long-range attacks like this?
If they’re not at least 7th-circle or higher, I understand why mages can’t face the Vanguard.
“Second Battalion energy shields silenced! Recharge in ninety seconds!”
The defense line, our lifeline, stopped after one Vanguard strike.
Compared to the price, it was more expensive than the Vanguard’s force equipment, yet it was worthless in efficiency.
This was proof that the weapon that had changed the war’s tide wasn’t worth the price.
‘Maybe I should ask for some magic-using equipment too.’
The designer of the force equipment that amplified aura was Duke Lucas. It was ironic that he, a mage himself, created an item that upgraded a knight’s power against mages.
Since I was also a mage, I felt a little sorry.
‘No, I don’t need to envy the Vanguard at all.’
In the game I would max out and become a 9th-circle mage. And there was Arsia, already a Grandmaster—8th-circle level.
Wanting more would be greed, I told myself.
“My lord, should we pull the second battalion back?”
I shook off the thoughts and accepted Haman’s suggestion.
“Do it.”
Energy shields were deployed per battalion. With the second battalion’s shield discharged, we retreated for the soldiers’ safety until it recharged.
“It was a close call. Thanks to you spotting it quickly, my lord, we survived.”
The officers and soldiers who had kept their lives looked at me with grateful eyes.
“Good fortune.”
“Modest as always.”
Nothing falls from the sky when you wish for a plane.
I shrugged and checked the situation.
“The invading force’s scale is almost identical to ours. The only variable is the size of the aerial fortress…”
My gaze drifted to the sky. Naturally, Haman followed.
The brigade headquarters was inside the command train.
A sharp-eyed soldier hacked the camera and projected the floating objects at five hundred meters above ground as holograms.
Two enormous disk-shaped vessels appeared—UFO-like.
One in our formation, one in the enemy’s.
Our fortress was seven hundred meters across and weighed a million tons. The enemy’s was five hundred meters and fifty to sixty thousand tons.
These were the Aerial Fortresses, the main aerial combat power of the modern era.
“The Croisen Empire’s Aerial Fortresses are two, but they’re much smaller than ours.”
According to Haman’s observation, the enemy ones were only half the size of ours.
“They were mass-produced for invasion.”
Even if the enemy had one more, the size difference was huge. Our Lheinhatz Tower Aerial Fortress was famous for its superiority, so it wouldn’t fall easily.
“No detailed information. It looks like this is the first time they’ve been deployed.”
If it wasn’t necessary, they wouldn’t have used that formation. I judged that the Aerial Fortress was the variable in this war.
“In war, if there are Vanguards on the ground, there are Aerial Fortresses in the sky.”
These were the pinnacle of all nations’ magic and technology, yet the core of the Aerial Fortress was still the Vanguard’s force system.
Powerful 7th- to 8th-circle magic artifacts were embedded as main cannons, but the magic artifacts’ firing rate and energy efficiency couldn’t match force equipment.
That was why the Aerial Fortress’s main attack was the same long-range method the Vanguard had used on us earlier.
I switched the hologram to the ground.
The two armies’ Vanguards were locked in fierce battle.
The enemies used hoverboards to increase mobility, but we used them too.
The ground was completely locked.
That was why everyone in the command post, not just me, stared at the sky.
—CRACK.
Two giant metal lumps slowly approached while pushing clouds apart.
Even though they were far apart, thick sparks shot into empty space as the high-output barriers from both Aerial Fortresses influenced each other.
Those sparks became signal flares. The sky was filled with light.
—BOOM-BOOM-BOOM!
They had decided to destroy each other without warning. Cannons and all sorts of artillery poured out.
Thanks to that, the barriers couldn’t hold and evaporated.
Direct hits slammed into the massive metal bodies.
“Brutal.”
Even the reinforced carbon-fiber outer walls, reinforced with various alloys, were five meters thick.
Unbelievable armor, really.
No matter how much it was weak against aura and magic, the Aerial Fortress’s armor, after endless improvements, couldn’t be easily pierced.
Everyone was stunned by the gorgeous sky battle.
“Huh?”
While I kept checking the enemy information in Mankyung, I noticed one of the two Aerial Fortresses’ data changing.
[Weapon separation in progress]
[Bridge separation in progress]
Impossible messages.
Then the center of the Aerial Fortress split and fell to the ground.
—BOOM!
With the disk-shaped core separating, the remaining fortress looked like a donut.
Everyone above their heads wondered what was happening.
Just as Mankyung had shown “weapon separation,” this fortress lost its attack function and became a sky target.
The 2-to-1 battle turned into a 1-to-1 in an instant.
“Why is that happening?”
“Malfunction?”
“Haha, that’s hilarious.”
Laughs echoed from all over the command post at the ridiculous situation.
But I couldn’t laugh.
[Mana explosion in progress]
[Mana explosion in progress]
[Mana explosion in progress]
That was the only reason I could think of.
I suddenly realized the possibility and froze.
“No way…?”
Just as I thought, the donut-shaped fortress that had lost its attack function suddenly accelerated and charged straight at our aircraft.
“Pass the order to the Aerial Fortress!”
I shouted in anger.
“It’s clearly a suicide attack!”
Haman next to me choked on his breath. The officers who had been laughing at the enemy’s strange appearance all widened their eyes.
My words were immediately relayed to the fortress.
I worried that the commander might ignore me. He seemed to think the same thing, because he quickly ordered a retreat.
But chasing a lighter, accelerated suicide fortress was impossible.
“Anti-air fire!”
The ground army’s best anti-air resources were the Vanguards themselves.
The sky’s aerial power was dominated by the Aerial Fortresses with their incredible defense. Investing anything else was just wasting money.
It was obvious that better to spend the money to build more Aerial Fortresses or more Vanguards than to throw it at mediocre anti-air power.
But right now the Vanguards were pinned down by the enemy. They couldn’t be pulled back.
So the only anti-air we could manage were the soldiers’ personal firearms and 5th-circle area-effect artifacts for supporting those soldiers.
Thousands, tens of thousands of flames shot into the sky from the ground.
Not just our brigade—every division that received the order fired.
“It won’t work!”
The fortress moved fast and the distance was great, so the damage was minimal.
Then—
—BOOM-A-A-A!
As the enemy fortress’s mana reached critical, a massive explosion no one had seen before covered the sky.
“Great Shield!”
The world shook violently as if it had flipped, and a powerful shockwave reached the ground. The glass of the command vehicle I was riding shattered.
Thankfully, I had used the artifact my father gave me in time, so no major damage inside. But outside, the waiting soldiers were blasted away and fell into complete chaos.
“Enemy Aerial Fortress?”
I quickly looked at the sky.
The gray clouds and dust made visibility terrible, but Mankyung’s viewing function made it easy to check the situation.
Asteron.
Fortunately, our Aerial Fortress hadn’t crashed.
It had been fleeing, so it was ejected from the explosion.
But it had taken a lot of damage from the suicide attack’s aftermath.
“Good.”
Just not crashing was enough to count as a blessing.
If our fortress had fallen, the remaining enemy one would have slaughtered us all.
I straightened up with a sigh of relief.
“Check the Vanguards’ status and restore order to the soldiers.”
The officers and soldiers in the command post nodded like they were hypnotized.
“Understood.”