Chapter 10
Translator: Wjin
Chapter: 10
Chapter Title: First Battlefield (2)
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Clatter, clatter.
With every movement of the wheels, my pelvis twisted. It was my first time riding a carriage, and I never would have imagined a vehicle with worse ride quality than a five-ton truck.
I'd been secretly hoping for a touch of that fantasy vibe, a bit of romance, but that was too much to ask.
The passenger cabin was covered with cloth, so you couldn't see outside. The way we were tossed about with various supplies made it no different from being treated like cargo.
'This is just too much…….'
Originally, there were only three of us, including the platoon leader. We had to board the leftover carriage after the others were divided among the platoons, so there was no helping it.
Even Lumia and Bell seemed used to this kind of treatment, as they didn't seem to mind much.
As I was wasting time during the journey with nothing better to do, Lumia spoke to me.
"Enok Levandel, Platoon Leader, sir."
"Yes."
"That... you really used Fire Ball last time, didn't you?"
"Of course. I told Director Debra the same thing just a while ago."
At my matter-of-fact reply, Lumia's violet pupils trembled slightly.
"Is this how you always were when using Fire Ball? I heard you have to be able to use all five basic elemental magic to graduate from the officer candidate school and be commissioned. What did you do during the officer exam?"
Was there such a setting?
Regardless of which faction you chose in Hearts of General, you became a 'lieutenant' five years before the outbreak of the war.
There's no way I'd remember the officer training curriculum of a military academy that didn't even exist in the game's lore.
So, I gave a slightly cold answer. It's better to draw a clear line in situations like this.
"I'm sorry, but I can't tell you that."
"Ah."
Lumia's lips parted slightly. She hesitated for a moment before lowering her head deeply and apologizing.
"I'm sorry, Platoon Leader. It was too forward of a question……."
"You can be curious, but it wasn't a good time that I'd remember fondly. You must have had a similar experience, Sergeant Lumia?"
Everyone has memories they don't want to speak of. The same was true for Lumia, who was sitting right in front of me.
"...I was being too thoughtless."
I had once gone around the unit from the start and held one-on-one interviews with each platoon member. Interviewing platoon members is one of the platoon leader's main duties, after all.
Of course, that's excluding the one veteran who hated interviews and the lady who wouldn't be fazed even if she heard news of a death tomorrow.
Which meant, in the end, it was just Lumia and Bell.
Even that was just a level of cross-checking the contents stated on their personnel files.
Still, I had a general grasp of Lumia and Bell.
Lumia Blue.
Incredibly, before coming to this unit, she was a promising magic non-commissioned officer.
'Her stats were quite good for a platoon member assigned at the beginning. That means she has the ability.'
The problem was that a certain 'incident' occurred shortly after she was transferred to this battalion.
Lumia drew a firm line. She was always kind and gentle in her attitude, even if her face was cold.
But at that moment, it was the coldest voice I had ever heard.
It was as if she was warning me not to cross the line.
'Something definitely happened, but I have no idea what it was.'
Since she kept her mouth shut tight, I decided not to pry further.
It must have been an incident so great that it caused an outstanding person, who had received an overwhelming 'A' on her personnel evaluation, to fall in an instant.
The penalties she had, like Combat Avoidance and Frail Mind and Body, were likely side effects of that experience.
However, since it had become a trauma that affected her daily life, it was obviously a bad choice for me to forcibly dredge up that memory.
'There's no point in hounding her about it; it would only add more pointless conflict.'
Anyway, whether I liked it or not, I had to endure this for a year. It wouldn't be worth it to lose the small amount of trust I'd built over something so trivial.
Of course, Lumia's attitude didn't change after that. She probably knew I was being considerate to some extent.
"Well, I kind of figured it would be like that from the start."
Bell, who had been listening silently, stretched and spoke.
"What do you mean?"
"You, Platoon Leader. All the platoon leaders we've had until now were either weirdos or guys who got demoted and sent here."
"...Sergeant Bell!?"
"Am I wrong?"
Lumia immediately scolded her, but Bell just shrugged her shoulders.
"Still, the Platoon Leader is a bit better. The former type would demote themselves because of their own mistake and then blame everything on us."
"Are you talking about the previous platoon leader?"
"Him and four others...," Bell said, spreading four fingers while shuffling her feet. "None of them lasted long. Our platoon is surprisingly effective. It's the perfect place to make demoted officers miserable and make them discharge themselves."
She said it so nonchalantly, but I sensed the sincerity behind her words.
It was self-deprecation born from the thought that no matter how hard she struggled, the situation wouldn't improve.
"I like the previous platoon leader. I wish he could stay with us for a long time."
"What are you talking about right now...!!"
"Did I say something too rude?"
Bell Mayer's gaze pierced into me. Even as the carriage lurched violently, her head remained perfectly still, looking straight at me.
"No, thank you. At least you said you like me, so you won't stab me in the back, will you?"
I'll emphasize this again: I have no intention of staying in this rotten platoon forever.
However, interacting with the platoon members is a different matter.
It's like this even right now. I needed achievements, and to achieve them, I absolutely needed to work together with my platoon members.
Even if my stats are maxed out, I'm still just one magic officer.
I could handle ten bandits without breaking a sweat, but twenty would be difficult.
Thirty? I'd have to turn tail and run without looking back.
And if even one incompetent mage is mixed in? Forget running, I'd have to worry about my own life.
Hearts of General was not a game designed from the start for a single player to dominate.
If they wanted to do that, they would have played an AOS or RPG genre instead of a hardcore strategy simulation game.
War.
It's a game where thousands, tens of thousands, and hundreds of thousands of troops are all mixed together, pushing and pulling at borders.
Occupying the capital, recapturing it, and continuing the offensive.
Its main purpose is to set up defensive lines, wage delaying actions, and mercilessly throw away hundreds of soldiers as bait to achieve operational objectives.
A one-man show is impossible. The premise is set that way from the start.
In the middle of all that, I became a half-baked magic officer who can't even use magic properly.
To properly utilize my god-tier stats, I needed at least a minimal number of subordinates to follow my orders.
Even if they were considered 'trash'.
"You just have to trust me and follow me. I don't care what kind of past you have."
"Platoon Leader……."
"Aren't we already 'comrades' who've boarded the same ship?"
The moment I said that, I felt a hot feeling surge up from my chest.
'Whoa!! That's so cool!!'
Even I thought it was a pretty cool line. It's ultimately telling them to follow my lead well.
How you present it changes how people perceive it, right?
But the person in question, Bell Mayer, was silent. An awkward silence filled the carriage.
"..."
"......"
Huh, was it not? Was it too much?
I was just trying to say we should all do our best together, but did it not get across?
"Uh, Sergeant Bell Mayer. What I meant was……."
The moment I tried to add another word.
Clatter, clatter, vroooom!
The carriage shook a couple of times before coming to a stop. I instinctively turned my head to look at the driver's seat and saw a long stretch of a wooden fence.
"Thanks for all the hard work on the wagon! We've arrived!"
The young soldier acting as the driver said in a lively voice.
8th Division, 18th Infantry Regiment, Northern Legion.
After riding for three hours straight, we arrived at the garrison of the border guard unit responsible for the northeastern part of the Ukran Duchy.
"Initiate."
As Bell Mayer waved her hand, the cloth of the tent flew high into the air.
It had already been four years since she'd been in the military.
She had been on more operations than she could count on her fingers, so setting up a field tent was easier than using basic elemental magic.
Bell, who had perfectly set up the tent in under a few seconds, crawled inside and started organizing the bedding.
"Night Dewdrop."
She lightly recited the spell, and a magic circle imbued with blue mana spread out, spilling tiny droplets of water.
It was a spell that liquefied moisture in the air and scattered it on the ground like dew.
Even if it wasn't a spell that qualified as basic water elemental magic, it was exceptionally useful for cleaning the dry dust filling your lungs.
"If you get covered in dust, your skin will get ruined in no time."
She was a soldier, but she was also a woman.
Even if it was unavoidable to get covered in dirt and dust, it was only natural she wanted to avoid it as much as possible.
"Oh! You've already set it all up?"
Just then, Lumia came in from outside.
It was because the platoon leader was in the carriage, but usually, the two of them called each other so casually.
Bell was two years older, so she was the older one, but their ranks were the same.
"Lumia, what do you... think?"
"About what?"
"About our platoon leader."
It was a question with many meanings. Lumia thought for a moment before speaking.
"He seems... different."
"Right?"
"But that might be because he came directly from the officer candidate school. There's never been a platoon leader who came straight from the academy before, right?"
"So that's why..."
To be honest, I didn't trust him. No—I still don't trust him.
Most officers were like that.
Captain Arendt was a model company commander who could be trusted and followed as a superior, but it was a fact that he was intentionally abandoning the 5th Platoon.
In the end, he's just someone who will stay for a short while and then leave.
Our platoon is known as the trash can and the graveyard of officers for the entire battalion, after all.
There's no particular reason to improve the environment for the two of them.
Just to make sure they don't cause any trouble.
That's the extent of the measures taken.
"I guess we'll have to watch him for now?"
"Yeah, that's right."
"We don't know what his abilities are like yet. He might just be all talk."
I don't want to get hurt again.
I hate the thought of being betrayed even more after giving him my heart. I wish he'd just look at us with contempt from the start and then disappear.
It was the same for both Lumia and Bell.
They were long past the stage of lashing out in anger at others. They had realized the moment they understood that nothing would change no matter what they did.
The trash of the trash platoon.
Just living like that, and then discharging without anyone knowing.
Ending their lives without ever realizing the bright future as a mage they had briefly dreamed of when they first enlisted.
That was the only hope and goal for the two soldiers.
And into their hearts, a warm ray of sunlight began to shine, a feeling slightly different from what they had felt until now.