Chapter 17
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Translator: Wjin
Chapter: 17
Chapter Title: After Action Review (1)
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“Thank you, Sergeant Bell.”
“It's nothing. I just brought you some water.”
I struggled to get up from the bed.
The military doctor said I had collapsed from an overload on an already frail body. I even heard the terrifying warning that if I keep this up, I could suffer serious brain damage.
Of course, I didn't break any bones or suffer any serious spinal injuries, but I would still be stuck in the infirmary for at least a few days.
— You... How in the world did you even graduate from the officer academy?
The doctor who examined me seemed utterly dumbfounded, and his slightly spacey voice kept echoing in my ears.
I gulped down the cold water Bell had brought me and looked at Lumia, who was lying in the bed next to mine.
She was sleeping soundly.
Lumia, who had been unable to sleep all night due to the pain, had finally managed to fall asleep only after receiving a painkiller this morning.
“Still, it's a relief. Her life isn't in danger.”
“If the bullet had been even slightly off-center, it would have been a huge problem.”
I had also been left unattended for a while because I had injured my back while trying to save her, and it took a considerable amount of time to move about 4km after being rescued.
If the bullet fragments had hit an artery, Lumia would have lost her life.
“By the way, what's happening with the follow-up measures?”
“I hear the Corps Engineer Battalion is scheduled to begin repair work on the fortress. All the remaining bandits were executed.”
A mere gang of bandits.
Since they weren't a regular army to which the laws of war applied, and they had captured the fortress and wiped out the garrison, their execution was only natural.
However, the problem wasn't the bandits.
The group that had wounded Lumia and confronted me for a moment. Those bastards were clearly the masterminds behind this incident.
“Have you found out anything about those bastards?”
“The military police have come to investigate, but they haven't told me anything.”
“Not even a single clue?”
“They seem to have interrogated the captured bandits, but... I don't know.”
Well, they were the type who, upon realizing that the mission might be delayed by even a moment, had fled immediately, even discarding their robes. It was only natural that their identities couldn't be easily discerned.
In other words, it meant this fortress assault had been meticulously planned.
Even if I had killed or captured one of them at the time, they would have made sure there were no repercussions.
‘They must be 100% operatives.’
I know this field well. They're the kind of scum who carry cyanide capsules in their mouths.
I recalled the situation at the time.
One of them had called their leader 'comrade'. And as far as I know, there are only three countries in Hearts of General that use the term 'comrade'.
The Polania Republic.
The Balor Autonomous State.
And lastly, the Sovye Empire.
Polania was an ally of Ukran, so they had no reason to carry out such a radical operation.
And the Balor Autonomous State, while not an ally, is a weak nation similar to Ukran. Would they have any reason to take such a desperate gamble?
Ultimately, by process of elimination, the only conclusion was the Sovye Empire, a great eastern nation that would be capable of such a deed.
It was a country that stood shoulder-to-shoulder with the Reinhardt Empire in terms of military power within the Imperial Alliance Army. Above all, they were in a constant territorial dispute with the Duchy.
There was no need to think too deeply; it was clearly the work of the Sovye Empire.
After all, in Hearts of General, they were the first country to trample on Ukran the moment the Great War began. Capturing a border fortress would be a piece of cake for them.
‘But this is way too early...?’
Of course, it's a given that small-scale skirmishes and local battles occur in border regions even before the official start of a war.
But that's usually when there's still a year or two left before the war begins.
War doesn't just suddenly happen out of nowhere.
Local battles, provocations, dispatch of spies, redeployment of legions, diplomatic pressure, etc...
It's like stoking a fire in a hearth: you slowly stack dry firewood and kindling, then toss in a spark at the right moment to ignite the flames.
That is war.
Therefore, there are always precursor symptoms before a war. Because everything has a cause and effect.
However, the current situation was so sudden that it was hard to even call it a cause and effect.
Even when I played as the Sovye Empire in Hearts of General, I never used this kind of strategy. Why would you provoke other countries from the start? You'd just attract all sorts of scrutiny before the war even begins.
Then, you'd be lucky if your regime isn't overthrown by a revolution, let alone achieve victory. Why would you do something so inefficient with such a high risk for little return?
I fell into thought for a moment.
Even if the Sovye Empire is a crazy rogue nation that doesn't care about the opinions of its neighboring countries, I was certain they wouldn't be this reckless.
I was the one who, after being possessed in Hearts of General, constantly visited the Operations and Intelligence departments.
It was to familiarize myself with the main officers as a newly assigned platoon leader, but the most important reason was to grasp the current situation Ukran was in.
After examining the conversations of the staff officers, the weekly newspapers delivered every week, and the daily newspapers left abandoned in a corner of the library,
I was certain that Ukran was on the path to a 'textbook downfall'.
The Ukran Duchy, even when the tide of war across the continent was intensifying, remained indecisive about which side to choose, vacillating between the Free Alliance Army and the Imperial Alliance, and was subsequently crushed.
It had the strategic advantage of having borders with many nations, allowing it to deploy troops anywhere, a natural highway.
It had the geographical advantage of having most of its territory as fertile plains, making food supply extremely easy.
But it exposed a fatal weakness: it proclaimed itself a 'neutral nation' but lacked the military strength to maintain that status, and its alliance system with neighboring countries was loose to the point of nonexistence.
As a result, both factions would instantly tear the country apart.
All for the ridiculous reason that they couldn't hand over such a crucial strategic point to the enemy.
In some extreme cases, even the southern Reinhardt Empire would join in, and the country would be partitioned into three, making it a truly pitiful nation.
But that's a story from five years from now.
The Sovye Empire's sudden outburst. It was clearly up to something, rather than just trying to provoke Ukran.
The reason they chose 'Belgorod' among the many border fortresses was probably related to that.
“Sergeant Bell.”
I called out to Bell Mayer, who was sitting quietly beside me.
It would be best for me to go myself, but given my mobility issues, I had no choice.
“Could you go to the Operations Department and check what was being stored in the Belgorod Fortress?”
“Huh? The fortress's stored items? Why all of a sudden...”
She made a puzzled expression, but I answered casually.
“If I have that, I think I can figure out the purpose of the bastards who attacked me and Lumia.”
The headquarters of the 18th Infantry Regiment, under the 8th Infantry Division responsible for the northeastern part of the Ukran border.
In the spacious conference room set up there, a cold silence hung in the air.
This operation resulted in a total of 28 casualties. 12 dead and 16 wounded. More than half of the wounded had serious injuries.
If you include the wiped-out fortress garrison, the death toll rises to a total of 40.
Of course, they had annihilated the infiltrating bandits, so in that sense, the operation could be considered a success.
But tactically, it was a near-catastrophic failure.
“Commander of the 18th Infantry Regiment, say something.”
“I'm sorry, Division Commander.”
Nobgordo, the supreme commander of the 8th Division, spoke in a deeply lowered voice. The air froze solid under his words, which dominated the entire room.
Alvin, the regiment commander who was the target of the reprimand, could only hang his head low.
“It's all my fault. I underestimated the enemy's strength.”
“They were just bandits chased out of the border region! Why did we suffer such damage?!”
Nobgordo roared, slamming his fist down. A loud thud!! A strong vibration made the desk jump for a moment.
“I'm sorry.”
The officers gathered for the after-action review and follow-up measures flinched at the sight of the furious division commander.
If they got on his bad side, they'd be finished.
Since he held the full authority of the division, at least for this moment, he was a higher authority than even the Duke of the nation.
“Has the Military Police Corps come up with anything yet?”
“No, they haven't. Aside from the report that the bandits are believed to have fled the moment they completely occupied the fortress, there's been no significant progress.”
The aide answered in a calm voice. In his hands, he held a large stack of documents submitted by various departments regarding the Belgorod Fortress attack.
“I heard that if not for the support from the Magic Battalion's observation, we wouldn't even have noticed until the bandits reached the outermost edge of the encirclement.”
Nobgordo's eyes turned to Lieutenant Colonel Rockheart Cromwell, who was sitting in a corner.
The division commander's gaze, which had been filled with anger, cooled down slightly.
Rockheart Cromwell.
He was an officer of a unit operating separately from the division, and as the commander of the Magic Battalion, which possessed its own unique characteristics.
Therefore, Rockheart was the only one who could maintain a relatively relaxed attitude in this deadly atmosphere.
And it was also because he had a clear achievement to his name: his subordinate magic officer had detected the bandits who had approached right up to their noses.
“If it hadn't been for Lieutenant Colonel Rockheart's unit, the regiment's encirclement would have been completely broken through. Your contribution is great.”
“My battalion only did what we had to do.”
Rockheart bowed his head in response.
In fact, Rockheart hadn't done much in this operation, but there was no reason to refuse when the division commander himself was serving up the praise on a silver platter.
“Yes, I hear that one of your platoon leaders handled the crisis with great appropriateness? Not only that, but he also repelled an unidentified group of mages who tried to infiltrate by taking advantage of the chaos and was injured in the process...?”
To be precise, he wasn't injured while repelling them, but collapsed from exhaustion while trying to take care of his platoon members.
‘It seems the regiment has polished up the story quite nicely.’
The one who was at a disadvantage wasn't me, but the regiment.
They had lost 40 soldiers to bandits, so they had to inflate the enemy's level somehow.
That way, the division commander would have some standing when reporting to the higher-ups.
“Could you tell me the name of that brave and intelligent lieutenant?”
“It's Lieutenant Enok Levandel, Division Commander.”
It was at that moment.
Boom!!
The tightly closed conference room door burst open with a loud noise. At the same time, as all the gathered officers' gazes turned to the entrance,
“What was the officer's name!?”
A woman wearing a slightly crooked army service cap strode into the conference room and shouted.
This was the site of the after-action review for the serious incident in which the Duchy's border fortress had been attacked.
Division Commander Nobgordo was present, and most of the officers gathered were field-grade officers.
It was an act of extreme rudeness that no one would dare commit unless they were completely out of their mind, but the people gathered there couldn't say a word.
A unique hair color with a faint shade of light violet.
A short bob that barely reached her neck, but combined with her smooth, curved eyes and bright skin, gave off a strange feeling.
The insignia on her epaulets depicted three chrysanthemums.
She was a Colonel.
In fact, her rank was no issue at all.
She was the superstar that everyone in the Ukran Army was currently watching.
She was the only Grand Archmage Ukran possessed among the twelve Grand Archmages, and based on the absolute trust of the current Duke, she was the person in charge of the newly established 'Special Response Brigade' in the army.
The Grand Archmage of the Sky, Soni Chepelin.
“Huh, what's this? Division Commander Nobgordo? You arrived sooner than I thought?”
She asked, a sly expression on her face as she looked at the pale division commander.