Chapter 54
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Translator: Wjin
Chapter: 54
Chapter Title: Squad Evaluation (1)
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“Huh? Debra Bennett, Section Chief…….”
“Hmm?”
Lumia and Bell, who had followed me, also seemed flustered by the unexpected guest. She shamelessly snatched my luggage and personally carried it into the room.
“You must be tired from the long trip? Now, there's something the Lieutenant needs to see right away.”
“I'm not a Lieutenant anymore.”
“Hmm?”
At my words, Debra's gaze shifted to my shoulder boards. She glanced back and forth between the two diamonds embedded on my shoulder and my face.
“What?!?”
She jumped as if she had seen a ghost. Her pupils were visibly trembling.
“Enok Levandel, Lieutenant?! L-Lieutenant?! A Lieutenant after just one month of commission!?”
“Didn't you hear from the Personnel Chief? With his personality, he wouldn't have kept it to himself.”
“I was cooped up doing research for the last five days without stepping outside…….”
“You've been working hard.”
I offered a word of comfort to Debra Bennett.
“So, what should I call you now? Mutual respect? M-Maybe it's okay for the Lieutenant to use informal speech with me……?”
“Why are you suddenly acting like this? You're much higher in seniority than me. Please treat me as you always have.”
She must have known from the start, but it was only natural for her to be taken aback, considering that an officer who was nothing but a greenhorn just a few days ago had suddenly appeared as her equal rank.
“Ah, right! That's right, there is seniority!”
“By the way, what was it that you said I needed to see? If it's about the magic barrier you mentioned last time, I can check it out tomorrow morning…….”
“Ahem! It hurts my feelings when you say that. Don't just think of it as a mere magic barrier. You wouldn't say that if you saw it for real.”
Debra Bennett grabbed my arm firmly and tried to drag me out of the barracks by force.
“Section Chief, you shouldn't do this here.”
“Why not! It's fine!”
Before Lumia or Bell could do anything, Debra Bennett passed by them at a brisk pace.
“Sorry for borrowing your squad leader at this late hour~ I'll return him soon~! You all worked hard today~!”
For me, who was already exhausted from sitting in the carriage for so long, I didn't even have the strength to resist.
Please, just leave me alone...
“Ta-da~!”
The place Debra Bennett dragged me to was a private room in the Facilities Management Department's basement. Since the 3rd Battalion building itself was an expansion of an old fortress, there were quite a few underground facilities.
Our squad used to live in the basement before moving to the old barracks where I am now.
“What is this place?”
“It used to be an interrogation room.”
“…….”
Debra spoke so murderously without batting an eye. She nonchalantly tapped the mana stone embedded in the wall and added,
“But now it's my personal lab.”
Tock, tock, tock.
The lights turned on one by one, dispelling the darkness that had shrouded the room. The light emanating from the red mana stone shimmered softly.
“My specialty isn't offensive magic, it's defensive. If I want to go higher, I have to find a niche with low supply but high demand.”
“Ah…… I see.”
It's a mistake to think only of attacking in war. Just look at the Ukran Duchy; they were too busy trying to block attacks that the front line collapsed and they were annihilated.
It was the result of a minor nation prioritizing offense and neglecting defense.
In that respect, Lieutenant Debra Bennett's choice could be seen as quite wise and forward-thinking.
If there were just a few more officers like this in Ukran, their defensive tactics doctrine wouldn't have been inferior to the Walter 3 Kingdoms.
“Anyway, using the idea you gave me, I did a bit of reverse engineering.”
“Yes.”
“The method of spreading a barrier at a 45-degree angle and deliberately concentrating mana density on the upper part is efficient enough, but it had one fatal flaw.”
“What kind of flaw?”
“The top is too thin. If it's hit by indirect fire instead of direct fire, or if a piercing attack magic's penetration increases just a little, it gets penetrated right away.”
I nodded at her explanation. If this really is a concept similar to 'sloped armor' applied to modern tanks, it's only natural that it's not a perfect all-rounder.
If it were that efficient, a tank with sloped armor on all four sides would have been developed.
Of course, such a monstrous thing didn't exist in reality either.
Because it's incredibly inefficient.
“And if I try to increase the mana density on the top, the mana efficiency drops compared to when it's spread out flat.”
“That would be the case.”
It was obvious.
The advantage of sloped armor is that it boasts superior defense with a thin thickness compared to flat armor.
So, if you increase the density of the mana to increase the thickness of the barrier, you're essentially just increasing the thickness—or the density—of the magic barrier itself.
In the end, the fundamental part is the same.
In fact, you'd just be consuming more concentration and mana in the process of meticulously adjusting the mana at a 45-degree angle.
It would be better to just deploy the magic barrier flat and stack two layers.
In the end, the 'sloped armor' theory in this world only had the value of a 'one-time shield' that extracts maximum efficiency with minimal mana, and nothing more.
However, this alone was sufficiently usable, and with a little more improvement, it would be a great help in developing the composite magic barriers that unlock in the later stages.
I looked at Debra Bennett's 3rd-tier magic barrier and thought.
“Still, wouldn't this be enough for the squad evaluation?”
After all, it's just a squad evaluation.
No matter how brutal the evaluator is, they should be able to get a significant incentive just for deploying a barrier with a novel structure, different from existing magic barriers.
However, Debra Bennett firmly drew the line.
“No, this isn't enough.”
“But it's already fresh enough.”
“The other side is Colonel Victor Zelensky. You don't know him well, so you might not realize it, but he is absolutely not an easygoing guy.”
I wondered just how badly he must have grilled her for Debra Bennett to react this way.
“Do you know how bad it was during the adjacent battalion's evaluation last month? It was a response to a cavalry charge, and they had already formed a phalanx and successfully blocked it numerically.”
Debra Bennett shuddered as if she were imagining the situation at the time.
“Even I thought it was perfect. For officers who don't even care much about defensive doctrine, it was quite impressive. But then that Zelensky guy suddenly asked, 'What if the enemy isn't just cavalry, but Magical Cavalry?'”
Magical Cavalry……?
So, a mage riding a horse?
When I made a puzzled expression, she personally explained it to me.
“Anyway, a mage that approaches at the speed of a cavalry. Where in the world would something like that exist? If they were riding a carriage, maybe.”
……What?
Unlike Debra Bennett, who shrugged as if it were ridiculous, I couldn't laugh so easily.
In five years, Magical Tanks would actually appear.
They weren't like modern tanks plated with steel, but rather vehicles with a feel of the Chariots used in ancient times.
A 'cavalry unit' that becomes producible once wheel stability develops and you go up the machine research tree.
They become obsolete as soon as real tanks appear, but before that, they are used effectively to counter enemy mages protected by infantry by maximizing their unique breakthrough power.
'Did she predict the future? Or did she just happen to hit the mark by chance while acting like a stubborn old fogey?'
I felt a slight interest in Colonel Victor Zelensky, whom Debra Bennett had mentioned.
“……He would mercilessly deduct 3 points if you couldn't answer!”
“I get a feel for what kind of evaluator he is. So, how do we need to improve this?”
As I cut off the lieutenant's chatter, she cleared her throat and returned to the main point.
“Ahem, ahem, there's no need to improve it. I've already made a prototype.”
“Huh?”
“Watch closely.”
Debra Bennett snapped her fingers. Then, a spark the size of a baseball bloomed on her palm.
Beginner Red Magic, Fire Ball.
A spell I've become so familiar with I'm sick of it.
“You said it was a 3rd-tier barrier.”
“Wouldn't it block this kind of thing easily?”
“Right. But what if it gets hit by a Fire Ball five times in a row?”
“The mana density would get disrupted and it would be destroyed.”
“Exactly. The countermeasure was simpler than I thought. If you can't endure it, just don't get hit.”
“????”
What kind of sophistry is this?
“I tried a change in perspective. What if, right before a spell collides with the magic barrier, we use an anti-elemental spell to decrease the power of the attacking magic?”
“Wait a minute, Debra Bennett, Section Chief…… You don't mean……!!!”
“Let's just take a look.”
Saying that, she threw a Fire Ball toward the barrier.
The lump of fire, cutting through the air, reached the surface of the barrier in the blink of an eye. The moment the Fire Ball's flames were about to explode and scatter fire,
A magic circle that was protruding slightly from the top deployed and shot out a Magic Missile, of all things.
KWANG—!!!
The noise caused by the collision of mana and mana rang through my eardrums, but.
I froze completely on the spot.
This was a Defense-Dispel magic that wouldn't appear until airships were developed. In other words, it was a technology equivalent to an active defense system in this world.
From sloped armor to an active defense system.
Are you saying she achieved a technological leap that would normally take several years in just five short days, all by herself?
“Oof, since this spell isn't fully established yet, the activation was a bit late!”
“Debra Bennett, Facilities Management Section Chief…….”
“Hmm?”
“Just who exactly are you?”
I had to seriously wonder if she was a reincarnator or not, as she nonchalantly scratched her head.