Chapter 92
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Translator: Wjin
Chapter: 92
Chapter Title: Break and Destroy (1)
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The hot, sticky, and unpleasant season of summer had passed.
During that time, the 8th Assault Mage Infantry Battalion had achieved quite a remarkable transformation.
The most representative of these changes was the change in the soldiers' daily uniforms. A fiery red outfit, starkly different from the drab yellowish-brown combat uniform, visible from a distance.
Along with the pair of eagle wings engraved on their chests and the peaked caps.
Add to that the words 'AIR BORNE' written in capital letters, and it was none other than the majestic appearance of someone who had just returned from hell.
Staff Sergeant Rick Hanson couldn't help but feel his chest swell with pride as he looked at his reflection in the mirror.
It was an idea conceived by the battalion commander to boost the morale of the personnel and completely crush the spirit of the new recruits they were about to welcome.
Just as expected of the monstrous officer who had secured the position of battalion commander in just a few months of commissioning; he truly was a man with an extraordinary mind.
Who could possibly walk around slumping their shoulders while wearing this uniform?
Even Eric, his colleague in the administrative corps who used to stick his neck out like a turtle, was now holding his head high and scribbling away with his pen.
The administrative soldier in red.
It was the first time he had seen such a magic where a person looked completely different just by changing their clothes.
The new recruits meeting them for the first time would probably be too intimidated to even speak.
Just as Rick Hanson was completely absorbed in his own majestic appearance.
"Sergeant Rick? The company commander is calling for assembly."
"Ah, right."
At the call of the soldier under his command, Rick pulled his red cap down firmly and walked out of the barracks with crisp steps.
As he came out in front of the barracks where the 1st Company personnel lived, people dressed in red just like him were gathering.
They were the non-commissioned officers and soldiers in charge of training the 1st batch's airdrop training and combat education.
"Staff Sergeant Rick Hanson is present. Assembly complete."
"Good, we're the last. The other companies are already having a blast rolling the new recruits around at the training ground. Our comrades are about to arrive soon, so we should get moving."
Said Lieutenant Nikolai Hilbert, the 1st Company commander and Rick's direct superior. He was not wearing red like Rick, but an all-black uniform from head to toe.
If Rick and the others were training assistants, Lieutenant Nikolai Hilbert was the training instructor.
The sun-like red uniform was undoubtedly cool, but an all-black look was simply on another level.
The intimidating aura it gave off was no joke.
Anyway, as the company commander, he was someone Rick saw often, but now he felt like a completely different person, right down to his expression and posture.
"Listen up, everyone. Our mission is to turn them into perfect soldiers of the 8th Assault Mage Infantry Battalion. The moment those new recruits die helplessly in battle, it will be our responsibility. Understood?"
"Yes, sir!!"
"Then, 1st Company, forward march!!"
At Nikolai's command, a wave of red devils, lined up in two columns, began to flow forward slowly.
"Seriously, what even is there in this backwater village?"
"That's a bar... that's an inn... that's a restaurant... and that's a card game hall...?"
"What the, it's got everything you'd expect?"
"But where's the battalion barracks? Can't see it anywhere."
Stout Village, which was practically adjacent to the grounds of the 8th Assault Mage Infantry Battalion barracks.
Dozens of soldiers, carrying worn-out bags, were looking around like meerkats where a convoy of carriages had just passed.
They had clearly applied to the Central Army Corps, or rather, to be precise, the Special Response Brigade, the direct subordinate unit of the Grand Duke.
So why were they dropped off in this backwater village where all they could see was a small village and rice paddies?
Even when they asked the carriage driver who had transported them here, he just shrugged his shoulders with an expression that said he didn't know.
There was nothing they could figure out.
"Hey, hey, the girls are kinda pretty though, right? They've been making eye contact with me since a while ago... This is them hitting on me, right? Huh?"
"You idiot, does that look like seductive eyes to you? It's more like... they're looking at you with pity."
"You felt that too? Same here."
Setting aside the fact that they had been dropped without any prior notice in the middle of the countryside, there was a strange atmosphere filling this village.
The soldiers who were a bit quicker on the uptake felt that something was wrong, but... it was already too late to turn back.
"Where are you from?"
"From the northwest. I heard I could get promoted if I came here, so I came."
"James... Sergeant? Were you a non-commissioned officer?"
"Yeah. I've been stuck with the sergeant rank for about three years now. You can just call me by my name. Anyway, we're all going to be living together from now on—."
"Hold on, what the hell is that?"
At someone's shout, the heads of the gathered soldiers all turned at once. A red army marching straight down the village's single path.
The faces of the chattering soldiers hardened like stone in an instant.
The red army advanced rapidly, surrounding the soldiers in a circle in the blink of an eye. There were about twenty of them.
"Wh-what the... you guys!"
"From now on, all answers will be in Japanese. Understood?"
"Huh? What the hell are you talking about...?"
A soldier who had been acting cocky for a while glared and approached the man in black at the forefront.
And then.
THUD!
The soldier's head was slammed into the ground.
"Ghk...!!"
He hadn't even used magic. The soldier, who was quite burly, was simply tripped, spun in the air, and rolled on the ground.
On top of that, with a simple flick of a finger, the fallen soldier couldn't even get up from the ground and was just struggling in place.
Advanced Yellow Magic, Ground Statue.
A magic that fixed the parts of the body touching the ground in place. The soldier, who had been charging in fearlessly, was subdued in an instant, his bravado completely gone.
"A-a mage."
"He was a soldier??"
"Hello, everyone. I'm the fairy of hell training. The time limit is 24 hours. I wish you good luck."
"Run, you stupid bastards!!!"
The men in red all shouted in unison, their voices rattling their eardrums. In an instant, they fell into a panic, throwing their bags on the ground and scrambling to run towards the inside of the village.
"You, you're out. You need a harsher training, you fool who was acting up without even knowing who your opponent is."
Nikolai Hilbert said, looking at the soldier who was stuck in the ground. A faint demonic smile appeared on his face.
The soldier instinctively realized that he had finally arrived in hell.
"Move it, faster!!"
"You bastards! My grandma could run faster than you!!"
"Ack! Sorry!!"
This was the 2nd Company, on their tenth lap around the drill ground.
"You, you're out! Perform PT exercise number 8, 15 times!"
"Y-yes, sir!"
"How many times?"
"15 times!"
"Your voice is too small. Again! PT exercise number 8, 20 times!"
"Yessssir!!!"
The 3rd Company, lying down and doing the terrifying PT.
"Ah... this is what they call 'battlefield cycle training.' It's the special sauce from the battalion commander that will turn you into weapons of war."
Carrying ammo cans and sprinting, bear crawls, tire runs, and so on. The 1st Company was also being shown the bitter taste of all sorts of bizarre physical training.
It didn't take long for the barracks grounds, which had been quiet for a few weeks, to be filled with pained groans and desperate shouts.
The long-awaited first day of training.
As expected, the best part of endurance training is to start rolling them around the moment they arrive.
I was watching the training ground in real-time from the watchtower near the hangar.
"...Is this... really okay?"
"Of course, Lumia. You felt a bit different after running it yourself, didn't you, Lieutenant?"
"Well, that's true, but..."
Lumia, my adjutant beside me, added in a worried voice.
The so-called Enok Levandel Special Course. A training program to turn ignorant rookie recruits into elite airborne troops that glide through the sky.
Anyway, I, who had been in the military from the age of twenty-four until I was thirty-two.
I hadn't gone to this kind of training camp during that time, nor had I experienced how such training was conducted.
Plus, the Ukran training camp curriculum is garbage.
I mean, even if basic drills have survived into the modern era, what's the point of teaching how to shoot a gun as part of the drills too?
Ukran's military training hasn't yet escaped the doctrine of the line infantry era.
Even if other countries aren't any different right now... at least, as long as we set the Sovye Empire as our primary adversary, this old-fashioned doctrine has to be beaten out of every soldier's head.
A machine gun or something will start appearing across the sea soon, and if we keep this up, we'll be nothing but living targets.
"Are they doing well?"
"Ah, glory to the Fatherland."
As I gave a crisp salute, Chief of Staff Yosef lightly returned it and added.
"The staff officers are in an uproar. They say they want to roll the kids around too."
"Unfortunately, that's not possible."
"So I told them to be grateful we even gave them the assistant instructor uniforms."
Yosef chuckled. The staff he leads is, after all, a support unit. There's nothing more inefficient than having personnel from a support unit train combat units.
If you have a problem with it, you should have joined a combat unit, right?
And I heard the staff officers have been working overtime for days to completely overhaul all systems, including the reporting system.
On top of that, if they were told to handle the training guidance as well, I'd really have to report them to the labor ministry.
Of course, there's no labor ministry in this world either. I could grind them down like crazy if I wanted to, but why should I?
I'm a battalion commander, not some slave farm owner.
"Anyway, we've tightened it to a two-month course, so I expect we'll be fully equipped by the time the weather starts to get seriously cold."
Yosef nodded at my words.
"Let's hope no missions are assigned to the combat unit within that time."
"My thoughts exactly. I'd prefer it if it were after November..."
Airborne training isn't something you can do just once or twice. Since the battalion members themselves had dropped up to six times a day, once a certain level of basic physical fitness is established, we plan to drop the troops every day.
"Now, you can drop even if you're not a mage."
"The initial batch testing is all complete, so now we just need to start mass production."
"That's something we can only hope the Technology Research Department and the Ordnance Department will handle well."
"Well, they'll do a good job. And now, we need to start making the new recruits realize why they're being ground down."
I rang the bell installed on the watchtower. The loud metallic sound covered the entire training ground, and the soldiers in the middle of training all turned their heads toward me.
There were no microphones or speakers yet, but maybe I didn't need to say anything.
The airship floating behind me took off, and its giant shadow, blocking the sunlight, fell over the training ground.
Even though they were far away, I could tell that the faces of the new recruits were all stained with shock.
"Lumia, the signal."
"Yes!"
At my command, Lumia waved the flag she had stuck in her pocket vigorously.
The airship's rear door opened slowly, and the airborne experts I had personally selected leaped into the air without a moment's hesitation.
Watch closely, you rookies.
This is exactly what you'll have to do from now on.