For Comrades and Country
"Ughhh..."
The lead car of the magitech train looked just like a steam locomotive from photos, minus the smokestack. In this modern age obsessed with aerodynamics and efficiency, it was a design you rarely saw anymore. If I had to compare, maybe a parade train at an amusement park? Or something from a museum.
I let out a light groan as I sat straddling the rail, gazing up at it.
"Instructor. You still brooding over that thing?"
"Riley."
I turned at the voice from beside me. Legs stretched out straight—probably late 170s or even over 180 centimeters tall.
Ah, I want to bury my nose between those thighs—
...I quickly reined in my thoughts before they veered into weird territory.
"It's just nagging at me a bit. There has to be more to it than this..."
"But that was it, right?"
"Well... yeah."
Riley stated it so matter-of-factly. I couldn't help but flash a wry smile. She wasn't wrong, of course. Whether I accepted it or not, reality didn't change. No matter how unbelievable, if it happened right in front of me, I couldn't just deny it.
Didn't Holloc Holmes say something similar?
"If they hadn't packed in more balloons, wouldn't they have gone somewhere midway?"
Yeah, they went somewhere, all right. That's why we couldn't spot them even when they rose into the sky. Sure, it was an aerial battleship with stealth capabilities, but it wasn't perfectly invisible. From way down on the ground, maybe, but once you're up there with it, you could see it with the naked eye.
The real question was where... but more importantly, why did they stop at just this and bail?
"Maybe they ran away?"
"What, already? Because it's disappointing?"
"They'd run if they saw you, Instructor."
"...What about me would make them run?"
Even I didn't have the confidence to solo an aerial battleship. I'm no ship-slayer. The best you could do was chase it relentlessly until anti-grand witch forces arrived.
Whatever. At least we'd thwarted the terror attack with minimal casualties. Time to be grateful for that.
"Where's Beni, anyway?"
"Off making money. Said to grab opportunities when they come."
"Hmm."
I followed Riley's gaze and turned my head sideways. Beyond the tracks, near the damaged section of rail, people were clustered together. Not there to fix it, obviously. Subtract a few from the bunch, and the rest were passengers.
So why were they hanging around there? Simple—after the hunt, you gather the spoils.
"They'd get plenty of reward without her help, right? Beni was..."
"Uh... what did Beni do?"
"You know, that big flashy magic..."
"You seriously asking 'cause you don't know? Did that even help against the monster?"
"...Tch."
Come to think of it, yeah. I pressed my forehead at Riley's unexpectedly sharp point.
If this ooze balloon terror had played out like usual, Beni—who'd launched me into the air—would've been the top contributor. I'd declared I wouldn't take any reward money.
Should've just accepted it and passed it to her...? Nah, but the other passengers needed their cut to stay motivated for cleanup, and it'd get the train moving faster...
...Whatever. If she wants to hustle on her own, who am I to stop her? It's not dangerous work anyway.
I let out a small sigh and muttered.
"Lunch is gonna be pretty salty, at least."
"Yeah! Can't wait!"
Riley nodded eagerly. And 'salty' wasn't a metaphor here. Sea things came in all shapes, but they shared two traits: they attacked intelligent life, and their blood had insanely high salinity.
In a world short on rock salt, their corpses were a prime salt source. Assuming they were dead and harmless, of course.
Would be nice to cage them and bleed them periodically... Too bad the ancestors tried and failed. They didn't synthesize salt out of thin air. They gorged on it in the ocean like camels storing water, using it up over time.
So to get salty blood from one you'd already drained, you'd have to toss it back in the sea... We call that 'release,' not 'pasture,' right?
That's why sea things supplied a big chunk of salt alongside rock salt. Even non-threat spike-ranks—and sometimes needle-ranks—got cheers from citizens now and then.
Slay a bear, gold flows from its blood? Plenty would risk their lives for that. Some even carried red jade inside. Three ways to get red jade: amber, gallstones, and bladder stones. That last one's it.
Anyway, in a situation like this, lunch would be worth looking forward to. I passed on my cut, but first-class meals probably came loaded with salt anyway.
Maybe dinner on the train too.
We'd planned lunch on board originally... but the incident turned it into dinner as well. Didn't look like it'd wrap in twenty or thirty minutes.
"...Hold on. You hear something weird?"
"Huh? Like what?"
Right as I thought that, a vague unease hit me. I scanned around.
Something faint and off-key mixed in...
"I'll check!"
Riley dropped flat and pressed her ear to the ground. Damn, too slow. How'd she know to dog-ear it here? All I'd get was a prostration; I just stayed seated.
"Oh, yeah—definitely some thumping..."
"Footsteps. And drums."
The sound grew closer. Between the heavy booms of feet pounding the earth came higher-pitched thuds. Some instrument? Djembe? Close to that...
...Not the time to geek out. The volume ramped up fast—the footsteps too. Aura-boosted sprint speed.
I gripped my cane and stood.
Military unit, or equivalent training.
Rhythmic steps. Synced to the drums, matched strides. Anyone talented could hit that speed solo. But a group maintaining it? That took drill.
Their identity revealed itself quick—they were closing fast. A massive palanquin. Not your typical image, though.
Huge. Instead of a tiny two-person cabin, a massive container hung from it. Bigger than standard reincarnated-world containers. Similar to that black one dropped from the sky earlier.
Standardized to max lightweighting spell range, so probably same size. Difference: windows all along the sides.
Four people carried this behemoth at full tilt. Lightweighting magic helped, but they looked beat.
As I'd mentioned before, even aura users usually rode horses. Trade speed for stamina. This was the opposite: burn manpower for velocity.
Why both carriages and palanquins served in imperial and other armies.
But rushing repairs on a peacetime train this hard? On a weekend?
I wondered, watching the panting soldiers charge.
"Long live the Emperor. Tough work on a weekend."
As they slowed near the train, I saluted fist to right chest.
"Long live the Emperor!"
But the soldiers didn't return it—the officer bursting from inside did. They weren't late; hard to salute hauling a palanquin. I'd saluted solo and was about to drop it when the ninja... er, deputy commander appeared.
...Deputy commander—that's battalion XO level, right? I eyed her chest patch, confirming: Engineer Battalion Commander.
"Battalion Commander?"
"Yes! 147th Engineer Battalion Commander, Deputy Lapi Randall! Here to oversee magitech rail repairs!"
The battalion commander herself? Not even regular infantry—engineers?
...I dropped the question quick. Yeah, foreign princesses and a star got hit by terror. No wonder the panic. One 'repairs are slow' quip, and heads roll.
Hell, even Beni had a nuke switch. If word reached Dean Myurvel? Three stars. One sneeze, and storms brew. Unrelated unit or not.
Perfectly reasonable response. I eased my surprise.
"Ah, right. Thanks for—"
"Huh?"
Someone cut me off with a weird noise. The commander whipped around, eyes promising murder.
She locked gazes with someone beyond the container window—probably the drummer syncing steps and directions. Lead drummer, they called it.
I turned slowly too, spotting the drummer's face. The woman who'd unwittingly voiced her dismay.
My eyes went wide this time.
"Trainee Rui... wait, not trainee anymore. What's your rank now?"
"Uh, er—sergeant."
Rui stammered awkwardly. Made sense after three years; too chummy felt off. Even I felt it a bit. Just nostalgia overriding.
"Ah, yeah—sergeant time. Talk casual like old days."
"Still... is that okay...?"
"Why not? Different units—you're Auntie now."
"Wha—fr-friends?"
The commander tongue-tied in shock. I gave an awkward grin and nodded.
"Training camp—er, music school classmates."
"...?!"
No mind-reading needed; her stare screamed, You didn't mention this, you lunatic?!
What, six degrees to the president? Like that.
I could only wry-smile at the flustered engineers. Rui probably didn't know I was here either...
Maybe the commander's fault for not specifying which major?
She might've taken it easier then. Rui knew I wasn't the nagging type.
...Or not? Three years apart—maybe she couldn't boldly say 'my friend's here, so slack's fine'?
"Anyway, long time no see, Sergeant Rui."
"Y... yeah, long time, Miss Konstantia."
She'd grown a lot. Mostly in rank insignia. Rui flashed a smile mixing relief and awkwardness, tossing the joke right back.