Chapter 38: On an Academy Field Practicum, an Attack Always Occurs (2)
Annihilation Corps-style ambush response training carries several educational curricula.
For instance, the method of reacting to killing intent.
Or the optimal response after succeeding at Line-of-Fire Detection.
Grasping terrain, analyzing enemy numbers and armament. Various other field doctrines remain within countless feats of arms.
But the education Ivan prepared for Isabelle came down to only one in the end. The simplest and most fundamental.
[Ambush until they respond.]
Therefore Ivan now sat in a tree and quietly raised his muzzle.
Beyond the rear sight, Isabelle’s figure was visible. Still bearing herself boldly, with no apparent intention of taking concealment.
Click.
Aligning the sights and letting the point of aim drift just before pulling the trigger.
Bang!
The problem when Line-of-Fire Detection has only just come into bloom is that one cannot yet fully trust one’s own senses.
Line-of-Fire Detection is ultimately a sense closer to a sixth sense. Swayed by sight and hearing, one cannot produce a proper reaction.
“Kyah!”
“……Wrong.”
Ivan sighed as he watched Isabelle, far off, shriek and hurriedly duck her head.
Though the line of fire had plainly gone wide, Isabelle attempted evasion. Her balance broke as a result, exposing an opening.
Click, bang—!!
Aiming at that opening, this time precisely between the brows. Discharge.
Isabelle, who barely succeeded in evading, trembled as she looked at the bullet mark lodged in a tree.
“Live rounds! Fired at my head! Seriously?!”
Soon she opened her eyes. Eye-light burning deep blue was glaring precisely at the spot where Ivan was hidden.
Improving steadily.
Befitting a common-sensical training instructor, Ivan nodded, feeling gratified.
He swiftly vacated his concealment point.
***
“Haha, ahaha. I’m really going to kill him.”
Isabelle walked trembling, gripping her sword hilt tight.
Live rounds between the brows……?
“I must have been mad. I’m an idiot. It’s my fault, yes. My fault, I suppose.”
That she’d been slightly excited when he said they’d train in the forest where “that incident” happened?
That she’d felt good when, though she’d asked suddenly, he readily dropped everything and offered to help?
Yes, it’s all my fault, I suppose.
Swinging a blade a few times lightly, laughing pleasantly and getting a bit of feedback……
Chatting a little now about that day’s events as memories.
Preparing some sandwiches to share at such a time, going to the trouble of wearing her favorite clothes, even putting on makeup she rarely bothered with even at court.
Yes.
I’m an utter idiotic fool.
Click.
Gripping the sword hilt tight, taking one more step forward.
Shring.
Drawing the sword straight up and glancing once at the steel-blue edge, quietly. Yet gripping it firmly.
Bang—! Ching!
She split the line of fire precisely and deflected the round.
“You’re really…… really…… dead! You!!”
The Hero’s righteous fury blazed. She batted aside every incoming bullet and sprinted straight along the direction the line of fire crossed.
Because in the direction a round is fired, there is a shooter.
Bullets are fine so long as they don’t hit, so really. Really just once.
Just one hit. Thinking so.
***
That is presumably what she’s thinking.
Ivan withdrew quietly and looked straight at the charging Isabelle.
Finding an agent perfectly concealed within a forest’s shadows is an arduous business. Having Line-of-Fire Detection changes nothing.
Because at the end of a line of fire there is a shooter, one must assume the shooter is well aware of that fact too.
“I’ll give you a second lesson.”
Ivan, being an excellent instructor, finished preparing an instruction overflowing with consideration.
Trembling with rage and swinging a blade wildly while charging: the spirit was excellent, of course, but it can hardly be called a good choice.
He resolved to teach her that it is the worst possible choice to make in an “ambush” situation in particular.
Kraaash!!
Ivan smiled faintly as he watched Isabelle step on a booby trap and get caught in the explosion.
***
“All right.”
Isabelle, having barely evaded the explosion, brushed off the mound of dirt that had poured directly over her head and laughed.
“Let’s really kill him.”
Just one hit? That half-hearted thought is what created this situation.
She realizes anew that facing that lunatic requires giving one’s all. Isabelle deflected incoming bullets without even looking.
“Do you understand why I said the forest is harder?”
An exceedingly serene voice reached her ears.
Creak. Force entered the hand gripping the hilt.
“Underground waterways and tunnels take the form of a linear maze. An artificial structure has its own distinctive patterns. Which is to say, the points for planting traps or delivering ambushes are fixed.”
The instruction continues. Naturally these are, of course, precious pieces of advice that will greatly help her.
“But a forest possesses several characteristics at once. Concealment and cover are easy, there are many places to plant traps, and noticing them in advance is extremely difficult. Because it takes the form of a tangled maze, inducing a target’s movement route is easy as well.”
The manual for encircling many with few is as follows.
Contrary to many people’s misunderstanding, encirclement is the act of restricting information at the tactical stratum. The encircling net need not actually be dense, nor the offensive fierce.
A few exchanges applied at appropriate moments suffice. Compelling the opponent into misjudgment while holding an information advantage is itself the basis of encirclement.
Countless enemies are hidden beyond that forest. Approach beyond that forest and you’ll be caught in an offensive. There are no allies beyond that forest.
Misjudgments such as these accumulate, and the moment a field army commander’s command capability cracks, encirclement by the few is complete.
Ivan quietly continued speaking, then suddenly stopped.
Isabelle was trembling with her head bowed.
“Mister.”
“Hm?”
“Hoo……. Thank you. Thanks to you my head has cleared.”
“……Hm?”
Isabelle looked toward somewhere he would be with a cheerfully smiling face.
Considering the direction the sound came from and the direction the line of fire was detected, it would be this way.
She nodded and raised her sword hilt.
—Take up the sword. —Take up the sword not for your strength, but for your goodness. —Look upon those like us with the eyes of the weak. “Yes, I shall do so.”
Isabelle gripped the hilt as though entranced and set her stance. Deep blue magic power swirled centered on her body, glittering and lighting the dark forest.
A refreshing wind sprinted through the late-spring forest.
“Don’t move!!”
“Oh.”
Ivan watched her with shining eyes. The structure of the magic power and its circulation method both differ, but…… somehow a momentum that calls Maximilien to mind.
He might have more talent for teaching someone than expected. (An educator’s quality is determined by the student’s achievement.)
Ivan nodded readily and lowered his muzzle.
Isabelle’s senses had already come into full bloom. At this level she had reached a state where double-firing that deceives Line-of-Fire Detection would no longer work.
The state of accelerating the nerves with magic power and honing the whole body’s reaction speed to its extremity. The so-called “battlefield of superhumans.” She had come far enough to tread that boundary line.
For those who reach this point, projectile weapons no longer work. Because Line-of-Fire Detection develops to nearly the level of precognition.
So.
Shring……
He raised his axe.
***
“I’ll really…… kill…… youuuu……”
The train returning to Prichenkaya. Ivan looked down at the sleeping Isabelle and smiled.
Despite a bedraggled appearance of dirt, small cuts, and tattered clothes, she looked, if anything, noble. Beneath the moonlight settling in through the window, her blonde hair spread out like a wheat field and glittered.
Hff, hff. Isabelle, asleep with her head buried against his shoulder making frail breathing sounds, looked only like a small kid of her own age.
“Maximilien.”
Each time the train rattled along the rails, Ivan gently steadied Isabelle’s swaying head and whispered.
“You’ve got a splendid daughter.”
***
You’ve got a splendid daughter.
Isabelle clenched the hand lowered inside her sleeve tight and forced strength into lips that kept wanting to curl.
She buried her cheek against this broad shoulder, carefully enough not to be noticed.
Clack, clack. The train runs along the rails.
The warm air inside the car flowed softly. Through eyes cracked stealthily open, the dim interior was faintly visible.
Moonlight was pouring in through the window. The forest where she’d trained today spread out far off.
He’s an idiot who knows nothing of romance or common sense, and a lunatic who’s covered a face that was just about passable entirely in beard, but.
Still, still. It’s worth making allowances. Well, isn’t he the benefactor who saved her life. Just that much. Not some hasty fondness, really just that much.
Common sense can be taught, and the beard can be trimmed someday.
Yes. Mm.
With the feeling of making a person out of him. If not me, who would take in this pitiable human. So this is…… a Hero-like spirit of “service.” That’s what it is.
***
There is a unit of long history and tradition with an illustrious past, once called the 7th Engineer Platoon, 12th Company, 3rd Battalion, under the 5th Dragon General.
They cracked whips to urge the slaves on and then quietly raised a telescope.
“Why on earth did they fight?”
“A difference of opinion, presumably, Comrade!”
“Does Fellow set off explosives and fire rounds when disputing an opinion?”
“No, Comrade!”
Owing to the target’s inexplicable surprise visit and fierce battle, 3 ambush strongpoints collapsed along with the ground itself. Ah, when His Excellency the great 5th Dragon General was alive there was no shoddy construction like this! The platoon leader was disappointed.
In most cases where a X-leader is disappointed, they tend to look for the problem within the unit.
And in most cases that attempt always brings appropriate effect. Because “downward love,” a beautiful culture dissolved evenly through every army in the world, exists among demonfolk and even among Dwarves.
“Shadow Blade’s playtime is a week away. Fellows. Rebuild the collapsed strongpoints and make every preparation!”
“Yes, Comrade!!”
A Dwarf with an ash-gray beard snapped up a military salute and walked off tromping.
Dwarves are masters of civil engineering. Civil engineering includes underground tunnel excavation. And according to the syllogism, the following proposition is true.
In every place there is ground, a Dwarf can burrow in.
This is why Ivan calls these fellows rats.
Prichenkaya at the point a week before Enrique’s exam was still peaceful.
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