246 – End of War (6)
“… ….”
Rumia Bluet stood in front of her staff with her determined expression. Because she had no choice but to ask the superiors to reconsider the order, based on the judgment of only one commander.
Perhaps you are giving up the easiest opportunity to pursue your major.
The fall of the empire was just around the corner. As the Southwest Group Army and Red October, which had completely turned their backs, spread a joint front, even the remaining troops in the center were dispersed.
Now, the forces available to the Empire are virtually all of the Eastern Group Army.
However, even that was hampered by the fierce offensive of the Republic of Polania.
Imperial military had no choice but to give up most strategic points and retreat to eat mustard with tears.
In such a situation, it is put in. The enemy’s morale and troops hit the bottom, and the momentum of the allies starting to rise again.
War is like the flow of water, and the air current that started to flow did not change easily.
Actually, military service has already been removed.
But here, with the troops behind us, we go in search of Stalin?
At a time when stories of post-war treatment were coming out, he was telling his officers to give up the last chance to write one more line in their career.
“If there is anyone who opposes…… I will go ahead with the operation as it is. Because that is the right thing to do.”
Rumia carefully opened her mouth.
And finally, of all her officers who had kept her silence, her chief of staff, the most senior of hers, looked at her and burst out with a wild laugh.
“When did you say that?”
“Yes…… ?”
“Aren’t you still holding on by force? Not only the staff, but also the field battalion commanders under his command are already worried about the brigade commander’s condition.”
Rumia looked back at her officer corps with a dumbfounded expression.
“The 7th Mobile Brigade was created by Lieutenant General Enoch Levandell. And most of the personnel here—from officers to low-end soldiers, commanded by the lieutenant commander, and also blessed.”
We are not bastards enough to forget such grace.
The young chief of staff added so. As if she couldn’t help it, Rumia shed tears at the sight of the staff members shrugging her shoulders or making eye contact and nodding.
[Colonel Rumia Bluet, commander of the 7th Mobile Brigade, expressed his willingness to volunteer for the Stalinist search operation.]
A request to reconsider the order was immediately sent to the headquarters of the Uk ranian Expeditionary Force.
“I knew it would end like this.”
“Then what should we do about the northward operation?”
“What should I do? It’s a free major, but there are a lot of troops who want to take it. Appoint them appropriately.”
The commander-in-chief, Lieutenant General Geor Wasilovsky, sighed. He, too, was not comfortable with Enoch Levandel’s disappearance during the operation.
“…… If only I could bring back the body of the hero who devoted himself to defending his country. For us, this might be more valuable than capturing the capital of the empire.”
***
Stalina reached that point.
Rumia Bluet unknowingly bit her lip at the devastating city scenery. To the extent that Claude Lane also clicked his tongue, the city was truly a terrible ruin itself.
“Is this what happens when two great mages collide? Even I can’t find a bone.”
Fortunately, however, was that the momentum of the magic storm had weakened a lot compared to the beginning.
Previously, the concentration of mana was so thick that it could not last for even a few seconds, but now, if you are a first-class mage, you can enter the center of the problem, albeit with difficulty.
“Sister… ….”
“Rumia.”
As she gazes at the city with mixed emotions, she hears familiar voices from behind.
Rumia Bluet turned her body to greet the people she missed, and she held them tightly in her arms.
It was Bell Meyer and Roxanna Elim.
As soon as I heard the news that the 7th Mobile Brigade would be put into Stalina, which had become a completely off-limits area.
Numerous soldiers waiting in the rear also expressed their will to volunteer.
5 Years.
During the short, long, five-year period, Enoch Levandel exerted a good influence on numerous people as a Uk ranian soldier.
As the military’s political system was extensively reorganized, those who had the ability but were unable to rise to the top due to lack of power were brought up.
True soldiers who had been ostracized for making legitimate claims helped them to blossom.
Like I did to the platoon members who were just decommissioned when I was a second lieutenant. Their corps commander had led those who had ever become ships on the right path.
The proof was right here.
Still in the midst of war.
Even when the wound hasn’t healed yet.
Thousands of people gathered in an operation that only searched the ruined city with nothing left.
Only to remember Enoch Levandel and those who died fiercely along with him on the battlefield and return them to their families.
“Then let’s begin.”
Claude Lane looked at the violent storm.
Now that the storm has weakened, if you gather powerful mages and crush them with mana stronger than the storm, you can break the flow itself.
Just for that, Roxanna Elim brought her two Diabolas, which were being used for supply to the air corps, with their mages fully loaded.
Now everything is ready.
The leaders were Rumia and Bell Meyer. The thick mana exhaled from the two was mixed. The red and blue colors rotate, giving off a light purple glow.
On top of that, Roxanna’s green mana is overlaid. A blade that pierces the storm.
Koo-goo-goo, Kwa-gwa-gwang! When the mana collided with the storm, several streams of black mana flew towards them with the sound of thunder that resounded the heavens and earth.
The repulsive power of mana. It’s called repulsive power, but it’s such an output that even moderate mages would suffer fatal damage if hit directly.
At that moment, Claude, who was holding his dagger, jumped forward.
Parts Tsut!
With a noise unique to purple, the sparks that passed by cut all the black mana that was emanating from it.
“Pour it all out!!”
And all sorts of magic flew simultaneously from the sky and the ground. Colorful mana exploded and pounded the wall of the storm that fluctuated in the form of a hemisphere.
Firepower that can be called Himado bombardment.
And the four mages in the center focused on one point with their teeth gritting.
Bell Mayer’s advanced magic, a giant dragon made of water, rushes fiercely into the storm.
However, her magic did not break even though it was offset and scattered. Red advanced defense magic coated in the shape of a dragon.
As the war begins, she fulfills her duties admirably as her lieutenant and commander.
Even so, she wasn’t just giving up on her duties as a mage.
Continuously developed and devoted.
Just as Enoch Levandel had reached the stage of becoming a great mage during the war, Rumia, who had been watching him, had been working hard to stand by his side.
Rumia’s highly concentrated defense magic did not dare to invade even the magic storm.
The jet-black mana flashed, and it wrapped around the dragon with the power to devour it.
This time, Roxanna’s green mana shone. Finely adjust the air flow. A storm is the movement of energy generated from condensed mana.
As the main axis of the storm itself was green magic that uses air as a catalyst, her fine mana control ability as a fighter pilot always shined.
In the end, the magic storm couldn’t keep its shape against the external mana pouring from all directions.
Finally, when the water dragon, wrapped in double mana, penetrated the boundary of the storm, the mana that had accumulated in it disappeared like a crystal in the air as if an invisible window was collapsing.
“The road to City Hall is open!”
“The wounded first!!”
“Please keep me alive, kids…… !!”
Crying out the names of not only Enoch Levandel, but also those who fell in this city.
A rescue team made its way through a completely destroyed town.
***
Rumia lifted the huge rubble. It was a ghastly sight. Even if the two great mages faced each other, it would be a scene like this.
Roxanna also had a shocked look on her face. The difference between her limited observation from the sky and the moment she came down to the ground and grasped the reality was considerable.
Underneath the building, which was simply thought to be rubble, lay the bodies of people who could not be seen from the air.
The blood that flowed through the gap was hardened, and someone’s arm stretched over the blood was like a sandwich.
A terrible hell sandwich.
Thanks to this, Bell Meyer’s Combat Medical Brigade, which was expected to be the busiest, had no choice but to be put in to remove rubble instead of treating the wounded.
They were neither necromancers nor gods. Even if you can somehow bring the dead to life, you can’t bring back the dead.
Bell Meyer’s expression was always stiff. Claude Lane, who looked at the scene, let out a bitter breath.
It has been three hours since 2,000 people were mobilized to search the city hall and the cathedral.
The corpses collected in the meantime—to be precise, there were only fifty-five corpses that had at least some remnants that could be identified.
From Noble mtl dot com
The number of survivors rescued was zero.
Are you really dead? Is that guy? Even in the fierce civil war, even in the middle of the battlefield full of all kinds of variables, he survived and wrote a legend, and he died?
It was a result that even Claude Lane could not easily accept.
The search operation continued for another two hours after that.
The search crew, who proceeded slowly from the outskirts, were able to arrive at the center where the fierce battle was presumed to have taken place.
The abandoned tanks were still on fire. The soldier who climbed on top of the tank, which seemed to be in good condition, and opened the lid, fell backwards in fright from the rising heat and the smell of burnt corpses.
It was a scene that showed the overwhelming power of the great mage, albeit indirectly.
But just then.
“This is… ….”
Rumia was able to spot a tank with a gun barrel bent to one side. It was in the best condition of all the tanks I had seen so far.
There are traces of soot here and there, but that’s all. She checked the inside of her tank, wondering if there might be survivors.
Rumia’s eyes widened.
The inside of the tank was empty. In the meantime, I have seen many tanks abandoned for various reasons while fighting the war, but the unusual thing was that one military uniform was abandoned inside the tank.
And on the name tag hanging from that military uniform, there was a name written on it that I couldn’t forget.
“Erwin Ruth!”
A lieutenant colonel’s badge hanging from his epaulettes. She clearly remembered the names of her former comrades in the list of fallen dead.
When she turns her head to check the gun barrel again, she sees a piece of concrete that has been forcibly lifted underneath.
“I lifted the wreckage with a tank gun. This turret was damaged then…… !!”
The flame of hope that had faded starts to bloom again. I was sure there might be survivors.
And the thought that the survivor might be Enoch Levandel!
Rumia scrambled out of the tank and climbed over a high pile of rubble. She concentrated and began to follow subtle traces.
A flow of mana left behind. It was blue mana. Since the area was surrounded by a mana storm, the air was stagnant, and even after two weeks passed, the traces did not dissipate.
The trail continued to a two-story building with a collapsed roof.
Rumia put her body through her broken window and went inside. She had her collar ripped off by sharp shards of glass that hadn’t been cleaned up yet, but that was okay.
Perhaps it was used as a restaurant, the inside of the building was a mess with tables and chairs.
Rumia found a stairway subtly missing among the rubble. As if someone had artificially cleaned it up.
Creak.
She steps her foot towards the stairs as if possessed.
She and she finally opened the wooden door that was firmly shut and went in.
A person lying on a makeshift bed clearly came into her field of vision. Blond hair glistening in the sunlight pouring through the semi-basement window.
“Ah… ….”
Tears welling up under her purple eyes are dripping down.
She moved towards the man, her legs shaking.
Her calmness, as if she had done her own thing now.
She held onto the sleeping man’s hand with a more peaceful expression than ever before.
Rumia buried her face in it.
