Trenches, Guns, and Magic

"The Royal Navy engages every enemy!"

This had been Captain Sadler's creed ever since he joined the Royal Navy.

Even though the Highland Mage Council's battle record prompted Her Majesty to publicly declare them another pillar of the Holy Britannia Empire, traditional naval officers like Captain Sadler firmly believed the Royal Navy was the true cornerstone maintaining the Empire's rule.

Therefore, in his and his warship's final moments, Captain Sadler wanted to leave this world in a combat stance.

The officers and sailors on the bridge saluted Captain Sadler, then returned to their stations to complete their final preparations.

Multiple capital ships of the combined fleet rapidly closed the distance. Their main guns fired in succession, raining dense clusters of shells around the Ocean. Massive geysers of water erupted, washing over the old ship's deck.

They noticed the straggling warship turning to port, its turrets simultaneously training on the port side—a clear sign of a desperate last stand.

When the distance between them closed to a point-blank range of less than 1.5 nautical miles, the Ocean unleashed its final broadside.

At this distance, the plotting room didn't even need to perform complex calculations. The gunners could literally see the figures on the enemy decks with their naked eyes.

Almost simultaneously, several combined fleet warships trained their guns on the Ocean and returned fire.

A spectacular scene unfolded across the sea.

Dozens of incoming shells from the combined fleet crossed paths mid-air with the Ocean's final salvo.

Boom! Boom! Boom!

The Ocean's final salvo displayed a devastating, dying burst of power. Multiple main gun shells slammed squarely into an unfortunate Austro-Hungarian Radetzky-class pre-dreadnought.

One shell scored a direct hit on the enemy ship's forward main turret.

The violent explosion blew the turret roof clean off, igniting the ammunition inside. Flames shot into the sky, completely paralyzing the warship's forward firepower.

Burning debris rained down on the Radetzky-class deck, triggering a series of secondary explosions.

But this was the last counterattack the Ocean could muster. The combined fleet's return fire repeatedly struck the warship below the waterline, tearing the old hull apart.

The flooding became irreversible. The keel snapped with a sharp crack, and the Ocean rapidly began to capsize to port.

The out-of-control, spinning turrets were swallowed by the sea. The towering armored conning tower smashed into the water, kicking up a massive wave.

Seawater flooding the magitech core compartment met the superheated core protective shell, triggering a violent steam explosion within the confined space.

Just a few minutes later, the pre-dreadnought vanished completely from the sea, leaving only a massive vortex and a field of floating debris. (Note 1)

In the distance, Vice Admiral Robeck witnessed everything from the Queen Elizabeth.

He had no time to grieve. The battleship squadron's sacrifice bought them a precious window to escape, and he refused to squander it.

"Signal the Invincible and Agamemnon!"

Robeck's voice echoed through the bridge. "Order them to accelerate immediately. Pass the flagship and continue sailing."

Robeck knew that while those two warships were fast, they lacked the protection of a mana shield. They would never survive the impending enemy artillery barrage.

Rear Admiral Hood on the Invincible and the captain of the Agamemnon executed the order, pushing their warships to accelerate past both sides of the Queen Elizabeth toward the distant horizon.

Robeck commanded the super-dreadnought alone, staying at the very rear of the formation to cover the retreat.

"That Britannian commander... what is he doing? Does he plan to single-handedly fight our entire fleet?"

On the Goeben, Admiral Spee's Chief of Staff voiced his disbelief.

Spee remained silent. He simply held his binoculars, quietly watching the lone, massive warship.

He seemed to feel a certain resonance with the enemy commander's actions—a sentiment unique to naval officers.

Naturally, the Queen Elizabeth's actions drew frantic, concentrated fire from the combined fleet.

The dreadnoughts and pre-dreadnoughts trained all their guns on the massive super-dreadnought. The armored airships in the sky adjusted their positions, lobbing plunging fire at the Queen Elizabeth from high altitude.

Shells of various calibers flew in from all directions. Around the Queen Elizabeth, the hemispherical, pale-blue mana shield activated at full capacity.

Shells hammered the shield, sparking violent magical ripples and blinding mid-air explosions.

The magitech technicians monitoring the shield unit listened to the overloaded machinery humming. They frantically worked the consoles, manually rerouting magitech circuits to keep the shield up a little longer.

But soon, the blue runes on the spell units flashed red, indicating they had reached their defensive threshold.

Left with no choice, the lead technician contacted the bridge.

"Sir, the shield generator core temperature has exceeded the critical limit."

"Magical circuits three and four have physically melted down."

"We cannot withstand another volley of capital-ship grade artillery fire."

Vice Admiral Robeck stepped out onto the conning tower balcony. He watched the combined fleet pursuing relentlessly, his grip tightening on his binoculars.

Finally, he issued his last combat directive.

"Port fifteen degrees! Find the minimum salvo angle!"

"After this salvo, push the ship to maximum speed and break contact immediately."

The helmsman spun the wheel, forcing the massive super-dreadnought to twist across the sea.

As the hull angled, the Queen Elizabeth's four twin-mounted 381mm main turrets rotated slowly under hydraulic power, pointing their massive barrels at the distant enemy ships.

At this critical juncture, the natural environment—which had favored the combined fleet almost entirely up to this point—finally sided with the Britannians.

The setting sun sat low on the western horizon.

The surviving Britannian ships were positioned to the east, placing the combined fleet squarely between them and the setting sun.

The low sun cast a massive, blinding golden glare across the water. This intense light severely disrupted the combined fleet's optical rangefinders.

Saxon and Austro-Hungarian spotters squinted against the harsh glare, struggling to find the silhouettes of the Britannian warships.

For the gunners on the Queen Elizabeth, the situation was perfectly reversed.

Silhouetted against the setting sun, the combined fleet warships became glaringly obvious black cutouts on the horizon.

This perfect backlit advantage dramatically improved the Britannians' rangefinding accuracy in a short window. (note 2)

"Range: sixteen thousand yards! All turrets confirm parameters!"

"Fire!"

The firing bell rang crisply across the bridge, and the eight 381mm main guns unleashed a defiant roar.

Orange-red fireballs erupted from the muzzles. The visible shockwave rippled outward, forming physical arcs of displaced water on the sea surface.

Eight armor-piercing shells tore through the air toward the black silhouettes. The accuracy of the state-of-the-art super-dreadnought's salvo was so precise it drew a gasp of admiration even from Admiral Spee.

The splash columns perfectly bracketed the Moltke battlecruiser. Two armor-piercing shells slammed directly into its foredeck.

The first shell punched through the foredeck's horizontal armor, drilling straight beneath A turret.

A violent explosion ripped through the ship's interior. The intense heat and shrapnel instantly ignited the propellant charges currently moving up the ammunition hoist.

It was a process almost every warship experienced when a turret took a fatal hit...

The Moltke's A turret blew open from the inside out. The heavy roof was flipped half a meter into the air, tumbling into the sea. The entire forward compartment was consumed by fire.

The second shell scraped against the ship's waterline armor belt. While it failed to penetrate, the terrifying kinetic energy severely caved in a massive section of the steel hull.

In that single instant, over 160 sailors on the Moltke died.

The battlecruiser's speed plummeted. Billowing thick black smoke, it was forced to decelerate and drop out of the pursuit formation.

After delivering this crippling blow, the Queen Elizabeth didn't linger for a second.

Pushing its magitech core to maximum output, the warship carved a straight wake across the sea, using the fading light to escape eastward at full speed...

Sometime later, the sun finally sank completely below the horizon.

With nightfall, the Mediterranean sea breeze turned cold and harsh.

In the sky, the commanders of the three Saxon armored airships ordered a climb.

The massive gray envelopes rose slowly into the night, leaving the low-altitude clouds for the safety of higher airspace.

Flying at ultra-low altitudes over the sea at night easily led to crashes due to the inability to accurately judge the water's surface. The fact that this was explicitly written into the armored airship combat regulations meant predecessors had already paid for the lesson in blood.

With the increased altitude, the airship lookouts lost visual contact with surface targets.

But they weren't completely blind. The magical fluctuation detectors on the bottom of the gondolas were unaffected by visibility.

When running at full power, the magitech cores of the Queen Elizabeth and other Britannian warships emitted magical signatures that stood out glaringly on the detectors.

As the lookouts continuously called out bearing data, the airship communications operators relayed the coordinates to the combined fleet below via radio and light signals.

On the bridge of the Goeben, Admiral Spee watched the navigator update the battle chart with the new markers.

He didn't order a full-speed pursuit. Instead, he commanded the fleet to tighten its formation, maintain a safe speed, and simply tail the Britannians from a distance using the airships' coordinates.

The combined fleet had paid a heavy price during the daytime battle.

The Moltke took catastrophic damage from the Britannians' final salvo, and several capital ships in the battle line suffered severe damage.

The Papal Navy's torpedo boats had depleted their radiant crystal fuel; some even needed cruisers to tow them just to stay afloat.

More importantly, night naval battles were fraught with uncontrollable risks.

Even though the Saxon Empire Navy heavily emphasized night combat—even developing a night communication system based on red, green, and blue signal lights—the probability of friendly fire and collisions in the chaotic darkness remained terrifyingly high.

Admiral Spee stepped to the porthole, looking out at the pitch-black sea. He knew he didn't need to risk everything against the Britannians right now.

Along the mandatory approach route outside Malta Port, twenty-two Saxon U-boats lay in ambush.

This was the final "gift" he had prepared for the Britannian Mediterranean Fleet.

...

The time in Bucharest, capital of the Kingdom of Romania, was one hour ahead of Mediterranean time.

At 7:00 PM, the instruction unit's temporary camp slowly quieted down. Morin opened his eyes on his camp bed.

He quickly realized the muscle soreness was entirely gone, and the draining weakness had vanished without a trace.

The physical reconstruction provided by the "Second-Generation Sentinel" modification potion pushed his regenerative abilities to absurd heights. Cleric Cristiano's "Paradise Potion No. 3" side effects didn't linger on him for long.

As his senses fully returned, Morin froze. A warm, soft body was pressed flush against him.

His right hand rested on an incredibly striking curve. The tactile feedback from his palm told him the material was "solid" and the scale was "astonishing."

The narrow camp bed forced them tightly together, her back pressed flush against his chest.

After a brief brain crash, Morin quickly rewound his fragmented memories.

He recalled the feverish heat during his slumber, the soft touch on his lips, and the intense, practical "combat" session that followed. He originally thought it was just an erotic dream brought on by long suppression and the potion's side effects.

Now it was clear: not only was it not a dream, but the partner in question was right in his arms.

Morin, oh Morin, you're a lustful bastard. You still managed to pull this off while in a weakened state...

Morin cursed himself for his lack of discipline. Unable to help it, he gave his hand a gentle squeeze. The sleeping figure in his arms let out a soft whimper.

If Cecilia's whimpers in bed were "alluring"... this one's whimper leaned more toward "silly and cute."

Morin didn't even need to look at her face. Between the whimper and the substantial weight in his hand, he already knew he was holding Helga.

Morin had always viewed Helga as a business partner and a younger sister figure.

Granted, he had to admit her proud figure was incredibly attractive. Saying he wasn't tempted by Helga would be a lie; it was human nature.

He just didn't expect it to actually happen—and on the battlefield, no less.

This wasn't an ideal situation. Aside from the occasional frontline charge, Morin always adhered to military discipline and led by example. He felt his current predicament was rather inappropriate.

The next question was: who let Helga in?

This was his tent. Without his orders, the orderlies outside wouldn't dare let anyone in.

The name "Manstein" popped into his head almost immediately. Working together long-term, Morin discovered that this alternate-timeline Field Marshal was actually a rather mischievous guy.

The more he thought about it, the more convinced he was that Manstein orchestrated this. He couldn't help but laugh out loud in exasperation.

The low chuckle was distinctly clear in the quiet tent, instantly waking the half-asleep Helga.

The girl clumsily rolled over on the narrow bed. The standard-issue officer's wool blanket slipped half off her smooth shoulder. When their eyes met in the dim tent, Helga's eyes widened. A flush spread rapidly from her neck to her cheeks, burning all the way to her ears.

She instinctively grabbed the edge of the blanket and yanked it up, trying to cover her exposed chest.

The air in the tent seemed to freeze. An awkward atmosphere lingered between them; neither knew what to say first.

Seeing Helga's flustered state, Morin sighed internally. He reached out and pulled her back into his arms.

His palm patted her back gently.

Helga's stiff body slowly relaxed under his comforting touch. She buried her face in his chest, her arms unconsciously wrapping around his waist.

A moment later, Helga whimpered into his ear with a voice barely louder than a mosquito:

"Boss, do you and Sister Cecilia hold each other like this too?"

Morin's hand froze mid-air. He nearly choked on his own saliva, coughing violently twice.

He pulled back slightly to look her in the eyes.

"Ahem... Helga, why are you asking this suddenly?"

Helga bit her lower lip, her voice tinged with grievance.

"When you first held me, you said some weird things about how 'Sister Cecilia got bigger'..."

Morin's expression instantly became a picture. He wished the ground would open up and swallow him whole.

Who could have expected the classic trope of calling out the wrong name during combat to happen to him?

What happened to the "Playboy of Dresden"? How could he make such a rookie mistake?

After agonizing awkwardly for a moment, Morin bit the bullet and tried to explain it delicately. "Uh... well, Sister Cecilia and I are indeed quite close."

But Helga, having matured overnight, clearly wasn't going to let him off the hook. She pressed, "Boss, just close?"

She rested her chin on his chest, muttering softly.

"Actually, it doesn't seem like a particularly well-kept secret."

"I was always too focused on drawing blueprints to think about it."

"Looking back, the atmosphere between you two at the estate... was never exactly normal."

Morin looked at Helga's serious expression and knew lying was pointless.

He sighed, and for some reason, the truth spilled out.

"Yes, I love Sister Cecilia."

This time, Helga let out an exasperated laugh.

For the first time, she boldly reached out, pinched Morin's cheeks, and pulled them outward.

"Boss, you're too much."

She pouted playfully, her tone laced with coquettish anger.

"How can you confidently say you like another woman while holding a girl in your arms?"

Morin let her pinch his face. He looked at Helga's face, mere inches away, and blurted out, "Helga, I like you too."

The atmosphere in the tent shifted instantly. Helga's hands froze on his cheeks.

She was completely caught off guard by his straightforward confession.

She had read the romance novels Patricia gave her—supposedly the most popular ones in the Imperial Capital.

In those novels, the male lead always confessed in a rose-filled garden or on a moonlit balcony.

No novel ever featured a male lead suddenly confessing while holding the female lead on a camp bed immediately following a "live-fire exercise."

It wasn't like this in the novels Patricia gave me!

The thought flashed through Helga's mind. She buried her face back into Morin's chest, rubbing against him vigorously like an ostrich.

"I hate you, confessing at a time like this!"

She muttered, unable to hide the bashfulness in her voice.

After rubbing against him for a bit, she stopped, looked up at Morin, and let out a soft hum.

"Boss, just 'like'?"

Hearing this, Morin dropped the awkwardness. His expression turned dead serious.

"Helga, if I wanted to lie to you, I could easily say 'I love you' right now."

"But I don't want to lie to you. Deep feelings take time to settle... but my affection for you is very real."

Helga blinked. Morin finally entered the state he should have been in all along.

"Actually, at that banquet in Dresden, the second time I saw you, I was drawn to you..."

Helga looked surprised.

"But that night, you dragged me into a conversation about air-cooled light machine guns until dawn."

Morin couldn't help but laugh.

"That was later... Frankly, at first, I was drawn to your looks and figure. I am a man with normal tastes, after all, and the dress you wore that day really showed off your curves."

Helga blushed again, but didn't interrupt. Morin continued, "But later, I realized that your talent for firearm design is what truly shines..."

The blunt words made Helga's heart race. She already had incredibly strong feelings for Morin.

He wasn't just her boss; he was the man who provided her a stage to realize all her design concepts.

These feelings had fundamentally transformed during their recent "combat." What Morin was doing now was simply completing the process.

Having said his piece, Morin let out a long breath, feeling a weight lift off his chest.

Just then, Helga suddenly looked up and asked a question that left him not knowing whether to laugh or cry.

"Boss, am I really bigger than Sister Cecilia?"

Morin instinctively glanced down at where they were pressed together, then recalled the sensation from earlier. This was a matter that required strict evaluation, naturally.

"Indeed, quite a bit bigger."

Hearing the answer, a brilliant smile bloomed on Helga's face.

"Hehe."

Morin reached out helplessly and ruffled her hair.

"Helga, why do you channel all your competitive spirit into such strange things?"

Amidst the girl's suppressed giggles, the two embraced and playfully wrestled on the narrow camp bed for a while.

Sometime later, feeling sufficiently rested, Morin knew he couldn't stay in bed forever. The major battle had just concluded, and there was still a lot to handle with the combat troops.

"We should get up."

Morin sat up first, handing Helga her overalls scattered near the bed.

The girl took the clothes with a blush, turning her back to him... but even from that angle, she couldn't completely hide her magnificent proportions.

Morin leaned against the headboard, admiring her smooth back and the slight sway of her waist as she dressed, unable to stop a goofy smile from spreading across his face.

For a brief moment, he realized his life in this world was actually quite happy.

And if he could reduce the percentage of time spent charging enemy lines on the battlefield, it would be even better~

Just as Morin, deep in his post-coital clarity, began pondering the meaning of life, Helga finished dressing and tried to stand.

She took one step, gasped, and frowned slightly.

A faint pain flared from her lower body, a stark reminder of what had just transpired.

Recalling Morin's hurricane-like assault while half-conscious, Helga turned, walked to the bed, and punched Morin's shoulder with her small fist.

"It's all your fault, Boss! You used too much force!"

Morin didn't dodge, taking the hit squarely. Maintaining his goofy smile, he reached out to straighten her messy collar.

Helga rolled her eyes at him and turned to fix her hair.

Taking advantage of the pause, Morin checked the system interface in his mind to see if he had missed any crucial information while asleep.

To his surprise, several red dots indicating "unread" messages dotted the interface.

The first one was regarding his own body.

【"Second-Generation Sentinel" Modification Potion Progress: 65%】