Chapter 467: Hitting the Body Counts as a Miss
The heavy armor soldier pulled his single-handed sword from the chest of the last Bulgarian officer. Blood splattered onto the already disfigured frescoes of saints on the monastery's inner wall.
Blood pooled on the flagstone floor. The corpses of Bulgarian officers and Saxon military advisors lay haphazardly between chairs and table legs.
One of the Saxon military advisors hadn't let go of the MP14's grip even in death; his finger was still inside the trigger guard.
The command room fell silent.
Aside from the few lifeless bodies in the corner and the pervasive smell of blood and gunpowder, this room—which had previously orchestrated the defense of the entire Rila Mountains line—was completely cleared in just a few dozen seconds.
The figure in the dark mage robe slowly walked up to Petrov.
The effect of [Hold Person] had about a dozen seconds left.
Petrov's consciousness was completely clear, but his body remained completely immobile. He could only watch helplessly as the other party approached him.
From beneath the hood of the mage robe, an indifferent face was revealed.
The man raised his right hand, fingers splayed, preparing to deliver a finishing spell.
However, halfway through raising his hand, he hesitated.
"Better save the spell..."
The black-robed mage muttered. He then reached inside his robe and drew a silver revolver from a leather shoulder holster.
The barrel was engraved with fine runes, gleaming with a cold metallic luster under the remaining light in the command room.
He thumbed back the hammer and pressed the muzzle directly against Petrov's forehead.
In the last second of his life, the combat mage of the Kingdom of Bulgaria finally felt the paralyzing effect fading.
His fingers twitched slightly, half a syllable squeezing out of his throat—
"Bang."
The runes on the barrel flashed a blue light at the instant of firing. The enchanted bullet crushed the [Mage Armor] on Petrov, which was already at the end of its duration, and penetrated his skull.
Petrov's body could finally move—though only to fall backward.
He collapsed onto the flagstone floor. His staff had already fallen, and the Mauser pistol remained gripped tightly in his stiff left hand.
This 5th-circle Transmutation school mage, who had spent the past few weeks helping the Bulgarians build half their defense line with [Transmute Rock to Mud], stared wide-eyed, maintaining the anger and unwillingness of his final moment.
There was no epic magical duel, no evenly matched clash of mana, only a clean, enchanted bullet.
"Baron" Rowan Atkinson crouched down, raising his left hand into the air.
A pale blue, translucent hand of force emerged from the void. It deftly flipped open the inner pockets of Petrov's robe, unfastened several hidden clasps one by one, and pulled out the items inside.
"There should be a dedicated telegraph room in the command post."
Rowan Atkinson spoke to the heavy armor soldiers on the other side of the room without looking up:
"Attempt to capture the communications personnel inside. Find any valuable telegrams or codebooks."
"Yes, My Lord."
The leading heavy armor soldier raised a hand. The four "iron cans" filed out, advancing deep into the monastery along the corridor.
The heavy thud of their footsteps, accompanied by occasional gunshots and screams, echoed through the stone building, growing fainter.
Rowan Atkinson continued examining Petrov's belongings.
A dog-eared mage manual with the emblem of the "Saxon Imperial Royal Spellcaster Academy" embossed on the cover. Evidently, the deceased had studied there.
Several cloth pouches containing spellcasting materials—ground mineral powders and dried herbs.
He tucked these items one by one into the large pockets on the side of his robe.
Just then, another person walked into the command room through the shattered doorway.
This man wore standard Britannian Army uniform, but with a dark cloak embroidered with fine runes draped over it.
He held a Lee-Enfield rifle equipped with an optical scope, a single-handed sword hanging at his left hip along with several bulging ammo pouches.
Judging by his age, he was probably in his early forties.
An old scar stretching from the corner of his brow to his cheekbone added the air of a seasoned veteran to his appearance.
"Lord Baron."
The middle-aged man walked quickly to Rowan Atkinson's side and said:
"The situation on the perimeter isn't looking good. The Bulgarians have realized the command post is under attack... I just scanned the area with [Eagle Eye]. Enemies are converging on the monastery from at least three directions."
"How many?"
"Visually estimated at two battalions. The closest ones are less than six hundred meters away."
Rowan Atkinson stood up, slipping the Webley revolver back into his shoulder holster.
"Have the squads outside delay them in the woods. We're evacuating immediately."
The middle-aged man nodded and quickly relayed the information via a communication stone. As he prepared to turn and leave, he noticed Rowan Atkinson tucking the spell component pouches into his pockets and couldn't help but speak up.
"My Lord, the spell components of a mage from a small Balkan nation like this... the quality must be very average, right? They might not even be as good as the basic materials issued daily by our Mage Order."
Rowan Atkinson tucked away the last pouch and patted the dust off his robe.
"You're not wrong."
He walked toward the door, adding casually as he passed the middle-aged man:
"But we are currently on the Balkan battlefield. Logistics here aren't like in London; you can't get basic spell components at any given moment. Gathering extra spares is always better than being caught empty-handed..."
The middle-aged man thought about it, found it reasonable, and followed him out.
After taking two steps, Rowan Atkinson suddenly stopped, turned around, and looked the man up and down.
The dark runic cloak worn over the military uniform looked completely out of place in the dim light of the monastery... It neither looked like a proper soldier nor a proper mage.
"Speaking of which... this new outfit for you 'Spell Jägers' just looks awkward no matter how you look at it... Wasn't the previous combat uniform perfectly fine?"
The middle-aged man's expression instantly became helpless.
"This is the intent of the big shots up top... They demand that 'Spell Jägers' demonstrate characteristics of 'spells' and 'spellcasters'."
"This cloak is already a compromise. Originally, they wanted us to crawl and roll in the mud wearing full mage robes."
"Executing tactical maneuvers in mage robes?"
"Exactly."
Rowan Atkinson was a cautious man, so he didn't comment further on the topic of "big shots."
Instead, he stared at the runes on the other's cloak for a few seconds and muttered thoughtfully:
"However, if this style were a different color... it could be used as camouflage in certain environments."
Before the middle-aged "Spell Jäger" could ponder the meaning of those words, a muffled explosion sounded from deep within the monastery.
The two exchanged a glance and quickened their pace toward the source of the sound.
At a side hall at the end of the corridor, three heavy armor soldiers stood before a kicked-in wooden door.
Thick smoke filled the room inside. The air was a mix of the smell of burning paper and the pungent odor of explosives.
Rowan Atkinson walked to the door and glanced inside.
Charred fragments of telegram paper floated lazily in the residual thermal currents, mixed with wood splinters and ash. A smashed telegraph machine lay on the table, its components scattered everywhere.
Beside it lay a mutilated corpse—clearly the communications officer who had detonated the grenade.
Four other corpses lay on the floor of the room.
Two communications personnel in officer uniforms, and two...
Rowan Atkinson's gaze lingered on the two smaller corpses.
Their uniforms were noticeably a size too large, and the rifle slings had been tied with two extra knots just to fit... These were clearly two child soldiers, maybe sixteen years old.
A heavy armor soldier walked over holding a blood-stained, hard-cover notebook.
"My Lord, this is all we found... Before that communications officer pulled the grenade, the others were throwing documents into a brazier. Most of it burned up."
Rowan Atkinson took the notebook and flipped through it. It was a hand-copied telegraph codebook, containing only a portion of the codes.
"It's enough. Take it."
With that, he turned to walk out. As he passed the doorway, he looked back once more at the two child soldiers lying in pools of blood.
"No wonder the Bulgarians held out for so long under a three-front siege..."
In the mountain forest outside the Rila Monastery, the Bulgarian defenders reacted faster than anticipated.
At least two battalions of troops were converging on the command post from two directions on the monastery's outer perimeter.
The soldiers moved rapidly through the pine forest in skirmish lines, rifles held ready across their chests. It was evident these men had combat experience.
However, they were unaware of what awaited them. Although rumors of "the enemy deploying special forces" had been circulating over the past few days, they hadn't been fully substantiated.
Behind a thick pine tree, two "Spell Jägers" crouched, backs against the trunk.
The dark runic cloaks provided fairly decent concealment in the shadows of the woodland—at least on this point, Rowan Atkinson's remark that "changing the color could work as camouflage" held true.
Both held Lee-Enfield rifles equipped with scopes, muzzles pointed toward the front-left, the direction the Bulgarians were approaching from.
The younger Spell Jäger scanned the area through his scope.
"I counted them. The enemy group approaching directly is about sixty strong, roughly a platoon... The high-value targets are one officer and three... no, four NCOs."
He lowered his rifle and turned to his companion.
"Senior, are you confident you can take out their officer and NCOs?"
The older Spell Jäger referred to as "Senior" didn't answer immediately.
He merely fine-tuned the focus of his scope, the crosshairs resting steadily on a man in the Bulgarian formation wearing an officer's uniform and a pistol holster.
The distance was over two hundred meters.
Only after his breathing evened out did the Spell Jäger speak.
"I'm a bit extreme in this regard. Hitting the body counts as a miss for me."
Hearing this, the younger Spell Jäger immediately showed a look of disbelief: "Whoa, that's quite a boast..."
"Bang!"
The gunshot drowned out the second half of his sentence.
Two hundred meters away, the head of the Bulgarian officer in the middle of the formation snapped backward violently.
A puff of red mist erupted from the center of his forehead, and he fell straight backward like a board.
The gunshot echoed through the pine forest, throwing the Bulgarian reconnaissance platoon into chaos.
The Bulgarian soldiers' reactions weren't slow; most scattered to the sides and hit the dirt after the first shot.
Some rolled behind tree roots, some dove into shallow ditches, and a few veterans had already begun firing blindly in the direction of the gunshot.
But their scattering movements were clearly exposed in the scope's field of view.
"Bang!"
Second shot.
An NCO shouting loudly while dropping to the ground was hit in the head.
His body froze in a half-crouch for an instant before slumping limply into the bushes.
"Bang!"
Third shot.
Another NCO attempting to organize a firing line took a bullet through his temple, taking half the back of his head with it.
The middle-aged Spell Jäger's rate of fire wasn't fast, with about three to four seconds between each shot. But just as he said, every single round found the target's head.
One could say his shooting accuracy had reached an "inhuman" level.
The younger Spell Jäger lay prone beside him, watching the scene through his scope. Although he knew his partner's marksmanship was superb, witnessing such precise sniping in actual combat was still a rare sight.
The three NCOs of this Bulgarian infantry platoon were hit in the head one after another.
Realizing the situation was dire, the final NCO attempted to run behind a large tree, but he only managed two steps.
"Bang!"
Moving target, one hundred and eighty meters, headshot.
The officer's body took one more step forward due to inertia, then plunged face-first into a pile of dead leaves.
In less than thirty seconds, all officers and identifiable NCOs in the Bulgarian unit were eliminated.
The remaining ordinary soldiers plunged into total chaos upon losing command. Some fired randomly into the woods, some began shrinking back, and a few simply buried their faces in the dirt and remained motionless.
"Kid, your turn. Suppress the enemy..."
Having finished firing, the middle-aged Spell Jäger spoke to his younger partner while cycling the bolt to eject a spent casing.
Hearing this, the latter pulled the bolt halfway back, confirming that the bullet loaded in the rifle faintly glowed blue in the dim light.
Then, the young "Spell Jäger" placed his left hand over the handguard of his rifle and muttered two syllables in a low voice.
The dim runes on the gun suddenly lit up. An extremely thin halo of blue light spread along the barrel, covering it from stock to muzzle. This was the effect of [Magic Weapon].
Completing this sequence, the young "Spell Jäger" raised his rifle again. The crosshairs of his scope swept over the clustered Bulgarian soldiers lying on the ground in the woodland.
He aimed at the most densely packed location.
"Bang!"
The instant the blue-glowing bullet left the muzzle, it trailed a pale blue streak visible to the naked eye.
The bullet flew for less than a second before hitting a soldier on the ground. Immediately following, a burst of blue-white light expanded outward from the impact point and exploded violently.
Dirt, scree, and broken branches were hurled into the air by the blast wave. The Bulgarian soldiers lying within a radius of six or seven meters around the impact point were swept up by the shockwave, their screams rising and falling.
"Bang!"
A second blue-glowing bullet smashed into another cluster of men.
Another muffled boom, another expanding blast wave of blue-white light.
Followed closely by a third and fourth round.
After four shots, the Bulgarian soldiers approaching from the front were completely suppressed. The survivors scrambled frantically back the way they came; no one had the courage to even look up.
The older "Spell Jäger" finished reloading at this point, preparing to rejoin the fight and completely annihilate the enemy vanguard.
But just then, the communication stones carried by the two hummed to life.
Rowan Atkinson's calm yet equally authoritative voice came through the stone.
"Primary objective achieved. The target has lost operational capability... Everyone, withdraw to Rally Point 1 as planned."
The middle-aged Spell Jäger's finger moved off the trigger. He looked back at the companion he was mentoring.
The young man's expression showed a hint of reluctance, but he didn't waste words, already lowering his rifle.
The two Spell Jägers stood up from behind the tree, bent over, and moved rapidly along the pre-designated retreat route, disappearing into the depths of the pine forest.
The groans and chaotic shouts from the pine forest behind them were gradually swallowed by the distance.
About twenty minutes later, all personnel involved in the raid on the Rila Monastery converged at Rally Point 1.
Rowan Atkinson led the heavy armor soldiers out through a drainage ditch on the south side of the monastery, successfully meeting up with the "Spell Jäger" squads responsible for delaying and providing cover in the woodland.
Guided by [Eagle Eye], the entire squad easily bypassed the Bulgarian encirclement closing in from three directions, moving along the ridgeline toward friendly territory.
Only after entering the safe zone did everyone's pace truly relax.
The heavy armor soldiers removed their tin-can-like helmets, panting slightly.
Their "Spell Jäger Unit Exclusive Full-Coverage Enchanted Plate Armor," which had been modified and significantly lightened, had been run in a mountainous environment for nearly two kilometers. The padding inside was thoroughly soaked with sweat.
The "Spell Jäger" who had initially gone to the command room to find Rowan Atkinson walked up beside him, slinging his rifle over his back.
"My Lord, these past few operations have gone very smoothly. The Imperial high command and the Mage Order should gradually come to recognize the value of 'Spell Jägers' on the battlefield, right?"
Rowan Atkinson nodded upon hearing this.
"The operations have indeed been very smooth, and we achieved the tactical results we hoped for..."
However, he quickly sighed.
"But to be honest... the intensity of these operations wasn't high. Take today; the most threatening enemy was a 5th-circle Transmutation mage."
"His equipment was shabby, and he clearly wasn't adept at mage-on-mage combat, not even preparing a counter for [Hold Person]... To put it bluntly, he was just a second-rate mage exhausted to his limits on the front lines."
The animated expression on the middle-aged Spell Jäger's face sank again. Rowan Atkinson turned to look at him.
"If we encounter that 'Mage Killer' of the Saxons, the battle won't look anything like this... 'Old Man'."
The middle-aged Spell Jäger codenamed "Old Man" didn't reply, but his footsteps slowed half a beat.
For him, memories associated with the "Mage Killer" were not pleasant. In fact, they were heavy "nightmares"...
On the Western Front, during that hunting operation against the Saxon Empire's "Mage Killer," the fully equipped and manned Team A collapsed within half an hour of making contact with the target.
That Saxon... no, that thing.
In front of the opponent, the tactical coordination and spellcasting abilities the "Spell Jägers" prided themselves on were entirely useless.
In the end, only he and one other person made it out alive.
Rowan Atkinson clearly noticed the shift in "Old Man's" mood.
"But don't be too pessimistic."
As the new director of the "Spell Jäger" project and the leader of the "Anti-Mage Killer Squad," he changed his tone to comfort him: "The Highland Mage Order has been advancing a project... based on the results of a certain secret operation, the Order has been pushing an 'enhancement project.' I hear they're close to getting results."
"Old Man" looked up at him, waiting for him to continue. Rowan Atkinson went on:
"If the development is successful, you 'Spell Jägers' will likely be the first batch to receive the enhancement. When that time comes..."
Rowan Atkinson patted "Old Man's" shoulder.
"Facing the 'Mage Killer' head-on... won't be impossible."
"Old Man" said nothing, but his initially heavy steps quickened to match the pace of the squad once more.
Holy Britannia Empire, London.
London in May maintained its eternal appearance—overcast, cold and damp, with occasional harmless drizzles.
The fog over the River Thames hadn't fully cleared, shrouding the buildings on both banks in gray, blurring even the high walls and the "Golden Lion Gate" on the edge of London into indistinct silhouettes.
In the Council Hall on the top floor of the Highland Mage Tower, the six high-backed chairs belonging to the council members were now occupied.
In the tallest stone chair in the center sat a man who appeared to be in his early sixties.
His short gray hair was meticulously combed. He had high cheekbones and a strong jawline.
He wore the formal robes of the Chief Archmage of the Highland Mage Order—a deep blue base woven with silver threads forming the crest of the Evocation school.
Victor Blackwood... Chief Archmage of the Highland Mage Order, Speaker of the Council, 9th-circle Evocation Master. Within the Highland Mage Order, he was typically referred to simply as "Speaker" or "Primate."
And at this moment, the Speaker had gathered the others here because he had an important piece of news to share.
"...A recent opportunity."
"A hidden asset we've cultivated within the Papal State for a long time has finally gained access to the 'target'."
He paused, his gaze sweeping over the other five Archmages.
"If all goes well, he should be able to reach the church in Naples."
The hall was silent for two seconds.
Then Blackwood delivered the most crucial piece of information.
"We might be able to use this opportunity to obtain the 【Heart】."