Trenches, Guns, and Magic

Morin carefully read the entire telegram.

Typically, telegrams sent from the Fifth Army to Kampfgruppe Morin were issued by operations officers.

A dispatch signed directly by Crown Prince Georg meant the situation was highly critical...

Refusing to delay, Morin instructed the communications officer to immediately summon Kleist, Manstein, and the others for a meeting.

He gripped the telegram and walked toward his command vehicle, his mind racing.

One specific detail in the message caught his attention: the presence of a Holy Britannia Empire mage unit providing support.

Britannian Highland Mages...

The 【Intelligence】 interface in his mind updated with relevant information the moment he received the telegram.

It confirmed the enemy force was the "Spell Jägers," a unit subordinate to the Highland Mage Council. Morin was no stranger to them, having clashed with them during the trench warfare on the Western Front long ago.

Their unique combat style, distinct from traditional mages, had left a lasting impression on him.

"Old acquaintances again, but on the opposite side this time..."

Morin muttered, telling his driver to head back to the joint command post.

Shortly after Morin arrived, Kleist, Manstein, and the primary officers of the Kampfgruppe assembled at the temporary headquarters. Once everyone reviewed the telegram, Morin cut straight to the chase: "The armored airship has limited transport capacity, so we can't bring a massive force all at once. My idea is to take a little bit of everything to form a comprehensive, rapid-response unit..."

As he spoke, he moved markers representing different branches on the map to the airship's location.

"Bring all the Thunder Warriors and Ludwig's Armored Knight squad. Add the entire 1st Battalion, a 105mm artillery battalion, and a small amount of supplies."

"Leave the trucks behind for now. Transportation is an issue, and looking at the terrain around Sofia, it doesn't favor truck mobility."

"For the regimental headquarters, I'll just bring a few clerks and translators. The rest will stay behind to garrison Bucharest."

Though disappointed they couldn't accompany Morin, Kleist and Manstein said nothing, quickly noting down the organization.

"Commander, that puts the total troop count around seven hundred. Factor in the Armored Knights and artillery, and the weight is substantial... Can Andreas handle that load?"

"Don't worry, the L15's capacity increased significantly after its refit. Last time, we hauled an entire artillery regiment and still had leftover payload for supplies~"

Morin added, "Pack all portable magitech communication equipment. Ensure every unit deploying to Sofia can contact me or the Thunder Warriors directly. We need seamless communication for timely support."

Due to the rapid transit via armored airship, Morin couldn't deploy a massive force. He settled for a "customized combined arms" approach, taking a slice of everything.

It provided an elite strike force, armored units to hold the line, long-range fire support, and regular infantry to fill the gaps and steamroll equivalent enemy units...

Coupled with the map-revealing capability of Morin's "cheat" and the real-time communications from the magitech gear, they somewhat compensated for their small numbers with superior "information warfare."

Small, but perfectly formed.

"Alright, you two get to work."

Seeing no objections, Morin quickly concluded the briefing.

"Kleist and Paulus, coordinate the assembly of personnel and equipment. Board the airship as fast as possible... Manstein, go find Andreas. Tell him to expedite the airship's preparations, especially the radiant crystal fuel resupply..."

"Yes, sir!"

The officers saluted, turned, and strode out.

Morin headed to the joint command post to find Lieutenant General Marwitz, commander of the 48th Corps.

After reading the telegram, Marwitz readily agreed to offer his full cooperation.

"Go with peace of mind, Colonel Morin. Leave things here to me."

Marwitz handed the telegram back, adding, "The 48th Corps is already in the Fifth Army's order of battle; following deployments is our duty. Besides, the fighting in Bucharest is essentially over... The Romanians haven't even had the energy to negotiate properly these past few days, let alone fight."

Morin nodded in gratitude.

"General, the remainder of my Kampfgruppe will stay behind to support you... Combined with the main force of the 48th Corps, it's more than enough to defend this sector."

"Oh, there's no need to be so polite with me~"

Marwitz waved a hand casually, acting like an old friend who had known Morin for years, before offering a word of caution.

"Still, stay safe out there, Colonel. The situation in Bulgaria probably isn't any easier... Especially with those Britannian mage units mentioned in the copy of the telegram I received. Keep your guard up."

"Don't worry. I dealt with them on the Western Front before. We're old acquaintances; we'll 'get along' just fine."

Morin smiled, saluted Lieutenant General Marwitz, and left to find Helga.

The young woman and the Schmeisser company team had completed the bulk of their work. Aside from a few final adjustments, they were just waiting for military arrangements to return home.

After a brief exchange of instructions, the two embraced before parting ways... Morin knew a new battle was imminent. He couldn't act recklessly and had to emphasize this point to himself.

When Morin returned to the armored airship mooring area, the site was bustling.

Soldiers of the 1st Battalion lined up, methodically hauling supplies and equipment into the airship's cargo hold via the field platform.

Klaus, the Thunder Warriors, and their supporting technicians had boarded early. Utilizing their immense strength, they helped secure the Armored Knights. Ludwig and his team were well-acquainted with the procedure, and everything progressed in an orderly fashion.

Kleist sought out Morin one last time, his tone laced with concern. "Commander, please be extra careful on this mission. After all, besides you, we have no other spellcasters deploying with us."

"That's exactly why I brought the Thunder Warriors."

Morin patted Kleist's shoulder. "Relax, fighting mages is what I do best."

Kleist opened his mouth to speak, but ultimately just smiled helplessly.

"Well... I really can't argue with that."

Having served under Morin for so long, he knew the Colonel's temperament perfectly... The more dangerous the mission, the more energized the man became.

At exactly 6:00 PM, catching the final rays of the setting sun, the L15 armored airship completed the retrieval of its landing platforms. The massive hull slowly lifted into the dusk, its surface reflecting a brilliant array of colors.

On the ground, the instruction unit soldiers staying behind tilted their heads up, watching the airship depart, many waving and shouting their farewells.

After slowly ascending to an altitude of 4,000 meters, the airship banked south, pushing full speed toward the Kingdom of Bulgaria.

When Morin stepped onto the bridge, Lieutenant Colonel Andreas was standing by the command console, talking with the chief aviation officer.

Upon seeing Morin, he finished his conversation and walked over.

"Colonel, if the flight goes smoothly, we will arrive in the airspace over Sofia around 9:00 PM."

"Only three hours? That's quite fast."

"Yes."

Andreas pointed at a nearby aeronautical chart.

"The straight-line distance from Bucharest to Sofia is roughly 300 kilometers. Flying a straight path, factoring in takeoff, acceleration, and landing, it takes exactly that long."

Seeing Morin stay silent, Lieutenant Colonel Andreas continued, "This is a luxury only air travel affords. If we marched by land, the Stara Planina and Vitosha mountains stand between Bucharest and Sofia, with elevations over 2,200 meters. A ground march would require a massive detour."

Andreas couldn't help but sigh in admiration.

"Colonel, it's just as you said... The tactical advantage of aerial assault is staggering. It has completely altered the landscape of this war. In the past, this kind of rapid reinforcement would be impossible."

Morin looked back at him and finally spoke.

"We haven't even scratched the surface. This is just the beginning... Believe me, as technology makes further breakthroughs, the shape of warfare will change even more drastically."

Lieutenant Colonel Andreas fell silent for a few seconds, then nodded.

"If anyone else said that, I'd think they were bragging... But coming from you, Colonel, it always feels as if you've read the answers ahead of time."

Morin smiled, letting the comment slide.

Through the bridge windows, the Balkan terrain gradually vanished into the darkness of night. Only the scattered lights of remote villages occasionally flickered through gaps in the clouds.

Halfway through the flight, Morin suddenly realized a problem.

The armored airship would arrive in Sofia late at night. The lighting conditions in the wilderness clearly wouldn't meet the requirements for an airship landing. Were the reinforcement troops supposed to wait on the airship until morning?

Lieutenant Colonel Andreas smiled at the question and asked the executive officer to fetch a telegram.

Combining the contents of the telegram with Andreas' explanation, Morin finally understood just how desperately the Kingdom of Bulgaria had scrambled for this reinforcement...

Within their capital, Sofia, stood a massive municipal park established in 1882—Borisova Gradina (Boris Garden).

Over the past two days, the Bulgarians had aggressively cleared the trees within the city park, forcibly carving out a massive clearing capable of accommodating an armored airship's field landing platform...

At 9:00 PM, the L15 armored airship approached the city's airspace from the north.

Lieutenant Colonel Andreas stood at the forward observation post on the bridge, sweeping the land below with his binoculars.

"Strange... There is almost no illumination visible in the urban area. This is the Bulgarian capital."

Morin stepped up beside him, looking down through the window.

Indeed, the outline of Sofia could barely be distinguished by the sporadic lights from the surrounding suburbs.

The buildings that should have been brightly lit, including the area in the distance where the royal palace likely stood, were all plunged into pitch darkness.

"Bridge, report! Spotting light signals on the ground!"

The observer in the crow's nest suddenly shouted through the speaking tube. "One o'clock direction, light signals on the ground! Wait! They don't look like standard signal lamps... They look more like torches?"

"Report, bridge! They seem to be guiding us!"

The L15 armored airship continued to descend, allowing Morin and Lieutenant Colonel Andreas to finally see the scene below clearly.

Both men were struck speechless.

Along the city streets, a dense sea of torches formed the shape of a massive arrow.

It wasn't just one arrow, but a guiding path composed of many arrows.

Starting from the northern edge of the city, these hand-held torches pointed all the way down the streets toward the south-central district.

Hundreds, perhaps thousands of tiny flames formed a glowing path, strikingly conspicuous in the pitch-black city.

"This... How many people are holding torches down there?" Andreas was equally stunned by the sight.

No one knew exactly how many citizens Sofia had mobilized tonight to pull this off. The Saxon soldiers on the bridge didn't know what to say.

Morin and many others began to realize that for the Kingdom of Bulgaria, facing a joint invasion by three nations, the shape of the war might be completely different from anywhere else.

Following the guiding torchlight arrow, the L15 armored airship eventually hovered over an open clearing in the heart of the city.

The instant the airship arrived, the clearing below suddenly lit up.

High-power searchlights meant for night surveillance, industrial lighting equipment commandeered from mining districts... everything was switched on simultaneously, brightly illuminating the freshly cleared area.

Morin suddenly understood. The lack of electrical lighting across the rest of the city wasn't due to a total blackout; they had simply diverted all available power to this landing zone...

After confirming the site conditions, Lieutenant Colonel Andreas breathed a sigh of relief.

"Colonel, the site lighting meets landing standards. We will begin deploying the field platform."

Morin nodded.

"Just follow your standard operating procedures. No need to rush... Actually, I'll rappel down first to assess the situation."

"Ah?"

Soon, the armored airship hovered over the site, and the steel cable hoists began lowering the various components of the field landing platform.

On the ground, after hearing a few broadcast announcements from the airship, the Bulgarians realized they couldn't be of immediate help and voluntarily retreated to the perimeter to watch.

After all, this was their first time seeing a Saxon armored airship, let alone witnessing the deployment of a field landing platform. Few men could resist watching such a spectacle...

"First team of technicians, prepare to rappel!"

Following the command, the specialized technicians aboard the airship began their synchronized descent via steel cables.

Although Morin possessed the 【Feather Fall】 spell and could simply jump, he chose to save his spell slots since standard methods were available—even though he could take a long rest in a few hours anyway.

He tugged his safety harness to ensure it was secure, then rappelled down alongside a technician. The entire process reminded him of the fast-roping drills he had experienced in his previous life...

As the descent slowed and the howling wind turned into a whisper, Morin's boots touched the soil of the Kingdom of Bulgaria.

The landing zone looked nothing like a city park anymore; the Bulgarians had cleared the area quite thoroughly.

Morin had no time to dwell on that, as his surroundings quickly demanded his attention.

The perimeter of the clearing was packed with a crowd of onlookers—citizens, soldiers, men, women, old, and young. They stood behind the felled trees in the distance, craning their necks to gaze up at the airship's colossal hull.

The moment Morin and the technicians' feet touched the ground, cheers and applause erupted from the crowd.

Immediately following, someone started singing a solemn melody.

Although Morin wasn't entirely fluent in Bulgarian and could only manage basic conversations, the melody and the crowd's reaction told him this was likely the Bulgarian national anthem.

More and more voices joined in, growing from a scattered few into a unified chorus.

Standing in the center of the clearing, enveloped by the sudden singing, Morin felt a unique wave of emotion well up inside him.

But the feeling didn't last long. After sweeping the system map and confirming there were no "red enemy markers infiltrating the capital," Morin scanned the crowd, trying to locate his military liaison.

Soon, he spotted a figure wearing a Bulgarian Army officer's uniform and jogged over.

Only when he got close did Morin clearly see the face... It was a youth... No, a teenager at best.

Seventeen or eighteen years old, short in stature, barely reaching Morin's shoulder.

The uniform was clearly ill-fitting, and the military cap was a size too big, resting on the tops of his ears.

Upon seeing Morin in his Saxon Imperial uniform, the teenager immediately reacted, snapping a crisp salute.

Morin hesitated for a moment before speaking in his broken Bulgarian.

Rummaging his brain for vocabulary that shared a 30-40% similarity with Romanian, he clumsily stated his identity with heavy reliance on hand gestures.

"I... Saxon Empire... this unit... Commander."

The teenager blinked, a flash of disbelief crossing his youthful face.

He hesitated, as if trying to confirm that the young man standing before him, who looked barely a few years older than himself, was truly the legendary reinforcement commander.

Just as Morin noticed the boy's nervousness and was about to ask if he had borrowed an adult's clothes to come watch, the teenager snapped to attention, saluted very seriously again, his voice trembling slightly from nerves.

"Ivan, Commander of the 2nd Infantry Battalion, Sofia 1st Youth Defense Regiment! Saluting the allied forces!"

Wait, a Battalion Commander?

Morin suspected his Bulgarian listening comprehension was failing him, but the system map quickly brought up the corresponding allied unit information.

This wasn't a joke...

A seventeen or eighteen-year-old child was a Battalion Commander.

Morin opened his mouth but ultimately swallowed the words he was about to say.

Commander Ivan then offered to take Morin to see their Regiment Commander.

"Commander Ivan" led the way, with Morin trailing behind.

The teenager deliberately took large, exaggerated strides as he walked, likely trying to project a "military bearing." But the large strides paired with his short legs gave his walk a slightly bouncy, awkward rhythm.

Morin didn't laugh. He couldn't find it in him to laugh at all.

As they pushed through the crowd, he noticed more and more details.

The Bulgarian soldiers maintaining order at the edge of the clearing were almost entirely teenagers. Mostly boys, but a significant number of girls as well.

There were also armed personnel not in uniform who looked indistinguishable from the regular soldiers.

The average height in Europa during this era wasn't particularly tall, making the rifles slung across these young soldiers' backs appear longer than their actual height, the stocks practically dragging on the ground.

Though most tried their hardest to puff out their chests and act like seasoned veterans, their childish faces betrayed their true age.

"Colonel, sir, the Regiment Commander is just ahead."

Ivan turned and pointed to the other side of the clearing, a hint of pride in his voice.

"Tonight, the core of our Defense Regiment and the guys from the Citizen Defense Force all came out to help receive you."

Morin didn't reply, merely giving a slight nod.

Bypassing a pile of felled tree stumps, Ivan led Morin to the other side of the landing zone.

Several officers were leading a large group of soldiers, guiding the spectating citizens to leave in an orderly fashion.

The officers' voices were sharp and youthful. Although the commands were shouted with clear pronunciation, paired with their unbroken voices, something felt inherently wrong.

Morin stopped and looked around. From the officers to the soldiers, it was a uniform sea of teenagers.

The scene before him triggered a memory.

It reminded him of photos he had seen of the late stages of World War II in his previous life—the child soldiers of the Reich, wearing oversized uniforms, holding Panzerfausts, standing in the ruins of Berlin...

"Regiment Commander! The Saxons are here!" Ivan shouted toward the front.

The crowd parted, and a major who looked slightly older than Ivan strode over quickly.

A major...

Based on Morin's own experience in the Saxon Empire and his understanding of Balkan military structures, a major would normally be at least in his thirties.

But this "major" was in his early twenties at best.

A few patches of stubble he hadn't managed to shave clean dotted his chin, making his young face look as if it were trying to project maturity while failing to hide its inexperience.

The uniform fit him better than Ivan's, but the wear and tear on the fabric suggested it wasn't new when he received it.

The Bulgarian major stopped in front of Morin, delivered a crisp salute, and spoke in passable Saxon... clearly having studied it specifically.

"Colonel, sir. I am Major Victor, Commander of the Sofia 1st Youth Defense Regiment."

He kept his voice low, trying his best to sound steady.

"Thank God, we finally have allied reinforcements... On behalf of the entire Sofia garrison, I thank you for your arrival."

Morin didn't linger on pleasantries. His attention was completely tethered to the child soldiers surrounding them.

He glanced at the teenage soldiers behind Victor who were guiding the citizens, and finally asked the question weighing heavily on his mind.

"Major... Where is your regular army? Where did the professional soldiers go?"

"The front lines," the Youth Regiment Commander answered concisely. "All the professional soldiers are at the front."

"Including the capital garrison. They were transferred away two weeks ago to reinforce the defensive line to the southwest."

Victor gestured toward the crowd on the other side of the clearing, armed with rifles but lacking uniforms.

"That's the Citizen Defense Force, composed of retired veterans and personnel unfit for the front lines. As for our Youth Defense Regiment... we were formed half a month ago."

Morin fell silent.

Half a month ago... That was roughly when the Greeks broke through the Rila Mountain defensive line.

In other words, when the final natural barrier fell, the Bulgarians sent every capable man to the front, leaving the capital's defense entirely to these children and the elderly.

"Can you briefly brief me on your situation?"

"No problem, sir! Our Defense Regiment currently has 1,200 personnel..."

Victor continued. Though he hadn't held the position long, he clearly knew his unit well.

"However, our weapons are primarily obsolete rifles, and our ammunition isn't exactly plentiful. We only have a few bronze cannons for fire support."

Morin took a deep breath. Over 1,200... children. He recalled the figures carrying rifles he had just seen.

"What about the situation at the front?"

Morin suppressed the surging emotions in his chest, piecing together his limited vocabulary to change the subject.

"Where are the Greeks currently located? How long can your defensive line hold?"

Victor shook his head.

"At my level, I don't have detailed intelligence on the specific battle situation... But my superior, the liaison officer left behind by the Ministry of War, should be able to answer you... I'll send someone to notify him immediately!"

"Thank you..."

Morin raised his hand, voluntarily saluting the young officer before turning back to look at the landing zone.

The deployment of the L15's field platform was in full swing. Technicians continually descending from the airship were hard at work. Several Bulgarian volunteers had also been brought in to help pull cables and secure brackets. High-power lights illuminated the entire construction site.

Klaus, having descended with a few unarmored Thunder Warriors and translators, found Morin immediately.

"Commander, should we have the Thunder Warriors deploy first? The Armored Knights, infantry, and artillery will have to wait until the platform is fully constructed to unload. It'll take about an—"

He stopped mid-sentence, having noticed the child soldiers around them.

Klaus's mouth twitched.

"Commander, are these... the garrison troops here?"

"Sofia 1st Youth Defense Regiment," Morin replied, his voice devoid of emotion. "The capital garrison was transferred entirely to the front lines..."

"This damned war..."