Chapter 35

Wizard Corps Installation 17B, Niigata Prefecture, Japan

Tuesday, February 7th, 2051

To my great surprise, the next month was largely free of drama.

Oh, there was still some friction. Gabriella was none too pleased that I’d ‘snitched’ on her and made a point of avoiding me. As if Mariko and Kiyo wouldn’t have reported her anyway! I’d simply made sure our commanders heard my side of the story first. The Dark Lord knew that with my track record, I needed to set the narrative. Having the truth on my side for once certainly helped.

Also, Kiyo was traded to another training squad for their shooter. Not surprising, though it did make me question why the Wizard Corps insisted on integrated units. Combat is hard enough without hurt feelings and romantic entanglements getting in the way. Back home, we tended to let the menfolk do the real fighting while the ladies stayed behind to mind the home front. Oh, there were a few devilmaids and devilmatrons who ventured out into the fray, but they were usually spies or medics.

Funny… I’d always thought of the Grim Horde’s society as a patriarchy. Looking at it from that angle, it seemed we were getting the raw deal.

I asked Mr. Lahlou about the co-ed question during one of our reverse engineering sessions. We were in his trailer outside of the base’s walls. Despite the weather outside, it was surprisingly warm thanks to several fabricata space heaters of his own design. It wasn’t exactly spacious, but there was room for us to work at a small table in the tip-out. There was even room for the crow I’d lobotomized, who was slowly coming around.

The walls were covered in photos of Mulciber’s corpse, but I’d managed to steer the conversation away from those. I knew I’d owe him assistance with his research at some point, but for now, my training took priority.

“Not enough wizards to go around,” he said, feeding the bird by hand. “We already let the women serve half as long as the men, since they can produce more wizards for the future. However, we’re all desperately needed in the present. It’s a balancing act.”

A thought occurred to me: if they really wanted to seed the population with future magical users, they’d set up harems of mundane women to bear the children of wizards. They could be wards of the state, raised without a national loyalty or ties to anybody save the military in general.

However, I kept that to myself, since I suspected that sort of logic wouldn’t fly. Humans were oddly squeamish about certain things.

Speaking of which, there were certain spells that Mr. Lahlou refused to investigate on principle.

“There’s no reason for you to ever use Rough Spout,” he snapped. “You know what that acid did to Cadet Yamada!”

“Wait, you know?” I asked. “She’s been rather keen to keep it hidden.”

“The staff was informed,” he replied. “We had to teach around it, after all.”

“A shame we’re all needed; by all rights, she should have been discharged already.”

“In a sane world, yes. However, this world hasn’t been sane since 2030. Anyway, Rough Spout is unreliable, hard to aim, and the splash damage can cripple an ally as well as an enemy.”

“I… hm. I can’t fully disagree with you.”

“But you partially disagree?” he asked.

“It’s a tool like any other,” I said. “There could be times when dissolving something is preferable to smashing it.”

“You can do without it,” he said, shoving the sheet where I’d written out Ruhspont’s stanzas back into my hands. “We all can, given the risks.”

I held up my hand to block him. “Even if we don’t reverse-engineer it, I’d have thought a man of science would want to know how it worked. It might improve our treatment options.”

He frowned. “In a vacuum, perhaps. However, we are short on time, and a spell I wouldn’t inflict on my worst enemy isn’t worth saving.”

It seemed that Mariko’s worries that he’d want to slap together a whole army of Mulciber’s was completely unfounded. He was far too moral for that.

I hid my annoyance, though it made me miss Heida and Henrik Olvirsson. I knew how to deal with petty corruption; actual moral fortitude was a bother.

Still, he and the sergeant had done me a favor. Taking me away from the others at night cut down on how often I had to deal with Kiyo or Gabriella. Of course, it also cut down on how often I got to see Mariko and the others, but at least with my lady love I got to see her during the day.

Our training fell into a steady rhythm. I was the only one still receiving any sort of practice with new spells. No, our crash course was about mastering whatever spells we already knew in the context of combat. Everything became tactics and fighting, even Sergeant Lakhdar’s strange challenges. There was at least some variety there: solo duels, squad on squad battles, even a few large unit exercises where the whole platoon was split in half to bash each other.

I won’t recount them all here; they tended to blend together. Besides, my results were rather mixed, and I was often the first eliminated in the larger battles. That tends to happen when an invisible sniper has decided she’s cross with you. Thank Our Father Below they were safety rounds! It had made me an expert on defensive magic and stealth techniques, so Ms. Jones was doing me some good. Not that I was about to thank her for the harassment, even if she hadn’t constantly avoided me. Those safety rounds could still smart.

Stolen novel; please report.

A month of constant work ground down on us all, though we all took it differently. Some turned to caffeine to deal with the burnout. I, on the other hand, felt more energetic, more antsy. A young gentledevil does have certain appetites, after all, and Sergeant Lakhdar wasn’t going to give Mariko and I another private room. Why should she? I’d already gotten Mariko to agree to weapons training. I had nothing else to offer her, and I didn’t bother asking.

So, there was nothing to be done about it. I simply had to treasure what time we had and stay on the staff’s good side. That was my best chance to make sure we stayed in the same training squad, after all. At least it made the time go quickly.

Speaking of treasuring the rare moments, I enthusiastically worked with Mariko during our morning sword exercises. Now that we were making slow progress towards spring, we’d stopped having to clear a foot of fresh snow from the courtyard every morning. This left more time for actual practice, and I knew who I was going to spend it with.

It had become a routine. I’d eventually trade partners after the warm-ups were over, but that was fine by me; I’d rather help her sword form than try and beat her down.

“Are you sure I hold it like this, Kasasagi?” asked Mariko, the words forming a wispy cloud of vapor in the still-chill air. She had been doing a quick kata, but I’d stepped in to adjust the angle of her wooden practice sword. My hand stayed on her sword-arm, since why shouldn’t it? “That isn’t what the manuals show.”

My ear perked up. “Was that a contraction I heard?”

She tilted her head at me. “Why should that be a surprise?”

“I see I’m having a bad influence on you,” I said. “You used to have such lovely diction! Now you’re slurring your words together like the rest of us. Another way I ruined you.”

“I’m not here to be made fun of.” She looked away with a huff. Her wry smile ruined the effect of her pout, though, and she made no move to remove my hands from her arm. “Why are you surprised? You have been giving me constant English practice since Iceland! Of course I’m picking it back up.”

“Back up?” I asked.

She nodded. “I was in Australia for a year during middle school, for Father’s work. I used to be much better at it.”

“Hm, your English doesn’t sound particularly Australian,” I said. Her voice was a damn sight prettier than Dante’s, that was for sure.

“I credit all of my reading,” she said.

“Ah, so we can thank Jane Austen,” I said. “She certainly warped your taste in men. It worked out for me, though.”

“Warped is a harsh word,” she said, giving my cheek a loving pat with her free hand. “I prefer refined. Though, we should get back to work before somebody spots you feeling me up.”

“My dear, you’ll know when I’m feeling you up.” I leaned in and whispered in her ear. “Though, your biceps are coming in nicely. This training plan agrees with you.”

“Ara!” I’d pushed my fun too far. Finally stepping away, she tucked the wooden bokken under her armpit and flipped through a small, paper sword fighting manual.

“That would be an awful habit if that was a real sword,” I said, gently taking the false blade away from her.

“Oh my! Stop me if you see me do that again.” Before I could respond, she held up the manual. “The kata is supposed to work like this, isn’t it? A wide sweep, followed by bringing it back into a defensive position?”

“If we’re going by the book, certainly,” I said, taking the manual from her hands. “You’ve learned the book rather quickly, which is most impressive. However, I was doing my best to keep Ms. Hernandez from dying by the book, so you’d better believe I’m going to intervene for you! Any demon with a lick of sense will see that move coming a mile away.”

Mariko frowned. “I take it you know that from personal experience.”

“You might say that,” I said, wincing at memories that had once been my crowning glory.

I fished a pen from my pocket and drew some arrows and stick figures next to the official diagrams. “That’s why you’re going to go from that wide sweep, take a step back, then go forward with a thrust.”

“You are talking like I’m going to use this in a battle,” she said, a sneaky smirk growing across her face. “I’m almost ready to contact headmaster Tachibana about our proposal.”

“Ah, your scheme to get a deferment,” I said.

“You sound disappointed,” she said. “Don’t tell me you disapprove!”

I held up my hands. “No, no, nothing like that. I’ll miss you terribly; I don’t envy Kowalski and Lilja’s long-distance relationship.”

Her brow knit with worry. “I-I can’t say I’d considered that.”

I shrugged. “I shouldn’t have brought it up; nothing to be done about it. Regardless, even if you’re not going to fight, you’re going to not fight properly. Let’s run through that kata again, but finish up with a maneuver that won’t have the enemy predicting your every motion.”

I stepped back and watched her go through the motions. It took her a few tries, since she’d been drilled in the standard routine. I might have treated the missteps as an excuse to come in and physically correct her grip. For her education, of course.

For somebody who’d only held a sword without pitching a fit for a few months, her motions were reasonably fluid. She was still a year behind the others, but she wasn’t entirely awful. It was impressive what Ms. Yamada could do when she put her mind to it; her knowledge of noncombat magic came easily to her, too. I supposed a young lady who’d had dreams of being a manga artist knew a thing or two about diligence and effort.

We’d drawn some official attention, though. Sergeant Lakhdar had been working with Kiyo and one of the others, but she stopped to come chat with us. “What are you teaching Cadet Yamada?”

“Something that the Horde won’t see coming,” I replied. “I’m afraid that mahoukenjutsu has been completely reverse engineered by the Horde.” I cut off the sergeant before she could ask the obvious question; I’d had plenty of time to think of an excuse. “After I fell into the Horde’s hands, they would taunt me about our failings when they tired of physical torture. Apparently, we also smell bad.”

Sergeant Lakhdar seemed to age ten years in a moment as her shoulders slumped. It was a brief moment of weakness, but it was disconcerting. “That is a known issue, unfortunately.”

“It is?” asked Mariko. “Then why are we learning a flawed style?”

“Because the way you’re all progressing, it isn’t an issue,” she replied. “Mahoukenjutsu is a fine starting point, but it’s only that. If might have been if you’d been assigned to somebody else’s care. There are units where you and Yamada would be running laps for daring to break away from the orthodox style.”

“You said it was a known issue,” I said. “Surely those commanders are aware?”

“Of course they are,” she said, “but there are some people out there who see the manuals as the be-all and end-all. After all, you can’t get in trouble for a loss if you did what you were told. Creativity is a risk to an officer’s career, even if his men have to pay for the lack of imagination.”

Mariko crossed her arms beneath her chest and looked away. “Such a waste,” she said under her breath.

“Agreed,” she said. “It’s why I appreciate you free thinkers.”

“I’m glad our lot was put in your loving care,” I said.

“That’s quite enough brown-nosing, Marlowe,” she said, a playful lilt in her voice. “Even if you’re right. Now, if you’re done feeling up your girlfriend, I think it’s time you got into some proper training.”

I felt my face flush. “I-I was simply adjusting her form.”

“Manually,” added Mariko.

“Funny how I never see you manually adjusting anybody else’s form,” she replied. “Get in the habit of assuming you’re being watched, Mr. Marlowe.”

“Don’t I know it.” The sergeant reminded me that I hadn’t scanned for Kiyo recently. She was still where the sergeant had left her, thankfully.

Sergeant Lakhdar did her own scan and let out a sigh. “Those two again. If you’ll excuse me.”

Sergeant Lakhdar turned on her heel and left us, barking questions at Hiroto and Suzume about how one of them had gotten a black eye. It was a relief to have somebody else draw her attention for once.