“Lieutenant Charles! If you drop your barrier again, there’ll be hell to pay, dammit!”
“Yes, sir!”
“Do you want to see me die to their assassins, Charles?! Do you?!”
“No, sir!”
Lt. Charles was the barrier mage in charge of erecting a barrier around himself and the general at all times. This was one of the most important positions in a magical war. There was no telling what sort of methods an enemy could use to eliminate key superior officers in war. Though they usually played more important roles when fighting enemies of intelligence, he was certainly not rendered useless just because their enemies were mindless monsters.
General Drell noticed that the monsters covering the next trenches finally were killed under the bullet hell of his battalion. He then amplified his voice with mana and issued his command.
“Third company, forward! Covering fire!”
“Covering!”
The fourth company was swift and did not delay even a second to provide covering fire as the third company sprinted.
“Jump back in, two o'clock, hundred!”
It was when the general issued this order to his adjutant to teleport the both of them a hundred meters forward that the adjutant voiced out what had been on his mind, choosing to do so while he was still in safe territory.
“Sir! Won't Archlich Gradias above us strike us down?! I believe we should retreat for now! Something must have gone wrong!”
“You moron! Stop thinking and just follow me!”
The role of the general and supporting adjutant in magical warfare was to use short-range teleportation of the adjutant to take both of them behind enemy lines and wreak havoc for a few hundred meters. They would do this to clear the road by sprinting together while the general swung his weapon around while the adjutant stayed close by to encapsulate the both of them within the barrier. This allowed for the advance of a company of roughly two hundred men. The two would then teleport out to the safer trenches that had already been taken by friendly forces for short breaks as they looked for new vulnerabilities in enemy lines while recuperating.
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They were essentially S-ranked scouting assassins, nightmares to the monsters who cleared entire swathes of enemies as just a pair, leaving streaks of blue in their wake from the luminescent barrier that stuck to their skin.
Upon hearing no response or teleport from the adjutant as he had ordered, the general turned and looked to him.
“Charles. First, you almost drop your barrier, and we’re forced to teleport back. Now, you refuse my orders. You will pay for this disobedience with many months in the barracks. What are you thinking, bastard?”
“Sir, it's just that.”
“Speak loudly and quicker, bastard; we don't have the time for this!”
General Drell’s enraged bellow forced Lt. Charles to perk up and stand at attention, then speak more spiritedly.
“Sir! We were told that Archlich Gradias and dragon would be fought far away! However! Archlich Gradias is directly above us! He’s in a battle inside an isolation barrier with our mages, but their battle is likely to compromise us!”
General Drell, being slightly taller than Lt. Charles, looked down and stared at him before responding with an exasperated sigh in his face. Lt. Charles was able to tell that General Drell had a meal of potato rations.
“...Haah. I’ll let this go since this is your first time. Things never go as perfectly planned in war. The best we can hope for is to be able to improvise. Frankly, a lot more things end up being different from planned strategy. However, the proud dragon, while being their strongest piece, most likely acted as a heavyweight that prevented any plans from exceeding a certain level of complexity due to their pride, leading to an unwillingness to cooperate in plans, even if those were plans that involved the dragon acting as they wanted to. Members of the species that leave the dragon clan in the heart of the Eira Kingdom are somewhat like petulant children, you see. Well, whatever. The point is, this behavior of the dragon allows for less deviation from our planned strategy, though some is inevitable, and that's what we're seeing now. The cornered archlich figured out how we had planned to try to corner it and made the next best choice; it likely moved as it did to induce these feelings of fear in us, Charles.”
“Does that mean Archlich Gradias wasn't planning to wipe us out with his initial spell, sir?”
“Yes. I'm sure Archlich Gradias was not expecting to actually wipe us out with no resistance and anticipated a battle. If so, battling above our heads would be the best way to strike fear into us, and he thus teleported to where he is, though he could have done it from a corner of the battlefield to try to do it stealthily. The fact that Archlich Gradias gave up on stealth suggests the anticipation of a certain level of expertise from our own mages, Charles. Archlich Gradias fears our mages’ movements. That means we can trust in them to fight while isolating their battle from us down here. If the expertise of the mages of Odir does not feel trustworthy to you, remember that Archlich Gradias fears us. Will you remember, Charles?!”
“Yes sir!”
“Will you follow my orders?!”
“Yes, sir!”
“Good, now teleport!
As the two vanished with a puff of wind, the sounds of gunfire and roars once again reigned on the battlefield amidst the rumbling of the earth.