Naturally, trailers traveling through the wilderness are conspicuous, so they end up being attacked by magical beasts and monsters and bandit-like groups.
At first I thought “mechs aren’t necessary for escort missions,” but they are necessary, yeah.
Japan has cityscapes like the peaceful Reiwa-era Japan I vaguely remember, but step outside Japan and this is what you get. Seeing this, people wouldn’t think of becoming coexistence advocates and trying to get along with magical beasts and monsters.
So I think this kind of thing should be taught in school classes, or important people should be sent for inspections. Especially for Third Division personnel, thoroughly.
Setting aside the people I plan to get revenge on later.
Currently, we’re heading to Na-Amur, the third largest city in Far Eastern Russia.
The noble who governs this entire area apparently does business with prestigious families from Tohoku like Mogami-san.
Incidentally, Khabarovsk, the capital of Far Eastern Russia, is governed by a Grand Duke who is nominally equal to His Majesty the Emperor, so it receives special treatment. Furthermore, Vladivostok, which has a naval port, also has direct trade and assistance from zaibatsu companies.
Incidentally, the reason zaibatsu companies don’t trade in Na-Amur, the third largest city, is simply a matter of cost.
Yeah. Na-Amur is far away, unlike Vladivostok.
Since they’re companies, they need to look at profits, so such pragmatic decisions might be unavoidable.
As just a military officer, I don’t intend to get involved in such territorial matters, so I’d like Mogami-san and the others to handle it themselves.
“Conversely, once you cross Khabarovsk, the Japanese zaibatsu can’t reach with their hands or feet.”
“Naturally, that includes Third Division personnel connected to them as well?”
“That’s right.”
Mogami-san nods confidently. He probably has pride in the fact that they’re on better terms with the people of Far Eastern Russia.
I can’t help but feel like “both the zaibatsu and Mogami-san are Japanese, so deceiving the people over there wouldn’t be that difficult either?” but since Mogami-san seems to have his own convictions, I’ll refrain from saying unnecessary things.
Silence is golden.
“So here’s the thing. September is harvest season, and with winter approaching, small magical beasts and monsters become more active. We’re planning to hunt them while doing business, to promote the growth and optimization of that thing entrusted to you, even if just a little.”
“I see.”
So magical beasts and monsters also prepare for hibernation.
Ah, no, they were originally wild animals and humans, so of course they do.
Winter here is apparently quite cold.
And growth, huh.
It’s true that the powered suit grows even with just medium and small-sized beasts. In fact, I’ve taken down about two medium-sized and thirty small-sized beasts so far, and the subtle but real growth and optimization is proof of that.
However, when trying to store both the mech and the magical crystal-compatible enhanced exoskeleton simultaneously, the magical crystals of the mech and exoskeleton repel each other, and the weaker one—naturally the exoskeleton—gets destroyed. Due to this specification, while storing the powered suit in the magical crystal to make it grow, I have to keep the mech outside, which is troublesome. Though originally, I thought it would be impossible to sleep while bearing loads of 20 or 30 kilograms, so it’s also something to be grateful for.
So during the day, I store the mech in the magical crystal while hunting magical beasts and monsters with the powered suit, and at night I store the powered suit while the mech stands by inside the trailer.
This must be extremely troublesome for the maintenance people, and those in charge of business probably have thoughts about wasted space being used, but this isn’t an amusement park, and combat with magical beasts and monsters isn’t an attraction.
Since both the maintenance people and I really don’t want to die from insufficient firepower when it truly matters, there have been no complaints so far about my mech occupying part of the trailer.
Rather, since Mogami-san, who is the top-ranking official, is someone who eagerly wants to maintain the mech, there are no complaints whatsoever.
This covers our current situation, though briefly.
…This much reality avoidance should be enough.
“So, I’d like to have a serious talk soon?”
“What a coincidence. I was just thinking the same thing.”
“That’s good to hear.”
No, seriously.
“If it’s not just my imagination, that city over there—um, Amursk, was it?”
Standing on a small hill at the edge of the taiga (boreal forest), I can see a reasonably sized town about ten kilometers away.
“That’s right. Incidentally, it’s about forty-five kilometers from our destination Na-Amur, but it serves as a satellite city.”
“I see. Thank you for the detailed explanation. Now, about that satellite city…”
“Yeah.”
“It’s being attacked, isn’t it? By magical beasts and monsters.”
Smoke is rising from within the city, and more importantly, I can see groups moving around, so there’s no mistake.
“It appears so.”
“They’re fighting, aren’t they?”
“Does it look that way?”
“Sorry. Rather than fighting, it looks more like it’s already after they’ve lost. It looks like they’ve been trampled and are being pillaged.”
From what I can see, there only seem to be small-sized ones, but their numbers are terrible.
There are definitely over a thousand. With that many magical beasts and monsters wandering around.
I can hear sporadic combat sounds, but it can only be seen as a failed defensive battle.
“That’s right. It looks that way to me too.”
“……”
“What should we do?”
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“What should we do indeed…”
“……”
3
You might think “If they’re being attacked, help them!” but dealing with magical beasts and monsters is fundamentally the military’s job in any country. Therefore, even though Takafumi has the military strength to intervene, it would be wrong for him, being merely a merchant, to stick his nose in. It would be even more wrong for Keita, who is a Japanese military officer and is undertaking the special duty of “testing new weapons and protecting Takafumi,” to get involved.
More importantly, arbitrarily—and for purposes other than self-defense or protecting one’s charges—deploying weapons in another country’s territory can cause disruption to the chain of command, making it a serious violation even if the purpose is saving lives.
Think about it. If there were a terrorist hostage situation in Tokyo, and a foreign military officer suddenly appeared saying “It’s a new weapon!” and shot the perpetrator with a gun that had slipped through customs, what would happen?
That military officer would definitely be arrested. The Japanese government would also fire a “regret cannon” at the country that military officer belonged to. The country that received the regret cannon would punish the military officer who exposed the secret weapon.
Also, if collateral damage occurred or expanded—such as someone being injured by stray bullets or buildings being damaged—the field commander would say this: “If that guy hadn’t done something unnecessary, there wouldn’t have been unnecessary damage.”
That’s what it comes down to.
Of course, this doesn’t apply if they had permission from the local nobles or if there was a special request—though due to the possibility of new weapon information being leaked, information handling would need extremely careful attention—but from Keita and the others’ perspective, Amursk has been completely overrun by magical beasts and monsters.
There seems to be sporadic resistance, but in such a situation, can a request for reinforcements be issued? Furthermore, whether a request for reinforcements issued in this situation would be recognized as official is a very troubling matter.
“What would happen if we were asked by civilians to ‘please help us’?”
“…That’s a delicate matter.”
TLNOTE:
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