How the hell would I not know? I was just venting, that's all. But the way you put it, you make me sound like an idiot—like my strategic thinking is worse than a junior officer's.
General Hongkas shot Captain Maiges a sideways glance, thinking, Well, at least you've run into a kindhearted, plainspoken, and hearty commander like me. With your social skills, you'd probably have stayed a junior officer for the rest of your life otherwise... No, wait—you might've gotten shot in the back by your angry subordinates one day.
Captain Maiges hadn't noticed his new commander's change of heart at all. He simply asked, all business, "Then should we hurry to rendezvous with the 17th Brigade?"
By then, Major General Hongkas could already hear the gunfire and explosions in the distance. His instincts told him the enemy's ambush force wasn't especially large. So he quickly made what he considered the "calmest" decision. "We're moving to rendezvous! Tell the boys in the 17th Brigade to hold on—the reinforcements are on their way!"
A battered regiment that had just barely escaped an enemy ambush was going to reinforce an entire brigade. It sounded a little backward, but the giant major general was so utterly confident that no one questioned it. Morale at once soared.
"We're going to save our comrades!" he shouted again, using the power of his Word of Inspiration to raise their spirits.
A self-taught first-generation psychic, Major General Hongkas had only begun receiving formal occult education late in life. This was the sole psychic technique he had mastered.
Fortunately, he was pretty good at it. The soldiers were genuinely inspired, and they answered his call with loud cheers, all of them fired up as if they weren't breaking out of an encirclement but charging to their deaths.
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