Highland Mages

The Highland Mage Corps!

Morin's pulse quickened. What he had learned from his mysterious gift and the original owner's memories had told him that magic existed in this world.

And the Holy Britannian Empire was exceptionally advanced in both magic and magitech.

Now a High Instructor—a title that sounded formidable—had shown up at this little artillery position, along with the commander of the 24th Royal Division and a crowd of staff officers and mage apprentices...

Morin had no idea why the 24th Division's commander had suddenly come to the front line, much less why he was with the Britannian Highland Mages...

But he knew this was a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity.

He lowered the binoculars and passed them to Corporal Baumann beside him. Excitement made his voice tight.

"Baumann, see those officers and the people in robes?"

Corporal Baumann adjusted the focus, studied them for a moment, then nodded.

"I see them, sir! They look important. The ones in robes also look a lot like the Britannian Mages we were taught to identify before we set out."

"Think you can take them out from here?" Morin asked.

Corporal Baumann froze. He had never imagined his platoon leader would set his sights so high.

He raised the binoculars again and carefully gauged the distance. Then he wet a finger to check the rough wind direction and shook his head reluctantly.

"Too far, sir... Nearly four hundred meters. Our rifles are accurate, but with only iron sights and no scopes, hitting a specific target at this range... I'd put our chances at thirty percent at best."

Morin wasn't ready to give up. At his call, several other soldiers gathered around.

They were the best shots in the platoon, handpicked for this mission. But after taking a look, they all said the distance was beyond what they normally trained for.

Hitting anyone would be lucky, let alone picking off a particular target.

That doused most of Morin's feverish excitement.

He forced himself to calm down.

Baumann and the others were right. The range was too great, and the risk of missing too high.

Besides, Morin figured a special unit like a mage would have some strange way of protecting himself.

If one shot failed to kill the target and gave away their position instead, all six of them would probably die here.

Recklessness will get you killed...

Morin sighed and reluctantly abandoned the tempting idea.

He raised the binoculars one last time, intending to take another look at this big fish.

But the moment he trained the lenses on the mage who appeared to be in charge, alarm bells rang in his head.

The robed man seemed to sense something. He whipped his head around, his gaze shooting straight toward their hillside.

Even from four hundred meters away, Morin felt as though a predator had fixed its eyes on him. Every hair on his body stood on end.

"Fall back! Now!"

Morin scrambled down from the crest, not caring how he looked. He grabbed his bicycle and shouted for the others to leave.

Baumann and the others had no idea what was wrong, but one look at Morin's ghost-stricken face sent them into action.

All six leaped onto their bicycles and raced back the way they had come without looking back.

Meanwhile, on the high ground outside Seville.

Eldridge, a High Instructor of the Holy Britannian Highland Mage Corps, frowned faintly as he looked toward an unremarkable little hillside in the distance.

A moment ago, he had vaguely felt someone watching him.

That gaze had carried the faintest trace of killing intent. Though it vanished in an instant, his keen mental senses had caught it.

National Army scouts? Or those Saxons?

He was considering casting the third-circle spell [Eagle Eye] to investigate.

Just then, a Royal Army messenger hurried over and leaned close to General Jose Sanjurjo, commander of the 24th Division, to deliver a quiet report.

General Sanjurjo's face darkened visibly, anger gathering between his brows.

"Has that Juan caused trouble again?"

The voice beside him carried a hint of contempt and impatience. It belonged to High Instructor Eldridge.

He had not even needed to listen deliberately. The messenger's whisper had reached his ears clearly.

Embarrassment flickered across General Sanjurjo's face.

That fool Juan had caused him plenty of trouble. But given the large sums of money the man paid him every year, Sanjurjo had always looked the other way.

But at a time like this?

A major battle was imminent. The rebels, those damned International Brigades, and the main Saxon forces could arrive at the city gates at any moment. Yet that fool was still causing a scandal in the city!

"There's been a minor disturbance in the city," General Sanjurjo explained to Eldridge, suppressing his anger. "I'll send someone to bring that good-for-nothing back at once and see that he's properly disciplined."

With that, he ordered the guards beside him to take a squad of soldiers and "invite" Lieutenant Colonel Juan de Rivera and his companions back.

Before long, several officers and a squad of Royal Army soldiers stormed up to the two-story building where Juan and the others had been.

They kicked open the front door and charged inside.

A captain led the way up the stairs, cursing as he went. He wanted to drag that useless Juan out as quickly as possible and report back to the general.

But when his foot came down on the third step, something seemed to catch it lightly.

A round black object rolled out from a gap in the stairs and came to rest by his foot, accompanied by a faint hiss.

Death's scythe hung over his head for a full 3.5 seconds.

Boom!

When the 3.5-second delay ended, a spherical grenade made by the Saxon Empire exploded in the narrow stairwell.

The blast and flying shrapnel swallowed the foot of the stairs.

The captain and the two soldiers close behind him dropped into pools of blood without a sound.

The soldiers farther back were left reeling by the thunderous blast, their ears ringing.

When they finally managed to get up, the sight of their comrades writhing and screaming on the floor sent them scrambling out of the building as though it might devour them.

Outside, the explosion sparked panic. Residents who had still been protesting nearby scattered with screams, while Royal Army soldiers raised their rifles and surrounded the building.

Soon afterward, a Highland Mage apprentice arrived with several attendants.

"Out of the way!"

He shoved aside the soldiers blocking his path and peered through the open door at the carnage around the stairs, his brow furrowed.

After a moment's hesitation, he made a precise gesture and spoke a short incantation. A ring of pale blue light spread outward from him.

[First-Circle Spell—Life Detection]

When the spell ended, he lowered his hand and told the tense soldiers around him, "There are no signs of life on the second floor. There are a few on the first, but they're in bad shape."

At that, several of the braver soldiers finally mustered the courage to rush inside and drag out the groaning wounded.

The young mage apprentice stepped over the blood on the floor and entered with his attendants.

Disgust flashed across his face at the sight of the three Royal Army soldiers' mangled bodies. He ordered the soldiers to clear away the corpses and remains, then went upstairs with the others.

In the second-floor corridor, three closed doors stood like silent mouths.