A different early twentieth century

According to the original owner's hazy memories, the Kingdom of Aragon had apparently descended into an "otherworldly Spanish Civil War" decades ahead of schedule over royal succession and the direction of the country's development.

The "National Army," backed by the Saxon Empire, had proved no match for the "Royal Army," which had the support of the Holy Britannian Empire, and was losing ground battle after battle.

More and more intelligence also indicated that troops from the Holy Britannian Empire had landed by sea in territory controlled by the "Royal Army," preparing to intervene directly and end the civil war...

Seeing his interests in the Kingdom of Aragon threatened, Albert II, emperor of the Saxon Empire, could no longer sit still.

He immediately ordered the General Staff to draw six brigades, totaling twelve infantry regiments, from various formations and send them into the Kingdom of Aragon first, under the pretext of "helping an ally stabilize the situation"...

Meanwhile, more division-sized formations began partial mobilization, preparing to follow them into the Kingdom of Aragon at any moment and provide a backstop for the National Army.

Compared with the Spain Morin remembered, this world's Kingdom of Aragon had a substantial additional stretch of territory near the Mediterranean.

It was precisely this extra territory that gave the Saxon Empire and the Kingdom of Aragon a shared border...

The 16th Infantry Brigade, to which Morin had been assigned, and its two subordinate infantry regiments were among the units selected by the General Staff.

So by the time Morin received his transfer orders, the 33rd Infantry Regiment, where he was supposed to report, had already left aboard a military train.

In the end, Morin could only follow the station staff's advice and wait for the next military train heading directly to the Kingdom of Aragon.

Fate worked in mysterious ways.

That train happened to be carrying a military observer delegation led by Lieutenant General Mackensen.

More mysteriously still, when the old man spotted Morin's familiar figure boarding through the window, he had a telegram in his pocket that had arrived on his desk the previous day, asking him to look after Morin and have him transferred to the rear.

Perhaps he had been reminded of his dear departed friend, or perhaps he wanted to fulfill that friend's wishes and raise his descendant into an "iron-blooded soldier" in the Saxon tradition.

Lieutenant General Mackensen immediately decided to put Morin through some proper training.

Once the military train reached its destination, he pulled Morin straight into the observer delegation, making him accompany them as a "senior orderly" and report to his assigned unit only after their mission was over.

Nor did the Saxon Empire's intelligence capabilities come as any surprise to Morin...

There had been serious failures in tracking the movements of the Holy Britannian Empire's landing forces and the "Royal Army."

And so, through this series of accidents, Morin had ended up caught in an ambush targeting the military observer delegation outside Seville, then taken prisoner alongside Lieutenant General Mackensen...

As for why an army lieutenant general would take such a large group of officers into unfamiliar territory in a foreign country to conduct observations...

That could only be attributed to a certain military tradition of the Saxon Empire.

This thoroughly martial empire had practically been built through one unending war after another.

Among the empire's many reckless-as-hell military traditions, "senior commanders personally conducting reconnaissance on the front line" was actually one of the more normal ones.

Moreover, Lieutenant General Mackensen had intended to carry out a covert reconnaissance mission at the front that, in his own words, would be "swift and flexible, without alerting the enemy"...

He had not even brought the "general's guard," whom he considered somewhat cumbersome—the same superhuman tin cans who had stormed into the cellar to rescue them earlier.

What puzzled Morin, however, was that the movements of a military observer delegation operating at this level and in this manner should have been strictly confidential. In theory, they should never have run into a well-prepared ambush...

He therefore had reason to suspect that there was probably a mole on the empire's side who had leaked information about the delegation in advance!

As for the possibility that the Holy Britannian Empire had simply done a better job with its intelligence work...

Morin was skeptical of that, given that the country was so obviously "Britain reincarnated."

But before Morin could work out why Albert II was so desperate to provide a backstop for the National Army, his relatively leisurely interlude came to an end.

He saw more than a dozen soldiers, apparently messengers, with leather document bags slung across their bodies jogging into Mackensen's tent.

Before long, the soldiers emerged again, then ran toward the edge of the camp at an even faster pace.

One of the messengers spotted Morin standing alone, ran straight over, stopped in front of him, and saluted.

"Are you Second Lieutenant Morin?"

"Yes, that's me."

Morin nodded and looked with some puzzlement at the distinctly young messenger before finally giving him a polite smile.

Seeing his expression, the young messenger offered a slightly bashful smile of his own.

"Second Lieutenant Morin, please come with me. I'm going to the 33rd Infantry Regiment's 1st Battalion camp to deliver orders from Regimental Headquarters. The general told me to take you along to report for duty."

The 16th Infantry Brigade had yet to enter combat officially, and this area was under the "National Army's" control, so the entire brigade's camps were fairly close together.

The headquarters of its two subordinate infantry regiments, along with the 16th Brigade Headquarters and the artillery and cavalry regiments attached to reinforce the brigade, were all stationed in the camp they had just left.

The two regiments' six infantry battalions, which constituted its main fighting force, were arrayed in a semicircle on the Seville-facing side of this large camp, forming a protective screen.

As far as Morin could tell, the Saxon Empire's regimental units were not yet equipped with wired telephones, so orders from Regimental Headquarters still had to be delivered by messengers on foot.

After leaving the Brigade Headquarters camp with the young messenger, Morin could only make his way through the darkness toward the 33rd Infantry Regiment's 1st Battalion by moonlight.

"Lieutenant, you were supposed to report to Regimental Headquarters after getting off the train, then head straight to your assigned company..."

"But who knew the military observer delegation on the same train would take you away, and then all that would happen... Still, thank heavens you made it back unharmed!"

"Everyone at Regimental Headquarters has been saying you're a relative of General Mackensen, which is why he let a second lieutenant like you accompany the observer delegation."

"Is General Mackensen really your adoptive father?"

The young messenger, whose name was Schmidt, was clearly a talkative sort, brimming with the particular energy and vitality of youth.

So after exchanging a few words with Morin and discovering that this lieutenant who had "survived a brush with death" did not put on airs, the messenger immediately opened the floodgates.

But when his "gossip" began growing increasingly outlandish, Morin interrupted him before it could go any further.

"Ahem... You're getting more ridiculous by the minute. If Lieutenant General Mackensen really were my adoptive father, how could I still be here..."

"You have a point, sir. But why did the general have you accompany the military observer delegation?" Messenger Schmidt asked, looking puzzled.

"Well, His Excellency the general does have some ties to me..."

"See! I knew you weren't just anybody..."

Schmidt pumped his fist excitedly, as though he had uncovered some extraordinary secret.

Morin could only smile helplessly at the back of his head. After thinking for a moment, he asked with some curiosity:

"Schmidt, have you ever thought about why we're coming to the Kingdom of Aragon?"

"Of course I know! We're here to break the energy monopoly imposed by the Britannians and let every country share in advances in industrial technology!"

Schmidt answered without hesitation, catching Morin off guard and leaving him momentarily stunned.

Just listen to that. Was that really something a low-ranking soldier from an imperial state would say?

Morin had expected the young messenger to give an answer along the lines of "obeying our superiors' orders" or "it's a soldier's duty."

Yet his actual answer clearly went beyond the perspective a messenger should have possessed...

That meant the Saxon Empire must have conducted propaganda on this subject, spreading it at least as far as the rank-and-file soldiers and junior officers in its military.

"Break the energy monopoly, share technological advances..."

Morin mulled over the key parts of the young messenger's words. He felt as though he had caught a loose thread that might explain why a group like the "International Brigades" existed in this strange world...

[Current information collection progress... 15%]

As his "cheat" continued to gather more information, Morin's understanding of this world grew increasingly clear.

This world, so closely resembling the early twentieth century of his previous life, was currently at what appeared to be a crucial turning point in history.

Unlike the world Morin knew, this world really did have "magic," or rather, magic-based technology.

When those tin-can-like members of the "general's guard" had charged into the cellar to rescue them earlier, it was the "enchantments" on their armor and shields that had stopped bullets fired at close range.

To a certain extent, the Saxon Empire was not an established power in magical technology. Its strengths lay more in the machinery and conventional heavy industry familiar to Morin.

According to the information he had obtained through his "intelligence" so far, this world's true leaders in magical technology were mainly the Holy Britannian Empire, which possessed vast colonies across the globe, and the Gaulish Republic, which had long competed with it for colonial holdings.

In other words, the otherworldly version of "Britain and France, age-old enemies"...

The reason was that all magical technology in this world was built on "magic crystal ore."

And "magic crystal ore" was actually extraterrestrial meteorites that had struck this planet repeatedly in ancient times, leaving deposits that were far from concentrated.

Thus, Britannia and Gaul, these two old colonial empires, had exploited their ability to mine across the globe to rise rapidly into dominant powers.

To make matters even worse for the Saxon Empire, nearly all the "magic crystal ore" in Europa lay within Britannian and Gaulish territory. The Saxon Empire had only a few scattered deposits.

This also left this otherworldly "German Empire" at an inherent disadvantage in developing magical technology.

Fortunately, the humorous principle that "German science is the world's finest" seemed to apply in this world as well.

And so the Saxons had forced their way down a thorny path in the conventional technologies Morin knew better.

Unlike the petroleum-based technological path familiar to Morin, however, this world's "diesel" was not refined from oil underground.

Instead, it came from another ore unique to this world—Luminescence crystal ore.

Although Morin did not know how the Saxons turned ore into fuel, all he needed to know was that luminescence crystal ore was this world's equivalent of petroleum.

Perhaps it was fate, but vast deposits of luminescence crystal ore lay within the Saxon Empire, as well as in Lorraine and Alsace, the regions it had acquired from the Gaulish Republic.

This was also one of the important reasons the Saxon Empire had pulled far ahead along this technological path.

Over the years, although the countries representing these two technological paths had clashed repeatedly, no large-scale conflict had broken out.

Unfortunately, in the year Morin's soul crossed over into this world, the situation underwent a "slight" change...

"Second Lieutenant Morin, we're here!"

"Huh?"

Just as Morin was immersed in his own thoughts and reaching a crucial point, Messenger Schmidt interrupted him.

Coming back to his senses, Morin looked up and saw a vast expanse of tents stretching across an open area in the distance.

This was the temporary camp of the 33rd Infantry Regiment's 1st Battalion.