A noblewoman with extraordinary connections...

Morin was utterly numb.

Ever since he had crossed over, he felt as though his entire worldview had been shattered, rebuilt, and shattered all over again.

First came a brutal beating, then a cheat system, followed by superpowered tin-can soldiers equipped with plate armor and greatswords who could take gunfire head-on at close range. Now even the "International Brigades" had turned up.

How had these obviously communist or anarchist left-wing fighters ended up mixed in with the Saxon Empire, a feudal empire that practically screamed right-wing militarism?

This timeline was absurd. It was like having Wilhelm II and Lenin hold hands and sing "La Marseillaise" together—a scene straight out of magical realism.

Before Morin could make sense of the mush in his head, the tin-can soldiers beside him hauled him along, and he stumbled after the main force as they withdrew.

His whole body hurt so badly that he had no energy left to delve into this world's ideological problems.

For now, staying alive came first.

The column moved through the night and soon withdrew to the outskirts of Seville.

Behind a dense thicket, several decidedly vintage-looking military trucks sat in the darkness.

There were also plenty of bicycles and tall, powerful horses nearby. Some soldiers who had stayed behind held the horses' reins, keeping a wary eye on their surroundings.

The entire scene had that peculiar blend of industry and agriculture characteristic of the First World War.

They wasted no time after arriving. Morin, Lieutenant General Mackensen, and the wounded men they had rescued, along with the heavily armored tin-can soldiers, were given priority boarding onto the rear beds of several trucks.

The remaining Saxon soldiers and armed members of the International Brigades swiftly mounted their horses or climbed onto bicycles.

With a roar of engines and the neighing of horses, the mixed column sped away from the city in force.

There were no seats in the truck bed. Morin could only recline beside Lieutenant General Mackensen on the cold metal floor, which was covered with a layer of hay, swaying with every jolt of the vehicle.

By the moonlight, he stole a look at the lieutenant general beside him.

Mackensen looked terrible. The blood at the corner of his mouth had dried, but he still held his back straight, his sharp gaze fixed on the nighttime scenery rushing past outside the truck bed.

Morin noticed that the lieutenant general's gaze occasionally settled on him. There seemed to be something more in those eyes now, no longer merely the scrutiny of a superior assessing a subordinate.

Just as Morin was struggling to recall this body's original owner's memories, trying to work out what connection he had with the lieutenant general, Mackensen suddenly spoke.

"The last time I saw you was at a reception in Dresden."

Mackensen's voice was somewhat weathered. He did not look at Morin, keeping his gaze on the distance.

"Back then, you were no different from those other sons of fallen noble families, coasting through life on your ancestors' legacy. There was nothing in your eyes but emptiness and numbness."

Morin's expression shifted slightly. It seemed this general was an old acquaintance of the body's original owner... or rather, of his forebears.

"But your performance today surprised me."

Mackensen finally turned his head and fixed Morin with a piercing stare.

"I thought that once the Britannians started punching you in the face, you would spill everything you knew before the third blow."

Morin's mouth twitched, but he said nothing.

What could he say? That he truly hadn't known anything at the time?

That all he had been thinking was, Just beat me to death already. Hurry up and stop holding up my reincarnation?

If he said that aloud, the lieutenant general would probably kick him off the truck on the spot.

Mackensen seemed to take Morin's silence as a kind of acknowledgment. He nodded, and a trace of approval entered his voice.

"It seems your father's blood still runs through your veins. That fighting spirit of a Saxon soldier was merely buried for too long beneath your debauched lifestyle."

But Mackensen's next words made Morin's heart skip a beat.

"That does not mean I will lower my expectations of you."

The lieutenant general's tone turned cold again, even carrying a hint of undisguised anger.

"The day before the military observer mission departed, a telegram from home bypassed every level of the chain of command and landed directly on my desk."

"There was a certain 'noblewoman' with extraordinary connections..."

Mackensen placed particular emphasis on the word, his voice dripping with contempt and disdain.

"She hoped I would 'look after' you. Preferably by transferring you to some administrative post in the rear to ensure your safety."

At that, Mackensen snorted coldly. Enduring the pain of his injuries, he forced himself upright and leaned closer, his face almost touching Morin's as he enunciated every word.

"What does she think the army is? Her private garden? A convalescent home?!"

"There is nothing I despise more than parasites who treat the army as a place to polish their credentials! Or fools who try to interfere with military command through personal connections!"

He stared hard at Morin, the pressure almost suffocating him.

"So I refused!"

"Not only will I not transfer you to the rear, I will send you to the front line! To a combat unit at the very head of the assault order!"

"I will make you experience what war is really like! Let us see whether those alcohol-soaked bones of yours can still find their backbone!"

The truck jolted violently, and Morin's heart lurched with it.

He said nothing... mainly because Mackensen's presence was so overwhelming that he genuinely had no idea what to say.

The other reason was that, according to his memories, the original owner's parents had long since passed away.

And even if they had still been alive, given the family's current decline, his mother clearly would not have qualified as a noblewoman.

Let alone possessed the extraordinary influence needed to have a telegram delivered straight to the front...

So for the moment, he had absolutely no idea whom Lieutenant General Mackensen was talking about.

After finishing his tirade, the old general drew several hissing breaths through his teeth and settled back into a reclining position.

The convoy continued along the bumpy dirt road, both men silent.

Finding the atmosphere rather awkward, Morin turned his head and saw several enormous black shapes floating motionlessly in the distant night sky.

They were huge observation balloons concealed by the darkness, almost impossible to spot without looking carefully.

Apparently, these eyes in the sky had guided that precise, deadly artillery fire earlier.

After traveling a dozen or so kilometers, the convoy finally slowed and drove into a large, prepared encampment.

Morin turned to examine his surroundings. The camp appeared to have been built around a hillside and a stretch of woodland, and it was quite substantial.

Soldiers in field grey uniforms moved between the tents. Farther away, he could make out the barrels of towed artillery pieces, though none had been deployed for the moment.

From the conversations of the officers nearby, Morin concluded that this was the Saxon Empire's forward assembly area and temporary command headquarters in the region.

Once the truck stopped, Morin jumped down from the back of the bed, then turned to help the old general out.

But the old man was surprisingly sturdy. Ignoring Morin's outstretched hand, he jumped straight down.

Several staff officers immediately crowded around him in excitement. Lieutenant General Mackensen ignored Morin as well and, without looking back, headed toward the largest tent in the center of the position, surrounded by his staff.

The soldiers and officers around them were all busily working. A military doctor found Morin, gave his wounds some basic treatment, and hurried away.

For a while, Morin, who had no idea what was going on, became the most relaxed... or rather, the most idle person in the area.

Still, he knew how to find himself something to do. After sitting down in a corner, he took out the officers' identification documents and document cases he had searched from those Holy Britannian Empire officers earlier.

The identification documents were written in English, which Morin knew, but their contents unsettled him.

"MI9... an intelligence officer from Military Intelligence Section 9?"

"Fourth Battalion, Northumberland Fusiliers... and a major, too?"

As for the papers in the document cases, they did not reveal much critical information, but they did give Morin a general understanding of the enemy.

As Morin continued reading, notifications flashed through his mind one after another.

[Information collection: 10%...]

[New "intelligence" collected. Please check the relevant entry!]

["Information" updated. Please check the relevant entry!]

After confirming that all the information had been collected, Morin walked to the entrance of the tent where Lieutenant General Mackensen and his staff were gathered and asked a guard to deliver the documents inside.

Then he returned to his corner, reclined on the ground, and began "clearing notification badges."

In the process, he quickly figured out the current situation and also awakened many of the body's original owner's memories.

This man, whose name also transliterated as Morin, had come from a family of Junker military nobility, just as Mackensen had said on the truck.

Morin's grandfather had even served alongside Mackensen in the Death Hussars, and the two had forged a deep friendship.

Even after Morin's grandfather was killed in action, his father's extravagance ruined the family, and his father eventually drank himself to death, Mackensen had continued looking after Morin and his other relatives.

He had even recommended Morin for admission to military academy. He truly could not have done more for them...

Morin had not squandered the opportunity the old general provided. After graduating successfully from military academy, his solid overall results earned him an assignment to the 33rd Infantry Regiment, 16th Infantry Brigade, 9th Infantry Division of the Saxon Imperial Army.

Under normal circumstances, Morin would have become a platoon commander in one of the regiment's companies and battalions, joining his seniors as a junior officer of the Saxon Empire.

But the problem lay with the unit he had been assigned to.

Almost as soon as his posting orders came through, the entire 16th Infantry Brigade received orders to head south, fully equipped, into the neighboring Kingdom of Aragon...