From the hazy memories of the body's original owner, the Kingdom of Aragon had apparently plunged 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 Holy Britannian Empire behind it, and was steadily losing ground.
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 country's interests in the Kingdom of Aragon threatened, Albert II, emperor of the Saxon Empire, could no longer sit still.
Citing the need to "help an ally stabilize the situation," 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...
Meanwhile, more division-sized formations began partial mobilization, ready to follow them into the Kingdom of Aragon at any moment and provide a safety net for the National Army.
Compared with the Spain Morin remembered, this world's Kingdom of Aragon possessed a sizable stretch of additional territory near the Mediterranean.
It was precisely this extra territory that gave the Saxon Empire a shared border with the Kingdom of Aragon...
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.
By the time Morin received his transfer orders, the 33rd Infantry Regiment, where he was supposed to report, had already departed 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.
The passengers aboard that train happened to include a military observer group led by Lieutenant General Mackensen.
More remarkably still, when the old man spotted Morin's familiar figure boarding the train from his window, he had a telegram in his pocket that had arrived on his desk the previous day, asking him to look after Morin and transfer him to the rear.
Perhaps he had thought of his dear friend who had already passed away, or perhaps he wanted to carry on his friend's last wishes and mold his descendant into an "iron-blooded soldier" in the Saxon tradition.
Lieutenant General Mackensen immediately decided to put Morin through his paces.
Once the military train reached its destination, he hauled Morin straight into the observer group, having him accompany it as a "senior orderly" and report to his assigned unit only after its work was finished.
Nor did the Saxon Empire's competence in intelligence work come as any surprise to Morin...
Its information on the movements of the Holy Britannian Empire's landing forces and the "Royal Army" had proved disastrously flawed.
And so, through this chain of mishaps, Morin had been caught in the ambush targeting the military observer group 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 put down to a certain military tradition of the Saxon Empire.
This intensely martial empire had practically been built through one uninterrupted war after another.
Among the empire's many recklessly foolhardy military traditions, "senior commanders personally conducting reconnaissance on the front line" was actually one of the more normal ones.
And since Lieutenant General Mackensen had intended to conduct a covert reconnaissance mission at the front that was, in his own words, "quick and flexible, without alerting the enemy"...
He had not even brought the "general's guard," which he considered somewhat cumbersome—the very same superhuman tin cans who had stormed the cellar to rescue them earlier.
What puzzled Morin, however, was that the movements of a military observer group of this level, operating in this fashion, should have been strictly classified. In theory, it should never have run into such 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 military observer group in advance!
As for the possibility that the Holy Britannian Empire was simply better at intelligence work...
Morin was skeptical, given that this country was clearly "Britain reincarnated."
Before Morin could figure out why Albert II was in such a hurry to backstop the National Army, however, his relatively peaceful interlude came to an end.
He saw more than a dozen soldiers with leather document bags slung across their bodies, apparently messengers, jogging into Mackensen's tent.
Before long, those soldiers emerged again and ran toward the edge of the camp at an even faster pace.
Spotting Morin standing alone, one of the messengers ran straight up to him, stopped, and saluted.
"Are you Second Lieutenant Morin?"
"Yes, that's me."
Morin nodded and studied the visibly young messenger before him with some puzzlement, then gave him a polite smile.
Seeing his expression, the young messenger returned a somewhat bashful smile.
"Second Lieutenant Morin, please come with me. I'm going to the 1st Battalion of the 33rd Infantry Regiment's camp to deliver orders from Regimental Headquarters. The general told me to take you along so you can report for duty."
The 16th Infantry Brigade had not formally entered combat yet, and this area was also under the "National Army's" control, so the entire brigade's encampment was fairly concentrated.
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 six infantry battalions of the two regiments, which formed its main fighting force, were arrayed in a semicircular line on the Seville-facing side of this large camp, forming a protective screen.
From what Morin could tell, regimental units in the Saxon Empire had yet to be equipped with wired telephones, so orders from Regimental Headquarters still had to be delivered by messengers on foot.
After following the young messenger out of the Brigade Headquarters camp, Morin could only make his way through the darkness toward the 1st Battalion of the 33rd Infantry Regiment by moonlight.
"Lieutenant, after getting off the train, you were supposed to report to Regimental Headquarters, then go straight to your assigned company..."
"But who could have guessed that the military observer group on your train would take you away with them, or that you'd run into something like that... Thank goodness you made it back safe and sound!"
"Everyone at Regimental Headquarters has been saying you're related to General Mackensen, and that's why he let a second lieutenant like you accompany the military observer group."
"Is General Mackensen really your adoptive father?"
The young messenger, whose name was Schmidt, was clearly a talkative fellow, brimming with the particular vigor and vitality of youth.
After exchanging a few words with Morin and discovering that this second lieutenant who had "cheated death" did not put on airs, the messenger immediately opened the floodgates.
But as his gossip grew increasingly absurd, Morin cut him off before he 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 would the general have you accompany the military observer group?" Schmidt asked, puzzled.
"Well, I do have something of a connection with the general..."
"See! I knew you weren't just anyone..."
Schmidt pumped his fist excitedly, as though he had uncovered some incredible secret.
Morin could only smile helplessly at the back of his head. After a moment's thought, he asked curiously:
"Schmidt, have you ever thought about why we've come to the Kingdom of Aragon?"
"Of course! We're here to break the energy monopoly imposed by the Britannians, so every country can share in advances in industrial technology!"
Schmidt's unhesitating answer caught Morin off guard, leaving him momentarily stunned.
Just listen to that. Was that really something a rank-and-file soldier from an imperial state would say?
Morin had expected the young messenger to offer something along the lines of "obeying our superiors' orders" or "it's a soldier's duty."
Instead, his answer clearly reflected a perspective broader than a messenger ought to possess...
That meant the Saxon Empire must have conducted propaganda on this subject, spreading it at least as far as the rank-and-file officers and soldiers.
"Break the energy monopoly, share technological advances..."
Mulling over the key parts of the young messenger's words, Morin felt as though he had caught hold of a thread that might explain why an organization like the "International Brigades" existed in this strange world...
[Current information gathered... 15%]
As his "cheat" continued to gather more information, Morin's understanding of this world grew increasingly clear.
This world, so similar to the early twentieth century of his previous life, was currently at what looked like a crucial turning point in history.
Unlike the world Morin knew, this one truly possessed "magic," or rather, magitech.
When those tin-can-like members of the "general's guard" had stormed the cellar to rescue them earlier, they had relied on the "enchantments" on their armor and shields to stop bullets fired at close range.
In a sense, the Saxon Empire was not an established magitech power. 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, the true magitech powers of this world were primarily the Holy Britannian Empire, with its vast colonies across the globe, and the Gaulish Republic, which had long competed with it for colonial possessions.
In other words, the otherworldly version of "Britain and France, age-old enemies"...
The reason was that all magitech in this world was built upon "magic crystal ore."
And "magic crystal ore" was actually extraterrestrial meteorites that had struck this planet on multiple occasions in ancient times, leaving deposits that were rather scattered.
That was why Britannia and Gaul, those two long-established colonial empires, had used their advantage of mining across the world to rise rapidly into dominant powers.
To make matters worse for the Saxon Empire, nearly all the "magic crystal ore" in Europa lay within Britannian and Gaulish territory, with only tiny scattered deposits inside the Saxon Empire.
This left this otherworldly "German Empire" at an inherent disadvantage in developing magitech.
Fortunately, the humorous rule that "German science is the greatest in the world" seemed to apply here as well.
And so the Saxons had stubbornly carved out a thorny path through the conventional technologies more familiar to Morin.
Unlike the petroleum-based technological path Morin knew, however, this world's "diesel" was not refined from oil beneath the ground.
Instead, it came from another ore unique to this world—luminescence crystal ore.
Although Morin had no idea how the Saxons turned ore into fuel, knowing that luminescence crystal ore was this world's equivalent of petroleum was enough.
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 key reasons the Saxon Empire had pulled so far ahead along this technological path.
Over the years, although the countries representing these two technological paths had clashed constantly, 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, the messenger Schmidt interrupted him.
Coming back to his senses, Morin looked up and saw a sprawling expanse of tents on the open ground in the distance.
This was the temporary camp of the 1st Battalion of the 33rd Infantry Regiment.
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