Book 8: Chapter 111: Can it be defended?

General Darandel stood on the rock that jutted out of the mountain with a telescope in hand, looking at the Lampuri Kingdom’s camp under the mountain with a serious look on his face.

The Lampuri Kingdom’s army had been camped at the foot of the mountain for two days and had never done a thing which was a bit confusing.

But General Darandel didn’t dare underestimate them since the army he led now was guarding the most important pass into the past Candra Empire’s northern province. Once it was lost, the Marlow Empire’s controlled Candra Empire northern region would be open to the Lampuri Kingdom.

With the comparison in power between the two, if they couldn’t guard this easy to defend pass against the Lampuri Kingdom and let them enter the plains of the Candra Empire’s north, this would mean that the territory that the Marlow Empire worked so hard to control would be lost.

However……could they defend it?

General Darandel looked at the sky and revealed a bitter smile.

The Lampuri Kingdom’s combat Magic Airship could be considered better than the Marlow Empire’s in many aspects. When the two armies fought against each other, the Lampuri Kingdom would always have air supremacy and the Marlow Empire could only be restrained.

In order to combat this disadvantage in the air, the empire had even discussed restarting the magician corps. They wanted to pull the Great Magicians that they had accumulated in the empire over the years back to the battlefield, relying on them to deal with the Lampuri Kingdom’s Magic Airships.

On the surface, this idea wasn’t baseless.

Although the Magic Airships were powerful, because they were too big, they weren’t that nimble.

If they used powerful magicians to deal with it, with the current understanding of magic space that magicians had, it wouldn’t be the same as when they first met the Frestech Chamber of Commerce’s Magic Airships. It would be like they wouldn’t be able to do a thing when encountering the magic space freeze, having no chance to fight back.

But in reality, the feasibility of this idea was very low.

First, because of the «Magicians Peace Convention», very few Marlow Empire magicians were willing to go against this convention to rejoin the Marlow Empire’s army. It was because they would lose all chances of taking skill evaluations in the future, which would mean losing all chances to work in companies, research facilities, or taking other similar work opportunities.

Defending their country was the duty of the Marlow Empire magicians, but no one was willing to lose their future for this.

Second, even if the magicians were willing, the Marlow Empire wasn’t willing.

If they recruited the magicians again to join this war with the Lampuri Kingdom, this would be a clear violation of the «Magicians Peace Convention». It would be inevitable that the Marlow Empire would be recused by all the countries of the Sines Continent.

This would only be more disadvantageous with the Marlow Empire’s current situation.

Unless it was absolutely essential, the Marlow Empire wouldn’t be willing to adopt this approach that was filled with future problems.

Then again, even if they did do it, at most they would take back some air supremacy. It would be hard to completely suppress the Magic Airship squad of the Lampuri Kingdom.

As for wanting to rely on this to take advantage and defeat the Lampuri Kingdom, that was basically impossible.

Otherwise, even if the Marlow Empire was recused by the other countries, they still would have done this.

After destroying the Candra Empire, if they took care of the Lampuri Kingdom, the Marlow Empire would become the strongest country on the Sines Continent.

When that time comes, whether there was this convention or not, it wouldn’t matter.

But it was because they didn’t have this confidence that the Marlow Empire couldn’t make this decision.

In the distant skies, there were several black spots quickly flying over.

General Darandel didn’t need to look carefully to know that it should be the Lampuri Kingdom’s transport Magic Airships that were bringing in a new batch of supplies.

The same thing had happened over the past two days, he had already seen it four times. It could be seen that the Lampuri Kingdom were transporting supplies quite frequently.

But it was when he saw this that General Darandel felt even more doubt in his heart.

Since the Lampuri Kingdom was willing to use the transport Magic Airships to quickly bring in supplies, shouldn’t that mean that they would be putting up a fierce offense?

But they had done nothing at the foot of the hill for two days. Just what was going on?

The situation of the battlefield changed quickly, so doing anything was a race against time.

Any bit of time was precious, but the Lampuri Kingdom’s army had wasted two days here. This was simply a giant mistake in judgement.

Unless……they were coming up with some kind of plot.

Thinking of this, General Darandel put down the telescope in an annoyed manner. He took a large Magic Communicator from his guard and made a call.

“Hey, Hannitch, how is it on your side?”

“There’s nothing.” A calm and stable voice came from the Magic Communicator, “What? Did something happen on your side?”

“It would be good if something happened!” General Darandel gave a snort, “These damn Lampuri Kingdom people, they’ve already been at the foot of the hill for two days and they haven’t done anything. Just what are they thinking?”

“Perhaps they are just there to stop you.”

Hannitch who was on the other side was the same as General Darandel. They were both regiment commanders of the Marlow Empire army, both commanding a regiment and both of them were guarding places in the former Candra Empire.

Because the two were quite close and the places they were guarding weren’t far away, Darandel had frequently contacted Hannitch.

“What are they blocking me for? The empire isn’t prepared to counter attack yet, unless they plan on attacking us.” General Darandel muttered, “But looking at them now, that doesn’t seem to be the case.”

“It’s clear that the Frestech Chamber of Commerce is doing something with the Candra Empire fellows in the south and west. The Lampuri Kingdom is working with them.” Hannitch’s voice was quite calm.

“I really don’t know what the Frestech Chamber of Commerce is doing. If they really want to take the territory of the Candra Empire from the mouth of the empire, they could just take it with their guards, why would they need to do all this? This is simply so troublesome.” General Darandel’s tone was filled with disdain, “Everyone says that the Frestech Chamber of Commerce’s chairman Xu is the most brilliant person, but I think that he’s going senile.”

“If you don’t understand something, you should just shut your mouth.” Hannitch’s tone finally changed as he reprimanded General Darandel without any courtesy, “The things that someone like chairman Xu considers definitely are things that he has his own thoughts about, but we just can’t understand it right now.”

General Darandel gave a helpless sigh, “Alright, you’ve always been a loyal supporter of Xu Yi, I really shouldn’t have talked about this with you. Speaking of this……Hannitch, if you weren’t from the Marlow Empire, you would have already been a part of the Frestech Chamber of Commerce, right?”

“If you understood chairman Xu, you would feel the same deep admiration as me for him.” Hannitch’s tone was very serious, “But that doesn’t mean that I would join the Frestech Chamber of Commerce. Moreover, this isn’t the time to discuss this with you. The empire wants us to guard these two places to keep the northern part of the Candra Empire stable. After the empire has digested the region, I believe that they will have further plans. As for right now, let the Lampuri Kingdom and the Frestech Chamber of Commerce play around in the south.”

“Of course I understand this, but just having someone blocking this mountain and not letting us out feels very uncomfortable.” General Darandel complained.

“If you think that you can win, then I’m not against you leading people to fight them.” Hannitch said in a cold voice.”

“I’m not crazy.” General Darandel grumbled before decisively hanging up.

That meaningless conversation with Hannitch was just to calm the annoying feeling in General Darandel’s heart.

Hannitch was already used to him doing this, so the two didn’t talk about much and just simply chatted.

Seeing General Darandel put down the Magic Communicator, one of the guards came over and gave him a report.

“General, this is the combat readiness report that just came in.”

General Darandel knitted his brows, but he still took the report with a sigh.

Although he was already prepared, after reading the report, General Darandel felt his head ache even more.

Compared to yesterday’s report, the combat readiness of their regiment had actually become worse.

The report showed that just yesterday, there were two Magic Cannons that had problems. One of them had the firing array expire while the other had problems with the barrel, so it couldn’t fire.

At the same time, when it came to their stock of Magic Shells, in just a single day, they found that thirteen of them had expired.

Adding in the thirty seven Magic Rifles that had various problems, the Magic Tank that had its tracks fall off, as well as over a hundred eggs that disappeared from the warehouse for no reason…..

All kinds of problems appeared that annoyed General Darandel and he couldn’t help kicking the tree beside him.

“Damn! Those fellows at the logistics department are all eating shit!”

A small problem like a hundred eggs missing could be ignored, but when their new weapons broke down each day, General Darandel couldn’t take it.

His regiment’s military magic machines were already inferior to the Lampuri Kingdom’s and with more failures each day each day, if this continued, without needing to fight the Lampuri Kingdom, they wouldn’t be able to hold on.

Thinking of this, he couldn’t help cursing those fellows at the Marlow Empire’s logistics department.

Other than the five regiments that were under the royal family, the logistics department would always provide other regiments with failing armaments or even embezzle supplies.

The military magic machines that were given to his subordinates, first not talking about how there weren’t enough of them, there were even problems with the quality.

But he knew that there were times that he couldn’t blame the logistics department.