บท 17: Job Well Done
The whistling of bullets could be heard traveling around a small steep hill and the loud sound of gunshots echoing clearly showed a conflict unfolding.
"Shit! There are too many now! Guys keep your heads down! Only fire back when a mage has built up a shield that you can use as cover!" Eli was shouting orders around and projected a mana shield in front of himself and kneeled up.
Scanning the situation he fired a few rounds and killed someone across the river on the other side.
But only after shooting three rounds a lot of bullets came his way back and scratched his defensive shell. He had to duck to get back behind cover.
Eli was just quick enough as his shield shattered above his head into fragments.
Using these makeshift formulae without a computation orb was practically useless if you had not enough time to build-up more mana into it.
They were sent on this exercise as infantry units and had no mage equipment with them.
"Reports!", shouted Eli again.
"Running low on ammo!", shouted another soldier a few paces away. "Same here!" echoed another.
"Rabbit 10!?", asked Eli using the short distance radio channel and looked to confirm if the brat he was supposed to protect was still doing fine.
"Requesting a retreat! We are getting pushed back further! They are trying to cross the river! We have injured!", said Tanya back over the radio in a frantic voice.
"Tsk, come on, Yuri. Where is the signal?", asked Eli himself and looked up from his cover to shoot some of those daredevils that tried to cross the river.
Killing a few he discouraged them and they ran back to take cover. That was of course not without a price to pay.
His shield was not dense enough and a shot ricocheted from it after it shattered and the hit sliced past his right shoulder.
"UGH! SHIT!! YURI, GET YOUR ARSE HERE!", screamed Eli out in pain and hid back behind cover.
And as if speaking of the devil the sound of explosions resounded on the other side of the river.
"Hell yes! About time. Everyone! The cavalry is here! Shoot any strugglers that try to escape!" With that order, all the cadets that were covering behind cover stood up and fired as soon as they saw an enemy in their iron sights.
Some mages that had some ammo left threw it over to the guys without magic and concentrated mostly on shielding while trusting their comrades to shot enough so that they would not become targets.
On the other side in the open flank behind the enemy, Yuri was also looking through his iron sight with silver eyes and mana swirling around his gun.
The others beside him also kneeled with him and concentrated a lot of mana. Each soldier's eyes were glowing brightly and each volley from their gun downhill exploded among at least 5 enemies.
The rebels became disorganized being attacked from two flanks and started to rout. That was the difference between soldiers and militia.
That fact was also why he wanted Mika's unit. It was the only unit with incredibly talented mages that could become even aerial mages. And they were the ones he could be certain about that could keep up with his demand to shoot artillery class rounds.
One actually had to differentiate between ground mages and aerial mages. The most talented and gifted with magic more often than not would be drafted into the aerial mage units while the one´s that were of worse talent went to the infantry to boost strength there.
In Yuri´s opinion that was actually a rather wasteful thing to do since mages that are not in the aerial unit could be much better support units than to let them die in vain at the front. Even weaker mages could become essential like healers for stabilizing wounded until treatment is underway.
Whatever the people thought about mages currently was still too undeserving of their status. But of course one should not value their lives way above the normal soldiers.
It's just such an unimaginable waste.
"Fire!" With a resounding volley of another bombardment, Yuri´s eyes dimmed a little bit and they became bright blue.
"Contact!", shouted an MP that started firing at incoming rebels that tried to attack their position.
"Engage! We have riled them up enough for us to take the advantage and steamroll them to the ground! The others are also pursuing and pushing from the other side!"
Those words were true and soon Yuri engaged in a firefight with a few rebels until the bodies fell to the snow and slowly dyed the ground red once again.
Later a few men were groaning while being tied up.
Those were the ones that were reasonable enough to lay their guns down. Of course, Yuri had the right to disregard their surrender and be a terror prince but he wanted to keep going by the rules, and having a few captives where the empire could squeeze out information was never bad.
"Well done holding out long enough, Eli. And you as well, Tanya.", smiled Yuri now and bumped Eli his still hurting shoulder.
"Urgh, I will get you for that later." Eli smiled while his arm still pained and felt numb. But because both knew it was only a grazing shot they joked around.
Tanya seemed to want to say something after noticing the way he behaved and addressed her but then closed her little mouth before any words came out. She produced a weird friendly smile. "Of course! I did what I was told and did my utmost fulfilling that order."
Yuri now raised a brow at that response. "Weird, I swear I heard something about a retreat? Maybe I heard wrong?" A grin appeared on his face while teasing this little girl.
And by the looks, it worked since Tanya averted her gaze.
Yuri sighed. "Just joking. You did a good call there. Any more and retreat would have been the only acceptable option that you guys should have taken. Even the stubborn idiot here knows that." He pointed towards Eli again.
That roused another groan from him
"Anyway, let's get these gentlemen to their vacation resort."
*Rabbit 01, please come in. This is CP.* The radio around his neck was resounding.
"Well, look at this timing..." He pressed on his neck to activate the speak button. "This is Rabbit 01 speaking.", answered Yuri back over the long-range radio and looked at the captives in front of him.
*Reinforcements coming in at 300 at area 34D*
"Thanks for the information, CP. We have some nicely packed late Christmas gifts for our friends waiting here.", said Yuri back with a smile.
*...Please repeat?*
Yuri sighed lightly. "We have engaged rebel activists and taken some of them hostage. We also found their operation base and neutralized it. There were also a few MPs that are now all safe with us."
There was a long pause that let Yuri think for a second that they got cut off again, but the response still came.
*Understood, Rabbit 01. HQ is congratulating you. And we from CP are also thanking you guys for this amazingly quick response that was done so well. We can't wait for the gifts you prepared. You guys can come back to base.*
"Roger that. Over and out." Yuri smiled and looked at his soldiers. "Okay, everyone. Time to celebrate our success over some hot wine punch!"
A lot of the cadets cheered because they had no casualty besides a few wounded. But even those guys smiled and cheered. Of course, they would love and appreciate some alcoholic warm drinks by now.
สถานะพลังงานรายสัปดาห์
-- การจัดอันดับด้วยพลัง 
-- หินพลัง