Morin and his five men quickly cycled away from San Isidro village.
The aftertaste of the stimulating drink still lingered in his mouth—bitter and burnt—making him stick out his tongue every now and then. He truly had never tasted such awful coffee.
The country road was bumpy, the wheels crunching over gravel and dirt. As Morin rode, he focused part of his attention on the minimap in the upper-left corner of his vision. Perhaps because the system had accessed the Battalion’s military map, Morin’s own ‘system map’ had updated its information. The area stretching ahead to Seville now showed specific details, though still covered by a semi-transparent layer of ‘fog of war.’ As they advanced, this layer representing the unknown road ahead slowly receded, centered on them, revealing clearer terrain details. It felt strange, like playing a real-time strategy game and personally controlling the reconnaissance unit to explore the map.
“Don’t just focus on the road ahead!” Morin quietly reminded the men behind him. “Keep an eye on the woods and high ground on both sides of the road. Tell me immediately if anything looks suspicious!”
“Yes, sir!” Corporal Bowman immediately responded.
The others also raised their heads, vigilantly scanning their surroundings. They simply took this as a routine command born of their Platoon Leader’s caution, unaware that each of their sightlines was providing valuable information that refreshed the minimap’s content for Morin.
In the previous battles, Morin had roughly discovered how this ‘system map’ updated its information: any unit that appeared within a friendly unit’s field of vision would be displayed on the map, regardless of whether the friendly unit itself noticed or recognized it. See? When it comes to ‘cheating,’ the system map is indeed quite sophisticated.
Morin and his team’s first objective for the mission was the next village marked on the map, called Alcolea. Morin’s plan was to first scout the village perimeter. If it was safe, they would go inside to check the situation and allow this hastily assembled reconnaissance team to gel. Then, depending on the situation, they would proceed to scout further toward Seville.
Perhaps luck was on their side. The journey was uneventful; they didn’t run into a soul. About two hundred meters from Alcolea village, Morin signaled with his hand, and everyone immediately understood, slowing down and dismounting.
“Dismount, push the bikes, and find a place to hide.”
They pushed their bicycles into a patch of dense woods by the roadside, carefully laid the bikes down behind some bushes, and used branches and leaves for simple camouflage.
“Remember this location,” Morin pointed to a nearby dead tree that looked like it had been struck by lightning. “We need to retreat back here later!” He twisted open his canteen and took a drink, signaling the others to quickly hydrate.
After a brief rest, the six men, carrying their rifles, moved toward the village in a loose formation. Morin walked in front, his eyes darting between the village entrance and the surrounding houses. His finger was habitually resting on the trigger guard.
He looked back and saw that Corporal Bowman and the other soldiers all had their index fingers resting on the trigger, poised to fire at any moment. His heart instantly tensed, and he immediately signaled for everyone to stop.
“Take your fingers off the triggers and put them on the guard! Remember this!” he reprimanded in a harsh whisper. “I don’t want some idiot’s slippery foot to accidentally discharge a round and shoot me in the ass! Or expose all of us!”
Though slightly unaccustomed to the order, the soldiers immediately complied.
The group cautiously slipped into the village, sticking close to the shadows of the earth walls. Surprisingly, the village was peaceful. Children chased and played games on the dirt roads, women washed clothes and chatted by the well nearby, and a few old men even sat by their doorways, basking lazily in the sun. There was no hint of the war’s shadow here; it felt as if they had stumbled into a secluded paradise. This unusual calm raised the alarm in Morin’s mind to the highest level.
He decided to question a villager, a practice known as ‘civilian reconnaissance.’ Morin winked at Corporal Bowman, who understood, and stepped forward to stop an old farmer passing by with a hoe.
Unexpectedly, the old farmer, upon seeing the armed soldiers, seemed surprised but not panicked. Corporal Bowman pointed toward Seville, made a few hand gestures, and spoke a few words that were clearly not Saxon (German). The old farmer looked at the tall foreign soldier with confusion, muttering something in another language, and waved his hands repeatedly.
“Sir, he doesn’t understand the Aragon I’m speaking…” Corporal Bowman turned back helplessly.
“Are you sure you’re speaking Aragon?”
“…”
Morin frowned, then looked at the others. Everyone shook their heads, indicating that besides a few officers in the platoon who knew simple phrases, the enlisted men did not speak Aragon. This was a problem.
Just as Morin was about to give up and circle the village for other clues, the old farmer spoke a long string of words to him.
A strange thing happened. The hurried and unfamiliar syllables coming from the old man, the moment they reached Morin’s ears, were as if automatically translated; he understood the man’s meaning completely.
“If you are looking for those black-uniformed soldiers, they left quite a while ago…”
Morin was stunned. He instinctively opened his mouth, and fluent Aragon came out. “My friend, do you mean there were black-uniformed soldiers in the village earlier?”
The moment the words left his mouth, not only was the farmer opposite him stunned, but Morin himself was shocked, and the soldiers behind him, including Corporal Bowman, widened their eyes.
“Hey, Second Lieutenant, you can speak Aragon…”
Immediately after, a flood of fragmented memories poured into his mind. It was a scene in Dresden, the capital of the Saxon Empire, in a brightly lit ballroom, where the original owner of this body was holding a wine glass, fluently flirting with an Aragon noblewoman studying in Saxon; another memory was in an art salon, where he was discussing the latest paintings with an artist’s wife in Gallic (French); he even recalled a holiday in Vienna, where he used the local dialect, however poor, to successfully flirt with a chambermaid.
It turned out that the original owner of this body—the man General Mackensen called a ‘guy whose bones were softened by alcohol’—had actually put in the hard work to learn so many foreign languages, purely for the purpose of seducing women at high-society parties and salons in various countries during peacetime. For that playboy, language was not knowledge; it was a key to different forms of feminine companionship.
“Damn, this guy was a talent.” Morin silently gave the original owner a thumbs up. Although the motivation was impure, this skill was a godsend right now.
“You speak our language?” The old farmer was surprised to hear the fluent Aragon.
“Just a little.” Morin composed himself and continued in Aragon: “So, do you know how many of those black-uniformed soldiers there were, and which direction they went?”
“About an hour ago, maybe a few hundred of them passed through the east side of the village. They were loud and even stole several chickens!” The old farmer raised his wrinkled hand and pointed toward Seville. “They went that way.”
Having obtained the critical information, Morin kindly asked a few more questions about the village and the surrounding terrain. The old farmer answered them one by one. Finally, Morin had Corporal Bowman hand over an unfinished black bread, stuffing it into the old man’s hand.
“Thank you for your time, my friend.”
With that, he quickly led his men out of the village.
Back at the concealed spot in the woods, Corporal Bowman could no longer contain himself. He walked over, his face full of reverence. “Sir, you speak Aragon? My God, how did you learn that?”
Morin couldn’t possibly say it was to chase women. He cleared his throat and assumed a profound expression. “Just a smattering, it was a compulsory course at the military academy.” He quickly dismissed the topic with a fabricated excuse, his expression turning serious. “The situation has changed. A Royal Army unit of several hundred men just left here an hour ago and is heading toward Seville.”
Morin unfolded the simplified map, pointing at a spot. “But we don’t know if they returned directly to Seville or plan to set up an ambush on the outskirts. So, we need to scout a little further ahead.”