Morin and his team quickly mounted their bicycles and chased at full speed in the direction the peasant had indicated the Royal Army unit had vanished.
The country dirt road, having been heavily traversed by several hundred soldiers and wagons, left an incredibly clear track, requiring no effort to follow.
“Sir, look!” Corporal Bowman pointed to a military cap in the roadside grass. It was a worn Aragon Royal Army cap, its visor smeared with mud, obviously dropped by a soldier during the march who couldn’t be bothered to retrieve it.
Morin merely glanced at it and kept pedaling.
They hadn’t cycled far when they saw a discarded ammunition box, thrown carelessly in the middle of the road. It was empty. Further ahead, piles of untreated horse manure were scattered along the road like markers. Morin couldn’t help but inwardly laugh. This was no regular army marching; it was clearly a disorganized rabble on a picnic. This level of military professionalism was worse than the college students on forced marches in his previous life—at least they knew to carry their trash out.
“It seems they are indeed heading straight back to Seville,” Morin called back to Corporal Bowman.
The trail indicated a very clear line of march with no signs of splitting up or setting ambushes. It was astonishing they felt so confident (or were so ignorant) that the Saxons wouldn’t pursue them so quickly.
This confidence, or rather, carelessness, provided excellent cover for Morin and his men. They followed the Royal Army’s self-made ‘trail of breadcrumbs’ unimpeded, pushing south.
As they drew closer to Seville, the terrain began to rise gently. Finally, as they pedaled to the crest of a small hill, the sight before them brought everyone to a halt.
About two kilometers ahead, the ancient outer buildings of Seville were faintly visible. On a plateau outside the city, a military unit was resting, and an Aragon Royal Army flag fluttered at the top of the high ground.
“Found them.” Morin took the binoculars from around his neck and adjusted the focus. Through the lenses, he could clearly see the Royal Army soldiers in black uniforms. Their numbers matched the peasant’s description; it must be the unit that had passed through Alcolea village. If the Royal Army unit structure was similar to that of the Saxon Empire, this was about half a battalion of troops.
Tents and hastily constructed earthworks were already taking shape on the high ground. Soldiers in black uniforms moved back and forth in small groups. Some were even openly starting fires near the forward edge of the position, showing no sign of vigilance. Morin’s gaze swept across the high ground, and soon, some strange objects caught his attention.
Further back on the plateau, several peculiar-looking ‘cannons’ were deployed. They did not resemble any artillery used by the Saxon Army, and they were significantly different from the conventional barrel artillery Morin knew. The barrel was unusually wide and short, like a mortar, and its carriage structure and the short barrel appeared to be inlaid with some kind of glowing crystals.
Just as Morin felt perplexed, the system interface in his mind automatically popped up a semi-transparent window. As his vision focused on the strange ‘cannons,’ a new line of information appeared.
[Special unit detected. Information analysis in progress…] [Aragon Royal Army – Aetherium Crystal Cannon Emplacement] [Weapon Model: Britannian ‘Comet’ Type I Aetherium Crystal Cannon] [Effective Range: 4,500 meters] [Ammunition Type: High-Efficiency Aetherium Crystal Shells, Fragmentation Aetherium Crystal Shells]
“Aetherium Crystal Cannon?” Morin muttered the name to himself, a premonition of danger rising in his heart. This thing sounded serious; it was likely a product of this world’s unique Magitek.
He shifted his gaze back to his system map. On the outskirts of the Seville town icon, two distinct red unit markers had appeared on the plateau they had just spotted. They represented the half-battalion of Royal Army infantry and the Aetherium Crystal Cannon emplacement behind them.
What made his scalp crawl even more was that as he continued to observe the surroundings through the binoculars, several more red rhombus markers, representing large-scale units, popped up one after another in the southeastern direction of Seville on the map. This suggested that the Royal Army and the Britannians likely believed that the outer villages alone could not stop the combined assault of the Saxons, the National Army, and the International Brigades. So, they had condensed their defense lines to the city suburbs, relying on these unknown Aetherium Crystal Cannons to establish a complete defensive circle.
Their six-man reconnaissance team’s current position was deep within the heart of this defensive circle, having passed all the outer villages. On the map, their small golden star marker looked incredibly isolated amid a vast red zone of enemy forces.
“Damn it…” Morin lowered his binoculars, a layer of cold sweat forming on his forehead. I overdid it. I charged in too deep.
Because the Royal Army had not set up any checkpoints on the road leading to Seville, Morin and his men had traveled unimpeded, moving much faster than Morin had anticipated.
The soldiers around him had not yet realized the severity of the danger; they were merely impressed by the scale of the enemy position and the sight of weapons they had never seen before. Only Morin, with the God’s-eye view of the map, clearly saw their predicament.
The good news was that this reconnaissance run had indeed yielded a wealth of valuable information that would greatly assist the subsequent offensive.
But the bad news was that their current situation was extremely dangerous.
“Sir, should we—” Corporal Bowman noticed the change in Morin’s complexion and nervously leaned closer.
Morin took a deep breath, forcing himself to calm down. As the backbone of the team, panicking now would be useless and would only lead to everyone dying here. He quickly pushed his bicycle to the hidden spot behind the slope, lowered his body, and made a ‘concealment’ gesture to the others.
“We might have gone a little too deep.”
“What do we do now, sir? Do we retreat?” Corporal Bowman and the other soldiers crowded around, their faces etched with tension.
Morin did not answer immediately. He lay prone on the hillside, raising his binoculars again to carefully observe the distant enemy positions, his mind racing.
Retreat? No. Now that they were here, how could he go back after only seeing this much? Although the Royal Army’s defensive deployment looked tight, the relaxed state of their soldiers suggested glaring vulnerabilities everywhere.
“Since we’re already here…” A classic line from his previous life popped into Morin’s mind. Since they had already penetrated the tiger’s den, retreating now would be a missed opportunity.
No risk, no reward. High risk also meant high returns. As long as they could obtain valuable intelligence, facilitating a smoother subsequent attack and minimizing casualties for the main force, his own chances of survival would significantly increase. This adventure would be worth it.
(End of Chapter 20)