I, who was eager to retire, became an Imperial General.

Chapter 212 Floating Bridge, Mist, Smoke
At 3 p.m., in the command tent of the Imperial Independent 3rd Division Guard Regiment, east of Luoyue River.

Just as Hawke, pale-faced and frowning as he pondered the map, a series of hurried footsteps sounded. Siegfried, carrying a document recording the instructions, lifted the tarpaulin and entered. He then addressed Hawke, who looked up, in a deep voice:

"Sergeant Hawke, Commander John has just issued new instructions. This is the complete instruction translated by the communications officer, along with the original Morse code record. It has not been altered in any way. Please take a look."

"!"

Upon hearing this, Hawke, who had been hesitating whether to consult the battalion commander about when his unit should launch an attack on the enemy, immediately flipped over the document and began to examine it carefully.

Upon seeing the first translated word, Hawke's pupils constricted, and then, as if he understood something, a look of realization flashed in his eyes.

Then he started working his brain at lightning speed.

After he had completely deciphered John's true instructions and finally understood his mission, he breathed a long sigh of relief. An unprecedentedly excited smile appeared on his face as he spoke in a deep voice to Siegfried opposite him:

"Corporal Siegfried, immediately order 800 soldiers to cut down the surrounding trees and turn them into driftwood, and attempt to build at least ten bridges, each at least five meters wide!"

"In addition, before setting up, have the soldiers sprinkle the wood with enchanted pollen that can absorb magic. There is a large enchanted flower growing area about 600 meters southeast of our base. So the task of collecting the pollen can be assigned to 200 soldiers. It must be completed within four hours."

"Finally, have the remaining soldiers carry out the work of exploding ore and molten iron ore and sinking them into the river, and drive the magic cannon vehicle to the hillside about 300 meters to the east to await further instructions."

"Yes, Sergeant Hawke!"

Upon hearing Hawke's order, Siegfried dared not delay and immediately issued all the instructions to the guards to begin execution. However, as the guards began to move, the doubt and worry in his eyes became more and more obvious.

He seemed quite restless at this moment.

"Siegfried, you seem worried that Commander John's orders this time might have problems? And you also seem somewhat puzzled by the orders I gave?"

As if sensing Siegfried's confusion, Hawke, who had stopped thinking at some point and was now leisurely sipping his tea, immediately asked him with a smile.

"Yes, Sergeant Hawke, I have no objection to your interpretation of Commander John's deeper instructions, but don't you think that our actions in building the pontoon bridge seem a bit too reckless?"

Siegfried looked worried, but quickly realized he was questioning Commander John's plan, so he quickly changed his tune:
"Of course, this is just my personal opinion, and I am not questioning Commander John's orders."

"But the enemy has tens of thousands of troops, while we only have two thousand five hundred. Although we have beam magic cannons, I'm afraid that if the enemy uses our pontoon bridge to launch a counterattack against us, then..."

"It's a good thing that you're willing to use your brain to think, after all, it means you've taken another step on the road to becoming a general. However, this time you still underestimated our superior too much."

Meeting Siegfried's astonished gaze, Hawke smiled and fanned himself with his feather fan. He then stopped keeping him in suspense and revealed John's true plan in its entirety:

"Our plan to build this pontoon bridge is a feint to launch a general offensive against the enemy; our real intention is to lure them into a trap!"

"!"

Meeting Siegfried's surprised gaze, Hawke's eyes flashed with a sharp light. He then raised his hand to stroke his mustache, and then smiled as he spoke:

"Because I currently lack the magical power to support telepathic communication, I specifically used double encryption when sending this telegram to Lord John."

"The surface-level communication content corresponds to the Empire's common codebook, and the content is just to instruct our army to build driftwood and prepare for a general offensive against the enemy, but the actual deployment instructions are compiled through deep encryption."

"Although the two are on the same wavelength, the real content of the communication was not deciphered by the codebook of the Imperial General Forces. Instead, it was deciphered through Maslow's quotes. This can be known from the first word 'Maslow' in the surface communication, which seems to indicate that the communicating party is our own headquarters."

"The reason why Lord John did this was to allow the enemy's Morning Star commander to use the Fifth Legion's communications unit to capture and interpret the surface signals, thereby luring the enemy's engineering units to place magical mines under the pontoon bridge, attempting to trap and kill a large number of our troops who launched the 'general offensive'!"

"But what the enemy didn't know was that their act of setting traps was exactly what the battalion commander wanted!"

"Given that the Allied forces' magical mines emit magical power upon activation, I can use the active enchanted pollen, which I sprinkle on driftwood beforehand and which takes at least twelve hours to lose its effect, to successfully activate and detonate the mines the moment they are laid!"

"This will completely wipe out the enemy's engineering units, depriving them of the ability to detect and lay traps!"

"Ultimately, the enemy will no longer be able to identify the traps we have laid!"

"This is Commander John's true objective!"

"If you don't believe me, you can pick up a Morse code and check it now."

"!"

Upon hearing the true objective of their mission, Siegfried looked incredulous. Then, as if remembering something, he quickly picked up the Morse code he had been translating, as well as the Maslow quotes he always carried in his breast pocket.

He then followed the Morse code deciphering techniques that Sergeant Mia had taught him in his spare time, matching the words one by one from the quotations and piecing them together into a complete sentence.

Soon, a concise and efficient message, remarkably succinct compared to the lengthy task instructions deciphered from the surface code, caught his eye:

"Attack, decoy, pollen, driftwood, lure the enemy, mines, ambush, evacuate!"

"!"

Upon deciphering the true instructions, Siegfried's eyes immediately showed an unprecedented shock, and he was so amazed that he could hardly contain himself. But soon, he realized a completely new problem, and he couldn't help but look at Hawke with a puzzled expression.

"Are you asking me why I ordered the soldiers to throw explosive ore and molten iron into the riverbed?"

As if he had guessed this, Hawke explained with a smile before the other party could ask:
"The answer is actually quite simple; it lies in the word 'ambush' that His Excellency John left behind."

"This order seems to be that the battalion commander wants us to try to ambush the enemy troops who survived in the water from the opposite bank, but based on my understanding of the battalion commander, he is definitely not the kind of person who would put his own troops in a dangerous situation in order to ensure the victory of a small annihilation battle."

"After all, although our beam-guided magic artillery vehicles have a long range and can effectively attack the enemy heavy artillery units covering the engineer battalion on the other side of the river, the enemy forces that have locked onto our position after we fire a round can also launch artillery strikes against us." "But unlike the enemy forces with their large numbers, we are not in a position to engage in a war of attrition. Therefore, this means that our magic artillery vehicles can only launch one strike before they need to withdraw immediately."

"As is well known, the worst thing to do when retreating is to turn your back to the enemy. Moreover, in order to complete the mine laying, the enemy will definitely send out a large number of magic cannon vehicles for cover."

"If we simply launch an attack and then withdraw, our side is likely to suffer damage during the withdrawal due to the enemy's barrage of artillery fire, which would obviously be a loss for our army."

"But what if I buried something in the riverbed beforehand that could cause a large-scale explosion after detonation, and there were enough of them to blast the Luoyue River into collapsing its banks, allowing the river water mixed with a large amount of molten iron fragments to pour down towards the riverbank where the enemy troops were located, which had a relatively gentle slope?

Seeing Siegfried's pupils constrict as if he were imagining the scene about to unfold, his whole body trembling with excitement, Hawke's smile deepened compared to ever before. He then slowly placed the empty teacup he was holding on the command table, and then spoke in a calm yet chilling tone about the fate awaiting the enemy:

"That's right. With the property that the molten iron stone can melt metal and quickly devour it into coke when it collides with it, all the enemy magic cannons that are touched by the river will be turned into scrap metal in an instant, unable to move, unable to fire, and unable to pose any threat to our retreating troops."

"In other words, the enemy's artillery units that are about to be sent to cover the engineering corps in laying mines, no matter how many there are, will be completely destroyed in this ambush!"

"This is my true understanding of Battalion Commander John's great plan, and it is what amazes me and even makes me feel incredulous!"

"Because our great Lord John had already foreseen all of this three days ago when he issued the preparation order."

"Before the war even began, everything, even the future, had already been planned."

"With such a prophetic leader as Lord John, how could we possibly fail?!"

Hawke stood up with a fanatical expression. At this moment, the smile on his face was so intense that it could almost be described as ferocious.

He then raised his feather fan, pointed it at the fanatical Siegfried ahead, and spoke in a serious and resolute tone:
"His Excellency John has given us near-perfect instructions. Even if we lose a single soldier in this battle, it would be an insult to His Excellency!"

"So, I think, Siegfried, with the power of the Wild Hunt and the ability to inflict wide-area damage from a distance, now that you've lost the threat of enemy long-range artillery fire, you should know what you need to do next, right?!"

"Yes, I will annihilate all the enemy troops that have come without losing a single soldier!"

Finally, seemingly feeling that his promise wasn't solemn enough, Siegfried paused slightly, then gave a sharp military salute, and said with unprecedented seriousness:

"I swear in the name of the Fafner family that I will bring a perfect victory to the great Lord John this time!"

"despair!"

……

Meanwhile, on the other side, Edgar, from the 2nd Division stationed in the northern Cloud Peak Valley, also received new instructions from John through the magical communications soldier of the Functional Company:
"Divide into two forces and head to the Magnetic Energy Forest in the western part of Yunlu Valley. Carry out extensive logging there, taking advantage of the fact that the Magnetic Energy Forest is in full bloom during the summer and constantly producing magnetic pollen, creating a large amount of mist. Use wind magic to blow it towards the direction where the enemy might attack?"

"And then to the south, to the Shadow Frog monster's habitat behind enemy lines, to capture large numbers of Shadow Frogs, extract their internal toxins, and then use their mimicry spells to create the illusion of a troop encampment. They also create the illusion that their own troops are cooking by burning large amounts of wood and releasing smoke."

"!"

Upon seeing these two ambush orders, which could be described as wildly imaginative yet perfectly feasible, Edgar instantly realized how terrifying John's two orders were.

The former, through the fog of magnetic pollen, will cause the enemy's cannons to explode the moment they fire after the enemy discovers something amiss and attempts to fire upon us. Thus, we can directly destroy the enemy's magic cannon force before we even engage in battle.

The latter may seem like a feint to attract the enemy's attention, but in reality, Edgar only needs to mix the poison of the Arrow Frog into the smoke while creating the illusion of smoke, inducing the enemy troops who come to scout and attack to fall into a poisoned state. Then, by launching an ambush, he can easily annihilate the entire enemy force by taking advantage of their poisoned state!
Moreover, and most importantly, under these two ambushes set up using the power of nature, they, who should have been at a disadvantage due to the difference in numbers, would never encounter the enemy head-on from beginning to end.

Without even engaging in combat, these two commands are sufficient to strike the enemy.

Before this, Edgar had never imagined that traps could create such a terrifying advantage for his side in war.

This can't even be described as tactics; it's practically art!
Most importantly, John Maslow had never been to Faoken, and was in a completely unfamiliar place, not even a tourist.

How exactly did the other party manage to gather so much information about the terrain and species in just one month?

And how could they come up with such an astonishing combat method?
Even the specific effects of their own mimicry techniques were completely known to the other party.

You should know that with my authority as a major general, it would be impossible for the other party to access any information about me.

But the other party actually managed to do it in an extraordinary way.

He was simply, simply an inhuman monster!

"John Maslow, who exactly are you...?"

Edgar was increasingly shocked by what he thought about it and couldn't help but murmur unconsciously, but he quickly put that feeling of amazement and confusion behind him.

What replaced my feelings was an unprecedented excitement.

After seeing the contents of these two instructions, he already knew that what awaited his side this time was an unprecedented great victory.

And he will indeed, as John Maslow had previously promised, at least achieve the merit of annihilating an entire enemy division in this seemingly unequal war!
Even more!
Thinking of this, Edgar immediately stopped hesitating and waved his hand, speaking in a deep voice to the messenger who had been waiting beside him:

"Go and inform the army that all members of the 5th Regiment should assemble and head towards the magnetic energy forest 700 meters to the northwest. Upon arrival, immediately begin felling the magnetic energy trees. The remaining troops should immediately follow me to the area where the Shadow Frogs gather in the south to carry out the monster capture and toxin extraction mission. Execute immediately without fail!"

"Yes, General!"

……

　Grandpa is sick and hospitalized. His condition isn't good. I just got the call this morning. He has a high-speed train at 11:01 AM tomorrow, so he'll probably have to stay in the hospital for a while. I don't know if he'll recover. I guess I can only write about 4,000 words a day these days. I'll try to write as much as possible, so please bear with me, everyone.

　　
　
(End of this chapter)