Steel, Explosives, and Spellcasters

The military academy was no treasure vault; the Army Officer\'s Military Academy could be described as extremely poor. The army\'s educational philosophy was always to save wherever possible, taking the saved money to establish even more schools.

In such a place so poor that even a mouse would cry upon entering, it was also filled with strong and vigorous young men.

Thieves had no business there, let alone ghosts who would also stay clear.

For the school authorities, the primary purpose of night patrols was to prevent the occasional student from sneaking out after hours. But catching a couple of students trying to sneak out of the dormitory didn\'t require weapons. Also, having students catch their peers wasn\'t very reliable; Winters himself had slipped out to play multiple times while his classmates stood night watch, returning in the middle of the night. And every time, he walked out through the main gate without the need to climb over any walls.

After ambling around for a while, night had fully fallen, and lights-out time had passed. The military academy at night had bid farewell to the daytime\'s hustle and bustle, and the silent school shrouded in darkness was like a wild beast lurking in the shadows. Winters often felt this way on night patrol: the academy at night wasn\'t an inanimate object; it was constantly breathing rhythmically.

The nearby neighborhoods, like the military academy, had entered slumber. Only the distant port area was still awake, where they could vaguely see specks of light. That was the territory of revelers and service industry workers still seeking entertainment.

Outside the military academy walls, close to the residential area, there were a few simple stone tables. The tables were shaded by several broad-leaf trees which provided shelter from the sun on clear days and from the rain. These stone tables were put up by the neighborhood\'s residents, who usually set up stalls on them to do business with officer students.

Seeing those stone tables, Winters thought about resting for a while and suggested to Bard, pointing, "Let\'s go sit there for a bit."

"Sure, let\'s sit for a bit. I wanted to have a smoke anyway," Bard agreed, noticing that Winters didn\'t want to move anymore.

The wind tonight was a bit strong, blowing from the direction of the sea onto the land. It brought a lot of moisture, and the skies above Guidao City were already obscured by clouds. The moonlight, weakened after passing through the clouds, barely improved the walkability of the path compared to a night with no moon at all.

Winters, recalling his geography lessons, frowned and said, "Looking at this wind direction and cloud cover, it might rain tomorrow."

Rain wasn\'t good news for someone about to embark on a journey home.

As they sat down at the stone table, the wind blowing in from the sea dried the sweat on their bodies and took away a significant amount of their surface heat. The daytime\'s dry heat had disappeared, leaving a cool night.

From his small shoulder bag, Bard pulled out an old pipe. First, he packed it with some shredded tobacco leaves, then he pressed it down, and repeated this "packing and pressing" process two more times.

Once Bard had finished packing the tobacco, Winters\'s left hand held a gesture with his thumb pressing down on his index finger and used a fire-starting spell to light the tobacco in Bard\'s pipe bowl. This was one of the little perks of being a friend of a spellcaster; with Winters around, Bard never had to worry about finding a light for his smoke.

"Aike was saying today how he envies me, but if he finds out that the greatest benefit of being a spellcaster is the convenience of lighting a smoke, I wonder if he\'d still speak enviously," Winters thought to himself with a touch of self-mockery.

In that era, a significant portion of men were either smokers or alcoholics, with many possessing both identities. In a time lacking in entertainment options, many who did not smoke or drink didn\'t abstain out of choice, but because they couldn\'t afford it.

However, Winters neither smoked nor drank, and he refused to try any potentially addictive stimulants. This was because Antoine-Laurent believed that these addictive "poisons" would corrode a Spellcaster\'s will, numb their perception, and destroy their Spellcasting abilities. Winters regarded General Antoine-Laurent as a god; he always took Antoine-Laurent\'s words as the absolute truth and thus resolutely avoided such things.

Seeing Bard draw a comfortable puff of smoke and then exhale leisurely, Winters finally decided to ask a question that had been weighing on him. He asked Bard with concern, "Have you found out where you\'re going to be assigned?"

Under the dim light of the fire, Bard\'s expression remained unchanged, unaffected by Winters\' question.

"I didn\'t inquire," Bard answered calmly after taking a puff of his cigarette, "but it\'s easy to guess even without asking – it\'ll just be an overseas deployment."

After this statement, Bard continued to focus on smoking, an activity that harmed his health but which he seemingly enjoyed, appearing totally unconcerned about being sent overseas by the military.

"An overseas deployment is not such an easy matter," Bard spoke casually, but his words alarmed Winters instantly.

Yet Bard smiled at Winters as if to say "it\'s nothing" and continued to quietly smoke his cigarette.

Winters glanced at Bard, then at the nighttime cityscape of Guidao City, and finally at the sleeping school, before he sighed helplessly. Although Bard himself did not seem to pity his situation, Winters felt distressed for him.

An overseas deployment, in the strict sense, referred to military academy graduates being sent to major and minor nodes along sea trade routes. The two closest destinations from the motherland were the Holy Rome Empire and the Freeman Empire, both of which had world-renowned capital cities where the Alliance had consulates. Serving as a military officer in the consulates of these glamorous worlds was a coveted easy job.

However, the "overseas deployment" that Winters and Bard referred to was obviously not such a desirable assignment; they meant deployment to places that were both further and more dangerous.

Tomorrow, Winters would start his journey home. He would be interning for a year in his ancestral Sea Blue Republic. Next year at this time, Winters would have to return to school. Because, strictly speaking, he hadn\'t truly graduated yet; this year, he was just interning with the rank of Acting Ensign.

But for those assigned an overseas deployment, once they boarded the ship bound overseas, they could kiss the idea of returning home goodbye. They wouldn\'t even be able to attend the graduation ceremony next year, because the time spent on the round trip alone would exceed a year.

In name, the officers dispatched to the various trade points were there to protect the Alliance\'s overseas interests, but oftentimes they were just commanders without soldiers. With no troops or power, they naturally had no chance of distinguishing themselves. The only ways to return home were either in a coffin or after retirement.

To understand why Bard was targeted for overseas deployment while Winters was not, one must understand the officer assignment system of the Army Military Academy. To understand the assignment system of the Army Military Academy, one needs to start from the beginning of its establishment.

One of the objectives of the old marshal in founding this military academy was to bridge the gaps between the member states of the Alliance Country, especially the divisions between their militaries.

Because the Alliance Country is not strictly a "nation" but an "alliance," its full name is the Senas Republic Alliance. The political environment of the Alliance could be described with the classic saying of former Alliance Country State Secretary Humphrey: "Nation? Are we even a (expletive) nation? Aren\'t we just five primitive tribes with mutual animosity?"