Chapter 534

Seven minutes ago, 5:50 PM.

— [Your Excellency, following the advance Baden forces, we have completed the deployment of our troops throughout the operation area.]

— [Your Excellency, there have been no unusual developments outside yet. We will continue monitoring the situation and report immediately if anything occurs.]

I focused on all the voices coming through my left ear. For now, my colleagues and staff were the ones contacting me, but before long, I would hear the voice of the Senior General of the Army.

Naturally, the supreme commander of this operation was His Majesty King Hildegard. The king was always the supreme commander, no matter the circumstances. Then who was the field commander? His Majesty as well. Like Friedrich the Great—not the Friedrich of the present day, but the Friedrich the Great of our history¹—he personally commanded important military operations. General Oettingen, one of His Majesty’s subordinates, relayed the king’s orders to us, and we moved accordingly. I had also been appointed as the king’s adjutant, a position given to me in preparation for taking part in field command during an emergency, though it had yet to have any practical effect.

The fact that I had to command a brigade was not an overwhelming burden, but it was enough to weigh heavily on my shoulders. I was a lieutenant colonel in Bavaria’s Special Operations Department, HfS, an organization similar to the Imperial Special Operations Command while also serving as a secret intelligence agency like Bavaria’s former intelligence service. I had been given this rank because I had been accorded the status of a quasi-founder when the organization’s structure, purpose, and functions were reorganized. As far as I knew, there was sufficient precedent for this much, and in the first place, the entire arrangement had been part of the kingdom’s strategy to place Nikolaus Ernst in a position where he could exercise broader authority.

However, most of the HfS mages were, naturally, also attached to the Royal Army’s 1st or 4th Corps. I alone had been separated from them, and as a lieutenant colonel, I was serving as the acting commander of a brigade stationed in Bayreuth under Nuremberg’s 3rd Army Corps.

For one thing, our operation was geographically important. For another, the idea of a lieutenant colonel being given an acting command and put in charge of a brigade was, no matter how you looked at it, rather awkward². It brought to mind the precedent in the United States of a captain being rapidly promoted to acting brigadier general³. Even there, it would have been an unusual arrangement, but in Germany, it was even more so. After all, on the surface, I was neither royalty nor a nobleman.

An arrangement this unusual could only be possible when there was a general understanding that the circumstances were more serious than usual.

Most of the HfS mages were, naturally, also attached to the Royal Army’s 1st or 4th Corps. I alone was assigned elsewhere, serving as a lieutenant colonel and m. d. F. b.⁴ for the brigade stationed in Bayreuth under Nuremberg’s 3rd Corps.

For one thing, our operation was geographically important. For another, the idea of a lieutenant colonel being given an acting command and put in charge of a brigade was, no matter how you looked at it, rather awkward. It brought to mind the precedent in the United States of a captain being rapidly promoted to acting brigadier general. Even there, it would have been an unusual arrangement, but in Germany, it was even more so. After all, on the surface, I was neither royalty nor nobility.

An arrangement this unusual could only be possible when there was a general understanding that the circumstances were more serious than usual.

“Your Excellency.”

5:55. It was time for me to go. Before leaving, I turned around. The secretary looked into my eyes and spoke with conviction.

“I’ll pray that God’s grace be with you, Your Excellency.”

I had never told them that I was an atheist to the very core of my being, and that no matter how I thought about it, I could never become a believer. I was simply grateful that he cared enough to pray for me, so I didn’t want to stop him.

“Then please pray that grace may be with Bavaria and all the people of Europe.”

“I will.”

I shook the secretary’s hand one last time. As he held my hand, his face was filled with worry, yet at the same time, he seemed to be touched by a faint sense of bliss as he thought of all the glory Bavaria would gain once the operation was over and all the lives of its citizens we would preserve. Still, he was more anxious than optimistic. I could tell from the way his shoulders remained tense and raised.

Everyone would be the same. Even if all the efforts we had painstakingly accumulated since last year would carry us through, we were not the kind of people who could remain optimistic with a watershed before us.

I gave his hand one firm squeeze before letting go, then warped to the coordinates I had received in advance.

5:56. I arrived inside Bamberg City Hall. The areas where civilians lived were still alive with the festive mood. The river, the wind, the sunlight…. I thought of the hymns that would be playing in every home and the dinners that would be as plentiful as those of Thanksgiving. I thought of the brilliant red sunset and twilight that would settle over the land by the time we finished the operation.

I didn’t want to disturb this peace in the slightest.

I looked at the members of the brigade. There were two regiments, but they had been reorganized so thoroughly that they were almost nothing more than operational teams. Even though the mages did not belong to HfS, we had to maintain a special-forces-style organization. There was no other way.

But something bothered me here…

Why hadn’t I been assigned, as would normally be expected, to a brigade under the 1st or 4th Corps? ‘Why’ was it the 3rd Corps’ mage unit, rather than the 1st Corps’ mage unit or the 4th Corps, that was entering Bamberg—the most crucial point of all, where they would naturally have been expected to enter?

First, there was also the fact that the position of commander of the 10th Infantry Brigade was vacant, but I’ll exclude that since His Majesty had deliberately left it vacant. More importantly, the 1st and 4th Corps were based in Munich. Even if Pleroma didn’t necessarily use the actual geography of a given diocese when constructing its terrain, there was a greater likelihood that it did. One need only remember that Einsiedel’s Diocese of Osnabrück had used the library building of the University of Göttingen, which was located within the diocese, as its archive. I also knew from my experience in the Extra Chapter that the Bishop of Bamberg had been based somewhere in central or northern Bavaria for more than a decade.

As I had thought earlier, I had reconsidered the existence of the lever in the square four times. To reduce these repetitive turns of events and improve our chances, even if only slightly, it made sense to deploy people familiar with the geography. There were no mage forces stationed in Bamberg, only a non-mage cavalry brigade. Nuremberg and Bayreuth were nearby cities, and most of the mages in the brigade under my command were either local nobles or had trained in the surrounding area for a long time. Two of the three Catacombs members who had joined us as allied forces were also from Bamberg. The Catacombs leadership had taken it upon themselves to assign battle mages living in various parts of the country to us.

The order we would receive next would be simple: isolate the Archdiocese of Bamberg and the Diocese of Eichstätt within three minutes. It was a plan I had devised, so unless His Majesty rejected it, I believed things would proceed exactly this way.

Three minutes. This operation concentrated all the information and tools we had accumulated so far. Only then could we swiftly isolate the Archdiocese of Bamberg and the Diocese of Eichstätt within three minutes. The more time we allowed them, the better their chances would become.

As soon as I arrived, I sent out a communication and lit a cigarette. This was different from the one Leonard and I had smoked earlier. It was the one Emanuel had used when he knocked me unconscious. Of course, we had all already taken medicine to make the cigarette’s magic ineffective on us.

I turned toward the battle mage from the Catacombs standing in the row directly behind me. Like every mage here, they wore a monocle, held in place with mana. General Oettingen’s voice came through beside my ear.

— [5:57 PM. Entry begins as of this time. Within three minutes, isolate the Bamberg–Eichstätt Diocese from the Bamberg Vicariate.]

“Claudia Neumann, and Vanessa Heckel.”

One was a Catacombs battle mage, and the other was a Royal Army battle mage. They answered.

“Yes.”

“As planned.”

What I meant was that the Bavarian Royal Army would launch the attack immediately, so they had to shield our forces with a barrier, bind this entire space into a Middle Realm, and transfer it to another coordinate system.

Claudia Neumann gave a crooked smile and nodded in satisfaction. Her distinctive Bavarian accent came through.

“Don’t worry, Your Excellency Ernst.”

I hadn’t been worried in the first place, but at least she’d made it clear that she understood. I raised a hand and counted with hand signals to the two mages behind me. The first three to move would be the three of us. I looked into their golden eyes and slowly nodded.

Then, with my other hand, I hooked a finger around the spine of the book that served as the lever and pulled it back before letting go.

Click—

The cathedral that appeared before me was one I had already visited twice. And it was packed with people. Transparent, milky-white sunlight cut through the darkness of the cathedral. This holiness seemed like an atonement imposed upon them for their betrayal of life.

My vision gradually slowed.

Concentration slowed the world and accelerated me.

The Archdiocese of Bamberg had one archbishop, three auxiliary bishops, and one coadjutor bishop. The Diocese of Eichstätt had one bishop, one auxiliary bishop, and one coadjutor bishop. And there were countless monsignors here as well.

Countless people sat quietly in their seats at Bamberg Cathedral, dressed in white, while others stood in orderly rows along the aisles, all facing the altar.

I opened my status window and was stunned by what I saw.

Mana 6, 7, 8, 9…

There were far too many people with high Mana Stats. For a moment, I was horrified.

In other words, there were more clergy gathered here than worshippers.

Priests, deacons, monsignors.

Clearly, they hadn’t been told anything about the announcement at six. The worshippers must be watching from the square. Ah, good.

One of the auxiliary bishops was busily moving around the altar.

Was the bishop planning to arrive at exactly six?

There was no need to think about it.

I took the sphere from my pocket and threw it.

A gas with the same properties as the one in my cigarette spread from within it.

Slowly—

The possibility of them noticing what was happening and reaching for their wands… could not exist within that slowed flow of time.

Before the cultists, their faces radiant with bliss at the coming of Christ’s word, could even turn their heads toward me, the vibration in my throat had already passed through their bodies.

— Unless the LORD watches over the city, the guards stand watch in vain!

Thud—!

The sound of the staff striking the ground hard enough to shatter it was nothing now. The roar of divine power, which should have been no more than wind, shook Bamberg Cathedral. It felt as though a storm had swept through the cathedral, tearing even the ground beneath my feet from its roots.

I saw people’s eyes go vacant, while some of them instead opened their eyes wide in shock. Those ones must have been a powerful mage. I continued pouring divine power through my staff as I recited the spell. The thought that the spires and arched ceiling might collapse at any moment stiffened my entire body, but relentless training broke through that tension.

The Catacombs battle mage, Neumann, who had fallen back behind me, slammed her staff into the floor as though driving it through the ground.

— Terra, terra, terra, audi sermonem Domini―!

Scripture.

My eyes widened at the verse chanted by the Catacombs battle mage. It was still in Latin, but the Catacombs battle mages no longer hesitated to recite Scripture. Now that possessing Bibles was illegal for Catacombs mages, they had avoided reading Scripture for fear that, under persecution from the people aboveground, verses might spill from their mouths after torture and relentless interrogation. It had been less a matter of choosing not to read them than being unable to.

But now…

— Confractione confringetur terra, contritione conteretur terra, commotione commovebitur terra―!

The crowd before me disappeared without a trace in an instant. We spread a new coordinate system beneath them, bound them together, and hurled them into an unknown space. Without knowing the coordinate system, there was no way to bind them together and send them off like this. It was a method even we had been unable to use since Munich-Freising, but the Catacombs made it possible.

A brief moment of peace followed before Neumann spoke.

“The ceiling’s going to collapse. I’d only heard about Your Excellency Ernst’s divine power, but seeing it in person is enough to make my blood run cold.”

This was hardly the time for idle remarks. I struck the artifact, raised my hand sharply, and said, “Entry!”

The mages who received the signal surged toward the cathedral entrance. Of the slightly more than fifty mages, one team split off from half a regiment’s worth of personnel, along with a Catacombs battle mage. Following the strategy we had established beforehand, they touched the lever leading to the residential area and disappeared.

The remaining ten mages and another Catacombs battle mage stayed behind in the cathedral. They would go outside and deal with the believers waiting in the square in front of it.

That left thirty Royal Army mages and the Catacombs battle mage Ace. They headed with me toward the bishop’s residence.

I approached the altar and turned the key I had already touched once before. With my previous experience, everything proceeded smoothly. The familiar office in the bishop’s residence appeared before me.

5:59 PM. One minute left.

There was no familiar face. Sarah Hohenfels was nowhere to be seen. Neither was Auxiliary Bishop Ralph Huber. Instead, there was another bishop. He wore robes trimmed in purple.

Another auxiliary bishop? I opened the status window. I searched for his name in the list I had received from Einsiedel, and realized that the person standing there with a bewildered expression was a coadjutor bishop. There were several auxiliary bishops, but there was usually only one coadjutor bishop.

The moment we arrived, twenty of the thirty mages split into groups of five and scattered throughout the bishop’s residence to search the place.

― Unless the LORD watches over the city, the guards stand watch in vain!

BOOM—!

Blocked.

The vitriol, clearly caught off guard, stopped the divine power in its tracks. Of course he did. Unlike the cathedral, this place wasn’t dimly lit. Unlike the people in the cathedral, this person had been facing us head-on. And unlike the cathedral, this was supposed to be a space where no one else could enter.

But I had business elsewhere.

I raised my left hand toward the Royal Army mages behind me, and at that moment, the desk in the bishop’s residence fell into our hands. The coadjutor bishop, who had been shouting out a spell, seemed dumbfounded by the fact that we were taking the desk instead of attacking him, and for a brief moment, his bewilderment showed plainly on his face.

But his eyes quickly locked onto me. Even so, I had no intention of getting drawn into whatever he was thinking.

The Royal Army mages smashed through the door and carried the desk outside while keeping it intact. They would destroy the levers inside it one by one.

Now only five people remained in the space: the coadjutor bishop and four of us.

Neumann slammed her staff against the ground and shouted.

— Terra, terra, terra, audi sermonem Domini―

I tapped the artifact. Then, beginning with the customary formal greeting, I moved my lips.

“Your Majesty, this is the 10th Infantry Brigade reporting.”

“Your Majesty, this is the 2nd Royal Bavarian Infantry Regiment reporting. At 17:58 on April 12, we completed the operation to destroy the Diocese of Regensburg coordinate system. We will await further orders. Leonard Wittelsbach, Commanding Officer of the 2nd Royal Bavarian Infantry Regiment. End of report.”

Leonard Wittelsbach spoke as he led his mages.

He was currently in the southern three dioceses, inside an empty coordinate system where no one remained, only the nominal parish church⁵, the bishop’s residence, and the archive building. Now that they had completely destroyed the last remaining coordinate system there, the people of these dioceses could no longer cross over from Brandenburg into Pleroma’s Bavarian territory, even if they discovered something was wrong.

If they wanted to set foot in Bavarian territory, they would have to cross over to the surface rather than enter through Pleroma’s world. And if they hurried to the surface to investigate the situation, there would be nothing they couldn’t handle.

Then General Oettingen’s report came through, informing them that all the coordinate systems in the southern three dioceses had been destroyed. He ordered the 2nd Infantry Regiment to remain on standby.

It was only natural that the three southern dioceses were progressing so quickly. All they had to do was burn away land where there was truly nothing there.

Leonard Wittelsbach and the mages under his command focused on the silence coming through the artifact hanging from their left ears. They had no choice but to.

The hands of the pocket watch pointed to exactly six o’clock.

Even then, the world remained quiet.

One second. Two seconds. Three seconds…

With each passing moment, the air grew sharper and more subdued. At the same time, the tension mounted.

Paradoxically.

— [6:00 PM. The 10th Infantry Brigade has successfully isolated the Archdiocese of Bamberg and Diocese of Eichstätt.]

General Oettingen’s voice came through. Leonard closed his eyes at the announcement.

Nikolaus Ernst had, as expected, succeeded.

The mages’ faces brightened at the news. They could feel the tide turning in their favor. Before General Oettingen had even finished giving his status report, his adjutant’s voice came through.

— [6:00 PM. The 7th Infantry Brigade has successfully isolated the Diocese of Würzburg.]

— [6:01 PM. The 11th Infantry Brigade has successfully isolated the Diocese of Speyer.]

The same reports came in rapid succession from the four northern dioceses, where the operation that could truly be called a battle had begun.

It was only natural that the four northern dioceses were more important than the three southern ones. In the three southern dioceses, they could simply enter through the routes discovered using Nikolaus Ernst’s monocles at any point before six and blow them all up. The four northern dioceses were different.

They had to put countless people and clergy to sleep and send them away as quickly as possible. If they failed to finish the operation swiftly, they might even have to fight Pleroma’s clergy directly.

And Bavaria had successfully made the first move.

A private transmission from General Oettingen came through.

— [Colonel Wittelsbach, can you hear me?]

“I can hear you.”

— [Move to Bamberg City Hall with the 2nd Infantry Regiment immediately. By 6:30, kill the Archbishop of Bamberg and the Bishop of Eichstätt.]

Depending on the circumstances, this meant going beyond Pleroma’s territory in Bavaria. In order to eliminate the bishops, the scope of their operations could extend beyond Bavaria and across the entire Empire.

The risk would increase not merely twofold, but dozens of times over.

Leonard Wittelsbach had known from the beginning that the operation might come to this, so he answered without hesitation.

“I’ll carry out your orders.”

Translator Note

I’ll leave this here for anyone who might be confused by the military organization in this chapter. Generally, the hierarchy goes Corps → Brigade → Regiment, with a Corps being the largest of the three. I’m not very familiar with military organization myself, though, so I had to do some research on this while translating this chapter. If there’s anything incorrect in the notes, please let me know!

1. I’ve intentionally kept this historical figure as Friedrich the Great, even though he’s more commonly known in English as Frederick the Great. Friedrich is the German form of the name, while Frederick is the English form. Since the author uses Friedrich, I chose to keep it that way. ↩︎
2. A brigade is a fairly large military formation, normally commanded by a brigadier general or brigadier, depending on the military and period. So having a lieutenant colonel temporarily placed in charge of a brigade means he is commanding a unit normally headed by an officer several ranks above him. ↩︎
3. I’m not sure which specific historical case the author is referring to here. Although, during the US Civil War, there were indeed cases of officers being rapidly promoted to higher ranks so they could take command of larger formations. ↩︎
4. m. d. F. b. is short for the German military term mit der Führung beauftragt, meaning that an officer has been temporarily entrusted with command of a unit or position. In other words, it indicates that they are serving in that command position on an interim basis rather than holding it permanently. ↩︎
5. Nominal parish church refers to a church that still officially counts as a parish church, but no longer has an active parish or congregation. ↩︎