I Became a Witch and Started an Industrial Revolution
Chapter 285 : It Is Only Proper to Return the Favor
News Broadcast:
【Breaking News: A passenger flight carrying Cabansian passengers has just crashed over Putum State. There were 85 passengers and 8 crew members on board...】
【The crash is suspected to have been caused deliberately. The aircraft suddenly lost altitude at high speed, and the cockpit refused to communicate with air traffic control... Relevant authorities have dispatched specialists to recover and examine the flight recorder. Further confirmed information is expected within 72 hours.】
On the bulky black-and-white television, the anchor from the Alliance Central Station solemnly interrupted the broadcast with the latest news.
Meanwhile, at the other end of the lounge, Midia paid no attention to what was being said on television. She was intently watching the latest Magical Recording footage that had just been sent back.
Although preserving magical images required increasingly higher-quality materials the longer they were stored, making it an expensive and rather impractical luxury technology...
Commercial flights generally spent no more than three hours in the air.
As such, the cost of applying it to civilian use was still acceptable.
Immediately after the aircraft crashed, a local intelligence team rushed to the scene to collect evidence in advance.
What Midia had received was the very first footage from the incident.
"Watch her lip movements carefully. That woman was most likely being forced!"
Midia looked toward the passenger dossier beside her. It contained detailed records of the victims' family situations and other information.
"Follow the list and visit each family to offer condolences. Protect that woman's younger brother first. This matter won't end so simply."
The enemy had chosen their target well.
Cabansian immigrants were the newest ethnic group to join the Alliance and had yet to fully integrate into society.
If something like this happened and the Alliance failed to uphold justice, it would easily cause this group to become disappointed with the Alliance.
But if they made too great a fuss over it...
They would probably be falling directly into the enemy's trap.
Midia never considered the Kingdom of Cabansia to be the mastermind behind this.
The two countries were simply too close.
So close that if a wall collapsed on the Alliance's side, it could crush Cabansians.
No nation would be foolish enough to walk straight into its own destruction.
Although the Holy See's previous terrorist attack had made the public extremely sensitive to terrorism, a single attack, despite its considerable impact, still remained within the Alliance's ability to control.
Unless they managed to carry out several attacks, allowing the influence of each incident to stack until the cumulative impact reached the point where even the government could no longer suppress it.
Even then, at most, the Alliance would only need to redeploy part of its border garrison and police forces to wipe them out.
It would certainly have some impact on the overall situation.
But that impact would not be particularly significant.
More importantly...
What gave them the confidence to believe they could succeed every single time?
"Your Majesty, the facial image of the man behind the curtain who pushed the woman into the passenger cabin has already been distributed. I believe the hundreds of thousands of intelligence personnel we've left throughout the Main Continent will identify him very soon."
"I guarantee you, no matter where they hide, it won't matter!"
"...Mm... Put that aside for now. Where is the Tactical Squad?"
"Based on the timetable, they should have already begun the operation."
"Very good."
"It is only proper to return the favor."
"Let's give them a small lesson first."
"If they can't beat us head-on and insist on playing dirty, then I'd like to see who's actually better at it!"
Bared Port.
The Allied Nations' second-largest super port, surpassed only by the Port of Moseladel.
Since Moseladel had been surrounded, more than seventy-five percent of the Allied Nations' supplies had been gathered here before being loaded onto trucks, trains, and ships for transport to the various major theaters of war.
Naturally, such an important logistics hub was heavily defended.
Nearly two hundred thousand regular troops formed three defensive rings—outer, middle, and inner—completely surrounding the port.
On the sea floated an enormous combined fleet.
Coupled with overwhelmingly dense coastal defense firepower and several large military airfields, even if the Alliance Navy deployed its entire fleet, it would be difficult to gain any advantage.
After all, attacking a hedgehog covered in spikes...
Too small a force would merely be delivering themselves to death.
Too large a force was equally impractical, because the Alliance could not sustain such powerful long-range firepower projection over that distance.
And once they lost their artillery advantage...
It would be equivalent to cutting off one of their own arms.
For that reason, the Alliance had never formulated an attack plan against Bared Port.
Instead, they simply dispatched large numbers of submarines to patrol nearby, occasionally sinking a few transport ships just to make life miserable for the Allied Nations.
Large-scale troop movements were easy to detect.
Small infiltration teams, however, were much easier to insert.
Inside the cargo port itself, patrol density could not be maintained too high.
Otherwise, it would seriously interfere with normal operations.
Therefore, the Allied Nations adopted a strategy of tight security outside but relatively relaxed security inside.
Even so, "relaxed" was only relative.
Around the loading docks themselves, patrols, guards, and every type of magical detection and early-warning device were fully deployed.
Should combat break out, at least one division-sized garrison force could arrive within ten minutes.
4:00 a.m.
Beneath the sea, beyond the reach of magical detection...
An enormous submarine slowly came to a halt under electric propulsion.
The hatches of its two 533 mm torpedo tubes opened, rapidly filling with seawater.
A long cylindrical device resembling a torpedo slowly slid out of the tube.
Behind it, soldiers wearing diving masks tightly gripped the handles of disposable underwater propulsion units.
Twisting the throttle to maximum power, they were pulled out of the torpedo tube in groups of four.
Two launch waves were carried out in total.
All sixteen members of the Tactical Squad successfully regrouped in the designated shallow-water area.
Methodically, they detached the various weapon compartments from the device and completed their armament.
After taking one final deep breath of oxygen, they removed their diving masks.
One after another, they fastened the helmets hanging from their waists onto their armor before silently walking along the seabed toward the shore.
On the dark and tranquil waters beside the dock, a light drizzle fell, creating ripples across the surface.
Two fully enclosed helmets sculpted in the image of angels covering their faces with both hands slowly emerged from the water.
As they approached the shore, more and more of their bodies surfaced until the waterline reached their shoulders.
Several streams of seawater slowly drained from the openings around the neck joints of their helmets.
Having left the highly magic-suppressing seawater, the armor along their spines emitted a faint green glow.
The Magic Crystals resumed supplying power.
The Anti-Magical Detection Device reactivated.
Betty carefully observed the surroundings.
After confirming that they had precisely entered one of the visual surveillance blind spots previously identified through Alliance reconnaissance and analysis, she cautiously turned over the rifle in her hands and poured the seawater out of its scope.
Activating the built-in battery, a tiny red dot illuminated at the center of the optic.
A faint green glow also lit up within her helmet's eye sockets.
After exchanging a few simple hand signals, the two raised their rifles and stepped ashore one after another.
Their streamlined, form-fitting combat armor was fully revealed.
As the seawater completely drained away, the armor gradually changed color, blending seamlessly into the surrounding environment.
Not far away...
Two Allied Nations soldiers huddled around a burning barrel, warming themselves against the increasingly cold weather.
One had already fallen asleep on a wooden stool, his head constantly bobbing.
The other, with his back turned toward the infiltrators, tossed more firewood into the barrel while cursing,
"Dammit... Standing guard by the sea in this freezing weather while those bastards enjoy themselves inside. I seriously wish the Alliance would drop a bomb and blow them all to hell for me—Urgh..."
A cold iron hand suddenly clamped tightly over his mouth.
The tremendous force produced a series of cracking sounds.
An exquisitely crafted dagger pierced through one side of his throat before emerging from the other.
"It's alright. Relax."
"Take a deep breath."
"Feeling dizzy is perfectly normal."
"Good night."
As the convulsions of his body gradually ceased, Betty withdrew the dagger and wiped the blade clean on his clothing.
On the other side, her teammate carrying a Sniper Rifle looked at her speechlessly.
His own target already had a bullet hole through his head...
And had been dead for quite some time.
Betty shrugged and tapped the microphone on her helmet.
"The targets have been eliminated successfully. Everyone, come ashore."
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