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Translated By Arcane Translations
Translator: Wjin
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In reality, if you considered the situation carefully, it was practically checkmate for Guard Captain Lamur.
A magic officer, dispatched to the city directly under orders from the Military Police Commander, goes missing?
It was obvious that a report would immediately go to the Battalion Commander, and the Battalion Commander would realize the seriousness of the situation and contact Major Lanister of the National Military Police.
However, if they could succeed in persuading me, by ‘any means’ necessary, the whole incident would be lightly buried.
That was why they were foaming at the mouth trying to capture me like this.
“What are you doing! You bastards!!”
Finally, a guy who looked like a mid-level officer among the garrison soldiers shouted loudly.
“Arrest him right now, I said!!”
“Hah, but Squad Leader….”
Originally, for people, justification is important. The garrison soldiers were just following orders, and they obviously didn’t know the internal circumstances, did they?
But suddenly, they were being ordered to arrest the officer in front of them. And that officer was even resisting by using magic.
From the garrison soldiers’ perspective, it was no different from being ordered to just arrest an officer without any clear charges.
They would be quite confused.
Then, what if I intimidated them further?
I lightly swung my hand, throwing the fireball in front of the garrison soldiers.
Whooosh!!
“Heeeek-!!”
Along with a powerful explosion, black dust billowed up. The garrison soldiers who had been slowly approaching recoiled in terror and stepped back.
“These bastards are just unnecessarily cowardly…!!”
Unable to bear watching the scene of being suppressed from the outset, the garrison officer, who seemed to be in charge, drew a gun from his side.
“If you don’t surrender peacefully, I’ll shoot!”
“Go ahead and shoot.”
I hadn’t even flinched against the bandit gang who rushed at me with the intention to kill immediately, or against the spies of the Sobye Empire.
A pistol being waved around as a threat by a garrison officer just guarding a local city was not something to be afraid of.
In the first place, they wouldn’t be able to fire.
Just as I couldn’t rashly wipe out the garrison soldiers with magic, they also couldn’t actually shoot a real gun.
Shooting a gun at a respectable officer in a situation where specific charges hadn’t even been determined?
Even if it was purely for intimidation purposes, they could be thrown into military court, and if they actually aimed and fired, all those involved could be hanged on the gallows.
It was clearly a textbook case of fragging.
Moreover, they were making such a fuss in the middle of the city, so there were many eyes watching, and concealment wouldn’t be easy either.
One way or another, I held the initiative.
‘Or should I just show them the Military Police insignia and settle this in one go?’
I could resolve this situation at once, but the problem was Guard Captain Lamur.
Originally, these kinds of bastards are like cockroaches; once you miss the chance to strike them down, they become difficult to eradicate.
If I revealed that I was from the National Military Police, this news would 100% reach Lamur’s ears.
And at the same time, his probability of fleeing was extremely high.
Even in modern times, with smartphones and various communication devices commercialized, it is difficult to punish locally entrenched corruption, so how much more so in the present, where there aren’t even proper means of communication?
Now, while Lamur ‘still thought he had a chance of winning’, was the perfect opportunity to completely wipe him out.
Whoosh!
When I deployed a fireball once again, even the guy who had been threatening with a pistol swallowed hard.
He also didn’t want to get hit by that blazing fireball, it seemed?
“What in the world is going on here?!”
At that moment, a voice filled with rage echoed loudly through the street. At that sound, the officer who was controlling the scene jumped in surprise.
“S-Sorry, Captain! This guy is refusing to be arrested to the end, so…!!”
“Is that your excuse now?!”
Thwack-! The officer, struck with an iron-clad fist, fell to the ground.
A man boasting a sturdy build in gleaming armor.
Guard Captain Lamur.
He sighed deeply, “Phew,” and then made eye contact with me directly, saying.
“Second Lieutenant Enoch Levandal, was it?”
When I didn’t answer, Lamur forced a smile and began to coax me.
“Why don’t we stop this and go inside and talk? There’s no good in confronting each other like this, is there?”
“Wasn’t it the garrison who initiated the threat first? I already accompanied you to the barracks a while ago, there’s no reason to go back again.”
At my words, cutting him off decisively, Lamur’s expression contorted.
“Come on, someone who should know better, why are you being like this? If you keep acting like this, our garrison will have no choice but to use force, you know?”
“Please, by all means, try it. I will also face you with all my strength.”
Eventually, judging that persuasion wouldn’t work, Lamur’s choice was petty intimidation, including threats.
“Even for a magic officer from outside, this is crossing the line. I am the Guard Captain. As a Major in rank, I am higher than you!”
……So what?
Of course, the military is a strict hierarchical society, but the concept of city garrisons is somewhat different from the general army.
The fact that Lamur was given the rank of Major felt like nothing more than a ceremonial procedure.
Even with the rank of Major, he had absolutely no authority to project into the actual army. Rather, even in the game system, they were treated as subordinate organizations of the army.
This situation was no different from the garrison battalion commander telling me, an active duty army second lieutenant, to properly treat him with respect based on rank.
He was really good at sugarcoating nonsense.
“City garrisons are only borrowing the ranks from the army, but in reality, they are not even under our jurisdiction, are they?”
Stung by the point, Lamur couldn’t answer further and only trembled in frustration.
I didn’t care, go ahead and try it. If you don’t like it, try rushing in and forcibly arresting me.
“What in the world are you all gathered here for?”
While the standoff continued, another man who looked frighteningly similar to Lamur appeared.
It was almost as if they had been copy-pasted, but.
Even so, in contrast to Lamur, who had the air of a Guard Captain, this one had an atmosphere closer to a lawless person or a gangster.
An alligator tattoo drawn on his thick forearm.
Judging from the looks of it, it was a member of Gavial or something, the criminal organization that Rex and Bel had mentioned, and seemed to be Lamur’s younger brother I had heard about at the garrison barracks earlier.
“Aah~ garrison soldiers are all just a bunch of idiots, it must be tough for you.”
He grinned and put his hand on Lamur’s shoulder. Lamur, with a very displeased expression, shrugged off his hand.
“Don’t provoke me unnecessarily, you bastard… From now on, we can’t get involved. Deal with it in your own way.”
“Hee, is my brother scared of me?”
The guy chuckled, and from among the garrison soldiers, burly men dressed like thugs, no matter who looked at them, popped out one by one.
“Don’t get in the way and get lost!”
“Useless bastards who don’t even do anything…”
Even though they were respectable security forces, the garrison soldiers just cautiously watched them, even when being insulted to their faces.
Was it possible that our squad wasn’t actually trash?
In a situation where the guardians of the people, who should be protecting citizens, were being treated like this, it was truly amazing that the city’s security was being maintained even superficially.
“Hey, but is this guy the one?”
Lamur’s younger brother scanned my face up and down, then asked a subordinate who had a bandage on his arm.
Ah, that bastard.
He was the guy whose arm I had broken.
“Aah…! Y-Yes, that’s him! If you ignore the hair color, he looks exactly the same!”
The guy nodded vigorously with a confident look in his eyes.
“He even dyed his hair because he was scared? Hahaha!”
The thugs all burst into laughter at once.
Actually, it was more because I didn’t want to be unfairly targeted rather than being scared… but it was a bit infuriating.
“If you’re scared, you can’t help it, right? Isn’t that right? When did you ever take down our guys last time, and now you’re outnumbered, so you’re intimidated?”
I didn’t bother to answer.
“Don’t worry, Officer. My brother asked us to do it as ‘mildly’ as possible. It won’t hurt too much.”
Crack, crack.
Gavial’s gang members, cracking their knuckles, approached menacingly.
Was this the only way?
“Hah.”
I let out a sigh and changed the color of the mana emanating from my mana core.
From red to blue. From fire to water.
Water attribute was still the best for minimizing casualties.
What I visualized in my head was a water cannon. After extremely condensing the moisture that quickly began to gather, I poured mana towards the head of the guy approaching in the lead.
Whoooooosh-!!
The guy who was hit by the water stream, which gushed out with enough force to destroy a decent wooden building, flew backwards.
“Kuaaaack!!”
He rolled across the floor as he was, crashing at the feet of Lamur’s younger brother.
“……W-What the heck!?”
“Damn it, he really shot magic? Guys, rush him all at once!!”
“Cough!!”
Whoosh!!
I was only swinging the gushing water stream around, but there was no way to deal with the torrent of water being expelled under maximum compression.
Ah… this is what is called a ‘water cannon’.
A tool praised as the epitome of suppression tools in modern civilization.
The peacemaker in armed violent demonstration sites where all sorts of steel pipes and Molotov cocktails fly around.
Try enduring that weight, you punks.
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Lauro was in a daze.
Whether they were burly, or wearing thick clothes, physical differences were completely useless.
The moment they were even grazed by the torrent of water that surged like a waterfall, people were flung away like pieces of paper.
The sight of twenty of his subordinates groaning and writhing on the floor in just a few minutes.
Even considering that the opponent was a magician, it was at a level that was incomprehensible.
“What is this?! Damn it!”
For Lauro, dealing with magic officers or non-commissioned officers was not something that happened just once or twice.
Magicians were beings inherently born with arrogance, so they always looked down on people as a matter of course.
Annoying and irritating bastards who always thought they were above others.
So, whenever Lauro happened to encounter magicians who started fights in pubs or caused trouble in entertainment districts, he would beat them to a pulp, even while getting burned all over his body.
The magic they used was at most just small fireballs or sharp gusts of wind.
If you rushed in without fear and just punched them in the face, even a sergeant, a second lieutenant, a first lieutenant, and even a captain would all naturally cower.
They were even ashamed of the fact that a magician had been beaten by a civilian, and didn’t even report it to their unit.
After all, using magic against civilians was a mutual offense.
But the magic that the magician in front of him was manifesting was on a different level from the magic he had seen so far.
It wasn’t just about shooting out a few fireballs or water streams here and there.
It was the first time he had seen someone hit by a water stream and sent flying into the air. Furthermore, the guy didn’t even seem to hesitate about using such powerful magic.
“Cough, cough… Captain… My, my ribs are broken…”
“Y-You damn, useless bastards!”
Lauro, trembling, kicked the subordinate who was groaning in pain hard.
It was a pathetic act, but honestly, Lauro himself couldn’t guarantee victory against an opponent who was indiscriminately firing off magic like that.
Then, they had no choice but to resort to this as well.
“Brother! Hurry, gun! Give me the gun!!”
With the intention of putting a bullet hole in his head right away, Lauro desperately turned around, but.
“……???”
The garrison soldiers were already far away and running away. His brother Lamur was also the same.
“So……on of a bi……tch……!!”
A bunch of useless garrison soldiers and his brother, the captain, when it was time for him to clean up the mess, they told him to handle it, but now that they were losing, they were just running away like that?
“Damn it aaaaaall!! I am Lauro of Gavial!!!”
Even so, Lauro, who didn’t give up until the very end, rushed forward, but.
“It’s over.”
He was hit squarely in the center of his face by the water cannon and collapsed, face-planting into the ground as he was.
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