Fog hung low over the plains, where the scent of wet earth and grass clung like a damp shroud.
In the distance, even the crow of a rooster was absent.
As the war dragged on, such mundane, peaceful sounds were the first to perish.
In their stead remained the viscous pull of mud at the ankles and the acrid residue of artillery smoke choking the throat.
The mist gnawed at the periphery of vision, while droplets of water, gathered through the night, trembled on the tips of grass blades.
Soldiers flicked those droplets away with the backs of their hands as they dressed their ranks.
There were few complaints.
"Hey, today let's actually go all the way. To Lingones, the very heart of Gaul!"
James, a soldier in the front rank, said as he patted the barrel of his rifle.
Scott, standing behind him, cut into that boastful chatter.
"All the way? We'll be lucky to clear another fence before lunch."
"Still, we're winning today."
At those words, Scott laughed.
It was not a light-hearted laugh.
Even as the straps of his rucksack dug into his flesh, the smile remained fixed.
For days, telegrams had been arriving incessantly.
Victories in the East, speeches from the Red Square, and the 'Great Counter-offensive.'
All those words took the soldiers of the South by the scruff of the neck and propelled them forward.
Ah!
The Great Counter-offensive!
The Southern Group of Forces moved its massive weight of a million souls for the sake of that single phrase.
The artillery positions were as bustling as a city before its final awakening.
Cannons equipped with recoil mechanisms pivoted slowly in the mire, their carriage wheels carving deep grooves into the earth as they settled.
The artillerymen were silent.
Instead of words, their hands moved with practiced speed.
The sound of charges being loaded, fuzes checked, and breeches snapping shut.
That rhythmic, metallic cadence gradually synced with the heartbeats of the infantry.
"The guns are our lifeline today."
When someone spoke, a joke came flying back: "If the guns are the lifeline, does that make us the artillerymen's lackeys?"
The atmosphere was not bad.
More accurately, there was no room for it to be bad.
The soldiers dreamed of the handsome men and beautiful women of Victoria and Gaul who would greet them at the journey's end.
In their minds, they painted pictures of their families waiting back home and themselves returning before Christmas.
Then, the first shot was fired.
The roar of the cannon tore through the dawn.
The wind and the earth shuddered.
The first shell detonated far away.
Beyond the fog, a pillar of black earth erupted, followed half a beat later by the rolling thunder of the blast.
"Good."
The infantry battalion commander said in a low voice.
"Advance!"
The order was terse.
Non-commissioned officers and political commissars repeated the command.
"Charge!"
"For the People!"
And thus, the Red Army of Workers and Peasants vaulted from their trenches.
Feet sank into the mud, but that was no reason to stop.
If someone stumbled, the person beside them grabbed an elbow and hauled them up.
They moved as one to bury their steel into the enemy.
After advancing for some time, the Gaulish defensive positions came into view.
More precisely, the 'place where they ought to be.'
Mounds of dirt, crude trenches, splintered stakes, and hastily strung barbed wire.
And the people embedded within them.
But they were strange.
Their faces were too pale, their hands holding the rifles were too slow.
They looked like men with little to no combat experience.
Heads frequently turned to glance behind them.
A look that suggested something was behind them—a gaze of fear directed at their own side.
James, seeing this, bared his teeth and spoke.
"Those guys... that's not the face of someone out to fight."
"All the more reason to push harder."
The battalion commander signaled.
Armored trucks of the Red Army of Workers and Peasants roared up from the rear.
Atop the iron-clad chassis, Maxim machine guns reared their heads.
The gunner pulled the lever and braced himself.
The barrels began to vibrate, and instantly, bullets shredded the fog.
—Rat-tat-tat-tat-tat!
The sound of the machine guns was not mere gunfire; it was the rhythm of "Forward."
The first Gaulish line collapsed.
It was far too fast.
The Red Army had anticipated resistance.
Battle meant advancing by shattering that resistance.
But today, there was nothing to shatter.
Before the bullets could even find them, segments of the Gaulish army were already scrambling out of their trenches.
It wasn't a charge toward the front; it was a rout.
They were running back, fleeing for their lives.
"What, already?"
Scott's eyes widened.
He was pulling the trigger, but the purpose of doing so had changed.
In a moment, his fire had transformed from suppression into a waste of ammunition.
Riding the momentum, the Red Army charged in without hesitation.
They cleared the first trench, then the second, crossing shallow streams and pushing deeper.
It was strange.
It was far too smooth.
And before that smoothness could elate them to the point of fatal negligence, a voice rang out to check their pace.
"Intervals! Maintain your intervals!"
Someone roared.
It was a Sergeant.
His voice was resonant, carrying the weight of experience.
Having distinguished himself during the Battle of Birmingham during the Revolutionary War, he was a non-commissioned officer respected by all.
Following his command, the soldiers spread out.
Yet they did not slow down.
And the Red Army overwhelmed the Gaulish forces.
Overwhelming an enemy is not merely about pressing them with flash and flair.
To overwhelm means to deny the opponent the time to make a choice.
Artillery shells sweep the front, machine guns pin down any openings, and the infantry pours into those gaps with their very bodies.
If that flow remains unbroken, the opponent has no time to contemplate 'how to fight.' They only think of 'how to survive.'
That was the state of the Gaulish army.
They disintegrated before they could even form squares.
Soldiers clutching crossbows let them slip from their hands without ever firing a bolt.
Some were dropped; some were abandoned.
Steel plates and leather straps were stamped into the mud.
Someone shouted "Form ranks!", but that cry was swiftly buried.
The men no longer placed any faith in their lordly officers.
Mingled among the retreat were others.
Victorian collaborator auxiliaries.
They collapsed even faster.
Though they carried bows, they did not shoot.
Most were too busy fleeing the moment they caught sight of the Red Army's crimson star.
Thanks to them, the Red Army was able to maintain an even swifter march.
The artillery adjusted its fire further ahead.
High-explosive shells severed the 'escape routes' of the retreating Gauls.
When an escape route is cut, a man does one of two things: he fights, or he shatters.
Gaul, for the most part, shattered.
Some unlucky soldiers were forced to a halt.
They stared at the Red Army with crossbows in hand.
Their eyes seemed to hold a question: 'Why are you here already?'
The answer to that question, of course, was simple.
It was a bullet.
The crack of the bolt-action rifles was consistent.
A shot, a reload, a shot.
A slow but precise meter.
To the enemy, that rhythm felt like the sound of judgment.
And yet, the soldiers felt the abnormality.
The Gaulish army was collapsing with an unnerving tidiness.
When a line breaks, it is usually a tangled mess.
Commanders scream until their throats raw, soldiers shove one another, and even as it falls apart, there are always clusters of men who hold out until the bitter end.
But such instances were few this time.
Almost nonexistent.
As if someone had explicitly decided, 'Do not hold the line here.'
The moment the Red Army infantry stepped onto the forward ridge line, they noticed abandoned stretches of trenches.
Ammo crates were empty, only debris remained, and there were few 'marks of those who died fighting.'
The soldiers exchanged looks.
In those eyes, tension had now eclipsed joy.
Is Gaul... usually like this?
However, that tension did not translate into an immediate halt.
If anything, it was the opposite.
The soldiers' resolve shifted toward: "Then let's drive them even harder."
"If we stop here, they'll establish a proper line. It'll only get harder then," a Sergeant said.
"So we have to push to the end right now."
That was the current mood of the Southern Group of Forces.
The path was opening.
Gaul was crumbling.
Yet, it was all too fast.
***********************
In Marshal Mullan's tent, numerous maps were spread out.
Each time a staff officer entered or left, the wind rattled the tent canvas.
The lamplight flickered.
Under that wavering light, the maps always seemed alive.
Not as if the lines were moving, but as if the very lives of men were shifting across them.
Mullan did not stare at the maps for long.
She had already memorized them.
She was watching time, not the front.
"The enemy's Southern Group of Forces continues to push us back," the Chief of Staff said cautiously.
It was a voice carrying the lingering remnants of what he had just seen on the fields.
Roads where mud and blood mingled, infantry crawling forward even as they fell, and the chatter of machine guns from the armored trucks supporting them.
Mullan nodded.
It wasn't a nod of displeasure.
Rather, she looked as if everything was going exactly as expected.
"They are fast."
"Yes. The exchange ratio... is also overwhelmingly in favor of the Union."
That statement briefly suppressed the atmosphere inside the tent.
Normally, such reports invite rage.
But Mullan did not get angry.
She flicked a finger against the numbers written on the paper, pushing it aside.
"Those numbers are not the measure of my victory. At least not today."
The staff officers looked at one another. Someone's swallowed words rolled around the tent before vanishing.
Mullan added in a very low voice.
"The East is the true battlefield."
Corsica I.
That was the front where the Emperor himself was operating.
This battle in the South was not a life-or-death struggle for Mullan.
No matter how well they fought in the South, if the Emperor could not reclaim the initiative in the East, the entire Empire would tremble.
And if it trembled, a Southern victory would be nothing more than a single line of a loser's excuse.
Mullan knew this.
Therefore, she was not trying to win here.
Here, she was performing the task of buying time.
"The garrison forces?"
"Pushed back again. The line has collapsed... cleanly."
The Chief of Staff trailed off.
But Mullan liked that expression.
That 'cleanliness' was her own masterpiece.
"Good."
The Chief of Staff could not hide his shock.
Mullan continued without a change in expression.
"Let them break. Do not force them to hold."
"But the elite reserves His Majesty sent us..."
Mullan raised a hand, cutting him off.
"Do not touch them."
She rubbed her fingertip across the center of the Southern plains on the map, as if wiping away dust.
"The Union has momentum now. They will want to go further. But the further they wish to go, the longer their logistics will stretch. And a stretched supply line becomes—"
"An obstacle."
The Chief of Staff finished for her.
Mullan gave a very brief smile.
"Indeed. An obstacle."
She straightened her back and looked out the tent.
Beyond the darkness lay the front.
And on that front, someone was dying even now.
Mullan did not think of that 'someone' in concrete terms.
To her, they were merely numbers.
"Push more of the collaborator auxiliaries to the front."
The Chief of Staff momentarily bit his lip.
"They... have already lost so many..."
"Then lose more."
Mullan's voice was not cold.
Mullan's voice was realistic.
It was also cruel.
"As they fall, the Union will grow suspicious more quickly. And once they suspect, they will find reasons to stop more quickly."
The Chief of Staff asked cautiously.
"Will the Union... stop?"
Mullan was silent for a moment.
Silence was a calculation.
"I will make them stop."
She tapped her finger twice on the map.
One river, one intersection, and a low ridge line.
"We will pretend we are here. Massive, heavy, and poised for a counter-strike."
"You mean we should reveal the elite reserves?"
"Only enough to be seen."
Mullan said very briefly.
"Make them visible, but do not use them. The moment you use them, the objective changes."
That objective would be victory.
She did not want victory.
She wanted delay.
Delay was victory in the East.
And victory in the East was victory in the war.
"The Union isn't stupid. They are clever. That is why they will be more afraid."
Mullan rolled up the map.
"If the exchange ratio is good, they'll want to keep pushing. But once they see that 'elites remain in reserve'—"
She raised her head.
"They will stop. Because they are smart."
It wasn't a taunt.
Nor was it a compliment.
It was simply a conviction.
"The core of the matter is inducing a misunderstanding."
As the Chief of Staff summarized cautiously, Mullan nodded.
"Yes. A misunderstanding."
*******************************
At the Southern Group Command post, telegrams moved back and forth through the night.
The frontline reports were mostly bright.
The exchange ratio was favorable, and Gaul was being pushed back continuously.
Scenes of second-tier garrisons and auxiliaries being ground down by ordinary infantry were repeated again and again.
Some young Gaulish officers had even thrown away their rifles and attempted charges with swords in hand.
Yet, amidst that brightness, a worrying sentence was repeated.
—Elite Gaulish reserves, massing in the rear.
—Signs of a Gaulish counter-offensive.
The front commander set down the paper and exhaled.
"It's the same sentence again."
His adjutant replied.
"Yes. It is... too blatant."
Blatant.
That was the problem.
One who wishes to hide their elites, hides them.
One who shows their elites without hiding them wants the opponent to see them.
Unless, of course, they have a hidden ace up their sleeve.
"They are trying to make us stop."
The front commander spoke in a low voice.
The adjutant looked up.
"Then shouldn't we push harder—"
"If we push."
The commander cut him off.
"It will not end the way we want it to."
He brushed his finger over the map.
Advance distance.
Logistics line length.
Ammunition consumption.
Casualty evacuation speed.
War always asks, 'Is it permissible to go further?' rather than 'Can we go further?'
Just then, a telegram from STAVKA arrived.
Receiving the paper, the commander paused.
The adjutant tried to read his expression, but the commander's face was as hard as stone.
He read the telegram.
Then he gave a very brief, silent laugh.
"What does it say?"
When the adjutant asked, the commander set the telegram down and said,
"Halt the offensive."
The adjutant's face hardened.
"With our current momentum—"
"That is the very trap."
The commander said.
"They make us want to go further with a good exchange ratio, while making us fearful by showing us their remaining elites."
He tapped a stopped line on the map with his fingertip.
"They are creating a 'reason to stop.' They trust that we are clever."
The adjutant grit his teeth.
"Then... if we actually stop, we're doing exactly as they intended..."
The commander nodded.
"Yes. Exactly as intended."
He added,
"But STAVKA isn't just looking at the documents we send from afar, are they?"
He looked out the window.
The night was deep.
Far off at the front, lights flickered like tiny points.
"Eighty kilometers is far enough. Great greed only invites disaster."
He said.
The adjutant bit his lip and finally nodded.
Orders to the front were dispatched briefly.
And the general grumbled as he left the command post.
"By the way, they told me to plan for an entry into the Gaulish mainland within a month. I haven't a clue what they're playing at."
The adjutant could only feel bewildered.
"Surely... there's quite a bit of distance left?"