Iron Powder and Spellcaster

[Federation Republic]

[Guitu City]

[Military Officer Academy]

Fritz couldn't remember the last time he went back to the Military Academy.

As far as he could remember, he hadn't been here since graduation.

But at this moment, as he looked over the Military Academy in the night, a wave of warmth surged into his chest.

Nothing had changed.

Looking at the low wall that was not difficult to climb over;

The rustic gate;

The tree-lined avenue that could never be swept clean of fallen leaves;

And the main teaching building at the end of the tree-lined avenue;

And the auditorium, school building, playground, warehouse, stable in the distance...Fritz could recognize where it was with just a glance at the outline.

The Military Academy was like a sleeping beast, lying docilely on the ink-colored canvas. The lights not only failed to disturb her sweet dreams, but made her even more quiet.

Fritz sat on the saddle, staring at the night of the Military Academy, lost in thought.

But the others present were not as comfortable as he was.

The three cadets on duty at the main gate saw the visitor's officer uniform and stood in impeccable military posture without even looking away.

But the duty teacher took too long to report.

He did not return, so the cadets on duty could only continue to stand with the visitor.

Just when the poor students felt that their waists were about to break, the duty teacher finally came back.

"He's waiting for you." A short lieutenant walked out of the side door, raised his hand hastily to salute Fritz, and said in a cold tone: "Major."

Frittz woke up from his trance and looked at the short lieutenant. He was stunned for a moment, then turned over and dismounted neatly, raised his hand seriously in return: "Thank you."

A cadet on duty quickly stepped forward to take the reins from Fritz, and the other two cadets on duty pulled the gate open together.

"You are too polite, Major." The short teacher waved his hand expressionlessly: "This way, please."

The road leading to the cradle of the Union Army officers was opened to [Fritz of Nice].

Walking on the tree-lined road that occupies the central axis of the Army Academy, looking at the oak trees planted by the old marshal on both sides of the road, which are now towering, Fritz couldn't help but sigh: "It's still the same as before."

"No." The short teacher walking in front with a lantern snorted lightly: "Everything has changed."

The short teacher led the way and continued without looking back:

"The first and second year Veneta students have been taken away, and the Veneta people no longer send new students.

"The same is true for the Plato students. Not only the students who have not yet graduated, but also the preparatory students have been sent to the Castle of the Kings, and the selection of new students has been interrupted.

"The school building is half empty, and the school has become much quieter.

"A lot of teachers have also been transferred to the south and the west. The teaching and research department can't even schedule classes now.

"Even now, the Army Headquarters still said that they would expand the enrollment scale and shorten the courses and class hours..."

Fritz walked behind the short teacher, silently listening to the latter's complaints without making any comments.

Walking to the steps of the main teaching building, the short teacher stopped, turned around, looked straight into Fritz's eyes, and asked word by word:

"Everything has changed. Now the Union Army Academy is just an empty shell...Is this what you want to see? Fritz-Major?"

Fritz felt a sharp pain in his back, especially when he heard the title of "Major", the sting was particularly strong.

He did not answer the senior's question, he could not answer, and he did not want to answer.

"He is waiting for you in his office, you know the way. I'm sorry that I can't accompany you there because I am on duty." The short teacher put the lantern at his feet, raised his hand to salute, turned around and left: "Major."

Fritz raised his hand in return and watched the senior leave.

——

From the day the "revolution" won, Fritz's fate was no longer controlled by himself. He was a canoe thrown into a stormy sea, pushed up by the waves and thrown down by the waves.

He was first hailed as a revolutionary hero, and experienced countless flowers, praises and applause.

When Richard Myerhouse gave the shocking speech "Even if a coup is necessary, a coup is still a coup" at the National Assembly, the wind direction immediately changed.

Overnight, Fritz of Nice went from being the darling of Guido's social scene to an outcast of the Federal Army.

After obtaining the "temporary license" of the highest power, Richard Myerhouse kicked out the reformist officers without hesitation and cooperated with the institutionalists who dominated the Federal Army.

They enjoyed the fruits of the coup - greater authority, less constraints, and fewer opponents.

Then, they threw the initiators and executors of the coup out of the door to vent their anger on those who were angry about the coup.

Accusations in public, criticism behind the back, friends who avoided him, peers with contempt in their eyes...

Fritz experienced all the ups and downs of life.

Like other participants in the "revolution", he received a special promotion.

But for Fritz, this promotion was more like a mockery and humiliation.

It was as if someone in the dark asked with a sneer, "You did this for your talent, right? Are you satisfied now?"

Perhaps he was used to it, or perhaps he was forcing himself, but Fritz remained silent. After senior Hallam Naarden died in his arms, he never defended himself again.

——

The main teaching building of the Army Officer Academy is a four-story building. The first floor is an archive storage room, and the stairs leading to the second floor.

After entering from the main entrance in the middle of the second floor, there is a corridor on the left and right, extending in the east and west directions, and classrooms on both sides of the corridor.

Going up, the building structure is the same, except that the function of the room has changed from classroom to teaching and research room.

Fritz climbed the stairs and came to the fourth floor of the main teaching building with a lantern.

The corridor on the fourth floor was pitch black, like a bottomless cave that could not be climbed out.

Only the door of the office on the north side at the end of the right corridor had a faint light.

Fritz walked towards the lighted office step by step, and the sound of footsteps echoed behind him.

Although he knew the location of this office when he was in school, this was the first time Fritz had visited it.

He stopped outside the office and tidied his appearance, but did not knock on the door immediately, but turned around and looked at the office opposite involuntarily.

On the doorplate of the opposite door, that is, the office on the south side, the two lines of copper characters [Principal's Office] and [Ned Smith] reflected a dim light.

Since the old marshal passed away, the federal government deliberately did not appoint a new principal, so this office was retained.

Opposite the principal's office is the office of Jason Cornelius, the nominal second-in-command and actual principal of the Union Army Officer Academy.

However, these descriptions must be added with the adjective "former".

Because after Richard Myerhouse dissolved the "Provisional Military Committee" at the core of the coup, Jason Cornelius no longer had any position.

Fritz put the lantern next to the door, took a deep breath, and knocked on the door.

"Come in." A concise and powerful command came from the office. The person on the other side of the door had been waiting for a long time.

Fritz pushed open the door, and the overly bright light in the room made him unable to open his eyes for a moment.

When he was able to see the surroundings again, a spacious and imposing office appeared in front of him.

The first thing that caught his attention was a sand table in the front left that was as big as a double bed.

The sand table occupied the center of half of the office, and the three walls around the table were filled with glass cabinets that reached the ceiling.

Through the glass window, Fritz saw that one of the cabinets contained some small flags and small models, which should be the markers for setting up the sand table.

The other cabinets were all filled with file boxes that were big enough to fit a folio.

The astonishing number of file boxes almost filled up all the space, leaving only two layers of free space in a cabinet in the northeast corner.

Seven or eight square stools were scattered around the sand table, indicating that this sand table was not some kind of exclusive toy.

The sand table had been arranged, the mountains and rivers had been shaped, the two armies were fighting, the battle lines were in chaos, and some small flags had been pulled out and placed on the side, freezing the battlefield in this square inch at a certain moment.

The remaining half of the office was occupied by a carved desk.

In front of the carved desk were two hard, ugly chairs—standard equipment in the principal's office.

There were four polished mahogany drawers against the wall at the back, three of which were decorated with busts carved from pure white marble.

Fritz recognized one of the busts as the old marshal at first sight, but he was completely unfamiliar with the other two. However, based on the armor style of the busts, he guessed that they were Kaiser and Alexandra.

The fourth cabinet was empty.

In addition to the two areas on the left and right with completely different functions and furnishings, there was a small table and two soft chairs directly in front of Fritz, against the wall and by the window.

On the small table was an unfinished game of chess.

Because it had been used for too long, the chessboard was already stained. The chess pieces even took on a color similar to agate because they had absorbed too much skin oil.

In addition to the above furnishings, another very eye-catching thing in the office was the "lamp".

There were many, many "lamps". Fritz could count a dozen of them with just a glance. All of them had colorless glass lampshades, which made the office as bright as day.

The owner of this office, Jason Cornelius, was sitting next to the chessboard.

Cornelius waited patiently until Fritz's vision recovered, then frowned and asked, "Do you want me to salute first?"

At first glance, it seemed like a joke, but Jason Cornelius's expression was very serious - or rather, the head of the Union Army Academy was always very serious, so Fritz couldn't tell whether it was a joke.

"I'm sorry." Fritz hurriedly raised his hand to salute: "General."

"Major." Cornelius simply raised his hand to return the salute, stood up on his knees, walked to the carved desk, and raised his finger slightly to signal Fritz to sit at the desk.

"The Ministry of the Army has not yet appointed a new head, so I will continue to use this office." Cornelius said as he walked: "Anyway, no one dares to drive me away here."

At first glance, it seemed like a joke again.

But the former director's tone didn't sound like he was joking at all.

He said the above in an extremely calm bystander's tone, as if he was just stating a fact, and there was a hint of impatience of "I'm afraid you don't understand so I have to explain it."

For safety reasons, Fritz didn't respond.

He sat down at the carved desk. Although he had never been summoned to the office of the headmaster to be reprimanded, when he sat on the hard chair, a particularly familiar feeling of discomfort instantly seized him again.

There had never been any communication between Fritz and Jason Cornelis.

Fritz came from a poor family in a small village called Nice. Thanks to the strong enthusiasm of the Federal Army for running schools, he had the opportunity to study.

Jason Cornelis came from a leading banker family in Guitu City. Even if he did not join the army, his future would be bright.

When Fritz was studying at the Army Academy, one of them was a private cadet with the lowest military rank, and the other was a colonel headmaster who had the final say.

After graduation, Fritz was an inconspicuous centurion in the National Guard, that is, the second-class force, while Jason Cornelis was the actual president of the Army Officer Academy with a very high social status.

Even though both of them were participants and executors of the "revolution", they had never talked in the same room because they were at completely different levels in this so-called "revolution".

That is, the two had no personal friendship.

However, when Fritz sat in the chair, he accepted the role of the questioner very naturally, and even he himself was surprised by this.

After Cornelius returned to his seat behind the carved desk, he opened the drawer and asked without raising his head: "How is the work of the War History Department?"

"Very good, sir." Fritz answered instinctively.

"Very good?" Cornelius raised his eyebrows and stared at Fritz: "Do you want to keep doing it?"

Frittz was silent. After a moment, he replied very restrainedly: "No, sir. But if this is the arrangement for me, I can keep doing it."

Cornelis nodded, but looking at the former's serious expression, Fritz could not tell whether this nod meant approval or indifference.

"There is nothing wrong with reading more war history." Cornelius taught Fritz seriously: "Someone has written the war history badly."

After that, Cornelius took out a file bag with no signs on the outside from the drawer and put it in front of the former student opposite the desk.

Fritz noticed that there were many similar file bags without any logo in the drawer opened by the former head.

However, the latter not only did not open it to check, but even did not look for it, and directly took out the file bag handed to him.

Fritz really couldn't tell whether the other party randomly picked one for him or was very familiar with this file bag, so he would not take the wrong one without looking at it.

"Take a look at this." Cornelius ordered concisely: "Tell me what you think."

Fritz picked up the file bag, opened it, and took out the documents inside. He was surprised to find that what he was holding was actually a student file of the Army Officer Academy.

He wanted to check the name and student number first, but this part of the content on the cover and the first page recording the basic information of the students were folded up.

He wanted to open the folded page, but was stopped by the former head.

"Read the content first, and tell me what you think." Cornelius ordered: "Then look at the name."

Fritz didn't know whether this was an exam or the other party wanted to convey some information to him.

Now, he could only look at the file first.

He nodded and turned to the second page of the file directly.

A form came into view. The handwriting on the left was relatively neat, with subjects and grades, while the handwriting on the right was very sloppy, and some boxes were even empty - it turned out to be a transcript of ordinary courses for a school year.

Fritz first took a quick look at the grades:

[Mathematics 1][A-]

[Rhetoric 1][A]

[Geometry 1][A+]

[Law][C]

[Old Language 1][B+]

[Ancient Language 1][C]

[……]

After quickly checking his already vague memory, Fritz confirmed that the file in his hand was not his.

Then whose file is this?

Fritz could only continue reading.

He originally wanted to find some clues through the teacher's comments in the form, but the teacher's comments were really lazy.

The math classroom comments for a school year only had a [OK] written in the column, the geometry comments were a circle, and the law and rhetoric comments were simply blank.

Only the old language and ancient language were written in a whole sentence, but they spanned two grids and were written on the grid lines - if I remember correctly, these two courses were taught by the same teacher.

Fritz took some effort to recognize what the line of cursive characters said: "Too lazy, practice hard!"

Fritz did not find any useful information, so he could only continue to read.

The results of the first-year military course on the second page were obviously much better than those of ordinary courses.

Fritz quickly flipped back a few pages and scanned them at a glance.

Whether it was the first, second or third year, the military course results of the archive subjects were better than those of ordinary courses.

However, this does not mean anything, almost all federal military students have similar tendencies.

Turning back to the rewards and punishments and other miscellaneous items, there is also very little content.

There is no punishment, I don’t know if it’s because of good luck or really well-behaved.

There are three commendations, all of which are winning the second place in the National Principal Sword Fencing Competition [Student Group]

Fritz was speechless. He thought about it carefully and confirmed that the other party was not his peer or senior.

If there is such a person among his peers or predecessors, it is impossible that he will not have any impression at all.

He continued to flip down until he turned to the last graduate evaluation section, and then he found some more valuable information.

The first page of the evaluation section was scribbled:

[With a strong will and a strong character, if fate favors, he will definitely achieve a career. ]

Fritz narrowed his eyes. This evaluation was very high, but it was also an evaluation that could be applied to anyone - who would not achieve a career if fate favored him? And who dared to say that he had not been favored by fate?

Looking at the handwriting again, it was hard to tell that the other party did not write this evaluation on every file.

Continuing to read, most of the comments behind were also this kind of comments that could be applied to anyone, and the geometry teacher's comments were even simply another circle.

Only one teacher's comments caught Fritz's attention.

The evaluation of Richard Nall, the instructor of the swordsmanship class.

And he only wrote one word:

[Undersea Volcano]

The file was almost at the end, and Fritz continued to look through it. As a result, there was a piece of paper stuck in the last page of the file, which was about the internship evaluation.

This piece of paper was not part of the file, but was put in later by someone.

There was only one line of words on it:

[Award: Special Promotion]

Turn down further, the back cover.

The voice of the former director came from the opposite side of the carved desk:

"What do you think?"

Frittz closed the file, put it back into the bag and put it in its original place.

After thinking for a moment, he said calmly:

"I don't remember a student who won the second place in the fencing school competition for three consecutive years.

"In other words, the other party is not a student of the 14th, 15th, 16th, 17th, and 18th classes.

"The file is original, the paper is very new, and there is no sign of fading. It is very likely that the other party is not a student before the 14th class.

"In the 19th, 20th, 21st, and 22nd classes, I have never heard of anyone who won the second place in the fencing school competition for three consecutive years. But I have heard that there is a swordsman among the 21st class students, who is the undisputed first every year.

"Then the situation may be that the strange thing of being the second for three years is overshadowed by the even more strange first for three years.

"So I guess that the other party is a 21st class student, and he is from Veneta, and comes from a military family..."

"Stop——" Cornelius knocked on the table and asked seriously: "Why do you guess that the other party is from Veneta, why do you guess that the other party comes from a military family. "

Fritz originally wanted to verify his guess through the reaction of the former head of the headquarters, but Jason Cornelius had a cold face as usual, and there was no way to know his emotions.

Fritz could only suppress his uneasiness and answered:

"Special promotion awards will only be given to officers who participate in actual combat and have excellent service performance.

"The internship period for the 21st batch of students was from mid-557 to mid-558. During this year, the Republic of Palatus did not launch an expedition against the Huds, and only Veneta and we had military operations in the Taniriya Islands.

"We did not engage in actual combat throughout the entire process, so I judged that the other party was very likely to be Veneta.

"If the other party is Veneta, then referring to the other party's school performance, the other party is likely to be from a military family.

"Because unlike the majority of the students from the Federation of Provinces who come from the Army Elementary School, a considerable number of Veneta students in the preparatory school are directly admitted from outside, not from the Army Elementary School.

"These students who were taught in grammar schools or private teachers have better general academic performance and poor military literacy. It is exactly the opposite of the students who were admitted from the Army Elementary School.

"As for the students who were admitted from the Army Elementary School, they all came from military families...because in Veneta, only army soldiers and poor people would let their children attend the junior army school.

"And no student from a poor family can go to a preparatory school... at least not among my peers and predecessors..."

"How confident are you about your own judgment?"

Fritz lowered his head and thought for a while, and said honestly: "The confidence is very small. If I only used one 'very likely', I would be very confident. But when many 'possible's are added together, the conclusion 'may' be ridiculously wrong."

"Okay." Cornelius knocked on the table and said bluntly: "Your intelligence analysis ability is very good, you passed."

Fritz did not ask what he passed, but asked back: "Excuse me, did you put that note in?"

"Yes. That's the test paper." Cornelius's upper body leaned slightly towards the former student, he pressed his arm on the table, and asked: "Now it's time for additional questions, do you have anything else to add?"

"If possible." Fritz said cautiously: "I hope to ask Instructor Richard Nall what he thinks of the other party."

Cornelis's mouth slowly smiled.

He opened the drawer, took out an envelope from it, put it on the table, and pushed it in front of the former student.

"The last question, no score." Jason Cornelius stood up, put his hands on the table on the other side, and looked down at his former student: "Who is 'he'?"

"If I only analyze the existing intelligence, I'm sorry, I don't know."

Fritts looked at the former head of the headquarters: "But I have only heard of one Venetia student in the 21st term... the one that everyone has heard of..."

Jason Cornelius laughed.

"That's the one that everyone has heard of."

Jason Cornelius reached out his hand and unfolded the folded file cover in front of the former student:

"Marshal Ned Smith's 'last work',

"The most outstanding achievement of the Senas Union Army officer training system in the past twelve years,

"It will also be the most difficult enemy for the Southern Front... Of course, if you want, it can be yours."

Fritts looked down at the file book.

The first page of the cover, the name column:

[Winters Montagne]

[Orz]

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