"Salute! Welcome back, Sergeant Shin."
"Uh-huh, yeah."
Our unit’s main force currently operates out of Chuncheon City’s [Vimana] as its base.
But there were still dozens of soldiers remaining near Inje County.
New recruits from the villages out there did trickle in from time to time.
The Ammunition Battalion had been under the care of a Corporal from the engineers.
He came out to meet me and the troops, but...
"Good heavens..."
"How did so much change?"
Unfortunately—
Neither I nor my soldiers were in any state of mind to chat with him.
Inje County’s Ammunition Battalion.
Its appearance had changed so drastically...
Soldiers returning after a long while looked around and let out sounds of awe.
"Ah. Come to think of it, it’s been a long time since you all left the Ammunition Battalion, hasn’t it?"
"Right. It’s one thing for me, but for the other soldiers it’s been at least a few months."
"Heh. Then it’s no wonder you’re surprised."
The soldier watched them and laughed like he found it funny.
Until not long ago he’d managed the production crews at the Ammunition Battalion.
It was Team Lead Lee Sanga.
To her, our reactions seemed pretty amusing.
"We were a bit shocked at first too, but you get used to it once you see it every day. If even we who watched the changes daily were surprised, people seeing it after a long while are bound to be stunned."
"...Even to me, it’s incredible."
No surprise.
Back when we left—
Aside from the barricades the engineers built, the Ammunition Battalion still looked like an ordinary military base.
I’d even stopped by the Ammunition Battalion once more after that.
Even then, with quite a few additional walls and such, I’d thought it impressive.
But the scenery now was changed to a degree that didn’t even make sense compared to back then.
If I had to pick the most obvious change—
"What are those tree roots...?"
"Ah. You haven’t seen those yet? The Legion leader’s friend made them."
"Excuse me? Sergeant Shin—you have a friend?"
"What was that?"
Every building and every wall.
Thick tree roots coiled over them like vines.
If that was my friend’s doing, then—
"Alraune, huh."
"That’s right."
Deep inside the Ammunition Battalion.
A powerful monster that had taken root on the mountain there.
Alraune.
According to the [Combat Power Meter], a creature that glowed deep blue.
Its potential strength had to be beyond imagination.
But in essence it was a monster closer to a tree.
And one of those just had to appear on the hill behind the Ammunition Battalion.
On that back hill whose “land-force” had never been all that good to begin with.
[Malnutrition]
Being a powerful monster—
Alraune must have needed to absorb a great deal of land-force.
Unable to take in sufficient nutrients from the ground,
it began to languish with malnutrition...
And then—
I fed it [Fertilizer] I’d cooked myself and kept it alive.
As a result—
"We ended up becoming friends."
Come to think of it, back then—
I remember telling it to take good care of this Ammunition Battalion and such.
Even if we did become friends, still—
Just how faithfully did it take that request?
"See those roots wrapped around the ramparts?"
"Yeah."
"If you glance at it wrong it might look like trees just grew old and big, but that’s not it. The engineers say they massively reinforce the wall’s defense."
The Ammunition Battalion that had looked like a normal military base—
Now it had become a place in harmony with all sorts of gigantic tree roots.
"..."
I looked out the window.
Beyond the walls, the survivors’ village.
Originally, a village filled with buildings made of reinforced steel.
Since that steel was strengthened by Mak’s mana, the quality as housing wasn’t bad.
But it was also true the look of it felt too bleak.
That village—
Now...
"...It’s turned into something like a back-to-nature hamlet."
Not only were all sorts of giant trees growing everywhere—
Even the outer walls of the buildings were covered.
How to put it?
It looked like thousands of years had passed after civilization collapsed, and trees had grown over those buildings.
The only problem—if you could call it that—was that those buildings were actually less than a year old.
The ramparts built from steel plate reinforced by Mak’s mana,
and
Alraune’s roots—
An oddly harmonious view of two dissimilar materials, iron and wood.
Strangely enough, that harmony made for a rather beautiful scene.
"My god."
"This is that bleak Ammunition Battalion?"
The soldiers who hadn’t returned since leaving for Chuncheon—
They stared slack-jawed at the sight.
"Heh. Now you have some idea how we felt when we first saw the Mobile Fortress."
"...More than enough."
Well.
No matter how striking this place looks—
It can’t match the intimidation of [Vimana].
****
After most of the force left for Chuncheon—
The soldiers remaining at the Ammunition Battalion kept up their own activities here, such as steadily recruiting people from the nearby villages into the unit.
"Ah. So the reason you suddenly came was the communications equipment?"
The soldier managing the base nodded as he spoke.
"You mean the building with the antenna, right? It’s probably intact. Maybe because of the fight with those spiders, the outer wall got scraped by something like blades, and the main gate got blown off by that ammo-dump explosion last time. About half the outer wall has those tree-root things settled in, but anyway."
"That sounds like not intact at all."
"Still, the antenna and such are fine. Honestly I’m not an engineer, so the engineers should check the details."
Given the Ammunition Battalion had been through a lot in various ways—
Compared to how many buildings had been blown away entirely, the side with the comms facility was relatively unscathed.
In that case—
No need to drag our feet.
My soldiers and I headed straight for the target location.
"Here?"
We arrived at a small building.
As with military facilities, a building with a blunt, utilitarian look.
On top of it was something like a big antenna.
"Well? Can you work it?"
"Hmm. It’s a bit complicated."
Even so, the radio equipment inside was quite the real deal.
As soon as we stepped inside the building—
Minjae and the engineers moved to inspect the broadcast setup.
Still—
No matter how all-purpose engineers are supposed to be—
The most they’d have touched broadcast equipment would be the admin office PA system on base.
Wouldn’t this be too much to handle...?
Or so I thought.
"Fortunately, nothing seems destroyed."
"Give us a little time and we can definitely bring it back."
Apparently it was a pointless worry.
"...Ridiculous, broken-class jobs."
"Sir? What was that?"
"Nothing."
At this point I wonder what they can’t do.
Even more broken than I thought.
And so—
The engineers stepped up and finished repairs on the gear.
However...
"We can use it for now, but there are a lot of problems."
Even if repairs were possible—
The machine’s inherent limitations were another matter.
"It’s ground-based comms to begin with. We can’t route through a relay, so who knows how far the signal will carry... frequencies and so on—there are a ◆ Nоvеlіgһt ◆ (Only on Nоvеlіgһt) lot of issues."
"We can try to broadcast, but... odds are high it won’t work right."
Well, that’s only natural.
If we were a military base in pristine condition, maybe.
We’re a small unit that barely survived.
Like those movie military bases that blast emergency radio nationwide—
That’s not something a bunch of ordinary twenty-somethings can do.
No.
To be precise...
"Don’t worry about that part."
Until just a few days ago—
It wasn’t something we could do.
"Not anymore."
I glanced over.
A soldier watching the engineers fix the gear from the back.
"I’ll handle those fine-grained parts."
"Sergeant Lee Minjae?"
Sergeant Lee Minjae rose to his feet.
"Salmo-neus."
—Kkiruk.
The engineers edged back a little.
Minjae stepped before the broadcast rack and summoned a small serpent.
And then...
He looked at me with a worried expression and asked:
"Youngjun... Are you really sure about this?"
"I said it’s fine."
The one who asked me for this—
Was none other than Minjae himself.
But—
Even so, as if something still sat wrong with him, Sergeant Lee Minjae let out a sigh.
Well...
Thinking about what he’d asked for,
that attitude made sense.
And—
What that guy wanted was for me to give him certainty.
"I approved it, so you don’t need to worry."
"...That so."
At those words—
Some of the tension left Minjae.
"Then—here we go."
Sergeant Lee Minjae set his hand on the broadcast gear.
The serpent riding his shoulder—
[Salmo-neus, the Lightning-Eater] began to shine brilliantly.
"That guy’s... gotten pretty big."
Probably—
He’d fed it right up to the edge while staying within the bounds of [Lowest-Grade Electric Dominion].
And then—
That current began to flow out along Minjae’s fingertips.
Pwaaang!
With that sound—
Blue current spread across the walls and floor.
Then—
—Vrooooooom...
A sound reverberated through the whole building—
The sound of machines spinning up.
"The lights came on...!"
"I’d heard it might be possible, but to think it’s real."
The lights that had been off in the building turned on.
More than that, power began to feed the entire building.
The soldiers watching murmured in awe.
"As expected of the human battery...!"
"Is that nickname official now?"
Among awakened in the mage line, Sergeant Lee Minjae had been far ahead of the pack.
Now he’d even gained this kind of meticulous control.
On top of that, abilities tied to communications.
"I guess I need to cook Minjae some good meals more often."
Because with him—
We could tap the civilization humanity had built.
"Humanity’s true power."
Those facilities—
We’d gained the privilege to use at least some of them.
"Broadcast setup—complete."
Thanks to the engineers—
The setup for broadcasting was finished.
And—
The truly important part lay with the other side.
"I’m ready too."
The signal that would spread out from an ordinary radio station.
Not only would it have to keep from warping under the influence of mana—
Preparation to push it as far as possible...
The [Mage of Waves] had completed it.
"...I still don’t know if this is really okay."
"You’re the one who asked for it. What are you saying now?"
"That’s true, but..."
Just before the broadcast began—
Minjae muttered with a clouded look.
"You know it too. Information only has value when you monopolize it."
"Well, that’s true."
We ourselves—
Had to rack our brains to get the smallest scraps of information.
Eighty percent of humanity’s information evaporates the moment the internet disappears, they say.
And there are limits to what you can get from books.
Not only has the internet backbone vanished—
Now even moving to find books is dangerous.
Every scrap of information carries enormous value.
And—
What Minjae asked of me was, in other words—
"...You want to scatter that. Did I understand you right?"
What our unit had collected so far—
Those precious scraps of enormous value.
He wanted us—
To scatter them to everyone in the world.
"Sharing information."
And—
My reaction when I heard that...
Honestly, it was simple.
"...Why didn’t I think of that?"
****
"Ah..."
Confirming that all preparations were complete—
I stepped up to the mic
and carefully opened my mouth.
"We are the Legion."
And—
I set the first line of the transmission that would spread to the world.
