|| June 18, 1923 || Unified Calendar ||
It has been three years since Tanya and I moved to the Imperial Capital. In the years that passed many things have happened to the both of us.
In the first year of Tanya's time at the Mage Officer School, 1921, let's just say that she... got into some trouble that warranted my interference. By that time I was already a recognized chief engineer of a major project under the orders of the Imperial Army General Staff and the Bureau of Technology.
As for how I got that position, in terms of communication and basically almost every technological innovation in this world, they all almost entirely rely on magic hence the term "magic engineers" or "magical engineering". Long-range communications used by all countries in this world relies on mana frequencies, which is prone to magic jamming or interference.
Despite this there are still advantages in mana based communications like easier counter communications warfare now purely based on skilled mana manipulation and not heavy reliant on which country has better hardware or encryption channels.
Due to this I took it upon myself to create a prototype of the telephone. This phone is smaller, the size of a pocket, contrary to the bulky and hard to carry telephones of WW1 on Earth. Like 2010 flip phones.
This prototype alone earned me a place in the Bureau of Technology along with being the Chief Engineer of Communications Technological R&D. I was also offered a position of Honorary Professorship at both the Imperial War Academy and the Imperial Academy of Engineering & Logistics. That was how important my contributions were.
As for the trouble that Tanya caused at the Mage Officer School, it was because she attempted to perform craniotomy on her classmate. Crazy right? I'm used to it but sometimes she just goes ballistic if you don't keep her in check. Her brain doesn't work the same way as normal humans do. It was a relief that I was teaching students about the use of Portable Electronic Communications and Encryption Languages at that school.
// " . . .the development of the Portable Electronic Communication Device (Phone) put us ahead of other countries in terms of communication warfare. Information is a weapon. In the right hands it can topple nations. That is why along with the development of this device, I also created a whole new language that can only be instantaneously decrypted by the phone. If done by humans, it will take at least a day to decipher and read the dense numbers and lines of 0s and 1s, which is an advantage—"
"Professor Degurechaff!! First Classer Tanya—! Come to the training field professor, please stop First Classer Tanya Degurechaff!" //
After that the scene I arrived to was Tanya holding her classmate, which was like 2 to 3 times larger than her, by the neck with her right hand while her left already turned into a mage blade. Some officers were also scared to the bone by her genuine madness that day.
I had to talk to the higher ups of the Imperial Mage Officer School just to conceal the matter and ask favors for the officers that saw the thing she did to keep quiet. Though some refused like Lehrgen, of course he would.
Though I think that Tanya was not entirely at fault because based on what the witnesses and she said, she was being disrespected and disregarded by the second classers and her classmates. It's just that she went too far. Could've just ended it with the neural interference spell that emulated the feeling of being electrocuted.
Nothing much happened after that which warranted my interference much. Tanya used her past life knowledge to propose a new logistics system and also somehow led a long distance infiltration at night successfully. My colleagues at the Intelligence Department was stumped when they learned it was Tanya though and not a war vet.
Back to the present. Right now I am reviewing applicants that wants to join the project that I proposed to the General Staff with utmost secrecy. Those that are applying do not know what type of project I'm working on but there's still quite a lot of them due to my reputation as the youngest genius engineer of the empire.
Looking through it all is boring though...
[ Helvetica Neue || Age... || Introduction: A renowned professor of astronomy and cartography, known for remaking the map of the world based on astronomical observations by... ]
[ Heinrich Gantz || Age... || Introduction: ...]
[ Betelgeuse Hoffman || Age... || Introduction: ... ]
"I should not be the one looking through all these... When would they assign me an assistant to take care of the paperwork. Goddamn General Staff people drowning in smoke at the top."
*riiiiiiing* *riiiiiiing*
The telephone by my side almost buried by the mountain of paperwork rang. Offices like these still uses old telephones as the flip phone I made is still in mass production. Right now, flip phones are used either by Intelligence Officers or General Staff Officers.
"Hello?"
[ "Is this Professor Degurechaff speaking?" ]
"Yes. What is the purpose of your call?"
[ "This is a call from the Northern District, from Norden War Theatre. Imperial Army Aerial Sorcerer Second Lieutenant Tanya Degurechaff had been shot down by a flight of mages. She is—" ]
*bang!*
"It seems like even after all those things I did to somehow influence the Alliances' aggression... it all still came to this point."
Being in a wheelchair almost everyday was agonizing for him. But at the same time it provided him more time to think more clearly. This prompted him to take drastic measures in an attempt to defy fate and god's hand. In the end though, most of it are only still just a plan.
I took my flip phone and dialed a series of numbers. The phone rang for a few seconds before the call connected.
[ "Ruhm dem Imperium. Pioneer." ]
"Ruhm dem Imperium. How is Artillery Spotting doing so far, Müller?"
[ "A flight of Legadonia Entente flies flew right above our artilleries. One flight mage stalled them and they didn't get to attack our boys digging. That soldier was crazy and took about half of them with him to the grave." ]
I frowned. This was clearly Tanya who fought them all off on her own.
"You're an intelligence officer, Erya Müller. Details."
[ "...that. It happened at 1300 hours just about an hour ago. About 7 Alliance Flight Mages were taken down, that was the amount of corpses intact that we can recognize. No casualties on our side except the severely injured flight mage who fought them." ]
"Continue what you're doing. Ruhm dem Imperium!"
[ "Ruhm dem Imperium!" ]
*Beep*
|| ### General Hospital ||
At the third floor of the hospital, at one of the special rooms for war veterans who returned from the front lines, inside sat a young man in his wheelchair as he peeled an apple deftly beside an unconscious young girl covered in bandages.
"I bet you thought that you'll get a promotion while you were fighting."
Viktor just focused on peeling the apple and cutting it while he talked to his unconscious sister who just returned from Norden. He rushed here as soon as he got the news that an airspace patrol mage who got swarmed by Legadonian flies was transferred here.
He knew that it would come to this due to his foreknowledge and tried to prevent it from happening. But in the end it still came to this.
"It's like fate is joking with me."
Changing fate is not as simple as it seems. Even though he went ahead and put some of his subordinates at the Norden War Theater to at least mitigate the sudden entry of those Legadonian mages, none of them noticed those flies. Like they didn't even exist.
"Hah. Curse you, Being X."
Viktor paused his hand and looked at Tanya who was slowly sitting up whilst groaning. She kept muttering that phrase.
"Finally, you're awake. I'm quite amazed you took down an entire team by yourself."
"Shut up. My head and whole body hurts, stop talking."
Viktor just chuckled in response before replying to her, "That's only natural. You got fucked by more than five men."
"Fuck you."
Tanya glared at him with hatred. Being a girl was one of her greatest shames in life. That Being X cursed her and turned her into a girl.
"Heh. Don't be so agitated. Rest properly, I heard that the empire will hold a parade for your contributions. You also have a nickname now, Argent."