Youjo Senki - Volume 13 - Chapter 3

[chapter] III Last Ditch

Mages are an all-purpose painkiller, able to scratch those difficult-to-reach places. Unfortunately, they are only a treatment for the symptoms, not a cure.

When applied, however, they do provide temporary relief. After all, they boast exceptional firepower and defense, are blessed with mobility, and are extremely easy to deploy. Managing orbs and making sure their skill doesn’t dull takes effort, but otherwise, they are generally on par with infantry.

Fuel is simple. While they do require more calories than regular infantry, some extra food on top of standard infantry rations quickly solves that issue. Even motorbikes, relatively adaptable compared with other vehicles, will not move simply by shoving a piece of bread into its fuel tank. Additionally, even when forced to cross long distances, mages rarely break down in the same way that heavy machinery can.

As a household medicine, they are perfectly capable of serving as a state’s instrument of violence, and in a sense, they’re an inordinately vital part of the medicine cabinet. In a way, they are almost too convenient.

More useful than a horse. This was often the catchphrase when magic-based tactics were first introduced, but it was also the clincher. When magic engineering brought modern applications of magic to the world—that is to say, when the door to magic was opened and the Imperial Army succeeded in creating its mage division through the combination of computation orbs and rifles—it was convenience that was stressed above all else.

During the dawn of this new age, much was attempted through trial and error. Training was strengthened. Technologies were researched. Combat techniques were explored. At some point, through significant effort, mages gained the ability to fly through the skies. This would eventually lead to aerial mages.

At first, the ability to fly was not actually considered that significant. No more than another convenient bonus. Not flying units, per se, but units that happened to be able to fly. It was originally envisioned that mages would be utilized as a type of elite infantry, much like marines or snipers.

And why did that change? The answer is obvious. Like any sweatshop, the Imperial Army has its own proud history of tradition and trust. It certainly isn’t about to change its practices now. The fact that mages can fly means that, when out on the battlefield, they’re easily ordered about and can be given all manner of preposterous tasks.

“Flying infantry? What could be better?!”

And when push comes to shove…it turns out mages really can do anything. Before long, aerial became the de facto standard for deploying mages.

The degree to which mages have transformed the sky into their primary battlefield means that, today, all mages are effectively aerial mages. But there is one major caveat to this idea, and that is primarily because only well-trained mages can carry out these duties.

In other words, there is a need to screen and train them.

Before the war, the attrition rate suffered during minor conflicts was negligible. In those days, even for essentially limited departments, losses never exceeded what was “acceptable.”

To repeat, mages are convenient. No one can resist such flexibility and ease of use. And yet they also conceal a painful fault that no country can avoid in times of war.

Namely, there are never enough mages.

Even if full numbers are secured at one point, they will begin to dwindle off around the edges. Militaries are constantly chasing after new mages. From a supply point of view, the pool of available mages is decided by individual qualities and thus is never sufficient. Ideally, mages are deployed in teams, but despite everyone’s best efforts, there are never enough mages to make this reality.

Additionally, there are many fields in which mages need to be trained. Progressing from new cadet to useful mage requires time. And if, instead, early deployment is favored and promising new greenhorns are thrown onto the front too quickly, incorporating new recruits into the core force will only grow more difficult as time passes.

It is lamentable, but mages simply aren’t very compatible with total war. Their replenishment can never keep pace with attrition.

However, as the Federation and the Empire continued to clash in the east, the severe erosion of both armies’ aerial mage forces revealed a startling truth. And that was that even mages who cannot fly are still mages.

The human resource layer had evidently degraded too far in quality for aerial mages. But with a slight shift in perspective, what remained could still be transformed into magnificent nonaerial mages.

The Federation Army, which had limited experience in deploying magic technologies, was less set in their ways and were able to more easily free themselves from the preconception that mages must always be aerial.

A new pair of lenses can often make the world seem different. In this way, the Federation Army quickly rediscovered a simple truth about mages: They can also be powerful infantry. As versatile as other foot soldiers. But with more mobility than cavalry. And with enough firepower to substitute for heavy weapons in a tight spot. But still just as easy to keep supplied as foot soldiers.

What could be more convenient? Human weapons that can walk on their own feet, don’t break down as often as normal equipment, and can be used in place of tanks and cannons!

They were theoretically superior troops, and experimentation revealed one hypothetically optimal application. Regiments of ground mages formed through en masse conscription of people with mixed magical aptitude could prove highly effective at punching through the front. This offered a potentially powerful vanguard for operations that drove deep into enemy territory.

In other words, mage troops could once again become a force for world supremacy.

And certainly, this seemed to be the direction the world was heading. But if there was a problem, it was that the ground where these seeds were being strewed was already barren. The continued existence of mage troops, by this time, was already uncertain.

—Twilight of the Mages: Why Have Mages Disappeared?