Trench Bolts and Magic

Chapter 20 is terrible, it went a bit too deep.
Molin and his group got back on their bicycles and sped off in the direction the locals had indicated where the Kingdom's troops had disappeared.

The dirt road in the countryside had been trampled by hundreds of marching soldiers and horse-drawn carts, leaving a clear and unmistakable trail that required no effort to find.

“Sir, look!” Corporal Bowman pointed to a military cap in the roadside bushes.

It was a worn-out Aragonese army cap, with mud still clinging to the brim. It was clear that a soldier had accidentally dropped it during a march and hadn't bothered to pick it up.

Morin glanced at it briefly before continuing to pedal forward.

They hadn't ridden far when they saw another abandoned ammunition box, empty, just lying carelessly in the middle of the road.

Further on, clumps of untreated horse manure were scattered on the road like road signs.

Morin couldn't help but want to laugh.

This is hardly a regular army marching; it's clearly a bunch of rabble having a picnic.

This level of military literacy is even worse than that of the college students he trained during his pre-transmigration military training; at least college students know to take their trash with them.

"It seems they really did go straight back to Seville."

Morin called out to Corporal Bowman behind him.

Judging from these remaining traces, the direction of this army's march was very clear, with no indication of any intention to split up or set up an ambush.

I don't know where they got their confidence from, thinking that the Saxons wouldn't catch up so quickly.

However, this confidence, or rather ignorance, provided excellent cover for Morin and his group.

Following the 'road signs' left by Wang Guojun himself, they advanced southward without any obstacles.

As we get closer to Seville, the terrain begins to rise gradually.

Finally, when they reached the top of a small hill, the sight before them made everyone stop.

About two kilometers ahead of them, the ancient outer buildings of Seville were already faintly visible.

Meanwhile, on a high ground outside the city, a troop was resting, with the banner of the Kingdom of Aragon fluttering in the wind atop the hill.

“Found it.” Morin took the binoculars off his neck and adjusted the focus.

Through the lens, he could clearly see the Kingdom's soldiers dressed in black.

The number was about the same as what he had heard from the old farmer; it should be the same unit that had passed through the village of Alcoria before.

If the Kingdom's army is similar in organization to that of the Saxon Empire, this should be about half a battalion's worth of troops.

On the high ground, scattered tents and makeshift shelters have taken shape.

Kingdom soldiers dressed in black uniforms strolled back and forth in twos and threes, some even starting fires at the front of the position, showing no sign of vigilance whatsoever.

Morin's gaze swept back and forth across the high ground, and soon something strange caught his attention.

Further back on the high ground, several oddly shaped 'cannons' were deployed.

They were unlike any type of artillery used by the Saxon army, and also quite different from the barrel artillery that Morin was familiar with.

The cannon barrel appeared unusually large and short, resembling some kind of mortar, and the gun carriage structure and short barrel seemed to be inlaid with some kind of luminous crystals.

Just as Morin was wondering, a semi-transparent window automatically popped up in his mind's system interface.

As his gaze focused on the strange 'cannons', a new line of information appeared.

[Special unit information detected and being analyzed.]

[Aragon Kingdom Army's Magic Crystal Cannon Position]

[Weapon Model: Brittany 'Comet' Type I Magic Crystal Cannon]

Effective range: 4500 meters

[Ammunition Types: High-Efficiency Magic Crystal Shells, Fragmentation Magic Crystal Shells]

"Magic Crystal Cannon?" Morin murmured the name to himself, a sense of foreboding washing over him.

This thing doesn't sound like a friendly creature; it's very likely a product of magical technology unique to this world.

He shifted his gaze back to his system map.

On the high ground they had just discovered, outside the town icon representing Seville, two different red soldier icons had appeared.

They represent half of the kingdom's infantry battalion and the magic crystal cannon positions behind them, respectively.

What made his scalp tingle even more was that as he continued to observe his surroundings through binoculars, several more red diamond-shaped troop markers, representing large-scale troops, began to appear one after another in the southeast direction of Seville on the map.

This suggests that the Kingdom's army and the Britannians may have believed that relying solely on the outer villages would not be enough to stop the Saxons, the National Army, and the International Brigades from their offensive.

Therefore, they directly contracted their defenses to the outskirts of the city, relying on these unknown magic crystal cannons to build a complete defensive perimeter.

Their six-man reconnaissance team had now crossed all the outer villages and plunged into the heart of this defensive perimeter.

On the map, the small golden star representing their squad stood out starkly against the backdrop of a large red area representing enemy forces, appearing utterly isolated and helpless.

"Oh shit."

Morin put down his binoculars, a layer of cold sweat beading on his forehead.

They went too far, going too deep in one go.

Since the Kingdom's army did not set up any roadblocks on the road to Seville, Morin and his men traveled unimpeded and at a much faster pace than Morin had anticipated.

The surrounding soldiers were unaware of the gravity of the danger; they were simply amazed by the size of the enemy position and the weapons they had never seen before.

Only Maureen, through that God-like map, clearly saw their current predicament.

The good news is that their reconnaissance this time did yield a lot of valuable information, which can help subsequent troops launch an offensive.

The bad news is that the current situation is still somewhat dangerous.
"Sir, we..."

Corporal Bowman noticed the change in Morin's expression and nervously approached.

Morin took a deep breath and forced herself to calm down.

As the backbone of this team, his panic is useless and will only lead everyone to die here.

He quickly pushed the bicycle to a secluded spot behind the slope, laid it down, then lowered himself and made a 'hide' gesture to the others.

"We may have gone a little too deep."

"So what do we do now, sir? Retreat?"

Corporal Bowman and several other soldiers gathered around, their faces etched with tension.

Maureen did not answer immediately.

He lay prone on the hillside, raised his binoculars again, and carefully observed the enemy positions in the distance, his mind racing.

retreat?

No, we've come all this way, how can we go back after seeing just this little bit?
Although the Kingdom's defenses appeared tight, the soldiers' relaxed demeanor revealed numerous weaknesses.

"It's all here."

Mo Lin uttered this classic Chinese quote.

Now that we've already ventured deep into the tiger's den, it would be a huge loss to just go back like this.

Fortune favors the bold, and high risk also means high reward.

As long as we can obtain valuable intelligence, the subsequent offensive will be more successful and the casualties of the troops will be less.

That would significantly increase my chances of survival, making the adventure worthwhile.

(End of this chapter)