Gaius stifled a yawn. He was floating a kilometre or so behind the East’s side of the battlefield, ready to unleash a devastating attack at a moment’s notice, but for some reason, he hadn’t received any orders yet. Normally, he would have fired a few times by now, but it seemed that the Plenum had something else in mind. Perhaps they were trying out some new doctrine or tactic, and his presence here was to clear the field if these new ideas fell through.

He didn’t have much in the way of guesses, however. For one, he never really paid much attention to how the order of battle was carried out, and even if he did, he didn’t have expert knowledge in commanding battles. Even when he was in Earth, the boy had no recollection of actually entering a warzone and learning how armies operated there, what more in Orb.

He could, however, like any male with a passing interest in the military on Earth, spout out some words that vaguely sounded like they were related to the armed forces.

After snarking mentally about his delusions, the boy continued to stare at the artefact floating beside him. The Radio enabled him to receive and transmit words, but like almost everything else that didn’t involve the wheel and axle on Orb, it was an artefact. This little thing had been given to him by Paragon Ying Xin after he arrived in Feng-Lang, and he had to resist a desire to take it apart more than once.

“Still,” muttered Gaius, “it’s odd that they haven’t even called me once. Normally, they would at least tell me to be on alert every few minutes or something.”

There was nothing much to observe about the ground battle — Conrah’s land armies were busy demonstrating the outcome of charging into a storm of projectile weapons designed to pierce armour and flesh with ease. The first few times he’d seen it, Gaius had mentally compared the defenders there to meat grinders, and if he had to be honest about it, it would have been far more economical to not send in the ground troops until a semblance of air superiority had been established.

Somewhat bored, Gaius began to fiddle with the artefact floating beside him. The channel to him was a priority one — if any news came from the command post, the Radio would convey it to him, disregarding the current channel he was on. There was no issue with changing the channels around, although the boy was dead certain that there would be no music stations with paid advertisements he could tune into.

“Ground control to Command, suppression has been toned down in line with conservation requirements…”

Conservation? Qi is free, so it probably refers to the damage from using artefacts without restraint over long periods of time. Gaius drew a sigil, to replace one on the brink of vanishing, and then twiddled the knob again.

“Command to Thunderbolt Actual, lower your altitude.”

“Negative, Command. Allies are too close.”

“Thunderbolt Actual, that’s just a difference in training doctrines…never mind. We’ll talk about this in base. Command, out.”

Gaius considered the small dispute between both parties, and suppressed an urge to giggle. It was the little things that made life so much more interesting. Unfortunately, the boy was sure that he wouldn’t be in time to see Marshal Marie and the person talking to her now debate over little bits like safety margins. It was probably going to be something Paragon Ying Xin would watch with a bag of peanuts floating around her.

After spending a few seconds to lament his unfortunate absence, Gaius returned to his interesting new pastime of listening into the Radio. He spun the knob again, and the two people’s little polite squabble vanished into a haze of static.

“…du, stop stuffing your face with ice-cream and listen to me.”

“Ice-cream?” Gaius muttered. “We’re on the front lines. What kind of expert do you have to be to actually have ice-cream here?”

The static obscured the ice-cream eater’s reply, but Gaius was too busy berating himself for not knowing how the Radio in Orb worked. It was unlikely that they were actually using legitimate airwaves, since electricity wasn’t a thing in this world, so for someone to be able to tap into their channels…

Gaius wasn’t in a position to judge if that was possible. Still…ice-cream here. I kinda miss Mi-Zu and Dai-Yukimono. I wonder if they’re doing fine back at home?

“…follow…be detected.” A string of garbled words crawled out from the artefact, and Gaius could only make out three words. It would seem that these two people had been given some special assignment by the Plenum, but was it really alright to be talking about ice-cream in a channel any bored person could listen to?

The channel went dead, and Gaius sighed. He was hoping to hear more about where they got ice-cream from, but it seemed that destiny wasn’t going to let him have his way easily. Displeased, he went back to twiddling a few more knobs.

A gentle, lilting melody flowed out of the artefact. Gaius stared at the artefact as a sweet voice began to sing. Music? C’mon, no one’s literally going to listen to you. Who are you singing to?

“I’ve seen everything now,” Gaius said to himself. “Music. On air. In a world that operates on mystical means, and where communications of such a level are largely restricted to the military.”

For a moment, he wondered if he should talk to the singer — he was definitely able to, given the capabilities of the Radio he had — but before he could work on that impulse, the artefact beeped. The channel changed automatically, cutting short any action he wanted to make.

“Command to Gaius, return to base. The battle’s over, and the Plenum wants to have a word with you.”

Gaius looked at the battlefield in shock. Indeed, the Lifespring’s forces were retreating, their numbers as usual a fraction of what they started off with. However, due to his absence, the enemy Knights were retreating numbers far better than they normally had, but Gaius had the feeling that the next attack wasn’t going to change all that much.

“Gaius to Command, solid copy. Returning now.”

The boy grabbed the artefact, returned the Moonshot to its original handgun-like form, and dispersed the seventy-odd sigils with a wave of his hands. He glanced at the artefact, and then flew towards the defence lines, where the other Knights were gathering once again.