Chapter 20: Oh No, I Went a Little Too Deep

Morin and his men remounted their bicycles, pedaling at full speed in the direction the local villager said the Kingdom's troops had vanished.

The dirt road, having been churned up by a column of hundreds of soldiers and supply wagons, bore such a clear trail that there was no need to search for tracks.

"Sir, look!" Corporal Bowman pointed to a military cap lying in the grass by the roadside.

It was a worn-out cap belonging to the Kingdom of Aragon's army, its brim still caked with mud. Clearly, some soldier had dropped it during the march and hadn't even bothered to pick it up. Morin merely glanced at it and continued to pedal forward.

They hadn't ridden far before they spotted a discarded ammunition crate. It was empty, left brazenly in the middle of the road. Further ahead, piles of untreated horse manure were scattered across the path like road markers.

Morin couldn't help but chuckle to himself. This wasn't a regular army on the march; it was a rabble of undisciplined men on a casual outing. Their level of military discipline was inferior even to the college students he had seen during training exercises before he was transported to this world—at least those students knew to carry their trash away.

"It seems they really are heading straight back to Seville," Morin called out to Corporal Bowman behind him.

Judging by the remnants left behind, the unit's march path was unambiguous, with no signs of splitting forces or setting up ambushes. He had no idea where they found the confidence to believe the Saxons wouldn't catch up so quickly. Yet, this very confidence—or perhaps ignorance—provided Morin and his team with excellent cover. They followed the "road markers" left by the Kingdom's troops, advancing southward without encountering a single obstacle.

As they drew closer to Seville, the terrain began to rise gradually. Finally, when they reached the crest of a small hill, the sight before them brought everyone to a halt.

About two kilometers ahead, the ancient outer structures of Seville were already vaguely visible. On a highland outside the city, a unit was resting in place, with a flag of the Kingdom of Aragon fluttering in the wind at the summit.

"Found them." Morin took the binoculars from his neck and adjusted the focus. Through the lenses, he could clearly see the soldiers in black uniforms. The numbers matched what he had heard from the old farmer; it was surely the same unit that had passed through Alcolea village. If the organizational structure of the Kingdom's army was similar to that of the Saxon Empire, this represented roughly half a battalion.

On the highland, scattered tents and makeshift fortifications had already taken shape. Soldiers in black uniforms wandered about in small groups, and some had even lit fires at the edge of the perimeter, showing absolutely no sign of vigilance.

Morin scanned the highland back and forth, and soon, something peculiar caught his attention. Positioned further back on the high ground were several "cannons" with strange shapes. They did not resemble any artillery used by the Saxon army, nor did they look like the barrel-based artillery Morin was familiar with. The barrels appeared unusually thick and short, almost like some sort of mortar, and the gun carriages and short barrels seemed to be embedded with some kind of glowing crystal.

Just as Morin was puzzled, his system interface automatically popped up a translucent window. As he focused his gaze on those strange cannons, a new line of information emerged.

[Special unit detected... Analyzing information...]
[Aragon Kingdom Army: Magic Crystal Cannon Position]
[Weapon Model: Britannia 'Comet' Type-I Magic Crystal Cannon]
[Effective Range: 4,500 meters]
[Ammunition Type: High-Explosive Magic Crystal Shells, Fragmentation Magic Crystal Shells]

"Magic Crystal Cannons?" Morin whispered the name, a sense of foreboding washing over him. The name alone suggested this was no ordinary threat; it was likely a product of this world's unique magitech.

He shifted his gaze back to his system map. Outside the icon representing the town of Seville, on that highland they had just discovered, two distinct red unit markers had appeared: one for the half-battalion of infantry and one for the magic crystal cannon position behind them.

What made his scalp tingle even more was that as he continued to scan the surroundings with his binoculars, more red diamond-shaped markers representing sizable units continued to pop up to the southeast of Seville on the map. This indicated that the Kingdom's army and the Britannians likely realized that the surrounding villages alone could not stop the advance of the Saxons, the National Army, and the International Brigades. Thus, they had pulled their defensive line back to the outskirts of the city, relying on these mysterious magic crystal cannons to construct a complete defensive perimeter.

And their six-man reconnaissance squad was, at this very moment, deep within the heart of this defensive circle, having bypassed all the outer villages. On the map, the tiny golden star icon representing their squad looked utterly isolated and helpless amidst a vast sea of red enemy territory.

"Damn it..." Morin lowered his binoculars, a layer of cold sweat breaking out on his forehead. He had overplayed his hand; he had pushed too deep, too quickly. Since the Kingdom's army had not set up any checkpoints on the road to Seville, Morin and his men had moved without obstruction, traveling much faster than he had anticipated.

The soldiers around him had yet to realize the severity of the danger; they were merely marveling at the scale of the enemy position and the weapons they had never seen before. Only Morin, through his "god's-eye" map, clearly understood their current predicament.

The good news was that this reconnaissance mission had indeed gathered a great deal of valuable information that would assist subsequent troops in launching an attack. But the bad news was that their current situation was precarious.

"Sir, we..." Corporal Bowman noticed the shift in Morin's expression and leaned in nervously.

Morin took a deep breath, forcing himself to stay calm. As the backbone of this team, panicking would serve no purpose; it would only lead everyone to their deaths. He quickly pushed his bicycle behind the cover of the hill, laid it down, and gestured for the others to stay low.

"We may have pushed a bit too deep."

"What do we do now, sir? Should we retreat?" Corporal Bowman and the other soldiers huddled closer, their faces etched with tension.

Morin did not answer immediately. He lay on the hillside, raised his binoculars once more, and carefully observed the enemy position in the distance while his mind raced.

Retreat? No. They had come all this way—how could he return with only this much information? Although the enemy's defensive deployment looked tight, the lax state of their soldiers revealed flaws everywhere.

"Since we're already here..." Morin muttered a classic Chinese idiom to himself.

Having already entered the tiger's den, turning back now would be a waste. Wealth is sought in danger, and high risk implies high reward. If he could secure valuable intelligence to ensure a smoother subsequent offensive and lower casualties for his comrades, then his own chances of survival would increase significantly. This risk was worth taking.