It was a freak combination of circumstances. Or perhaps it could be said that good intentions were repaid with good karma. Angelina was forced to leave home by her mother's urging for her to get married, so Myjack took advantage of the situation and became the son-in-law of House Ferd …
Bloweyk, on the other hand, was very happy. Every time he saw Anna ordering Myjack around like a dog, he grinned from ear to ear.
Now that someone else had taken his place and was being taught a lesson by his sister, he wasn't at all opposed to Myjack becoming his brother-in-law. Instead, he felt that Myjack's life would be miserable if he married Angelina.
If Angelina wasn't a magus, Myjack would definitely think that the marriage would be perfect.
He didn't expect to become Claude's brother-in-law. He had never coveted Angelina and didn't think anything would happen between him and the prideful young miss.
Perhaps it was due to his low self-esteem from begging on the streets when he was young that he never saw himself as someone equal to Claude, even though he was now an official first lieutenant of the kingdom.
In Myjack's heart, he saw Claude as his master. It was Claude who took him in when he was alone in the camp and taught him how to survive and thrive there.
He learned how to read and write from Claude and learned all sorts of military skills. He became an outstanding officer and Claude's most trusted aide. That was why he gave his loyalty to Claude.
When Myjack was young, he followed a crippled vagabond around town to beg for money. He heard the vagabond and the customers in the tavern talk about magi. Those people would often scare him to make fun of him. Magi loved to turn people into frogs, sheep or monsters. It left a deep psychological scar on him.
So, when he found out that Angelina was a magus and he was tied up like a dumpling, he was terrified of what he would be turned into.
In the end, he didn't become a frog or a monster. Instead, Angelina became his wife.
That was something he had never dreamed of. Apart from the fear of Claude's wrath, he was more delighted than anything else.
But no matter what, Myjack's fear of magi had subconsciously lessened. As long as Anna became his wife, he didn't care if magi were evil or not.
During the war, everything was kept simple.
Since his sister insisted on marrying Myjack, Claude didn't have the right to object.
However, it wasn't the right time for a big wedding. So, seven days later, Claude brought some of his good friends to Grinosburg in Anfiston and held a simple wedding ceremony for Angelina and Myjack in the moon shrine to give their blessings.
However, due to the impending war, Myjack didn't get his wedding leave. That would have to wait until Ranger wiped out Pancry and Krado and reclaimed all the lost territories.
Angelina had to stay in Lanu for the time being. Only after the war was over could she bring her husband home to give her mother an explanation.
On the 11th of the 5th month, Ranger led the overseas legion towards Pancry's camp.
As Pancry's scouts had been suppressed by Tribe 131, the majority of Ranger's men hadn't been discovered even five kilometers away from camp.
Micheki made a prompt decision and ordered all the men of Ranger to mount their horses and turn into light cavalry to launch a surprise attack on Pancry's camp.
At the time, Pancry's army was divided into two groups. One group was stationed at the camp, while the other attacked Port Patres, the capital of Robisto.
The enemy defending the camp couldn't hold out against the flood of light cavalry at all. Soon, their defences were broken and the camp fell into Ranger's hands.
Without the supplies provided by the camp, most of Pancry's forces held out for three days before raising the white flag and surrendering to Ranger.
Ranger only suffered light casualties in that battle. Micheki then led Ranger and a folk from the overseas legion to attack Krado in Balingana.
The enemy had already learned of Pancry's demise. Krado retracted its forces from Brikaman and set up three defensive lines around Gynkor.
However, due to the huge disparity in strength, equipment and morale, Krado couldn't hold out against Ranger's attacks at all.
They only managed to hold out for three days before Ranger's soldiers broke into the town and split the enemy in two. They were attacked from the front and back and were on the verge of being wiped out.
As Michaelic's adviser, Claude learned from the failure of Tribe 131's attack on the supply base in Geinke and commanded the cannons of Ranger to destroy all the houses in their advance, allowing the attacking force to split the enemy in two. Then, they pincer attacked from the front and the back, forcing the enemy to rush out of their formation and launch a helpless counterattack at the attacking force. As a result, they became target practice and fell to the ground.
The battle lasted for seven days and Krado lost more than half of its men. The rest had no choice but to surrender to Ranger after running out of food and ammunition.
Claude really wanted to find the officer in charge of setting up the cannons, but after interrogating the captives, he found out that the officer in charge of setting up the cannons had his house hit by a cannon on the second day of the battle and was buried under the rubble. By the time he was dug out, his body was already stiff.
In just a short month and a half, Ranger wiped out two enemy corps and spread its name far and wide.
Next, Ranger built a pontoon bridge at the port and secretly set up three heavy cannons along the shore.
As Micheki expected, Seaking's Nubissia fleet mobilized in large numbers. Seven warships and 11 armed merchant ships sailed along Dorinibla River towards the port in Balingana in order to destroy the pontoon bridge and bombard Ranger's camp.
In the end, they fell into the trap set by General Michaelć. Three hidden heavy field artillery positions opened fire at the same time, and the enemy fleet had nowhere to hide on the Dorinibla River. They became live targets.
This battle of battleships against field artillery lasted for an hour and a half, and the enemy fleet abandoned 4 battleships and 8 armed merchant ships before turning around and fleeing.
However, that didn't mean they could safely return to Port Vebator. Robisto's capital, Port Patres, had long since set up 12 heavy cannons to seal off the estuary and waterway of Dorinibla River. The reason the enemy didn't open fire when they arrived was because they wanted to close the gates and beat the dogs.
Caught off guard, the enemy fleet was once again bombarded by the heavy cannons. After half an hour of gunfire, only a heavily damaged armed merchant ship managed to escape from Dorinibla River.
The Shiksan fleet stationed at Port Vebator was completely wiped out. All seven warships sank in Dorinibla River.
Without the threat from the sea, Dorinibla River was no longer a passageway for the enemy fleet.
Ranger led the overseas corps to cross Dorinibla River in the middle of June and swept through Robisto and Balingana's territories on the other side of the river, reclaiming all the lost towns.
At the end of July, they entered Cromwell, the last of the lost colonies, and swept through the entire territory. In the middle of August, they captured Wickhamsburg.
By then, Ranger had reclaimed all the lost territories.
"General, why didn't we attack Colony Vebator? Why did we station ourselves at the border instead?
If we take Port Vebator, the enemy will lose their only military port and won't be able to send troops and support to Nubissia. The entire Shiksan colony will fall into the kingdom's hands. "
Colony Vebator used to be Nasri's colony. Due to the huge debt they owed Shiks, they had no choice but to use the colony to pay it off.
As a result, Shiks gained the only good port in Nubissia, allowing them to send troops and supplies to suppress the native riots in their colony.
After recovering Cromwell's outer colonies, Ranger was stationed at the border between the two countries and no longer marched towards Shiks' colony of Vebator.
The high-ranking officers of Ranger voiced their doubts during the meeting. They all agreed that they should seize the opportunity to attack Port Vebator and cut off the enemy's reinforcements from Freia. That way, all the enemy colonies on Nubissia would fall under the kingdom's jurisdiction.
General Michelic explained with a bitter smile, "Sirs, Ranger has reclaimed all the lost territories. We've wiped out Pancry, Krado and all the enemy garrisons in their lost territories. There's also Seaking's Port Vebator fleet. We estimate that we've wiped out and captured more than 250,000 enemies. This is a huge blow to Shiks. They've lost two-thirds of their forces in Nubissia.
"Speaking from the bottom of my heart, I'd also like to march into Port Vebator and take all the Shiksan colonies under our control.
But we can't. The higher-ups have forbidden us from entering the enemy's colonies.
"The reason is simple. Ranger is here to teach Shiks a harsh lesson, not to provoke the northern hegemon of Freia into a war of life and death with us.
"If we occupy all the Shiksan colonies on Nubissia, the most likely outcome would be Shiks forming an alliance with Canas and Nasri to start another war in Eastern Freia.
For the kingdom, which had only been recovering for a few years after the end of the war, it would be a calamity.
"None of us can predict whether Shiks will be able to emerge victorious in the upcoming war.
"The envoy we sent to Shiks should be on his way. The best case scenario would be for Shiks to learn their lesson and come to a truce with us, allowing peace to return to Nubissia.
If Shiks isn't convinced and still wants to fight us, they'll only send reinforcements to Nubissia as long as Port Vebator is still under their control. They won't turn their attention to Shiks.
"Since Ranger managed to defeat the enemy once, no matter how many reinforcements they send, we'll continue to defeat them until they can't take the losses and admit defeat.
"Gentlemen, are you confident of that?"
"Yes!" All the military officers participating in the military meeting stood up and replied loudly.
General Michelic was very satisfied with the effect of his speech, and so he gave the officers participating in the military conference their respective tasks. It was nothing more than training the overseas field army, building various defensive facilities, continuing to recruit soldiers in the colonies, and preparing for the worst case scenario.
Claude's mission was simple. He was to return to Anfiston and expand Tribe 131 into a line. The required soldiers would be picked from the commoners of the right age in the colonies and they would be ready to fight within half a year.
In fact, when Ranger wiped out Pancry and Krado and reclaimed all the lost colonies, Tribe 131 only played the role of a light cavalry scout. There were almost no casualties.
"Just as Colonel Sevict said, Tribe 131 was already in the limelight before the main army arrived and made countless contributions.
Now, it's finally their turn to fight. Don't try to snatch the merit.
At the end of the tenth month, Tribe 131 returned to Lanu in Anfiston. There, they would expand into Line 131. They would select suitable young commoners from the new recruits from the colonies to join the army and train them. Then, they would set up a field battalion for their subordinates.
Things were rather hectic, but the most important thing for Claude was to send Angelina and Myjack home to fulfill his mother's wishes.
Myjack was given half a year's leave to visit his family. One month was for the wedding and the other was for the return trip.
The night before they left, Claude brought Bloweyk to Angelina's wooden shack and laid out two blueprints in front of her.
They were the blueprints of the two weapons he designed. He hoped that she could help him study them with alchemical formations when she got home. Myjack could help her by using his knowledge of weaponry and military techniques to answer her questions.
Claude really wanted to do the research himself, but it wasn't convenient to do so in the camp, so he could only ask for his sister's help.
The first blueprint was for a long-handled hand grenade. It was rather simple and the difficulty lay in setting up the firing mechanism and the time to delay the explosion.
The second blueprint was for a revolver. The most difficult parts were the bullets, cartridge case and firing mechanism.
Claude didn't have any hopes of developing flintlock guns first and decided to go straight to revolvers.
He had once seen a Western movie in which the main character used a very small molding device to make his own lead-tipped bullets. He put a primer at the bottom of the cartridge case, stuffed gunpowder, and inserted the bullet head. Then, the bullet was complete.
Even though revolvers didn't have a long range, Claude believed that if Angelina could help him develop a practical bullet, the days of matchlocks would soon come to an end.
Of course, regardless of whether the two blueprints could be developed or not, the most important thing was to keep it a secret and not let anyone else know about it.