The Royal Military Academy's Impostor Owns a Dungeon [BL] Chapter 1315: A Heavenly Hymn

Who could’ve foreseen the playing field shrinking like that?

Unlike Battalion 8, whose members could at least breathe a little easier knowing they weren’t going to outright fail the exercise after securing the first successful extraction, everyone else was considerably less relaxed.

"Hurry! Someone plot that extraction location on our map right now!" the senior Commander of Battalion 4 barked through his comms, his voice carrying a growing sense of urgency. "We don’t know where the other two decommissioned points are yet, but mark down those numbers immediately!"

Inside his cockpit, he pushed his flight controls forward, sending his manual mecha surging at full speed toward the active extraction point nearest their current base.

Three locations disappearing wasn’t necessarily catastrophic.

Not yet.

The problem was what would happen if the examiners decommissioned three perfectly usable extraction points after successful recovery!

It wouldn’t just mean that future battalions might have to travel farther after raiding an enemy base and recovering an objective. With fewer and fewer extraction points remaining, it would also become much easier to predict where everyone would eventually have to go.

And that applied to the Caldris Hostiles too.

As if that batshit pillar of light wasn’t already bad enough, eventually the hostiles wouldn’t even need to chase whoever stole an objective from their base. They could simply camp near the remaining extraction points and wait!

Worse, as both the available objectives and usable extraction sites continued to dwindle, wouldn’t every battalion eventually be forced toward the same areas, leaving them to keep butting heads with one another and the hostiles?!

Did they look like they had enough supplies for that?!

Hell, this entire setup was turning into a tightening noose!

The Battalion Commander gritted his teeth hard enough to make his jaw ache.

At this rate, forget about taking pride in their experience as senior cadets and trying to top the exercise. Their priority needed to be securing at least of the twenty available objectives while doing so was still reasonably possible.

"Forget the supply run for now!" he ordered, knuckles whitening around his controls. "Move out! We can’t afford to play the long game anymore!"

Because if the boundary continued shrinking, even the two days’ worth of energy they had left might amount to only a few hours once they were forced to start crossing larger stretches of Caldris Minor-7 for every operation.

Apparently, several other battalions had reached the same conclusion.

Rankings could wait.

Right now, the important thing was making sure they secured at least one objective before extracting anything became next to impossible.

Surprisingly, or perhaps unsurprisingly, the exact same implication was being discussed back inside Battalion 10’s hidden base.

Except...

Unlike everyone else, they weren’t rushing out as though their asses were on fire.

Instead, several members of Battalion 10 were marveling at the sheer benefit of having map.

Finn Wrenner, for one, really couldn’t believe his luck.

Of course, everyone was probably just as worried as he was. Who in their right mind would want to fail an exercise this important?

They hadn’t exactly been told they’d be booted out if they completely bombed CREX, but their Academy was notoriously strict when it came to evaluations. Whatever happened here would probably carry some weight, not just toward their grades this year, but potentially their future as well.

For Finn, however, there were a few more reasons to be desperate than most.

He couldn’t afford to give anyone a reason to doubt his credentials or question the hard-won place he’d managed to secure at the Royal Military Academy. Because if anyone ever asked him to go through the enrollment or verification process again...

The struggling cadet genuinely wasn’t sure he’d be able to pass again. Not because of his grades or anything like that, but simply because of his poor health.

And as far as Finn was concerned, failing because of something he couldn’t control would probably be the worst thing that could happen in his admittedly very short life!

So when the announcement about the decommissioned extraction points appeared, Finn felt as though the rug had been pulled right out from under him.

His mind immediately started racing through every horrible possibility.

What if they couldn’t secure an objective in time?

What if, while they were still busy preparing, the other battalions managed to get their hands on all the remaining assets first?

What if they failed because—

"...?"

But just as Finn was starting to feel faint, despite knowing perfectly well how formidable the Caldris Hostiles were and that securing all the remaining objectives would be far easier said than done, their Battalion Commander casually walked over to the makeshift command center and marked three locations on their map.

Just like that.

"..."

Now, there was absolutely nothing remarkable about someone walking over and marking things on a projection.

But it was only then that Finn and several others seemed to remember something incredibly important.

Unlike the other battalions, who might still need to do some guesswork to figure out which locations had just been removed from play...

Battalion 10 actually had a map that was about as complete as it could currently get!

They had the landmarks corresponding to the hostile hideouts mentioned in all those intel files they’d seen but hadn’t chosen. Their version also included the supply-drop locations they’d learned about earlier, while the extraction points had eventually been numerically identified with the help of imaging from their battleship in orbit.

So while everyone else might still be scrambling to figure out exactly how much the playing field had shrunk, Battalion 10 could literally look at their map and see it.

Finn stared.

Then stared some more.

And while he was still processing just how ridiculous of an advantage that was, Luca Kyros suddenly turned around to face them.

Their much shorter yet definitely eye-catching Commander looked remarkably unfazed by the latest development. If anything, he seemed almost sheepish as he smiled at the gathered cadets.

"We’re starting a bit later than the others..." Luca admitted. "But what do you say we test out our handiwork now?"

"..."

They were such simple words.

So why did Finn suddenly hear what sounded suspiciously like a heavenly hymn playing beside his ears?!