Finnomia is a nation rich in raw materials. Ores and timber that could form the backbone of war supplies are plentiful there.

On the other hand, mana stones are scarce, the population is extremely small, and the industrial foundation needed to process or refine those raw materials is sorely lacking.

"......"

Hannu, lieutenant general of Finnomia's First Corps, swallowed hard as he looked at the rows lined up across the parade ground.

Mana stones. And trucks.

Either one alone would be precious beyond measure to Finnomia, and these trucks were carrying mana stones inside them. For a moment, Hannu's vision nearly swam.

"They're coming now." 𝕗𝚛𝚎𝚎𝐰𝗲𝗯𝗻𝚘𝚟𝚎𝗹.𝕔𝐨𝕞

Soldiers swarmed onto the parade ground almost at once, and Maximilian appeared among them. Hannu turned to him.

"Kn, Knight-nim! What on earth are all these......"

"Supplies shipped through Kanillan. Lobrus won't catch wind of this."

If Finnomia was to be brought into the Empire's orbit and strengthened over time, now was exactly the right moment. The Eastern Alliance was in the thick of General Secretary Varmil's Great Purge.

"Consider this a personal gift from me to Finnomia. It is late, but think of it as a gift to celebrate Finnomia's independence."

Hannu's face broke wide open.

"A celebration of independence...... you say?"

"Yes."

Maximilian smiled.

"Lieutenant General Hannu-nim. I hold the unity of a people, and the purity of that unity, in very high regard."

He spoke those words in the Nomian language, and not only Hannu but the entirety of Finnomia's senior command gathered on the parade ground listened in hushed silence.

"Though in the end, the most important thing is unity itself. Purity, too, springs from unity."

This, too, was Johann Georg's script.

"For hundreds of years Finnomia endured the domination and suppression of great powers, yet never once lost its own distinct national character."

The senior officers of Finnomia's military had gathered together, forming a podium as naturally as if it had always been there.

"Even before the wave of red revolution that swept the East, even before that torrent of radical ideology, you did not submit. You bled and you resisted, and you held your people's sovereignty intact."

His gaze moved slowly across the faces of the generals and colonels standing in formation, one by one.

"That kind of unbreakable conviction commands respect. As a noble of the Empire myself, I studied Finnomia's history and came to carry that respect within me."

He rapped his knuckles against the side of a truck bed.

"That is why these trucks and these mana stones are a small gift to the Finnomian people."

Words meant to stir national pride. The soldiers' expressions left no doubt. Most of the men here were middle-aged, people who had lived through Finnomia's independence firsthand in their youth, and their faces carried a depth of feeling that ran noticeably deeper for it......

* * *

At noon that same day, Imperial officers arrived at Finnomia's Corps headquarters. They moved straight to the main conference room.

Colonel-level tactical officers briefed Finnomia's generals and field officers on the Empire's advanced military doctrine.

"First is the introduction of a mission command system. This is a command structure that grants broad discretionary authority to on-site commanders. When the battlefield situation shifts rapidly, lower-ranking officers and NCOs act on their own initiative without waiting for orders from above at every turn......"

An Imperial officer would explain something in that manner, a Finnomian interpreter would relay it to the generals, and a secretary would write it down to serve as a reference manual.

"Second is the systematic operation of a general staff."

Because Finnomia was a newly independent nation, the distinction between staff officers and field commanders was still blurry.

For the war that was not far off, a systematic process of training staff officers was absolutely necessary.

"Third is the organic operation of communications and radio networks."

...... The Finnomian generals listened with serious expressions.

The delivery of the core doctrine was winding toward a close, and they were about to discuss the schedule for field application and live-exercise training, when..."One more thing."

Maximilian spoke up with a recommendation. The Imperial officer straightened sharply, and every set of eyes in the room turned to him.

"I strongly recommend forming, organizing, and formalizing a special division that maneuvers on skis."

Skepticism returned to the faces of Hannu and several other generals. But it was not as visible as the unease from the night before.

"Could...... we ask the reason for that? As I mentioned before, skiing is a leisure activity......"

Hannu asked politely.

"Yes. Finnomia's people, young and old, men and women alike, all ski. It is a natural foundation this country already possesses."

If only the right tactics were layered onto the manpower already in place, Finnomia would field an elite snow-terrain mobile corps that no other country could replicate no matter how much capital and time they poured into it ,

Even with that certainty behind his words, they still looked unconvinced. But Maximilian intended to push the ski corps formation through by force if he had to. There was no need to persuade them. Its true worth would show itself in the wars to come.

"Please consider it as favorably as possible."

The meaning was plain enough: refusal was not an option.

"......Yes."

Hannu added carefully.

"Also, Knight-nim. Grand Marshal Wurse would like to meet you in person, if that is possible......"

Even Maximilian was genuinely surprised by that.

Wurse Mateus Mansner.

Supreme commander of the Finnomian Defense Force, and a hero of the nation.

Before the regression, such a meeting would have been unimaginable.

......

Creeak ,

An old wooden door swung open, revealing Grand Marshal Wurse's office. A warm fireplace. A mounted moose head. Beyond those, almost no decoration at all. Maximilian stepped inside.

"......"

He looked at the man said to have never been cowed even before the Imperial Emperor, Grand Marshal Wurse of Finnomia.

Tall, with a solid build and a neatly trimmed beard. He had blond hair and blue eyes, and his bearing was more that of a nobleman than a soldier.

"Good to meet you."

Maximilian greeted him first in the Nomian language. Wurse's eyebrows rose.

"Good to meet you as well."

"It is an honor to meet you in person like this."

"The feeling is mutual."

Wurse gestured to the seat across from him. Maximilian sat down facing him.

"Quite remarkable. Imperial and the languages of the western nations share a similar family tree, so learning one from another is not too difficult."

Wurse opened the conversation. A deep, heavy voice, an uncommon one.

"But the Nomian language would be entirely different at its roots. How did you come to speak it so fluently?"

"My own effort."

Wurse studied him with something warm in his eyes. A brief, slightly awkward silence settled over the room.

"The gift you sent arrived safely."

Maximilian gave a small smile.

"I'm glad to hear it."

"Though a gift without a price attached is a rare thing. What is it you want?"

A price.

There was one, of course.

"Would you be able to teach skiing to our Imperial forces as well?"

"Skiing...... skiing, you say?"

Wurse tilted his head slightly.

The Empire, asking a fledgling nation to teach it something as modest as skiing.

He looked surprised.

"Yes. I believe assault maneuvers using skis can be enormously effective in northern terrain."

Maximilian had no doubts about that.

"I will send troops to Finnomia on a continuing basis. Elite soldiers from the Empire's north will likely be the ones who arrive. I ask for your instruction."

Lobrus's northern territories were blanketed in bitter cold, snow, and ice every bit as harsh as Finnomia's.

When the continental war broke out before long, ski assault units would become a very meaningful variable there.

"......Very well."

"Thank you."

They looked at each other across the desk.

Wurse's gaze shifted at a slight angle.

"By the way, Knight Maximilian. I hear you said some very fine things to the Finnomian people."

"...... You must have heard from the generals."

Maximilian smiled dryly, then threw out a question.

"Grand Marshal Wurse-nim. What do you pursue?"

The philosophy and convictions that drove Wurse as a person.

Perhaps a piece of history Maximilian himself could learn something from.

"I pursue greatness."

There was no hesitation in Wurse's answer.

"Greatness."

"That is right. Greatness born from continuity. For me, that means the Finnomian people."

A tenacious vitality that refuses to break no matter the hardship, and carries its thread of existence endlessly forward.

Maximilian agreed with that deeply.

"But that greatness is never found in persecuting or hating other peoples."

His words carried weight. Was it a remark made with Izenheim in mind?

"Of course. Even so, there are forces that deliberately seek to corrupt and destroy the purity and continuity of a people."

Maximilian answered back.

"I call them anti-human races."

Wurse held his gaze for a long moment, then stroked his mustache and changed the subject.

"Isn't it about time for you to head back?"

"Yes, for me it is. The officers will be staying a few more days."

Maximilian rose from his seat. Wurse stood as well.

"And thank you for the thoughtful consideration."

There were no clocks in Wurse's office, not the wall clock that would normally hang there, and no wristwatch either.

He had heard the rumors in advance, it seemed.

"Everyone has one sensitive spot or another. Off you go."

Grand Marshal Wurse walked him all the way to the door.

When they stepped into the corridor, a Finnomian soldier approached cautiously from outside.

"Ah, excuse me. Would it be all right to take a photograph to commemorate this meeting?"

A camera hung around the soldier's neck. Wurse's brow furrowed slightly.

A photograph of an Imperial noble, especially someone as prominent as Ebenholtz, getting out into the world could become a security risk.

But.

"I think the two of us could each keep one for our own private collection."

Maximilian said it to Wurse. Wurse looked at him with something like surprise, then nodded.

"......All right."

For Maximilian as well, the chance to have a photograph taken with a historical figure like Grand Marshal Wurse was not something that came along often.

"H, how about here in front of the fireplace?"

The photographer indicated the spot. They stood side by side before the fireplace.

Wurse was visibly awkward in front of a camera, his posture a little stiff, while Maximilian smiled at ease and held the lens with his gaze.

"Here we go!"

Click!

The flash burst and the two of them were captured on film. The photographer cried out in an excited voice.

"A photograph for the history books!"

History.

Maximilian turned that word over quietly.

He hoped so.

He had no way of knowing what kind of person people far in the future would remember him as, from this photograph. But please.

Please let that future actually come.

......

After finishing his meeting in Finnomia's capital, Maximilian noticed a large poster affixed to the wall of the parliament building.

[ Finnomia Central Marksmanship Competition ]

A marksmanship competition.

"......"

The moment he saw that unremarkable poster, a single name flashed across his mind without warning.

History holds countless heroes. Perhaps the tragedy called war is what forges them into heroes in the first place.

There was a man in Finnomia who had carved his name into military history as an ordinary soldier.

"Does Finnomia hold marksmanship competitions often?"

He asked Hannu, who was guiding him through the capital.

"Yes, we do. Finnomia has so many hunters, and their game is one of the primary sources of food supply, so......"

Finnomia's sniper. The one man Lobrus had called the "white devil."

Toibo Hakae.

His record was staggering.

Before the regression, he had taken out over 800 confirmed kills, targeting only high-value assets: enemy commanders, communications soldiers, machine gun crews, scouts, the most critical resources on the battlefield.

Even the elite counter-snipers Lobrus dispatched to hunt him down fell before his rifle.

A monster who, after killing hundreds of high-value personnel, went on to put bullets through the skulls of eight Adversaries, the human weapons.

The man recognized as the greatest sniper in continental history before the regression.

"Interesting."

He was of pure Finnomian blood, and as a single individual he had halted the advance of an entire Lobrus corps, knight-class combat power, standing alone.

He could become an ally of the Empire.

"Since we're already here, I'll provide an Ebenholtz rifle as the special prize for first place in this competition."

Finnomia owed a considerable debt to that one genius.

And Maximilian had his own ideas about making use of him.

Give a man a masterwork rifle as a gift, and every time he pulls the trigger, the name Maximilian will come to mind.

"Does Ebenholtz use rifles as well?"

Hannu asked, on an idle thought.

"Of course."

Maximilian drew the pistol from his holster.

"I have killed quite a few enemies with this."

"...... Ah."

* * *

Whooooo ,

Deep in Finnomia's snowy mountains, where raging blizzards swallowed the world whole, someone was moving through the curtain of white without a sound.

His name was Toibo Hakae.

He was a finalist in this year's Finnomia Central Marksmanship Competition.

The qualifying round, hitting stationary targets up to 500 meters out, was already behind him. Now only the final challenge remained.

He had to hunt a Markos srasony, the most mysterious and sensitive creature in all of Finnomia's snowfields, a creature treated as almost sacred.

,.

Hakae moved without noise. Erasing even the crunch of snow beneath his feet, he dissolved into the terrain around him.

The Markos srasony could hear sounds within a 300-meter radius, an area the size of an entire village.

The moment it detected even the faintest trace of killing intent, it bolted.

"......"

Hakae found his sniper position and settled into it. Prone, rifle raised, he calculated the wind speed, the trajectory of the snowfall, the humidity in the air, and even the faint fluctuations of mana in the atmosphere.

"Haa......"

He watched the srasony in the distance. No scope. He aimed with naked eyes alone, and in the moment his breath stopped ,

Bang.

The round left the barrel and punched through the blizzard. Hundreds of meters away, a cat-like creature dropped heavily to the ground.

"Got it?"

Hakae murmured quietly and pushed himself upright. But even as he moved to confirm the kill, he never let his guard down.

These mountains were thick with winter predators far more ferocious than any Markos srasony. Catch their eye, and he would end up a corpse rather than a champion.

"......"

Then, at last, when he spotted the body of the Markos srasony with a clean hole through the center of its forehead, Hakae shouted inside his head.

Got it ,!

Both fists punched through the air in a tight, silent pump, and

Whooooo ,

the howling blizzard swallowed his quiet triumph in white.

Clap clap clap clap ,!

The snow clouds parted. Under a sky that had cleared to blue, on a stage somewhere in Finnomia's capital, a thunder of applause rang out.

"First place in the Central Marksmanship Competition! Toibo Hakae!"

First.

Hakae raised his hand in a salute amid the roaring cheers.

"The winner will receive a special prize, presented by Lieutenant General Hannu of the Finnomian Defense Force."

Hannu stepped forward and handed Hakae a long box.

"It is a very precious thing. Keep it well, treat it as a family heirloom, and use it for the rest of your life."

"Yes sir!"

He had no idea what was inside, but Hakae accepted it. The lieutenant general smirked and gave a nod.

"Open it."

Hannu himself seemed just as curious about the prize.

"Yes."

Hakae carefully lifted the lid.

"......!"

His eyes went wide.

Inside lay a rifle unlike any he had seen in his life. A matte, snow-white barrel, silver in tone. It did not reflect sunlight but absorbed it, its color as though it had soaked up real snowflakes from the wild.

"Oh...... sh, show it to everyone."

"Y, yes."

Lifting it with one hand, he felt almost no weight at all.

"There is something written in Imperial."

Hakae muttered as he examined the side of the barrel.

"Turn it around. I believe there is something engraved in our language on the other side."

At Hannu's words, Hakae flipped the rifle over and found a small inscription carved into the stock.

[ To Finnomia, with respect for your people and your conviction. ]

Below that, a single name cut deep in flowing script.

[ Maximilian Albrecht von Ebenholtz ]

"......"

Maximilian von Ebenholtz.

The name of an Imperial knight already known far and wide, even in Finnomia's remote mountain villages.

Toibo Hakae stared at the silver rifle bearing that famous name, as though caught in a dream.