Infiltrating the Superhuman Training Girls’ School of the Republic of China!

Morning. The school’s field was so vast that it could almost be used for tactical simulation training. It probably is actually used for such purposes.

The place where we gathered was a sandy plain about the size of 20 soccer fields full of dust, but within this school’s campus, there are training grounds that replicate various terrains including jungles, deserts, rocky areas, and even lava fields, all prepared in sizes similar to this field.

Running around the field might be a routine exercise for me, but this field boasts such vastness that it seems like I’d be out of breath after just one lap, let alone ten.

Is the purpose of gathering students here on the first day to show off the school’s wealth to foreign female students?

I arrived at the field just in time due to Churchill’s late preparation. At the corner of the field that had been announced as the assembly point, there were already 8 students excluding us. Among them, the familiar faces were French Army Second Lieutenant Catherine Duey, dressed in full French Army uniform complete with a square kepi hat, and Soviet Colonel Barbara Tikhonov, also in military uniform, standing and receiving everyone’s fear. While I expected Duey to be in uniform, I didn’t expect Colonel Tikhonov to come in military dress. Her attire alone could potentially cause a major conflict here…

Coincidentally, the two seemed to have found common ground in being soldiers and were standing side by side, whispering to each other. Seeing Lieutenant Duey chatting so casually with a Soviet soldier, of all people, shows she’s certainly not an ordinary strong-hearted person.

I rushed to the corner of the field as quickly as possible, but Churchill was walking slowly, swinging the baton in her hand as if she had no need to hurry.

Someone clicked their tongue at the sight, as if finding it absurd.

“Look, look at that. Do you all see that woman acting as if she’s above the laws of the world?”

I could roughly guess who she was without turning towards the source of the voice due to her strong accent. While everyone at Huangpu is supposed to communicate in Chinese in principle, the person who just spoke clearly did so in English.

It’s an Indian accent. My ear, well-versed in English, clearly heard it.

“U-Um? Shin, are they talking about me?”

Briar Churchill suddenly stopped swinging the baton in her hand and asked me. I shrugged.

“Who else would it be but you?”

“Ah, then it must be Shradha Bhatt.”

Churchill tucked the baton into her waist and slowly approached the Indian exchange student. Shradha Bhatt. Daughter of a famous Indian entrepreneur. Despite being from a British colony and a family that pays taxes to the British government while doing business, they’re a huge corporation ranking within the top 50 global conglomerates.

Britain’s attitude towards the Bhatt family is extremely ambivalent and troublesome. For one, the Bhatt corporation doesn’t actively violate the laws of the British Governor-General’s office in their business. This is to avoid giving the British Empire any justification to forcibly dismantle their company. However, they sponsor a considerable amount to ‘Indian political institutions’ including the Legislative Council, and despite their obedience to Britain, many perceive the Bhatt corporation as supporting Indian independence.

Britain is globally isolated on the Indian issue. France, a fellow colonial empire, has always had a strange rivalry with Britain, and having already retreated from all colonial ventures in Indochina due to pressure from China, they’re not actively supporting Britain’s colonial rule in India.

Of course, from France’s perspective, they won’t actively side with India as claims for colonial independence based on the principle of national self-determination would also impact them, but many French people, having already abandoned Vietnam, think that Britain should also leave Asian matters to China and withdraw.

Setting aside the Russians who always try to instigate anti-imperialist communist revolutions by deploying communists to colonies, even the United States seems to be trying to switch its partner for resolving the Indian issue from Britain to China, which is why excited voices predicting India’s peaceful independence in the near future are often heard in public.

In my opinion, India is somewhat prepared for independence. They have a self-governing body composed of Indians, with ruling and opposition parties already divided within it, and democracy, albeit limited, has taken root. Compared to Korea, which unexpectedly gained independence in 1929 due to the sudden invasion of the Korean Peninsula by the National Revolutionary Army.

Anyway, the only thing currently justifying Britain’s colonial rule is one thing: the existence of the Soviet Union. Since no one except Russians and Japanese wants an independent India to become a communist state, this colonial rule is being maintained while barely avoiding sanctions from the League of Nations. It’s understandable in a way that Shradha Bhatt is hostile towards the reckless lady from a British noble family.

“Long time no see, Shradha.”

“Aren’t we meeting for the first time?”

Shradha Bhatt retorted incredulously to Briar Churchill, who greeted her as if they were old acquaintances. Briar blinked her eyes with a blank expression for a moment, then clapped her hands and laughed loudly.

“Ah, that’s right, right! No, it’s me. My parents have been warning me so much about Bhatt before enrollment, telling me not to get into trouble by fighting with Bhatt, and even newspaper articles writing about Bhatt and Churchill becoming classmates at the same school, wondering if it’ll be okay, I forgot. I was completely fooled! Everyone’s been talking about just the two of us, so I thought we were obviously old acquaintances! I thought I had forgotten because it was so long ago!”

“What kind of crazy talk is this?”

“So, what exactly are you so dissatisfied with, colonial lady?”

Briar Churchill suddenly thrust her face close to Shradha Bhatt. Shradha Bhatt. A woman with slightly dark skin and curly hair falling to her shoulders, with an Oriental impression. She was dressed in formal attire including a beige coat and a knee-length skirt, similar to my black suit, making her look like an office worker, but unlike me who looked like a tired junior employee, she exuded a confident aura like a real executive of a large corporation.

That level of presence is probably necessary to somewhat match Churchill’s air of being above everyone else.

“The fact that you take it for granted that our country is your colony.”

“But, isn’t it?”

“You call Britain the country where the sun never sets, don’t you?”

“Hmm?”

“Don’t think it will be like that forever. Soon, you will no longer remain as the empire of old in Asia. Just as you lost America, you will lose India. And it won’t end there.”

“Do you miss the Mughal Empire, Shradha?”

Briar Churchill changed the subject with a look of suddenly lost interest. Shradha Bhatt tilted her head and asked her:

“What on earth does that mean?”

“All empires sink. Hellenism, Rome, Mongolia, and even the British Empire. When the sea level rises, empires sink below it. No empire is eternal, and while the speed may differ, the water rises. Empires fall. Tell me, Indian. But if your answer reveals you to be a trivial person, I’ll blow you away right here.”

“…Huh?”

“What can India leave behind if it becomes independent now? If all empires fall, what we ask at their end is what that empire was to us. Rome endured for a thousand years before falling, but even after its fall, it ruled all of Europe. No, even at this very moment, Rome still rules this world. Britain will be the same. What about China’s Qing? The fact that the Republic can now extend its hand to Tibet, Uyghur, and even Mongolia is because that empire still rules China. So tell me. Britain is already prepared to fall. Are you prepared to destroy such a country? Are you ready to spit on top of a nobly sinking empire while breaking the framework of a great empire, Bhatt?”

“Let’s stop there.”

I said to Churchill.

“Is there any reason to get red-faced on the first day, Churchill? Someone might think the British have been going around bringing peace and prosperity to the world.”

“Hmm.”

Briar Churchill’s momentum softened a bit at my words. Shradha Bhatt momentarily froze in place, overwhelmed by the Maestro’s aura. I couldn’t blame Bhatt for that. Churchill’s incomprehensible outburst just now was cold and eerie enough to freeze everyone in that place, including me… no, probably everyone except Barbara Tikhonov.

Honestly, the content of the outburst was difficult to understand. It didn’t seem necessary to understand it either.

“The Mughal was a great empire. While Shradha Bhatt, as a Hindu, might not like it, it’s not a question that should be asked by a British person who wedged into the empire’s ugly final years.”

I said in a voice that sounded like I was snapping at Briar Churchill. Some of the superhumans around us were giving me admiring looks for boldly confronting her despite seeing the Maestro’s bulging eyes just moments ago.

Even Catherine Duey, standing next to Barbara Tikhonov, could be seen secretly taking out a handkerchief from her bosom to wipe her forehead. The German big shot student who was said to be a spiritual ability user, and the American model-turned-ability user were also a bit stiff after hearing Churchill’s voice just now.

Is this what it means to be the biggest of the big shots? It seems I’ve ended up with a rather unsettling roommate.

“Is that your answer about history in your own way, Shin?”

Just as I was about to open my mouth to respond to her words, at that moment. Suddenly, from the opposite side of the field, a massive engine sound that seemed to shake heaven and earth began to be heard. The Maestro was the first to turn her head, followed one by one by the other foreign students.

Far away, at a distance that seemed to be hundreds of meters, a tank was advancing fiercely towards us, raising clouds of dust.

Someone shouted.

“It’s a tank!”

“Type 71 tank, Black Dragon…”

Then it’s a current, even latest-model heavy tank. A masterpiece of Chinese defense industry. Despite its heavy weight, it’s one of the world’s top-performing tanks designed to conduct sporadic local engagements with the Soviet Union in Mongolia’s harsh terrain.

As the tank approached to some extent, someone could be seen suddenly popping their upper body out of the tank’s cupola. It was Zhou Lizhi, the foreign student instructor.

Zhou, without giving the gathered foreign students time to greet each other, or even introduce herself, abruptly shouted through a loudspeaker:

“We will now begin an emergency skill check on you all. This is a test to evaluate your capacity for sudden preparedness for actual combat, so take it seriously. The test is simple. Face this Type 71 tank that I am riding in your own way. If possible, you may even destroy it. Also, I will not go easy on you at all. I will use lethal weapons without hesitation, and it’s up to you to block or counterattack them.”

“Huuuh…”

Rebecca Katerfeld, known as the spiritual ability user from Germany, made a strange sound.

At that moment, Zhou, as if to show that she wasn’t bluffing, suddenly fired the tank’s main gun at us.

Just as I thought, ‘This crazy woman is determined to kill all the foreigners gathered here,’

Suddenly, a huge bell-like sound rang out, and the armor-piercing shell stopped abruptly in mid-air.

I was very confused because for a moment it looked to my eyes as if the armor-piercing shell had suddenly popped up right in front of us, but I could understand what had happened only after seeing the posture of the Maestro standing next to me.

The armor-piercing shell hadn’t suddenly risen into the air. On its way towards us, it had been caught in a sound wave barrier quickly deployed by the Maestro and stopped in mid-air.

“This year is more serious than we heard, everyone.”

Second Lieutenant Catherine Duey shrugged without batting an eye. Briar Churchill turned to Lieutenant Duey and said in fluent Chinese:

“Indeed, Lieutenant. Then we should face it seriously too.”

The Maestro flicked her baton once, and again with the ringing sound of a bell, the direction of the armor-piercing shell reversed. As Churchill thrust her baton forward, the shell rushed fiercely towards the Type 71 tank, creating a sonic boom.

The conductor had reversed the armor-piercing shell fired by the tank back towards it.