Military use of magic
Thinking about the threats posed by Erika and her troops prince had to find a way to give his armies at least a fighting chance.
Paul and Wielding talked to him and advised him to ask for help from the graduates and teachers of the Royal magic academy.
"Your highness, we can enhance the strength of our troops and power of our weapons using magic." Paul said, standing in front of Theodore at the throne room.
"We must also ask them to use magic to directly attack our enemies, your highness. I mean a magic that can be used offensively." Weilding advised.
Theodore smiled. To him this sounded like a good idea.
Heeding their advice, Theodore called for the principal and teachers of the academy and told them to wait outside.
He asked Paul and Weilding to explain their ideas to the teachers themselves.
His excuse was that other tasks required his attention but mostly because he himself didn't understand magic or how it works very well.
In this world magic had an almost non-existent presence. Most of the times only nobles of higher status had any affiliation with magic.
While there were still people like craftsmen they also didn't make much use of their magic other than few common things necessary for daily life.
The healers were much more rare and generally comes from noble class as well.
As a result, for the common people, magic was as good as absent.
For this reason, magic research was still in infancy because the nobles always seek comfortable lives for themselves and didn't want to bother with any type of hard work.
Though a wise king established the magic academy to advance the research in magic, it has now become a ground for nobles to socialise only.
The following kings have also used the academy for political purposes like spying on the nobles and finding trustworthy followers of the royal family.
Consequently, magic has never been applied to any important tasks other than sending instant messages throughout the kingdom or making the palace of the nobles more extravagant.
Now it is Prince Theodore who planned on using magic to support the nation's military for the first time.
When prince Theodore addressed the teachers in the throne room sitting in his father's throne, they were surprised.
They didn't know what to do or how to help in military matters.
The principal spoke first.
"Your highness, we are just old teachers. We don't know anything about warfare. I'm afraid, we won't be of much help to you." He said as humble as possible.
"Yes, your highness. We cannot fight in the fronts nor do we have any magic to use to attack the enemy on the battlefield." Another teacher supported him.
It was clear that the teachers who were also nobles and highly respected amongst other, were also unwilling to contribute in the ways Theodore wanted them to.
Prince Theodore was pissed to hear such excuse.
"Shut up." He screamed from his throne.
"You leeches have only ever made excuses. What's the purpose of having a magic academy if you cannot produce any results?!" He scolded them.
The teachers trembled in fear.
"P-p-please forgive us, your highness. We didn't...." The principal was saying.
"ENOUGH! I don't want to hear any words from you." Theodore stopped him.
"You go with him." Theodore said calmer than before.
He pointed at the new commander of the Royal Army, who was also present at the throne room.
"He is the new commander of the Royal Army. He will tell you what to do."
The teachers bowed and went with the newly appointed chief of the army.
When they came outside, Paul and Weilding greeted them.
They explained what they wanted the teachers to do.
"But something like this has never been tried before!" The teachers exclaimed after hearing their ideas.
"Do you want to be hanged?" Weilding directly threatened them.
"You are the respected teachers of the world famous magic academy." Said Paul.
"If you can't even do something this easy than you might as well dig a hole in the ground and bury yourselves in it." He mocked them.
Swallowing hard, the principal spoke while being covered in sweat.
"G-g-give u-us a week, to see w-w-w-what we can do." He said.
"One, day." Weilding said showing his finger.
"If you don't come up with something by tomorrow, I will have your feets cut off." He said in an angry voice.
"You don't need them for magic research anyways." Paul laughed.
Hearing this the teachers rushed to the academy fearing what'll happen if they failed.
"Huh, this would be the first time these idiots actually did something for the kingdom." Weilding said letting out a breath.
"Yeah you're right. His highness is right to threaten them like this. Otherwise they'd just keep leeching of the kingdom's money." Paul spoke.
They went back to the throne room and explained to Theodore everything.
After that they became busy with the kingdom's affairs.
Inside the academy's long abandoned research room, the teachers started to work on magic.
They were extremely frightened by the threats and the consequences they might face if they failed.
After working through the entire day, they finally came up with some solutions.
Though not entirely what prince asked but still they hoped that their legs would be spared through this.
Next day, the principal rushed to the prince to show what they achieved.
"Your highness, we have succeeded to make magical medicine that will give strength to the soldiers and make them fearless" He said while bowing his head down.
"We have also found a way to make the Army's siege weapons more powerful and easier to use through enhancing magic." He said.
Hearing this the prince was pleased. He smiled at the old man.
"Well done, circulate those medicines among the soldiers of the Royal Army as much as possible and enhance our siege weapons as well." He said looking down at the man from his throne.
"If you are successful, you'll be rewarded." He said and then called the commander of the army.
"Go with him, he will take you and the other teachers to the garrison for the task." Prince said and nodded towards the commander.
They first went to the magic academy research lab to get the other teachers and then went outside the city to an open space where the royal army was training.
Already the number of soldiers in the Royal Army reached a few thousand in few days.
Though the number seemed good, their quality was nowhere near the old Royal Army.
The teachers saw that the newly recruited soldiers were having troubles with using their weapons while the mercenaries were not following orders.
The criminals on the other hand would just runaway.
Knights and household guards from the palace were acting as barrier troops to prevent such incidents from occurring.
The living condition of the troops was very poor and even the officers were having trouble.
Building an army from scratch is after all a very heavy task.
The cooperation from the knights and household guards was also minimal.
They felt disdain for these ordinary soldiers and would act harshly against them.
As the teachers walked along with the commander they could see the reflections of this attitude amongst the soldiers.
However, they themselves didn't care about them too.
Principal handed over a bag full of pills that another teacher brought out from a void space and handed it to two chapelins from the army.
After that, the commander showed them where the siege weapons were kept.
The teachers went to the corner of the camp that was in a slightly better condition then the rest of it.
It seems that these innate objects are more valuable than the soldiers and were kept well maintained.
One by one the teachers started to cast magic on the weapons, the ballistas, catapults, mangonels, battering rams etc.
It took them entire day to cast these magics on the items and when the soldiers tested them, they saw proof that the teachers were indeed the top class magicians of the country.
About the medicine, principal warned the army commander,
"Hand them to the soldiers before battle and only allow them to consume it once a heavy battle breaks out." He said, before leaving the camp.
"Alright as you wish." The commander heeded.
Prince Theodore also called for the students of the royal academy to take part in the army.
He once again asked the teachers to come up with a suitable way for using magic directly as weapon and train them in it.
Under threats of amputation and outright death, they complied.
This was how Prince Theodore prepared to attack again while unknown to the fact that Erika's Wehrmacht was already near the city.