+++ Lieutenant Hans Hoffman +++

  Nomosian Countryside

  The 1st Anti-Demon Unit was already rapidly running out of munitions twenty minutes into the demonic assault. Even Hans, Adelyn, and the Viceroy herself were running out of steam as they tried to contain any potential breakthroughs. Hans himself was now down to four rounds left.

  And he had no more AP to replenish himself.

  “Damn it!” Hans shouted on the comms, as he dodged another volley of wooden spikes. He jumped straight into the cover of one of the raised earthworks. Just in time before he was struck by a beam from the wolf demon. “Everyone, pull back to the tertiary defense line! We’re not going to break yet. Keep resisting!”

  Truly, the strength of two demons was something unbreakable.

  At once, each platoon that manned the dugouts and earthworks of the second defense line climbed out of their positions. That only further angered the two demons. They watched the masses of humans scurry out of their positions with their weaponry mostly intact. As such, Hans saw the rage boiling out of the Calamity of Recklessness’ eyes.

  “Cowards! You come here so recklessly, yet refuse to die?!” She aimed her staff at them. “Go die!”

  Vines and wooden spikes flew in the direction of the retreating soldiers. But Hans opened fire from his position. The lone MPAT round flew straight into the Calamity of Recklessness. She didn’t see it in time, thus, she was thrown off when it exploded. Holes and wounds peppered her body as she angrily stood up.

  Hans on the other hand didn’t relent, letting off the final enchanted bullets he had from his double coaxials. Each bullet that struck her slowly ignited her body, charring her skin while simultaneously making her bleed. Soon, however, Hans noticed that the wolf demon had locked in on him.

  He immediately pulled himself into a hard retreat out of the area.

  “I need backup here!” Hans shouted over the comms. “What’s your status, Captain?”

  “My legs are back online,” Adelyn replied. “I’ll try to get back to you. But I’m running low on everything.”

  “Damn it, this sucks ass,” Hans pressed harder on his retreat pedal as he peppered the angry demon that was chasing him with bullets. Behind him, the Viceroy herself jumped in and raised her staff in the wolf demon’s direction. Spells from her began attacking the angry creature, slowing it down enough that Hans managed to retreat to take a breather for himself. “I’m out of special crap. I’ll be reloading with regular rounds from now on.”

  “How’s your situation with that one?”

  “I only have two belts left,” Hans gritted his teeth. “Six hundred rounds in total. Three hundred for each machine gun. I’m seriously drained right now.”

  “I only have my special rounds left. Should I try using it now?”

  “If we don’t kill them with that, we’ll be screwed,” Hans stopped his retreat. “But alright, I’ll try to give you an opening. If we can at least dispatch the wolf demon, that might compel the Calamity of Recklessness to retreat.”

  “Retreat? We’ll just let her retreat?!”

  “We haven’t pushed her enough yet to die because of our divided attention. We don’t have the munitions for it. If we can do it, I won’t consider it. But if we can’t, then we can’t. That’s the best solution I can come up with for now. So screw this, I’m going in!”

  Hans pushed his mech’s forward pedals after his double coaxials finished reloading. He immediately contacted Emilia, who was still trying to hold off both demons with her magic.

  “Lady Viviani, I advise you to focus fire on that wolf demon!”

  “I will try, but the Calamity of Recklessness is already gearing up on the attack!”

  “Just give me a good opening. I’ll do some crazy bullshit, then Adelyn can do the final part of the job. That asshole is weakened! We can kill it!”

  “Alright, I’m on it.”

  The Viceroy jumped away to dodge another beam attack. Then, she raised her staff in the air. It immediately emitted a purple light.

  “I’m seriously low on my AP reserves, but damn it. Take this!”

  The charging demon was soon encased by the same glow on the Viceroy’s staff. She built it up for a few seconds before a flash came from it. Thin rods of purplish light appeared and sliced the demon badly, causing it to tumble and collapse from dozens of wounds and perforations.

  That gave Hans the perfect opening. Charging ahead, he engaged his machine guns fully. Gunfire peppered the collapsed demon while Hans’ mech galloped forward. He further solidified his attack by sending the last MPAT round he had left. Then, with a pull of his control sticks, his mech jumped up high.

  Razors were then deployed—and he landed on the demon’s body. Blood oozed out of the creature as it screamed painfully. Hans retracted his razors and ran away. He drove instead straight into the direction of the Calamity of Recklessness while containing her with his machine gun fire.

  Behind Hans, Adelyn finally arrived. Her main gun was immediately aimed at the downed demon. And in a split-second, an MPAT round flew out of her 120mm main gun. The round careened straight into the demon, exploding into a light blue color. The area around the demon immediately dropped into absolute zero temperatures.

  There was nothing left by the time that Hans pressed on his break to dodge a volley of wooden spikes. He looked at the demon at his rear—then, he grinned.

  The tale has been taken without authorization; if you see it on Amazon, report the incident.

  It was frozen alive.

  The Calamity of Recklessness pulled out of her attack. Gunfire from Hans and Adelyn began placing her into a disoriented retreat. But with her spells, vines and other plants began appearing en masse on the battlefield to block their gunfire. Hans pressed on, firing his second to last APFSDS in the woman’s direction…

  But his shot missed.

  Dang it.

  He looked down at his controls. His mech’s engines were now overheated. The radiator was slightly damaged due to a close call with the wolf demon’s beam, which also overheated it. His mech’s propulsion system was struck earlier by one of the spikes, thus one of his legs was slightly malfunctioning.

  Even his fuel tank was leaking ever so slightly.

  But most importantly, he only had one round left for his main gun, and his machine guns now only had sixty-eight rounds left. He was completely tapped out.

  “Captain, are you low in munitions too?”

  “I have six more rounds of ammunition left,” Adelyn replied as she drove ahead. “Maybe we can still chase it!”

  “That’s suicidal, Captain. She’ll regenerate faster than we can deal damage. Let her retreat from battle. We’ll get her next time. At least now, we know what one of the calamities is, and we know how we’ll deal with her.”

  Behind them, Emilia collapsed on the field as well. Hans momentarily turned his mech’s turret to look at the Viceroy. It seemed that even she was utterly drained by the battle.

  It’s going to be a long time to lick these wounds.

  Hans could only sigh. He knew it would be tricky to fight a calamity. Now, he wondered how they’d stand a chance if they had to fight two.

  “All units,” Hans pressed his button to contact Captain Weibel’s and Captain Strobel’s radios. “Reform our defensive lines. Prepare for an eventual withdrawal. Out.”

  +++

  November 20, 1538 CE

  As daylight rose above Presidio, no further attacks truly came. All that was left was a city in ruins, a dead frozen demon, and nearly a hundred corpses and equally another hundred wounded.

  Hans and Captain Strobel inspected one of the dugouts used by their artillery. One of the guns had been unfortunately nipped by a spell from the demons. Thus, its destroyed remnant remained standing behind the deformed artificial ridge constructed to defend it.

  Captain Strobel shook his head after checking the condition of the destroyed weapon before he stood up and turned to Hans.

  “Quite the costly day,” Captain Strobel said. “And we didn’t even get that Calamity of Recklessness thing. I bet that bastard’s out there recovering.”

  “Yeah,” Hans shook his head, equally disappointed. “We pushed ourselves too far last night. It’s clear we still aren’t strong enough for this task.”

  “That’s…the truth, yeah. It's going to be a lot of work to recover and strengthen ourselves.”

  “We’d need a few more weeks to get recruits. Then a lot of money to get new guns. Munitions. Uniforms. Basic kit. And then we might take a month to drill the boys with newer doctrines.”

  “Do you have any ideas for uhh…changes?”

  “We’ll have ideas,” Hans took one of the remaining pieces of wood from the cannon’s destroyed wheel. He then tossed it straight into the direction of the frozen demon just a few dozen meters away. He looked down at his gloved hand, then back at Captain Strobel. “Quite frankly, the dig-in strategy worked somewhat well. We just need to refine it.”

  “Do you think that if we had better earthworks we could have drained them faster with less?”

  “Hard to tell. But, perhaps yes. We’d have to hire a little bit more earth mages specialized in fortification work and engineering. If we can build a nice fortress within hours next time, we’ll do better.”

  “What else?”

  “We need at least three batteries of eight guns each. Alongside a lot of canister shells. And the operators that’ll come with those new guns.”

  “All of this will be costly,” Captain Strobel placed his hand on his chin. “We won’t be able to conduct a hunting expedition for at least a month.”

  “What can we do? At the very least, we harmed that demon. Just like us, I imagine they’d become temporarily more cautious instead of attacking everywhere. That’ll give the Nomosian Regional Armies a breather room to reorganize."

  “Are you sure?”

  “Nope. But remember, she retreated fully. That means she didn’t know that we were equally weakened already. All she knew was that she was being beaten.”

  “I see…” Captain Strobel nodded.

  Behind them, Adelyn and Emilia walked in their direction. Adelyn herself ran straight to Hans when she spotted him.

  “Hey!” Adelyn shouted. “Are there any signs yet of a potential attack?”

  “Nothing, at least, that’s what I can tell from my last recce,” Hans replied. “I think we’re clear to withdraw.”

  “I refuse to believe that we’d have to withdraw….” Emilia said, clearly ashamed. “The people…”

  “You collapsed yesterday, Lady Viviani,” Hans said. “You tried already. We tried our best. We just found out that we’re not yet up to shape for this task. But nothing is over yet.”

  “He’s right,” Adelyn nodded resolutely. Then, she smiled. “Actually, instead of getting depressed because we lost, I suggest we take the lessons from this stalemate instead. We’ll build back better. And stronger. Then we’ll wipe the floor when we meet those two calamities.”

  “We still technically won I suppose,” Captain Strobel said. “We did down one demon, but regardless….”

  “Yeah. We lost people. I get it now,” Adelyn said. “While it is a great injustice to the civilians waiting for us down south that we won’t be able to relieve them quickly, perhaps, it is not an excuse to be reckless and further damn ourselves.”

  “Yeah, we’ll go back to defensive ops while preparing ourselves,” Hans said. Then, he turned to the Viceroy. “Madame, we’ll be back into another operation within a month at least. Hopefully, the 1st Anti-Demon Unit will be better by then.”

  “...Alright,” the Viceroy seemed languid. “It is what it is, I suppose. I guess I am really just blinded by…revenge.”

  “Nah, you just wanna protect your people,” Captain Strobel said, shaking his head. “Can’t blame you for that. Regardless, we still didn’t lose. The fight goes on. We just need to keep our heads high. Ain’t that right, Captain Wittenstein?”

  Captain Strobel grinned. Adelyn naturally nodded, smiled, and turned to Hans.

  “Yep, we did some decent work yesterday. And we’re still undefeated. We’ll go on to save this place.”

  Undefeated?

  Hans almost wanted to laugh at that.

  But I suppose she’s right.

  After all, the only timeline Hans allowed them to have—were those where they never lost.

  “Indeed,” Hans nodded. “We’ll finish this fight next time. That’s for sure.”

  [ARC VI END: YOUR IDEAL]

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