“Searching for an enemy target is quite a difficult task. So does concealing one’s self on the battlefield. It’s a life-or-death situation. He who spots first fires first. He who fires first kills first. Of course, there are exceptions, but it’s a good lesson to learn regardless.”
- Excerpt from Lieutenant Hans Hoffman’s Journal Entries.
+++
+++ Lieutenant Hans Hoffman +++
Unknown
“The first thing we need to do—”
Hans’ mech stopped right in front of a pack of night wolves. The same pack he had targeted in his past life.
“Is to kill wildlife.”
He pulled the trigger. The wolves didn’t even have a chance to react, as a rain of machine gun fire from Hans’ coaxials terrorized them. Burst after burst cut the pack of animals down, one by one, in split-second intervals. After Hans killed the last, he released his finger from the fire trigger.
[THREE NIGHT WOLVES (LVL. 10) LIQUIDATED!]
[LEVEL UP! YOU ARE NOW LVL. 3]
[PROGRESS TO LVL4. 25%]
[AVAILABLE AP: 70 PTS]
“And as I expected, I reached level three from it, Captain.”
“Well…if that isn’t the interesting development,” Adelyn replied over the comms. “So the lesson from this is that…killing people helps make us stronger?”
“I suppose that’s the cruel lesson,” Hans said. “What a brain-dead situation, is it not?”
“Brain dead? Lieutenant, this is worse! It’s almost psychotic. Almost as if it justifies trophy hunting of innocent wildlife. Quite frankly, I am appalled.”
“As I am,” Hans replied. “But, we have to operate by the new rules. And in this case, Captain, considering that both of us are in a foreign hostile land, where we don’t understand everything fully, wouldn’t it be best to take preemptive measures?”
“I suppose you have a point, Lieutenant,” Adelyn replied. “Still. This is distasteful. I refuse to partake in it unless necessary. I still do not understand how something might beat our mechs. It’s impossible. If any legitimate threat comes, we’ll do what we’ve been trained to do, and fight in self-defense. And I’m sure that if anyone tries to challenge two Confederacy soldiers riding modern mechs…well, the results will be grizzly for whoever does that.”
“You have a point, Captain,” Hans said.
He looked down for a second, at the corpses of the dead wolves. He supposed this was going to be the result of it, no? That he’d have to start murdering living beings just to level up…and for what, strength? It was…indeed, psychotic, in a way. He wondered how this would affect the society he would find in this world.
A society where killing things strengthened them.
Perhaps there were other ways to level up, and he just had insufficient knowledge to do so. But still…it rewarded killing. That indeed was psychotic. What kind of a madman would create a world that was this way? He struggled to grasp the rationale for it.
But I have no choice but to roll with it. Adelyn may not understand it yet, but he knew. He knew what would be the cost if he and she didn’t do this. They could not do it. As they would say, when there was a different set of laws and you stepped into another country, you would have no choice but to follow such laws until you made it out of that country. This was no different.
The laws. The system. The way of life. What this world would have, would be way too different than his. Different than what he grew up with. As such, he would have to adapt to it. Until he found his way out.
I really hope there is a way out.
His world may be at war, but damn it, it didn’t have these kinds of psychotic natural laws. Imagine how war would be in this world. Would it be so brutal, that people would wage war to raise the levels of their own group? The implications alone were a nightmare scenario for Hans. Especially when he looked back again to his level.
Level three.
A child like Alizée, for example, was level five. A ten-year-old child. A damned ten-year-old child reached such a level. While he, a grown-ass man, started out at level one. Now, he was barely scratching five. He was badly behind for his age!
This was such a ridiculous situation. Then again, it wasn’t like he was killing simple living beings. He killed wolves multiple times the size of a mere normal wolf. Second of all, it was possibly a magical beast. He reminded himself that these things managed to kill Alizée’s convoy, with its guards.
…That meant that he was dealing with the monster that kept killing him, which was truly abnormal. Perhaps beyond a beast. And if there was any indication to its nature…perhaps, similar to the demonic entity he killed—this one was also demonic. That was even more worrying.
In that case, he might indeed have no chance to escape it unless he killed it. If both of them, the first one he killed and this new one, were demonic, and that thing…that thing stared at him with such a brutal gaze…
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No…that thing. It spoke. It even played with him. It played with them. It didn’t merely kill him and Adelyn and Alizée like some normal animal searching for food. It killed them in psychotic manners. As if it was driven by hate. As if it wanted nothing more than to brutalize them, either for sport or…
Or if both of them were demonic entities, and he simply wasn’t able to [TARGET STATUS CHECK] the second one because it was stronger or something…then that meant…
Vengeance…that thing…
It’s possibly vengeful.
And he was the one who killed the other demon. That meant…he had a massive target painted on his back.
“Lieutenant?” Adelyn spoke again on the comms. “So should I do the upgrades now?”
“Wait, we’ll talk about it later,” Hans returned to his controls, giving one last look to the animals he killed.
If it’s vengeful…then it really won’t stop chasing us.
+++
“So…what were your two options?” Hans asked.
“Hmm, two things were given to me,” she said. “The first one is called ‘UPG: Arcane Autofabricator’. The second is ‘UPG: Wrath Against Sinners’. Seems like both are interesting, yes, but I’m leaning to—”
“Wait…”
It changed. Earlier, she said it was something about a missile of justice. Now it’s…it’s not that?
Cold sweat almost trickled through Hans’ forehead as that sudden change tossed an unexpected bolt on his knees. Damn it! Why did it change this time around? Was it perhaps randomized? That was such a bad thing. He couldn’t even predict which one would show then.
This is bad.
The description of a missile of justice upgrade, or whatever she told him last time—he was counting on it. He hoped that it could synchronize well with whatever he would get once he reached level five. First of all, a missile meant that Adelyn’s mech would essentially have a demon-locking ATGM, or at least, from what he remembered, her rounds would be able to lock and follow a targeted demon.
That was massive! Imagine an MPAT that could simply trail that thing. No chance in hell it would dodge it. That was massive for Hans. But instead…
“Wait, tell me about the second one,” Hans said.
“Um, but Lieutenant…the first one is all about logistical things. I’d get a literal magical autofab on my vehicle. Imagine that! We’d be able to replenish our supplies and munitions while we are completely cut off. Long term, our survival would depend on it. Especially since I doubt anyone here can produce what we have. It even allows us to enchant our bullets. And okay, technically, it costs ‘Arcane Points’ or whatever the hell that is, but it seems that it’s recharging incrementally on my case anyway.”
“It’s recharging for you?”
“Yeah? I watched it. Like, slowly trickling up. Said I gain around thirty ‘Arcane Points’ each day. I do have a cap though, it appears…”
“Mine’s uncapped…but I don’t have any gain rate…”
“You said you gain some from killing though,” Adelyn said. “Yours sound extra psychotic in that case.”
“Okay, well, regardless, Captain. This discussion is off course. While I see the merits of the logistical options—”
“Merits? No, Lieutenant. I believe it is of utmost necessity, don’t you think?” Adelyn said. “We have weaponry already. I do not think I really need many upgrades on it at the moment. It’s a 120mm main gun, for heaven’s sake! What kind of a being would survive that? Quite frankly, if we cannot kill it with that, we might as well be toast anyway.”
Well, she’s technically not wrong with that. Quite frankly, what was he thinking? She was right! If they were unable to beat that thing with their, well, already powerful weapons, then what chance did they have? They’d die anyway. Which was…well, that was exactly the case. They died again and again. The only difference, Adelyn and Alizée didn’t remember anything.
And now, the doubts were back on his mind. How exactly was he so sure that anything they would gain from this entire [SYSTEM] thing would help them short term? How exactly was he sure he would even find something useful once he reached level five to counteract that creature?
How was he so sure?
Indeed! He wasn’t. He was merely theorizing possible solutions, and testing them out. Almost trial and error in a sense. And this was his next idea. How sure was he that he would beat it this time?
What if, the only way to beat that creature, was good old-fashioned positional tactics and luck? What if he needed to truly study its movements to the muscle, and engage it with conventional weaponry in the perfect manner? Well, he also hadn’t yet tested how an MPAT would affect it. He imagined that even a non-direct hit would down it.
In his second life, he was technically so close, wasn’t he? It was merely a slip of his hand, merely a split-second miscalculation, that was all of it, that was what doomed him. Perhaps, not the fact that his weapon was inadequate, but because he screwed up at the last moment, and luck was simply not on his side.
Regardless! I cannot rely on luck and my piloting capabilities alone. I died enough to prove that!
“Captain, look, I understand. But we have to stack our capabilities right now. We’ll figure out something about the supply situation later. Our immediate survival is the priority—”
“Lieutenant, I understand in your eyes that you’re beyond paranoid of something that I know nothing of, but please. You and I know that supplies will determine if we live or die sooner enough.”
“And we will figure it out,” Hans said. “Captain, I faced a demonic entity, and while I downed it, we have no idea what’s next. We need specialized weaponry. That thing withstood a lot of my bullets. My bullets, of my own gun. We don’t know, Captain, so please…”
“Alright, let’s see…the second one, it tells me that it ‘unlocks’ anti-demon munitions, both for MPAT and APFSDS, and that each ‘Tier’ increase would unlock more specialized munitions,” Adelyn sighed. “It’s strange…almost sounds like…”
“Some childish card game,” Hans breathed out. “Anyhow. In that case…well, it’s for anti-demon purposes…thus—”
“Lieutenant,” Adelyn said. “While I would admit that we have a lot of available fuel and munitions, it is not possible to stretch this for…more than two months at most. What if this upgrade, the first one, is a one-time thing? We’d be screwed.”
Hans nodded in astute agreement to Adelyn’s assessment. “Indeed, we’d be very screwed. And her too.”
“Exactly,” Adelyn said, looking back at her mech. Alizée was merely sitting on top of Adelyn’s mech, eating some sweets that Adelyn gave her, as she watched the two argue with those curious eyes of hers. “I have a feeling she’ll rely on us a lot.”
Well, regardless, we’d be screwed anyway if we don’t find a way to kill that…demon. The next three months don’t seem to matter a lot when…
Well…it didn’t seem to matter a lot to Hans indeed at the moment if they’d be dead by nightfall, and he’d find himself restarting this damned thing again. He really didn’t want to feel the cold embrace of death ever again.
And to see these two dead again.
Hans sighed. “Alright, Captain. I think we should hold for now. I’ll see what I’ll get when I reach level five, then we’ll decide.”