“Revenge is quite the awful thing to desire. I have seen many veterans of the front looking for it. Because the Flandrians ‘did this’. Because they ‘took her’ or ‘him’ away. I understand the sentiments. I doubt I’d react far from how my comrades acted if I were in their place. In a way, I also want it…due to what they did. But…he didn’t need to charge so foolishly to avenge his dead brother. I couldn’t stop it. Perhaps it was also my fault. In the end…he did what he chose to do. I hope he found peace that way, and that he found his brother in the end anyway. Even in the afterlife.”
- Excerpt from Lieutenant Hans Hoffman’s Journal Entries.
+++
+++ Lieutenant Hans Hoffman +++
Unknown
Hans’ and Adelyn’s mech were racing through the road.
The sky was already slowly dropping,…and Hans felt that tugging terror come back again. That damned thing could attack them anytime now. Even the fact that both of their mechs were finally upgraded didn’t fully calm Hans down as he kept himself focused on the road.
On the screens, the [MECH-SYSTEM PILOT ASSISTANCE INTERFACE] was fully online. Alongside [UPG: EYE OF PARANOIA], it should warn him if the creature tried anything. Even Adelyn’s mech was tailing twenty meters behind him, which meant that she was also covered by Hans’ fifty-meter automatic detection range.
Technically, they were already hunting. But it would be best if they reached that town first, and found good positioning on the slightly flat, and uncovered hills nearby. He needed to kill that demon quickly. It seemed that turning on the [UPG: EYE OF PARANOIA] practically burned through arcane points. Twenty AP per hour to be specific. And he only had a hundred. Even magic couldn’t bend the fundamental laws of mathematics; he had five hours to liquidate the beast.
“Lieutenant,” Adelyn suddenly spoke through the comms. She had already taken his advice, taking [UPG: WRATH AGAINST SINNERS], and unlocking [ADI, MPAT 120mm], which appeared to be similar to his [UPG: TRACE THE DOTS] upgrade. It seemed that tier one only unlocked the most basic anti-demon munitions. Hans imagined the incendiary part of these special rounds would deal more damage to a demonic entity. It was in the name: Anti-Demon Incendiary.
But still…the downside…
“The ‘enchantment’ process for my loaded round is finished. That took almost thirty minutes and all of my Arcane Points. Lieutenant, this…is for one round. One MPAT. I need the ‘UPG: Arcane Autofabricator’ to reduce the cost. This means it really is a de facto prerequisite and thus supposed to be taken first. And again the logistical—”
“Captain, we are dealing with a severe threat in the short term,” Hans said. “I need that one anti-demon round. And I need you to hit. We’ll figure out the logistics later. The focus now is to hunt that thing and survive this night, nothing more.”
“...Lieutenant, I wished you trusted my decision-making a little bit more.”
“I do, Captain,” Hans didn’t like how he made Adelyn feel about all this. But…he needed her to do this. She may outrank him, but she could not see the future. If for anything, Adelyn shouldn’t be ashamed of Hans having a different idea. For Hans, Adelyn was merely working with what she knew. And if he was in her position, he would no doubt think that long-term logistics take priority.
Unfortunately, Hans knew that long-term supply issues would matter when they would die tonight. He stopped his mech, and so did Adelyn.
“Movement,” he warned, as he turned his turret to the left of his mech. Hans eyed the dense forest, and so did Adelyn. “Keep your eyes peeled, Captain. I cover the right flank, you turn to the left.”
This could be it.
“Don’t engage with your main gun unless—”
“Unless you say so. And I’m only permitted to fire with my coaxials if a hostile creature appears. I know your orders, Lieutenant.”
The way her words came out laced with bitterness was obvious to Hans. While she was certainly more humble than her peers, she was still the superior, and the CO. Hans knew that she definitely felt a hit on her pride, being ordered by her subordinate on how to fight. Ordered by a mere commoner at that.
Yet, he knew that Adelyn paid his words heed. Her turret turned to cover their right flank, ensuring that they had eyes there. He also noticed on his tactical digital map that she turned her chassis as well to the rear. Now, they had a close to a three-hundred-sixty-degree FOV combined.
Alongside the active [UPG: EYE OF PARANOIA] and its fifty-meter radius of automatic demon detection range, Hans hoped that there was absolutely no chance of this creature managing to surprise them in a pounce attack.
“Movement, Lieutenant…left flank, four hundred meters…wait, it’s gone again…”
Hans didn’t turn his turret away from their left flank, his eyes looking up and down on the screens with a subtle twitch of paranoia. “It’s circling us. Using the darkness. Keep checking our front and rear feeds. It’s trying to close in. Don’t engage with anything till two hundred meters.”
“Copy that, Lieutenant. Also…I…I covered Alizée’s eyes with my handkerchief too.”
“She didn’t have a problem with it?”
“I told her there’s scary stuff. Doubt she understood me exactly, but she took it. She’s…hugging the plushie I gave her tightly.”
Stolen content alert: this content belongs on Royal Road. Report any occurrences.
“Good,” Hans replied. “She doesn’t need to see this.”
Hans saw a sudden pitch-black pass far in front of his mech. “Movement on our front. Three hundred meters. It’s using the dense woods as cover.”
“Damn it, what the hell even is this?”
“Just keep alert, Captain,” Hans said, as he drove his mech backwards, to get closer to Adelyn’s mech. It seemed that even she did the same. The sun really was falling down, with the skies’ pinkish lights already dimmed enough that he began switching to both Thermals and Night Vision sensors.
“It’s too fast, too fast!” Adelyn said, also moving her mech closer to the Peacemaker, that they were now only a few meters apart. Hans turned his turret left and right…he had an MPAT already locked and loaded, set in airburst mode. He just needed to get a good shot. Unfortunately, it must be a very good shot.
An MPAT round after all would detonate should it hit a tree instead. Hans knew that even a small screw-up like that would be the end of them. Taking a deep breath, Hans saw it at last.
“Visual! Two hundred meters away! Opening fire!” He pulled the trigger for his coaxials. Immediately, a rain of 12.7x99mm tracers from his MG24 lit up the darkening forest, and he heard the creature wail for a second in pain as it disappeared. “It’s on our right flank. I’m keeping an eye on it.”
“Copy, copy. Damn it, is it not down after that?”
“Damned demons!” Hans shouted as he focused on where he last saw it.
Just before that, it appeared on his interface.
HOSTILE DEMONIC ENTITY DETECTED! FORTY-EIGHT METERS! NINE O’CLOCK!
“Captain, break formation now!”
Immediately, both Hans’ and Adelyn’s mech jumped off from their original positions as the pitch-black beast dropped on the road. Rapidly, Hans turned his turret to his rear, taking aim at the creature—this time, properly—and pulled the trigger. The firing pin struck the loaded MPAT round in his main gun’s chamber and fired it off straight at the creature.
This time, the proximity fuse detected the beast—and a violent explosion followed, obscuring the creature for a second, and showering the normally silent forest with what must have been the most powerful booms it would ever hear.
Still, Hans saw it running to the right. A torrent of tracers lit up the trees on their left flank, as Adelyn rained the retreating demon with everything she had.
“Cease fire! Cease fire! Captain!”
“It didn’t die! It shrugged off a direct hit!”
“I said cease fire!”
Her MG24s fell silent. “Sorry. Sorry. It's just…Lieutenant…it’s gone again.”
Both of them were now looking at the dark, dense woods of their left flank. Where that creature disappeared. “It retreated. It should be badly injured now.”
“Or we just enraged it,” Adelyn said.
“We need to keep moving,” Hans said. “We can’t go deep in the woods to chase it. Too tight. We’d be at a severe disadvantage. And I have a feeling it’s a trap.”
+++
The night had fully fallen when the two of them arrived in the first town Hans visited. Immediately, they set up a position on the hilly flat lands. Conveniently next to the corpse of Hans’ first demonic kill. Hans had a feeling that the creature…was in some ways connected to the first demon he killed.
And thus, it should come here.
Eventually.
Hans’ and Adelyn’s mech, as was usual to their last firefight, was hugging each other closely, merely being twenty meters apart. They were observing the entire forest, the town, and the approaches to the hill.
Disconcertedly, Hans was eyeing a distant, old, and massive tree. He could still remember his death near there. Where he stared that beast eye to eye. His turret also twitched at times to the site of Adelyn’s and Alizée’s death, still remembering how the creature decapitated their heads and presented it to him so cruelly.
Hans found a silent poetic note to it. These fields…somehow, would be the sight of the deaths of them all. All that was left was to kill that demon here too.
“Lieutenant,” Adelyn suddenly said. “Movement. It’s emerging from the woods. Three hundred meters away…”
Immediately, Hans’ mech turned around, and his main gun was aimed at the almost limping creature that emerged to assault them. It was moving in their direction…the same direction as the corpse of the first dead demon. Hans looked at the creature…its pitch-black skin was no more. He could see exposed red flesh on it. He could see it bleeding. One of its yellow eyes was even gone.
Yet that hateful gaze…
But it seems to be over now. My shot. It did half of the work already. I…did it.
If for nothing else, it seemed that this demonic entity was merely defiantly charging in its last hurrah. Still…merely looking at those tails…those same tails that caused him so much agony…
Even in its injured state, Hans felt that chill on his spine.
“Should I open fire—”
Adelyn’s request was interrupted when Hans pulled the trigger first. The shot went directly into the face of the creature, the explosion causing birds to fly off around the forest. But out of the smoke…the creature emerged once more…still in that pained defiance. Charging at them. Even when its pace was almost nothing.
Fear coursed through Hans’ veins. It was getting way too close.
“Damn it! I don’t care! Waste that round now, and open fire, Captain!”
“Firing,” was her only response, as her Wanderadler’s main gun opened fire. The round left off a reddish trail of light as it traveled through the night—slamming in a direct hit into the beast.
A brutal blue inferno developed, and Hans felt himself looking away for but a moment due to its almost blinding flash. He looked back at the carnage—and it emerged from the fires. Burning violently. As it roared in an agonized death…that Hans…even after all that it did to him…
He felt pity for it.
In just seconds it dropped on the fields of grass…only a few meters away from the first demon Hans killed. Still burning as the final vestige of its life rose with the smoke to the skies.
And with that…Hans left off a breath he didn’t realize he was holding.
This night…
This endless cycle of deaths…
At last…
He found a way out for them.
[1 DEMONIC ENTITY (LVL. UNKNOWN) LIQUIDATED!]
[LEVEL UP! NOW LVL. 7]
[PROGRESS TO LEVEL 8: 95%]
[AVAILABLE AP: 92 PTS]