“Corporal Franz Richter is some fine folk, I must say. Said he got into this place because he murdered some guy. Don’t know why he did, I wouldn't really ask why. Quite frankly, I’m here not because of a violent crime, but many of my peers certainly are here at times with…dark pasts, I suppose. Yet, he doesn’t strike me as evil, in any way. Always been kind, and helpful, and he saved that Private’s ass when his mech popped two of its legs yesterday during the firefight. I dunno, is he hiding things? It’s difficult to say. I’m here for a nonviolent offense, so it’s quite hard to say if I’m even remotely close to this man’s position.”

- Excerpt from Lieutenant Hans Hoffman’s Journal Entries.

+++

+++ Alizée Amboise +++

Unknown

Alizée opened her eyes groggily. Her sleep had been, strangely enough, one of the best ones she had. For some reason, no terrors or nightmares came in her sleep. This…thing she was inside of, was also comfortable. The air was neither too hot nor too cold. It was almost at the right temperature, which helped her sleep. Somehow, she was not suffocated at all inside. Even when she could not see any place for air to come inside of this…this thing.

Most of all, Alizée, for some reason, felt a strange comfort at being with this man. He seemed to be a fellow Vanus, like her, and that probably helped. Alizée wasn’t the most trusting of other races at this point, not after what happened to her family since they were exiled once more by her own homeland.

But for a Vanus, this man didn’t seem adept at using their language. Instead, he was using that language that others outside of her family used.

The strange mirrors that showed what was happening outside showed that their strange carriage suddenly stopped.

“Hmm…you’re awake?” The man said to her. She was, once again, resting on his lap. Alizée last night found it difficult to sleep anywhere else, even if this “Hans” person was a stranger. To her, he was…he appeared almost a mythical Knight of sorts. But…more than that, he reminded her of her parents. The food, the sweets he’d give, and the fact that he saved her.

And the way he spoke to her with nothing but genuine kindness.

Alizée really thought many times to heed her mother’s warnings about strangers, and she swore she’d do everything to defend herself if this man did anything.

But he didn’t do anything.

Not through the night when she was asleep. Not since her most vulnerable point.

“Sir Hans?” She looked back at him. “Where are we?”

“Breakfast, huh? You’re probably hungry. I bet that’s what you’re asking, kiddo. Well, see…ugh, damnit, what am I saying? I should just feed her.”

“You don’t understand, do you?”

“Yeah, I get it, kid, I suck. Say that to my face, ‘Oh, why didn’t you wake me up for breakfast?’ Well, sorry, I ain’t trained for babysitting children. And to be fair, the MREs I got are too limited so sending you to that town should be the best option I have…what the hell am I even saying? You don’t even understand my ramblings.”

“Sir Hans, you speak a lot, don’t you?” She smiled a bit. “I don’t understand you, but you sound funny, in a way…”

“You want chicken soup? Well, sorry for that one, but you already ate my last stock, if that’s what you wanted. Hmm…you know, we should probably park this thing and set up camp for a while…”

“Umm…” she tried. “Sir Hans…I wonder how we would be able to understand each other at this rate. I don’t know how to cast language-learning spells. Mother does, but she’s—”

“Yeah, yeah, I get you. I’m parking it now. You're hungry and all that. Don’t worry your poor soul about it one bit,” he laughed, as their strange carriage moved again, straight to the side of the road, into the woods. “I don’t know what you’ll like on my stock of rations, but I’ll try to get you something good.”

Alizée, again, didn’t understand what he meant. But, when she was reminded by her mother, she felt…extremely awful, yet almost immediately, this man, Hans, seemed to try to soothe her instead of those memories. She smiled at him, still not understanding what his words meant. But she understood his intentions…even if she wasn’t fully sure about it.

He just wanted to take care of her.

+++

+++ Lieutenant Hans Hoffman +++

Unknown

“Yeah, that’s good, ain’t it?” Hans nodded a bit as the girl downed the beef stew main dish that he heated up. He didn’t really take any breakfast for himself, as he only used one single-meal MRE package for now. The bread and biscuits did enough to satiate Hans’ stomach, as he had already eaten quite a bit of that abomination last night.

Even still, Hans made sure to save a loaf of bread for her, and he placed some peanut butter on it. Not as good as the strawberry jam last night, probably, and he wondered if the kid was even truly enjoying his MRE rations that were…probably not up to her palate. In a way, this girl seemed to not be of the poor or middle-class variety.

Reading on Amazon or a pirate site? This novel is from Royal Road. Support the author by reading it there.

The dress she was in seemed well-made, and she seemed to have pristine skin untainted by work or any disease. Most of all, Hans already long accepted that he may be in a technologically backward world. Yesterday, he denied the fact that he saw those corpses wielding a strange version of musketry as just delusions, but it was as true as any.

He’d take things at face value from now on. He probably died and found himself in this strange place. Was it perhaps the Goddess? Was she true that she granted him a new life? Hans didn’t seem fully sure. But with that assumption, he looked back at those carriages he found. There was wealth there. Gold bars, jewelry, the whole shebang. He felt it would be a grave crime to loot it, so he left most of it in that place. It led him to a quick conclusion though, her parents must have been some wealthy aristocrat, of some sort. Perhaps merchants even.

Which is why it was best to leave everything there intact. Hans would try his best to report what happened when he reached that town. Perhaps get into contact with this girl’s relatives so they would retrieve her, their belongings on that ambush site, and the corpses of what must have been their hired guards.

Don’t wanna piss off people in an alien place after all.

Plus, Hans noticed the protruding horns on the girl’s head since he met her (which he initially thought to mean nothing earlier). It was small, perhaps due to the fact that she was a child, but Hans realized she wasn’t exactly human. Or if she were, she was definitely a strange sub-race of sorts. Not that he noticed anything on those soldiers. He wasn’t exactly such a corpse mangler that he’d remove their headgear to check if they were human or not.

It was a long night for Hans, merely driving in silence as he pondered about the place and situation he found himself in. Especially about this young girl and her nature. Or about his nature. Hans for one questioned the screen-like visions he saw earlier, but he didn’t really have a way to check for it again. Perhaps waking up in this strange place simply did strange things to his mind? He didn’t know.

He was brimming with so many questions, yet the only person in front of him was a child, a girl, probably still ten years old at worst, who spoke a language he didn’t understand. He took maps and notes from them, and while they had the same script that his people used, he didn’t understand a single word. Hans…hated it, a bit. How little intel he had in this situation.

Yet he found himself compelled to simply keep on. To push forward. Then he met her. And saved her. Now, he wasn’t just driving on some unpaved path aimlessly, he was now driving to a destination, with a goal in mind. Get her back to her people, or anyone who would take care of her.

It was a tiny, noble goal that Hans sufficed as something that kept him somewhat sane through all of this. He didn’t really trust himself about it, and perhaps he was just using her as an excuse to go there and finally find answers. Perhaps he was even planning to use her as a way to seem less threatening to people he might meet there. After all, a young man who saved a young girl from a disaster would seem more like a hero to people than a random barbarian who appeared out of nowhere.

Maybe my cynicism has really just been way too high.

But that was who Hans was, that he knew. He’d always been a cynic, yet…

Taking care of this girl made him feel truly better in some ways. Perhaps the best he ever felt since he found himself pressed into service into a penal battalion. This time, he wasn’t living and fighting aimlessly to defend a country that didn’t care for him. He was…wasn’t this the job of soldiers?

To serve and protect?

He was protecting a child, wasn't he?

Somehow, even for someone who murdered so many people in his service, Hans felt a bit of his sanity returning. He felt…not an evil entity. Strangely, he felt more human, even in this brief time with her. He was helping. Feeding a kid. Keeping her off from the threats in their hostile environment. Like a guardian.

Instead of being a faceless nightmare on the battlefield. A feared man who drove a ghost that murdered anything it could see.

He felt his stomach rumble a bit.

“Ah…well, I guess some bread and biscuits ain’t enough for me,” he laughed. Silly him, of course, it wouldn’t be. But he was so close to that town. Maybe he’d find a way to eat something more decent there if lucky. Perhaps they’d even give him a free meal, saving him from using up his rations.

Realistically, probably not…

“This…is strangely, really good, Sir Hans,” the young girl said. “I wonder why you only ate some bread. We could share this, you know?”

“You’re some hungry kid, aren’t you? Gave you the main course and you’re still looking at my loaves of bread.” Hans chuckled. “No worries, kid. Saved half of it for you. A growing girl has to eat, after all. At least, as they would always say. You know, parenting’s a tough job, I guess.”

Hans took another bite of his bread and looked back at the skies. Parenting? Would he ever have a chance to do that? He finished college, but never actually got a job. Well, except for murdering people after getting arrested just months after graduation. Didn’t exactly get a chance for the routine first step of building your own family, after all.

And now, he felt extra bad for the poor girl. She really did just lose her family, didn’t she? He wondered if her father was a good one. She seemed well-cared for, after all. A tragedy, truly, especially how she would sometimes cry about her “mama” or “papa” silently last night. Somehow, a little pat on the head and some shitty humming (of war songs that he slowed down) would calm her down, but still.

She must have really loved them. He smiled a bit. They must have loved her well. Then his smile faltered. And she just lost them.

It was the reverse in his case then. For him, it was his mother that lost their son. Hans wondered how his mother was right now. Well, he did lose his father a decade ago when he died in a distant war in the Far East. His mother, his own beloved mother who had already suffered enough from the loss of her husband, must have already received the letter about the death of her useless criminal son.

I’m sorry again Mom. He looked down. I disappointed you again.

Or perhaps not, Hans thought. Perhaps, he finally freed her from her headache. Yet that form of denial didn’t work. He could imagine…his mother was really crying for him, right now.

“Sir Hans,” he heard the girl call. “You seem…sad?”

“Oh, yeah, I forgot,” Hans laughed awkwardly, noticing that she was done eating. “The peanut butter sandwich. Here, have it. It’s good, trust me.”

“Um…isn’t that supposed to be yours?”

“Yeah, like the strawberry last night, yes, it’s also not natural.” Hans smiled. “But, come on, eat up.”

He handed it to her, even when she seemed confused. Still, she began nibbling on it, before she began devouring it after tasting it.

She really is a growing girl. Hans chuckled. Yeah, I really gotta get her to those people. Someone’s gotta properly take care of her.