“I don’t know why Alizée turned out that way. But one thing I could assure myself that I do know of is that I would never accept the fate they unfairly condemned the girl with.”
- Excerpt from Lieutenant Hans Hoffman’s Journal Entries.
+++
+++ Lieutenant Hans Hoffman +++
Rousselot City
AUG 1, 1538
“You both…wouldn’t leave me?”
That same question again. The same question he always struggled to answer. At this point, Hans asked how thin his sanity had become. How many times would he be stabbed by that same painful question each time that he died so painfully?
Really, this time, he once again couldn’t bring himself to even look at her eyes directly.
What was the point of it all?
While it had only been five days of work, Hans really thought he had been making progress with her. He told her so many things. He tried to soothe her, to tell her that everything was alright. He even tried finding other solutions other than sending her to the Countess or leaving her in the St. Heka church.
Anything, and everything to make her feel that she wasn’t just going to be left willy-nilly.
But all of it was gone now. All of it.
And worse of all, again, he had no concrete answer to give her.
Hell, he didn’t even have an idea how to deal with that demon yet. He didn’t know how to stop it from rampaging in the city. He didn’t know how to even stop it from getting to Alizée and doing…whatever the hell it planned to do to her. Worst of all, he still didn’t know why Alizée really turned into one of them.
All that happened was him dying pathetically on the fifth day of August without anything to show to himself.
“It’s such a hellish thing to be metaphorically alone in this fight,” Hans answered. “Why? Why do all of you have to rely on me? Why am I the only one who can stop you all from…”
He looked down at the floor.
“Damn it.”
“I…Sir Hans?” He looked up and saw Alizée already crying tears fully. “You…don’t want to let me be with you two? You really don’t want me? You’d…you’d leave me?”
“What?” He tried to smile at her awkwardly. “Wait, wait, did you understand anything? Wait, no, it was nothing. J-just a slip of the tongue.”
Suddenly, the girl ran away in tears, leaving Hans alone. He tried to stand up and chase after all, but…then again, what did it matter? He acted so disgustingly in front of her. That kid didn’t need to understand him. It was painted clearly on his face. Hans clearly didn’t want to go through all that hell to save her at that moment.
To her, it was clear that Hans was now starting to debate whether or not he and Adelyn should leave her in this…awful environment.
It didn’t matter if he said yes or no, just the idea that he was stuck in the middle would be enough to shatter the kid’s hopes. It was a damned kid after all. Of course…nuance was something she’d struggle to understand. It was either she was left alone, or she’d tag with the two people who already saved and treated her well since her parents died.
Nothing in between.
As for Hans, he could only give up for now. No answers. No progress. Hell, he probably had a setback at that moment. How would he even repair the girl’s mind now that he partially rejected her hopes for salvation?
Blunder after blunder. Hans simply ran his hand through his hair. What to do? What to do? Fight? Fight how? Leave her or not? Goddess…why is it always me who’s supposed to answer these damned questions. Me. Me. Me. I died enough. They don’t even remember all those things that happened to me. Or all the crap I had to go through just so they can see another damned day. It’s just me, again and again! And all because of a little slip of the tongue, I’m suddenly an awful person?!
Then, this goddess-damned city doesn’t even listen to my words. They’d rather sabotage my plans to prevent everything from falling apart. Then, the only bastards who’d believe me are my CO who I’d rather not die in all of these, or two damned mercenaries who're literally blackmailing us into working for a drug empire. Damned…
He stopped himself.
This was going too far. He was now just whining. Whining and bellyaching. What was he, a child? Was he a ten-year-old girl like Alizée who had the right to throw a temper tantrum all because things didn’t go as he’d like? No, he stopped his thoughts then and there and took a deep breath to calm himself. Sure, he already died two times in this entire crisis.
One time being completely frozen by the same kid he was trying to protect.
And another time having his body blown bloodily open by a water-based magical attack.
But he mustered a grin. Who the hell was he again? He was Lieutenant Hans Hoffman, of the Southern Front. One of the best damned Lotharingian pilots of the Wanderpanzer II Falke light-legged tank destroyer series. The same bastard who commanded a crack unit into so many victories in the face of the unstoppable Flandrian tide on his homeland.
So what if he died so many times already? So what if he didn’t even have 1st Platoon to back him up in these painful times? So what if he was technically alone in this fight, being the only one who could see the future and react to it? So what if he was in the crappiest situation possible?
You might be reading a stolen copy. Visit Royal Road for the authentic version.
He was a Lotharingian ace pilot, with a magical Wanderfalke that he could use. With modern weaponry. And he was literally unstoppable in the long term. So what if the demon, or Alizée, or anyone else killed him a hundred painful times? He’d come back knowing more and ready to try a different method to win.
He could always win.
For his CO.
For Alizée.
For the innocent people of this city.
And for himself.
What excuse did he have to whine and moan tonight?
Alright…if I have to die again, whatever. I’ll finish this damned fight.
After all, he had no excuses for failure.
He turned around.
Time for another hunt.
He’d know everything that he must know.
And kill that demon.
And save Alizée.
That was his mission after all.
And he’d accept it.
+++
Rousselot City
AUG 3, 1538
“Preventative measures? Sure…whatever. Have at it. Just don’t go way too crazy with it. Off you go.”
Quite frankly, talking to Adelyn for a few Imperial Marks was something Hans didn’t expect to be that hard. He certainly felt like a boy asking his mother for some pennies for new toys. Regardless, he did it, and now, he had thirty Imperial Marks on a pouch that he was holding deathly.
Counters, counters. Yes, indeed. He needed counters, damn it. And while he wanted to trust his SMG and Ruger pistol, it was clear that his small arms, unaided by any significant skill from the system, weren't going to cut it.
In the next engagement, without magical trinkets, he was, in the most blunt terms, going to be a very dead man. And a very useless man at that (at least Adelyn had the open skill “Wrath of the Law” to apply fire magic to her bullets) due to the fact that the skill he chose was a closed one that essentially only masked all of his stats to people.
Indeed, he managed to do counterintelligence in the best way possible, but, really—the only thing he hid with it was the fact that he was both the “Fallen” Angel of Truth and the Calamity of Lies. Now, he didn’t know if people could actually know that. No one had figured out that Adelyn was the Angel of Justice, and she had so far made no attempts to hide it.
But then again, Hans just accepted that he was a paranoid man. Perhaps it fitted him well. His main mech upgrade after all so far was [UPG: EYE OF PARANOIA]. Really, perhaps he already partially embodied the corrupt practices of the “Calamity of Lies”. He was a paranoid liar.
And a shady man who kept hiding his ugly smell from the people around him.
I really wonder why I’m not going crazy if I’m one of the Calamities. Hans shook his head. But then how can I be an Angel while being a Calamity at the same time? What? Am I in a quantum superposition type of situation?
He really wondered what the hell could have led to that situation. Then again, he was summoned here after dying, and so was Adelyn. At this point, it would be ridiculous to assume that there wasn’t some higher power pulling the bullcrap on both of their asses that they were in this position.
It was a funny-looking shop, and he entered it.
“Oi, oi, don’t you dare touch—”
Hans stood dazed, as he tried breathing out the puffs of smoke that invaded his nostrils. Absolute pain in the arse! He just wanted to shop for whatever magical trinkets he could probably use to counter that creature, and wouldn’t you know it—he found himself immediately in an accident.
“What the hell?!” He coughed. “Friggin…is this tear gas?! My eyes!”
“A-apologies, Dad!” Someone girly shouted in the store. “I thought it was supposed to be placed there.”
“Damn it, Felizia! Now our customer’s all…” Soon, the smoke emptied, and Hans was now tearfully watching two robed mages, one, who looked like a man in his forties. Near him was a teenage girl, also in those fancy-looking robes that he always imagined mages wore, who first looked at him apologetically, before she gave an awkward smile.
“First of all, I should say that it was an—”
The older man, who he assumed to be the girl’s father growled at the girl, who shrieked and picked up a wand of some sort, before flying away up the stairs.
“Going upstairs, Dad! Good luck with him!”
“Get back here you—”
Before she could retort, however, the two heard a loud bang upstairs, alongside the obvious sounds of her moaning and whining about her bumped head.
The older mage merely gave up and sighed.
“Apologies, good sir. Unfortunately, as you can see, my daughter’s a gigantic pain in the rear.”
“I can hear you down there, Dad! Also, I need ice!”
Hans could swear that the old man’s veins almost popped after he heard that.
“Anyway, ignore that brat,” the man said. “Thankfully, none of my wares seems to have been touched, except for you. Don’t worry, the tearing effect doesn’t last.”
“What’s with her anyway?”
“You know how it is with children. My wife brought her here again yesterday and left her here for a while. Now it’s all chaos.”
“I can see that,” Hans wiped the tears in his eyes. “Okay…so, I’m here to, erm, look for magical weapons? Do you have any idea?”
“Enchanted weapons?” The mage scowled. “I’m afraid I probably lack that. Unfortunately, I’m no mage smith. So if you’re asking for an enchanted sword that can slice through a Wyvern with just the mild application of AP without any active skill, well, you’re out of luck, good sir.”
“Great, so those kinds of things really exist in this world. Okay, potions? Tactical throwables? Anything that doesn’t require specialized ‘open’ skills? Something even a child soldier can use?”
I don’t know man! Anything. Like, if even twelve-year-old guerillas in the jungles of some impoverished country in my world can have weapons to frustrate modern armored vehicles, there has to be an equivalent here!
Of course, Hans didn’t say that part out loud, but he was hoping for something similar.
“What are you even talking about?”
“Magical tools for unconventional tactics, sir. Something I can use to say, take down someone two tiers ahead of me. I’m no proper mage, but I can shoot with my guns. But, I don’t have any skills from the system to enhance them. And again, I can’t do ‘real’ magic. I’ve read about enchantments though. Potions. specifically, throwable ones. Perhaps even the magical equivalent of IEDs.”
“First of all, what even is an IED?”
“Just, you’ve heard enough, sir. You’re an expert in this, right?”
He nodded.
“Can you get me something? I have thirty Imperial Marks,” Hans said. “And I’m very willing to spend.”
Immediately, Hans saw a greedy glint in his eye take over.
“Alright, let’s see what I have for you then.”