“They left us already. The Empress won’t pay us any further, nor will she send money and resources to get us back home to our homelands. She sent us here to keep the peace, and when the peace collapsed, she left us here. At the very least, they could have given us a heads-up that they’re abandoning this Principality to those demons. But perhaps that’s why we’re left here without further supplies, funding, and reinforcements. They want us to buy time. Those dirty mongrels don’t deserve to rule this nation.”
- Letter from Colonel Florian Kohler, 8th Holy Ygeia Regiment, to Captain Ebert Strobel, 4th Holy Ygeia Regiment.
+++
+++ Lieutenant Hans Hoffman +++
Rousselot City
AUG 19, 1538 CE
It was a long day today.
The IYC representatives finally arrived to finalize who would be mobilized in the fight. Long grueling talks between Hans, Adelyn, Captain Strobel, and the relevant officials that Captain Weibel brought here had drained the hours. Then there were the checks to their vehicles that the agents conducted during noon.
They had to even expend two shots during a test run, just to impress the IYC representatives. Hans didn’t exactly find that development a fun thing: every munition was an important resource to him, but Adelyn decided that a little demonstration would be good.
Then, in the afternoon, they had to check on the rest of the 4th Holy Ygeia Regiment and their condition. A few hundred men gave up, mostly, those who had enough of fighting demons. The remaining artillery pieces, twelve intact, were also inspected by the IYC representatives and they had conducted brief exercises outside of Rousselot in the afternoon.
The news that the Imperial Government had truly officially abandoned them had been a very sour thing for the men. The IYC representatives broke the news in the bluntest way possible after all. The defensive efforts in Ygeia have now been passed to the only Imperial entity that had interests left in the Principality.
The Imperial Ygeia Company.
Hans wanted to laugh at it. It was…a cruel joke. Of course, the moment the government found their new colony as a drain to their stretched coffers, they’d abandon it. Fortunately, the IYC had its entire business base (mines, farms, mills, and their burgeoning weapons industry for cannons and guns) in the Principality. Ultimately, this meant that de facto, he was now inside of a corporate state.
Then again, he remembered that back during this era of his world, Albionese and Flandrian charter companies controlled distant colonies of great scale. There were even some parallels between the narcotic side of their business to the IYC. Just like the Albionese Eastern Company that sold and traded both spices and opium…the IYC seemed to be exporting large amounts of food/spices to the Imperial Core using the so-called “green powder”, a powder that when used on land, acted as a magical fertilizer—or an addictive narcotic when consumed.
Of course, there was an extra to that. They after all said that the most refined form of the “green powder” was used by the richest to heal any and all ailments, injuries, or diseases, but…he seriously doubted it could do whatever the hell people claimed it could do. At least until he could see it.
Right now, he was just taking his time off outside of the meeting room where the rest of his new allies, and Adelyn of course, discussed what they would be doing from now on out. Hans for his part merely drank some wine that he bought with their bounty money. It was…well, half-decent, he thought.
They already took hours there. Hans thought, looking at the closed door. Must be quite tense then.
For him, his main priority right now was to really just finish this entire thing. He wasn’t sure exactly what the Calamity of Desire was, except for the fact that it was actually a “she”. Current reports said that “she” presented herself as a humanoid teenage girl who wielded extremely powerful magic. There were a lot of concerning reports about the Calamity of Desire from Hans’ perspective.
In the settlements she destroyed, the Calamity of Desire apparently utilized some sort of high-pitched amplified noise that “drove anyone who heard it insane”, causing hysteria, chaos, and people apparently killing each other. That was…certainly, something. He had seen enough demonic creatures to not underestimate them from doing those kinds of insane crap.
Worse was that she used this strange otherworldly magic that turned anyone hit by it into a fleshy doll. That was some nightmare fuel type of crap. If true of course. All reports about the Calamity of Desire so far had been deemed unreliable and were as trustable as rumors. The Calamity of Desire left very few survivors, and the few cavalrymen or civilians that managed to survive and flee her attacks were usually delirious crazies.
We’ll really need that mech upgrade. If we face that thing…we can’t get way too close. I’m not dying to a damned scream or becoming a doll. No damned way. Absolutely no damned way.
They’d have to prepare for a final hunting spree to grind out their next level with another hunting spree of local monsters…again, the night wolves. After all, they sometimes attacked merchants traveling from town to town, placing further strain on the County. But mostly, Hans and Adelyn wanted to be as prepared as possible for the next fight.
They needed a goddamned resupply. They already had the arcane points for it. They just needed that one upgrade. He really wanted to limit the extreme caution they were forced to take due to a lack of munitions/fuel when fighting demons. Again, of course, he imagined that the upgrade would not exactly mean they would be brimming with an unlimited MPAT supply, but…
It would still be good to at least be assured that if he fired ten APFSDS rounds, he’d get at least eight or ten to replace it. Just enough that the rate of consumption and rate of replenishment would be roughly equal.
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Hah…I wonder then…am I going to die again? He took another sip of the wine from his canteen. Dying sucks ass, but…if that thing is that way, realistically, I now have to brace myself again for the potential of dying. I…I’ll definitely probably die.
He let out a defeated laugh as he ran his hand on his hair.
Why am I the Fallen Angel of Truth? Hans asked. And why am I the Calamity of Lies? What does it all mean? Why designate me as this kind of thing? Am I a Demon? Or am I an Angel? Does being a fallen Angel simply mean that I failed some god or goddess and that now I’m on the side of the Demons?
He looked at the floor.
If I’m on their side, then why? Why has no one whispered to me to start killing everyone? I’m not doing any of that? Why would I do any of that? Was I corrupted during my summoning? But why? Why would I be corrupted?
Hans felt his chest tightening a bit at the thought.
The Cycle of Truth gives me the ability to return back in time whenever I die. But I have no control over it. Not yet at least. Perhaps if I upgrade it, I would. But…not now. And Progress of Lies…well…
I have skills both from being the Angel of Truth and being the Calamity of Lies. But that doesn’t make any sense. Why would I represent both Truth and Lies? The two are literally opposites of each other. Then who do I represent really?
If Calamities represented the Archdemons of this world, which were said to be the reverse of the Gods and Goddesses, which were represented here by the so-called “Angels”, then which side was he really with? Were this any laughing matter, he’d find it comedic that he seemed to be in between the possession of the Archdemon of Lies and the God/Goddess of Truth.
The funny thing was…in all the books he read, there were only seven gods and seven archdemons. There was no such thing as a “God/Goddess of Truth”, and there was no such thing as an “Archdemon of Lies”. What existed in the religious text was purity, justice, prudence, courage, restraint, love, and modesty in the pantheon of gods. Then on the other side was their reverse. Desire, injustice, recklessness, cowardice, avarice, hate, and hubris.
At least Adelyn, apparently the “Angel of Justice”, most likely represented the Goddess of Justice. Meanwhile, Hans knew that the Calamity of Desire…of course, probably represented the Archdemon of Desire. But then that name was only really given by humanity.
There was no telling if any of the so-called “Calamities” really represented these demonic powers. Angels like Adelyn could at least be checked, provided they asked them. But otherwise, no one also knew where the rest were, or if they were still even alive. Information about these seven great heroes supposed to save humanity was very much obscure.
And no one but Hans knew that Adelyn was the Angel of Justice. The greater fear for the two of them was the possibility that the old seven were all dead, and they were now being replaced. It was a possible explanation for their summoning here. Perhaps the gods wanted them as replacements.
Still, again, Hans was in a goddamned confusing situation. It didn’t help that he couldn’t tell anyone about it. He would never say to anyone, “Hey, I’m actually a Calamity too,” because that’d mean game over for him. Thus…he was, by all accounts, truly alone at cracking what really was happening to him, to Adelyn, and to the world.
He couldn’t let them know who he really was. He was…hiding information from them. And that meant that he wouldn’t be able to count on their help to solve this.
That sucked.
“Ugh…damn it…”
“Lieutenant,” he looked to the side. The door finally opened and out came the four IYC representatives, the Countess, and the visibly tired Captain Strobel following closely behind. Captain Weibel and Lieutenant Preisner on the other hand are talking about something, passing by in front of Hans. Adelyn on the other hand stopped in front of Hans, smiling at him a bit. “Hey, you alright over there?”
“Yeah, of course I am,” Hans said, shaking his head to wake himself up a bit. “How was the meeting?”
“Pretty good,” Adelyn smiled. “We get their help, we give them help, basically. They’re organizing a new task force to take down the Calamity of Desire, and everyone in it is going to be rolling in cash once it’s over. The 4th is downsizing to three battalions after the…manpower losses, but they’re joining in too. A few specialist battlemages and landsknecht mercenaries will be joining in too once we’re close to the deployment site. In essence…we’re going to be a part of a decently-sized force to take it down.”
“Heh…well, good then,” Hans said, looking down at the floor. “I hope they’d be useful in the fight.”
“We’re getting multiple pieces of horse artillery,” Adelyn said. “Plus, again, the battlemages. Mostly tier II human and Vanus volunteers.”
“Volunteers?”
“Err…well, the Imperial Mage Corps…is really MIA in this Principality. So they’re just grabbing anyone with a high enough tier to the fight. Um…mostly motley small mages that deal with monsters. You know, golems, ogres, goblins…”
“Those things exist?”
“Yeah,” Adelyn laughed. “Strange isn’t it?”
“Well, I imagine those things are not really that much of a threat compared to what demons are.”
“Well, yeah…” Adelyn’s smile faltered. “Lieutenant, they just told me that another city was destroyed by a demon most likely controlled by the Calamity of Desire. They called it the ‘Hired Gun Against Gold’, mainly because it’s a strange floating thing that had guns floating around it. And it likes to kill mercenaries. The city that was attacked had…well, three thousand died.”
“Goddess…” Hans said. “How many demons are there in the whole of Ygeia anyway?”
“Probably around six to eight active,” Adelyn said. “Mostly concentrated in the northwestern parts. But, the Calamity of Desire and the ‘Hired Gun Against Gold’ attacked cities and settlements close to Rignon. The Principality’s capital and where the HQ of the IYC lies.”
“So our goal will be the defense of that city?” Hans asked.
“Rignon is a city of a hundred thousand souls,” Adelyn said. “We cannot let it get to its walls. No, we’re gonna stop the Calamity of Desire before ‘she’ reaches the towns thirty kilometers north of Rignon. That’s our mission. So we’re gonna have to regroup with the rest of the suppression force, then find that demon—and liquidate ‘her’.”
“The IYC is hoping that the death of the Calamity of Desire will stop the rest then?”
“That’s the current hope of the higher-ups,” Adelyn answered. “That might not materialize. Still, we have to do what we have to do. There’s too many people relying on us, Lieutenant.”
Hans looked up at her, then to her halo.
“You’re living up to your name now, huh?”
“If I must, then I will. That’s my duty, after all.”
Hans nodded, a little bit demoralized by the possibility of dying again in this expedition.
“Sure, Captain.”