“This bridge was erected for the defense of the Great Republic. Glory to the defenders against the Imperium!”
- Inscription on a Ygeian Stone Bridge.
+++
+++ Lieutenant Hans Hoffman +++
Ygeian Countryside
AUG 23, 1538 CE
“Morning, Captain,” Hans laughed over his radio as he heard the sounds of Adelyn’s snoring replaced by her yawning. A flustered yelp came from the other line, which pushed Hans further into his laughing fits. “Had a good sleep?”
“Goddess…I left it open?!” came the panicked voice on their comms, before Hans heard the characteristic thud of her turning it off. Now, Hans was left without his “entertainment”, and so, he sighed and relaxed on his seat, taking a few sips on the cup of coffee that was beside him. It was still slightly warm, and each sip pushed his sleepy mind back into working condition.
Gonna be a few more kilometers of driving from here. Hans thought as he took a deeper sip. Gotta be ready. Maybe we should make a pit stop in a few villages? That might be a good idea.
Yet, even with the caffeine, Hans’ sleepy state wasn’t really fully changed. Due to the nature of their rotations, Hans took the lion’s share of remaining awake throughout their rest period. In fact, he was supposed to wake Adelyn up at three AM to make her keep watch until Hans had his share of sleep, but Adelyn didn’t wake up.
And Hans couldn’t bring himself to walk out of his mech to wake the woman up for her job. He told himself that it was for the sake of just letting the two sleep well, and he just rolled with it. So right now, he was kinda sleepy.
But, nothing a few more cups wouldn’t fix. Hans fully downed his coffee. Well, it would have sucked harder if something sneaked up on us. Glad we’re safe. That’s mission one checked out as successful.
He popped his hatch open after stowing away his mug to its proper place. Walking straight into the direction of Adelyn’s mech, which sat just ahead of him, Hans climbed their mech and began banging on their hatch to make Adelyn open it.
“Hey!” He shouted. “Wake up sleepyheads! We still have a long drive to go!”
“Go away!” Adelyn’s muffled voice shouted from inside. “We’re fixing ourselves!”
“Huh? How’s that even possible?” Hans asked. “Damn, that’s really unfair. How’d you even have enough space there to play fashion stuff?”
“It’s not fashion stuff, just fixing up!” Adelyn shouted back, followed by another childish voice.
“Yeah!” Alizée shouted. “Listen to Lady Adelyn, hmph!”
“Damn, okay,” Hans laughed, before backing off and jumping off her mech. He then sighed to himself, as he awaited for them to leave. For the next five minutes, he simply opened one of the biscuits he bought from Rousselot that he kept in a sealed plastic container. He remembered the container was something that came with the stolen chips that he once “procured” from the battalion kitchens.
He began snacking on it, which soothed his sweet tooth for a bit. While he had a considerable supply of chocolate rations with him, he had already relegated it to the role of gaining Alizée’s attention. Or to placate the kid if she ever cried or something. After all, Hans was a terrible pick at raising a child. He needed everything that he could have to bribe the girl into proper behavior.
And so, he only had this. Which wasn’t exactly bad. The cookies weren’t the hardtack ones that he stashed in his tank’s storage, so it was soft. But it only would have a shelf-life of a few days, and so he preferred to enjoy it already before it spoiled in the container, or something worse.
Man…this kinda makes me miss Rousselot. Hans looked down at the half-bitten biscuit. They had all kinds of confectionery there. And Adelyn kept buying that stuff. Hopefully, the next stop has some goodies.
A greedy glint took over his eyes.
We have the money for it anyway. Maybe I can negotiate to get her to buy me and Alizée some? No, wait, I just need to lure her into the direction of a good bakery, and kablam! The scheme would work because she’d do the job by pure instinct herself. Then, she’d have to soothe her pride of being ‘equal’ by sharing with us.
“What the hell are you scheming over there, Lieutenant?” Adelyn suddenly called from behind. Hans turned around, just in time to see Alizée catch up behind Adelyn, who crossed her arms as she looked at Hans. Hans smiled sheepishly, as he turned around. “You look like a gremlin.”
“Was just having breakfast, is all,” Hans coughed to clear his throat. And then he straightened himself. “Anyhow, according to the map, we should only be a few hours away from the next town. I think we should do a good pit stop, and let, well, Alizée decompress a bit from the long road. You know, kids and all. I mean, the rest of the force is still far behind anyway, and we’re already halfway on the journey to Fort Elmo.”
“True,” Adelyn shrugged, before looking down at Alizée, who seemed to hide a bit behind her. “Hey, kiddo. What do you want?”
“Chocolates…” Came Alizée’s request, as she tugged on Adelyn’s uniform. “I want…a sweet morning meal!”
“Oh, is that so?” Adelyn giggled and kneeled at Alizée’s level. “Hmm…okay? I can get you some nice stuff. But the real nice stuff will be in the town ahead. Is that alright? For now, we’ll snack on some simple cookies and a nice hot cocoa drink. How’s that?”
Hah! I didn’t have to act, and my scheme already worked! Hans celebrated.
Meanwhile, Alizée’s eyes shined as she smiled widely at Adelyn’s suggestion.
“That’s a good breakfast, Lady Adelyn!”
“Hmm…” Adelyn tilted her head a bit as she smiled. “You’re really becoming good at pronouncing continental words, huh? Well, considering how good you’re studying, of course, I’ll really give you an extra nice treat today once we take our mid-journey stop, okay?”
You could be reading stolen content. Head to Royal Road for the genuine story.
“Thanks!”
Adelyn then gave Alizée a head pat before she stood up to return to her mech and prepare their breakfast. Meanwhile, Hans already walked away, mounting his mech.
“Hey!” He called to Adelyn as he climbed on the Peacemaker’s chassis. Adelyn turned around. “Can I have permission to sortie for some side-quests, Captain?”
“Um, sure?” Adelyn replied as she looked at Hans confusedly. “What side quests exactly?”
“I’ll only cover a few kilometers around here while you guys eat breakfast,” Hans said. “Then we’ll regroup. I just need to pad my levels a bit. Get it up to something worthwhile. Maybe even get a few extra AP from it.”
“Oh,” Adelyn chuckled. “So you’re going wildlife hunting?”
“Yeah?”
“Alright,” Adelyn however crossed her arms as she stared at Hans sternly. “But only now because we’re preparing for a big fight. In normal conditions, I would never—”
“Yeah, yeah, I get it,” Hans said with a laugh. “I get your policies. I’m going off now. See you both later!”
+++
Cautiously, Hans maneuvered his Wanderfalke into a good firing position.
Ahead of his mech were the targets that he had been shadowing for the past minutes or two. Following a few groups of goblins in the area, approximately eight kilometers away from their original camping position, Hans found himself near what appeared to be a cave that these green-skinned monsters were using.
He approached them silently, again as standard with the doctrines in combat for the Wanderfalke, from the treeline, concealed by the bushes. He lowered his hull with the maximum setting that he could afford to keep moving, as he counted their numbers. There were a lot of things that he wished that he had right now upon seeing this juicy target.
Chief of which were magical tank rounds, but alas, he’d have to work with the standard 90mm MPAT rounds that he had for this. That, and his trusty heavy machine gun. So far, he had been trying his best to break even with the AP consumption that he was taking whenever he fabricated extra HMG bullets while killing things.
One of the main problems he faced was the fact that, unlike Adelyn, he only regained AP from killing things and leveling up. Essentially, a massive lump-sum of AP that he could use one time. That was good in an emergency, he could resupply massive amounts of munitions and fuel at once if need be.
But once the reserves were used up? He’d be screwed. Henceforth was his drive now to reach Tier II. While the ‘System’ didn’t say much in his ‘Mech-Pilot System Interface’, it seemed that he’d be unlocking a new feature only once he reached Tier II that would allow him to gain AP disconnected from leveling up or killing.
The ‘Achievements’ mechanics. Based on that name, he imagined it would be similar to how most humans gained AP even with their low skills aside from natural AP regeneration. Do things and the ‘System’ would give him an “achievement” that should correspond to a lump sum of AP. He certainly wanted that quickly.
But he was still half-way from that point. He had a lot of levels to grind for.
Hmm…that’s really a lot of them. Hans thought, as nearly a dozen goblins exited the cave. A settlement perhaps? I heard these creatures live in underground areas. Which means this place must be their town or village. Well, the closest equivalent of it at least.
He continued waiting for the big opportunity, watching as more and more of them gathered outside. He wondered what they were doing, with many of them coming out armed with basic knives, axes, and what else. And Goddess, these cretins did look quite the ugly beasts. Most of them were small, nimble, and light in build. Similar to that of human children.
Yet, their faces were gnarly and resembled that of malformed elderly. Even orcs at least had some sort of a terrifying facial structure in comparison. These things were straight up just…well, Hans had one word for it.
They’re disgustingly ugly.
Then, there were some larger ones, probably as tall as humans if not for their hunched backs. They held these strange staff-like sticks that resembled the ones used by mages in Rousselot. He wondered then why they were gathering such a large force. Was it for a strike?
Captain Strobel told me that goblins are a pain for rural communities. Just like most other things, they raid and kill trade convoys. Or in sufficient quantities, they can overwhelm town guards and raid and sack them.
If they were gathering this many, then…
They might be plotting for something. Hmm…perhaps the villages nearby?
He held his control sticks tightly, his finger already hovering over the buttons that controlled his coaxial machine guns.
Well, if for nothing else, if I wipe these guys out, not only do I get to level up... He smirked. I get to save some civilians too.
He opened fire. Unleashing terror on the goblins, he held back nothing by going full auto all of a sudden. First, he targeted the taller ones, mowing them down to death as they tried to find him. His gunfire completely shocked him, and many only blindly fired their spells in the wrong directions before being cut down by his gunfire.
Then, Hans sprayed the hell out of the smaller goblins scattered in the fields. Many cowered and hid behind the rocks and boulders, but the majority were cut down in the opening seconds. Hans made his move, charging forward and further terrifying the little cretins. Those who hid behind the terrain or the corpses were hunted down by Hans’ mech mercilessly, his turret rotating left and right to clean up the remnants.
Within just a minute, the field was strewn by bleeding, small, green bodies. Hans further expanded his bloodlust by even running over many of the little cretins, using the deployable blades of his front legs to slice anyone who dared to be in front of his mech’s legs as he circled their little settlement.
By the second minute, there was nothing standing outside of their cave, and Hans’ mech stopped right in front of their entrance. Checking his thermals, he could see so many contacts hiding inside of the cave, all of them cowering in fear at the unknown gray metal demon that found out the place they called home.
Hans gave no second thought. He wanted those levels. And so, he gave them a gift in the form of a 90mm MPAT round set to airburst mode. The first round created a violent, fiery boom inside, which somehow ignited something and caused it to burn inside.
I guess they have some wooden tech inside. Hans grinned as he readied a second round, pressing on his machine gun controls as burning goblins scrammed out of their cave, screaming in pain as the fires toasted their bodies. More were mowed down before Hans gifted them a final MPAT round to fully toast the interior. Due to the heat of the growing inferno inside, Hans couldn’t see any more of them on his thermals.
They should all probably die of suffocation. Hans thought. Whoever’s left that is.
He waited for a few minutes as the tally of kills in his interfaces grew. It was already at the high two hundred, but the tally merely grew and grew as the inferno went on. Boredly, Hans grabbed a few more biscuits to snack on, as the ‘System’ further increased his count of kills to three hundred. By the end of it, five minutes later, his final count was three hundred eighty-plus goblins killed.
[384 GOBLINS (AVERAGE LVL. 15) LIQUIDATED!]
[LEVEL UP! NOW LVL. 36]
[PROGRESS TO LVL. 37: 50%]
[NEW SKILL UNLOCKED!]
[AVAILABLE AP: 580 PTS.]
Heh…that’s a lot.
Hans smirked.
And all I needed was leverage modern tech to liquidate this thing. I guess I murdered a literal entire horde. I don’t think anyone can claim to be capable of killing hundreds of goblins in a span of minutes in this world.
A new idea was forming in his mind. Those demons were strong, yes. But…if he could just fully leverage this to crank up the bullshit powers of his mech…
Maybe he had a good chance of winning this game.