“The locals here seemed to be really good people. Mostly farmers and the like. It’s a shame that a town like Torei could be potentially wiped out due to a demon attack. It’s defended…by no one.”

- Excerpt from Lieutenant Hans Hoffman’s Journal Entries.

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+++ Lieutenant Hans Hoffman +++

Ygeian Countryside

AUG 26, 1538 CE

“Everyone!” Hans called with his mech’s microphone, his Wanderfalke standing on top of a ridge that overlooked the path that was being used by the civilians below him. “It’s already way too dark. You are to set up camp for now. We will continue the journey tomorrow morning.”

The announcement left many of the civilians distraught. Hans himself merely frowned as he turned his Wanderfalke to the side, looking at Adelyn’s mech that watched their rear. The carriages continued to move forward, while many began to park to the side, near the trees. Hans made his way down the hill, continuing his role of patrolling the area around the evacuating civilians.

“Quite the tedious thing, huh?” Adelyn asked on the comms as Hans passed by her.

“Yeah,” Hans said. “This is really risky.”

“Would have been more risky to stay there,” Adelyn said. “Remember those towns.”

Hans definitely remembered more than that. I’ve even seen thousands die to a demon inside a city. Hans thought. Quite the unfortunate fate if they had stayed there.

“How’s Alizée doing?” Hans asked.

“She fell asleep.”

Hans just nodded to himself, as he returned his focus to his screens.

“Good.”

For the next few hours, the two watched as the civilians settled to sleep in their carriages, or to areas around them. Many merely ate some bread or drank water before finding their sleeping areas quickly, while the town’s guards remained standing, on the perimeter. It was…all, in all, a shoddy defense.

Still, they had been quite mobile, and Hans calculated that they had traveled eighteen kilometers already from the town. Unless that demon was quite the tenacious one at hunting people in a town it hadn’t targeted yet (as far as Hans could remember), then it was unlikely that it’d attack them.

Unless it did. In such a case, evacuation was still the best solution. At least running away had a chance of making people survive. Standing fast and holding on to the town…would have killed them all by now if it attacked.

As each hour bled by, the darkness continued, and Hans felt himself becoming sleepier and sleepier as he patrolled the perimeter with Adelyn. They already expanded their search to a three-kilometer radius from the area occupied by the civilians, circling it again and again as cautiously as they could.

By four AM in the morning, Hans stopped his mech for a quick coffee break. When he checked his coffee pouches though, he noticed that he was now really running quite thin. Nevertheless, he brewed himself a quick cup and began sipping it.

“Captain,” he called on his comms. “How’s the situation on your end?”

“Pretty fine,” Adelyn replied. “Hey…you can go back and park your vehicle. Take a nap. I’ll keep watch,”

Hans shook his head with a laugh, looking down at his coffee.

“Absolutely not. I’m already caffeinated.”

“Well, I’m of the belief that my subordinates should be well-rested.”

“And I’m of the belief that my commanding officer should be well-rested so she doesn’t give me a stupid order,” Hans chuckled. “Can bite back right at ya.”

“You’re always difficult.”

Hans just sipped his coffee. It was still kinda hot, so he decided to put it on the side as he relaxed in his seat. Really, one thing he loved about the Wanderfalke was that it was created to give a good level of comfort to its inhabitants. Briefly, he pitied the folks running around with those older tanks without…AC and everything.

Here…he could just rest on his comfy seat, feeling like he was inside his own personal, cozy, and comfortable battle room. The comforts of being in an advanced combat vehicle sure were astounding, Hans thought. At least, until someone sprayed him with 25mm APFSDS that his vehicle’s armor wasn’t rated to resist.

Briefly, he winced, remembering the countless comrades he had who got shredded by Flandrian IFVs and their autocannons. The Petin or Murat was never the Wanderfalke’s greatest enemy. It was enemy IFVs.

Kinda like that X demon. Hans thought. It’s…it’s a demon that fires projectiles that practically act like those autocannons. Well, except an IFV autocannon would spray him to death with quite the RPM (rounds per minute). He looked back at his mug. The faint signs of steam coming from it had dissipated. And so, he took another sip. Then a deeper sip. Noticing that it was already decently cold enough, he decided to rapidly consume it.

It only took him a minute before he was done, feeling his senses slowly return. With some level of clarity in his mind, Hans returned to the patrols. The night wasn’t over yet, after all.

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Adelyn and Hans didn’t expect it…

But it finally happened.

“Firing APFSDS!”

Adelyn’s shot perforated the demon’s metallic body on its upper left side, forcing it down. Already hard golden, shots from it began raining on both of their positions, as Hans and Adelyn drove toward the hills and other natural obstacles, desperately trying to keep themselves out of the open to be shot.

But unlike Hans’ last attempt, this time, the duo was holding the demon out pretty well. After Adelyn’s shot, Hans poked his Wanderfalke out of its cover, firing a second APFSDS shot straight at its core, causing it to stagger, and finally retreat. Hans also noticed that it released a lot of blood. Its shape began changing into that of a star before two golden pulses of light shaved off the hills and boulders they were using as cover.

“Goddess! That was close!” Adelyn said, her Wanderadler driving fast behind Hans, while Hans attempted to poke at it, using his gun depression to keep his hull hidden. This time, his autoloader reloaded a HEAT shell on the breech at Hans’ choosing. It was clear white on his thermals when he aimed at it. He lazed it briefly, as it was moving too fast, causing his main gun to elevate automatically based on the results of his laser rangefinder. Immediately, he pulled the trigger when he aimed it at its core—with the shot slamming through the metal, and exploding near the center.

The demon let off a high-pitched shriek, as blood sprayed out of it, its shape changing again and again from a star, to an X, then to a diamond, and firing a concentrated golden pulse of light in Hans’ direction. Fortunately, Hans already jumped out of the place, and Adelyn’s mech popped again from another direction, firing another shot that pierced through the sides of the flying demon.

“Hit the core!” Hans called out on the comms. “That should work!”

“I’m trying, it’s so fast—”

A rain of bullets from the flying guns around it struck Adelyn’s position, forcing her to also run back into cover. By then, the two elected to begin retreating from their combat positions, driving as fast as they could to get out of the woods. Looking back, however, Hans noted on his thermals that the demon was retreating too.

“Hey!” He called out, and the two stopped. “We lost contact. It’s flying away.”

“I think we harmed it well enough,” Adelyn said. “That thing…it’s got lasers and floating guns!”

“It bleeds…and it changes shapes. It can scream too. That’s seriously messed up.”

“We need to check on the civilians.”

“Yeah, right, I’ll try to keep contact. I think we delayed it well enough at least.”

The two then drove out of the woods, emerging on the flat plains ahead of them. They quickly drove back into the main route used by the civilians, and finally—Hans and Adelyn laid their eyes on the result of the first chaotic minutes when it arrived.

Multiple carriages, still on the road, either peppered with bullets or burning. People…dead people. Both on the road and the carriages. Hans could only grit his teeth, as he turned his turret back on the forest to keep watch of the rear. On the other hand, Adelyn already parked her mech to the side, popping her hatch open and dismounting.

“Wait, why did you stop?”

“I need to check on these people, Lieutenant!” She replied. Hans turned his turret in her direction, and already, she was running left and right checking the carriages and corpses around them.

“Captain!” He shouted with his speaker. “They’re all dead! Get back to your vehicle!”

“Just give me a minute. It’s not chasing us right now. We can’t leave anyone if they’re injured or what else.”

Hans frowned before he parked his mech right behind Adelyn’s Wanderadler. He briefly looked to his side, seeing a curious Alizée watch them, her head peeking out of Adelyn’s hatch.

“Just…just go down. Cover your ears,” Hans said.

“Okay…”

Hans then pulled out his pistol and cocked it. Adelyn on the other hand really found people, injured people, and she was trying to carry them to the side of one of the carriages. Hans looked at them. They were all badly injured, the shots creating large perforations on their bodies, causing them to bleed profusely.

He especially looked at a wounded girl, already half-conscious from the shot on her chest. Adelyn frantically checked her, while Hans clicked his tongue.

“Captain. There’s no point. They’re all going to die in a few minutes. Or seconds. That kid’s going into shock. She’s a goner. And we have no magical healers here. Or magical supplies for that matter. Nothing will help them.”

Adelyn placed her first aid kit to the side and glared at Hans.

“How about you come here and help me—”

A powerful flash of his pistol was the answer to Adelyn’s demands. One of the wounded men had his head explode in a bloody manner. Then Hans moved into the next. Then the next. Then the next. Until, when he pointed his pistol at the girl, there was only an empty click. Just then…it seemed that the girl stopped breathing, her life being drained away before Hans could give him mercy.

“You just…”

“Get back up. Back to your Wanderadler. We’re going to continue maneuvers to protect their rear. We can’t be too sure that it retreated fully.”

She punched the ground, staining her gloves with dirt.

“Damn it! How did it even catch up to us?”

“It’s not your fault, Captain, you made the right call. Things just will never go so perfectly when you’re fighting these kinds of monsters,” he extended his hand to her. “Come on, we still have a mission to finish. I intend to finish it.”

She breathed in, before taking Hans’ hand and standing back up.

“You’re right. I apologize. The sight of them all bleeding out—”

“I understand.”

“...Well, I guess you’re always like that to me.”

“Not really.”

Adelyn picked up her first-aid kit, and the two of them then walked back to their Wanderfalkes, with Hans taking a brief look at the forest with his binoculars.

“Any sightings?” Adelyn asked, as she took a deep breath and looked at the ground, still a bit shaken by Hans’ actions.

“Nope,” Hans lowered his binoculars. “I think we harmed it well enough. At least now we have an idea about what it can do. I noticed that its laser beams…or whatever it is, charge slowly. Like…fifteen seconds.”

“That’s…long,” Adelyn said.

“That, and firing at its core, its center mass, that seems to do the trick. It hurts it. It makes it bleed. Maybe it has a heart there. Or some sort of biological center. We just need to hit it more, and maybe…maybe that’ll work.”

“Okay…”

Hans looked back at her.

“Still capable?”

“Of course I am,” she shook her head. “No, there’s still hundreds of survivors trying to run. I won’t let them die. Not when I’m here.”

Hans looked back at the dead civilians on the road, before sighing.

“Yeah…me neither. Let’s just keep going. And going. No choice.”