Last night was strange, too strange in fact for General Alban. A whole section of the city, where he put down a sizeable garrison, was unreachable for the night. Mysteriously, telephone lines to that quadrant of the city were cut off. So, he sent in soldiers to recon the area, only for them to stumble inside a dense layer of fog that, somehow, led them back to where they came. Safe to say that Alban couldn't sleep for the rest of the night but instead stayed awake to deal with the freaky situation. He mobilized the conscripts to set up a quarantine around the affected area though it incurred discontent from the fatigue soldiers. Alban thought it was the correct call, seeing that the Belkan tends to hit them by surprise with devastating effects. At least he was prepared to deal with whatever shit the Belkan has to throw at him, right?

Not! Come morning, Alban receives news that the fog was lifted. The issue, however, is that the absolute carnage it reveals causes even his stomach to churn for all to see.

The first thing that struck them the most are the obsidian black trees, taller than most houses in the area, bearing strangely-shaped fruits. Yet, once you rinse your eyes with water, those are not fruits, no. Those are corpses, mutilated human corpses! Like a horror show, that entire sector of the city has way many trees like that for his liking!

From down here, he can see the pale-whited complexion of a young man's corpse, face twisted with pain and terror. He has no doubt the poor lad was still alive when this... thing stabbed him through the gut, pulling him up high to the sky. Alban feels a tinge of phantom pain himself, no man deserves to die like that, at least not the good ones. He questions himself mentally whether it was corrected to subject these men, some with loving families, to such a scene. Yet, aside from regretting that he set a quarantine this near to ground zero, what else can he do? He can't just tell them to surrender, not after the price they paid to get here. They're this close to fulfilling their mission already, it's too early to give up.

Besides, he's used to such a gruesome death. The Great War hosted too many sights like this, after all. It will take them more than that to break his spirit, Alban thought. He successfully raises his morale and begins to get to work, prepping a pep talk to revitalize the weak-willed conscripts. He says stuff along the line that the Belkans are inhuman (even though they can't prove that these are their handiworks) and that they're the Devil in disguise. For murdering their compatriots like that, no doubt they will receive divine retribution from God above. And now, this army, consisting of conscripts like them, is the executioner of God's Will. So, by the providence of God, they must not falter in front of the trickeries of the Devil. They must embolden themselves to vanquish this threat, once and for all! For if not them, who will stop this Devil from ravaging their lands, their families, their homes! Such were the lines Alban spoke with a passion.

To be honest, Alban isn't a man of faith, nor is he a man that looks at people of different races/ethnicities wrongly. Yet he's grabbing straws here to maintain his army, so, he borrowed the speech from Sardegnian Papacy. A speech that emphasizes the humanity in their actions while condemning the enemy for theirs, knowing that his army has its followers in the majority. According to the human-supremacy church, it's extremely effective when you apply them against the Belkans. So, sorry old Pope, you will have to take the fall for this one. But hey, on the bright side, most of the army now burns with the Reconquista spirit. That oughta count for something, no?

Yet, seeing such a zeal that's pretty much unseen before, Alban has to shake his head. He's not sure how long it will last to combat the enemy before them. At the end of the day, conscripts are just that, conscripts. They're not professionally trained soldiers so he's not expecting them to hold for another week or two. That's if the Belkans stop committing such atrocity but he doubts it, they only agreed on a few clauses of the Geneva Convention, after all.

So, he gives out the order to restart the attack as time is of the essence. They can't be the ones to break first, not with a stake this large. Worse comes to worst he will even order night attacks, just to wear the enemy down faster, knowing fully well the Belkans have the night-battle advantage. As he starts barking out commands when the atmosphere is reignited, he looks at the obsidian trees one last time before they get clean up. He suddenly remembers a talk with his fellow General, the one that held White Rock.

It was a talk about the current Ustian society, one that's now lacking in its glory. After the Great War, Ustio took a big hit on its economy, prompting its neighbors, the Kingdom of Erusea and Sargdenian Papacy to slowly increase their influence over the land. After some time, the current Prime Minister, one with strong ties to Erusea, takes charge of the country. Even though the guy is corrupted, he's damn good at taking control of the country for his agenda. By creating his human-supremacist faction, diverting the population's hatred of the current stagnated regime to Belka, the Prime Minister successfully ignited the powder keg with promises of wealth and bountifulness. Yet, said promises can be fulfilled just by extracting them from their colonies, why uses a war then?

Because the Eruseans demand it, that's why. With ties to the island-bound kingdom, the Minister gives Eurasia the upper hand in extracting resources from their colonies. Now, just to wipe out their disgrace, Erusea kickstarted the war between Ustio and Belka through the Prime Minister they planted. Erusea also makes its money by selling Ustio its weapons, no doubt they will join this war sooner or later. After all, they will not let Belka, who disregarded Erusea rulings and claims, slide.

As for the Sardegnians, they're more contended with securing lucrative trade deals and converting more people to their religion.

The narrative has been taken without permission. Report any sightings.

All in all, Ustio is now divided into four influences: Sardegna, holding around 20 percent control over Ustio population, the Minister's nationalist faction claiming 30 percent, and the non-aligned population hovering around 40 percent. Last but not least is the upcoming Reformist faction that holds some 10 percent control in the country. You can see that for a once proud kingdom, its people now stand divided by human greed.

That leaves Alban to wonder again, was it truly right to wage this battle any more than this? Is it worth the losses, the trauma, the heartbroken families? He shakes his head to clear the thought as his military conditioning kicks in. There's no point in having distracting thoughts now, he's a General, a soldier at his core, and a good soldier follows orders, no matter how wrong they may be.

----------------------------------------------------------------------------

I jump over a wall, making a silent dash toward a building with a garage up on a hill. As I approach a steel gate, it opens up allowing me entry inside the compound.

"Sergeant, how many of them are there?" Lola asked without her usual cheeriness.

"A lot, as expected they have us outnumbered," I answered before looking around. "I doubt we can hold this hill without being cut off from the rest."

"I see. So we're cutting out losses?"

"Yeah, tell the rest to stand by the exfil route, we will double back to the square after we give the Ustian a care package."

"Got it, boss." Lola salutes before dragging her dusty petite body to relay my order.

I take up a spot on the camouflaged lookout position that Lola used before slipping down to the ground. Uttering an exhausted groan, I reach out for my water canteen only to notice that it's empty. "Fuck... Well, at least Lola left her canteen behind, and it's half-full." Lucky me I guess. Or not? The thing isn't filled with water but some sort of alcoholic beverage, where the hell did she even get it? I sigh, beggars can't be choosers, and down the content in small sips. The alcohol level is light, and there's a distinct wheat flavor, is this a lager or a beer? Anyway, if I'm drinking from her canteen like this, isn't it an indirect kiss? Meh, I'm too tired to ponder that life question now.

Yeah... Ever since the dark elves started their psychological warfare two days ago, things have been hectic. The enemy is getting increasingly desperate after three nights of massacres in their territory. So now, to not experience the terror of the night again, they keep piling bodies upon bodies to attack our defense line. At first, they showed a zealot attitude but once they kept getting slaughtered by our entrenched emplacements, it soon got broken down to pure desperation. And while we have the defender's advantage, our first defense line was still destroyed yesterday due to the sheer amount of conscripts they have. Thankfully, Princess General gave the fallback order promptly, lest we got swarmed to death.

After that, we managed to stall their advance through the usage of booby-trapped buildings, hit-and-run tactics, and well-timed assassinations. Though, I'm not sure for how long we can keep this up till we fall back to the second defense line. We can only do our best despite our losses.

"Oh that's right, we've lost two to them, huh..."

With the alcohol and fatigue settling in, I've come to realize the weight of two lives, lost under my watch, and with my order. Damn, it's felt much worse than the first time I've taken a life. The guilt from killing an unknown soldier versus having ones that you know and commanded to die is way different. It all started from the moment I volunteered my squads to shore up our rear, covering the retreat of our main force. Everything was fine and dandy, although we have injuries, all were alive and kicking. That's until the Ustians brought out the big gun to break our stronghold. They mounted an artillery piece, haphazardly on the back of a truck, drove it up to us, and before we could do anything, blasted us almost point blank range. The explosion crumbled half of the restaurant we were taking cover in, many of us were knocked out with only a few capable of moving, me included. We soon realized the despair in our situation when a slew of enemies stormed our front, and with only one machine gun and a few rifles, it was only a matter of time before we were goners. Either by the enemy bayonet or another shell from that artillery of theirs.

Desperate times call for desperate measures. To ensure the survival of the rest of the troops, I order those that were still capable of moving to carry the wounded out the back, there was an Opel Blitz there to carry them out. While me, in my greatest moment of ingenuity started bundling up Lola's boomsticks and other kinds of explosives into large bundles. My thought was to lure the enemy closer, before making a blast big enough to cover my retreating squads. Though to do that, I would have to detonate the improvised explosive device by hand, which is a death sentence. Still, it wasn't me that went to Valhalla, it was two of my subordinates. One of them, too heavily injured to move, with a nasty cut on his stomach, decided to stay with a hand on the detonator. Sieg Hagen was his name, he's short of 25 years old. The other, Elias Frank, not that hurt but decided to stay, manning the machine gun to buy us more than enough time to get the wounded out. They convinced me to let them safeguard the rear, but, out of my selfishness, I ordered them to do the job. Their deaths should be on me, not the other way around. Nonetheless, what hurts me the most isn't the fact that I told them to go ahead and die. It was the fact that Sieg had a girlfriend in the medic corp, while Elias had a wife with two daughters. It's on me now to report the death of their loved ones.

It's a thing I never thought I would see the day, to be completely honest. And it's a very bitter pill to stomach.

"..." I shake myself out of my reverie. "What will be, will be. I just have to deal with it when the time comes."

I down the canteen to the last drop before capping it, fully intend to give it back to Lola later. By now, she and the rest would have finished rigging the Opel Blitz we used to get out with enough boomsticks. Once the enemy arrives at our doorstep, they will have a special delivery coming their way.

"Oh yeah, burning this place to the ground is also a must. The Ustians shouldn't have a high ground like this one."

What did Princess General say again...? Right, scorched earth policy.