It’s well known that our military system is flawed. Currently, the Khenia Empire and the Bovelia Kingdom are at war. I am unfortunate enough to be on the Khenia Empire’s side from the outside. The Khenia Empire and Bovelia Kingdom are in an evenly matched stalemate. However, that assumption would be incorrect. We are only evenly matched because more people enlist in the Khenia Empire than in the Bovelia Kingdom.

The Khenia Empire is infested with poverty. Wealthy nobles imposed unreasonable taxes on commoners—just another source of revenue for those filthy scum. To them, we aren’t human.

One day, the Bovelia Kingdom stuck gold. An gargantuan vein of Aether. Using the Aether, they were able to amass insane amounts of wealth. They were also able to make giant strides in technological advances. They became superpowers overnight.

When the news got to the nobles of the Khenia Empire, they were outraged. Wanting to take the Aether vein for themselves, they began holding several political meetings with the Bovelia Kingdom, fighting to bargain for the Aether vein. Naturally, the Bovelia Kingdom declined all offers. The Khenian Empires nobles, being the greasy greed bags they are. Declared war on the Bovelia Kingdom. Sending over 600 troops to invade. However, those 600 troops quickly fell off the face of the Earth without even a single messenger pigeon back.

The Khenia Empire’s nobles panicked. They lost most of their army with nothing to show for it. The king was displeased, and they were in a sticky situation now without their army at full strength. So they devised a plan. Many commoners were in absolute poverty with no hope of escape. So why not give them a chance to escape? If they were to enlist in the army, then once wartime was over, they and their families would be guaranteed to face less taxes. It didn’t sound like much but to us commoners? That seemed like a ticket out of hell.

And one month later. Eight hundred troops were spotted heading toward the Khenia Empire’s capital. The Khenia Empire, still recovering from their 600 troop loss, scrambled to scrounge up as many troops as possible. In the end, they could only amass 300 soldiers. Most were young, hungry, and grossly untrained.

This leads back to now, with Takeru, Hiroshi, and I marching straight toward the jaws of hell.

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“Enemies spotted over the horizon!” Our lookout shouts.

“So the dreaded hour has arrived, huh?” Hiroshi mutters under his breath.

“Any second now, the commanders gonna tell us to charge straight towards our deaths.” Takeru chuckles softly.

“You’ve got balls of steel. You know that, Takeru? So do you, Touma.” Hiroshi says.

“How so?” I ask.

“I mean, look at you. You’re stone-faced even when staring straight toward inevitable demise. If that isn’t impressive, then I don’t know what is. Some of our guys were puking their guts out from fear just a moment ago.”

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“I’m just thinking of ways to get us all out of this… Maybe we can just run for it?” I pondered.

“Hah, no chance. The commander has his best archers shoot anyone who tries to run away.” Hiroshi says.

“Don’t worry about us. Just get out of this alive yourself.” Takeru nudges me on the shoulder.

“He’s right. Once we charge, it’s every man for themselves, alright? Don’t even think about us.” Hiroshi says.

“I know that, but… I–”

“Enough chatter!” The commander shouts.

“Charge on my say so!”

I look back toward the army. They were now closing in. I’m able to make out some of their faces. Not a hint of fear in their eyes.

“CHARGE!!!” The commander shouts at the top of his lungs as he raises his sword.

“Raaahhh!” Everyone shouts in unity. Some were sobbing as they did so.

The enemy also began to charge toward us. I look to my sides. Hiroshi charged, not breaking eye contact with the enemy forces, and Touma, who looked so chill before—now had a face of fear.

“The enemy is firing projectiles!” Someone shouts.

A hail of yellow light shot toward us.

My eyes widened. My gaze is unbroken. Hiroshi, who was charging so valiantly. Had fallen. His eyes glazed over. A stream of blood spewed out his forehead.

“Hiroshi!” I scream for my fallen comrade.

I was about to turn tail and run toward Hiroshi’s side.

“Get your ass in gear for battle, Touma!” Takeru shouts uncharacteristically, dragging me back down to reality.

“Shit!” I looked away from Hiroshis corpse and continued to charge.

“I’ll use my blessing to take down the long-ranged infantry!” I shout.

“Good luck!” Takeru gives me a nod of acknowledgment.

They were shooting us with something that didn’t seem like arrows. They left a completely round hole in Hiroshi’s head. And all I saw was a yellow beam of light. They really are in a whole new realm of technology than us.

I could feel something inside me snap. An unsurmountable amount of power shot through my body. My veins started to bulge, and my muscles and bones began to creak. My muscles began to swell, tearing my clothes and shattering my armor. As I increased in height. 1 meter, 2 meters, 3 meters, and finally 10 meters tall. My nails grew four times longer, and scales grew on specific places on my forearm and hands, creating a natural gauntlet. Bright blue flames shot out my back.

I call this Beserk Mode. I retract my long nails, clenching my hands into a fist. I then selectively grew scales on certain parts of my legs, arms, and torso to protect me from long ranged attacks.

Once more, I charged. The enemy began firing at me but to no avail. Not only did it bounce off my scales entirely, but it also seemed my skin was resistant enough to shirk off their shots with relatively no harm done.

I continue my advance.