Outrage of the Ancients (LitRPG Apocalypse)

Tristan

The Tiger Panzer that drove straight at me was looking … strange. Fuzzy. Almost as though the black and gold stripes that "decorated" its outside were made from actual fur, rather than being a garish paint job the system had decided to slap on top of the massive war machine.

It tried to aim its turret at me, but I was already too close to it, below what it could target; the wide roads of Berlin still far too tight surroundings for this particular enemy to be able to operate.

Oh, and it was unescorted, no Panzergrenadiere to shield its flanks.

Of course, destroying something this big before it managed to get far enough from me to shoot me, or before it straight up drove over me, was beyond my abilities at the moment.

But I had a Skill that usually did the trick. Yeah, sure, I needed to save as many charges as possible, but I felt like this foe called for it.

A portal, as large as I could possibly make it, manifested beneath the tank, swallowing the machine in its entirety, emerging from the exit portal twenty meters to my left, and up as high as I'd been able to manage.

Sadly, I needed to have physically been to any place I opened a portal, but I'd managed to jump up and waved my hand to reach as high as possible, causing the machine to emerge three meters up, treads facing the sky.

And then I slammed the portal shut.

It did have a safety function that prevented anything from getting severed by its closing, but that was fine. I just needed to make sure the tank maintained enough momentum to fully go through, and the ejection mechanism did just that, leaving the massive war machine hanging there, upside down, three meters above the ground.

And then it fell.

Durable as everything about the tank was, including the turret, said turret had in no way been designed to hold up the fifty-odd tons of steel that landed on top of it.

Even if it had just been randomly inverted, it would have likely lost its turret.

Getting dropped on it, on the other hand, even just three meters?

The tiger's turret was pulverized amidst a cloud of concrete powder and metal shards, crushed upwards into the main body of the tank, followed by a muffled detonation, and something blew, and the whole thing stilled, even the treads overhead spinning to a halt in a matter of seconds.

Done. Eight portals left. But that was all that had happened.

Not getting any levels because I hadn't done anything to merit them was okay, I guessed. Disappointing, but still preferable to the alternative, which was that things were not yet peaceful enough to receive a level up, which would be … concerning, considering the state of my cooldowns and the civilians milling around just on the other side of the building sitting behind me.

There were "only" a couple of hundred of them, enough that I could have theoretically gotten all of them out of here via portals, but the transit limits meant I could not have teleported them all without using up all of my daily uses of that Skill.

Heartless as it was to say, we, as in, everyone here, needed ancients that could be able to dropped into warzones in seconds more than they did a few hundred people in immediate safety.

But it still stuck in my craw.

I looked around, making sure there was nothing incoming again.

That was when I saw another figure approach, a small "man" with an unhealthily waxy skin, dark hair, walking with a limp, and dressed in a dark black uniform utterly covered in symbols of the Third Reich. Even if it hadn't been for the nameplate, it was obvious this was a monster.

In an instant, I was filled with an all-consuming fury at, well, everything. Everything that wasn't him. Petty grievances with other people, minor issues with the government, and general displeasure with where the world seemed to have been going before the apocalypse.

Especially on the left. Up until two seconds ago, I'd likely have called myself a centrist. I hadn't minded the right unless they were, well, literal Nazis, or anyone on that level, and in general, I was okay with how society was progressing … except when causes I actually deeply supported got taken not just to but past their logical extremes, becoming counterproductive and potentially even dangerous.

The things that made me go "what the fuck" for a few seconds before I realized that while the extremes were problematic as hell, they were not just the extreme, they were the exception. And then, I used to let them go.

But not now.

The mere memory of an annoyance put the issue back in my mind and stuck it there like a fly trapped in amber. A burning fly that scorched the rapidly fraying strands of my sanity.

And the more political shitstorms that occupied my thoughts, the more new ones I thought of, putting any even remotely reasonable thought I might have had out of my mind.

Yet it did not stop there. Every frustration, every annoyance, every oh-so-tiny inconvenience … not having responded to those with fire and brimstone suddenly seemed like a missed opportunity of historic proportions, and a cataclysmic injustice to boot!

That guy who threw his cigarette on the street and hadn't even bothered to stomp it out, last month? I should have burned him alive.

Car in the disabled parking spot without the placard? I should have beaten the owner to death with their own vehicle.

And that bastard security guard at the US embassy who had tried to immediately throw me out when I'd gone there for a meeting? I had been there on the orders of kings. Off with his head!

And I had a billion more things like that, because I actually supported becoming something that either terrified or infuriated me, leaving me ever more disillusioned with humanity as a whole … yet somehow that guy was who I was okay with. The only thing on my mind that didn't make me burn with rage was the reincarnated Joseph Göbbels in front of me.

He was the one who knew what to do; he was the one who could help me turn my rage into action and fix the society, undo the damage that had made me so furious since … actually, this was a recent thing, wasn't it?

In fact, up until literally one minute ago, what I'd been feeling about those topics was fear, annoyance, but primarily, frustration. Frustration that assholes, jackasses exactly like him, could use these things to paint the entire left and every bit of good they tried to do or even actually did do, as foolishness and idiocy.

My mind might be insisting that I'd always felt this way, but my memory knew otherwise. My perfect memory, forged into an eternally objective repository of knowledge by the System.

Now I could …

… it seemed like, unlike me, Mia had absolutely no problem with whatever effect the living spewer of nonsense was unleashing, before I could throw the fireball I was currently in the process of conjuring, she just skewered him.

***

Mia

You are superior.

You will inherit the world.

Nothing bad that has ever happened to you has been your fault; just blame the Jews. Or the Slavs. Or anyone who wasn't white and potentially also lacked blonde hair.

It was … it was a disgusting concept, and yet, it was so, so, so seductive. The ability to push all of her problems on someone else while the state blew smoke up her ass purely because of not who she was, but what. German and naturally blond, not all the things she'd worked for, all she'd achieved. It felt almost … no, it was insulting. If you thought about it for more than a few seconds, truly thought.

Yet even on top of that, all embracing that philosophy would achieve was feeling good while the world fell apart. After all, simply blaming everything that went wrong on minorities might be comforting, but it did not do the first thing to fix any of the problems.

She knew it was all bullshit, beneath all the pretty yet false images. Even if [Mastery of Self] didn't grant her a measure of resistance to this nonsense, she'd already tagged the bastard with [Relentless Pursuit], allowing her to hunt him to the end of the earth. That "bond" would have made it abundantly clear that he was an enemy even if nothing else did.

So she stabbed the bastard straight through the heart the instant she was close enough with such force that Balmung's crossguard slammed into his spine, then kicked him in the balls for good measure as she ripped the blade free.

Göbbels had been a Raid Boss, yet all it had taken was that one attack for him to start crumbling away into nothingness as he crashed against the corner of a nearby building. More of a one-trick pony than a true juggernaut, clearly.

"You okay?" she asked her brother, who'd been looking disgustingly star-struck right up until a few seconds ago.

"I think I just learned more than I ever wanted to about why people become Nazis," Tristan replied, and spat on the ground. "What about the others?"

"Already dealt with the Führerbunker," she announced. "They don't need me for that, and the city is still under attack."

"I'll protect and evacuate as many as I can," Tristan told her. "Can you go Boss-hunting?"

"It's what I was doing," Mia replied tersely.

"Good luck," Tristan said and walked off in a seemingly random direction, likely guided by one of his Skills.

Mia, on the other hand, ran in the direction of the loudest commotion … and came to a dead stop when she saw the source.

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A truly massive tank was making a mess of the Alexanderplatz, one that was far larger than any armored vehicle she'd ever seen before, at least in person.

Three and a half meters wide, almost four meters tall, roughly ten meters long, and a main gun that would not have looked out of place on a battleship … it would have been a truly terrifying sight if it hadn't been for its aesthetic. The entire thing might have been forged from solid steel, but when the System had resurrected it, it had fused it with a, well, a mouse, which was what the design's name roughly translated to.

A superheavy tank. Covered in fur. With whiskers to boot.

Mia lunged to the side while sweeping her sword around, triggering the first of her Sword Arts.

[Sword Art: A Blade Across Time and Space].

A projected edge that ignored both armor and distance, cutting straight into the heart of the panzer's turret, from top to bottom. She had no idea how closely the reborn war machine's internals resembled what they should have been, but between the magazine, the loading mechanism, the machinery needed to rotate the turret, and the shell that may have already been loaded, there should have been something in there she could destroy and reduce the damn thing's firepower.

When she didn't die the moment the barrel had been successfully lined up on her, it became clear that she'd succeeded.

And then the damn thing's "driver" slammed on the gas, and the Maus leaped forward in a way nothing that big and heavy should have been able to, sending debris flying behind it as though it were driving through deep mud rather than across solid stone.

Behind it, the panzer, she could already see some of the still intact windows shatter as far-flung projectiles hammered through them.

Shit!

Mia thought about it for one second, then promptly stopped running and instead charged straight at the tank, leaping upwards at the last possible second, planting her right foot on the lip of the tank and kicking herself upwards, [Unnatural Ballance] turning the movement from madcap stunt to well-thought-out tactical maneuver.

Or at least that would be her excuse if anyone accused her of being reckless.

The reality of the situation was only partially like that, as the vehicle beneath her suddenly spun, the right track reversing in an instant while the left continued to move forward at the same speed.

Mia managed to remain standing even as the Panzer lurched, but any thought of trying to cut her way in was gone in an instant. Cutting her way in the normal way, that was.

[Sword Art: Crows Peck the Eagle] jerked her into a dozen different positions across the surface of the vehicle while hammering Balmung into it. Every. Single. One of the suddenly-reachable weaknesses.

The right track promptly exploded off the wheels; she had clearly managed to hit something vital, the engine belched smoke, and most of the mouselike features had been carved off almost by accident.

Yet before she could even think to celebrate, the turret gave a loud "clunk."

Uh-oh …

The main gun hadn't been able to turn, clearly, otherwise, it would have been used to sweep her off, and it apparently still couldn't. But it could fire. With Mia less than two meters away, even though she'd started running the instant she'd heard it reload. And the world vanished in a blast of light and sound.

For a brief moment, she was in midair, ears ringing, spots swimming in her eyes, then her back slammed into the ruined surface of the plaza, while she stared up at a beautiful blue sky … too beautiful for a day such as this.

Mia shook her head, which somehow managed to clear at least some of the cobwebs, then pulled herself to her feet. The panzer was burning, the turret having not fired but exploded, but it was still moving. Somehow. The right-side wheels were getting traction despite lacking the attached track, and the munition in the turret cooking off should have pulverized the internal machinery that allowed it to move.

Yet it was still coming right at her.

So she triggered her final Sword Art.

[Sword Art: Bloody Rose]

Balmung, raised like the executioner's axe, fell, the blood streaming from her nose and right ear tearing itself off her face and transforming into a hail of needles that hammered into the left track, only for the tank to keep coming.

Well …

Mia ran, legs pumping furiously as she ran perpendicular to the vehicle's trajectory, trusting that the lost track would limit its mobility.

A terrifyingly loud screech tore into the air from behind her, the sound of stone breaking and metal tearing, yet it was not getting any closer. Clearly, the speedy turning attempt had gone exactly as badly as she'd hoped.

Then, there was an even louder sound, nearly matching the earlier explosion.

Ooh, there went the other track.

She spun around, seeing the tank sitting there, wheels spinning uselessly.

Should she … oh, yes, she absolutely should. Before the damn thing found its traction again.

Hefting Balmung like a common spear, rather than a legendary sword, she charged in and drove it into a gap between the wheels, where she'd seen more machinery, and left it there.

Apparently, that strike had been the straw that broke the camel's back, because something exploded and the nameplate promptly winked out.

Mia let herself fall on her ass for a brief moment, breathing heavily, shaking her arms as though that were enough to banish the dull ache that had been building during the fight.

Magical sword or not, repeatedly bashing Balmung into solid metal had been gotten rather painful.

Oh, … of course those fucking things worked this time around.

The historical "Maus" had, despite the name literally translating as "mouse" had been a massive monster of a tank, however, it had never really gotten out of the prototype stage. Too heavy to use bridges or even many roads, too massive to move at a decent speed or be anything other than an easy target for allied planes and bombers, and even if it had worked as advertized, if the drive-train issues and everything else had been solved, a gas-guzzling super-heavy tank would have been a bad choice to mass-produce for the gas-starved Third Reich.

However, this thing appeared perfectly functional … and the same went for everything else, didn't it?

Despite what many alternate history novels claimed, Hitler's obsession with "Wunderwaffen" had often been more than counterproductive. Even when they had been "superior" from an engineering perspective, they had rarely been practical.

Same thing went for the Tiger series of tanks. A gun that could shatter an allied tank's armor from three kilometers away, combined with armor that an equivalent allied vehicle needed to get within four hundred meters to penetrate … on the surface, a Tiger tank should have been the king of the battlefield.

In practice, however, their internals were complicated as hell, making them expensive and arduous to produce, resulting in them being vastly outnumbered in any engagement they took place, suffering from numerous mechanical issues, and due to the aforementioned complexity of the internal systems, were functionally impossible to repair in the field.

And they went through gas, something that, once again, the Third Reich had been sorely lacking, like nobody's business.

End result?

Scores of abandoned tanks littering the battlefields, often destroyed by their own crews. Nearly half of all tiger tanks had been lost to their own design, rather than enemy action.

And even when the tanks did work, they were so outnumbered that their advantages quite simply no longer mattered.

But no, chances were the System, much like many a "fan" of Nazi engineering, had gone ahead and forgotten about all the issues the so-called "wonder weapons" had in a real-world situation.

Although even upgraded to the "ideal" version, she doubted a resurrected Tiger Panzer would be much of a threat to her, let alone Dietrich.

[Grandmistress of the Knightly Order of the Golden Rose Lv. 54 -> 55]

[Skill gained: Back with Interest]

Aaaaaannd there was the System, apparently having decided that she was, at present, sufficiently out of danger to be leveled up.

Her new Class … it was a weird one, though it was also going to be damn powerful when it grew to full power. The first Skill it had given her was called [Knightly Charter], and well, it didn't actually do anything.

It gave her homework.

She had to make a charter, recruit people, and select a motto, then, upon hitting Level 75, how well all that went would shape the power of her Class' capstone.

Because her new Class wasn't just about making her stronger, it was about uplifting others to help her.

She actually hadn't picked the name, but as near as anyone could tell, it was a riff on her being a female knight and the "golden" color of her hair, but she didn't mind.

And it wouldn't be that big of an impediment. Her days of sparring with Dietrich while he took it easy until she gained a Level, then using her new Skill, assuming she had one, to blindside him and gaining another Level were long gone. So she'd naturally at least partially transitioned into training others.

Finding people who fit her in terms of personality and fighting style was made easy by that.

As for the motto, that had been simple: "Monstra occidimus."

We kill monsters.

She'd picked it, and Tristan had helpfully translated it into Latin.

The Class had also given her another [Blank Sword Art].

And her latest Skill was also seriously powerful.

An interesting ability. It'd massively extend her ability to endure in battle, but at the same time, it had enough caveats to it to prevent all the usual exploits she'd have expected a power like that to open up.

Such as deliberately taking a hit to trap her opponent's weapon and then skewering them. Which was a pretty effective way to win, as long as the hit was survivable.

Still, though, if there was a single Skill that would make the battle for Berlin much more manageable, then it was this one.

Although … it wasn't so much a battle anymore as a series of bloody skirmishes against random monsters that had been spawned all over the place.

Dietrich had apparently already killed Hitler, but ending the origin of this whole mess had done fuck all to deal with the rest. Or so he'd told her when they'd briefly met earlier.

He and Ogier were also crisscrossing the city to search for other big monsters to kill while they were waiting on a suitable target to go after, at which point they'd find Tristan back at the little refuge he was setting up so he could play taxi.

***

Tristan

The sun was starting to set by the time the System finally spoke to me.

[Arcane Wanderer Lv. 51 -> Arcane Wanderer Lv. 54]

[Skill Boost Available]

[Skill gained: Wanderer's Mementos]

[Skill Boost Available]

I grinned. Not just because of the levels, but because of what the level-ups represented. The danger was over. Or, at the very least, far enough away from here that the System had decided it was safe.

Therefore, it should also be safe to at least pull up the description of my new Skill.

Something buzzed in my pocket. Almost like my cellphone … except I'd stuck my phone in the [Diplomatic Pouch] to protect it and pulled it out every few minutes to check my texts.

After a brief but panicked patdown, it turned out that there was nothing that had randomly wound up in my pants that was currently vibrating, so I decided to pull out my cellphone, which was showing a text from the control center in the Untersberg.

Being able to get calls even with my phone put away, and knowing when they came in, that was actually really useful.

Apparently, we were required back there, so I began to start looking for the others. And found good homes for the Skill Boosts.

The first one went to [Magical Traditions], which allowed me to gain spells from any area I was in for long enough. I hadn't actually gotten anything from it yet, but it was a new acquisition, and in theory, the Skill was powerful.

A quick check revealed that I had several curses, blessings, and shapeshifting spells on the cusp of being learned, but it would likely still be a bit before I gained access to anything.

As for the other Skill, I decided to be boring. But more magic from [Arcane Core] was always great.

And that was a solid upgrade. I nodded in satisfaction.

Then, soon enough, I'd made sure the survivors were tucked away safely and earmarked for a supply shipment, and all four of us were stepping back into the Untersberg in preparation for the next mess.