Re: Jager [Mecha Isekai/LitRPG]

+++ Captain Jonas Weibel +++

Near Serenus

"Captain!"

"Keep running, son! Unless you want to die in this filthy hole!"

Jonas and the team of mage engineers he was directing ran through the tunnel they had dug earlier. It was hot down here, and most of all, the walls of soil around them were quite flimsy.

They dug this place speedily with earth magecraft for hours, but now, that work was practically useless. Behind them, a powerful explosion deep in the tunnels was detonated, and they all ducked down.

Until it was gone, and everything was fine.

Jonas stood up, dusting his uniform as his men looked around, shaken.

"Alright, get back to work," Jonas barked. "Dig here, then calculate a direction that'll get us to their curtain wall."

"Yes, sir!" His men replied, as they joined the main engineer holding the map, who made quick adjustments to their tunnel. In seconds, the mages got to work, burrowing holes on the side instead, first by creating a diagonal hole to increase the depth of their new tunnel.

Jonas on the other hand got a few soldiers to join him as they inspected the bombed-out remnants of the earlier tunnel. Everything was caved in, both theirs and the enemy's. Earlier, when their mining parties met face to face, pickaxes from both tunnels met each other as a panicked melee ensued.

The enemy seemed to be well-prepared though, as they pushed Jonas' men away for a minute to set up a barrel filled with gunpowder, before lighting it up and running away.

They seemed quite competent at counter-mining.

It's to be expected. Jonas sighed as his shoulders sagged. This is going to shave off another day from our efforts.

He looked back at his men.

"Join the guys in the new tunnel," he ordered. "Keep a good watch as they dig. Next time, I want you five to be on the ready to defuse any bomb they leave on our faces. It'll be a pain if they keep this up."

The soldiers nodded, before joining the earth mages. Jonas on the other hand took a long walk out of the tunnel, before emerging at the surface. Above them, work was equally heavy.

The trenches around Serenus were now getting constructed nicely, and he could see a constant stream of soldiers from the Imperial Army—the eastern Imperial Army to be specific—walking through the network of dugouts the YEF was constructing.

On raised elevations on the other hand, the artillery was incessant from the YEF. They were firing shot after shot at Fort Patricia, which was now a battered mess, that it was almost as if their munition supplies grew from trees. Sure, the supply lines with the west were now somewhat established, and they now had the cooperation of many defectors, but still…

Can't they just wait for us to finish this?

Jonas shook his head, before looking at the lines of trenches ahead of them that were crawling toward Fort Patricia. The sappers were having a hard time on the surface too, as they were being targeted by the fortress's artillery and musketry while they inched forward.

"Man, sieges sure are a pain in the ass," Jonas remarked.

"Obviously," someone interjected behind him. It was Lieutenant Malte Preisner. "How's the tunneling?"

"One of the teams fucked up. I believe three more fumbled too early."

"Is that so?"

"It'll probably take us another day before we breach those walls…" Jonas scoffed, annoyed by the stubborn resistance of the papists. "Unless Captain Wittenstein decides to use 'Divine Judgement' on that fortress."

"How likely is that?"

"I don't know."

The two officers sighed, as once again, the shields of Fort Patricia were breached. They watched as the shots from the artillery surrounding the bastion fort began slamming directly on its magically reinforced walls.

The main ones being hit were the southern bastion, followed by the curtain walls on both of its sides. The fortress' surrounding ditch and the few detached ravelins in front of the curtain walls were also taking a beating.

Jonas pulled out his telescope briefly to observe it, watching as the enemy's soldiers continued to respond to the YEF's incessant barrages. Though, it seemed like they were wavering. Four artillery shells struck one of Fort Patricia's ravelins, destroying the mounted guns on it.

It was silenced, for a good while, but by the time the smoke dispersed, musket fire from said ravelin returned, striking the advancing sappers.

Support the creativity of authors by visiting Royal Road for this novel and more.

He decided to soon petition General Kohler about using Adelyn's ultimate attack spell after that.

+++

+++ General Florian Kohler +++

The first and second days of the siege had already passed. Disappointingly, progress has been difficult for the YEF. While their numbers now swelled to nearly eighty thousand soldiers, with reinforcements constantly arriving on their rear, their outward fortifications were now being slowly battered again and again by lesser demons.

As usual, General Kohler constantly used Hans and Adelyn to deal with this, alongside Colonel Strobel's 1st Anti-Demon Unit. He had a simple tempo to manage things—he would let the enemy attack his dug-in troops, before unleashing the 1st Anti-Demon Unit's powerful cavalry and of course, their two mechs.

It was effective. So far, fourteen lesser demons had been dispatched this way, at the cost of around three hundred or so soldiers from his various units. He expected casualties to drop further as they improved their entrenched position.

But, on the other hand, they were having more and more problems with Fort Patricia. His mining units faced constant combat in the subterranean tunnels that they were digging. Multiple mines also struck the assault trenches that his sappers were creating, further hampering their advance.

The only good news was that one of the ravelins of Fort Patricia had been fully reduced to rubble. The artillery of the southwestern bastion of Fort Patricia had also been silenced, and they were focused on firing their guns on the main curtain walls of the fortress.

Earlier, they did manage to breach one of the curtain walls, creating a hole that could be used by their troops for an assault, but the enemy's mage corps erected shoddy stone walls from the ground up to replace it.

Of course, the replacement to the breach was weaker than what stood before it, but it still made any assault impossible.

"This is why we have to use Captain Wittenstein now," Captain Jonas Weibel suggested on the side. "We're being slowed down too much."

"If we do that though, we will be showing them one of our trump cards," Colonel Ebert Strobel shook his head, rebuffing Jonas.

"But what's the point of a trump card if we won't use it?"

"Enough, both of you have good points," Florian broke their bickering. "I am considering Captain Weibel's suggestion, but we do not need to rush."

They were inside the main HQ established by the YEF right now. It was a network of heavily dug-in underground structures reinforced by stone, courtesy of the mage engineer corps of their unit.

Even still, as they talked and planned down here, they could feel the rumbles of the heavy artillery in the distance.

"The enemy has three calamities in their ranks. If we show them now what our most powerful angel can do, we might run into problems later," Florian explained. "That's why I'm holding them out of the main battle for now. But, if I see a good opportunity to launch a forward assault, or we are bogged down for more than four days, I will call Captain Wittenstein for the task immediately."

"I talked to Hans and Adelyn already," Ebert said. "They're still both replenishing their munition counts."

"Ah…they did return from a sortie earlier, yes?"

"It was successful, again, but they ran out of munitions during the battle. As of this moment, Adelyn is recuperating her AP while fabricating her ammunition. Hans on the other hand is probably done by now…"

"Perhaps we can just use Lieutenant Hoffman then," Jonas perked up. "We're just assaulting Fort Patricia anyway. His cannon can do a lot of good at disrupting the enemy. Then we send a wave of soldiers from our assault trenches."

"And why do you believe that will work?" Florian asked, intrigued.

"Because he's quite good at close support and vanguard action," Jonas grinned. "We can use him as the tip of our spear. A cavalry of sorts. We can use our sappers to begin preparing the assault trenches' firing positions while Lieutenant Hoffman disrupts and takes Fort Patricia's attention. Once done, we'll have cannons placed close to the wall that can open fire with greater effectiveness. Once we breach the wall, we'll go all in on a frontal assault."

"Quite…bold," Ebert said, slightly skeptical.

"And it sounds like it'll be bloody," Elisa suddenly appeared from behind the three officers with Sir Marco, her knight. The Empress immediately held her hand up, gesturing to the trio to raise their heads, and they complied. "Gentlemen, I've been hearing a lot about growing casualties on our side. I am quite worried."

"Your Majesty," General Kohler grimaced. "I'm afraid that this is simply the reality of taking the Imperial Capital. Even with our improved weaponry, the magical walls of Serenus truly live up to their name. It's a tough nut to crack."

"What of our mining operations?"

"We're close to breaching Fort Patricia, but we have had many failures already. Casualties are now in the low hundreds."

"All from our miners?"

"Some of our tunnels collapsed during the attacks. The enemy is very determined to prevent us from planting bombs underneath them. It's to be expected."

Florian, to be clear, hated this facet of siege warfare. He was a commander more confident when it came to open combat in the field, where he could maneuver and utilize strategy better.

Siege warfare was different. This wasn't a test of a commander's brilliance at maneuver warfare, but in engineering. It was therefore much, much more sluggish and patience-breaking. Earlier, he consulted with his engineers about how they could prevent the river from flowing through Serenus to stop.

Mainly, he wanted to give the defenders a morale blow by disabling the grain mills still active inside the city and reducing access to drinking water. Alas, it was deemed impossible with the resources they had, the river Licuri was simply too big for that.

Engineering a technical or magical solution is way too massive a headache. Florian thought. I wish we had cannons that could just blast those walls open in the first hour.

Maybe one day they would.

"I see, in that case," Elisa frowned. "Not only are we risking letting the pope get more chances to enact his final plan, we're also going to be losing a lot more men as this siege progresses."

"I believe you know that well already."

"Well, I expected better of the new weapons we bought here," Elisa said with a bitter smile. "Unfortunately, it seems that we have to rely on age-old tactics a bit again. Please, let's call another war council then. I want to run this plan to our staff."

"Wait…" Jonas sputtered, surprised. "You're considering what I cooked up?"

Ebert then patted Captain Weibel from behind with some force.

"Be proud of yourself sometimes. Maybe there is some brilliance in your more reckless plan!"

"Oi, don't hit me on the back like that," Jonas grumbled. "Just because you now have a higher rank than me..."

"It's not like that at all. Your idea got Her Majesty's attention after all, you psychotic madman. Now, I'm gonna have my boys charge into a kill zone."

"Ehehehe…"

Ebert laughed with a slight threatening manner at Jonas, who looked away awkwardly, while Florian looked back at the Empress.

It seemed like Hans would have some heavy lifting to do soon.