Re: Jager [Mecha Isekai/LitRPG]

+++ Colonel Ebert Strobel +++

Ebert had his hands full right now with herding his soldiers onward.

The first breach had been opened up by one of the guns placed on the forward assault trenches hours ago. The moment the breach happened, soldiers across the trenches all cheered, and morale increased.

Within minutes, orders from General Kohler came. Multiple battalions, some of them coming from the 1st Anti-Demon Unit, were assigned for the forward assault. Thousands of musketeers as a result filtered through the communication trenches, each of them ready for the inevitable attack.

"Colonel," his newly promoted aide de camp, Captain Anton Geiger, called out from behind. "We've got the 15th and 18th Infantry Battalions ready in their staging positions now."

"Good."

Ebert took out his pocket watch, checking the time. The main mines to blast the bastions open should be ready soon. He made his way with his aide to the main assault trench, where hundreds of soldiers for the first assault wave huddled together.

Many muttered prayers, others tried to calm themselves down by eating their rations or taking swigs out of their canteens. Some even played cards on the side. It was quite the sight, as artillery rounds landed on or above their trench.

Quickly, Ebert cleared his throat, as his aide shouted for his men's attention. All of the soldiers immediately stiffly straightened themselves, turning to face Ebert.

"Gentlemen!" Ebert looked at them one last time. "This is it. Soon, those walls will be utterly breached. We will not waste time. The moment the bastions are disabled, you will rush to the fort's glacis and assemble our cannons. I want our guns firing on the curtain wall within a minute or two!"

The soldiers all nodded at Ebert's instructions. Many of them were still nervous about the entire thing, as no matter what happened, many would definitely die in the assault. But the grizzly veterans only looked on at their colonel with a steely facade, their eyes clearly showing that they were ready to finish Ebert's plans down to the letter.

"Once the curtain walls are down, we will launch breaching teams through each hole we make. Remember to use your grenades well for this occasion. Flush those bastards out of their holes and their hiding spots, then use your superior guns to great effect. We've already inflicted great casualties on them and we've greatly demoralized them.

"So fight! No matter what, fight! We will break them today, kill the pretender pope, and free all of humanity. All of your brothers, sisters, mothers, fathers, friends, and comrades who died in this war against demons are watching over you.

"They are asking, with rage, if their deaths meant anything. They are asking if there is still justice. They are asking if there is hope for humanity. So what is your answer? Will you let those who passed the torch die for nothing?"

At once, the soldiers, energized by Ebert's booming voice, answered as one.

"No!"

"Then fight! Take the fight to them, and defeat them! These will be our finest hours, so do your best. For all mankind! Glory to the Imperium!"

"Glory to the Imperium!"

As the soldiers roared their battle cry, powerful explosions rose from beneath the earth. It was as if an earth-shattering earthquake struck them, everyone ducking and closing their ears as the explosion thundered around them.

Ebert grimaced for a bit to hold himself together, but when he was done, he peered atop the parapet of the trench to look at the walls of Fort Patricia.

Two massive holes were wide open on the fortress's curtain walls, and artillery fire from it had been completely silenced.

He grinned, raising his pistol to the sky, before firing a green smoke round.

"Men!" He gave it his all. "Onwards!"

The soldiers screamed as they rose from their assault trenches. Hundreds, no, thousands rushed out into the enemy's defenses. Others picked up the artillery and rushed them forward using their skills to enhance their physical strength.

Nearly ten guns advanced into the fortress's glacis, the soldiers manning it desperately firing their muskets once at the horde of advancing soldiers, before they themselves broke and ran using the covered way to get back to Fort Patricia's walls.

Without much enemy resistance, the soldiers of the YEF reached the glacis in just a few minutes, and quickly, the guns were set up. With barks from the sergeants, the artillery opened fire at close range at the remnants of the enemy curtain walls and their bastions.

The force of each gun's enchanted ammunition didn't just chip through the walls now—it blasted them open. Ebert finally cracked a grin as he gave his next set of orders to his aide.

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"Take the enemy fort, now," Ebert coldly said, and another smoke round was fired by his aide into the sky.

Immediately, as if they themselves were possessed by demons, the soldiers of the YEF rushed to the wide-open enemy defenses, crossing the ditch itself before climbing it and entering the walls en masse.

Explosions blanketed the areas used by the enemy to organize their final defense, as grenades of all sorts were thrown by the musketeers, smoking them out before they even had the chance to fire their muskets.

Then, as the first platoons entered Fort Patricia, the brutality of war finally fully bared its fangs, as bayonet against bayonet met each other.

Fort Patricia would soon fall, that was clear as day.

+++

+++ Lieutenant Hans Hoffman +++

Hans scowled a bit after he glanced at his status window. His AP count had been steadily dwindling recently with the disruption ops against the walls of Fort Patricia.

The only way he managed to keep control of his AP consumption was by taking opportunistic kills against the lesser demons attempting to blast the YEF off from Serenus. Not that they had many chances in that attempt—the YEF now swelled to nearly two hundred thousand soldiers, and their defenses around the city were practically absolute.

Hundreds of guns, both the improved western ones and the old eastern ones were deployed, half of them firing inwards, the other half deployed to respond to demon attacks outside. With such a setup, every time Hans returned to the rear to recharge his munitions, he could take potshots at the unfortunate demons caught up in the YEF's firepower and land kills.

He also received aid from Adelyn, who regularly supplied him with standard machine gun rounds and fuel using her autofabricator. It was a pretty nice addition that reduced his AP consumption, since Hans didn't need to use enchanted rounds yet, as normal bullets and normal MPAT, unsurprisingly, worked very well against squishy human soldiers.

Now, he watched as the 1st Anti-Demon Units, alongside other battalions from the YEF, assaulted the wide-open walls of Fort Patricia. The two mines that exploded beneath its walls seemed to have provided enough shock-and-awe against the enemy, so that they were suppressed for minutes. Unable to respond, it seemed like Ebert managed to get his boys in position to fire their cannons at point-blank range into the walls of the fortress.

Secondarily, Hans's disruption operation seemed to have fully thinned down the fortress's garrison. That meant the resistance they offered was beyond brittle. He intended to fully exploit this perfect opening.

The Peacemaker's engines revved with greater intensity as he zipped through the battlefield, the soldiers gathering in the assault trenches cheering him on. Others, who were running through the flat approaches to Fort Patricia, gazed at his mech like deer seeing headlights, before they roared and continued charging alongside him.

Hans soon dived into the fort's ditch, before his mech latched onto an intact bastion, climbing it in mere seconds. The unfortunate soldiers scrambling on top of the bastion's parapet barely had time to react when his machine guns thinned them.

Afterward, Hans rushed into a good firing position.

Down below, the battle devolved into an intense melee. Soldiers fired their muskets at each other at point-blank range, and others battled inside the buildings and barracks with nothing but bayonets. Hans decided to ignore the guys locked in CQC combat, instead turning his main gun on the reinforcements coming out of the northern gate.

They're clearly from the fortified passageway.

Taking his targets, Hans' mech, perched on top of the fallen bastion, began opening fire. The soldiers struck by his MPAT rounds were utterly decimated, each round exploding with such a force on packed troops that hundreds died immediately. Every shot he fired from his main gun was also followed up by a thorough clearing using his machine guns.

The enemy couldn't take it. They screamed and flailed, bathed in blood, guts, and rubble. Some burned as they died, while others tried to drag their dying bodies off from the corpses and rubble.

The northern gate soon closed as the surviving reinforcements chose retreat, forgoing their dying comrades completely. Soon, with the tide of battle clear to the remaining loyalist soldiers in the fort, white flags were raised by the enemy officers as they begged for mercy from the advancing YEF troops.

Hans grinned. He soon drove toward the north side of the wall, ready to spread his terror on anyone who would attempt a counterattack.

Fort Patricia was now in the hands of mankind.

+++

+++ Captain Adelyn von Wittenstein +++

After Fort Patricia was captured, Adelyn was called in by General Kohler to support Hans in holding the fortress.

She quickly gathered everything she nodded, and rode out in the Diligence. She wanted to, of course, leave Alizée behind, but the girl insisted on coming with Adelyn. She seemed to be fearing that a calamity would try to attack Hans.

"Lady Adelyn?" the young girl meekly asked from Adelyn's lap. "Is he…alright?"

"Yes," Adelyn curtly replied, listening to Hans' replies over the radio. Briefly, she looked down at Adelyn with a gentle smile. "We'll do our best, okay?"

"Okay!" Alizée replied, a slight firmness in her voice.

Adelyn and Alizée were now, quite frankly, fully used to being together on the battlefield. The girl was capable of keeping to herself during battles, and they even trained how to deploy Alizée out with her ideal on the move.

That was why Adelyn nowadays had fewer reservations about letting her in during critical battles. Still, it was worrying that if something went wrong, the girl might get hurt. But, with Alizée insisting on taking her Angel of Purity role seriously, Adelyn couldn't exactly do much.

"I can sense something," Alizée said, her tone turning into a slight hiss as Adelyn rushed her mech into climbing Fort Patricia's walls.

"Me too," Adelyn replied, frowning a bit, as she rushed on top of the wall. "That must be one of the calamities. Do you want to deploy now?"

The young girl in Adelyn's lap took a few moments to compose herself, until she nodded, and soft light began to emanate from her body. Adelyn quickly moved herself a bit to the side, one of her hands expertly keeping control of the mech, as she opened the Diligence's hatch.

In a second, the Angel of Purity, now clad in her ideals' armor, jumped out of the Diligence, ready to fight side-by-side with Hans and Adelyn.