+++ Lieutenant Hans Hoffman +++

En Route to Venido

Driving rapidly through the road, Hans and Adelyn watched as the troops from one of General Ercole's regiments moved to the side. Many of them naturally looked at the two passing monstrous machines, yet instead of displaying fear, they began shouting approvingly.

"Glory to the Imperium!" The soldiers cheered as they raised their hats at the two passing mechs. "Glory to the Grey Knight and Golden Angel!" they continued. Even the officers or cavalrymen on horseback pulled their horses to the side, before removing their hats and raising them as they cheered the two as well.

It made Adelyn chuckle a bit on the comms.

"Goddess, these people," she muttered. "It still feels strange to be regarded as a hero this much."

"Yeah, I'm not exactly a fan of it," Hans said, as he turned his turret to the left. He was driving right ahead of Adelyn, and they were spaced nearly thirty meters apart. "Each demon we kill makes us look more and more like the most pressing target for other demons, while people look up to us too much."

"Well, I can't say I blame them," Adelyn sighed. "It still surprises me to this day that we've killed two calamities, with countless lower demons killed under our belt. But we haven't yet been truly defeated."

"Technically, at times, we did get defeated, because we were forced to withdraw."

"Yeah, but those are stalemates and they don't count!"

"Ah, so you're also proud of our victories, eh?" Hans laughed. "Come on, you can admit to it."

"I guess, a bit," she seemed a bit flustered. "B-but don't get your ego too high because of it!"

"I think that should apply more to you considering I prefer to lay low unlike you."

"I lay low too sometimes…a bit…I try, okay?"

"Right, sure," Hans gripped his controls harder. "Anyhow, how's your munitions situation going?"

"I'm at thirty to ten special to regular rounds," Adelyn said. "I can't exactly convert the last ten at the moment to enchanted rounds since I need to keep the rest of my AP in reserve for now."

"Hmm, you used up a lot of special rounds in the battle earlier…I suppose expecting them to be replenished immediately is impossible."

"Yeah…so I just replenished it with regular rounds for now. All of them are MPAT rounds though."

"Good, they could be used to disrupt the bastards, or for area effect if we meet some monster controlling crazy again," Hans sighed. "I hope your APFSDS Plasma and MPAT cryofreeze will work decently against this guy too."

"I still have five plasma and cryofreeze rounds with me," Adelyn reassured. "The rest are ADAP and ADI rounds respectively. That should be enough firepower to drain our enemies with attrition, and finish them off."

"I should probably also factor in the rest of the Army and Fort Venido," Hans thought. "But, whatever…we shall see soon."

+++

+++ Unknown +++

Near Venido

"So they are coming for us," croaked an old man, standing in the ruins of a town hall. Behind him, two more humanoid demons, one woman, and one a man, bowed their heads in submission.

"Yes, Sir Injustice," the woman, who wore a white knight's dress replied. She would have seemed like a normal Virtus knight from the mage corps, her hair white as snow, but her halo was blackened and corrupted, and her skin a pale white. "Those foolish mortals appear determined to end our siege of Venido."

"The time for the old tactics by Desire and Recklessness is over," the second demon said, his voice somewhat troubled, as if his vocal cords were damaged and ripped. He seemed to be a soldier of the old Vanus Republican Army, his uniform, blue in color, was dirty. Yet, he appeared to carry himself with the cadence of a Vanus knight. He continued his report to Injustice. "We need to be more organized, fighting them with true tactics instead of mindless slaughter in the countryside."

"Isn't that what we're already doing?" Injustice asked as he looked back at his two underlings. "We have nine demons surrounding Venido. Such a concentration of force will not be broken. They may have reorganized a counter against us, but we shall crush it in these fields."

Injustice's eyes bulged a bit, as his smile grew.

"Then…then, I'll kill her," Injustice declared. "She believes herself to be the true bearer of justice, when the rules of the world are nothing but lies fabricated by those who seek to control. Well, we shall teach her the truth—that injustice is the truest form of justice. That revenge, retaliation, and the strong eating the weak is just."

He curled his fist, before looking back at the town outside, straight at the pile of human corpses they left behind.

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"Don't worry you two," he laughed maniacally. "We'll get what we want, and enforce our justice on this world. When it is us on the top, and these fools are purged, then our ways will become ascendant"

The two looked up, before both smiling psychotically. Like all demons, they wanted nothing other than to strike against the false virtues of the world. Both demons once served their nation to their fullest, but their nations, which once fought each other to the death, betrayed both of them and discarded them like used tools.

Now, with Injustice, the two of them agreed with each of his words, ready to use their sword and magic, strengthened by their corruption, to one goal.

"We'll triumph to destroy virtue itself!" Injustice declared.

"We shall triumph!" the two replied almost like a chorus. "We are ready to fight once more."

"Then test them," Injustice said. "They are moving ahead of their forces, aren't they? I want to see up close how those will fight us in these lands. I want to see them shine for a while—and then, I shall crush that light."

Both demons laughed in agreement.

"Yes, Sir Injustice," the Virtus demon cackled. "We shall set out at once."

"These two call themselves the new form of cavalry," the Vanus demon's hand hovered close to the hilt of his sword as it trembled. "I'd like to show them how true cavalry acts, and slice their ugly steel machines into a thousand pieces."

"Magnificent drive, the two of you," Injustice nodded, pleased. "Now go! But make sure not to kill the Golden Angel—she's mine."

+++

+++ Lieutenant Hans Hoffman +++

En Route to Venido

"Nothing's in my sight at the moment," Hans boredly reported as he watched one of the routes ahead of them, his mech's hull concealed by bushes. "It's clear for at least nine klicks. We should be fine if we advance through here."

"Nothing's on my end too," Adelyn confirmed, parked nearly eight hundred meters away to Hans' west side behind a tree line. "Shall we drive forward?"

"Hmm," Hans held off for a while. Something wasn't right. His guts started to flare up, warning him that something might be ahead of them. An overwhelming sense of fear began to course through his spine, yet…

He began to smile.

"Wait," Hans said, his voice calm even when his gloved hands started to tremble on his control sticks, the smell of death starting to become clearer and clearer. He knew what would happen soon. I'm going to die, aren't I? This was that same foreboding feeling he'd felt when died many times, something which had started to fade since he became strong enough to counter lower demons effectively.

"Why?"

"Let's…" Hans paused, turning his turret left to right, switching between his camera modes, before settling on his thermals. "Wait. I don't know, maybe something will come out. We're close to Venido anyway."

"Alright," Adelyn took a deep breath again. "Let's see what happens then."

The two calmly waited for a few minutes, unmoving as they scanned the horizon. General Ercole's forces were still somewhat far behind anyway, and since they hadn't met anything threatening on the way, there should be no need to report anything just yet. For now, Hans wanted to set something up.

By taking positions here, he was essentially following a strategy commonly used by armored units—setting up a potential ambush. While he wasn't sure if something would come to their sights, being set up in this area, where they were concealed and ready to open fire, was something Hans found useful.

Still nothing.

He continued calmly waiting, as time ticked by. The wind today was calm, the weather and visibility were at their most ideal state, and there was still a bit of daylight left. It was the perfect conditions for battle, but…he removed his hands from his controls.

Pressing onwards is too risky…

He felt as if he was being watched earlier, but now, that sinking feeling was gone. He continued scanning the horizon, letting time pass by further. He heard Alizée yawn from Adelyn's mech, which almost elicited an amused chuckle from him, but Hans held it off.

"Hey, it's almost night," Adelyn pointed out in her comms. "Are we just going to sit here?"

"Alright," Hans frowned, as he formulated a plan. "Maybe we should advance, for just a few extra kilometers, then we'll ride back and report."

"I see," Adelyn seemed to agree. "We can do that. They did say that we're just going to scout—"

A flash of yellow light curved through the horizon. Hans, with his instincts already flared up earlier, pulled just in time to dodge it, as it sliced a dozen trees behind him. Adelyn, reacting at the sudden appearance of two figures on the fields, also pulled backward.

Then, she opened fire with her main gun—sending it straight into what appeared to be a Virtus woman, her hair ashen white, and her skin equally sickly and pale. It was a demon, clearly, and an explosion landed straight on her face. But a second figure dashed in Hans' direction.

Horns, black hair, and a bloodthirsty smile as his soulless, empty eyes stared at Hans—it was another demon. Hans smiled fully, as adrenaline coursed through his blood. This was it. Another battle to the death, and with it, two demons that would become bags of XP for him.

Thank Goddess for this prime opportunity.

He charged forward maniacally, his double coaxials raging with fury uncontained. The 'Grey Knight', the 'Peacemaker', and every other title he had received in his service wouldn't describe him now. This was beyond just a penal ace pilot who found himself on the ropes of an unfair battle.

He felt as if he became a marauder who belonged and thrived at participating in elegant dances with death itself. He enjoyed this.

"Retreat now, Adelyn!" Hans shouted, as the demon in front of him, shocked, tried to dodge his response attack. "I'll take care of these two!"

Two slashes were sent straight at him, one sending an arc of light that cut through air, and another sending a powerful gale of wind that sliced a small piece of his turret's armor as he dodged it. The two demon's overconfident gait broke into panicked terror, as the metallic monster descended on them.

It lunged through the sky, two razors protruding out of its forward legs, and it dove straight into the Vanus demon. He dodged it just in time, yet it was clear in his eyes the shock it entailed of how a man who controlled a machine could wield its massive blade as if he held it with his own hand.

Adelyn came in close support, sending an MPAT round straight to the face of the male demon, while Hans swerved to his left to face off against the silver-haired Virtus woman. She screamed as she sent another powerful slice through the air, only to be dodged again by Hans' mech.

With her attack foiled, only one thing came a response from the rampaging metallic beast ahead of her. With a quick squeeze on Hans' trigger, his main gun boomed.

A single APFSDS round pierced through the afternoon sky.

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