+++ Pope Paul IX +++

Serenus City

St. Angelo Basilica

The Holy Guard of the Church of Gods all lowered their heads as Paul strode in front of them.

They looked up at him with reverence, but he barely gave them a passing glance. Instead, Paul turned to his last two loyal servants, who were closely tied to his 'grand project'. They were both Virtus cardinals, yet unlike the other members of the clergy in the St. Angelo Basilica, they were different.

With power beyond human comprehension, these two 'cardinals' were capable of destroying entire cities should they wish. Yet, they were here, wearing normal church clothing, following him on his flanks as they gave him hushed whispers.

The woman on his right, Cardinal Vittoria de Albe, who had taken the mantle of 'Calamity of Hate', spoke with a grave tone.

"They are advancing," she said.

The man on his right, Cardinal Niccolo Zorzi, who took the mantle 'Calamity of Avarice' also leaned close to the pope.

"We should have eaten her ages ago," he snarled. "She would have been a delectable addition to your power, Your Holiness. An angel, already in our grasp—!"

Paul raised his hand to stop his colleagues as they reached a private area.

"Calm yourself, you two," he coldly said. "She served an indispensable role until she escaped, you know that. Let us not cloud our judgment."

"The cretins advancing on Serenus can still be stopped," Vittoria declared. "They have violated the orders issued by the Imperial Government. They are rebels. All we need to do is give our men on the ground orders to shoot."

"Indeed. Even if they cannot stop those wretched mortals, they would still sap them of strength and morale," Niccolo grinned. "Then, when they are gone, we shall soon feast!"

"They indeed have been a thorn on my side," Paul said. "If not for those two, millions from the west would be in the east now. How disappointing…"

"So we should finish it once and for all—!"

"Why should we? The hope of the west lies in those two," the pope smirked. "They believe that this expedition will end the demon horde. Let them spread that hope to all of mankind, even to those in the east."

"But why? They're already spreading information to disobey us! It's preposterous!"

"So that once we crush them," the pope curled his knuckles. "Everyone on the continent will have no choice left, but us. Anyone who has defied Serenus, the Holy Church, and me, will be branded as traitors when their instructions endanger people. The people will have us as the sole remaining authority to guide them."

The pope stopped, turning to two of his colleagues.

"The plan is simple. We shall slaughter them at the gates of the Imperial Capital, with millions as audience, and show the world that they cannot save anyone from our minions. Believe me, the huddled masses will come here to search for salvation."

Then, Paul looked up at the dome of the St. Angelo Basilica, as tears dripped down his cheeks.

"Then, the great feast will begin…"

+++

+++ Lieutenant Hans Hoffman +++

August 14, 1539 CE

Eastern Eleos

The advance was stalling out.

Many problems started to plague the combined forces of the Ygeian Expeditionary Forces at this point. While they had largely avoided any direct confrontation with their opponents, they were finding themselves in a problem they didn't expect.

Refugees.

Goddamnit, there were so many of them, that Hans was so annoyed by it. And all of them, all of them were going eastward, to Serenus, the Imperial Capital.

They were fools who refused to heed their warnings, and Hans couldn't blame these people. They were given information, rumors, and hope, by the same butchers who sought to use them to fuel their power.

It was sick, it was disgusting, and most of all, it was hard to counter them.

Again, Hans and Adelyn could technically speed toward the Imperial Capital much, much faster, but the problem was, going out of the control zone by the advancing YEF was suicidal.

So their job wasn't just to simply charge and scout ahead. No, Hans and Adelyn were placed into a hundred roles during this long, arduous march.

On top of scouting duty, they had to conduct patrols, monster clearing, and even something as simple as acquiring accurate maps that they would give to Elisa and General Kohler.

This content has been misappropriated from Royal Road; report any instances of this story if found elsewhere.

Such side-missions dragged the two down, but it was necessary. Patrols kept the rest of the YEF safe. Advance monster clearing meant that roads would be easier to traverse for the formations lagging behind, and maps were needed because of how inaccurate their understanding of geography was by this point.

Battles, population exchanges, and every other development over the last decade meant that they were working with outdated information about the terrain they were moving through.

Roads perfectly fine on the maps turned into craters and mud-filled tracks.

Cities said to be a potential supply hub to 'live off' from turned out to be ruins hard to traverse.

Previously stable counties became areas with monsters spilling out of unstable dungeons in the thousands.

The list went on.

And worst of all, in some available roads and pathways to the east, they would deal with refugees clogging the few pathways available, or hounding them for supplies and whatnot.

Hans and Adelyn were dealing with precisely that at this moment. They were escorting a battalion of soldiers being transported by dragon-drawn wagons while passing through hungry refugees demanding food, water, medicine, and support.

Earlier, they had to deal with a bunch of zealous adventurers-turned-bandits. While the battalion they were executing dealt with them without many casualties, they lost one of the wagons transporting a few tons of munitions.

The bandits must have mistaken it for a food wagon, so they attacked it, a fight ensued, and as the bandits lost, they torched the damned wagon as revenge, before it exploded.

"Goddamnit," Hans snarled, and the two drove faster down the road. "This makes me really want to kill that Hubris bastard."

"I wish we could help these people…"

"Forget about that," Hans said, his tone cold. "If we try to stop even once to administer aid like what we did early on, we'll just be slowed down."

It was a hard decision they took two days ago, after one of the units of the YEF took a detour to support a city besieged by demons. Unfortunately, it just wasn't optimal. It took more resources than it could give.

They hoped they could haul some extra goods from the city, but the city's civilians already ate everything they had before they liberated them. That was a great bummer.

If they get themselves anymore stretched in this mission, they'd be forced to desperately loot civilians as well just to keep going. That was a worse outcome, so they elected to simply speed past civilians and leave them alone rather than saving them and potentially disrupting the operation.

By sundown, another stop order was given, and the two settled into a patrol routine, as the rest of the 1st Anti-Demon Unit camped out near a destroyed city.

They even checked the city first, driving around it to check if there were demons or supplies left. The two discovered the city's grain stores as somewhat stocked, so they called in a bunch of soldiers from the 1st Anti-Demon Unit to retrieve it.

By the time they returned to camp four hours later, there was already a small feast being organized.

"We can't really bring all of this extra food," Colonel Strobel said with a grin as the trio walked through their ad-hoc tent camp. "So we'll eat it all."

Hans and Adelyn watched as soldiers roasted barrels of salt pork on the open fire, laughing and enjoying life as they drank their ale rations.

"I wish we could give it to the refugees moving eastward," Adelyn mumbled. "We drove ahead of them, but they're gonna reach this place by tomorrow."

"We already told them to turn back west because the pope is lying. They didn't listen," Ebert groaned. "I feel bad for the bastards, but at some point, you just can't do anything about the situation."

"Yeah, I'd rather our soldiers refill their supplies and get extra calories in their system," Hans said, as they reached the command tent. "Though, I should say, if we have extra, we should leave some barrels of that grain and salt pork behind in the city."

"Nah. There's not going to be enough to be left behind," Ebert said.

"I see."

Inside the tent, Alizée was silently chomping on skewered meat while reading a book. When she saw Adelyn and Hans, her eyes brightened as she perked up.

"You're both back!" she exclaimed. "Lady Adelyn, Sir Hans! The chef guy made this, and it's so good!"

Hans went for one of the skewers on the table, as he patted Alizée's head, before sitting beside the Vanus girl. Adelyn on the other hand, with a sigh, took a metal cup and a tea bag on the side, before pouring hot water into it.

"Alright, so what's the plan for tomorrow," Hans asked, as he ate the meat on the stick. "I didn't get an update earlier from Elisa."

"We've now travelled a hundred miles deep into Eleos. We should reach eastern Eleos soon, but it might be a bit tricky to get past the Eleos–Armonia border."

"Why? The mountain range?"

"Yep. The Lorvast mountain range right now is starting to get wetter. We've heard reports that it's a bit muddy, and there have been heavy storms hitting it, which had never happened before."

"Heavy storms this deep in the mainland, huh…" Hans asked, suspiciously.

"What?" Ebert raised an eyebrow.

That was when Hans realized that Ebert wasn't, again, a modern human being like him. That meant, he probably wouldn't understand how unlikely it was for heavy storms to hit that far in the interior. Sure, there could be cases of thunderstorms here and there.

But sudden storms that make an inland mountain range muddy and hard to traverse…?

It was fishy.

"Are there any alternate routes to get to Armonia?"

"Well, if we take the central approach near Anesi, we could technically bypass the Lorvast mountain range, but…"

"But what?"

"The detour might take us an extra day or two, and who knows? What if this is a trap to lure us into the safer fields of the central regions?"

The reason they chose Eleos after all as the region to traverse was because the southern areas of the Empire seemed to have less demonic concentration than the central lowlands.

That helped them speed through the Eleosan Principality rapidly for the past few days, but of course, they'd have to get through a mountain range as they turned slightly northward to Armonia.

"Give me the map," Hans said, and Ebert obliged, handing him the map of the eastern empire.

As usual, again, Armonia was in the farthest east. The northernmost principality was Exousia, which was irrelevant at the moment. The central one was Anesi, which they bypassed, but would now have to go through with the passage between Eleos and Armonia potentially blocked.

Hans checked the routes available to them, which he knew was probably outdated information, as he tried to think about how they'd use this new intel.

"What if we disperse ourselves further?" Hans asked. "I Expeditionary Corps can speed through the Lorvast mountain range, while II Expeditionary Corps can spread out on the battalion level and race through southern Anesi."

Then, Hans pointed at a major city to the south of the Imperial Capital.

"Then, we'll reorganize here, before conducting a finalized push to Serenus."

"Dispersing our troops this much might mean that we won't be able to properly support each other in case of battle," Ebert said, grimly.

"With the range of Empress Elisa's abilities, it shouldn't be that bad. Not to mention, if an incident occurs, the best bet is that we'll only see a battalion wiped out. The demons can't be in all places at once."

"So should a fight occur, we'll…quite literally, ignore any guys that get caught and continue speeding onwards?"

"Bypass threats and bypass pointless battles," Hans nodded to himself. "Anything to speed up our march to Serenus."

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