Chapter 11: Chapter 9 – Incompetent Greed

Lance Corporal, Reichel Schwertspinne, Russiva Imperial Year 782 Month 3, Day 9, No Man's Land, Deutsche Imperial Army

Reichel was in a dilemma right now.

She was hyperventilating, which was highly unusual for somebody like her.

'Fuck! Fuck! Fuck! Fuck! Fuck!' Reichel cursed around in her mind, almost letting her thoughts slip out of her mouth to be heard by the soldiers.

'It's fast, They're fast! They're too fast! I didn't prepare enough!' Reichel was practically lamenting herself at this point.

She had expected for the rabble of an army like the Czuch Union monster army to need at least 3 days, or at least even a month until they start to even take action. With logistics that barely exist and their pre-occupied situation with the Polski Confederacy, she had expected that they wouldn't even take action at all.

'What is it? What's made them move this quick? Desperation for rescources? Desperation for a victory? Are they perhaps thinking of using the Empery's land to strinke the Polski Confederacy at their flanks!?' Reichel thought to the best she could with the best of her abilities. There were too many unknowns.

There were too many questions that didn't have any answers, and Reichel cursed herself once again in frustration.

It was then that she felt a large tug from the bottom of her mind, as if her conscience suddenly shifted to somewhere else. Reichel felt like she was pulled to the ground, and had to use her hands to support her figure from lying down on the ground.

'Reina!' It was that time again, when the Essence of Gluttony would try to influence her decision making and perfect rationale whenever her emotions would run rampant in frustration or in hunger.

"...Lance Corporal?" The healer beside Reichel tried to call out to her.

"STAY BACK!" Reichel shouted with a mighty voice as she went back to addressing the dilemma she had inside the core of her mind.

Sweat poured down from her forehead, and thoughts clouding her judgement ran rampant across her mind.

While clutching her stomach with both hands, she calmed herself down.

'Calm down...Calm down...This isn't how you do things...' Reichel calmed herself down to an acceptable degree where the Essence Gluttony wouldn't disrupt her line of thinking within seconds.

'You're a realist, You don't dwell on things that have already happend, You accept things as they are and formulate actions and execute plans to make everything go in their right course.' Reichel snapped herself out of her delusion and grief, and concentrated on the situation at hand.

'Don't ask the questions that don't have any answers, Ask the questions that you can answer, and if there are no questions to answer, just guess the option that is most probable and select an option that will bring out themost satisfactory result with the least amount of losses.'

'Why did they attack Urganschoft?' Urganschoft was an almost-unknown village in the backwoods of the Empery, it was the closest village to No Man's Land and had a garrison of about 50 troops. It was once suggested for the village to be moved because it was directly inside No Man's Land and was too close to the Czuch Union's border, but the idea was dismissed due to the lack of resources Urganschoft had, as well as it's low population, making it highly improbable to be locked on as a target by anyone with a right mind.

'Are they taking hostages? Are they asking for a ransom for the hostages? Or are they going to ask compensation for the damages that I've caused?' Reichel was thinking.

'Or maybe they're actually looking for an all-out war with the Empery?' That was highly probable as well, The security that the Sturm army division was basically easy to topple over, if the commander was competent enough. The Empery was far from running out of resources as well, The financial state of the Empery was top of the line even comparing to the other large countries in the face of Hyurasia.

'But would a monstrous rabble of a country such as the Czuch Union really know the true wealth of the Empery?' The Czuch Union, as standing out their green bodies and inhuman physiques were, Were incapable of conducting spy missions on other countries by themselves due to how fast their physical features would be snuffed out compared to normal humans.

It was highly improbable that they would employ the use of human intelligence groups as well, seeing as how they even lack a means of providing their army with equipment that shows uniformity at all.

'Is it somebody I attacked from the group last night then?' Reichel thought about the patrol of hobgoblins she encountered last night. She thought about how maybe one of the higher ups had a sibling among those she slaughtered. Actually, it could also be from the other numerous patrols she massacred before, those were living, breathing, and intelligent creatures with their own families.

But why would they only attack now then?

'It's the message.' The rank shoulder slide made absolutely no sense if you thought about it, Reichel just put it there in a hopeless gamble in hopes that it would provoke the Czuch Union's government, but she never expected that they would act so rashly.

The insignia of a sergeant hailing from the Deutsche Imperial Army was conveniently on the scene of the crime? It sounds like complete bullshit if you would ask anybody with an IQ above 10. Who is to say that the Polski Confederacy perhaps hadn't planted this themselves in order for the Czuch Union to go with war with the Deutsche Empery as well so they could ease the stress on their own warfront with the Czuch Union?

Even if the monsters of the Czuch Union were stupid, they would never take action against another country when their own country is being driven to the dirt by another country at the moment, They were just too busy defending their sins to wage war at another front.

And even if the monsters at the higher-ups of the Czuch Union were indeed that stupid, It would at least take a week at minimum for the report of the rank shoulder file to be delivered as evidence to the capital of the Czuch Union, and then perhaps another week for it to be processed and then be made a decision to wage war with the Empery by the Czuch Union's higher ups.

'Which means this was an attack initiated by the local commander, and not the action of the Czuch Union as a whole.' Rei concluded on who exactly did this, but--

'Why did they attack Urganschoft?' There was still this.

This was an emotion-based action decided upon by the local commander, and if they saw the rank shoulder slide it should be clear that the culprit for the night attacks on the patrols were done by a Deutsche soldier.

So why did they attack a random village that had no strategic value instead?

Why would they attack Urganschoft?

'Urganschoft is a small village, it shouldn't have any resources or any kind of thing that would help them with their battles...'

It was then that Reichel realized something.

'Battles...something that would help them in their battles...' Reichel was onto something.

'That's wrong, Urganschoft does have strategic value.'

'!?' Reichel stood up with a clear look on her face, she figured it out.

'It's a trap.'

---

"What happend here!?" a voice boomed from the spectators.

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A man with a robust figure wearing the signature blackish-green uniform of the Deutsche Imperial Army came pushed his way past the spectators and saw Reichel with a dead body on her feet. He had facial features fit for a man in his fifties and his dark green eyes which matched his greyish-green eyes looked at Reichel suspiciously, which prompted Reichel to take action.

"Sir!" Reichel stood straight with and saluted, not minding that her uniform got soiled by the blood of the dead messenger's corpse. Respect for corpses had no place in the military, you just bury them somewhere and that was it.

And as soon as Reichel saluted, the soldiers in the area stood straight and saluted as well. It was important to show respect to your direct superiors after all.

It was the commanding officer of the Sturm army division, Liutenant Colonel Maurius von Radnitzer. Reichel read his file, and there wasn't anything that special about him that stood out other than the title of Earl in the eastern parts of the Empery.

"I am Lance Corporal Schwertspinne! This messenger came from Urganschoft village, he says it's been attacked by the Czuch Union's army." Reichel reported the truth, and only the truth. She could have downplayed it with some words but she wasn't going to risk giving out a faulty report and being court-martialled for editing military reports.

"The Czuch Union?" Maurius eyed Reichel even more suspiciously. It was indeed highly illogical for the a country that was so preoccupied with war like the Czuch Union to have any leeway for attacking others when they themselves were already at their limits as well.

He used logic and reasoning to dissuade Reichel's report as merely fiction because of the sheer absurdity of it even though messenger died to deliver the report, but at that moment a soft glint glowed on his dark green eyes, and his frown turned into a smirk for a short moment.

'...Shit.' Reichel almost cursed out loud when she saw the look in his eyes, She knew the look on his face all too well.

The hairs of her pale, unblemished skin stood on edge, eagerly hoping that it wasn't what she thought that was influencing the judgement of the Liutenant Colonel's mind.

"Well, what are you waiting for!? Get ready! We'll have to rescue any survivors if there are any and put a stop to their evil deeds!"

The greed of humanity, the opportunity-grabbing nature of humans which were one of the things that made themselves so despicable, so unadvisable, and so unsightly.

But Reichel couldn't stop here, She could still try something, She could still try to avoid what was going to happen next, She could still try to avoid a massacre.

"Sir wait!" Reichel called out to Maurius with a pleading voice, hoping that he would throw away his ego and his ambitions to listen to realism.

"What is it, Lance Corporal?" Maurius stopped walking away, and turned around to face Reichel.

"With all due respect, I don't think that we should be so hasty."

"....What do you mean Lance Corporal?"

"We should wait for the Capital's decision on this, and possibly wait for reinforcements."

"Bahh! Reinforcements!? Reinforcements for a goblin army!? The Sturm army division was made for fighting the monsters of the Czuch Union!" Maurius' scowl grew even further.

But Reichel didn't give up, She could still avoid the poor excuse of a battle with only a few more words.

"Think about it Liutenant Colonel, We have no idea what the enemy's numbers are. This is clearly a trap! My thought is that we should keep away from the village and possibly retrea--"

*Thwack!*

Or so she thought...

Reichel's words were stopped when she was hit on the cheek by the back of Maurius' hand. But she could take a hit nonetheless and even added an extra bit of performance by falling to the ground.

Reichel saw it coming from miles away, but she was hoping that he would even try to at least listen to logic and reasoning.

It was good that her hair was all over her face, and that she was looking down on the ground.

Because if anybody were to see her face right now, they wouldn't think that the face she was making belonged to a human. She barely calmed herself down ad barely just kept control of herself to not suddenly go on another killing spree when Maurius mindlessly stepped on her pride.

"This is why women shouldn't enlist into the army. Lance Corporal Schwertspinne gear up, You're coming with the survey force. This is a direct order." Maurius said, as he walked away not minding Reichel's figure.

"Coward." Maurius muttered something under his breath.

---

And Reichel just sat and lied there, on the ground made mud with the blood mixed into it, sitting quietly while looking down on the ground until the other soldiers left and it was only Wilhelm that stood next to her, waiting for when she gets up by her own.

He didn't dare offer any kind of comfort or consolation, thinking that doing so would only make things worse.

After a few minutes, Reichel stood up with hair still covering her face and with chest pain that seemed to wrench her heart so tight that it could explode.

Reichel just had a gut feeling, but anybody with half a mind would know that this was going to end up very badly. Incompetents on the battlefield brought only nothing but death and destruction to their own allies.

Reichel knew this, it was embedded in her heart so deeply and set down to the roots of her mind.

However--

"Yes....sir." Reichel said silently to nobody, with only Wilhelm being able to hear her soft voice which changed into a raspy and almost robotic noise.

Reichel cursed this world, but there was nothing else she could, and would do anymore.

She could only comply to a direct order. Such was the life of a soldier.

 

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