“What… did you just say?”
Lieutenant General Henri de Dubois, commander of the Republic’s 2nd Corps, could not believe his own ears. With trembling hands, he crumpled the situation report his staff officer had presented.
“The vanguard… annihilated? They’re retreating?”
“…Yes, Your Excellency. The leading armored battalion of the 4th Armored Division has had its tanks rendered inoperable, and the infantry regiment that entered as the follow-up force suffered casualties exceeding forty percent, causing its command structure to collapse. The vanguard’s combat strength has effectively disintegrated.”
Lieutenant General Henri let out a hollow laugh.
“The enemy was nothing more than a single infantry brigade. A rabble, at that, on a hastily thrown-together defensive line and short on heavy weapons! And yet our finest armored force has been turned into scrap metal, and an entire infantry regiment was ground down in a nighttime urban battle?”
“Th-that is… it may sound like an excuse, but the enemy’s response was beyond common sense.”
The intelligence officer continued his report, cold sweat running down his face.
“First, they fired their anti-aircraft guns horizontally. Their 88mm armor-piercing shells punched through our tanks’ frontal armor as if it were paper.”
“Madmen… They used expensive anti-aircraft guns like that?”
“The infantry engagement was even more serious. We have no idea how much supply they had stockpiled, but they maintained unlimited firepower throughout the night. In addition, none of our ambushes or flanking attacks seem to have worked.”
Bang!
Lieutenant General Henri slammed his fist down on the desk.
“Absurd! No matter how much supply they have, how much could it possibly be? What, our ambushes didn’t work? Are you trying to tell me they knew our positions?”
A venomous glint entered Henri’s eyes.
“Variables? Tactical deception? Don’t make me laugh.”
It was a report that simply could not be accepted by common sense.
No matter how great the advantage of the defender, how could an elite corps spearheaded by state-of-the-art armored forces be pushed back by a mere infantry brigade? From the beginning, the disparity in weight class was so vast that the word “contest” itself did not apply.
Therefore.
“Enough. Commit more troops.”
Henri gave the order without hesitation. This was a battle that could not be delayed any longer. They had to crush them decisively.
“In the end, they’re nothing but petty tricks. In the face of overwhelming difference in strength, they are meaningless.”
After all, they were an isolated brigade with no supply line.
‘…If they poured out ammunition like they did last night, they should be nothing more than an empty can by now.’
It was an extremely rational judgment.
“Unlimited firepower, you said.”
Let’s see how long they could maintain it.
Lieutenant General Henri tapped Rosenheim on the map with his baton.
“Move the 5th Artillery Brigade forward. Wipe the city itself off the map. Grind it to powder without leaving a single stone or brick behind. And after that… commit the follow-up infantry division and the 4th Armored Division simultaneously.”
A staff officer cut in, horrified.
“B-but Your Excellency! We need to preserve Rosenheim’s railway facilities for our own supplies to move smoothly…”
“It doesn’t matter! Securing that place immediately comes first!”
He pointed at Rosenheim on the map and growled.
“Use every means available. If the tracks are destroyed, we can lay them again. But… I will not tolerate any further delay.”
*
Kuwaaaang—!
Rosenheim’s morning dawned with a roar like the sky collapsing. No, in truth, morning never came.
Along with the ash-gray smoke.
Softly—
Because the pure white snow had blotted out the sun.
Republic fighter squadrons cut through the heavy snowfall and dove. A barrage of 150mm howitzer shells tore buildings apart, while field guns and mortars pulverized every district of the city. Before the white snowflakes could even settle, they evaporated in the scorching flames, turning the place into a hellscape.
It was a crude projection of firepower that seemed, quite literally, to erase the city with a giant eraser.
“Everyone underground! Sewers! Basements! Anywhere deep, shove yourselves in!”
I shouted until my throat felt like it would burst, kicking soldiers down into holes.
“Aaaagh! Help me! Fire! The fire won’t go out!”
The surface was hell itself. White phosphorus shells burst, sending up white smoke, burning everything they touched. As stone softened and rebar bent like taffy, the snow underfoot melted and froze again and again, forming sheets of ice.
“Don’t pour water on it! Cover it with dirt! Damn it, I said cover it with dirt!”
Pandemonium.
If this had been an ordinary unit, we would have been annihilated by now, or raised the white flag in terror. The bastards had clearly decided to leave us without even a place to hide.
But there was no need for that.
Kugugugung…
After one storm had swept through and passed.
From the basement of a collapsed bakery, I peered outside through a gap.
“Hah.”
A hollow laugh escaped me.
Even the buildings that had been relatively intact were gone without a trace. The roads were severed, and the clock tower that had served as a landmark had been reduced to powder and buried beneath a white mound of snow. I didn’t know who the enemy commander was, but in the end, just as he had intended, Rosenheim had been wiped off the map.
“C-Captain… the city… it’s all been destroyed…”
Kurt said, covered head to toe in snow powder. His expression was blank with shock.
“Where do we hide now?”
I brushed the frost off my shoulder and tightened my grip around the grenade in my hand, produced by [Material Conversion].
“Hide? Who said anything about hiding?”
I grinned. The bastards had made a fatal mistake.
‘I ought to bow and thank them.’
Collapsed chunks of concrete. Tangled rebar. Heaps of bricks piled up like mountains, with heavy snowdrifts covering them in turn.
The buildings had vanished, but their wreckage had instead become an even more complex and solid fortress, filling the streets.
The once-flat roads had turned into rough terrain mixed with knee-deep snow and debris, and in place of windows open on all sides, thousands—tens of thousands—of rat holes had been created for soldiers to hide in.
It was a paradox.
The Republic’s intention to eliminate the very places we could hide had returned to them in the exact opposite form. The city was gone, but in its place, a gigantic maze had been born.
“Listen carefully. From now on, this is no longer urban warfare.”
I gathered the company and spoke.
“It’s a game of catching rats. Of course, the rats aren’t us. They’re those sons of bitches.”
“Yes…?”
Kurt asked back stupidly.
“They’ll want to lead with tanks and come along the roads. But there are no roads. Only rubble. The tanks will lose their mobility, and the infantry will have to crawl over debris without cover.”
I stomped the ground with my foot.
“We take position underneath. Sewers, basements, gaps in collapsed buildings. Right beneath the soles of their feet as they march over us—that’s our trench.”
Kurt swallowed dryly and nodded.
“Everyone! Move underground! Open the manhole covers! Get into the gaps in the rubble and stand by!”
The soldiers dug through the snowdrifts and crawled into the darkness. Narrow spaces created by collapsed ceilings, underground passages connected to broken drainage pipes. We folded ourselves into those filthy, cramped gaps.
And then, who knew how much time passed.
Kugugugung…
Vibrations traveled through the ground once more.
I looked at the [Minimap]. Red dots were entering the ruins of Rosenheim.
Through the gap, I observed them with my naked eye. Perhaps satisfied that they had wiped the city away, the bastards were brimming with confidence. At the front was an engineer tank equipped with a flamethrower, and behind it followed infantry.
Their steps were incredibly light. They clearly did not believe there could be any survivors in the ruins.
“Burn it all! Don’t leave even a pile of stones behind!”
Chiiiiik—!
The flamethrower spewed out a fierce torrent of fire, burning the collapsed walls. Crimson flames licked over the rubble. This was cleanup work. A job meant to burn away debris that impeded movement and purify any corpses that might be hiding there.
But they did not know.
They did not know that beneath the very rubble they were stepping on, in the narrow gaps connected to the sewers, enemies still remained.
The vibration of the tank’s caterpillar tracks rolling overhead traveled directly through the ceiling. Dirt rained down onto our heads.
“Everyone, fix bayonets.”
No long words were necessary.
“Now!”
Kwaang!
The piles of rubble burst upward. The manhole covers and camouflaged holes where we had been hiding opened all at once.
“Wh-what the hell?!”
“F-from under our feet?!”
On the pure white snowfield, I saw the dumbstruck faces of the Republic infantry. We sprang up from their blind spot—right beneath their feet.
“Die, you bastards!”
Gunther swung his entrenching tool and smashed it into a man’s shin.
“Kraaagh!”
Bang! Bang-bang!
The distance was less than five meters. There was no need to aim. If you simply pointed and fired, you hit.
I ran across the blood-spattered snowfield toward the tank. The turret tried to rotate, but the gun barrel had caught on a collapsed rebar structure and could not move.
“You stupid bastards!”
I shoved a grenade into the gap in the tank’s track.
“Eat this and die!”
Kwaaaang!
With its track severed, the tank spun helplessly in place.
“Rear! Enemy in the rear! Supporting fire!”
“We can’t shoot! They’re mixed in with our men!”
Panicked screams burst out over the Republic army’s communications network.
The bastards were flustered. They had thought that if they smashed the buildings from afar and came in, that would be the end of it. But in every fragment of those shattered buildings, enemies were still alive and moving.
“Captain! Two o’clock, second-floor rubble! Sniper!”
“Ignore him! Pop smoke and get closer! I said get so close the bastards can kiss us!”
I shouted as I rolled across the ground. The Republic soldier whose collar I had grabbed screamed. My uniform was soaked with his blood, and his screams left my ears ringing.
This was no longer war. It was a dogfight in the mud. No, a war between rats in the ruins.
And in this dirty, underhanded gutter fight, there was no one who could beat me when I had [Minimap] and [Material Conversion].
“Welcome to Rosenheim.”
I drove my bayonet into the man’s chest and smiled viciously.
“You Republic motherfuckers.”