Lance Corporal (2nd Adjutant), Reichel Schwertspinne, Russiva Imperial Year 782 Month 3, Day 9, Urganschoft, Deutsche Imperial Army

Reichel stood up and discarded the burnt piece of wood that acted as her shield against a hail of arrows. She knew this was going to happen just straight after she saw the state of Urganschoft.

Each and every building was destroyed or burnt down to the ground, there wasn't anything left undamaged.

Naturally that meant there was barely any walls or any sort of roofs that were still hanging up, meaning that after the goblins slaughtered the citizens, they went up and divided themselves into 2 groups.

The first group would be the group focused on destroying more of the tall walls and any left over roofs, so there would be no safe place that was hidden away from the range of arrows.

And the second group...

"Crap..."

Focused on psychological warfare.

"AHHHHHHHHH!! MY LEG! MY LEG'S BEEN SHOT!!"

"AHHHH!"

"SHIT!SHIT!SHIT!"

"I DIDN'T SIGN UP FOR THIS!"

Reichel looked around in frustration as she saw the state of the other 2,490 men that were with her in Urganschoft. Most of them were screaming on the ground, unable to hold in any calmness from being attacked after having just witnessed a gruesome scene. And if they weren't panicking that meant that they'd already died from the initial shooting of the hail of arrows.

Everything had a reason just for this attack, everything was calculated from the start.

The village which was more burnt and destroyed than it actually should be after just 7 hours, The bodies which were strewn and more brutalized and more mutilated than usual, to throw off and utterly demoralize the new recruits who have barely seen any blood in their lives as a citizen of the Empery.

The soldiers were disorganized, inexperienced, trembling on their feet, and mortified.

"...This is a disaster." Reichel muttered while biting on her fingernail.

'Should I...' Reichel was about to escape, but then remembered that a little something was dangling around her neck.

It was a little memento she acquired during the one year timeskip after Interlude 1, something she held as one of her mot prized possessions during the timeskip.

It gave her mental clarity and got rid of her disparities, as well as gave her some randomly stupid good ideas from time to time.

The necklace was made up of old wooden beads held together by a thin red string, and at it's centerpiece was a little black wooden square with a peculiar circular insignia painted silver behind an array of swords. It looked to be an ordinary rosary for the followers of Krieg, the God of War, but for Reichel who didn't believe in gods this little memento held more meaning than just a symbol for some fake god.

'Escaping...'

"--Is not an option!" She shouted out with determination.

'There is no way I'm going to start all over again, I really will rage quit if I do.'

Reichel then turned her gaze at the sun which had already set, effectively plunging the romantic orange sky into a dark oblivion littered randomly with bright glowing stars.

'It's going to be a pain, But--'

*SCHWEEEEEEEEEEE*

Reichel's face instantly froze as she was formulating a plan of action.

'They're here!'

No matter how one's hearing was messed up, 10 out of 10 people would still say that what they heard is indeed a goblin shriek.

"Stand up--" Reichel was about to shout again, but her voice was interrupted yet again by another.

"Men, Stand up!" a powerful voice rang out throughout the scrapyard of a village.

It was from Lt. Colonel von Radnitzer who had his sword drawn while riding on a horse, the same fellow who backhand slapped Reichel in the face seven hours ago.

---

Ogre Knight 1st Rank, Michal Kratochvíl, Russiva Imperial Year 782 Month 3, Day 9, Just Near Urganschoft, Czuch Union Army

"SCREAM! MY SOLDIERS!"

Michal shouted his orders to his own forces as they were already charging anyways after initially letting loose a volley of arrows on the wrecked village. It was do or die at this point.

His army of goblins that were with him numbered about 1,500. As opposed to the enemy which was thought to have 3,000.

And although his units of green soldiers were exhausted from full 7 hours of demolishing and burning buildings, as well as sickly 'corpse decorating', His soldiers felt like their fatigue had been washed away just from the massive influx of morale brought about by Michal, who was an Ogre Knight, albeit he had already thrown away that title the moment he stepped into the Deutsche Empery's territory, seeking to massacre a Deutsche village full of innocent civilians.

*SCHWEEEEEEEEEEE*

Michal's soldiers screamed as they all frantically rushed out from their hiding places literally just outside of Urganschoft.

As Michal himself ran with his soldiers, he could feel the weight of his 1,500 soldiers pressing on his shoulders.

They did not bear any flags of the Czuch Union, they also left any clothing, armour, tool, accessory, or weapon that could be traced back to have the responsibility for the massacre at Urganschoft to be pinned at the country of Czuch Union.

This was in essence, a suicide mission that 1,500 out of the 5,000 soldier garrison that the Czuch Union placed just outside the No Man's Land War Theatre.

An attack based on pure emotion alone.

All the monsters that were with Michal were now countryless terrorists, their feelings exploited by Michal when he brought up the feelings of the goblins who had lost their comrade in arms to the so-called Black-Haired Stalker during the past month.

When the topic of the Black-Haired Stalker was first brought up at the Czuch capital a week ago, he couldn't care less about what she would do, however when he realized that that was the location his brother Cestmir was posted in he couldn't help himself but worry, leading to him unintentionally raising raising his right hand when one of the Council members asked the Ogre Knights if they would like to take the case.

When he raised his hands, his co-workers with the Ogre Knights made mocked him, because they thought he was trying to run away from the front lines which were teeming with Polski dwarves who posed a threat to the Czuch Union ever since it was founded.

But Michal couldn't care any less though, because his brother was the only family he had left.

But it all came crashing down just this morning, when his brother's comrade came to his office with the news that brought down his reason of living.

"SCHWEEEEEEEEE" Michal himself shrieked with the rest of his army.

They were not shrieks that expressed hate or any kind of anger, Instead it expressed grief, grief for the victims of the Black-Haired Stalker who didn't even leave behind a body for the goblins to grieve on.

Michal drew his prized longsword from the sheathe on his back, and lopped off the head of an Imperial soldier who didn't even get to pick up his weapon.

His sword drew an arc in the air made by blood as its kinetic motion stopped.

Michal looked around his surroundings to find the Imperial soldiers one-sidedly overwhelmed not by numbers or martial skill, but instead of the goblin's ferocity fueled by anger and rage.

The wild goblins were attacking with crude spears, clubs, hammers, and swords. Some of them were even using their bare teeth to tear away flesh from the enemy, which added to the horror that enemy was currently facing.

It was indeed an attack based on feelings of emotion rather than actual logic, There was no such thing as strategy at this point, only clawing the opponent who was in front of you and then moving onto another when you're done.

Just like some kind of war-driven beast.

More blood decorated the ground of Urganschoft as the goblin's ferocity increased, which was already bathed with the blood of at least thousand innocents.

'This...isn't this too easy?' Michal asked himself as he lopped off the head of another recruit with a single stroke of his sword.

Michal's forces easily swept through the Deutsche Empery's recruits, who were still trembling from their first barrage of arrows, as well as being in the state of emotional scarring after witnessing a literal 'Corpse Party' that the goblins left behind.

Not to mention that since the sun had just set, meaning Michal's forces could make use of their species' inborn night vision making them as effective in night as they were during the daytime.

But the cause was of no concern to him, he just needed to make sure that the Deutsche Empery paid for their infractions with blood.

It was not until the Deutsche Empery's casualties had reached a hundred from the initial goblin charge that the recruits had finally snapped out of their fears and started to fight back, at which point the casualty count rose ever so slightly slower than it was before.

Eventually, it was after a human screaming that the pace casualty rate was climbing seemed to be even.

A human which looked to be larger than the other humans was on a horse, shouting out orders whilst slaying goblins left and right with a sword on horseback.

'This one...'

"--knows how to fight." Michal surmised with his current pieces of information.

Not only that, but from the way that he was sitting on top of a horse unlike all of the other recruits it seemed like he was at least somebody of high rank.

"A hundred--Nay! A thousand goblins for every victim in Urganschoft!" He shouted out to his troops, and then slowly the recruits started to put up somewhat of a resistance.

"The enemy commander?"

Michal rushed towards the man on a horse, swinging his longsword around at any human who was unlucky enough to meet paths with him.

It was then that Lt Colonel von Radnitzer saw Michal running towards him at full speed, and then striked at him using his sword from the top of his horse, utilizing his advantage of higher vantage point.

"Die! Monster!" Maurius' hand lashed out again as he cussed Michal, aiming to go for his throat, and Michal responded in kind by throwing out a slash.

But the slash wasn't aimed at him.

*THUD*

"Scheisse!" Maurius shouted out loud as he fell down onto the ground.

Michal didn't try to aim for Maurius who was probing him with a strike, instead he decapitated his horse with one fell swoop, effectively getting rid of Maurius' height advantage.

'I've got you now!'

Michal, seeing that Maurius had now fallen to the ground, brought up his sword to strike him with all his strength, and yet again brought down his sword with immense strength, sending dust particles flying all over.

Now that dust particles were obstructing his vision, he couldn't make out where Maurius was. But luckily, he had just the thing to solve his problem...

Which was his not-so-ordinary sword!

He swiped the sword by the dust cloud, and as he could feel mana emnating from the sword and into his hands the dust cloud was swept away, revealing only a small crater.

'I didn't get him.'

Well that was already obvious because he didn't feel anything but the soft dirt when his sword landed, but he had at least hoped that a piece of his armour was torn off.

It was then that he heard a voice coming from his back.

'From behind!'

"Dieeeeeeeeee!" Mairius also had his sword raised, aiming for an overhead strike.

'Are you a fool!?' Michal was cursing in his mind.

Michal brings up his sword and uses it to block his back, and then rapidly propelling it upwards to deflect it fully, making Maurius stagger back a few steps.

"Who the hell screams when trying to do a surprise attack!?" Michal screams at Maurius, as he turned around activating another one of the sword's 'magical' features.

'[Dust Devil]!'

Tiny pockets of air materialized as oxygen made contact with his magic blade, turning them into small pellets while launching them at high velocity.

It was an attack that was completely invisible to the naked eye, and its damage would be comparable to a shotgun round in terms of intensity.

'Now to find the Blac--' Michal was about to turn tail and then try to find the Black-Haired Stalker, until a dull metal noise invaded his ears.

*SCHWING!*

Michal's magic attack was parried--No, It was repelled by a series of strikes from a bright shining silver rapier.

It's holder was a woman with eyes red as blood rubies, and with the standard of goblins he couldn't really say that she was pretty--But if he was using the human standard then her beauty would no less come out on the top tiers at least--if not the actual top.

Her arms were thin almost like twigs, Yet the shock he felt when her rapier connected against his longsword made it feel like she had bones harder than steel, paired with swordsmanship skills that were just as good--if not better than Michal's.

But the most notable feature about her was her black hair, A shade of black that which shared its same colour as the beautiful night sky their battle was currently graced with.

It was the woman who killed his beloved brother and so may other of the other goblin's comrades in arms, The devil who lurks in the trees at nights and doesn't even leave a body when victimizing innocent guards, The so-called Black Haired-Stalker.

"I'VE FINALLY FOUND YOUUUUUUUU!!"