March 25, 1919, Somewhere in France

The year was 1919, and the world was engulfed in the flames of the largest conflict ever known to mankind, spreading from every corner of the world, knowing not race, status, age. or alignment.

World War I, or as the natives of the land that the story is going to favour upon know it, the Weltkrieg.

To think that the assassination of one man somehow escalated into such a conflict, it would have been the main question hadn’t the populace been so ignorant at first.

The governments of countries who had nothing to do with the war were pressured by their own people to join it, as to claim the glory that existed in the field of battle.

And then just like how a smaller domino could topple over a larger domino, smaller dominos kept on toppling and toppling even bigger and bigger incidents which eventually dragged most of the major powers in the war.

People enlisted, not knowing what exactly they were getting themselves into, what horrors they would have to endure, and didn’t even stomach the fact that behind every gun was also a living, and breathing human.

The populace of each participant country fought valiantly, ferociously, and undeterred in their determination to defend their homelands at the early stages of the war, but what they didn’t realize is that the enemy fought with just the same amount of valiance, ferocity, and undeterrable will to push them back as well.

The people who were so eager to return home as heroes instead were left rotting in mud riddled with machine gun bullets, artillery shrapnel, and eaten by the crawling maggots and diseased rats who circled the killzones of the trenches of both sides like vultures.

By now, what was originally intended to be a judgement of divine and righteous will was turned into a living hell, and their illusions of fighting a glorious war for the Vaterland were crushed, as the modern reality of trench warfare, suffering, and death formed itself into the hearts of every European, Asian, and African involved in the war.

“This fucking war, every day and every night you have to deal with the damn conditions—"

One of these people were Friedrich Wilhelm Victor August Ernst.

“We’ve lost so many of our men, so what if we win this war? Winning won’t ever give back any the lives lost!”

Not to be confused with Wilhelm II, who is the Kaiser of the German Empire, this Wilhelm is also known as Wilhelm the crown prince of the German Empire.

He was at one of the French provinces temporarily occupied by the frontlines, brooding about how the war was far from what he expected and that he should have kept his mouth shut about how he was going to be the top general of the Deutsches Heer and claim his honor as crown prince over a cup of coffee while his bodyguard, Johannes von Auer listens.

Until something caught his eye that is.

“What is that?” Wilhelm pointed towards a dirty little thing carrying a box of machine gun ammunition heading for one of the machine gun nests.

The girl was covered in dirt all over, and her hair which was cut short unevenly as it reached her shoulders, as if it was bitten, burnt, or cut off with a dull knife, and the uniform she wore was also cut short as it was too large for her size.

Wilhelm couldn’t even tell that whether she was a boy or not until she opened her mouth to speak.

“What’s up?”

“What is a child doing in the damn front lines?” Wilhelm asked his bodyguard Johannes, to which the girl replied to by showing the badge of a red eagle over a black knight’s cross.

The symbol that indicated that she, a child, was a battlemage, and that she was there to stay.

This made Wilhelm, gulp in anxiety, as he too had a daughter, two even, who looked just as young as the dirty girl in front of him, one of which who was discovered to have an affinity for magecraft.

And as he thought about how the sole reason why that girl was here, with grown men on the front lines is because she was capable of a little magecraft filled him with fear for the unforeseen future as he imagined even the sheer remote possibility that the Army would make his precious little daughter fight like this as well.

“Father, what has gone into your mind!?” Wilhelm cursed his father, as if the forced conscription of battlemage-fit adults wasn’t enough, he also just had to lower the battlemage recruitment standards to allow children as young as his daughter Alexandrine to fight in this waste of human life that they call ‘war’.

“I answered your question, now answer mine, what is that you’re drinking?” The girl said as she pointed at Wilhelm’s mug.

“Oh, this … this is called Kaffee.” Wilhelm nervously shrugged, as the girl’s overly random question eased his anxiety.

“Kaffee?” The girl looked with interest.

“Ja, it’s a special drink that can make people stay awake for longer periods of time.”

And after what went on for what seemed like a few seconds, it seemed like the girl had eventually stopped thinking and reached out her right hand.

“Hand it over.” The girl said.

It was such an abruptly rude action that the surrounding people were shocked in awe, and even the guard battlemage stationed to be next to the crown prince Wilhelm took a few more seconds than he should have to react.

“You little—"

The guard grabbed the girl by her collar and hoisted her up effortlessly, nobody knowing whether he had to use magic to make it seem like he was lifting a piece of paper or if the child was actually just that malnourished.

“What did you say in the presence of his Majesty you brat!? Even if you’re a battlemage-fit peasant, you’re still nonetheless just a peasant!”

Johannes was a loyal servant to Wilhelm, trained from a young age as an aristocrat battlemage, he was fed up about how the filthy men fighting in the war would address his prince without honorifics, and the order to let them talk like that came from Wilhelm himself only made the rage well up inside him, but as he was a loyal servant of Wilhelm he had no choice but to obey.

It wasn’t as if he couldn’t understand them though, even he had some resentment towards the royalty even if it was a little as it was they after all that dragged the whole country into war.

As such he diligently practiced to maintain his tolerance levels to be abnormally high for an Imperial Battlemage Guard, but today, when a mere child just told the prince to “hand over” that the prince clearly owns, he found himself unable to stay silent any longer.

And in the face of the life-threatening situation that she found herself in, the girl who was the cause of such rage …

*burp!*

… burped aloud audibly for everybody to hear, even getting some of the other battlemages who were moving around supplies to slightly smirk, this in turn however, made the battlemage holding her up by the collar fume even more in anger, as he pulled out a Luger P08 from his military coat and brought it up to the girl’s head.

“I should execute you for your insolence right now!”

“Enough.” Wilhelm said, and as quickly as he grabbed the girl Johannes dropped her instantly on the floor without hesitation.

“Don’t blame the child for being like this, knowing how people are currently doing, this one must have just been a daughter to a farmer we just conscripted, and considering how she looks so dirty it wouldn’t be surprising to know that she doesn’t even know how to act politely.”

Wilhelm was a prince who would eventually stand as the Kaiser of the German Empire, as such from a young age he learned to be understanding towards the situations of other people.

As such he was the type of royal who binded himself with the commoners just as he did with high society, all for the future of the German Empire.

That is, if there would ever be.

“Now little kid, go on and away, I’m willing to look over your attitude just now if you leave my sight.” Wilhelm flipped his free hand while sipping his coffee, dismissing the girl.

“Don’t wanna, I want that kaffee.”

At that point you could even hear Johannes gritting his teeth inhumanely, while having the same opinion as Wilhelm, only in a different tone.

‘This kid is damn crazy.’

Of course, Wilhelm could just give the coffee to the girl, but he didn’t really want to because of the inconvenience that came with waiting for Johannes to bring him another cup of coffee.

Wilhelm was an understanding person, but that didn’t mean that he didn’t value his dignity.

“How about this, you do something for me, and I give you this cup of kaffee?”

“Do … something?” The girl tilted her head in interest.

“You know how the French are always shelling are trenches? They make that booming sound over and over again and again even though they know that they’re not achieving anything else aside from buying time!” Wilhelm ranted about his complaints in trench warfare, about how the never ending booming in the battlefield always causes his ears to ring constantly.

While the Central Powers were dominant in manpower and in gun manufacturing ever since the start of the Weltkrieg, the Entente was always more dominant in the ammunition manufacturing side which he was quite jealous of, since he always had to wait at least until the bombing intensity drops before he and his commanders could order a charge.

On multiple occasions, he found himself swearing that if the German Empire and the other Central Powers ever won the Weltkrieg, he would take it upon himself to make sure that shell manufacturing would go up so much that they’d be the ones that’d be firing shells 24/7.

“And what do you want me to do about it?” The girl simply asked what the crown prince meant, clearly not catching on what the crown prince was implying.

“*sigh*, It’s simple, go over the trenches, and make the French artillery stop.” Wilhelm smiled mischievously.

‘This should do the trick, my my Wilhelm, you’re as witty as ever.’

Any normal child, no matter how dumb would never run into a field of death such as the one over the trenches, he presumed that even though she was a battlemage, she wouldn’t be that confident in her magic abilities and simply deduced that she was being used as an ammuntions carrier or a runner because of how battlemages could invoke greater slightly better strength for carrying and better speed for travelling long distances.

And the child in question herself, started rubbing her chin, looking like she was deep in thought of the benefits she could gain from the deal that Wilhelm had just proposed.

‘What’s there to think about? Come on, are you really going to die for a cup of kaffee? You have so much to live for!’

“Got it.” The girl simply turned around and went on with carrying the box of ammunition she dropped and left the crown prince’s sight.

“Hey wai—” Johannes wanted to have one last word about her language, but was stopped by Wilhelm who didn’t want to interact with the girl any longer.

“Leave it, there’s been enough German children having difficulty because of this war and I don’t want one dying, at least not to a German if possible.”

“Understood.” Johannes stood straight and went back to his position at the side of a Wilhelm drinking coffee while thinking, when suddenly he voiced his thoughts out loud.

“But my prince, if I may … wouldn’t it have been better for you to have had me kill her here instead of making her die out in No Man’s Land?”

“Pfffft, there you are again, making jokes, do you really think a child, moreover a girl, would just risk her life for a cup of this?” Wilhelm pointed the index finger of his free hand towards the cup of coffee that he held.

Wilhelm just released a bluff because he wasn’t really a fan of ceding things that he owned to other people, it was also why he worked as hard as he did, eager to prove himself to his father, the Kaiser, who was still doubtful whether he was fit to be Kaiser.

And in all of this, Johannes perked up as if he remembered something.

“But despite the way she seemed to voice out her true thoughts every time she spoke … she never said that she wouldn’t do it, didn’t she?”

“Hahahaha … there’s no way in hell that—"

‘No wait …’

Now that Wilhelm thought about it, the girl never provided any signs of denial, or any acknowledgement that she knew that he was joking.

And if Wilhelm even remembered correctly, the girl even said ‘Got it’ as she left.

‘Don’t tell me—' Wilhelm’s thoughts were cut off by a husky male voice shrieking.

“Urgent report urgent report!” The shrieking male with the loud voice ran and stopped just in front of Wilhelm, who was thinking about the girl, but then decided to think about the person in front of him right now as if he was welcoming a distraction.

But it wasn’t like he was avoiding responsibility over some paranoia, it was just that what needed his attention currently obviously needed his attention.

How there was a distinct red armband around his right arm separated him from the average soldier, signifying that he belonged to a role that wasn’t meant for much fighting, but still vital to the war effort.

“Your Majesty, urgent report!”

To put it simply, the man was a runner, and he was there to deliver something along the lines of a message, a report, or even a signal.

“Well what are you waiting for, out with it then!”

As such, it was only normal that he, the commander of the unit, pay his utmost attention into listening to the report instead of thinking about what the an underaged battlemage was planning to do.

After all, who was he, a human, to realize that the little dirty thing that he just met that day would in the future, be a living legend over the course of her life.

She would represent many things as her tales of victory coursed through the veins of the German Empire.

Inspiration.

Fear.

Hope.

Despair.

“One of the frontline battlemages has knocked out one of the machine gunners, stole the machine gun, and has run over the trenches carrying it while heading for the French positions!”

And with these, she would bring the most significant and most revolutionary changes…

The ability to turn against the course of fate…

The extent of how far human might can go…

And how the conflict of humans can know no limits.

But little did he know, that the most significant gift that she would dispense among the deepest vestiges of humanity …

Was the true bitterness that comes after the sweetness of victory.