Demon continent Alsace in the year 237 in the 9-month Lilithum on the 31st day after the shattering of the empire.
They had been on the road for about a month and in the coming days, they would reach one of the cities held by the Loyalists to liberate this city from the forces of Meinoume in a Glorious Battle. At least that was the saying of the officers and the general, and also that of their teachers. Dikili Tash would become the first city to be recaptured from the Loyalists. A city that lay between the capital and the front with the renegade lands of the Demon Empire. Which, the officers, as well as the teachers and the general promised, would soon be back under the rightful rule of the one and only ruling dynasty. With what they would fall under the rule of her parents and later under her own, she did not quite know what to make of the fact that she was a princess and her parents the new rulers of the demon realm.
And even this one month had not given her any clarity in this regard. She didn't feel different yet and she didn't know if she ever would, for her not much had changed. When she looked back on her early childhood and her earliest memories, she could find evidence that her parents had planned for themselves and her. Why else would she have had to learn how to behave like a princess and the languages of the world's leading nations if she had not been raised for that very position? The behavior of her former classmates was no help either, as they all treated her much differently than they had before her parents ascended the throne.
The only exception was her teammates, who still treated her as they had on the first day they met, for which she was secretly grateful. For she could not have imagined how she could have worked with a squad that put her on a pedestal and addressed her from below. Which, as she had to realize, was something she could not stand and found extremely repulsive, which strained her relations with some former classmates, since they behaved in the same way. On the other hand, the behavior of some others, who had not paid attention to her in the past, since her family did not have estates or other noble pomp, did not get rid of them at all and she could not save herself from wedding proposals. These, however, came from everyone and she had trouble denying them all with thanks, as she felt no gratitude that people she didn't know and possibly didn't want to know were asking for her hand in marriage. Like this morning when one of the officers had come to her at the table where she was having breakfast with her troop and he had asked her to marry him.
From what she had heard, competitions had also broken out for her, in which the winner was given the right to present his claim. As a result, she encountered several people every day who looked as if they had just come from a fight to the death, something that had puzzled her at first until Rezac had told her about the fights. It had gotten so bad that the general had had to punish everyone, fearing that discipline would be lost or further lost.
Otherwise, they were marching as an army for most of the day, from sunrise to sunset, with a break around noon. Then towards evening when the army's night camp was set up, which was an activity no one could avoid. Everybody always had to join in to secure the camp for the night. All the students knew how to do this because in their schooling they had to read the military manual, in which there were precise instructions on how to set up the camp and with what and how the camp had to be modified depending on the location and weather, as well as what materials had to be taken.
However, after they had set up the camp, the students, who were called prospective officers within the army and were treated as such, had to train as a unit.
This training was basically the same as what they knew from their time at the academy, only now they trained with the soldiers among themselves. Not all of them and never so many that the camp would be easy to attack, but still they trained every evening with always different soldiers of their own unit. But even this had become less in the last few days, the closer they had come to Dikili Tash. The general wanted them all to be ready and not to be surprised. The scouts were now almost all the time in action and also the prospective officers were used for it.
Which brought her and her squad consisting of Rezac, Flur, Arle, and Lexington and a handful of soldiers to the edge of the forest, from where they could already see the city. According to reports, the loyalists had killed the Duke of Dikili Tash and impaled his head above the gates of the city. Fortunately, his wife and children had not been in the city or principality at that time, so they had not been killed. Whereby one wondered in the army how a Duke could have died if one became a Duke only if one was the strongest of the descendants of a Duke. Which, of course, had led to much speculation that there was a powerful demon within the city among the defenders, who dwarfed even the level of the general. This would be troubling because the general was level six and the highest user of body art in the army, which had an average of four. Like most armies in the empire.
"She looks different somehow, don't you think?" Lexington asked into the silence that had come over them all when they saw the city in the distance. With its dark walls casting long shadows and the little dots running all over the walls. "Yes, it has lost some of the colors it had when we visited." Arle interjected, still looking intently through the telescope. The other two only mumbled something in agreement while searching the vicinity of the city for signs of an enemy army camp. "I don't see anything that looks different, but I've never visited the city before, so what could you possibly see that's different?" She asked the four who had been to the city a few times while still roaming the lands as Cirkati. "Well it's hard to say since we weren't allowed to enter the city, but from the outside, it looks like they've built some new defenses. Like the hill to the right of the city and the sharpened tree stumps along the wall." Explained Rezac while pointing with one hand to the different things. "Yes I saw that too, shall we go around the city once to see if they are hiding anything in the hills or out of our sight." Asked Lexington with a look that went from her to the others and back to her. "Yeah, we just need to find a way where we won't be spotted."
Ah, life could be so beautiful when everything went according to plan, they had caught the Duke and converted him as well as the part of the population that did not want to convert voluntarily, thus making them puppets of Meinoume. Yes, yes, life could be beautiful and he wanted to enjoy it as long as he could. According to his scouts, an army of the New Demon Empire was already on its way here. Which made him laugh as if he was going to fight an army, even if it had the princess of the new empire with it and consisted only of fresh recruits. No, he would, as his master had ordered him to do with the old and new believers and follow a trail that another servant of his master had found. Like him, other servants of Meinoume would convert the population of cities and lead them to their new destination, the Promised Land, as Meinoume promised them.
He knew better there was no promised land for the simple believers, no for them there was only life in the service of Meinoume and life after death in the service of Meinoume.
No, they would follow the trail that had been found, which would lead them to a Titan, whom they would then convert for their master, which meant that they would give him a mark that would put his infinite life in the service of his master, and he had to admit that was an idea that he liked.
With a smile he devoted himself to his work, humming to himself and drumming along with his petrified hand.
It took them some time to get behind the city, but again they were presented with the same picture as from the front of the city. They first had to climb over a mountain and then scramble along its side facing away from the city, until they were finally able to overcome the ridge again at a suitable point and thus get behind the city.
"Here it also looks not much different than before the city shall we risk a look down?" Asked Flure who looked at the city with the naked eye because she did not want to be discovered by an unfortunate flash of the lens of the telescope. "I think we'll go along the other side, which will allow us to circle the city once and be sure we haven't missed anything. """"""Yes Commander."""""" They said as if from one mouth
So they set out to find a suitable place to climb the mountain on the other side of the city, which turned out to be more difficult than on their way behind the city. Nevertheless, they found a suitable place where they could climb the mountain, or rather mountains, unseen by the city, and circle the city from the other side. Again, they could not see any major changes, and the defenses looked the same as those they had seen on every other side of the city so far.
With this report, she finally came before the general and told him about her discoveries, which were not many. The other scout leaders were also with her in the general's tent and reported to him. All the reports sounded the same to her until one mentioned that he had seen several groups of civilians walking through the mountains away from the city. After seeing this, the scouting party had decided to get to the bottom of it and had learned that they seemed to be refugees fleeing from the coming battle for the city.
After the last one had given his report, in which the same thing was mentioned several times, which only confirmed that they had all seen the same thing and that nothing had escaped them, or at least that was the hope. They were free to do what they wanted with their evening.
Tomorrow the battle for the city would begin and for this, she wanted to be rested.
