+ + + + +

"CHARGE." Antonius yelled.

"" FOR THE KING'S GLORY! "" The knights yelled with fervor, but one by one they fell.

"DAMMIT!" Antonius cursed.

With the knights' valiant sacrifice, Antonius and three knights managed to escape.

+ + + + +

"Hah-hah-hah, this should be… far enough…" Tristan said in between his panting.

"Yeah… hah… let's take a little break." Maria suggested and was met with a unanimous agreement from the whole group.

Their group emerged out of the forest and rested by the roadside. After getting out of their predicament, they started to relax and let their guard down. They failed to notice the group of men slowly approaching them from the south.

By the time they noticed them, they were already surrounded, “What are you doing here!?” one of the men asked them.

"Wait, you're the men who attacked Nareña." Johan said after looking at the men.

The men did not answer, instead they aimed their weapons at Johan's group. "Drop your weapons if you don't want to die."

"Tsk, we're exhausted and outnumbered, just listen to what those guys say." Tristan said as he dropped his weapon.

The others soon followed and dropped their weapons on the ground. The soldiers then gathered the dropped weapons.

"You follow us to our camp." One of the soldiers said.

Johan's group was led down the road until they reached the "camp" of the soldiers. Johan immediately noticed something, "Are those the iron carriages that can run without horses?" he asked one of his captors.

"Carriage? Huh? Oh you mean our armored transports?" The soldier answered.

"Armored transports? How do they run without horses? Does it make use of magic to run?" Johan asked again.

The soldier scratched the back of his head before answering, "Magic huh? Uhmm no, it runs by using fuel. Anyways, we're here now, wait here while we call the captain."

A soldier ran into the camp and after a few moments came back with two other people. Wait, is that Gabriel?

Maria and her party members also noticed Ian right away, "Maria, isn't that the boy from before?" Marga asked.

"Yeah, he is, don't tell me he's the captain?" Maria asked in disbelief.

"No, I think the woman is the one in charge." Martha said.

"Wait you know that guy?" Tristan asked.

Maria and her party all nodded, "Remember the kid from the dungeon that single handedly killed an ogre? That's him." Maria said.

Tristan's eyes widened, "Wait, that's him? He looks weak."

Johan overheard their discussions so he decided to join in, "Do you guys also know that boy?"

"Huh? Yeah, he practically saved us from certain death." Maria replied, Martha and Marga nodded in agreement. "Do you also know that boy sir Johan?"

"Yeah, he basically gave me 10000 Pisas, you know." Johan replied with a grin.

"" WHAAAT!? ""

“Yeah.” Johan replied.

Their conversation ended just as Ian stopped in front of them.

+ + + Ian + + +

I approached the group of people and immediately recognized an acquaintance in the group, “Johan?”

“Gabriel! It is you!” Johan replied.

"Uh yeah, what are you doing here? Didn't you still have some business in Nareña?" I asked.

"I did have some business there, until it was overrun by monsters hours ago." What Johan said stunned me, I mean we were just there a few hours ago and now he says it's already overrun with monsters!?

"Ho-how did that happen?" I asked.

Johan scratched his head and looked away from me, "Well, uhmm, most of the city guards died. So, there was no one to protect the town from monsters."

Crap, it's our fault then. "Uhh, it was legitimate self defense I swear. The old man, the porky, and the knights ambushed us in the dungeon, and the city guards attacked us outside."

"Wait, by old man, do you mean the court sorcerer of this kingdom? And by porky, do you mean the baron?" Johan asked.

"Yeah, them." I replied.

"The court sorcerer is also headed this way along with some knights, but… " Johan trailed off.

"But?"

"They encountered something along the road." Johan said as he began to tremble.

I have. bad feeling about this, "Johan, what did they encounter!?"

“I-it’s an earth dragon!!” he shouted.

“An earth dragon huh?” I said as I put my hand on my chin, “Can our long 75 pen that thing?”

Leah offered her opinion, “Sir, I think we can pen it with our PzGr. 39. If that’s not enough, then we can use our PzGr. 40 shells.”

“Gabriel, you might have powerful magic at your disposal, but dragons have scales that are impervious to any kind of magic. A small army is needed to just drive away a juvenile dragon, but that dragon is no juvenile. We need to escape now!” Johan explained.

"Immune to magic huh? Then that won't affect our attack, I’ll buy 5 APCR rounds just in case our standard APCBC can’t pen it.” I said to Leah, “Johan, go inside the camp and rest up, we’ll handle everything else.”

Johan still refused to believe that we can kill the dragon, “IT’S A DRAGON GABRIEL, A DRAGON!”

"Sorry Johan." I muttered before giving an order to my men, "Knock him out and bring him near the firpit, we have some extra bedrolls so lay him down there."

"Yes sir." the soldier behind Johan said before knocking him out cold.

I turned to Johan’s companions, “How about you guys?”

“Wait, before you knock us out, we just want to thank you.” One of the women said.

“Huh thank me for what?” I asked since I don’t think I’ve done something good to someone in this world yet. Wait a minute, are they the women from the dungeon? “Wait, you’re the ones I met in the dungeon right?”

“Yeah, thanks for saving us again.” Maria said, I think she’s Maria?

“Thank you.” Marga? Said.

“Oh uh, yeah, no problem.” I replied. “So what are you going to do? You can just go ahead and head inside the camp too.”

“We want to help.” Maria said.

"If that's what you wa-"

"SIR! I see something, I believe those are torches." a soldier said.

Damn, they're here already?

"Call all machine gunners and man the turrets, Leah, tell Henry to move the tank here and fire an HE round 100 meters north of our perimeter."

"Yes Sir."

“All available men fire above the group of torches.”

+ + + + +

Antonius and his group continued running away, “Dammit old man, use your damn magic.” one of the knights yelled in anger.

“DAMN FOOL THAT’S A DRAGON, MAGIC WON’T WORK ON IT.” Antonius retorted angrily.

As their group continued going down the road, they saw multiple flashes of light in front of them accompanied by small explosions. Antonius' blood drained from his face as he recognized the sound. D-don't tell me that merchant boy is here!?

Antonius was frozen with fear but his horse continued to run, the knights also froze in fear upon hearing the gunshots. Antonius and his group now were trapped between a rock and a hard place.

“HEY OLD MAN WHAT ARE WE GOING TO DO!?” A knight asked.

“Dammit, charge through, let the dragon deal with them.” Antonius replied.

+ + + Ian + + +

“Shit, they're not stopping, aim at their horses once you get a visual, where’s the tank!? Dammit.”

The tank arrived seconds later and fired, the shell whistled as it passed above our heads. It exploded 100 meters away from us and illuminated the area for a second. What I saw in that moment of brightness was a huge lizard or a dinosaur.

I ran to the tank and climbed up the turret, “Henry, did you see the creature?” We’ll need some radios to make communication easier.

Henry peeked his head out of the cupola, “Yes sir, but it’s hard to measure the distance in this darkness.”

“I see, let me get a flare gun to illuminate the area.” I said to him before climbing down.

I need a flare gun for illumination.

“Affirmative… 1 Kampfpistole bought… Total cost is 20 points… Deducting total cost to total points balance… Remaining points balance is 1041.5… Purchased item can be found in the item box… “

I took out the flare gun and aimed it upwards at an angle and pulled the trigger. *PAK* The shell flew upwards before exploding and illuminating the area. I climbed up the tank again and knocked at the cupola. “Is that better?”

Henry peeked out of the cupola again, “Yes sir, that flare is much appreciated. Loader, load APCBC. Gunner, fire after acquiring the range.”

The tank’s barrel slightly elevated before firing, *BOOM*. Holy crap I felt the damn shockwave from that. The entire tank recoiled backwards from the blast. Let’s just hope that the dragon’s scale is thick enough for the fuze to activate.

The shell whizzed past us and ricocheted off the ground a few meters away from the intended target. “Fire again.” I yelled into the cupola.

“H-hey kid, what is th-that thing?” Maria asked as she got closer to the tank.

“Gun reloaded.” I heard from inside the tank, Dammit, Maria’s too close to the barrel. I jumped down and pinned Maria to the ground. *BOOM*

“Why’d you pin me down!? I-if you want to do it with me, then you could’ve just told me. But not in public like this.” Maria said as she blushed.

What the hell is she talking about!? Only after looking down at Maria did I understand what she meant. I was straddling her with one of my hands at her chest. I immediately jumped off her and stood up. “Th-that’s not what I was trying to do!”

Leah came and scolded me. “Sir, please don’t fool around on an active battlefield. The dragon has already been slain and the enemy knights have surrendered.”

The fuck!? Why’d everything suddenly get finished so quickly!? I didn’t even spend ten seconds on the ground!!!

“Ah, ehrm. Good work?” I said. “Take me to the captives.”

“As you wish Sir.” Leah replied and led me to the captured knights where I saw the old man and two wounded knights.

“Tsk, you again!?” the old man clicked his tongue.

“Sup old man, you look worse than when I last saw you.” I said sarcastically.

“Mock me all you want now, I swear in the name of Bathaal that I’ll have you pay a hundredfold.” He said angrily.

“Blah blah blah, before you talk about the future, let’s deal with the present first. I’ve got a lot of questions for you. Men take him to an empty APC, I’ll deal with him later.”

“Sir, what will we do with the wounded knight?”

“Apply some first aid first, I`ll summon a medic later.”

“Yes sir!”

+ + + + +

Maria, who was still lying on the ground, slowly stood up and went to her party, “D-did I hear that right? The dragon was defeated?” she asked.

“Y-yeah, we saw the whole thing happen.” Tristan replied.

Martha pointed at the tank, “Whatever came out of that thing penetrated the dragon’s scale and suddenly exploded inside the dragon.”

“Who in the nine hells is that kid? Why does he have something that can easily kill a dragon?” Tristan said.

As they were talking among themselves Ian and Leah came to them and joined in the conversation, “Did the people of Nareña evacuate?” Ian asked.

“Yes, but I don’t know how many will survive.” Maria replied.

“I see.” Ian replied before turning to Leah, “Have the men ready to move out after eating, our new mission is to retake the town of Nareña and aid the population.”

“Yes sir, I’ll call in the squad leaders now.” Leah said before leaving.

“Well then, I’ll leave you guys for now, I still have an operation to plan.” Ian said before waving goodbye but his hand was grabbed by Maria.

“You’ll help the people of Nareña? Why?” Maria asked.

“I mean it kinda is our fault, right? And besides, I know that I have the power to help them, so why should I turn a blind eye to it?” Maria finally let go of Ian’s hand and Ian ran after Leah.