Jeff slit down the wall next to the window he had just been shooting out of, all tension leaving his body. With a bit of luck they had just bought themselves enough time for the next rotation to take over before the next push.

He took a big gulp out of his cantine and threw one of his gums into the other room. “You good there Ken?”

“Oh yeah, thanks man.” Answered his buddies' delighted voice. Jeff had no idea how his friend could still find joy in simple things, but perhaps that was just his way of coping with the situation.

“Nearly got hit by an arrow this time. I tell ya’ they are getting better at this.”

Jeff could only shake his head, a smile forming on his face despite everything. “Just don’t get hit then.”

Ken snorted at him. “Just you wait. Next time they will target you instead and then I will be the one giving sage advice!”

The two didn’t say anything after that, relaxing their sore arms as much as possible. Besides, the less they talked, the less they could jinx themselves.

That didn’t stop Jeff from worrying about everything though.

The war with the Meran lunatics had started horrendously. The Seaside Union, a collection of a few dozen villages, a town and a major port city, had still been reeling from the mana integration, stumbling around in the dark to figure out this weird new energy and were completely sidelined by the raids targeting the northern villages. The number of civilian casualties was unknown but had to be insane considering that everyone that didn’t look like a human anymore and wasn’t an angel got slaughtered brutally. That said, the slain still had it better than those that got taken as slaves to serve as practice targets or pleasure toys.

Underprepared, underequipped, unable to use pre-mana weaponry and forced to cover the evacuation of the civilians their makeshift army had no choice but to confront the Merans in vicious melees that saw many of them dead or crippled. The only thing they had going for them was that they outnumbered the enemy by a factor two, which was what had allowed them to stall the Merans long enough to prepare their own battleground.

Ever since then they had been juking it out in the deserted town next to the coast, successfully halting the Merans advance for a month. When that teenager had figured out a way to use guns and rifles again without them blowing up, the wind had changed for a short time and even allowed the Seaside Union to push back.

Jeff would say ‘bless that girl and her entire family line’, but sadly said family had deserted to the Lunatics and the girl had been so devastated by that she had committed suicide.

Anyway, back to the guns. Something about mana made anything energetic overreact for short moments after a while. That meant electricity suddenly quadrupling in force and frying cables, firearms exploding with the force of a grenade after a few shots and cars going up in flames for example.

What the girl had figured out was that when you formed a cloud of your own mana around the weapon and kept control of it the weapon would work just like before mana. The reason why the firearm overreacted was still around though and even accumulated, which meant if your concentration slipped the explosion would be that much stronger. Point in case, the usage of fire inside of the town was forbidden as even something as simple as a lighter could become a raging bonfire the size of a house.

In the end, with the help of their guns, they had been able to inflict massive casualties on the Merans and were able to push them out of the town. The sudden success had given the whole Seaside Union military hope, hope that they would be able to take the war to their enemies and free the abused slaves.

As a result they had overextended in their eagerness to take revenge; they had overextended and learned what it meant to fight against a god, because apparently those were real now.

A signal bell brought Jeff out of his musing and he got up with a curse. The first bell was followed by another and then another. More and more bells started ringing, but Jeff ignored them all, only focusing on the one closest to him.

It rang once, twice and Jeff gripped his rifle tighter. “You ready for some more action, bud?”

“I was born ready.” Ken answered calmly.

Then the ringing became frantic, destroying whatever confidence they had. Jeff quickly looked out of the window and could feel his heart drop as he saw the fife figures barreling down the street towards his position at speeds that shouldn’t be possible for a human being.

They had to flee, but they would make it nowhere. They couldn’t. Jeff’s mind raced, trying to figure out what to do, how to survive this, but he didn’t know. Then Ken rushed into his room and they looked each other deep in the eyes, both reaching an understanding of what to do.

Without further ado, Jeff turned back to the window and started firing while Ken took their horn and took a deep breath before blowing into it with all his might. Hopefully the rest of their squad would understand and try to get the hell out of here.

By the time Ken was done and joined Jeff the five men had already crossed most of the distance. They had heard the horn, knew where the bullets came from and looked at the window, giving both Jeff and Ken a vicious grin.

The two of them ignored it, steeling their hearts for what was to come and continued to fire at the five running men. Bullets slammed into the asphalt of the street, only some hitting their target, but they left nothing more than surface flesh wounds that the rushing figures seemed to ignore. One of the men got hit into the head, but his skull stopped the projectile cold and his grin became only wider as blood started to flow down his face.

A half minute later that felt like an eternity they arrived at the house Ken and Jeff were in, riddled in wounds but still going strong and jumped up all the way to the window on the second floor.

In that moment where their enemies were suspended in the air and time seemed to have slowed down, Jeff and Ken shared one last look. Jeff took their one and only grenade, removed the safety measures and clasped Ken’s hand, the grenade stuck between their palms. Then together, just as the first of the five men came flying through the window, they threw the thing on the ground and the house ceased to exist.

The King looked the newly minted pope deep in the eye, his face a facade of neutrality. “So, just to get this straight, not only do you want me to send my people into a war that we could have easily waged by proxy and without much casualties on our side, but now you also want me to send my people to hunt a four meter tall monstrosity, that you have angered and that has been perfectly friendly before that, even giving us lessons that allowed us to skip much of the most basic research regarding mana?”

The pope nodded, seemingly ignorant of the storm that was brewing opposite of him. “Yes, that’s exactly what I have said. I just didn’t focus on the distasteful details that much. It is such an honor to be of use to his holy majesty Meran, I honestly do not understand why you are taking so much time to decide on this.”

The King leaned back into his chair and let the pope stew for a bit before he answered, though he suspected that it did not have the intended effect.

“No.”

“What?” The other man sputtered.

The King simply continued to stare at him. “I said no. You seem to be misunderstanding the amount of power you and your deity wield. You see, you did me a huge favor by doing your thing during the mana wave. It grabbed the attention of the people and, most importantly, stopped them from panicking because they were busy taking apart the news you were spreading.

This favor, I will repay by joining the war to the east and put an end to the genocide happening there or else these lunatics, that pray to a god with the same name as yours by the way, will bring the war to us.”

He gave the pope a pointed look.

“Beyond that however, your influence only allows you to request assistance that I am by no means obliged to give.

Now if you would please leave. I have a nation to manage and a war to plan.”

The Pope stared at him for a bit before he stood up. “You… You will regret this! His holy majesty may be kind and forgive some things, but he never forgets.”

The King shook his head lightly. “No, I will not. If this were a reasonable request then perhaps, but this childish feud of yours that came to be because someone opposed you and rightfully put you into place is certainly not one.”

“The people will get to know-”

“If the people get to know about this then they will laugh at you and the church. Most of them only comply right now because after everything that has been happening they do not have the energy to bother with the things your church is doing as long as it does not impact them and their lives, but if you were to push them too much, that is sure to change and your reeducation camps are already pushing it.” The King interrupted the Pope before he could embarrass himself further.

The Pope left angrily shortly after, though the King had a feeling that the church would likely not drop the matter with the Silver Witch. He was honestly a bit confused as to why they wanted the state's assistance with this, because without cars they wouldn’t be able to keep up with the giant wolf, they had in fact already lost her, and without internet and radio they couldn’t notify people ahead to do something about it, only the church could currently do that.

The King was also thankful, because the Silver Witch had reminded him that the church was fallible and not his superior and because of her teachings one thing became clear: Whatever Meran was, he was not the god of christianity and thus not the god he answered to, which made saying no that much easier.