Chapter 37 — Urban Fighting

A paratrooper awkwardly landed and tumbled to diffuse the impact of his landing. Holding his MP 18, he vigilantly looked around the empty street he was in. It was completely devoid of life, with abandoned carts and signs of looting everywhere.

His name was Gerwind, and he was a war veteran from back when the Canary Kingdom fought costly wars of attrition with the Elsass Empire. When the Canary Kingdom was subjugated by the Third Reich and the People's Army set up, he gladly signed up. Due to his rich combat experience, he had been assigned a sergeant rank and sent to join the paratroopers.

The newly formed People's Army lacked veterans the most. No matter how hard you trained soldiers, they could still perform poorly when entering the battlefield for the first time. Luckily, the war between the Canary Kingdom and the Elsass Empire had produced a number of veterans who had great mental strength, bravery and leadership skills, Gerwind being one of them.

Konrad wanted his troops to be equipped with the peak of WW1-era firearms technology, especially the paratrooper shock infantry, who required high speed and firepower at the cost of defence. As a result, they were equipped with the MP 18, a German submachine gun, 6 stick grenades and a trench knife.

While Konrad's forces across his country had all been equipped with WW1-era firearms, he had been wary of how exactly they were distributed. Compared with traditional cold weapons, firearms require much less training to the point even a child could cause incredible damage with it. An ordinary person could cause hundreds of deaths if they fired a Maxim machine gun down the streets of a busy city or destroy vital infrastructure such as bridges with a few explosives.

As such, police forces and peacekeeping troops were only equipped with outdated breech-loading single-shot guns like the Martini-Henry. Standard military soldiers were equipped with bolt action and semi-automatic rifles while elite units used semi-automatic rifles and early submachine guns. Of course, the proliferation of firearms outside of the military was extremely illegal. Apart from hunters, no civilian was allowed to own a firearm.

As Gerwind looked up high in the sky, he saw an upward hail of bullets tear through the plumes of countless parachutes.

Seeing a soldier's parachute being caught in a lamppost nearby, he ran over to help.

[Hey mate, you need some help?]

[Hello?]

Getting closer, however, it was apparent that the unlucky soldier was dead. A single bullet had taken out the back half of his skull, and it seemed there had been a few more hits but it was hard to tell under all the blood.

Making a decisive decision, he started moving to the closest point where he heard constant gunfire. While any normal soldier might be slightly disorientated from narrowly missing death, Gerwind recognised it's sound as the Maxim Flak M14 Anti-Aircraft Gun. From the lack of smoke in the air, he judged that they weren't using exploding rounds.

Paratroopers were still jumping from the ships, and he had to silence the guns if he wanted to reduce casualties. From the sporadic small-arms fire he started hearing across the city, he could tell that the other paratroopers had also started fighting. Despite being used to death, he still felt a sharp tang of sadness as he wondered how many of his squad would survive.

Following the sound, he came to the entrance of a small alleyway. Taking a small mirror from his pocket to peak into it, he saw an enemy soldier standing in the middle of the alley, right in the open, aiming a bolt-action gun at the entrance.

Without giving him time to react, Gerwind fired, sweeping his heavy MP 18 across the entrance killing the unsuspecting soldier.

[Tsk, you have no idea what cover and concealment is]

Although, this could not be completely blamed on the soldier. The Elsass Empire had only received these weapons several days ago, and without any manuals or instructors, they had to re-learn the lessons that Earth had learnt from decades years of war and fighting with them. Of course, this was if the Elsass Empire managed to survive.

He peaked his head into the alleyway and saw more enemy soldiers emerge from a single house, obviously alerted by the gunfire just now. Now with half his body exposed, he opened fire, sweeping the alleyway with the rest of his gun's magazine.

Only 3 soldiers out of the dozen or so had luckily not been hit. They stood there, shocked and panicked. They tried to clumsily run away but Gerwind drew his sword and quickly dashed forwards. Despite not being standard issue, Gerwind was allowed to have a sword due to his proficiency with it.

With a single smooth strike, he slashed a big cut on the neck of an escaping soldier, sending him to the ground clutching his neck. He continued by thrusting his sword into the chest of another soldier, collapsing his lung. As he was still standing, he followed up by bashing his face with the hilt of his sword, sending him to the ground as well.

The last soldier, perhaps sensing that running was useless raised his gun. However, Gerwind easily dodged the obvious trajectory of the gun and slashed his stomach wide open. Sheathing his sword, he kicked away his gun and ducked down under a crate to quickly reload.

Upon coming out, he saw the soldier in shock, still trying to stuff his intestines back into his body. Opening fire, he confirmed the deaths of the three and continued to the house from where they exited.

As he stood outside, he heard people hurriedly talking and the continuous firing of an anti-aircraft gun. He reached over and to his surprise, the door was unlocked.

Right now, Gerwind was in a hyper-focused state. His mind was thinking about nothing but the present, and there was no room for any emotions or hesitations.

Taking a stick grenade from his belt, he unscrewed the metal cover at the end of the handle and pulled the wire, starting the 5.5-second fuse. After waiting a couple of seconds, he quickly opened the door and threw it in, slamming it shut immediately after. He crouched down behind the thickest part of the wall, plugging his ears and opening his mouth to equalise his pressure.

Soon, an ear-splitting explosion went off, devastating the room and sending tremors through the wall into Gerwind. Hearing some screams of agony emerge from the room, He threw another stick grenade just for good measure, silencing any noise.

After waiting for a few moments, he burst into the room, ready to fire at the first enemy he saw. However, everyone inside was dead or incapacitated, having been caught off guard by the grenades. He looked up and saw the roof had a large hole for the big anti-aircraft gun in the centre of the room to shoot out of.

Looking around, his eye was suddenly caught by a bundle of papers blown across the room. Walking over, he picked them up.

[Hmm… A receipt?]