Chapter 16: First day of the Siege of Arash

The afternoon of the first day of the siege of Arash. After a very grueling journey to reach here, the Ustians hardly belives their eyes when they see the completely lifeless city before them. The gates are fully opened while the walls seem to have been abandoned for a few days at least. Aside from the birds flying about, doing their usual pooping activity, you can't even hear a dog barking in the city.

General Alban rubs his eyes to make sure he's not seeing things wrongly. "Are my eyes deceiving me or did the Belkans really pull up camp and evacuated the city in one night? Weren't they shelling up like there's no tomorrow yesternight?" He asked the other officers in the observation post. They all also have befuddled expressions on their faces.

"Maybe this is a trick to lower our guard, sir? There could be a trap set up for us if we send the army in." Well, the officer that just spoke isn't wrong. It's just that they have no choice but to head in if they want to complete their objective.

"Yeah, I guess so..." Alban sighs ruefully, his hand scratching his gray beard. "We are stuck between a rock and a hard place here. Moving forward is no different than sending our men to die. Standing still is also not going to work either. A retreat will incur even more shelling and we'll all face the firing squad. To be honest, I underestimated the difficulty of this operation, this is not a hard mode as I expected but a nightmare mode." When even their veteran General put it that way, the rest of the officers can only smile wryly at their predicament.

Suddenly, Alban claps his hand. "Alright people! I know we're shits outta luck today but we'll be damned if we not putting up a proper fight! So put on your war faces and report to me our field situation, starting from you!" He points at a Colonel under him. The sudden enthusiasm he shows has woken them up from their mulling, their spirits are returning one by one.

Alban nods to himself, at least the officers' morale is still salvageable. The army is way too tattered for his taste but a beggar can't be a chooser. "Ok, I've received your report. Have the scouts managed to get anything useful for us last night?"

The officer in charge of the scout squads shakes his head in refusal. "I'm afraid not, sir. We sent them out under the cover of the night before the barrages hit us, yet we still haven't received any words from them till now."

Alban sighs, once again he is blinded. "We will assume that they're all wiped out. Whether it's due to enemy patrols or the defenders in the city, we don't know. So we will be heading in blind with the assumption that there's an enemy ambush in place... What about the request for air support and reinforcement?"

Again, shaking heads is what he received. "The nearby airbases got hit hard a couple of days ago, it will be a while till they can something to cover us. As for reinforcement, the reply they sent us is we are the reinforcement here."

Alban facepalms. "Shitty ass flyboys and their freaking diamond engraved airframe! What use is a fighter craft when you refuse to have them sortie?" He already know that there was no hope for reinforcement but the Air Force's incompetency is what grated him the most.

"Fine! We'll do this by ourselves. Men, get your troops ready! The time for probing the enemy is over, blind or not we must finish what we started. We have four divisions at hand so we will split our force into two halves, one attacking from the West, the other attacking from the South. What's left of our armors will be divided between our two forces and be put on the forefront with infantries trailing behind them. I want the opening move to be a carpet of smoke covering our advance, after that, put the artillery on reserve, they're of no use to us when we don't have many explosive shells left. Now get a move one, people!"

"Yes, sir!!!"

With that said, an army of 80000 men charges toward the seemingly lifeless city.

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"Here they come..." Peeking through the window on the top floor of a three-stories building, I catch a glimpse of the light signal emitting from the Witches high above. "Seems like the Princess is right, they forgo scouting entirely and chose to send the main force in, all at once."

A whistle is heard, coming from one of the soldiers under my lead, he says. "Well, that's both scary and exciting at the same time, don't you think? Four divisions versus one, not counting their rear echelons, we're outnumbered four to one. And you just have to pick up the frontline job for us again, Sergeant Hartmann."

I shrug. "According to the words of Princess General at the briefing, 'Four to one? Then it's an even fight.', I would say that we will be just fine. And once again, you agree to put up with my insanities so deal with it like a man. Lest I rescind that medal recommendation for you that I sent last night."

The jesting soldier pales, much to the delight of his squadmates. "Please don't, Erika, I know my fault." He puts his palms together to beg. If that doesn't work, then a kowtow.

"Fine, I won't. But enough of the jokes, are the charges in place and ready?" I ask the demolition expert of the team, a female Dwarf that has a penchant for explosions. I struggle to hide a grimace when I see her juggling a few sticks of dynamites. The rest choose to wisely ignore her antics, it works, most of the time.

"This great me here has placed a buttload of boomsticks, securely and covertly, they won't know what hit them till it's too late. And don't worry, the quality is indisputable." At least she is very reliable when it comes to stuff like this.

I then tell them to proceed to get back to their fighting positions while I mull over the plan once last time. The Princess opted to station us, defenders, a bit distance away from the gates, meaning the enemy is allowed to secure the perimeter city blocks. Thus, letting their force an easy way to get inside the city. Why did she do that then? Well, it's to trap them here for some time. The Belka-Ustio front is leaning into our favor right now, give them a week then the Belka armies will come to help us out. Not to mention the reinforcement coming by sea, their cannons can bombard the Ustians into submission by the sound alone. Anyway, I digress.

In short, stall the Ustians here by making them invest too much in the siege. Wait for reinforcement either by land or sea. Trap them from both sides. Take them out in one fell swoop. That's the grand plan.

As for the short action plan for us right now? Well, we're setting up a trap for the spearhead group of the enemy. The road we are stationed on is but one of many that can lead to the city square, so, we set up explosives traps. One is at a footbridge where the enemy's approaching from, the other is at end of this road, it's another three-stories building. Once a sufficient number of enemy troops have gathered below us, my squads will detonate the charges. By collapsing the two structures, they will be stuck between two piles of rubble and with us having the high ground, their defeat is guaranteed.

And I'm sure that other places in the city will have a similar scenario, if not a more effective one.

My mulling are cut short when I heard the rumbling of tank treads in the distance. It seems like the Ustians still have some fight left in them. I quickly inform my subordinates using a spell called thought transmission. For the current me, it's very mana-intensive magic, though those that are skilled with it can hold a two-way conversation for dozens of minutes at once. Anyway, I decided that the moment the tank moved beneath the explosives-rigged building, we will enact the ambush. Hit hard and fast before chucking some more explosives to cover our retreat. Lest we got overran by the next wave of infantries.

With our course of action planned, it's now a waiting game. By that, we have to wait for another tense ten freaking minutes due to the dilly-dallying of the Ustians. Blasted soldiers couldn't even arrive on time, still, they do arrive in force. I peek and see an FCM down there, no wonder artillery didn't take it out outright, and four squads of infantries trailing behind it. Judging from the formation, it seems like they are the advanced force, meant to push ahead to secure the frontline, while a separate force follows behind them, clearing building by building. If the spearhead force gets intercepted, the one behind them can move up to reinforce. For that, we wouldn't allow it.

As the tank approaches its end of the line, I duck down to take cover, only to take in the sight of a dwarf with a shit-eating grin. "Seriously? You're the one on duty today?"

"Well, I lost that poker game so now I'm stuck guarding your delicious back-side. Ain't it fun?"

"Not when you keep throwing your boomstick in front of my face." I complained to no avail. The dwarf keeps juggling her boomsticks much to my chagrin. Are all dwarf this...explosive?

"Hence it's fun! Anyway, it seems like the tank reached its final destination."

I'm about to say something when multiple explosions ring out, thus signifying the destruction of the three-stories building. I can feel the entire thing topple over on the tank as chunks of concrete slamming on top of the thing. No doubt the thing is buried under six feet of building material now. Then, the second series of explosions take place, this time bringing down the footbridge. Some unfortunate souls seem to get caught by the blast also, as I can hear their mournful screams of pain.

"That's our cue then!" I spring up, uncorking an M24 grenade, then pops it out the window. "Frag out!" The same warning is also heard multiple times from different directions.

This time, a chain of smaller explosions appears below us. That will surely knock the Ustians off their feet for a bit. So, I take this time to poke out the window and start blasting my Mp 35 at them. The dwarf, Lola, is also doing the same, just with her using the C96E. On the other side of the street, many of my subordinates are also doing the same.

Spotting a blue coat that is giving out orders, I align my ironsight on his body and fire a quick burst. The officer gets hit by a few 9mm bullets and gets thrown down on the ground with force. His body is dragged into cover by a soldier, though I doubt he can survive that. With the high-priority target taken out, I discharge my magazine on any target that pokes their body part out. Doesn't take long for me to run dry and have to reload.

"Hey boss lady," Lola calls out as she ducks down to reload also, dodging a return fire in the process. "they're trying to breach the building!"

"Then it's their death in doing so!"

Knowing that they will try to storm us from the ground level. I arrange a few guys down on the ground to keep them in check. With the Ustians here only having rifles, they will stand no chance against our automatic weapons in CQC. And true to my thought, attempts at breaching our buildings backfire splendidly, hastening the Ustians' demise.

I and Lola quickly use up our second magazine and that's when I notice that the enemies are basically dealt with. The majority of the infantries are now dead or bleeding out, blood and bodies part splattered all over the place. While the tank, well, seems like its crew are still alive but are stuck, they're banging for help as I'm thinking.

And though the combat here is done, I can still hear fightings from all over the city. "All squads, check fire and prepare to move out." My subordinates cease firing, per usual they should be running a headcount now as they're preparing to move out. "Lola, pop your boomsticks, I want that tank gone for good, not just stuck there. The rest of you, clear the blast zone."

"With pleasure, boss!" Lola then pulls out two of her boomsticks, after making sure her allies are out of the danger zone, she brings them to her lips and breathes fire on their detonation cords. With a maniacal grin on her face, she chucks them at the exposed engine block of the tank, shouting. "Explosion!"

As if on cue, the boomsticks go out with a fiery bang. Even though Lola calls them boomsticks, I think it's much more suited to be named incendiary stick. As, after the initial blast goes off, it leaves behind a sticky flame substance that actually makes the Princess exclaims in shock. And I quote: "What in the actual fuck!? You made napalm into sticks!?"

Although the Princess got a lecture from Instructor Bryn because of her bad choice of words. She's pretty much impressed by the display of our explosion maniac. Hence, she invests a few bucks into Lola, allowing her to make more of the stuff and to research more on the potential of the weapon she made for fun.

Back to the present, the napalm sticks stubbornly and has spread out on the pile of rubble, seeping to the tank and through the engine block. Effectively ignites its fuel storage and starts cooking up the crew inside. If you listen carefully, past the raging sound of flame, you can hear the scream of the crew as they're melting alive. I mutter a silent prayer for them to the Mother Goddess before packing up and evacuating the building alongside my two squads. Now we move to the next defensive point, leaving nothing but corpses behind us. Those and booby-trapped buildings, just like how the Princess General wants it.

"For every building they clear, they must clear with blood, tears, and sweats." That's what she said in the briefing.