We Are Still Standing
In the Imperial Capital of Eisenburg.
The grand conference hall of the Imperial Palace hung not with the blessed carols of Christmas Eve, but with a silence closer to a funeral parlor. The only sounds to be heard were the intermittent clatter of a typewriter and the groans of the staff officers.
"...Sector 4 has fallen. The 12th Division is in retreat."
"Communication with Fortress 5 has been lost. Presumed annihilated."
It was a litany of grim tidings. Across the enormous operational map, the blue flags symbolizing the Imperial Army were being pushed back without mercy, while the red banners of the Republic surged forward like an avalanche.
"The Western Front is... effectively finished."
The one to break the silence was Imperial Chancellor Count Leopold.
"The 3rd Corps has disintegrated, and its surviving troops have lost their chain of command and are fleeing in rout. We must acknowledge it, Your Majesty. The border defense line has been breached."
The face of Emperor Ferdinand IV, seated at the head of the table, twisted in anguish.
"And so... you would have me abandon the West? Hand its people and its territory over to the enemy?"
"This is the moment that demands triage and concentration of force."
Leopold was cold-blooded.
"If we recklessly dispatch reinforcements now, they will simply be defeated in detail. We must cede the West and construct a new defensive line centered on the capital, Eisenburg. One must surrender the flesh to keep the bone."
"But—!"
"The Chancellor speaks with reason."
Field Marshal Ludwig von Stahlberg, Commander-in-Chief of the Imperial Army, was the next to speak. The Emperor's gaze locked onto him.
"Even you, Field Marshal? Is your own daughter not... on the Western Front?"
Ludwig's brow twitched almost imperceptibly. He could hardly have been unaware of the fact that the 7th Brigade, which included his daughter Erika, had been rushed to the westernmost point of the Western Front—Rosenheim.
But he was the Empire's Field Marshal before he was a father.
"...Private sentiment must be set aside. Militarily speaking, Rosenheim has most likely already been erased from the map."
Ludwig tapped the small dot on the map with his baton—Rosenheim.
"This is where the enemy's main thrust, the 2nd Corps, struck head-on. A hell into which they committed three hundred tanks and fifty thousand men. In contrast, our defensive forces amount to a single infantry brigade and remnants of the routed 3rd Corps—no more than five thousand at best."
A tenfold disparity in numbers. And it was bare-knuckled infantry against the newest mechanized formations.
"Three days have passed since communications went dark. Three days is... ample time for a brigade to be annihilated and its corpses buried beneath the snow. It is far too late to hope for a miracle."
Ludwig's voice was dry, yet thick with grief.
"Hmm..."
The Emperor sank deep into his throne. Abandoning the West was an agonizing decision—but it beat losing the capital.
"...Very well. We shall proceed as the Chancellor proposes. Order the whole army: abandon the Western Front and concentrate at Capital Defense Command—"
It was the very moment the Emperor struggled to give the order.
"Your Excellency! Field Marshal! Urgent transmission!"
A signals officer tore off his headset and came sprinting into the hall.
"Outrageous! What is the meaning of this behavior, during a council of war?!"
Chancellor Leopold roared, but the officer, gasping for breath, poured out his words.
"F-from the Western Front... from Rosenheim... a transmission has come through!"
In that instant, a dead stillness seized the great hall. Field Marshal Ludwig shot to his feet.
"Rosenheim? Their communications network should have been utterly destroyed!"
"O-our intercept unit, monitoring enemy lines, caught it! An emergency broadcast, encrypted with our own army's code!"
"Someone is alive? Is it Brigadier General Dietrich? Or my daughter, Erika?"
Urgency bled into Ludwig's voice. If the brigade commander was alive, the chain of command still held.
But the signals officer shook his head with a troubled expression.
"N-no, sir. The sender is... not Brigadier General Karl von Dietrich."
"Then who?"
The officer held out the decoded message with trembling hands.
"The transmission code identifies... Company Commander Max Jäger, 2nd Company, 1st Battalion. A Captain."
Max Jäger. The moment the name fell, Ludwig's eyes narrowed.
That rat of a man. The schemer so adept at self-preservation, so busy guarding his own rice bowl—he had sent a transmission in this situation?
"What does it say? A request for rescue? Or perhaps a petition for permission to surrender?"
Chancellor Leopold asked with something like a sneer. It was the natural order of things. After three days of isolation, the only message a band of stragglers could send would be a scream begging for their lives.
"N-none of those, sir. I will read the telegram exactly as it stands."
The signals officer swallowed drily and read the report out, word by word.
TO: Imperial Army High Command
FROM: Captain Max Jäger
—
As of this hour, the culminating point of the enemy 2nd Corps' offensive has been confirmed.
The enemy vanguard armored battalion has been annihilated. The follow-on infantry regiment has been shattered. The Republican forces have stalled at the outskirts of Rosenheim and are dug in, maintaining the encirclement.
We are still standing.
However, we request the rapid procurement of coffee, 88mm armor-piercing shells, and bonus pay.
Furthermore — Glory to the Empire.
...Silence.
A silence of an entirely different pitch from the one before it—a silence of shock—struck the great hall.
"...What did you say?"
The Emperor asked back with a dazed expression.
"The enemy offensive... has stopped? The armored battalion is annihilated?"
It was an unbelievable report. No—it was a report that must not be believed. A rabble of mere footsoldiers had turned back the Republic's furious assault—the armored offensive that had the Empire trembling in fear?
And what in the world was that phrasing? No begging for rescue—coffee and bonus pay, of all things.
"Heh, heheh..."
Field Marshal Ludwig let out a disbelieving laugh.
"That insane... rat of a man."
With trembling fingers, he drew out a cigar and set it between his lips. It was before the throne, but no one pointed out the impropriety. Every nerve in the room was fixed on that lowly captain, buried in some western gutter a world away.
"Your Majesty."
Ludwig's thick voice split the great hall.
"The defense plan must be revised."
Whooosh. Cigar smoke billowed from his mouth.
"The West is not dead yet."
Leopold, quick as ever to read the situation, immediately shot back.
"This is deception! It could be an enemy trap. An isolated unit asking for coffee—are you in your right mind?"
"Which is exactly why it's genuine, Chancellor."
Ludwig ground out his cigar as he spoke.
"Men who file false reports beg for their lives, or inflate enemy numbers that don't exist. But look at this fellow. Coffee? Bonus pay? This is... leisure. It's audacity—thrown straight in our faces."
Ludwig's finger tapped the sole blue dot on the map—Rosenheim.
"He knows. He knows that at this moment, he holds the Empire by the throat. He is raising the stakes so that we cannot abandon him."
"B-but..."
"Your Majesty."
Ludwig bowed his head toward the Emperor.
"It is time to place the bet. The Republic's tiger has its ankle caught in the trap that rat has set. The more they thrash, the deeper the wounds. If not now, the chance will never come."
Light returned to the eyes of Emperor Ferdinand IV. The single ray of good news to fall upon a battlefield steeped in defeat. To an Emperor who loved heroes and thirsted for victory, Max Jäger's insolent telegram was the finest Christmas gift imaginable.
"Good. We grant it."
The Emperor rose from his throne.
"Dispatch two divisions of the Capital Defense Army to the West at once! The Air Force, the supply units—every last one of them, turn them all toward Rosenheim!"
"Your Majesty! The capital will be left bare!"
"It matters not! Didn't that Captain say he wanted coffee? Our Empire's hero is thirsty—what kind of Emperor would I be to hand him water?"
He swept on, heedless of the Chancellor's alarm.
"Send the finest first-flush beans from the New World. And tell him this: if he holds, I shall give him not coffee but my entire wine cellar!"
The Emperor's booming laughter rang through the great hall.
"Let every soldier of the Empire hear! Before Christmas arrives—"
"Let them hear a triumphal hymn ring out over Rosenheim!"
The moment the Emperor's declaration fell, the great hall burst into motion. The logistics bastions of the frozen capital, Eisenburg, began to turn at a terrifying pace, and the Empire's proudest elite formations started to move without a moment's delay.
But before those grand promises of triumph could be fulfilled—
The reality of Rosenheim, that hell on the Western Front, was still a gutter.
"...Goddammit. I'm actually going to die."
Leaning against a heap of collapsed rubble, I spat out a mouthful of blood. The briny taste of iron, the grit of dirt, and a cold snowflake mingled in my mouth into a revolting harmony.
Status Analysis.
The status window helpfully spelled out, in plain text, that my body was on the verge of going on strike.
The price of forcibly blowing open my mana circuits was brutal. Driving ultra-high-output mana through my nervous system without regard for neuroplasticity felt like having my brain cells seared in real time—and the sub-zero cold drove an ice pick into every one of those burned-out nerve endings.
"Captain... you're bleeding too much. Your face is so cold, too..."
Hanna wiped my face with trembling hands.
"I'm fine. I'm not dying. Nobody knows my condition better than I do."
I took Hanna's shivering hands and placed them on my shoulder, then forced the corners of my mouth upward.
It was a lie, of course. Status Analysis was broadcasting the wreckage of my nervous system in real time.
But that damned passive skill, Strong Mind, had my consciousness by the collar and was dragging it along. If I were about to die, it could at least knock me out—but then again, this was the one moment it proved its usefulness.
"Hanna."
I tipped my chin toward the spot beside me.
"Come here."
"Y-yes, Captain."
Hanna burrowed into my arms without hesitation. The moment her body pressed against mine, a fraction of sensation returned to my frozen limbs.
"Are you warm now, Captain?"
Hanna asked, nuzzling her face against my chest.
"I am. Turns out I had my own stove all along."
I stroked her hair.
"Let's just... stay like this a little longer. I can't very well pass out in front of everyone like an idiot."
That was when it happened.
"Captain!"
Gunter came scrambling over the rubble, out of breath. That oblivious bastard—read the room for once.
But the look on his face was anything but ordinary.
"What is it? Are they coming again?"
"N-no, sir! It's... the sky! Look at the sky!"
VVVVVVRRRRR—!!
The sound reached us almost in the same instant.