Mirak, North Dreisland

Gunfire echoed throughout the narrow tunnel as Marco, Simo, and the rest of the officers lit their way via the muzzle flashes of their pistols. Goblins, squat, unintelligent creatures covered in warts, wielding crudely made swords and other weapons, flung themselves at the hail of bullets. Their efforts ended with piles of dead goblin bodies, some of which regaining some sort of sentience in their final moments. These particular goblins barely managed to utter a single word, which one of the officers translated to be a word of thanks, before succumbing to their wounds.

After traveling a few more meters downward, Simo noted the presence of a second tunnel, crudely dug into the wall of the main tunnel. The Elven officer, who had noticed the presence of goblins in the area first, offered to stay at this intersection as a way to secure the group's exit. Marco agreed, moving on deeper into the underground passageway while another officer ran up towards the exit in order to bring reinforcements.

Eventually, the tunnel widened into a large cave, with what seemed to be ancient statues scattered about here and there. The group scanned the area before noticing a multitude of goblin bodies, all of which showed intense burn marks around their wounds.

"Okay…?" Simo said, still taking in the sight in front of her as she did so. "What the heck happened?"

"Stay on alert, guys," Marco ordered. "I got a bad feeling about this…"

The moment those words left Marco's mouth, however, gunfire suddenly echoed from the passageway behind them. Perhaps the group they left behind got ambushed by more goblins. Perhaps something worse befell them.

Marco attempted to motion to those around him to go back the way they came and aid those behind them, but stopped.

"S-sir!?" one of the officers exclaimed while pointing deeper into the room. "What's that!?"

The remaining officers looked up, then immediately readied their weapons.

The walls began to move.


Shurishima, East Dreisland

A short column of trucks stopped in front of a large ornate gate after they had successfully made their way through the many narrow winding dirt roads of the countryside. Out of one of the trucks appeared General Terumi Katsuragi, a member of the Federation General Staff and former officer of the Imperial Japanese Navy. Once more he had come to pick up volunteers from the local population who enlisted in the Federal Revolutionary Army.

As he waited for the new recruits to get in the trucks, Katsuragi noted the architecture of the village in front of him.

Unlike the buildings in the rest of the nation, those of Shurishima made use of many East Asian aesthetic choices and construction methods. The gate to the village possessed an aesthetic style similar to that of China, while other buildings resembled Japanese urban housing.

The Gate in Okinawa attracted many interesting characters during the time it stood. Aside from Imperial Japanese military and civilians like himself, bandits, samurai, Chinese and Korean merchants, Ryukyu Kingdom Royalists, and many others found a home on the other side. Refugees from times of war, adventurous groups and individuals, and those who simply found themselves lost ended up here. By the time the IJA, IJN, and USMC tore down the Gate, experts estimated roughly 500,000 people crossed through the Okinawa Gate, the vast majority being indigenous Ryukyuans. The number could be even higher, however, due to the self-reported nature of the statistics mentioned above.

Now, as Katsuragi returned to his vehicle, the Japanese-Ryukyuan minority had increased to roughly 2,000,000 people, most of them possessing a mixed bloodline of both Japanese, Ryukyuan, and other local ethnicities. While such a number seems very much inflated at first glance, it also included the descendants of those already residing in Dreisland on top of the 500,000 people who crossed through.

As Katsuragi and his convoy left the village, a smile crept across his face.

The people of Shurishima, and the Japanese-Ryukyuan minority as a whole, had received an exemption from mandatory military service due to their already semi-autonomous nature.

Katsuragi hoped it would stay that way.


Mirak , North Dreisland

Gunfire echoed in the small cave Marco and the other officers ducked behind cover as soon as they could. Out of the walls came two sentinels, humanoid figures made of stone, possessing only a single eye in the middle of their heads and firing beams at the soldiers from their arms.

One of the soldiers screamed as a near miss singed his skin.

Marco clicked his tongue in annoyance before firing another few shots at the sentinels from his Luger. The 9mm bullets simply ricocheted off the sentinels' bodies before Marco received more beams in return. As he and the other officers took cover behind some piles of rubble, Marco shook one of the men next to him to get his attention.

"Go outside and grab one of the grenade dischargers!" Marco ordered. "Our pistols aren't doing anything, and I don't think rifle ammo will be enough! We're going to slam a grenade in their faces!"

"Understood sir!" the officer replied. "I'll get one right away!"

The officer then immediately rushed up the stairs, narrowly avoiding a few beams shot in his direction.

"Right, fellas!" Marco then said. "Keep holding out! And whatever you do don't die!"

Meanwhile, the sentinels continued to advance towards the Federation soldiers, still firing a seemingly never ending stream of beams as they did so. Bullets continued to ricochet off of the sentinels' bodies, but one of them seemed to flinch as a bullet nearly ricocheted into its one eye.

Simo did not miss this detail.

"Everyone!" she exclaimed. "Aim for their eyes! That should at least blind them!"

She fired a few shots at the eye of one of the sentinels, which immediately caused it to stop firing a prioritize blocking the incoming rounds. Seeing this, the remaining officers fired in the direction of each sentinels' eye, forcing both sentinels to shift to the defense.

"Ensign Lettow!" an officer exclaimed. "I'm back!"

"Good! Did you bring the grenade discharger!?"

"Couldn't find one available, sir, but I brought something better!"

The officer then heaved a Browning M2 Heavy Machine Gun mounted on a Maxim M1910 carriage onto their small piece of cover before cocking the bolt handle of the machine gun. Seeing this, Marco called out to everyone else in the room to cover their ears.

Then the .50 Cal opened fire.

Many a bullet found their mark as a hailstorm of .50 caliber bullets tore through the two sentinels, smashing their armor to bits. The deafening noise of the heavy machine gun filled the small room, bullet casings clattering onto the floor in the process.

Soon, the room fell silent as the eyes of each sentinel flickered briefly before going out.

Sighs of relief escaped from the soldiers as the threat passed.

"What in the world were those?" one of them muttered, clearly surprised by the appearance of such powerful enemies.

"No idea," Marco replied, himself also displaying signs of surprise and confusion. "Regardless, we should focus on finding that library. An entrance should be in here somewhere."

Marco then turned to the soldier with the M2.

"Set up the M2 in front of that tunnel next to the stairs," he ordered. "We don't want any more goblins to get in our way."

He then turned his attention to those around him.

"Right fellas," said he. "Take a five minute break, then it's back to work. We don't have all day."


Pallada, temporary Capital of Dreisland

Ordnance Department Building

Lieutenant-General Erhardt Leeds, Chief of Ordnance, found himself with a peculiar report in his hands. The report described a weapons test, done by the Luftwaffe of all people, as well as the results of said test.

Dreisland's Luftwaffe had recently established its own parachutists corps, known as the Fallschirmschützen, and had been testing the concept for around a month. According to the report, the paratroopers complained about how their weapons, the same rifles and other weapons used by the army, failed to suit their needs as paratroopers. The main complaints included the extreme length of the infantry rifles, lack of individual suppressive firepower, and, most importantly, resupply problems.

In particular, the Fallschirmschützen relied heavily on separate drop canisters to transport heavier weapons, such as light machine guns, and light support artillery. They called for, at the very least, a new rifle with the portability and rate of fire of a submachine gun, and the range of a rifle. In service the weapon would theoretically serve as an assault weapon, but needed to be usable in lieu of a light machine gun if necessary.

To summarize, the Fallschirmschützen wanted an assault rifle.

The report described four guns, a Karabiner 98k (in lieu of a Gewehr 85), a PPS-43, a StG-44, and an M2 Carbine, put through a number of tests by the Luftwaffe. These ranged from the usual sand, dust, mud, rust, and other tests, to the rapidity of deployment in the event of a parachute jump. They also tested how quickly and effectively each weapon could perform, and transition between, support, assault, and defensive roles.

Two guns in particular, the Sturmgewehr and the M2, eventually came out on top. Fallschirmschützen soldiers tended to prefer the Sturmgewehr, especially in terms of ground combat, but one particular thing about the Sturmgewehr held the weapon back. In its base form, the Sturmgewehr proved to be difficult to transport via airplane, requiring the weapon to be disassembled before the flight and reassembled once on the ground. From the perspective of those evaluating the tests, this delay seemed too detrimental of a flaw because they thought even a small delay could cause casualties. Favor for the M2 Carbine as an alternative came about from here, which increased further when those testing the guns realized they could mate the M2 Carbine modifications to an M1A1 Carbine. This further increased the portability of the weapon and allowed the carbine to be deployed in combat faster than both the regular M2 and the Sturmgewehr.

Thus, the M2A1 Carbine became the standard assault rifle of the paratroopers, right over the heads of the Ordnance department.

Leeds sighed, before setting the report aside.

Both the Army and Navy now pushed towards adoption of a new rifle to replace its current inventory of bolt actions. From the point of view of the ordnance department, this complicated things. Firstly, non-standard ammunition still circulated amongst the armed forces, and adding another type of ammunition in this confusion would delay any standardization effort further. Secondly, Leeds doubted the industrial capability of the nation to be able to switch production to a new kind of rifle. Finally, a new semi-automatic rifle already found itself being produced for both the Army and Navy despite both organizations now pushing for something else.

Leeds then shifted through the mess of documents before fishing out a file containing a list; a list of all the weapons and equipment the Men in Brown brought with them. After sifting his eyes through the list, two particular names caught his attention.

The Grossfuss Sturmgewehr and the SKS-45 rifle.

Upon reading through the descriptions, Leeds smiled, before reaching for the phone on his desk and dialing both the Minister of the Army and Minister of the Navy.

This man had a plan.


Author's notes:

Hey everyone, it's Karl the Arty, and I'm back with another chapter for my Gate fic. This time there's a little more focus on world building over plot, but writer's block is eating at me again. Regardless, I do know for a fact that I will be introducing a few new factions in the next chapter, one of which being a reviewer nation. I still haven't decided which particular one to use for the next chapter, but the introduction will (ideally) take the form of a diplomatic mission.

Which leads to my next problem. Do you guys like the random arms development/world building segments? I personally enjoy writing them, but they have little to nothing to do with the main plot at this point. Let me know in the comments.

Right, I think that's everything. Thanks for reading, and I'll see you all in the next chapter.

Cheers!

-SPSH Karl