GATE
Medieval Mercenaries in Another World

Chapter 5: Here We Are Lost, And Our Sole Punishment Is Without Hope To Live On In Desire


To our most holy father,

The armies of Yurochka Kaiser have after their victory in claiming the hill called Alnus approached a small village by the name of Coda. Their messengers have informed me that they will continue to explore the area surrounding the hill and gain a proper foothold in this so-called Empire.

However, days have passed without any updates arriving in the newly raised Fort Alnus.

This has led me to carry a small amount of worry for the men involved, though I am sure that whatever has transpired the warriors will have our Lord and Savior, oh Jesus Christ, watching them and protecting them from afar. As we wait for their word however we continue to send further support through the gate in the form of supplies, reinforcement as well as new mercenary groups and soldiers who have answered the call from throughout the Holy Roman Empire of the German Nation...


"You want to do what?!"

It appeared that the Captain's plan had not been approved by his advisor who, after having heard it by the wizard's hut, had decided to take hold of his master and lead him away to an alley where he could show his dismay in peace.

"You want to fortify the village and defend it against a dragon? Have you lost your mind! This is a creature of such immense power that we have not yet seen ever since we arrived here!"

"Evacuation won't work," Yurochka said, as he had said before, just as firmly. "The dragon is simply too fast and too dangerous to put a convoy out at the risk of being ambushed by it. If we fortify the village we can at least stand a chance, especially since we would be without mortars if we tried to defend while on the carriage."

Xalvador let go of the commander and backed up, a noise of frustration escaping his lips before he moved his hands through his hair in annoyance.

"And what of the people? How are you going to keep them out of harm's way?"

"Xalvador, do you honestly think I don't know what I'm doing?!" Yurochka suddenly raised his tone. "Keeping them out of harm is precisely why I asked that witch if she can manipulate the ground! Not only can she be of help to create quick but capable make-shift fortifications but she could also create an underground shaft where the villagers can hide in safety."

Xalvador straightened his back and appeared to calm down, mostly because the Captain's explanation had taken him off-guard.

"Wait." He began. "You- You plan to create an underground… safe-room?"

"That," Kaiser said through clenched teeth. "Is precisely what I mean to do. It won't be perfect, but it'll work."

"Well it'll ensure the villagers' and our civilians' safety, that's the part of your plan I can actually agree with!" The alchemist raised his voice once more.

"But will that be enough for the rest of you? Do you really think you can defeat a- A dragon?"

"No," Kaiser said as he began to move away from his advisor. "But we'll have to try."

With that the next step was obvious. The village chief alongside everyone else had to be informed of the plan. At first, there were protests and disagreement as the people understandable considered the plan to be ridiculous. However, once Lelei was informed of what exactly the Captain wanted to do she spoke up that she agreed with the plan.

That was enough to make the people stop and reconsider, leading to further discussions where eventually the village chief agreed to the plan. If anything it would ensure that even if the village was destroyed and the soldiers killed the people would be safe to later re-emerge from the "safe-room".

The safe room in question was the very first thing they focused on, with Leilei beginning by shaping the ground before her with whispers and incantations into stairs that slowly moved deep underground.

Once deep enough she continued to use her magic to form something akin to a mineshaft, which the mercenaries and their civilian staff made sure to reinforce by quickly building the necessary support beams so as to ensure it wouldn't collapse once the villagers were hiding inside.

Once finished, though it took a few hours, the villagers were moved in with enough supplies to survive for days if necessary. From there Lelei was instructed to help with fortifying the village, first strengthening the walls and adding towers and then moving on with creating a system of trenches.

"Trenches?" Lelei had asked by the planning table, prompting Xalvador to turn towards Kaiser and ask what he should tell her.

"The primary danger of the dragon is its fire." He said, clasping his hands together and holding them out. He spread his fingers and moved his hands away from each other and waved towards the table, most likely trying to simulate the dragon's fire.

"While my men have all been instructed not to wear metal armor, as it most likely would not be of enough help but also because it could potentially be super-heated once struck by the fire, its danger still remains. Our best bet is to lure the dragon into the middle of the village so that those on the walls and towers may attack it from afar. However, that means that the main force of infantry, as well as a small number of cannoneers, must be present in the middle."

"My idea is simple. By having firelancers and hand-cannoneers on the walls and towers and infantry and mortar-men in the middle we will be able to attack all around the dragon, with the warriors in the middle ensuring the creature focuses on them. But to absolutely ensure their safety, digging trenches and ditches is a necessity as it will allow them to quickly dodge the dragon fire. Especially if we can add tunnels as well."

Xalvador tried his best to explain these tactics to Lelei and by the time he finished he could almost swear he saw her eyes sparkling with excitement as if the tactics had both astonished and impressed her.

The rest of the day focused on following Yurochka's instructions exactly, eventually leading to Coda Village now being properly fortified. Eventually, horsemen arrived to inform that, indeed, the dragon was coming… and the time to fight was now.

As they awaited the dragon they made sure to stay low. Their horses had been hidden away just like the villagers so as to make sure they wouldn't be frightened and run off once the dragon arrived.

And arrived it eventually did, flapping its wings and making its way towards the village.

"Be ready." Captain Kaiser instructed the soldiers that hid with him in the trench. Multiple ones had been dug all around the village, connected by tunnels accessed within them.

Kaiser held his hand out towards Laureline, whose own hands were placed upon the mortar-bombard. She was adjusting its sights, clearly a bit nervous and puzzled at the task of aiming it so it could hit a target in the sky rather than a grounded target far away. It didn't help that the target was a dragon.

Kaiser glanced at her, ignoring her presence as a woman for now and simply accepting her presence as a soldier. His eyes went back towards the sky where the dragon came ever closer… until he raised his hand and swung it downwards as his voice called out.

"FIRE."

With lit matches, the soldiers within every trench fired upon the beast above them, mortar fire flying straight at the dragon and exploding directly upon impact and earning the howl of pain and anger all while multiple shots from firelances peppered it continuously until every single gun had been fired.

The fire dragon landed with a crash in the middle of the village and began to take in air through its mouth, hellfire building up from the inside.

"Inside the tunnels, quick!" Fire followed them as they all dived into safety away from the exposed trench, to which those in the towers and on the fortified walls took the opportunity to assault the dragon from all around.

As Kaiser exited the tunnel with his team into one of the other trenches he quickly glanced up to see how the battle was going. The other firelancers and cannoneers were firing at will, with the other trench teams firing mortars while they could. A sort of rhythm had begun where one team would reload and the other would fire.

But it didn't seem to work. While the mortar fire did indeed seem to cause pain and anger for the beast they barely left a scratch and the much smaller shots of the hand-cannons and firelances appeared to only bounce off the scales.

The Captain swore, something unbefitting of a faithful Christian such as himself. At the very least the hand-cannoneers proved enough distraction for the others to prepare and fire their mortars.

Mortars that once more were barely leaving a scratch. Handcannons fired and to no avail. "Prepare a team of infantry!" Yurochka roared, a sign of his desperation, as his own men readied spears and rushed towards the dragon as it focused on sending its fires towards one of the other trenches. Some were hit by its tail, hurt badly once they fell to the ground if not even dying outright by the impact, but some did indeed reach its body and tried to attack its underside in hopes that it wouldn't be as protected.

It didn't work. The dragon even laid itself flat down, crushing those that had dared to place themselves under it, and then sent a clawed paw into the ground and dug into one of the tunnels. With an opening, it fired down at those who had fled inside...

"N-no! Merde!" Yurochka turned to his side, seeing the redhead Laureline by his side. He'd note that this was the first time he had heard her voice and its French accent.

"Captain!" She shouted at him, placing a hand on his shoulder and holding him down as she turned to face him. "Allard was in that tunnel! He's dead and we just lost half of our ammunition from that alone, this isn't going to work anymore!"

"We have to keep going." He replied, almost too quiet in the chaos. "We- We have to keep going! We have no choice!"

"We have a choice Kaiser and it's retreating! The townsfolk are safe in the space you had made for them and that's enough for me. We have to leave and find somewhere to hide, the dragon might even let us go since it's already taken out most of us. There's nobody else but us and corpses. Our only choice is retreat."

"N-no!" The Captain shouted. "No! If it wishes to open its mouth at us and breathe fire I say we round up what mortars we have left and fire back into it. That could work!"

Laureline spat on the ground next to the Captain. "Then you'll have to do that alone. My men, because now when Fredrick is dead they are my men, will not keep dying for a lost cause." Taking a brass horn out from her belt she pressed it against her lips and sounded it.

"Retreat!" She said, leaving rifles and cannons as she and her men began to struggle in an attempt to escape.

"Captain what about us?!" Joachim came by his Captain's side. "Do we keep at it?"

For a moment he did not know what to say. Yurochka closed his eyes and breathed in, as he had seen Xalvador do a few times, and opened his eyes as he now felt ready to reply.

"Round up as many of the mortars as you can and move them up above this trench. I then want all of you to retreat with the cannoneers."

"Sir?"

"You are to leave me by the trench, Joachim. You, Kolya, and the others. You are to leave me to fire at the bastard's open mouth as it comes to claim my life. Do you understand?"

"Sir I don't-"

"Do you understand my orders, Lieutenant?!"

"...yes sir."

Joachim paused and stared at his Captain's face. "Captain." He placed his hands on Yurochka's arms. "It was an honor to serve you."

He got up and relayed the orders and the soldiers left began to move the mortars over from whatever tunnel or trench that was still accessible. Once they were rounded up and lifted unto the ground overlooking the trench they looked at their Captain, nodded, and began to run for safety.

"Well then, you bastard!" Xalvador said, taking one of the hand-cannons that Laureline had left and clumsily fired it at the Dragon to gain its attention.
"It's just us two! I'm here and I know you want me dead! Roast me with your hellfire you beast!"

The metal ball bounced off on its nose and Yurochka took note that one of its eyes had been hit by an arrow. Shite, he thought. If he had noticed that sooner perhaps things would be ending differently.

The beast finally began to open its mouth and the Captain already saw the glow of fire in the back of its throat. He moved the lit match he had used on the hand-cannon towards the many mortars in front of him.

"In the name of god smile you-" As the mortars were fired, the dragon's own fire came towards him.

Then everything went black.


"...what?"

Yurochka Kaiser's first action awake was to move his hands upwards, his eyes squinting as he attempted to adjust to the light of his new surroundings. His hands seemed blurry for a moment before finally they appeared much clearer and revealed bandages covering his arms and fingers. It was at this point he realized he was laying down and promptly made the decision to turn and try to learn the answer to the question he had asked.

It hurt a bit, moving, but he quickly saw that he was inside a tent of some kind. A medical tent most likely, like those set up during the Hussite conflict.

He recognized a few faces but noted that the tent wasn't large. Besides himself, the only ones in beds were barely a handful...

Noting that they were all being cared for not by just their civilian staff but by some of the villagers as well Kaiser began to inspect the medical tent even further until he finally found the blue hair of the village's witch and to which he spoke out loud enough for her, calling her name.

"Lelei! Lelei!" It was the second time he said her name that he gained her attention and she finally began to approach him, holding the staff she had been using during the fortifying process.

"Lelei I need you to find Xalvador, I need to know exactly what happened." He tried to explain even though the girl didn't seem to respond to his words, blankly staring at him once she had arrived at his bed.

"Lelei, Xalvador. Do you understand?" With these simpler words he hoped she'd get the idea, language barrier or not but instead, she held her hands out towards his body as a faint blue glow began to emit out of them.

"Wait, no!" He protested, holding his hand out and raising his tone. "Lelei no, that won't be necessary!"

"Lelei you can't heal me, I- I can't accept that- I'm a Christian-"

The girl placed a hand over his mouth and a finger over her own before placing both of her hands carefully around his own. She began to gently remove the bandages from him, revealing no damage or scars upon his skin.

"Xalvador." This was the only word she spoke before she nodded and went on her way.


"I'm glad you're still with us Captain," Xalvador said as he seated himself next to the bed. "And I don't say that lightly. When you sent your men away and stayed to take on the beast- It was foolish, but it was also an action that shows character."

Yurochka kept his eyes upwards and stared blankly at the tent's ceiling, keeping quiet and focusing on breathing.

"...almost everyone is dead with the only ones alive being the few that you sent away and those that fleed with the cannoneers. They're still here, by the way, we've made a small camp around what's left of the village."

The Captain began to sit up and gave Xalvador a look. "I see."

Xalvador sighed before he continued. "Some of your men want them to be punished for leaving against your orders."

Yurochka shook his head. "No. They- They went against my orders but their decision made sense. How are the people?"

Xalvador shrugged. "Nobody was hurt. People got scared when the ground began to shake but the room you had Lelei made for us worked. That woman, the one with the ears, woke during the commotion.

"Really? Then you know her name?"

Xalvador nodded. "Tuka Luna Marceau. I suggest the both of us talk to her later."

The Captain laid back down. "What about the dragon?"

"...it left. The mortars you fired into its mouth must have either hurt it enough to flee... or it grew bored of you and left. You had been burned badly but the cannons you fired cut the fire off halfway."

"So I was lucky..."

"...or." Xalvador held a finger up. "Or it's a miracle. Maybe God decided to show you mercy... so you could remember and learn from this battle."

"I know... I know you lost a lot of men, Captain. Barely anyone from the scouting party but the civilian staff are still alive. You'll probably have to pay a lot of money just to replace everyone... but know this. You saved the locals. All of them. Not a single civilian has been hurt because you decided to have Lelei make that safe-room."

"Think on that." Xalvador stood up. "And once you're ready to leave your bed come find me. While some of the villagers have decided to travel towards the forts of their local lords and nobles some wish to come with us back to Fort Alnus. That and... we have a visitor. One that I want you to talk to only when you are of clear mind.

"...a visitor?" Yurochka said with a raised eyebrow.

"I'm serious about that, you need to be clear-headed and calm when you talk to her. She's- The people here call her an oracle, a pagan religious figure."


Editor's Notes

I admit, for a moment I planned this to be the chapter where the dragon died simply because I wanted to get rid of it as early as possible and I thought I could explain its death as something the Mercs did not because they are better than the JSDF but because their limitations made them so desperate. However, a comment we'll discuss in a moment below changed my mind to the point where I went back and re-wrote the chapter to the state I'm now uploading it. Remember that I write these chapters ahead of time so I have quite a few ready whenever one is uploaded, so the idea of going back to change a chapter I was done with was something I had to seriously consider before deciding to do so.

Before I continue these notes let's tackle the comments.

User "gangbang-midnight" writes the following:

"For the first three chapters, the story proved itself to be the one with an interesting idea, execution and potential... I applaud the historical accuracies and how some characters are presented, but of course - I have my gripes with it..."
"I heavily suggest that you start fleshing out your characters more, show their emotions and personalities - whether it's simple as a rock or complex."
"It'll improve the story and make the people who are in it more human and memorable... I also suggest doing proper world-building in the realm of Falmart, yes, it already has been built beforehand and expanded upon, but it has a single advantage if executed correctly - it will make for a much more immersive read."
"To describe the lands of Falmart, to write it out in a way that works along the main story and narrative or dialogue would make this story more excellent."
"Now for the battles which you've admitted to struggle with - I suggest writing it as a historian would, with the already existing elements of battle."
"Maybe show brutality, maybe the superiority in discipline and organization that our lovely mercs have..."
"That is all. I'm awaiting the next chapter for whats about to come, so keep goin lad!"

Thank you, oh midnight of the gangbang. I very much appreciate the overall positive tone of your comment, it helps me stay motivated and makes it easier to take criticism.

And your criticism is quite logical and honestly helpful. I will strive to expand upon my characters and move towards making them more colorful and interesting in future chapters, though I apologize if that takes a bit of time since once again I write these chapters ahead of time.

I will also try to tackle battles in a more interesting fashion or as you said, write it as a historian would. Hopefully, the defense against the Fire Dragon proved more interesting than previous conflicts.

This leads me to the next comment from the user "Qun Nguyn1":

"Interesting story but the numbers or lack of numbers don't add up."

"Medieval European nations are small. Therefore, armies of that period almost never numbered more than 10,000 per engagement."
"Kingdom of Bohemia population is about 2 million. The Empire alone outnumbers Bohemia 20 to 30 times and have superior logistics."
"They are basically Roman Empire with fantasy elements. There technology also seems to be late medieval."
"Hand cannon is not machine gun. Shooting something flying at 200-300 km/h at 15 to 500 meters above with hand cannon is very hard if not impossible."
"The wyverns tactics seem to be throwing rocks from above. Quite deathly. But they are mostly use for reconnaissance. So Falmart have superior intelligence gathering capabilities."
"What I want to say is your mercenary army win the battle suprisingly easy. So either the Imperial army has casualties rate of less than 10 percent or the Empire send a suprisingly small army, no more than 30,000."

"The Imperial army in manga also has a stupid level of fanaticism surpassing even the IJA. Their army literally charges into machine guns. Their technology is poorly written." "They clearly have medieval level technology but using outdated Roman equipments."
"I can accept some level of plot armor but you better have a good reason why a mercenary army can constantly win against an enemy with vastly superior number and logistic."
"The only good reason I can think of is the Empire is fighting someone else."
"War is expensive, mercenary isn't cheap so unless the Pope declares a holy crusade."
"You will never have the necessary manpower to defeat the Sadera Empire, an gigantic nation the size of Africa. Just read the wiki, the Empire is huge."

"About the Fire Dragon, this son of bitch is bad news. It's basically a flying tank."
"No hand cannon can penetrate its thick scale. The Panzerfaust 3, designed to defeat the Soviet T-72 and T-80 main battle tanks, barely penetrates the Flames Dragon."
"The Dragon is unbelievably fast and can breath incredibly hot fire so unless you have Hawkeye or Rory Mercury, shoot that lizard in the eyes is virtually impossible."

Hey there Qun. Allow me to apologize for the mishandling of logistics and numbers, I've removed the number 10.000 from Chapter 3 after reading this comment (though my defense I just took it from the Anime, though I probably should have thought about it more).

Allow me to explain something that I also apologize for seemingly leaving out of the story but will try to make clear in future chapters:

It is not just the Kingdom of Bohemia, actually, the entirety of the Holy Roman Empire is supposed to be involved, and as the story progresses more mercenaries join due to more men being necessary and the promise of wealth attracting many capable warriors.

Again, I apologize for not having made this clearer in the story. I will aim at improving that in the future.

Also, I am sorry that my depiction of hand-cannons and firelances comes across as being like machine guns. I tried to explain in-story that they aren't very accurate by themselves but by volley fire, that is firing multiple guns at one, have a higher chance of striking their targets.

When it comes to the Mercs seemingly doing surprisingly well against a huge empire... that is once more because the Empire carries unrealistic and flawed arms and armor that simply stand no chance against realistic medieval technologies. Yes, I understand that the writing in the source material is poor and that the original story portrays them as foolish... but that is the point of this fanfic. I am taking Anime Fantasy and throwing Medieval Realism at it, or at least an attempt at Medieval Realism.

Number and logistics can only carry the Empire so far, though again I have taken your criticism to heart and will try and make it feel more realistic by slowly increasing the number of warriors on the side of the Mercs.

And finally... the dragon. It's actually your comment that made me change my mind about this chapter and go back and rewrite it before this upload. Thank you, your words made me reconsider what made sense to write.

I also got two comments from the user "TheJackinati275". Since copying and pasting them both here will create a bit of a wall, I'll quote the things I found interesting and wish to reply to directly:

"Regarding padded armour. Gambesons (Or, at least, how many people clasify gambesons) were not worn under maile hauberks."
"At least, not based on the modern categorization of gambesons. In the High-Medieval period, Gambesons were often worn *Over* the maile defensive garment. Not under."
"Additionally, Not pairing padded armour with metal garments is not Illogical at all."
"A decent hauberk or 'suit' of maile will protect you from practically most battlefield implements you'll ever meet on the battlefield that's under ~70-100J, and as a benefit you won't be perspiring like a motherfucker. Gambesons are some serious goddamned sweat traps... I've done enough washing for the old SCA's fucking gambesons that I decided 'Fuck this shit I'm out'. No joke."
"I believe Dan Howard has repeatedly mentioned being struck with full-on sword strikes in a maile hauberk with just a woolen tunic and being fine."

Well shite, I was under the impression that while chainmail was worn over gambesons it was something done by archers and that others wore gambesons under maille and plate armor.

I also didn't think that not wearing gambeson under plate wasn't illogical, since it really seemed helpful to me. Shite, and I made such a big point about it too. If that's the case I'd actually appreciate it if you pm'd me some sources on the subject so I can make some research and ensure I don't make this mistake again.
I was however aware of Jupons, I'll say that much.

"I also don't really buy into the Saderan's using silver armour."
"I'd say that as a writer, you have full lee-way to saying 'Fuck that' to that type of bullshit and just replacing the bullshit with something more palatable."

Yeah, I couldn't come up with a realistic element that explains the paper-like armor, which is why Xalvador explains it's only a "type of silver". Imagine it's some sort of fantasy armor that is like silver but the opposite of Mythril, useless instead of invulnerable.

"And nobody seemingly wears helmets, either."

Oops.

"I highly recommend just ignoring the visual medium, going all 'Fuck you' and just going with something more... 'Real-life' inspired. In the case of my fanfic, I just cheated and went with scutum's lol."

15th century Germans versus accurate fantasy Romans would be fun but that isn't the story I'm going for. Again I'm keeping the dumb Anime elements because the story is meant to point out their silly-ness.

"Another thought. A lot of the guns and cannons in this period of time were not firing metal shot such as lead or iron, but stones."

I was partially aware of this but didn't realize it was on the level you're describing, please imagine that the cannoneers in this story are the exception in this rather and not the rule. Just like Laureline!

Also, you mentioned slings. Damn, I must have forgotten about them, slings are fucking awesome man. Maybe with the Mercs having to replace the members they lost I can introduce some slingers...

Thank you for your comments, Jack! I appreciate that you were so informative with your corrections and facts without being negative about the stuff I got wrong.
That is exactly the sort of criticism I appreciate and listen to. And thank you for following the story still!

No list of inaccuracies this time either, as the Dragon arc kept us away from any discussable topics. See you all next chapter!