This is a Youjo Senki Fan Fiction Only.

I seem to recall something of a rule, if something can go wrong, it probably will, just as I said that three officers came into the room, I was in no position to salute, damn it, am I glad my parents would never see this, I can still remember having to clean every toilet in a building with just my toothbrush for doing something like that.

"Actually the only thing I would be angry is that you two ended up causing two orbs to blow up, you do realize these things may be small, but they are not exactly cheap. Not that I rather have you or Degurechaff die and leave your orbs intact for the enemy to capture. I would also not like to be the one to explain to the Emperor how one of his relatives ended up committing suicide to buy time for their reinforcements. Why didn't you tell me that you were noble Second Lieutenant?"

I was not happy to hear that, I did manage to learn quite a bit of my supposed father's lineage, and even that some of his relatives were in fact in favor of adopting me, the sisters felt such preferential treatment was unfair so they never gave them the chance.

"My father was never recognized as a noble, officially at least, he was an illegitimate child born from the many times a noble decided to have fun with the young women of lower social status. I was only informed after I asked the Mother Superior. Seeing he was never recognized as far as I knew, I thought it was unnecessary to mention it. I apologize that I can not properly salute or the grief I might have caused, sir."

He clears his throat and I swear I could feel someone trying hard not to laugh, I don't know why I feel this, but I can sure feel it. "No need to apologize, you and Degurechaff have done a valuable service to the Empire, and delayed the enemy long enough for reinforcements to deal with the invading forces."

"Your actions cause two compressed explosions that ended up killing most of the invading enemy, your fall was not as severe large in part to the fact that you fell on the remains of the enemy and the forest that you two ended up destroying. Before you ask, yes, I called you Second Lieutenant, not Warrant Officer because it was decided that since you both were willing to go this far to buy the reinforcements time you both received a field promotion, you would have known this had Tanya not decided to let go of her communication pack."

I wanted to tell him, that it would not matter, the enemy were blocking any communication signals to get through anyway, but I decided it would be more prudent to keep my mouth shut. "As you ended up saving the lives of the Artillery unit, and we have confirmed that you have killed five enemy mages, while Tanya killed four, High Command has decided to also award you both the Silver Assault Badge."

I felt something being placed near me on the mattress, I guess this is them placing the medal near me, damn it, they are doing this to take a picture to raise the morale of our troops, propaganda in other words.

"As such we have informed Degurechaff of this and have told her of her second name, as such we also are here to inform you of yours, we have assigned her Pure Silver as her second name, and yours is Radiant Gold."

This would make any other soldier happy, so happy they were in tears, I wanted to cry truth be told, but not for the reasons they probably thought, I was furious, raging mad would be a close description of my current feelings, the last thing I need is to be dressed up and paraded around like a showpiece.

I rather am somewhere was I could be of service to the Empire, somewhere where I could put my combat skills to better use than be paraded in a constant pooch and pony show. "As such as soon as you two have recovered enough an official ceremony shall be held to award you with the medals and record your second names for prosperity."

No sense in telling him anything else than I would be honored, and grateful for the allotted time for our recuperation. I know Tanya has told me she was a man in her life before being reborn as she is now, and the fact that they will more than likely place her in a dress for this ceremony did not go unnoticed by me, in fact, I think Tanya will find this insulting.

I know for a fact that if they did that to me, I would be even angrier than I am right now. Why do the higher ups need me to be used as propaganda, duty alone should cause our troops to do their very best for the Empire, and I am no hero! I am simply a person doing my duty as expected.

Now if you want a hero, I know of one, he was the cook at our last camp, that guy was a hero, he even manages to make K-Brot edible. I am not saying that it tasted good, it was good enough that I didn't feel like throwing up after I got done eating it.

It took the medics two solid weeks to get us ready to be discharged from their care, and that is when they took us to the ceremony, you have no idea how hard it was for me as I saw the clothes they provided for Tanya, it consisted of a skirt, blouse, and a hat, they had been quite liberal with the use of cosmetics, and I have to admit, they did wonders with that hair of hers, she didn't even have that usual cowlick.

If I was dumber than I was, I would say she looked beautiful or cute at the very least, but as I knew better and I wanted to retain my ability to procreate or simply stand straight, I didn't say a word about it, I knew that the second I said something that stupid, Tanya would kick my family jewels hard enough that they would end up in my throat and I would be choking on them.

"So Karl, are you as happy as me to hear that we are getting assigned back to the front lines? Knowing you, you practically are jumping for the joy of it. Honestly Karl how can you be so for a lack of a better work giddy about going back into combat?"

I was not about to take this comment from her, "And you aren't happy that you don't have to wear makeup, gowns, and uncomfortable shoes? I am not going to hide it, I love the rush I feel when in combat, I love the feeling that every second is precious and I must make every second worth it or I might die."

I continued to clean my rifle as we sat on the train compartment, I figured since this is magic, I might try to do something with my new observation orb, try to use magic on my rifle, if this is magic, transformations, and enchantments should also work in this universe. First I changed how much the ammunition capacity of my rifle, a single bullet could mean the difference between victory or an early grave, I modified my bayonet to act as a retractable blade, and in some circumstances, it could act as a support during sniping.

The real magic was when I tried to figure a way to enchant a simple monocle and made it into for a lack of better terms an auto-tracking sight, the thing with magic here is that I never realized that it was so easy to figure out how to modify or come up with new ways to use it, honestly I think it, a little work and it's like the magic makes whatever I think of just happen.

I kept on working on it, and by the end my rifle must look rather odd, but since we have been sent to the Rhine my new modifications and enchantments would get plenty of chances to test them out and correct any errors I might have made, true trial and error in a combat situation, how can I not feel happy about this?

"You know Karl, I know that you are happy dreaming of your next slaughter of enemies, but I hate to tell you, but the train has stopped and we need to get off." I took my bag and began to follow Tanya, I know Tanya was once a guy, but do I get the feeling that she is upset that I spent so much time working on my rifle and not that much time with her.

We both decided to look for the place we had to report, and I looked at her, "You say that now, but which of us do you think has the highest body count between us? I just hope Vlad is here, you think if someone else is the cook here, or do you mean to tell me you want to taste bread that feels like you are eating sawdust again?"

She stopped and kicked me right in my right leg, "I told you at least a thousand times, I don't want to remember our days in the orphanage. For your information, they didn't have enough flour, so they did put in sawdust into our bread."

She looked at my monocle and she began to shake her head, "Mind telling me what is the deal with that thing? What exactly do you hope to get done other than looking like a total snob."

I looked at her and smiled, "This thing will make it easier for us to survive, I decided to pull something I once read in a fantasy book, this piece of junk has an enchantment to help target the enemy, the enemies of the Fatherland shall have no place to hide from my wrath, not even hell shall provide them with refuge."

I finally saw the tent where our commanding officer was and pointed it out to her, we walked into the tent and saw that there were a few officers talking, more than likely strategy and status of our current situation.

"Sir, 2nd Lieutenants Degurechaff and Sturm reporting for duty!" The man looked like he has been years in the military service, but he still had a bit of kindness in his heart, or at the very least he was extremely able to make others think he did. He told us to come closer as he smiled and pointed at two chairs.

"I acknowledge and welcome you two, relax, we are having a hard enough time without letting formality make the situation worse, after what you two pulled in the Norden Border, I am glad they decided to deploy you under my command. I am not going to mince words our situation here in the Rhine Valley is bad, we are outnumbered and we have been in a constant battle for god know how long. This Valley seems more like a large graveyard than anything else."

I looked at him and indeed I understood what he was saying, "We will do everything in our power to protect our beloved Fatherland, I think from what I managed to hear coming in, the first thing we need to secure are our supply lines, it seems the enemy wants to delay or outright destroy them."

He looked at Tanya and began to smile, "You would be correct Derugechaff, it is as you say, what I would like is a solution to that problem, what do you think we should do about those units aiming to leave us without supplies?" I had an idea but I knew it would be risky, a suggestion by someone with so little military history would not be easily accepted or implemented. I also knew that cowards don't like long.

"I would need one artillery unit, three mages and the help of Degurechaff and I can scout the targets, once we have the coordinates of the enemy artillery, and enemy soldiers we can begin our attack, at the very least we would need to eliminate their artillery and ammo depot, this should give us enough time to receive reinforcements or mount a counter-attack."

I touched my monocle as he began to touch the map on the large table, "And if I don't have that an artillery unit available or the mages? What would you do then?" I looked at Tanya and could not help but to smile, I knew exactly what I would do if that was the case, I would throw caution to the wind and let loose.

"If that is the case, I would suggest 2nd Lieutenant Degurechaff stay here as back up, and I will attempt to deal as much damage as possible on my own, the enemy Artillery and Ammo Depot will be destroyed even if I have to do it myself, and die to try. As long as these two remain the enemy can shell our supply line and make the situation even worse for our fellow soldiers."

I swear Tanya is looking at me with this funny look on her face, "So what exactly am I supposed to do while you go around having fun? Don't even deny it, I can tell you are basically loving the fact that you got an opportunity to let loose and rain fiery hell on the enemy."

I looked at our commanding officer and then at Tanya, "Actually what I would suggest is that you plan the counter-attack, once we take care of those two targets, the enemy will be in disarray and such a perfect opportunity to gain an advantage on the enemy, we might even capture some ground."

Our commander looked at me and then at Tanya, "How long till you destroy your target Sturm, we will need a means to tell when your targets have been dealt with." Tanya began to shake her head as he looked at me, I couldn't help smiling. "I wouldn't worry about that sir, the large explosions of the Ammo Depot will pretty much tell us when he is done with both targets."

He looked at the map and then at me, "That sounds like a good plan, very well Karl you are to deploy immediately, just remember they also have mage hunters on their side, if you feel that it is too much, retreat with your men, we will reorganize our efforts, at current I will take any noticeable damage on the enemy as a blessing. We really are not in the most favorable situation right now."

I touched my monocle activating the enchantment and I took off, soon two others began to follow behind me. I could see the enemy were largely in the trenches, if I could know where the was any tectonic instability, I could cause a major earthquake and bury them, but no luck.

I decided to his the Artillery Unit first, the soldiers were pretty much wondering what I wanted them to do. "Very well men, your job is to act as my bodyguard, buy me time, and while you take care of any enemy ordinance that comes our way, I will deal with the artillery unit."

I loaded one bullet into my bolt rifle and looked at the enemy, "Ye who are silent, from the ages I call you, may fire and brimstone come and rain upon our foe, let the fires of Gehenna become my sword and strike at our foes." I began to feel the magic fill the bullet as I finished saying that, the monocle told me exactly where to hit the enemy and when I pulled the trigger a flash of red and the sound of that followed was not of a rifle being fired, but of horrible beast howling as if they were rushing to devour their prey.

The bullet split into four and each hit exactly the place where I had wanted and I saw through the monocle, this made iron begin to burn and the smoke of the wreckage was causing the enemies to apparently choke as they died trying to breathe. "Well that takes care of one target, we need to take care of one more."