He Died and Receive an Overpowered Tyrant System

Engagement of the Two Armies

"...What?!"

As the noise echoed in their ears, the leading soldiers took the steel blizzard head-on. Blood sprayed through the air as they collapsed into the snow.

The bullet storm was only just getting started. A line of riflemen all pressed the magazine release of their rifles, ejecting the spent magazine while the soldiers manning the M2 Browning kept delivering an incessant hail of bullets. With a drop of the magazine, they reloaded and resumed firing.

Assault rifles, to a world that knew nothing about guns, their rate of discharge was unbelievable. The riflemen tore through the invading army's front line with ease. Brachride forces weren't just taking fire from the gate either.

Projectiles sped from the watchtower, the windows in the walls, and even the ramparts. Barrels poked from every nook in the structure, each hurling death upon one soldier after the next.

About a week had passed since Gustave's Treasured Spear had destroyed part of Eighbury. Since then, Ernest issued a decree, a national defense decree, meaning new arms factories, which has been running ever since, running day in and running day out. Over a thousand of the United National Socialist Party's Protection Squadron were now equipped with modernized gear.

Their rifles held 30 rounds. While the kingdom army has to nock arrows and pull the bowstring and fire, the Protection Squadron soldiers could fire 30 times in rapid succession. In terms of raw numbers, each of them could do the shooting of thirty kingdom troops.

With the overwhelming firepower, the troops crumpled one after another like puppets with their strings cut.

None of them screamed for they couldn't. This wasn't how things were supposed to go. As far as any of Brachride's men had known, there should've been peace and relaxation waiting for them beyond the gate.

Thoughts of safety, spirits, and sustenance had been the only thing keeping those soldiers alive during their perilous journey. Their last hopes dashed, the subjugation forces found themselves unable to process the reality unfolding before them. Their brains simply couldn't simply comprehend it., and because of that, they felt no pain.

Powerless to comprehend, those shots merely keeled over and collapsed. Their commander, Marquis Brachride, was just confused.

'What's...going...on?'

Brachride found themselves being shot at but instead of arrows raining down towards them, it was something more confounding. He looked at one of the recently collapsed soldiers and saw a small round of lead on the ground. What is that? He thought.

Poeta soldiers shouldn't have been attacking them. Was it their enemy, then? Had the kingdom's mysterious foe taken over Poeta with equally unusual weapons?

'No...Impossible' Marquis Brachride dismissed the thought.

Poeta was on high alert. If there had been an emergency, they would have sent messengers, so there was no way an enemy could've stopped the messengers.

Had there been a crisis. Brachride was certain he would've heard of it.

'Just what the hell is going…?'

The colossal amount of information entering Brachride's sight at once shorted out his mind. It was all too incredible to consider, and Brachride stood frozen as the steel blizzard descended upon him.

"MILOOOOOOOORD!!!"

"Ah…! Leinzo?!"

The marquis was not pierced though, however.

A Gold Knight atop a similarly armored horse beside Brachride moved to cover him with his greatshield. Hearing his subordinate's passionate cry snapped Brachride back to his senses.

"Ahhhhhh!!!"

"Wh-what's going on?! Why are the Poeta guys shooting at us?!"

"Eeeeeek!"

The pained and confounded screams of wounded soldiers sounded from all around. Such intense cries seemed to shake the mountain itself. There was no sign of the wretched shrieks letting up, either. If anything, they only intensified with each passing round.

Formations had been broken, and the snow was stained dark with blood. Between the unexpected location of the attack and its startling intensity, the vanguard had been all but annihilated.

"Milord, Poeta must have fallen into enemy hands! Give the orders to charge! They can't take more than fifty stationed at the gate! If we're prepared to make sacrifices we can force our way through!" Leinzo called to Marquis Brachride as he held his greatshield aloft and rode.

The marquis, however…

"...It's no use!"

Shouted the Gold Knight down.

Leinzo was right...charging the gate was sure to pile on the casualties, but they could probably make it. The more significant issue was what would come afterward.

Even at a glance, Brachride could see the enemy had troops stationed over the portcullis and across the ramparts. If he and his men made it through the entrance and into the central courtyard, they'd end up taking fire from all directions. Such a short-lived victory wouldn't be worth it even if Brachride's forces somehow managed not to get pinned down in the courtyard.

Poeta had fallen into the enemy's hands.

He didn't know how they'd managed to keep messengers from reaching Leonhard, but Brachride knew now that his march had been doomed since the moment the checkpoint had fallen. He had never counted on such a development. The operation's very foundations had crumbled, and building a plan atop a ruined foundation was a recipe for disaster.

Given the situation, only one option was available to the kingdom forces: beating a hasty retreat.

"Leinzo, cover me!"

"Yes, Milord!"

After giving the order to Leinzo, Brachride took a bugle off his back and blew into it with all his might.

BWOOOOOOOOOOOOOH

A deep sound echoed across the range.

It was just a steady stream of noise; there was nothing musical about it, but it was the known signal of retreat.

Upon hearing the horn, vanguard group members scrambled over one another as each hurried to flee faster than the other. The groups behind them, who had more or less figured out what was going on from the screams and sounds of gunfire, turned back as well.

They were retiring without so much as trying to fight back.

"As expected of Marquis Brachride, he's quick-witted and a shrewd general of the north." Louis Nicholas, a well-built man, leader of the Poeta troops, and the Obergrupphenfuhrer of the United National Socialist Party spoke words of praise for the enemy general.

His aide-de-camp felt differently, however.

"Are you sure he isn't just a coward?"

Louis shook his head and refuted the proposition. "He's here on orders from Duke Gustave himself. If that guy finds out Brachride gave the order to turn tail and run, he'll execute him in a heartbeat. But instead of covering his own ass, Brachride made the call to keep casualties to a minimum. For him, running was a far braver choice than staying and fighting. Brachride's man who knows all too well the folly of throwing good money after bad. Honestly, I'm impressed. But even so…"

Louis paused for a moment and cast his gaze out over the scattered, fleeing troops.

"The reason composure was so valuable is because it's so rare. There's no way any of his men keep their heads nearly so cool."

As Louis had suggested, receiving the evacuation order threw the opposing soldiers into disarray. There was a stark gap in desperation between those who had been at the vanguard, still being shot at as they fled, and the groups behind them, whose knowledge of the situation was limited to them hearing the signal for retreat. Such a difference in circumstances created a rather disjointed rate of escape.

Frightened as they were, the vanguard group crashed into the rear guard and shoved them aside. Unfortunately, this sent the pushed people tumbling to the ground, twisting their ankles and breaking their bones. Some of the more hotheaded members of the rear guard even drew their swords and turned them on their allies.

Far more of Brachride's company fell victim to disorganization and infighting than the projectiles of their actual foes. Gradually, their numbers dwindled.

If the UNSP seized upon that chaos and pressed after the escaping army, they no doubt would've crushed the kingdom troops.

'So far, everything's going according to Volksfuhrer's plan.'

With things proceeding as Ernest had described, the next course of action for checkpoint's occupying forces was already set.

The United National Socialist Party had three hundred troops on-site. In contrast, the kingdom's procession alone outnumbered them more than five-to-one. With the troops waiting in Brachride included, it was more than ten-to-one. The enemy had an overwhelming numerical advantage.

If the UNSP soldiers had a chance to reduce that wide gap in manpower, they needed to take it while they could. At that moment, the opposition was rattled and imploding from infighting. It was a perfect opportunity.

'Can't say that shooting a man in the back sits great with me, but you all came storming up in the mountain to try and kill us, too. Sorry, but you ain't getting any mercy from me.'

Louis slammed a fresh magazine into his rifle, loading thirty bullets into it in a single motion.

Then he called out to those in his commands.

"We're going after them. The first squadron and I will follow the enemy from behind, pursuing them down the mountain and seizing advantage of their confusion. We need to take as many of them out as we can without giving them time to regroup. Squadrons two through six on the ramparts, bring supply teams after us as quickly as possible. If you run across any foes who've lost the will to fight, there's no need to finish them off. Just toss their weapons down the ravine and leave them for the medics. Once we all group back up, we're invading Brachride with all we got! Ready? Now...we move out!!!"

"OOOOOOORAAAAAAAAAAH!"

Thus began the first engagement between the United National Socialist Party and the Kingdom of Crentis.