Arc of Fire

On October 31st, 915, the Thirtieth Infantry Army of Prosen launched an offensive.

The Bison self-propelled infantry gun roared as its shells struck a building 800 meters ahead, causing the side that was hit to collapse thunderously. The inner floors of the building were exposed like the skeleton of a human body.

The dust from the collapse covered more than half of the street.

Infantry Commander Paul Kley observed the streets ahead from the rooftop of a bungalow and muttered, "Even if a building is blown up, the enemy does not open fire. Why? That building should be their support point, there would have been machine guns, perhaps anti-tank guns hidden in the shop windows at the bottom.

"We would defend like this. But now there’s nothing, it’s eerily quiet, are we really here to take an empty city?"

His deputy shook his head: "I don’t know, I’ve heard from troops who have been fighting for a while that the Anteans don’t defend their support points anymore, instead they attack us in small combat groups, engaging us in a war of attrition."

Paul Kley frowned: "What’s the point of that? Is it a contest to see who bleeds out first?"

"I don’t know," his deputy spread his hands.

Paul thought for a moment and ordered, "Infantry advance, let’s see if that’s really the case."

Following the order, the infantrymen who were originally squatting in a line in front of the Bison infantry gun stood up and walked forward with long strides.

Although the Thirtieth Infantry Army is an infantry army, its mechanization level is quite high, and it is equipped with a considerable number of half-tracks and assault guns.

These armored vehicles moved forward at the pace of the walking infantry.

They crossed the last open ground and entered the city.

Suddenly, machine guns sounded. Experience tales at

Paul immediately raised his binoculars, but could not see the position of the machine gun at all.

"Strange, the machine gun isn’t positioned in a place with an open firing range," Paul whispered.

His deputy said, "It looks like the enemy really intends to grind us down in a meaningless bloodbath. The machine gunner probably thinks he’s made a profit if he can take out three of us."

The sound of numerous Papashas firing rose, echoing the machine gun, along with the noise of grenade explosions.

Paul put down the binoculars and kept twiddling the focus adjustment knob with his fingers, his brow twisted like a pretzel: "How could they do this? Operating in decentralized combat groups requires a high level of initiative and a resolute combat will.

"Our troops can’t manage that! Or does it mean that the Anteans have so many NCOs that there’s one for every three men? Is this still the Ante Troops I’m familiar with?"

The young warrior Aleksei hid alone behind a demolished low wall, aiming his Papasha at the alleyway beyond the wall.

The alleyway was wide enough to accommodate at least three Prosen Soldiers passing through.

Aleksei hoped that the enemy wouldn’t come one by one, the denser their formation, the better.

He also had four grenades beside him—these old-fashioned grenades had to be fitted with fuzes, and once the fuzes were set, there was a certain chance the grenade would explode on its own.

Yes, that’s how unreliable these grenades were.

Aleksei was a warrior from the Militia Camp. He had only been issued these unreliable grenades, and the Papasha he held was obtained from a fallen regular army soldier.

He was not yet very skillful at operating this weapon, after all, the militia was only trained to use Mosin-Nagant rifles.

Aleksei was 17 years old and would be eligible for conscription next year, becoming a proud Ante Warrior. But the war had come to his hometown first.

The girl he liked, Tatiana, had joined a field nurse training course in June and was now somewhere healing the wounded and dying.

Aleksei didn’t plan on being outdone by a girl.

All around him was the sound of gunfire; the militia and the regular army defending the same area were fighting with the Prosenese.

But around Aleksei, it was as quiet as the eye of a hurricane.

He even got a bit bored and started watching a spider weave its web on the wall.

The spider was not affected by the war at all and wove on at its own leisurely pace.

After watching for a while, Aleksei grew bored, so he took out a photo of Tatiana from his pocket. It had been taken when Tatiana left, as a keepsake for her family, but Aleksei had convinced Uncle Eugene, the photographer, to develop a copy for him.

When Uncle Eugene gave Aleksei the picture, his expression was sorrowful: "Take good care, kid, take good care. Remember how she looks, because even if she can come back, she might not look the same as she does now."

Aleksei understood why Uncle Eugene was so sad.

Since the war started, there have been too many good people who can’t come back.

Uncle Stepan, who lived opposite Aleksei, was one of them; one day, two officers pulled out a letter from their briefcases.

Stepan’s wife went weak at the knees when she saw these men, sat down on the door frame, and started weeping, clinging to the door.

Seeing this scene, Aleksei ran back to his room in a flash, took out the wooden gun that Uncle Stepan had made him when he was a child.

This children’s toy had been lying in the closet for a long time, but holding it, Aleksei felt as though he had only received it from Uncle Stepan yesterday.

At that thought, Aleksei gripped the Papasha tighter.

At that moment, he heard strangers speaking a foreign language in the alleyway outside!

It was Prosenese!

He checked the Papasha to make sure the safety was off, and the gun was loaded.

His heart was pounding so fast, it felt as though it would burst forth from his throat the next moment.

Aleksei waited.

The Prosens were getting closer.

Suddenly, a gray uniform appeared!

Aleksei suppressed the urge to fire and waited for the solitary scout to pass—he remembered that, as a child, the grandfather upstairs had told stories of fighting the Peterlyula gang and taught that during an ambush, one must let the scout pass to hit the enemy’s main force.

Aleksei took repeated deep breaths; his chest felt as if ablaze, the pain intense.

Finally, a Prosen Soldier armed with an assault gun appeared, followed by two others with rifles.

As Aleksei shouted, he pulled the trigger, and the Papasha spat out a torrent of bullets.

Although he had no formal training, at this distance, even a monkey who could only pull a trigger could drench and kill Prosens entering the line of fire.

The assault gun-wielding Prosen Soldier was hit first; he stumbled forward, half-kneeling on the ground, struggling to raise his weapon to return fire, but was hit by three consecutive bullets and collapsed sideways.

Aleksei, holding the drum of the Papasha, turned the barrel toward the two riflemen.

The Prosen fired first but missed Aleksei; the bullet struck the wall above his head with a ’biu’ sound.

Then the Prosen was hit while pulling the bolt.

The other rifleman didn’t even have a chance to fire; he just stared wide-eyed at Aleksei.

For a moment, Aleksei thought the Prosen soldier was just a child like himself.

But he did not stop firing.

The bullets of the Papasha clattered against the alley’s walls, creating tiny puffs of smoke.

All three Prosen Soldiers fell.

Aleksei heard more shouting from the Prosens in his blind spot, something about Arau and suffering, Sanitater—completely unintelligible to him.

He grabbed a hand grenade and, following the Militia Camp commander’s instruction, pulled the pin and threw it immediately—

This old type of hand grenade was unreliable, with explosion times ranging from 2 to 7 seconds; it couldn’t be held in hand to "cook" like modern grenades could.

The grenade Aleksei threw was kind enough to explode right after leaving his sight.

Screams came from the Prosens outside.

The next moment, something flew in from outside, landing not far in front of Aleksei, with a ’pop.’

It was a stick grenade, its end still smoking white.

Aleksei immediately dove to the side, and the grenade exploded at the same time.

The blast made Aleksei’s head buzz; he got up, picked up a grenade, pulled the pin, and threw it with a swing of his arm.

Another explosion occurred.

Aleksei was thrilled; he pulled the pin of a third grenade and threw it with all his might, but the grenade only flew a short distance, falling to the ground just out of the alley.

Aleksei was puzzled, his hand seemed unable to muster strength.

Out of curiosity, he looked down and discovered a large pool of blood beneath him.

It turned out he had been wounded by the shrapnel from the first grenade; adrenaline had simply masked the pain.

He didn’t even know where he was wounded, only watching as the pool of blood beneath him grew larger.

He felt cold, his lips uncontrollably trembling.

Another grenade was thrown in, this time landing right beside Aleksei.

He couldn’t be bothered with grenades anymore, nor with evading them, but instead used his last bit of strength to pick up Tatiana’s photo, wanting to kiss his beloved girl one last time.

But as soon as he lifted his hand, the photo slipped to the ground.

He reached out, struggling to reach the photo, and just as his fingers grazed it, the grenade exploded.

Aleksei’s movements stopped entirely, he slumped against the wall, eyes still fixed on the photo on the ground.

Then a Prosen stuck his head out, fired several shots into Aleksei’s body to confirm the 17-year-old warrior was dead, and then bravely entered the room he had been ambushed in, stepping on the photo.

The Prosen spat as if unsatisfied, and angrily struck Aleksei’s face with the butt of his gun.

Then the Prosen Soldier suddenly noticed a gold chain on Aleksei’s body.

He reached out, grabbed the chain, pulled hard, and then lifted the spoils aloft—only then did he notice a ring attached to the chain.

Yes, the young warrior Aleksei had kept the only good grenade he had collected from a fallen comrade, turning it into a booby trap on his body.

The Prosen cursed and turned to run, but the explosion caught up with him.

Several Prosens who had entered the room were blown to the ground.

The only Prosen who escaped the blast seemed to hear a mocking laugh; he looked toward the sound, only to see a flock of cranes, accustomed to the barrage of cannon fire, flying south through the sky.

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