While reading the battle progress report of the 33rd Mech Division, handed to him by Ibuki, Kazuya was portraying the battle that had occurred while he was asleep in his brain.

- A point approximately 400 kilometers from Phoenix, the Empire of the Elsas Magic Empire.

One of the factors that is bringing prosperity to the Empire, one of the tributaries that supports the Nauru River, is there in the desert zone, which has a higher proportion of rocks than the sand.

The name is called the negative river. It is a medium-sized river with a total length of 25 km, a river width of up to 150 m and a maximum depth of about 3 m.

And a place in the middle basin of that negative river - about three kilometers from the point of narrowest and shallowest river width of the negative river - was a city called Pompeii, home to 100,000 people.

The city flourished alongside the slack of shops and dwellings built with rocks cut out from the rocky mountains and sun-dried and hardened soil, usually as a relay point to reach the Imperial Capital, but the city was also a target of retaliatory attacks on Parabellum without leakage as an example, so a large number of houses that were all half-destructed were seen and the previous streets damaged.

Such a city of Pompeii was now occupied by the most deeply invasive of the Parabellan armies - an outsider unit that swelled to divisional size and changed its name to the 33rd Mechanical Division due to the consolidation and increase in the number of troops that had four.

"Is there anything unusual? Lieutenant Colonel Rommel."

"Ha, nothing unusual. We also have reports that no anomalies can be seen from any of the 10 detachments we sent across the river or from any of the five platoons placed on the surveillance line."

It was Colonel Burr, commander of the 1st Brigade of the 33rd Mechanical Armor Division, and his deputy, Lieutenant Colonel Rommel of the Fox Nation, who are alerting the Imperial Army to counter-attacks by building anti-tank defensive positions (packfront) consisting of shooting trenches, support trenches, liaison trenches, etc. on a sleek hill between Pompeii and the Negative River.

"... well. But don't be too vigilant."

"I am very aware of that."

Time is late at night.

The area was covered in darkness and turned 180 degrees from a burning hellhole during the day, for extreme cold surrounded the area. The two exchange words with white breath inside a half-ground front command post behind an anti-tank defensive position.

"According to information from the General Command, the enemy's power boost by the evil gods should have already taken place. We don't know when or when the enemy's total counterattack will arrive."

Increased enemy combat power due to the failure of God's trials, which occurred when Kazuya helped Illis.

As a result, we do not know in what way the enemy's battle power has been enhanced, but we are alert to counterattacks using enhanced force, and the 33rd Mechanical Armor Division orders all units under its command to cease marching.

For this reason, the 1st Brigade Combat Regiment was sitting in the city of Pompeii with the 4th Brigade Combat Regiment who were working together to consolidate their defenses first.

By the way, the Parabellan army had taken defensive positions in all battlefields to prepare for a counter-attack, as the march had been ordered on other fronts alerting the enemy to counter-attack.

"Sure. Just two weeks today since we left the album principality. Your Excellency's assassination attempt was fifteen days ago… five days have already elapsed since the enemy's strength was increased. Given the enemy's travel time, it's not surprising that it's time to meet the enemy.... or Colonel, what is an evil god?

"It means the way it is. You can treat your wife like a god and treat her like an evil god and skip the penalty if you don't.... Nevertheless, I have some anxiety when it comes to fighting even though I have consolidated my defenses as much as I can. Three hundred kilometers along the way, we've just broken through the desert, but we've marched nearly a thousand kilometers in total, so the supply line is stretching, and including the troops we left in the album's Duchy's defense and those we lost on the way to the march, we're going to lose power."

The concern of Colonel Barr, who tightened his facial expression and grumbled so, was of the utmost importance.

It was the 33rd Mechanical Armor Division, which marched out the Augusta base built in the album principality at about the same time that retaliatory attacks were launched with all the troops up, but I had to say that its future was difficult.

Because about half of the 33rd Mechanical Division - the 2nd Brigade Combat Regiment equipped by the United States Army and the 3rd Brigade Combat Regiment equipped by the Japanese Army could no longer be counted as combat forces because they hit rear missions such as maintaining the album's Duchy's defense and barracks, occupying control of the city they attacked, etc., and because the 1st and 4th Brigade Combat Regiments, which hit the battle mission ahead of schedule, were deployed as primary forces but did not have a sufficient number of tank carriers, the mechanical capabilities of both Brigade Combat Regiments were significantly reduced due to the fact that the Tiger I, Tiger II, Mouse, IS-2, IS-3, etc. remained in the Album's Duchy's defense.

For this reason, the battle power was substantially reduced (although we borrowed more or less infantry and artillery from the 2nd and 3rd Brigade Combat Regiments instead of the loose mechanical power), a total of two German equipped 1st Brigade Combat Regiments and Soviet-equipped 4th Brigade Combat Regiments. The 33rd Army Division continued to march on a Brigade Combat Regiment scale, but the lack of fuel and ammunition had begun to stand out due to dozens of battles with the Imperial Army and demons living in the desert that existed on the march route.

It's hard to just deliver supplies from the Parabellan mainland to the album principality, which is quite a distance away.

The best sea routes for transporting huge quantities of supplies could not be used for land fatalities, and the land routes were limited because the tracks and roads that Kazuya had laid and maintained within a short period of time through the territory of the former Kingdom of Canary to build an advanced transport network like the eyes of a net, but because the Duchy of the album at the time did not have time for Kazuya to travel, there were only two tracks laid by the Parabellan army and one two-lane road to transport.

And the last remaining air routes under the erasure method were limited, as were land routes due to the number of transporters deployed at the Augusta base and the number of airfields in the airfield.

Still, the Thirty-third Armored Division was able to do enough activity even far from the mainland because the transport forces, the power under the margins of the Parabellan army, had taken every means to carry the inexhaustible supplies that Kazuya had summoned and stockpiled, as well as those made from the resources mined in this world and spit out of the mainland's factory groups, without interruption, but that situation changed in the next march.

It took more time to finally deliver the supplies to the Duchy of the Album to the 1st and 4th Brigade Combat Regiments on the march.

Moreover, the 33rd Mechanical Armor Division, which was originally deployed with the sole intention of defending the Principality of the Album and was not taken into account from the edge, did not possess a backward support transport unit capable of delivering supplies to units carrying out long-range expeditions.

In addition to that, it is a dashed advance that greatly exceeds the expectations of the 1st and 4th Brigade Combat Regiments and the lack of diversity and commonality of weapons in the possession of both Brigade Combat Regiments.

It was inevitable that each Brigade Combat Corps needed more than dozens of diverse types of ammunition in addition to the vast variety of pistols, short machine guns, small guns, sniper guns, automatic small guns, general purpose machine guns, light machine guns, heavy machine guns, etc., even if they took one and looked at it.

Furthermore, the two brigade battalions had a mixture of gasoline-engined and diesel-engineered vehicles, so they also had to carry two types of petrol and light oil in terms of fuel.

There was also a problem with the 33rd Mechanical Armor Division, and not even the Parabellan Army expected to pull it off.

It is the implementation of Operation Scorched Earth by the Imperial Army.

Fortunately, because of the retaliatory attacks by the Parabellan Army, the Empire was hampering the operation of the organized army, although Operation Scorched Earth itself was not a massive thing, livestock and food were taken away from cities and villages near the Imperial capital, and few wells and water sources could not be used unless water purifiers, etc. were used because poison and dirt were thrown into them.

And, obnoxiously, the Imperial Army had conscripted men from the cities and villages and taken them away, but the women and children, the old men, who could not be used for the battle, had left them behind and had told them to share food and water from Parabellum, so refugees seeking food and water everywhere were to be pushed against the Parabellan Army.

In other words, it could be taken for granted that there would be a serious problem with the transport mandate, as more than a few times the usual supplies were needed far from the mainland.

It is not that the General Command of the Parabellan Army, which took the heaviest look at the situation, did not strike any hand.

After serious material shortages and transport problems were exposed and several support vehicles such as transport trucks for transporting supplies by road were sent by air on a battalion basis, captured and refurbished empty vessels (Sorafu, commonly known as Skyships) - a group of aerial vessels equipped with demonic guidance reactors and flying through the air were put into the transport of supplies.

Its presence boasts sea-like loads while travelling by air - the sailboat-type skyship captured by the Imperial Army in previous battles travels slowly and loads relatively little, so after loading supplies and arriving at their destination, it builds a simple replenishment base while deploying to the main points of the supply line as a mobile reservoir.

And the skyship created by the Parabellan Army with its own demonic conductor on board the Liberty ship, the standard wartime transporter produced by the United States during the Second World War, went back and forth between the supply base and the Augusta base, which existed in the former demonic Union, and made a huge contribution to the transport mission.

There was also such skyship activity and considerable improvement in the rate of adequacy of supplies, but it was still not enough to maintain a supply line extending for a total of 1,000 kilometres, with the result that the 1st and 4th brigade fighters on the front line were gasping for supplies shortages.

"Colonel, if that's the case, there will be another supply or reinforcement tomorrow morning."

Lieutenant Colonel Rommel, with a soft grin, brought good news to Colonel Barr, who rarely feared replenishment or lack of power.

"Oh, thank God for that."

Colonel Barr loosens his cheek when he hears the good news.

It was then that the commanders were deliberately relieving the tense thread and the hard air straining inside the front command post.

"- Huh!? Immediately over 7th Squad that was on reconnaissance!! Confirmed enemy units at coordinates D-5-5, A-2-6!!

A report attributing the thoughts of the two was brought to the front command post.

"What about the size and path of the enemy?

Colonel Barr asks the radio if there is any core information, staring at a map with detailed terrain nearby, in a front-line command post surrounded by instant, noisy air.

"Ha, the exact size of the enemy army is unknown because of the night, but he said the path is coming straight this way on a scale of approximately 100,000 to 200,000. The enemy forces also have multiple magic weapons and automatic puppets, and at the head of the unit there is a large group of demons serving as exposures."

"Again. You're still the ones who like to squeeze in volume ops. You don't have the head to think about a thing called tactics?... - Well, good, do you just threaten him a little? Hey, call the field artillery battalion for fire support."

Colonel Burr decided to request firepower support from the battalion of field artillery under his command in order to reduce the number of enemies even before the meeting, even as he was struck by a simple and lucid tactic that took advantage of the numerical advantage of "pushing by numbers" that the enemy preferred to use.

Copy that. Request fire support.

The soldier of Colonel Burr's life-taking radio hand contacts the battalion of field artillery of the 1st Brigade Combat Regiment deploying near Pompeii.

"Artillery command post over front-line command post. Reconnaissance units confirmed enemy units at coordinates D-5-5, A-2-6. Request Fire Support"

"This is the artillery command post. Roger that. Initiate fire support immediately. Over '

Three minutes after the fire support request was communicated to the artillery command post. I was wondering if there had been a shitty gunshot at the rear of the front command post. Shh!! and a sharp wind-cut sound passes overhead.

It was an investigation announcing the opening of a concert announcing the death of a Hummel self-propelled gun equipped with a 15cm howitzer sFH18L/30.

"-... Dang, now!!

At the same time as the voice of the artillery announcing the bullet, the shells that rushed through the night sky like meteors landed on the other side of the highly undulating horizon, blurred red light sources illuminating the swaying area after the flash was brilliant.

But if we looked closely at that fantastic source of light, which is the only one in the darkness, we caught a tragic glimpse of the continuous rise of the Red Lotus Fire Column burning down what lived and lived without any distinction.

"From the 7th reconnaissance unit to the shooting command post. Confirm the ammo. Bouncing modification, right 80, top 60. Effective firing initiated!!

"Bounce the fix. Copy. - Notify each car and fix the aiming. Right 80, top 60. Prepare to fire!! Eh!!

On instructions from the reconnaissance unit, the shooting command post immediately notified the unit under command of the ammunition modification.

In total, nearly 50 Hummel self-propelled guns fired howitzers for soft targets and rocket-assisted propulsion rounds for long-range artillery battles that were fine-tuned for targeting and loaded as secondary rounds in accordance with the instructions of that ammunition modification.

Unexpected shelling sends more shells over the heads of enemies who are now in the crucible of chaos.

The battalion of field artillery with the 1st Brigade Combat Regiment also began shelling, followed by the battalion of field artillery with the 4th Brigade Combat Regiment.

ML-20 152mm howitzers, M1931/37 122mm cannon guns, and BS-3 100mm wildfires, which are both anti-tank guns placed in anti-tank defense positions, which have been towed in vehicles because they are not self-propelled.

By the way, while the battalion of field artillery in the 4th Brigade Combat Corps was equipped with ISU-152, a self-propelled cannon using an IS-2 (heavy tank) chassis and equipped with an ML-20 152mm howitzer case-mated, all vehicles may have been ordered to move backwards because more than half of them had fallen out of the march due to harsh environments.

For this reason, the field artillery battalion of the 4th Brigade Combat Regiment was dominated by towed artillery, which is a reserve weapon.

"From the Seventh Reconnaissance Squad to the Front Line Command Post. enemy troops, we will hit an avalanche and retreat '

That aside, reports descend upon Colonel Barr that the Imperial Army, which was approaching Pompeii for its inability to withstand the rain of shells pouring with terrible precision from the outrage.

"Did you do it?... Tell the Field Artillery Battalion to abort shelling."

"Ha."

He was Colonel Burr, who wanted to slap him more thoroughly in order to inflict more painful beatings on the fleeing Imperial Army, but was concerned about his shell stockpile and decided to stop shelling.

"You won again, Colonel. He said he was hostile to us as soon as possible."

"Oh, this one grabbed the flow. But... don't be alarmed. I don't know what's gonna happen until the battle's over."

"Ha!! I command the liver."

Colonel Barr had a bad feeling in his chest as he praised Lieutenant Colonel Rommel for winning the streak.