The American In Another World
Chapter 11: The Defense of Ejei

July 20, 1639

The Fortress of Ejei, Principality of Qua Toyne

General Nou rubbed his eyes, bored by the constant annoyance of the Lourian cavalry group. Throughout the night, enemy troops rose along the walls of the fort, creating a commotion and mocking the defenders of Qua Toynian. He was tempted to send his wyverns to crush their knights in one fell swoop, but decided not to, fearing the possibility of an ambush.

Thankfully, his assistant was approached by an officer from the United States Air Force, who stopped by to make sure that no Toynian Qua was outside the walls of Ejei. According to his assistant, the Americans were planning to carry out an air strike on the main Lourian camp. When asked about how they would handle enemy wyverns, the officer simply chuckled and said, “Don't worry about that. We've covered everything.”

Despite his initial attitude towards Americans, he couldn't help but wonder how they planned to carry out the airstrikes, especially considering their country had no wyverns at all. His assistant walked up to him and gave him a strange object. “General, American officers gave me some of them. They are called binoculars, ” he said while putting them in his eyes. He smiled slightly, surprised by the usefulness of the device. "They used to see things at great distances," he offered one to the Nou General.

He looked towards the Lourian campground. The mini figures in the distance now looked close, and the Nou nodded in agreement. “Excellent,” said. Before he could say anything more, a helicopter flew over him, moving towards the Lourian camp. Is this their air attack?

——

Ejei Air Base

Nakamoto looked up from his spaghetti roe meal as he watched someone enter the large tent. Baker, what's the game plan?

Baker took out the map from his back pocket and unfolded it. "The colonel wants us to go here" he said, pointing to a seemingly empty spot in the middle of nowhere.

Nakamoto squinted his eyes on the spot. "What's? We won't attack in the Gym?”

Baker shook his head. “Nah, Dude. We have a bigger mission to do. Some intel learned, from some refugees who had fled from Gim, that there was a small force that remained to help escort the slave caravan back to Louria. The flyboys worked with this info, and sent out several drones to inspect the nearby village. One of them is Elf village — the group we saved earlier came from there. Just yesterday one of our drones found a caravan moving from one of the local villages towards the Lourian border. We'll go out and investigate it.”

"alright. When do we go?”

“After the fireworks show. We don't want to be stuck there while the Air Force is too busy, and these ships are moving very slowly, so we can wait a while for air support.”

"That sounds good," said Nakamoto, finishing his juice.

——

The East Ruler Division Camp

Jean-Philia found solace in the number of troops she commanded. The power of 20,000 was certainly no joke, but then again, there were rumors that the power of over 4,000 ships was destroyed to just 5. Jean-Philia pushed the uneasiness to the back of her mind, but they resurfaced when a strange flying device approached, creating a strong wind as it floated over the campground.

With a booming metal voice, he announced, “This is the United States Air Force! Surrender now, with a white flag, or we will bomb this site into oblivion!”

The machine remained out of reach of even the best archer's arrow, repeating its message several times until it finally flew away. Even though his interest was shaken by the object, he could not shake off the wave of fear that had suddenly taken hold of him. His interest and confusion paled in comparison to the fear that crawled his spine. He looked to the Magician Washner. "There's a signature?"

Washer shook his head. "NO. There is no magic signature at all! Just like gossip,” murmured slowly.

Jean-Philia felt a sense of foreboding, followed by a sharp sense of guilt. Trusting his intuition, he whispered to Washner, "I'll move my observation tent to the hill on our right."

"Hmm?"

"I. .. I have an inexplicable feeling that something bad is going to happen."

"Then why not cancel the attack or retreat?"

Sweat splashed on Jean-Philia's forehead. “They just gave the option to give up, and we had no choice from the start. This — fear is amazing!”

Washer nodded. "I understand. I'm also afraid if the rumors are secretly true.”

"Good then. Let's hurry.” He then turned to the royals who were busy debating the strategy and discussing the implications of the machine's arrival. "The Eastern Rulers," he said, hid his guilt.

All the nobles stopped their discussions and turned to face him.

“The machine arrival did not change our plan. We will begin our attack within an hour, as ordered by the orders of Lieutenant General Adem. Please make sure your people are ready.”

Some nobles seemed to want to protest the assignment, but after hearing Adem's name, they immediately abandoned all thoughts of dissent. All the nobles saluted, then exited the room to gather their troops. Jean-Philia and Washner were left alone in the tent, with Jean's hands beginning to tremble.

"This doesn't feel right" he murmured.

——

When Jean-Philia inspected the orderly march of troops from her new observation tent, she took pride in the Lourian military organization. The only thing they missed in this engagement was the wyvern. However, the warning from before remained in his mind. If the context provided by the — 'United States Air Force' engine — means anything, then the impending attack is most likely from a similar aircraft or wyvern. With wyvern currently stationed at the Gym, Jean-Philia made a last-minute decision.

“OK,” says Washner, activates his manacomm. He asked for 50 wyverns, then waited for their response. He turned to Jean-Philia. “OK, the command has agreed to send 50 wyverns. They will arrive in ten minutes.”

Jean-Philia sighed, looking up at the sky. "Ten minutes is a long time ..."

——

The sky above Ejei

Harry Richthofen admired the view below. Much like Maihark, Ejei is like a historical beauty, boasting architecture known only to the modern world through ancient paintings and fantasy stories. He wonders when he can get along with some locals, and if the locals have an alien STD, but his mind is cut off by his radio. Understandably, a group of fifty enemies had come out from the airspace of Gim. Current track: Ejei. Distance: 30 clicks.”

“Alright, thank you for your attention, change,” replied Richthofen.

A new target flared up in the look of his head. Leading four F-16s, Richthofen ordered his men to fight enemy wyverns, so that bombing could continue unhindered. He pushed the F-35 forward, gathering targeting data for his pilot colleagues and pointing at eight wyverns per person, while he and his wingman would each drop nine.

He looked back; the flight of three B-52 stratofortresses shrank in the distance. With the wyvern entering into effective range, he took a breath, his hands wrapped around the joystick and ready to press. Speaking on top of the sound of his plane's engine, he gave the order to shoot. "Dome Two!"

——

Traces of smoke shot away from the metal dragon wings, heading towards the strengthening wyvern knight. "No .." said Washner dramatically, his voice filled with disbelief. Thinking back on the rumors, he did not want to believe that the metal dragons were capable of such destruction, but the weapons they used clearly fit the picture. "Mild earth leads," he murmured. “What kind of magic ..”

After taking out their ammunition, the plane veered upwards and flew back towards their original direction, screaming like a banshee as they cleaved through the air smoothly. The speed with which they performed this maneuver was astounding, leading Jean-Philia and Washner to deny. Their wide eyes followed the shrunken gray shapes in the sky until they shrank into nothingness, disappearing into the background of the blue sky.

They looked back at the wyvern. A moment later, flashes of light and fire erupted in the sky. The sound produced from the explosion hit the Lourian people like a — earthquake that shook their moral foundation and brought it down, causing it to collapse into nothingness. The display effect was obvious; jean-Philia saw her troops faltering as they stopped marching. Shouts emerged from the ranks of his army, signaling doubt and chaos until the regional ruler was able to calm down the troops.

Then, they heard a humming sound. It started out as a low rumble, barely audible when compared to the people marching under the hill, then flowed into a loud buzzing sound. They looked up and saw titanic monsters, with wingspan similar to the legendary god dragon. Flying low, they seemed to cover most of the sky. They were escorted by the silver plane from earlier.

The Lourian army did not falter; they maintained their order and continued marching towards Ejei, unaware of the impending destruction. Jean-Philia shouted at Washner, “What are they doing?! Send this to the rulers: they must split up! They need to split up into an anti-air formation now! Treat enemy aircraft as wyverns with powerful air strikes unless proven otherwise!”

Washner complied, and orders within the troop ranks were destroyed as they split into groups moving in different directions. In response, the approaching aircraft widened their course, making further distance between them. Despite being large, they traveled at a ludicrous pace, even faster than the fastest Lourian wyverns. Despite the best efforts of the Lourian troops, they were unable to escape from the shadows of the monsters above, and all watched as the metal monsters opened their bellies. An unstoppable rain of dark objects fell from the sky, enveloping the troops below.

Time seemed to slow down for Jean-Philia and her observation officers as they watched the objects fall. This was what the previous warning meant: the Lourian army would actually be bombed into oblivion. The first bomb did not even touch the ground, due to the curiosity of the Lourians. Instead, they developed into hundreds of submunitions, which then erupted with a monstrous force. Sparks of light flashed across the panicked Lourian, leaving no one. Even their famous cavalry were unable to escape the reach of the hellish flames scorching the plains. The screams of the suffering dying were drowned out by the sound of hundreds of explosions crushing humans and horses indiscriminately.

“So, is this the power of the United States? Are they allied with the demons?!” Jean-Philia shouted as she watched the explosions hit people she knew over the past decade. The survivor's guilt attacked him like lightning, forcing him to kneel as tears welled up in his eyes. "I have a feeling I can do more" he said trembling.

Washner just stared at the scene before him. The pieces of man, horse, and metal flew into the air, almost indistinguishable from each other. Everything became charred, burned to a crisp or mutilated to an unrecognizable degree. The overwhelming destructive power was shocking, but not as much as the fact that no magical sign emanated from the calamity. Washner tried to reconfigure the detector, but still did not display anything. He reasoned that it could be the result of a magical inhibitor, which could hide magic, but that would not hide the magical signal completely. "Type ... what magic," he said in shock, "What is this?"

The volcanic destruction unleashed by the metal monsters stopped when the last bomb was detonated. Black plumes of smoke rose from the ashes of the dead, and as it disappeared, Jean-Philia inevitably felt gratitude for her listening to her intuition. He paused for a moment to observe the results of the American bombing. Craters littered the once beautiful grassy plains, covering the earth like terrible pimples. Scattered throughout the 'battlefield' were the remains of 20,000 strong soldiers.

"They don't even have a chance to fight" muttered Jean-Philia. “They've just been trampled, like ants in front of a line of soldiers. Why…?" He's devastated.

——

The Nou General watched the event with open jaws, speechless.

"Enjoy the show?" General Hammond asked.

Nou put his binoculars down. Unable to think of anything to say, he simply nodded.

“Yeah, I saw Operation Shock named exactly. Congratulations, General. Ejei defended against twenty thousand troops without losing a single person,” he clasped his hand on the back of the Nou.

“I— I appreciate your help, General Hammond,” replied the Nou obediently.

“United States Air Force Pleasure. I can't wait to cooperate with you,” he offers a helping hand.

"Also. So...what's next?”

“Hm? We'll take back the game tomorrow. I heard some of our men were assigned to free some slave caravans from those fucking Lourians. Hopefully the results are good.”

“Taking back the Gym? I was not told about it, ”Nou felt his pride was hurt, because he was not the first to know about it.

“Oh, you should have received a message through one of the uh. Now, excuse me, I have some work to take care of. Have a good day, General.

;)