Codegease: Air and Land Warfare 1946

Page 174

“Wasting time is not a good habit, ZERO.” He pondered, looking at the Japanese people in front of him who were looking around. It seemed that some members of the Black Knights had secretly smuggled some megaphones into the crowd. He ordered the soldiers to speed up and put the ropes on the death row inmates.

"If your voice can cut the noose, give it a try!"

As soon as he finished speaking, Karlsstadt snapped his fingers, and the soldiers behind him stepped on the pedals. As the bodies were suspended in mid-air, the roar of KMF drive wheels echoed from the street outside. He led Gunther and all the soldiers away from the execution platform with him, leaving behind a ground full of panicked District 11 people and the sudden explosions all around—the Black Knights had indeed come to rescue the "weak" after all.

"Now it's your turn, Schreiber." With that, he pulled out a remote control—as soon as the soldiers withdrew, the people of District 11 began to stir, wanting to push down the fence to rescue the person on the gallows. Did they ever think about the terrible disaster that would be brought about by his pressing the button?

With a deafening roar, the open space surrounding the execution platform within the fence was suddenly slammed into the ground by the earth-shaking explosion. Behind the soldiers were incendiary bombs swirling around the hanged prisoners, and the poor people of Area 11 who had inadvertently stepped into the far more brutal execution ground that Karlstadt had left for them.

Once he was in the car, he glanced back contemptuously and saw a black KMF—the rogue type of the Black Knights—standing helplessly on a rooftop, watching the flames around the execution platform spread wildly among the hysterically screaming, living bodies. Then, a rocket launcher blasted open his engine casing.

……

"Hurry! Everyone, get into position!" Inside the room, Schreiber grabbed a rocket launcher from the side and tossed it to one of the German soldiers. "The Black Knights are coming from the east street. Take out their KMF. Remember, don't charge in head-on!"

These German soldiers played a leading role quite a bit—while the usual Britannian infantrymen were somewhat timid and cowering inside, avoiding KMF machine gun fire, they were the only ones who scurried around the building, looking for suitable attack positions.

Clearly, the pilots of the Black Knights and the pilots of Britannia had some things in common—ordinary young men would become targets for rocket launchers if they were momentarily distracted, while the two gray-green creatures wielding long swords were a bit too nimble.

"Don't let them get close to the execution platform, tank crews, get on!" Several Black Knights footmen and KMFs had already slipped out of the nearby building, trying to rush through the charred remains to the execution platform to rescue people. At this moment, the infantry fighting vehicles hidden in the nearby houses came out and, together with the surrounding Britannian infantry, joined the Black Knights in a melee.

"Come here, take cover." Davis and his group were among them. Many civilians from District 11 seemed to want to steal their weapons, and the other guards were already struggling to cope. They had no choice but to take the opportunity to hide under a broken wall.

"Phew..." Nagayama changed the magazine, then suddenly seemed to remember something, "Just now, we weren't seen by those German soldiers, were we?"

"What's wrong? They arrested you as a deserter?" Philip said nonchalantly. "Don't worry, with so many people, they'll either scratch him to death or exhaust him to death."

“We should think about how to slip out now.” Davis pondered as he peeked out through a crack in the wall—good heavens, it was chaos outside. Some civilians were running further and further away, while others were trying to snatch weapons from the soldiers. As for the Black Knights and their “masters,” they were fighting fiercely.

"Look." He nudged Nagayama with his elbow again. "Has this ever happened before? The Black Knights with KMF fighting so fiercely against infantry with almost no KMF?"

Yongshan just stared at him blankly for a long time before finally managing to squeeze out a sentence.

"Are all infantrymen in your 45th District this tenacious in battle?"

……

"Hey, what's going on?" Schreiber was still giving orders when he noticed that several infantry fighting vehicles didn't seem to be firing.

“Hey… Oh damn…” He couldn’t believe his eyes—why were two infantry fighting vehicles driven by his own German soldiers rushing toward the execution platform without a word, and clearly not to drive away the enemy?

They watched helplessly as the two creatures tore through the burning pile of corpses, and the two gray KMFs of the Black Knights jumped onto the roof of their vehicle, racing against time to cut the ropes on the gallows, and then hurriedly carried away the dying bodies.

“Gunther, listen to me, it seems we have a traitor among us.”

After the two gray-green KMFs fled, the battle gradually eased. The Black Knights' KMFs began to retreat, while Gunther personally drove back with a group of men, heading straight for the two defecting infantry fighting vehicles.

"Hey!" When he got out of the car, he saw that the driver had also climbed out, looking dazed. However, the moment he stared at Gunther, he suddenly raised his pistol.

"Scheisse!" With lightning speed, he and the Aryan special forces soldiers around him killed this "kindred spirit".

"This must be thoroughly investigated, Schreiber... Schreiber, can you hear me? Someone here has betrayed us, can you hear me?"

"Wait a moment, I'll go and check it out." Back on the other side, the captain was holding a large box of chocolates that he had picked up from somewhere, and handed the few chocolates inside to his henchman.

A little ahead of him, another group of German soldiers, guns in hand, stood on a floor slab fracture, pointing down at the predicament below—a group of Black Knights footmen dropped their weapons, raised their heads and hands, and pleaded with them.

"no, do not want!"

"Yamero!"

And Schreiber? He remained unmoved, just like everyone else.

"Wait a minute, distribute these chocolates to everyone, and of course, to those people down here as well." Holding the empty box, he slowly walked to the broken edge, took one last look at the poor creatures, and then gestured to the people around him.

"Hmm, let's change the packaging, and it'll be chocolate produced in our Third Reich, hmm..."

Schreiber turned his back, pulled the pin on a grenade, quickly stuffed it into the chocolate box, sealed it tightly, and threw it under the broken end. With a desperate scream followed by an explosion, the German soldiers sprayed bullets at the collapsed bodies before slowly leaving.

Chapter 209, Section 280: The Black Calamity

"OK, this is the news report from the news helicopter. We are now flying over Shimotsuke City. About ten minutes ago, the Black Knights had a serious firefight with the security forces of the Holy Britannian Empire here. We can see that there is still a lot of thick smoke rising into the sky, and we can still vaguely make out the wreckage of the KMF, as well as many scattered objects burning in the open ground."

"According to our investigation, the Black Knights attempted to force their way into this location because a group of criminals who had helped them were being publicly executed. Many people from District 11 had gathered around the execution site. This fierce firefight resulted in the deaths of a large number of Black Knights members, as well as numerous civilian and military casualties. According to the relevant authorities, the force engaging our mortal enemies here is a recently formed elite unit—the Aryan Special Operations Team."

"Okay, now let's switch the camera to the crew on the ground and let them bring you further reports."

Now, another group of interviewers, dressed in their gear and looking disheveled, are walking across this messy land—not only has the previous confrontation made the once relatively orderly land even more difficult to traverse.

"Oh my God..." The reporter couldn't help but think of some horrific scenes—what happened a year ago when that "Japanese Special Zone" was established. "What happened here..."

"Hey, hey, hey, watch out," the cameraman kept whispering to her as he carried the equipment, "It's already on..."

"Oh, okay, okay." The young woman quickly composed herself. "Ahem, I'm currently near the execution ground, which is also the site of the recent firefight. Okay, we can see many soldiers cleaning up the scene and checking the bodies and wounded. The makeshift execution platform hasn't been dismantled yet, and around it, we can easily see the bodies of civilians. Judging from the sight, these smoking bodies were likely unrecognizable after being burned in the previous fire. It has to be said that although the Black Knights are called messengers of justice, their actions have caused many more civilians to die tragically."

"So, viewers, we can see some members of the Aryan Special Operations Team here. They are wearing uniform black uniforms and red armbands. They are... wait..." The young woman was terrified. She watched as an officer glanced contemptuously at the dying civilian from Area 11 on the ground. When the man struggled to ask for help, he was shot.

"Excuse me, gentlemen, where are you...?"

"Oh? You're a reporter?" The officer who had just been in charge of the funeral was none other than Schreiber. He politely shook hands with the reporter's delicate skin with his blood-stained hands without any hesitation. "Is this your camera? Let me explain what just happened to everyone watching: When we were preparing to execute the death row inmate, and at the same time the Black Knights came to disrupt the proceedings, many civilians from Area 11, oblivious to their own mortality, or rather, misled by ZERO's empty promises, attempted to seize the weapons of the nearest guards. So, that's what we did."

"How many casualties did you suffer, and how much KMF did you lose?"

"KMF? NO NO NO, we only have infantry and a few infantry fighting vehicles. I don't know if you interviewed our Captain Henrik before you came, so let me tell you for him: We wanted some KMFs as 'weapons' for maintaining order, but the higher-ups said they were too valuable, more valuable than the infantry. Well, so we had no choice but to compromise. If we can't get the 'valuable' stuff, then we'll just smash the Black Riders' 'precious treasure'."

"Oh? Is that so? That's certainly surprising." The young woman's eyes widened, and it took her a while to recover. "But there's a question. You just mentioned that people from Area 11 tried to take your guns. I think you mean that you only opened fire after they used violence?"

"Is it strange, ma'am? When you encounter a robber on the street and use violence to retaliate, you will be considered to be acting in self-defense by the law. Of course, I understand that according to your thinking, such an action may indeed be excessive self-defense. However, I don't think it's worth making a fuss about. You may not believe it, but even those Japanese people who were roasted alive were their doing."

"W-what?!" The reporter was so surprised that he completely forgot his emotions. "Could it be that the deaths of these civilians weren't the work of the Black Knights?"

"Yes, it was indirectly caused by the Black Knights. ZERO tricked them into resisting, then set fire to a bunch of flammable materials we had deployed, and then got burned."

"Did you deploy these things on the execution platform beforehand? Didn't you consider the consequences if civilians were involved, or even if you were presiding over the executions? At the very least, I believe that neither the people of Area 11 nor the people of the American continent want such a tragedy to happen on this island of Honshu."

Schreiber paused for a moment, when a knowledgeable officer beside him quietly reminded him—a year ago, a princess named Euphemia presided over the establishment of the Japanese Special Zone, which ultimately turned into a nightmare trap in which tens of thousands of unsuspecting and hopeful people from Area 11 stepped into the soil of Honshu Island and were slaughtered alive, staining this jewel in the western Pacific Ocean red, and nearly causing this vital Britannian colony to be buried in a black rebellion.

"Oh? Hahahaha!" Schreiber suddenly burst into laughter.

"Consequences? Are you referring to whether a group of people who dare to defy the laws of District 11 live or die? Sorry, we have no interest in showing mercy to rebels. On the contrary, they should perhaps understand how much better it is to be burned to death in broad daylight than to suffer a more humiliating fate."

“Oh my God…” The reporter fell silent, only able to whisper softly, “They’ve gone mad… Are they followers of the ‘Slaughter Princess’?…”

On the wall to the side, blood-soaked bullet holes slowly oozed red blood, which flowed down slowly, falling to the ground along with the corpses of the Japanese from Area 11 whose hands were bound behind their backs.

……

"Hmm, an overly dazzling butcher."

Watching such a television broadcast was indeed uncomfortable—especially for Mr. Todo, a former member of the Japanese Liberation Front, whose usually cold and composed face was moved by these vivid tragedies on the ground.

Meanwhile, several young men from the Black Knights were busy carefully burying body bags into the newly dug graves, their voices filled with sighs as ZERO approached.

“We were too late, Lord ZERO. None of them survived the rescue from the ropes.”

ZERO watched silently as the bodies were laid to rest, then led Toudou and Karen into the house.

"Ahhh! It hurts!" The room was filled with pitiful people wrapped in bandages and gauze, soaked in bright red blood—and many more were even more pitiful, their eyes blindfolded, arms and legs missing, lying motionless like mummies in their hospital beds. Clearly, some could not bear such torment; they chose to take their last breath, then had their bodies covered by white blankets, their heads slowly pulled up.

In the emergency room, cries and screams echoed along with the swaying chandelier, reverberating between the walls. The phrase "keep quiet," which should have been used in this kind of place, was now rendered meaningless by the loud noises from the maintenance workers next door.

“Why is this happening, ZERO?” Karen asked, puzzled. “Why this time…”

The person in the black cloak didn't speak. He closed his eyes, his mind replaying everything in the room, the horrific scenes from the television earlier. He trembled slightly as he walked back to his room.

“You must be feeling uneasy trying to suppress your excitement.” Karen stayed with him, watching as the male voice inside the cloak removed his mask, revealing a young but rather anxious face.

"The Aryan Special Operations Team... As expected, these people are completely out of place compared to the rest of Area 11."

"So what are your plans?" He and Karen glanced at CC, who was staring at the TV screen, and casually beckoned to them. "It's said that these new black-faced freshmen have started searching for us throughout Area 11, and they've made some progress, so..."

“With so many injuries to treat, moving them would be a huge hassle,” Karen continued, turning back to the silent boy. “The new governor of Area 11 will be taking office soon, and they will definitely…”

"Stop talking!" Lelouch roared, and Kallen had no choice but to shut up so as not to upset him. C.C. watched everything quietly, understanding everything perfectly—after all, the new governor was the sister of this prince who had been hiding his identity.

"So, when you can't stay on the land, why not try stepping into the sea? Think about it, before this operation, which unseen gentleman kept reminding you that even if these uninvited guests can't take on a thousand men in the special equipment, their ruthless attitude is not something anyone can easily adapt to, especially for us?"

CC's words have two meanings—it's becoming increasingly difficult for Area 11 to hide, so they need to change their hiding place; the other meaning is, think about whose "name" contains the word "ocean"?

Helpless, he had no choice but to adjust his emotions, put away his righteous indignation as ZERO, and return to his original somewhat youthful and sunny student state, picking up his phone and dialing a number.

"Hello? Is this Mr. 'Atlantic'?"

"Ah, hehe, it's me, my dear classmate." Clark sounded strongly of alcohol on the other end of the phone. "Oh, let me listen to this. What's going on? Why isn't it ZERO's weird voice?"

"She asked me to inquire about some things..."

"Oh no no no, what's there to ask, huh? I've explained everything clearly to you, no, to ZERO before. I'll contact her or him when there's new information. What's the address I gave you for? Huh? Do you know how ridiculous that is? I'm very busy every day."

"Then, Mr. Atlantic, do you know more about the Aryan Special Operations Team?"

"Oh? Then answer me a question first: How much do you know about District 45?"

"What connection do they have with District 45, you mean?"

"I just want to tell you, in the future, when you encounter something unclear or incomprehensible, no matter how many cards you hold in your hand, please remember to be careful when you do things. Don't let that green-haired girl make a fool of herself for a brother who is extremely lacking in information... Uh, okay, you might not like hearing this, so let me tell you something: how to identify people from District 45? Have your underlings change into civilian clothes and wander around the Tokyo Concession. If you're lucky, you'll find a group of guys in blue and white uniforms. They all have six-pointed star metal badges on their chests. They, along with the Aryan Special Operations Team, are people from District 45."

"But I must warn you, just like I warned you before not to underestimate the Aryans: those people from District 45 with those colored clothes are not people you should mess with, much less people you need to mess with. If you want your Black Knights to have a safe place to stay in District 11, you'd better target those damned bastards with red armbands on their arms. Those orphans were on TV before, ah, how they dealt with the people from District 11, well, you should give them a taste of their own medicine, a taste of their own medicine, understand!"

……

That's all I have to say to you today! Bye!

Meanwhile, Clark put down his phone, sat down in his chair, raised his legs again, crossed them on the table, and picked up the wine bottle next to him to drink comfortably.

"Sir." At that moment, Yamashita came in from outside, carrying a box. The excited noise of his underlings could still be heard outside. "Here is something new, Mr. Davis asked me to give it to you."

"Okay, you can go now. Don't be a hard-working shut-in. Learn to go out and have fun with them, okay?"

After chasing the young man away, Clark pulled out a familiar yet unfamiliar object from the box—well, he'd seen it before, the PDA used by Britannian soldiers, along with a note from Davis saying to open it immediately upon receiving it.

As soon as the PDA screen lit up in his hand, a video call came in a little while later.

"Hey, sir," Clark slurred, giving a drunken salute. "Long time no see. When did you learn to use this thing?"

“Yeah, it’s been a while.” On screen, Davis looked around anxiously. “Um, did you watch TV? The Black Knights…”

"Ah, I know, I know, it was somewhat expected."

"What, even as their 'Special Intelligence Officer for Area 45,' you can't help them?" Davis smiled contemptuously.

"No, no, no, on the contrary, I feel that this failure has taught them a great lesson. At least I dare say that they will listen to me more in the future."

"how to say?"

"That dog ZERO... oh no, I should say those two bastards, the time before last I told them the Germans were going to execute a bunch of people from Area 11 somewhere, they didn't go, and then, cough, they got humiliated, right?"

"Why don't they go? Don't they pride themselves on being messengers of justice?"

"Treating the symptoms directly, understand? The messengers of justice are never absent in places like this, so the enemy might think the same way. So when I said that back then, they easily understood that the Germans' execution that time might be a trap for them... and then, you know."

"So what now?"

“Now? Oh, I bet they won’t dare underestimate those Nazi lackeys again, and of course they probably won’t lay a hand on us or the Russians. Oh, after all, they’re the ones who can’t learn to trust, and in the end they’re the ones feeding themselves shit…” Clark chuckled, took another sip of his drink, “Hey, what about the rest of the guys?”

“We’re still cleaning up the bodies from the previous execution site. Philip and I are praying for the District 11 people who were burned alive. Taylor has taken two other men, along with his new brothers, to a nice place to take care of some business.”

"Enjoyable? Oh, I see..."

Chapter 210, Section 281: The Ahead Is Not a "Shower Room"

On the other side of the Tokyo Concession, in front of a neat and orderly building, a group of German civilians from the 45th ward, dressed in relatively modest clothes, including elderly people, women in their fifties, and even children accompanied by adults, were being guided slowly into the gate.

The road in front of the building was lined with lawns and flowerbeds, and cheerful music could be heard drifting from nearby shops. With the Britannian flag fluttering in the distance, it presented a scene of peace, joy, and hope. But the Germans didn't see it that way—the elegant surroundings, the light music, the signs in front of the neatly constructed building with their broken English—while looking at the receipts in their hands, it seemed that only this record sheet, a stark combination of German and English, truly stirred their uneasy hearts.

The record sheets meticulously recorded each person's name, age, gender, nationality, when they were captured and brought to Area 11, and how long they had lived and worked there. But the more precise and peaceful the appearance, the more troubled these civilians became. After American and Soviet soldiers burned all the swastikas they could see, they learned that there was a kind of "bathhouse" that originated in their own country. The environment on the outside was so beautiful, but it was built in barbed wire, searchlights, watchtowers, and fully armed SS soldiers.

Are there fully armed men standing guard now? Yes, there are, but their weapons are not Mauser rifles and MG42s.

“Emmmm…” Unlike the cold-faced Nazi soldiers, there were only three people guarding the gate—Taylor rolled to the side, and Garcia, who stood in the middle with an innocent look on his face, was pushed up by Genia.

"What's wrong? Did you two have another fight?" He calmly scratched his face, watching the young lady take a step back to the side with a face full of anger, then turned back to see Taylor smirking, wondering what she had done.

"Alright, alright, I'm not happy anymore."

"Hey, aren't you going to try to persuade him?" Tyler said softly as he pulled Garcia over.

"Look at you, you don't understand, do you? Let me tell you, if a girl like this is angry, just leave her alone for a while. Come on, let's talk about something else. I heard we're getting a new girl here, right?"

"Yeah, isn't that the car over there?" The two soldiers looked from afar and saw a new military vehicle parked on the roadside in front of the building. Among the soldiers who got out of the vehicle was an older man wearing the same clothes as them, who was being led over by an officer.