Tyranny of Steel

While Berengar was hosting his victory day celebration for the people of Germany, Itami was neck deep in the Taebaek Mountains. Her army had advanced beyond the limits of the southern half of the peninsula with little difficulty.

Having defeated the Joseon Army in Busan, Itami and her soldiers faced little resistance as they pushed further north towards the capital of Pyongyang, where the Joseon King sat in defiance of the Japanese annexation of his kingdom.

While the remnants of the Joseon Army tried on several occasions to ambush Itami and her forces, their attempts thus far had failed miserably. Thus, the albino beauty had a smug smile on her pretty face as she rode on horseback through the mountains of Northern Korea, as if she herself were completely untouchable.

The young Empress of Japan was completely unaware that the Ming had betrayed her, and gone to Germany in a desperate attempt to pit the two emerging superpowers against one another. Because of this, she could not anticipate the ambush she and her army were walking right into.

---

A German Jagdkommando lay prone on a ridge across from Itami and her army. He was approximately three hundred meters away, but was dressed in a splinter camo smock, with a ghillie hood over his m35 pattern Stahlhelm. Lying in front of this soldier was his Mg 27(t) light machine gun, which was supported on a bipod as he aimed down the sights towards the Japanese soldiers who were unknowingly walking into an ambush.

By his side were the members of his fireteam, one of which had a g27 sniper rifle equipped with a 4x magnified optic modelled after the WW2 era Zf4 optic, while the others had STG 27s which were equipped with the WW2 era Zfg 42 1.5x magnified optic. With the introduction of the newest weapons systems to his army, Berengar had instituted a policy that every sniper and rifleman be equipped with an optic on their weapon.

The sniper of the fireteam gazed through his scope, and onto the advancing Japanese Army with a hint of surprise on his face. When he had heard from his superiors that his unit would be travelling to the far east to fight against an enemy which was nearly on par with the Reich, he did not honestly believe them. However, the evidence was as clear as day. He quickly called out to the other soldiers of his fireteam as they lied in wait for the attack.

"Are you seeing this shit? Bolt action rifles, breechloading artillery, revolving cannons, and Schmidt guns. Where the hell did these yellow bastards get these weapons? As far as I'm aware, the Kaiser has not sold weapons to the east!"

One of the rifleman in the fireteam gazed down his 1.5x magnified optic, and could just barely make out what he was seeing. He too was surprised as he expressed his shock through the use of colorful wordplay.

"Well, I be dipped in shit. These jungle monkeys actually have modern weapons! No wonder the Kaiser sent us here to train the local rabble to fight against them. Shit, it seems to me that we might actually have a fight on our hands, instead of the usual massacre... Or so I would say if these fuckers weren't so foolishly about to walk into an ambush."

From the moment Berengar had received word about another reincarnator attempting to invade Korea, he had dispatched his Jagdkommandos to the region. They arrived by the Bohai Sea in Northeast China, and made their way across the border into the Joseon Kingdom with carriages, which were filled with weapons and munitions for the sole intent to arm the Joseon peasants into a capable guerilla force.

With the assurances of Prince Zhu Zhi of the Ming Dynasty, Berengar did not wait for the emperor's approval. After all, time was of the essence. Thus, over the past month or so, these men had been training the northern villages of Korea into a proper insurgency.

Now that Itami and her army were stepping foot into the northern half of the peninsula for the first time, they were about to feel the sting of German steel. The Jagdkommandos continued to blather away while waiting for the signal to attack. Sure enough, as Itami's forces crossed through the mountains, an explosion went off, and smoke filled the air as the Korean militias opened fire on the invaders. With this signal, the NCO in charge of the fire team gave the order to attack.

"Alright boys, light them up!"

A torrent of automatic fire followed after the initial attack, as thousands of Japanese soldiers came under fire from the front of their lines and from the right flank.

---

Itami was thrown from her horse and onto the muddy ground below as her steed reeled in fright upon hearing the explosion up ahead. The Japanese empress was stunned. She did not know what possibly could have caused such an explosive blast. The woman was just about to ask her subordinates whether there was a weapon's malfunction when she heard the chugging of machine guns fire upon her army.

A bullet ripped past Itami's face and tore through a strand of her dirty hair as the German sniper just missed his target. As a woman who was never deployed to a modern battlefield in her past life, she quite literally pissed herself in terror when such a distant threat almost effortlessly claimed her life. The mighty war goddess of Japan broke then and there as she fell to her knees and covered her head in fear of death.

The German sniper cursed as he realized he just barely missed his target, and quickly modified his aim so that his crosshairs were directly on Itami's bountiful chest, specifically her heart. Just when he squeezed the trigger, one of the Japanese soldiers jumped in front of his empress, and pushed her out of the way as the bullet passed through his chest as if it were a knife cutting through butter. The sight of her men sacrificing their lives for her drew Itami out of her shock, and she quickly barked orders to the soldiers nearby.

"The enemy is up on that ridge! Form ranks and open fire!"

As she said this, the Japanese soldiers bravely loaded their weapons, and fired a volley towards the location of the German fireteam. Though their shots missed, it was enough to prove that the Jagdkommandos location was compromised, causing the fireteam of battle-hardened veterans to abandon their position in search of another area to strike from.

Itami breathed a heavy sigh as the pressure she was facing was temporarily relieved. Now all she had to do was muster her forces to attack whoever was in the front. At the front lines of the battle between the Japanese soldiers and the militia, the Japanese Army opened fire on the Korean rebels who hid behind rocks.

After a few brief exchanges of fire, the peasant insurgents broke ranks and fled the scene of their attack. One month of training may be enough to teach someone how to shoot adequately, but it was not enough to instill the discipline necessary to stare down the rifle fire of a well-trained army.

Thus, the insurgents fled the scene of their crime just as quickly as they had made their attack. Though the Japanese wanted to pursue them, Itami called them off. If not for the muzzle flash on the g27 sniper rifle, she never would have spotted the Jagdkommandos. She did not know who the enemy was, or where they had gotten such advanced hardware, but she could make an educated guess. Thus, she rallied her forces to her, and gave the command to press investigate the scene of the attack.

"Do not chase after them. We don't know how many there are, or what weapons they wield. I want to know who was up against! I need a team to investigate the corpses of the men we have killed while the rest of you stay on watch and maintain the perimeter!"

Despite the engagement lasting less than a minute, nearly a thousand Japanese soldiers had lost their lives or were seriously wounded. The overwhelming volume of automatic fire, as well as the proximity of the marching army, allowed for a literal kill zone who the Jagdkommandos, which sat on a ridge above their enemy's position, expertly made use of.

In the end, General Shiba approached Itami with a distressed look on his face, before handing two weapons over to the young empress and declaring his findings. The two weapons were an old G22 Rifle whose markings were scrubbed, and a stick grenade.

Though Itami could not directly trace the rifles back to Germany, due to the scrubbed markings, she could tell by the style of the weapons that they were in fact German weapons, or at least manufactured by a reincarnator who had a penchant for German weaponry.

When combined with the fact that she already knew there was a reincarnator in Germany, Itami could easily surmise that Berengar was responsible for this attack. Thus, she quickly interrogated Shiba for more information.

"There is no way such piss poor quality weapons could have such an overwhelming volume of fire. Are there any corpses of the enemy left behind?"

Initially, Shiba did not know what Itami was referring to as throughout the brief conflict, he oversaw the defense at the frontline. It took only a moment for the man to gaze around at the sheer volume of dead bodies beside Itami's position and quickly deduced that this was a two pronged attack.

"I can't say for the men who attacked you, but in the front they appear to be locals, armed with these weapons. Where and how they could get such advanced armaments, I do not know. Perhaps the Korean people have a war god of their own?"

Itami bit her lip in frustration as she shook her head. There was no reincarnator in Korea. If there was, the Joseon Army would have been armed with such weapons from the start. Clearly, the reach of this Kaiser Berengar von Kufstein was far further than she had initially anticipated.

If that was the case, she knew she was in for a long and brutal campaign in her attempt to conquer the Koran Peninsula, something she did not have time for. Before she could educate her General on her findings, the man sniffed in the air, and looked around in confusion before asking the question on his mind.

"What's that smell?"

It was only now that Itami realized her panties were soaked with piss, causing her to flush in embarrassment before denying the reality she found herself in.

"It's not me, okay!"

Upon seeing the young woman hold her skirt down, as well as her reddened cheeks, Shiba could take a guess at what happened, and decided to speak of this little incident no further. Instead, he made sure the Army tended to their wounded before marching further north into the lion's den.

As for the Jagdkommandos, they sent a radio-telegraph on their portable device to the reconnaissance vessel that lie in the Bohai Sea informing the fatherland of the success of their first operation, before regrouping with the insurgents and preparing for their next attack.