"You are hereby called upon to aid the Royal army to defend the city of Wien against resisting Umstürzlers."
Lilith sneered at the letter with the royal stamp.
"Fu Fu Fu… the royal family wants me to aid them."
Lilith dismissed the letter and burned it up in the fireplace, knowing full well that failure to show up would result in punishment.
In a dark clandestine room the Prince of Fukviyu was sitting with his arms crossed and looking at Lukas, who had a look of determination.
"You will let me know where Rei Fivindus went, right, if I aid you in this, right?"
The Prince scoffed and asked Lukas if he thought a Prince would lie to his subjects.
"Are you sure you know where she is?"
"The Royal army scours the world, my intelligence runs deep and I have eyes everywhere. Is that enough to convince you?"
Lukas seemed a bit hesitant but accepted the mission to help the country of Wien suppress their revolution. The Prince then ordered for the escort of Lukas to the capital of Wien.
Rei slowly opened her eyes and found herself lying in a bed with covers. All that she remembered was the fight with Zyo but then everything went black. She lifted the covers and saw that her wounds had been patched, but an aching pain still lingered. There were boxes all over the place and a faint light coming from the oil lamps on the walls.
All of her clothes were gone and she had nothing on. Her entire body had been bandaged up and each touch of her body made her recoil in agony.
That's when someone whom she had not noticed at all stepped out of the shadows. It was a tall woman wearing a thick long scarf around her with baggy black pants with small holes on the sides. She reassured Rei that she was safe. Rei slowly got out of bed, even with all of her injuries, and ripped off the bandages on her body. Blood started to seep into the remaining white bandages that were still on her and she demanded to know what happened to her and where Zyo was.
The woman took out the handle of her sword and bonked Rei on the head so she would fall over and lie down in bed again.
"She was the one who took you in here."
"To what? Let her men rape me? To torture me to reveal all the secrets of the Fivindus family? To extract revenge for her family?"
The woman sighed and bonked Rei again to tell her to stay silent.
"She isn't that petty, you know, but well I have already informed them of your awakening."
The woman went back to her post and stood there waiting until the door opened and Zyo walked in.
"Here to claim your spoils of war?" Rei asked.
"Why would your enemy bandage you up and nurse you back to health after almost killing you?"
"Who knows, what if you are just getting me healthy enough to be sold as a slave."
"There are no slaves in the underground city."
Rei thrashed about and fell onto the floor the moment she heard that she was in the underground city. A place that she had, ever since her childhood, been told is a filthy lawless place that has the most vile people to ever exist.
"Get me out of this filthy place!" She crawled towards the door.
Zyo scratched her head, not knowing what to think of what she was seeing. But she let Rei crawl out of the room, still entirely naked, and once she had come out of the room she was met with a sight she never expected.
The sight of children playing in the streets, laughter and jubilation as they scored goals on each other in football. People buying and shops being set up and being civilized. The people of the underground city were exactly the same as the people of Nautilus. She couldn't believe that for her entire life she had been fed lies by her family and by Nautilus.
Zyo walked up to her and picked her up by the arm and let her lean onto her for support to get a better look over the city.
"We aren't the people you think we are. We are just as human as you."
Rei closed her eyes and decided to just walk back into the room to lie down. The woman in the scarf glanced over at Rei, smiling. Zyo walked past her and told her to take care of Rei.
30 kilometers from the capital of Wien the revolutionary army was marching at full speed, with Erich von Stapel leading the main army. 2 kilometers behind his army was Selina's division and in 10 days, if Steiner and Felix didn't regroup, they wouldn't be able to continue their offensive.
The fingers of many soldiers became black from frostbite even though they had their hands in their pockets. To avoid their fingers from rotting and becoming infected, soldiers would crack open bullet shells and smash the gunpowder to heat up a blade which they would use to cut off the dead finger. Soldiers would make the ones with frostbite drink alcohol before stuffing their mouth with cloth so they wouldn't bite down onto their tongues before having three men hold them down so they wouldn't be able to move before cutting off the rotten part.
But they couldn't stop or continue marching, it was for many of the soldiers had family who were in occupied königstreuer territory. They fought for their wives, their mothers, their children, they pushed on despite the pain and suffering knowing that if they lost their country would be forever lost and used by the Royal family. They would become nothing more than slaves, their children would never be able to know what freedom was truly like.
Therefore, despite the harsh orders and exhaustion, no soldiers in the revolutionary army defected nor did they abandon their will because all of them were fighting for freedom.