Anti-War Game: Starting from Normandy Campaign-Chapter 685 - 330: Rommel’s Despair, Story Rewards
Watching how Rommel meticulously devised his plans step by step.
For many Blue Star Players, it was a great learning opportunity.
Until the situation on the African continent became increasingly dire.
Supplies were no longer keeping up.
But the Imperial forces were already unable to mobilize more supplies.
Ultimately, in the Battle of El Alamein, facing the Allies led by Montgomery, they suffered defeat and withdrew from the African continent.
Soon after.
Rommel was transferred to the Western Front for defense, responsible for the ’Atlantic Wall’ fortifications.
Then.
The scene flashed by.
While inspecting the Normandy defenses, Rommel encountered an Allied airstrike on his way back to headquarters and was critically injured.
The Allied aircraft above might not have known that they had struck one of the Imperial’s three great generals, Rommel.
Until then.
The viewers in the live broadcast finally realized how severe Rommel’s injuries were.
On the left side of Rommel’s skull, shell fragments had caused a skull fracture, a sunken cheek, and severe injury around his left eye, causing him to lapse into a coma on the spot.
He was immediately taken to the hospital and underwent several days of emergency treatment.
When he woke up again.
What awaited him were cold orders and news of his subordinates conspiring to assassinate the Supreme Leader.
The moment he heard the news.
Rommel almost fainted again, unable to accept it for a long time.
Yet, he was helpless.
Because of his injuries, he could no longer command the war and had to go home to recuperate.
Carrying a heavy heart, Rommel was sent back home.
And for a marshal who could no longer fight due to severe injuries, his value to the Imperial greatly diminished.
Initially, Rommel was worried about this.
But soon enough.
Due to his severe injuries, even while recuperating, he suffered prolonged and intense headaches every day, which made it impossible for Rommel to care about anything else.
Most of his time was spent recuperating, paying occasional attention to the war situation.
From August to early September, over a month passed.
While enduring the torment of headaches, Rommel felt uncertain about the future, as his subordinates’ assassination of the Imperial Leader was already an unpardonable crime.
Yet, no one came looking for him, leaving him in this anxious and uneasy state.
This continued until early September.
General Micele, the deputy of the Supreme Command, came to visit him and ’informally’ asked him some questions.
During this month, Rommel had thought a lot.
There was no hiding it.
So, when asked about these matters, he very candidly admitted that he had ’criticized’ the Supreme Command and the Imperial Leader’s strategy in front of many subordinates in the command room.
He even mentioned that if someone else were to lead the Imperial, it might be better.
But the ’someone else’ he referred to meant electing a new Imperial Leader through proper channels, not assassination.
Rommel admitted these things candidly.
In fact.
There was no way to deny it, as he had said these things to more than one subordinate in the command room; it was impossible to hide, so it was better to be open about it.
However, this matter.
Even from the audience’s perspective, it felt suffocating.
Completely unsolvable.
During this conversation, General Micele from the Supreme Command did not say much, only asked a few questions and then left, but the unease in Rommel’s heart grew stronger.
However, he believed that, given his status and importance to the Imperial.
He would not be killed.
At most, he would be imprisoned or relieved of all duties.
Until October arrived.
The atmosphere within the Imperial grew increasingly tense. The uneasy Rommel met with his old friend Guderian one last time, with Guderian also being one of the conspirators.
Only he did not publicly speak like Rommel did.
The two talked a lot in private.
But this meeting did not result in any conclusion.
Until seven days later.
He received a call from Marshal Keitel, informing him that the Supreme Command would send two generals to visit on October 10 to discuss "future position arrangements."
Initially, Rommel felt relieved.
But as he turned to look at his family and son, an increasing unease filled his heart for some reason.
As a battlefield soldier who had fought for half a lifetime.
Rommel never doubted his intuition, and in a moment of clarity, he understood something.
After hanging up the phone, he remained silent for a long time.
He stood up and went to the study, sorted through some personal papers, and then burned them.
But the promised visit on October 10 never came.
This confirmed Rommel’s suspicions even more; the following days were spent with his wife and son, sharing the final days together.
Soon.
October 14 arrived.
The Imperial high-ranking officials came and met with Rommel alone in the study.
In the study.
The two Imperial high-ranking officials laid everything out to Rommel, presenting testimonies from conspirators identifying him and conveying the Imperial Leader’s final ultimatum.
If he chose to poison himself to death, he would be given a state funeral, and his family would not be implicated.
If he refused, he would be tried for treason, with obvious consequences affecting his entire family.
No chance was given to Rommel to argue.
The choice was death or conviction for treason.
Rommel never expected the Imperial to be so resolute, being given no opportunity to explain after nearly three months of waiting.
Half an hour later.
Rommel made his decision.
Then he walked out of the study, bid a final farewell to his wife and son, and put on the leather jacket he wore in Africa along with his marshal’s baton, and got into the car with the two Imperial high-ranking officials.
Just a few minutes later.
The car stopped on a secluded roadside.
Rommel took the cyanide capsule handed to him and swallowed it.
In an instant, it was all over.
Without any struggle or resentment, in the very end, his only regret was leaving his wife and son.
Facing death calmly.
[Immersive Experience] ended, and it took Yu Feng a long time to recover, mainly because the last part was too intense, and the Blue Star viewers in the live broadcast took quite a while to process it after the scene ended completely.
Clearly, it was a life full of highlights, yet within just three months, it plunged into the abyss.
Especially the oppressive atmosphere of the last part.
Even the Blue Star viewers felt uncomfortable watching it.
They watched Rommel ponder, think, and plan his defense in the study, coming up with various excuses, but in the end, none were useful.
The furious Imperial Leader did not give him any chance to plead his case.
Three months of worried preparations ended only with a death notice.
Anyone in his place would find it hard to accept.
Yet Rommel had no other choice.
After a while.
Yu Feng rubbed his temples and said:
"The after-effects of this immersive experience are really intense."
"In Rommel’s final days, you could really feel his anxiety and unease, even in immersive mode."
"It’s truly despairing, this kind of agonizing wait."
"However, this immersive experience is quite good."
"It filled in a lot of the details and circumstances of Rommel’s final phase."
"It’s not like experiencing the plot from a third-party perspective, just seeing Rommel taken away in a car and then dead."
"Here, you have the context and a long, despairing process."
"Rommel’s psychological strength was immense, at the end with that ultimatum in the study, an ordinary person would likely have collapsed."
"Three months of preparation, yet all he got was a suicide notice."
"Who could accept that?"
The live broadcast room engaged in discussions, viewing the last few months from a first-person perspective, it was overwhelmingly despairing.
While discussing.
Yu Feng noticed a system prompt.
He clicked on the pop-up.
Then two prompts appeared:
[Rommel’s Tactical Journal*1][Simon Hayer’s Sniper Training Insights*1]
Yu Feng suddenly perked up:
"What’s this?" 𝘧𝑟𝑒𝑒𝘸𝘦𝘣𝑛𝑜𝘷𝑒𝓁.𝘤𝘰𝓂
"A supplementary reward?"
He immediately opened the system backpack.
He saw two very different notebooks lying there quietly, and the Blue Star viewers in the live broadcast room also saw the pop-up prompt, but when Yu Feng opened the two notebooks.
The Blue Star viewers saw only blank notebooks.
Reading the chat feed.
Yu Feng was a bit surprised, looking at the sniper insights before him:
"You can’t see it?"
"I can see it, what’s going on, is it bound?"
"Hiss—"
"Does that mean it’s a limited edition item?"
"You can only collect it yourself in the game?"
"I’ll check the forum first."
"See what others have received."
