Departing a little later than Kuina and her platoon, we headed toward the ominous-looking tower dungeon.
I led the second platoon which comprised of Ancient Elf first and foremost; the Mythological Foxes and the Dwarf Smiths who all were B rank monsters; some of the Griffon aerial bombardment corps to carry out a special task; and some of the monsters I created using various imitation medals— the slow-moving but powerful ones— that I put within my [Storage].
Other than the Griffon and its corps, all were equipped with guns, enabling them to shoot at any time.
There were a fair number of ready-to-use ammunition loaded into the backs of the Griffon corps and I myself could make additional bullets if need be so as far as bullets were concerned, there was nothing for us to worry about. The platoon could liberally fire to their heart"s content.
It didn"t take us long until we had crossed the white s.p.a.ce and entered into the dungeon.
The inside was a vast, open s.p.a.ce made out of stone where the numerous demon and demon beast types of monsters were gathered. Upon taking notice of us, they there were immediately startled.
Judging from their appearance, it seemed that my guess was spot on and that this was indeed [Evil]"s dungeon. Even if my guess was wrong though, we"d simply be stumping on [Steel] earlier than planned.
"GYUAAAAAA!"
"BYAAAAAAA!"
The demons and demon beasts simultaneously roared at us.
[Evil] must have had something in mind to easily deploy this many monsters to an open s.p.a.ce. Perhaps, instead of dwindling our numbers with traps or stalling our progress with a maze, he intended to crush us outright by having the greater number of fighters here.
Really though, how convenient is this? It was the best time to try something I really wanted to try out.
Also, basing on the fact that he gathered this many monsters here, I now had a rough idea of what their side"s strategy was.
I raised my right hand to signal the attack. The Mythological Foxes and Dwarf Smiths threw something that looked like a metal pineapple. In truth, it was often referred to as a pineapple. It"s formally called a hand grenade though.
Of course, these hand grenades were no ordinary ones. It was a size larger than normal and had mithril powder within it.
The ones to throw it, the Mythological Foxes and the Dwarf Smiths, were B rank monsters. Thus, their attack power made the hand grenade all the more destructive.
Despite the focus on destructiveness and thus making it heavier, if the ones throwing them had the strength of the Mythological Foxes and the Dwarf Smiths, the grenades would still fly straight as an arrow for over 300 meters.
Enemies within ten meters of the center of the explosion were blown away.
After the Mythological Foxes and the Dwarf Smiths had each thrown their grenades, they picked up their MK-417 a.s.sault rifles and began suppressive fire. Their rifles sported the slightly larger 7.62mm bullets which guaranteed firepower for the gun.
[Evil]"s monsters who should have won simply with numbers were a.s.saulted by powerful and continuous gunshots. They were around 500 meters away, a distance [Evil] thought his monsters could easily shorten. That being said, their numbers were still too much. Little by little, they were inching their way to us.
"Ancient Elf, can you take control of the sky?"
"Yes, it"ll only take me a while against this bunch."
The monsters moving in the ground were being kept in check by the Mythological Foxes and the Dwarf Smiths while the ones flying in the sky would be shot down by Ancient Elf one after the other.
Her main weapon was an anti-materiel rifle. It was a rifle that even normally would be able to shoot through armored vehicles. But this, the one she wielded, was modified by Rorono the Elder Dwarf through technical and magical means as much as possible so that it may have even higher capabilities to the point that it was ridiculous.
And thus, with that ridiculous gun, Ancient Elf very accurately sniped her enemies several meters ahead.
This was possible due in part to her skill the [Shooter of Magical Projectiles] that gave bonuses to the power and accuracy of her long-distance attacks.
It was also in due to her beautiful jade green eyes. [Clairvoyance] that gave great kinetic vision and allowed one to see clearly from far away; [Future Vision] that allowed one to see the world one moment in advance; and [Spirit Vision] which allowed one to see the spirits and the flow of magic power. All of these were included within one of the strongest—to the point of being broken—magic eyes: her [Jade Eyes].
Furthermore, thanks to her full control of the wind, not once did her bullets—from the moment they were fired to moment they made impact—ever slowed down.
Each time she fired off a bullet, the flying monster that received the said bullet burst open. It wasn"t just pierced through, it burst open due to the excessive power the bullet had.
There might not be a monster that could hope to match Ancient Elf in a long-distance battle.
"Master, I will have full control of the sky soon enough. You can go and send them out at any time."
"I see. Then, I guess the star performer is about to enter stage, so to speak."
I then snapped my fingers and each member of the aerial bombardment corps here flapped their wings and took to the sky.
Up until this moment, all the fighting the others had been doing including Ancient Elf was ultimately nothing more than an opening act and everything hereafter was main event.
Thus, the griffon corps flew right up the ceiling of room. One by one, they each dropped some kind of metallic cylinder to the ground.
Since Ancient Elf had exterminated every flying enemy monster in the sky, there was no one that could stand in the griffon corps" way.
Upon dropping the cylinders, the corps returned as I ordered. The cylinder, on the other hand, hit the ground and then exploded. It didn"t stop there though. The raging flames spread to a wide area and it just kept spreading. It spread and spread and spread.
"Master, what is that? That"s no ordinary flame, is it? It feels sinister."
Ancient Elf who could control nature voiced out the fear she somehow felt.
"Yeah, that"s no ordinary flame, alright. That is science… no, rather, those are the flames of demons."
It was ironic calling them such considering the demon-type monsters being burned by it.
One of the monsters that got caught in the explosion and yet still lived tried to extinguish the flames all over its body by rolling around in the ground. Despite its best efforts though, the flames remained. It screamed and trashed about until it drew its last breath. Nevertheless, the flames still kept on burning.
At another spot, a certain monster was engulfed in the flames to the point of driving it mad. In its desperation, it lopped off another monster"s head, causing a fountain of blood to spurt on him. All the same, the flames continued to burn.
As I had said to Ancient Elf, these were no ordinary flame. The bombs that gave birth to these flames were actually called Napalm Bombs. During the day, the Skeletons worked on making delicious breads but at night, they diligently made these bombs.
"Those flames, as soon as they are started, will continue burning unless they had exhausted all the oxygen in their surroundings or a special mixture is used on them."
A napalm bomb was a fuel gel incendiary device made of a combination of gel-like thickeners and some kind of fuel. The term napalm was coined out its thickener"s two primary components: Naphthenic acid and Palmitic acid. Napalm would continue to spread and burn at extremely high temperatures like 1300 degrees Celsius.
Its worst feature was, as was mentioned before, the ability to burn as though it would continue to do so forever; as soon as one was caught in its flames, they would keep on burning until they die and even after that.
"It"s gruesome, isn"t it? No kind of attack, whether through magic or some kind of ability, has this kind of effect."
"Yeah, it"s more than what I expected. It"s a good thing we had this chance to try it out."
It was great that I had thought of the napalm bombs and then make them but I didn"t think I would be lucky enough to have the chance to experiment on their effectiveness. To actually have that chance, this war was a great boon indeed.
Against the monsters and even some humans of this world, ordinary bombs weren"t enough. Their bodies were weirdly resilient that even an explosion wouldn"t be enough to kill them. That couldn"t be said for the effects of the napalm though. They would continue to burn even long after they had died; no matter how resilient their body was, they would burn.
"Oh, I remember now; these bombs are being made in the underground dungeon."
"Yeah, we"ve made a lot in order to prepare for when the humans choose to be our enemies, if they so dared. We have enough to raze a full city."
Originally, I had decided to make these napalm bombs to antic.i.p.ate for when the humans launched an a.s.sault on Avalon.
I intend to have peaceful negotiations with them but in case they were not so inclined, after showing our power by incinerating their armies, I intend to use the bombs as some kind of deterrent by threatening to raze one of their cities down.
Napalm bombs were dubbed to be the weapon of demons due to its far too inhumane effects. It was even greatly frowned upon if not prohibited to be used on wars. However, to make up for whatever it was that I lacked, it was something I needed.
"………If possible, I"d rather that not be used."
"Yeah, I think so too. Anyway, shall we go? If we fly in the sky, this fire won"t affect us."
Despite having burned and killed each and every monster here, the flames kept on burning even to this moment.
"How about these flames? How do they disappear?"
"If we leave it be, I think it will continue to burn until it has exhausted all the oxygen here. But then again, dungeons are mysterious things. It might ignore the laws of nature and provide things that are necessary to live, like oxygen, so maybe the fire will only stop burning if there is nothing left for it to burn. Either way, this flame will serve as a roadblock to keep the enemy within the dungeon so it"s best to leave it be, I say."
Ancient Elf was always keeping the air around her clean so our platoon could safely pa.s.s on through but in case this thing was used in a closed s.p.a.ce, it would result in instant carbon monoxide poisoning for everyone in that said s.p.a.ce that somehow hadn"t burned. Hence, the reason I ordered the griffon corps to return after dropping the bombs.
On the other hand, this s.p.a.ce full of invisible poison was the perfect means to keep the enemies within.
As I thought of such, I climbed onto the Griffon"s back while the Mythological Foxes and the Dwarf Smiths each rode a Hippogriff. And thus, we safely crossed the sea of flames.
We have to do our best so that we won"t lose to Kuina and the others, I thought as we exited the first room of this dungeon.
The 2nd volume of the Light Novel is out! Purchase it at or at ! As before, I will be teasing the ill.u.s.trations an image at a time. This time however, I had created a page where you can view the already posted images.