Finally, the day of the war arrived. Unfortunately, up until this point, we still weren"t able to ascertain who the being behind the actions of the neighboring city was.
We did, however, manage to find out about the other side"s war potential and strategy.
The high-quality barriers on certain buildings had prevented our intelligence corps from knowing whatever was within those buildings but thanks to the many eavesdropping device I made using [Creation], such wasn"t the case anymore. Even though they couldn"t stealthily enter into the building themselves, they could easily get close to humans that would go into those buildings. By doing so, the Ocean Singers were able to place an eavesdropping device and camera as small as a pea onto those humans, thus enabling them to spy as much as they wanted. Even if the existence of those devices were found out, it wouldn"t be an issue. After all, the other party wouldn"t be able to figure whatever functions the unfamiliar devices had just by its appearance alone.
At this moment, almost all of the neighboring city"s top secret information was flowing freely to Avalon.
◇
I moved to the [Plain] I made together with my monsters and the golems.
According to our agreement, the fighting would commence here, the place I nominated, once the signal was given.
This Plain was bought with DP and was part of my dungeon and would thus earn DP for me. I had designed it to be as big as possible.
As we were arranging our formations, the neighboring city"s army also began doing their preparations. And when both sides finished, the golem corps and enemy army were lined up to face one another. The enemy army had well over 3000 soldiers. The golems, even though they had increased in the three weeks that pa.s.sed since the declaration of war, only numbered a little less than 400. In terms of numbers, we were at a disadvantage but in terms of performance, I estimated that it was going to be an even match.
There was an agreed upon time limit for this war. That said, if one side surrendered regardless of the time, the war would end. Lastly, the victor would be determined by the number of casualties and prisoners of war.
It sounded like a game but this was the typical way wars were done in this age.
After all, both sides wouldn"t want to suffer too much damage. In a war devoid of such rules and laws, both sides would end up harming each other"s most vital resource: the citizens. Win or lose, both sides would end up scarred deeply. For those reasons, it became popular to decide upon a place to do battle and clash there. Doing it like so, aside from the lack of civilian casualties, the territories would also be able to function normally as soon as the war has ended. For sure, rules were important in wars.
"Patron, as expected, they seem to be greatly on guard against the golems. As for their strategy, it seems they"re going ahead with holding back our forces with their heavily-equipped infantry while the magic users in the back focus on casting large-scale magic to wipe out our troops. Additionally, their elites are gathered as their mobile force. That seems to be the source of the enemies" confidence. Woah, those humans" smug faces are kinda disgusting, like they think they"re the strongest in world, yeah, they make me so mad."
R"lyeh Diva"s voice came from the cup I held in my hand.
The previous day, I ordered her to make it rain in this Plain, thus forming countless puddles of water. Like so, the gathering of information would continue as she hid herself in another dimension. Everything was laid bare to us.
"Thanks, Ruru. Do you know where the enemy commander is?"
I only knew for certain recently but in order for a name to be properly given and thus take effect, I would have to put in strong intent and magic power into saying it first. In other words, referring to my monsters with nicknames wasn"t an issue. R"lyeh Diva was a little troublesome to say so I recently opted to calling her Ruru instead.
"Yeah, ahm, just a sec."
As soon as she said so, she appeared from behind me. I then took out a pair of binoculars I previously made with [Creation] and looked into it while Ruru pointed to the enemy"s commander.
After I confirmed so, I said out loud his characteristics. I was certain that she would pick up the sound carried by the wind.
"Then, as planned, continue gathering intelligence."
"O—kay. Good luck then, patron."
Ruru said so and dived back into the puddle of water.
So far, things have been playing out almost according to what we predicted based on the information we gathered beforehand. The source of their confidence despite seeing the extraordinary Avalon-Ritters and the over 300 golems was the existence of the 30 heroes that were provided by whoever was hiding behind the neighboring city.
On top of being able to match and possibly defeat A rank monsters even in single combat, the heroes were humans and thus excelled at cooperating in battle. They could exhibit more prowess fighting together than when fighting alone. Because of that, it was no wonder they thought they could win even against the Avalon-Ritters.
For one city to gather this much people was generally thought to be impossible. Probably so even for some countries. Therefore, the existence of the one pulling the strings truly was ominous.
However, they were being too naïve.
Did they think that the Avalon-Ritters were my trump card? Moreover, did they really think I would reveal my true card before the battle has even begun? They"re looking down on me too much. And for that, they will pay.
◇
Moments before the start of the war, a lone knight rode out in his gallant horse from the center of their formation. As much as I could ascertain from his appearance, he was quite the high-ranking knight.
He rode out not to lead the charge but rather to discuss terms one last time before the fighting begins.
That meant I must also set out to meet with him. That said, doing so on foot wasn"t so appealing. As I thought so, Kohaku whose body was much bigger than any horse roared. He then approached and showed his back to me, as though saying I should hop on.
"Is it alright?"
"You are heading to war, my master, and I just can"t allow you to do so on foot. Furthermore, as it"s me, I can also act as your guard."
"I"ll be relying on you, then."
Kohaku, now fully recovered, looked even more imposing. Coupled with the air of tension around him that was born from years of experience, he was the exact image of a veteran soldier. His presence alone motivated his allies.
And so, I got on his back and headed to the center of the battlefield. When Kohaku got close, the knight"s warhorse neighed and acted wildly. After some struggle, it threw the knight to the ground.
Except for the warhorse, silence enveloped the area. Despite all of its strict training and its experience in the battlefield, even that warhorse succ.u.mbed to Kohaku"s imposing presence.
The horse ran off as fast and far away as it could. That left the knight dumbfounded as he knelt on the ground. I pitied the knight but proceeded as was normal.
And then, the knight—now on foot—and I—still on Kohaku—faced one another.
The knight had somehow regained his calm and acted appropriately during war time. He then read out the war"s rules.
Those rules were just as we originally agreed on: limiting the battlefield to only this Plain, the procedure regarding prisoners of war, and so on.
We agreed once again on the rules and returned to each other"s army. After a while, horns were blown loudly, signaling the start of the war.
Immediately following the signal, the enemy"s heavy-infantry roared their battle cries and proceeded to rush forward.
Originally, they would only rush after firing arrows at their enemies but they judged that the arrows would have had little to no effect to the golems. Not bad, I thought.
However, that seemed to be the only counter-measure they had against the golems. They were still far too relaxed. For that, again, I intended to make them pay.
The heads of the enemy commander as well as the head of the high-ranking knight exploded in the next moment. A few moments after their heads were blown apart, the delayed sounds of the attacks were heard.
"Master, task completed."
The sky distorted and revealed Aura as she wielded her anti-materiel rifle that had smoke rising up from its barrel.
Her rifle was upgraded to be fully made of orichalc.u.m. It was now dubbed as the ED-03AM Durandal・Avalon.
Looking closely, two people beside the knight died due only to the shockwaves produced by the bullet"s overwhelming power. Of course, the bullet also pierced and killed those behind the knight.
"Thanks for your work."
"I haven"t tired myself enough yet though."
Aura smiled and then spun around her anti-materiel rifle.
The distance between my forces and the enemy forces was just 2 kilometers.
Whereas Aura, supposing she stayed immobile, could hit up to 5 kilometers.
This entire Plain was her kill zone. Coupling that with Ruru pointing out the enemy commander to her, such things as sniping them right at the start of the war were trivial.
Moreover, she could fly in the sky so gaining line of fire was easy as well.
"Well, if things end with this, we wouldn"t have to kill needlessly."
The ideal would be for the war to end after taking out their leader. However, if their chain of command was set up properly so that they could recover instantly after losing their leaders, it would literally mean that we had to completely annihilate their whole army.
A voice then came out from the water.
"Alas, patron, they have splendidly recovered. There"s still chaos on the vicinity but they are going to continue the war, good luck."
"No choice then. Aura, sorry to push you to work harder but cooperate with Ruru and snipe the enemy from the back."
"Oui, oui, patron. Then, let"s do our best Aura-nee."
"Yes, Ruru-chan, let"s kill lots of them."
Ruru once again slipped into another dimension while Aura became invisible again.
Anti-materiel rifles were originally meant to shoot through monstrously armored tanks but thanks to Rorono"s remodeling skills which allowed her to freely incorporate orichalc.u.m, the gun was now more than four times as powerful as it had originally been.
This latest model had been installed with a pair of twin-drive golem cores. Using those in conjunction with Rorono"s Enchantments, [Hardening] magic could be used on the gun to reinforce it without taxing the user. Also, all the excess magic power would be used to activate [Acceleration] to further increase the destructiveness of the bullets.
It had so much power in fact that without the durability granted by its orichalc.u.m body and Hardening magic, it would break apart as soon as a shot was taken.
Naturally, the recoil was absurd as well. As Rorono would put it, it was an insane gun. Unless the user could negate the immense recoil like Aura with her use of wind magic, the user himself would be killed as soon as he pulled the trigger.
And then, there were Aura"s skills. The [Shooter of Magical Projectiles] which improved the attack power and accuracy of her long-range attacks; her [Jade Eyes] which was the strongest magic eye; and her mastery over the wind which she used in this case to get rid of air resistance the bullet would experience once fired.
With all of these things together, one needed to be at least an A rank monster with defensive skills and magic in order to survive. Even heroes would find it hard to escape instant death against her.
Her current tactic was to bombard the enemy as the invisible, immobile marksman in the sky. The chances of her presence being discovered were exceedingly low but even if she was somehow discovered, she could just easily switch to a highly mobile tactic.
As it stood, she was the indomitable G.o.d of death of the battlefield. And acting as her eyes was R"lyeh Diva. By agreeing to fight in this Plain devoid of cover, they signed their own death warrant.
For some time, the sounds of gunfire reverberated in the air. Alongside it was the explosion of the heads of the enemy"s trump cards: the heroes. Just like earlier, the unfortunate soldiers beside and behind those targets were killed as well.
It was one perfect headshot after another.
They were being slaughtered and yet, they had no idea where the attack was even coming from. Even the so-called heroes were screaming, panicking, and dying without knowing how.
Needless to say, the enemy"s morale was plummeting down.
"At this rate, it might not even take ten minutes for her to annihilate the enemies. But then again, we might not have ten minutes."
The sole weak point of her sniping was that it lacked the ability to wipe out all of the enemies in a short time. The heavily armored vanguard of the more than 3000 enemy army was drawing considerably close. No matter how hard she tried, she would be able to take out only a few hundreds by herself before the enemy army arrived.
According to Ruru"s report, the enemy predicted that I was going to order the golems to attack. They would then counter it by sending the heavily armored vanguard to stall the golems while their magic users in the rear prepared large-scale magic.
It was a good strategy if only we reacted as they expected. I didn"t need to send out my golems at all because I had another way of disposing their vanguard and magic users.
"Wight, show us the might of the aerial combat corps you"ve trained."
"Yes, as you will my lord."
Wight whistled and 10 Darkness Dragons from Avalon"s direction came flying to the battlefield.
The enemy soldiers that looked up to the sky and noticed them. Their reaction at the sight of the ominous dragons was the obvious one: they screamed and panicked.
Each of the Darkness Dragon carried a container. There was two kinds of containers though. One that carried large amounts of napalm bombs and one that…
Now, let"s teach them what it means to rule the skies.
R’lyeh is written as ルルイエ/Ruruie and hence Ruru. It can be argued that Lulu is better but, well, it’s from R’lyeh after all.