Fire, Earth, Wind, and Water. The Four Great Elements.
These attributes were powerful and rare. And for Demon Lords, they were also a kind of status symbol for their monsters to have.
As for me, until recently, I had three: the Celestial Fox of Fire, the Elder Dwarf of Earth, and the Ancient Elf of Wind.
Now, however, I have made a monster with the power of Water, the last of the four.
That monster was R"lyeh Diva….
"Just what the heck are you planning by doing something like this?"
"Ahh. You"re angry? Did you think I was just being mischievous? No, no, you see, I"m doing this for you, my patron."
I was at my wit"s end.
In the morning, when I went out to patrol the city, Avalon became submerged in water due to heavy rain.
Avalon"s weather was controlled dutifully by Aura and the High Elves so unexpected rainfall was almost out of the question, much less this heavy rain.
The culprit, of course, was R"lyeh Diva. She stood in front of my residence and sang.
"I mean, if there"s water here, I can come to help at any time, right? If this city"s my patron"s main base of operations, wouldn"t it then be better to cover every point with water?"
"Nope, permission denied. To begin with, Avalon is a city made to be fascinating to humans so that they may want to live here and so that we may harvest DP from them. If we are beset with this much flood, it would inconvenience them and what do you think would happen to the city when they"re inconvenienced here? That"s why we"ve set up all the waterways all over the city anyway, to prevent being troubled by floods."
"Aww, after I"ve worked so hard. But I understand; I"ll now let the water to escape to the atmosphere."
She silently protested and then began to sing with her eyes closed.
The heavy pouring of the rain ceased and was replaced by the downpour of sunshine.
At that moment, Avalon"s usual scenery returned. Among all monsters, R"lyeh Diva who had a special ability called Ruler of Water had the highest proficiency to use water magic and this much was easy for her.
"This will do, right?"
She asked so as she slightly puffed her cheeks.
"Yeah, thanks. I got mad this time but I know you just wanted to do something for me and that makes me happy. So, thank you. Still, if you thought of something next time, can you please consult it with me first? Who knows, I might even give you some useful advice."
At that, she looked slightly surprised before she replied.
"Woah, I didn"t know the patron was the capable kind of leader, the type that doesn"t forget to follow up on his subordinates."
This girl…
Crestfallen, my shoulders dropped.
Oh well, she might act like this on the surface but I know that she"s a good kid inside. Since she listens to what I say, I can still teach her various things little by little.
"Are the Ocean Singers dispatched outside faring well?"
"Yeah, they are. They"ve begun gathering information."
I had already made and sent out 10 of the B rank monsters of the same lineage as her, the Ocean Singers. I wished for them to have ready firepower so I had made all of them to have static levels.
They were dimension manipulating monsters as well so they too were able to hide themselves in another dimension via a water entry point and thus were also able to gather information one-sidedly from anywhere that has water as they stayed in that other dimension. And since it was water they used as mediums to peep through, their coverage was exceptionally wide.
"Patron, it might be better to hurry. The prices of goods are beginning to increase. Iron, most of all, along with food have suddenly increased in value. Clear signs of war. Hmm."
R"lyeh Diva and the Ocean Singers communicated with each other by periodically sending and receiving encrypted sound packets via bodies of water. Depending on the place and situation, they might make use of rivers, underground streams, and many others. For them to have made such a communication network in such a short time, it was certain that they were excellent monsters.
"Thanks for the good information. So, they really are planning for a war. You and your subordinates have done well."
"Those kids are rather limited in their dimension manipulation ability though so I often worry about them. Still, they"re adorable kids."
"There"s varying degrees to the dimension manipulation ability?"
"Well yeah. As for me, I"m mostly unhindered."
Their options varied greatly depending on the strength of their dimension manipulation ability.
First off, for both R"lyeh Diva and the Ocean Singers, the entry point for going to another dimension needed to be a pool of water with a radius of more than 30 centimeters.
As for where they could exit… R"lyeh Diva could use any body of water from all over the world, provided that it had at least 30 centimeters in radius. The Ocean singers, however, could only exit from bodies of water that were within 200 meters of their entry point.
This would limit them greatly in terms of launching surprise attacks but in terms of gathering information, they would be unaffected. Even though they could not come out of the other dimension from anywhere they wished, they could still one-sidedly spy on any place that has water.
Also, so long as the water was just for making a window to watch and listen from, they—both R"lyeh Diva and the Ocean Singers—could make use of any amount.
Now as for how pure the water could be, it seemed like, again, it would vary depending on the restrictions of the ability. For someone with an ability as high ranked as R"lyeh Diva, even a human"s body fluids could be used. In other words, this meant that it was possible to gain information from within the very source itself. However, if the target has powerful magic power, it would seem like the target would resist and the window couldn"t be made.
Furthermore, if there was a defensive barrier in place, it would be hard to make the window to peek through. Again, however, the strength of a barrier that one could surpa.s.s would depend on the rank of their ability.
"It looks like they"re going all-out for a city composed only of hundreds."
"Well, they"re aware of the Mithril Golems stationed in this city, right? They really can"t afford to get careless when each of those rival a B rank monster."
"I suppose. There were a lot of them shown to the public after all. But with just that, it"s hard to imagine they would gather supplies to the point that the prices for those goods would be driven way up. Which means they"ve secured enough to seriously mobilize their troops and be ready for a prolonged battle. Maybe they, despite being humans, have sensed that we have something more hidden away."
I didn"t say it out loud but I suspected that there was something beside the humans that we are facing in this conflict. I continued on instead.
"But then, that"s rather half-a.s.sed. They"re aware that we have more troops than we let on and yet they"re still pushing. Supposing that they do have accurate information on Avalon"s true war potential, mobilizing would only be more of a suicidal move. Either way, it"s hard to imagine they"re going through with this; even if they win, their side is the one that"s going to suffer more losses."
Avalon always has scores of golems present within it and those are but a small number of them for every day, Rorono and the Dwarf Smiths each make a new one. All in all, the golems that were in Avalon numbered over 300. From the ones working in the [Mine] to the ones made of orihalc.u.m also called as the Avalon-Ritters.
Each of the 16 Avalon-Ritters were at least as strong as human heroes. Meanwhile, the other golems could be as strong as C rank monsters or in human terms, as strong as a veteran adventurer. In addition, the Avalon-Ritters were equipped with heavy-weapons developed by Rorono which further increases their overwhelming fighting strength.
With just the golems, we had enough war potential to surpa.s.s the war potential a standard large city would have as stated by Marcho. According to her, such a city would have a few adventurers of the very highest rank and about 10 heroes. After them, it should be expected for the city to have about 3000 soldiers it could deploy.
We outcla.s.sed them and yet they"re still pushing and that was why I found it weird.
"Oh well, I"ll try harder to find more about it."
"Take note of the places with barriers that B rank monsters can"t pa.s.s through. For humans to set up such a barrier, those places got to have really important information that they"re trying real hard to hide."
"We"re already on it; my subordinates are already gathering intelligence from those places. It won"t be long before we put together a report."
"Okay, I"ll leave that to you."
Even if they had dimension manipulating abilities, on places that have certain barriers, they wouldn"t be able to make windows to peep through. That said, a barrier that prevented even a B rank monster was quite grand. For them to go that far, I wanted to know whatever they might be hiding in there, by force if needed.
"I"ll be going now, then. Please wait for our good news."
R"lyeh said so and then began to use her water magic to go through the water entrance she made underneath her feet. Before she could fully enter though, Kuina grabbed her by the scruff of her neck.
"You"re not going to escape that easily. You"re going to level up with Kuina today."
"Gyaa, I"ve been caught. But I don"t want to, it"s so boring, it"s such a waste of time"
"No complaints. Unless you level up, you will be the weakest among us S rank monsters. Now, come with me quickly. If you don"t listen to what Kuina says, Kuina"ll get Oto-san to give you a command."
"Uuu, alright. See you later, then, patron. I"m going to train with Onee-chan for a while."
R"lyeh Diva left for real this time.
Although she replied like that, she and Kuina got along really well.
Now then, time to do some work, I thought, they should be here soon.
And so, I headed towards the entrance of the city. There, I visited a store and bought myself breakfast.
The meal I bought was a red soup with lamb meat and spices. It was a soup that could only be eaten here in Avalon, in this area at least. After all, procuring these spices from far across sea was generally very expensive. How it could be made cheap was due to the Hippogriffs. Thanks to them, the variety of goods here in Avalon have increased.
I took a bite of the lamb meat and it crumbled within my mouth. I then took a sip of the spicy soup and it woke me right up. It"s really spicy.
It was fairly expensive when compared to the other dishes on the menu but still, it was a very popular meal among the adventurers.
At the moment, Avalon was really lively. The adventurers, the merchants, even the general guests, all were in a rush of happiness. They were overflowing with happiness now more than ever.
And that manifested in my DP income and the surge of power within me. I fed not on despair and fear but rather on everyone"s happiness. This would prove that my plan was not wrong.
And then, right when I was enjoying the bliss of the morning, those guys appeared and ruined it all.
"Bring out the leader of this city, bring out Procell! That rascal! How dare him to embarra.s.s me! I"m going to tear him apart!"
They were the soldiers that came from the neighboring city.
This time, they came with a wonderful looking carriage. My guess was that it probably carried a n.o.ble to oversee my signing of the official terms.
On their recent and final notice, the letter stated they would send out one last delegation but it failed to mention when it would arrive. I only knew through R"lyeh Diva and the Ocean Singers work.
"Welcome. Now, let"s begin the negotiations, shall we?"
I presented myself very differently from last time and that disturbed the soldiers. I no longer humbled myself for I had earned enough time.
Everyone had worked so hard, especially Rorono, to buy us that extra time so that we could stand on better footing in the negotiations. Due to our weakness, I, her father, had lowered my head but never again. Never again shall I let there be a reason for Rorono to cry in my arms.
Rorono had fulfilled her promise by making the strongest golems, the Avalon-Ritters and I knew how hard she worked to do so.
I wouldn"t dare waste those feelings.
I wasn"t going to be subservient anymore. I was going to stand proud just like what my daughter wished for. My daughters had worked so hard and from this moment on, it was my turn.