Vol. 4 - Chapter 169 - Night Raid (1)
"Night raid? Are we going to fight now?"
"Yes, Kurena. We\'ll be doing something different, so follow me properly."
"All right!"
When I said that much, my friends understood.
They didn\'t know what I was going to do.
Even when we were raiding dungeons, I would often talk about fighting methods and strategies that they didn\'t understand. When they went along with them even though they didn\'t understand them, there were many things that made sense in hindsight.
My friends were sure that what I was about to do was something of the sort.
"Does that mean that the seven of you are going to go outside the city?"
"No. Formar, you will stay here and arrange for the recovery and information exchange."
In response to the Queen\'s question, Sophie said that she would leave Formar here.
In order to direct and arrange for the recovery of the wounded soldiers, it was better to have someone who understood its effects well.
"Yes, Lady Sophiarone."
(That\'s right. Let\'s leave Ellie as well and let her gather some information.)
The meeting would continue in the meantime. It would be good to have someone from our group who could participate in the discussions and share information with us.
As with the Nest City, I decided to leave one B-rank Spirit to join in the military meeting.
"Ellie, share with us the information discussed here."
"Yes, Master Allen, I understand~Death."
""Is she a Spirit?""
The elves looked at Ellie and asked if she was a Spirit.
"No, she\'s my summon. She is not your typical Spirit."
The elves stared at Ellie in astonishment.
(As was the case in the Nest City, the elves are quite surprised by Ellie. I guess Spirit summons are pretty similar to the Spirits they usually see. I wonder if there are Spirit Wielders too. I\'d like to see them next time.)
Spirit Magic is exercised by a person who has the Talent of a Spirit Magician, using the power of the Spirit to perform magic.
However, there is a higher level Talent, called a Spirit Wielder, in which you make a contract with a Spirit and fight with it directly.
It is said that Spirit Wielders are only found in elves.
I thought it was a racial Talent, like the dwarves Golem soldiers.
"Is that so?"
"Speaking of which, that bat with the big eyeballs that\'s moving like it\'s watching the city from above isn\'t a Spirit, is it?"
(Obviously, they didn\'t feel like they\'re on our side. I need to shoot them down.)
There were about six large bats flying around the perimeter of Tiamo City.
I asked just to be sure that they were not Spirits.
"No, they\'re scouts for the Demon King\'s army."
Apparently the elves have shot down quite a few of these scouts but they keep coming over even after being shot. As a result, the elves predict that a good portion of the city\'s information has been transmitted to the Demon King\'s army.
"I will shoot down the six scouts, so please begin your actions on that signal."
From now on, the city of Tiamo City will start to move quickly.
Since we are talking about enemy scouts coming out one after another, it may be difficult to completely shut down the information leakage. But the idea was to give as little information to the enemy as possible.
"Sophie."
I was just about to start moving when the Queen spoke up.
"Yes, Your Majesty."
"Thank you."
"Yes."
Even when Sophie was about to launch a night raid with only five other people against the 300,000-strong Demon King\'s army, the Queen didn\'t try to stop her daughter.
Maybe she thinks that this was the destiny of those born into Royalty.
I put out a 1000 [Blessing of Heaven] in the hall and walked out of the building with my friends.
"Okay, first we need to eliminate the enemy\'s scouts. Hollow, Ellie and the others, come out."
"Ho!"
"\'You must blind the enemy\'s eyes."
I used Hollow\'s [Midnight Sun] once again.
Since the [Midnight Sun] awakening skill requires a day of cool down time for the skill before it can be used the next time once, I had a different Hollow use it.
I grasped the exact location of the scouts of the Demon King\'s army and had Ellies quickly eliminate them.
I reported the elimination of the scouts to the Queen and Formar just as I was about to leave the building.
The elves were surprised to be told by Ellie that the scouts had been eliminated, but I had already begun my next move.
"All right, now let\'s head for the north gate."
"We\'re going north?"
"Yeah, most of the magical beasts are on the north gate side."
The [Midnight Sun] has too wide a range of searching, and its effect extends outside the city. I already had a good idea of where and how many of the Demon King\'s army were outside the city.
Tiamo, was a square-shaped city of about five kilometers in length on each side, with gates on the east, west, south, and north.
And the Demon King\'s army had four positions of 30,000 troops each, about a kilometer away from each gate on the east, west, north, and south sides.
To keep the elves from escaping to the south, another 50,000 troops were camped to the south, stretching east to west. The rest of the 130,000 troops were camped in a circle to the north.
My target that time was the 130,000 troops clustered in the north.
I summoned Griffins and when everyone mounted one, Griffin began to fly.
A kilometer high in the sky in the dark night allowed us to move unseen by the enemy.
We flew straight to the north gate of the city.
Tiamo City was protected by a huge city wall that was 10 meters high. There were not many walls this high in the Kingdom.
Beyond the city walls, an army of 30,000 magical beasts was massed about a kilometer away from the gate.
We were under the cover of darkness and flying a kilometer high above them, so we didn\'t have any risk of being noticed.
We flew in an arc to avoid the 30,000-strong army and aimed for the main camp.
Then, about three kilometers further away from the mass of 30,000 troops, 130,000 troops were set up in a solid position.
Even though they were all in one place, they were spread out over a large area. There were many magical beasts that were over five meters in size.
(Tiamo City was being attacked by the Demon King\'s army of 300,000. So, where are the remaining 2.7 million? I\'ll have to check this area as well.)
I had heard that the Demon King army attacking Rosenheim was 3 million strong.
We went further and descended to a position one kilometer east of the enemy\'s main camp.
"We are going to attack from here?"
"Yes, Kurena. Based on the type of magical beasts, it would be more efficient to attack from here."
"All right."
We spoke in a lower voice than usual. In addition, I didn\'t despawn Griffs as we were going to ride them in battle.
It would be more convenient for us to be able to fly and retreat if something were to happen. And a single Griffin can carry about 3 of us. So, if the Griffin we were riding on gets defeated we agreed to jump on someone else\'s and ride together.
"Dora-Dora, Kerolin, come out."
Then 30 B-rank Dragons and 10 B-rank Beasts came out. I continued to speak.
"Ready? Dora-Dora, use your breath to attack a wide area. Kerolin, there\'s the occasional A-rank magical beasts. I\'ll leave them to you."
"I understand."
"Ha!"
I unlocked the Dragon species when my
<Summon>
reached Level 7 and I unlocked B-rank summons. It appears to be similar to the Beast species but this does not mean that it has the same abilities as the Beast species and that one of them was no longer needed. Dragon was good at long-range attacks whereas Beast had always been good at close-quarter attacks.<Summon>
However, the B-rank Dragon cannot defeat A-rank magical beasts in this group of 130,000, even with its awakening skills.
However, B-rank Beast can defeat A-rank magical beast in one blow by using their awakening skill other than Dragon-species magical beasts. The strengths and characteristics of Dragon and Beast species are different.
With
<Fast Summon>
I quickly applied the Fish buffs to everyone. I also applied the full range of awakening skills. Kiel and Sophie casted Support Magic as well.<Fast Summon>
I checked from above within the range of Hollow\'s [Night Vision], but there was no sign of the Demon King\'s army reacting to the buffs and Support Magic that glowed faintly. I also captured the unnatural movements of the magical beasts.
"Okay, no problem. Cecile, you and I are going to attack from the air."
"All right."
"Everyone just comes crashing in when we start attacking. Don\'t overdo it though."
""Yes.""
"Dora-Dora and Kerolin, you can go wild."
"Oh, I got it."
"Ha!"
After confirming this later action, the Griffin\'s Cecile and I were sitting and started flying.
We climbed higher and higher until we reached a position about one kilometer above the enemy\'s main camp.
(They still haven\'t noticed us? If they had a good guard team, they would have noticed. It\'s also probably because elves don\'t have the ability to attack from above. They have to deal with the unexpected. But still, you\'re sleeping so peacefully.)
The Demon King\'s army was sleeping as they pleased.
I knew from my previous hunts that magical beasts also need to sleep and eat, and that they move with the seasons.
(After all, there are no elves left alive after being captured. Have they been eaten?)
The Demon King\'s army has destroyed dozens of elven cities, but I couldn\'t see a single elf captured in this main camp, making me wonder if they were used as food for the 3 million magical beasts of the Demon King\'s army.
(You started this. You\'ll regret it when you die.)
"Cecile, are you ready to go?"
"No problem. Just a minute."
The first attack when the enemy is guaranteed to be caught off guard should have our maximum firepower. Until now, I used to attack first with the Kabeos [Self-Destruct], but now it was different. The girl next to me had more overwhelming firepower than me.
Cecile closed her eyes and began to focus.
(It\'s a success.)
Cecile\'s body began to flicker like a shimmer.
Then she thrusted her hands into the air and spoke.
"[Small Meteorite]!"
With a loud voice, a huge, red-hot lump of rock fell from the sky.
The rock slammed into the ground as if it were being sucked in, and the magical beasts caught up in the attack were blown off the ground.
The destructive power that seemed to roar all the way to the city gave off the signal to start the night raid.