(Why should I stop with a little explosion when I could do much more with a core? Since I would use up a core every time I fire a missile anyway, isn’t it better to work on something that could even kill a dragon?)
With that in mind, I spent the next few hours working on the projectile for my sky golem. The final design should be perfect, it should be able to destroy even Dava’s barrier. No, actually, it was perfect against mage only, but I doubt it could give significant damage to a dragon or a warrior with real sturdy defense.
After finishing the prototype of the mage-killer missile, I let myself had a little break by checking through the surveillance flies. I found both father and Jiwa were staying the night in an inn of a small village, within [[Dragora]]’s territory. Their progress was shorter than I had expected. However, because of that, the plan for the relay towers’ positions would need adjustment.
As the series of towers would be crossing the main route between two towns [Rahziel] and [Jowsar], I thought it might be better to leave defenders at each tower. That way, I would be able to fight with more ease, knowing that mana disturbance during a fight would be less likely to happen.
(But, what kind of monsters should I stationed there? It’s better if they’re strong AND not drawing attention, isn’t it?
(Well, the new phantom rats should do, but I think Ken’s bringing them all to [Firzoa].
(The other stealth unit I have… terrortula? Ah, but there’s none of them at the moment. Not that I can expect one after Ken slaughtered most of the spiders last time. I would need a queen for their race sooner or later, if I want them to be useful once again.
(Let’s see… Is there any other race I can choose?
(… Hmm, doesn’t seem so.
(Nevermind, I’ll take care of it when the time comes. I can just force-evolve some if I have too.
(Let’s finish the crucial parts first.)
As I was busy musing, queen gi-ant came through a portal. I immediately turned my full attention to her.
“I’ve returned, master,” she reported in.
“Welcome back. How was it?”
“As your order, I’ve given a Fantastica the coins and brought Lady Ehrisya here. She’s waiting in the throne chamber.”
“Oh, alright.”
After putting down the missile prototype that still in my hand, I opened and went through a portal to my chamber. Queen followed right behind me. There, the middle-age beauty was inspecting my made-of-stone-with-some-gold-accessories-throne when I entered, illuminated by light orbs hanging on the ceiling.
“Hello, auntie. I hope your trip was enjoyable,” I greeted.
She turned and smiled. “Hello, Arz. You bet it was. I mean, I know the forest is huge, but taking a look from above is a completely different experience,” she said in excitement.
“Haha, glad you like it. I hope you can enjoy your stay as well. Hmm. The toilet is the right door over there, and the bedroom is the other door. The mattress is made of… hardened water, of some sort. Neither too soft nor too hard, I’ve confidence you’ll like it.”
“Oh, my. If you put it that way, I can’t wait to give it a try,” she chuckled.
I returned her laugh with a grin. “Well, if there’s anything that can make you more comfortable, don’t hesitate to tell Queen or me. Ah, do you want to have a dinner?”
Shaking her head, she replied, “No, dear, I already ate. And no, I don’t need anything in particular for now, but I will make sure to tell when I do.”
“Sounds good,” I noded. “By the way, if everything goes well, father should join us here by tomorrow.”
“Oh.” Aunt Ehrisya’s eyes turned expectantly.
“Don’t put your hope too high, though, auntie. In his state, there’s a chance that he won’t even recognize any of us.”
Gasping, she asked, “Did something happen?”
“Something terrible, indeed,” I replied, without explaining any further.
“Oh my… but it’s okay. Even it’s the truth, I’ll still take a good care of him.”
“Father is such a lucky guy, isn’t he?” I remarked, giving an honest smile. “Well, that’s that. I need to finish several things first if I want to succeed at bringing him. So, I’ll excuse myself, unless you still need me?”
“No, dear. Go ahead, don’t let me hinder your work.”
“Can I’ve moment before you go, master?” Queen interrupted.
“Yes?”
“Please take a look at this.”
A new portal opened behind Queen and one of the royal knight gi-ants came in, with someone on his shoulder. The humanoid made a bow before laying down the man he had been carrying. Then, after bowing once again, he returned to the portal he had come from.
Observing the man on the floor, I didn’t recognize him. He was dead, that was for sure. Moreover, his outfit was such a body-fit armor that I had never seen in this world. “And, he is?” I asked.
“Fufu… The one in front of you is one of the race called dragon knight. His skin is very tough, and he can nullify Red Wizard’s magic. Though, I suspect he hasn’t fully reached adulthood yet, because the skin on his face is still soft. Such glaring flaw. If I were him, I would do something to cover it… Or maybe not, I dislike covering, after all.”
“… Huh? Wait, a dragon knight?”
“That’s right. I watched him fighting while on my way to [Firzoa]. He even mounted a dragon back then, very impressive if you ask me. Unfortunately, I couldn’t find a good way to collect his heart without ruining the corpse. Could you help, master? I should be able to learn the secret of his toughness and his way to nullify magic once I eat it. I’ll give you the rest after that, you should be able to get a considerable amount of mana from him.”
I raised my eyebrows. “… Queen.”
“Yes?”
“You’ve your priority order wrong. Shouldn’t you give me him first and then I’ll let you have the parts I don’t use?
“Eh? Ah, but, I know you’ve no use for the heart…”
“Doesn’t mean it’s the right way to speak to me,” I reprimanded.
“… I’m sorry.”
“Besides, dragon knight is a profession, not a race.”
“Eh?”
“His race is human. Why do you think he’s a different race, to begin with?”
“Eh? Ah, because his skin is so hard like Haz’s… He also likes to roar like him, and both of them have dragon in their name. So…”
“I see…,” I said and smiled, ceasing my angry act. “Well, for your information, dragon knights or dragoons are famous warriors from [[Dragora]]. They’re elites among the elites and only few in number. As far as I know, most of them were humans throughout the history, with very few exceptions.
“Their main jobs are to protect the citizens from dragons, that sometimes coming down from the Dragon Mountains to look for food, and to arrange expeditions for hunting them in regular basis. As for their… hard skin, as you put it, they’re special armors forged by the dwarves, made of the rare elunium - which is said second only to mythril in terms of material quality for armor. Dragons are the dwarves’ natural enemy, after all, so it’s a mutual benefit.”
“You seem to know a lot about dragon knight, dear,” Aunt Ehrisya commented after I finished my long explanation.
However, I was more impressed by how calm she was. The talk of how we would use the dead didn’t seem to affect her, which was good for me. She really was a strong woman.
I grinned. “Boys who don’t have magic talent often have a dream of becoming a dragon knight, auntie. Not me, though, I always wanted to become a mage and an adventurer. And, believe me, the epic of Dragoon Diaz and his party slaying the king dragon is one of the all-time popular stories among boys,” I told, of which she nodded in agreement, probably from her own experience with boys.
“But, something doesn’t match up,” I mused, continuing my speech. “Queen, you said he mounted a dragon? Hmm. I don’t know, but I imagine it would have invited strong reactions from the dwarves. And nullifying magic…? Now, this is interesting.”
“… Mm, so, the conclusion, can I have his heart?”
“Fine, but I want to check him thoroughly before you do. Just put him in a prison cell for now. Anyway, good job, Queen,” I praised.
“Okay. Mm, since he seems a valuable capture, will I get my reward?” she asked, licking her lips.
(Haah… here we go again.)
“Not now,” I denied, shaking my head, which immediately made her down.
Considering it for a moment, I changed my mind. I would present her with something else. Then, touching her forehead, I connected to her core and injected heat into it, the same way I had done to both Hazard and Ken a week ago. However, I didn’t get a notification of the queen gi-ant turning into a fire variant afterward, unlike with the two.
“Oh, this is…?”
“It’s your reward.”
“Fu… I’m grateful, master, but it wasn’t exactly what I was hoping for when I asked a reward,” she said, taking my hand from her forehead. As she starting to lick my fingers, she added, “This, is more like it.”
Sighing, I pulled my hand back. “You should watch your attitude, Queen. Especially in front of our guest.”
“… Okay,” she replied, licking her own fingers in a flirtatious manner. She didn’t get it at all, it seemed.
“Notify me when there’s something urgent, don’t disturb me otherwise,” I ordered.
“Yes, my lord,” she said, lowering her head.
After sending aunt Ehrisya a farewell nod, I returned to the runway room. From my overview screen, I saw I had only spent around 2,700 mana points for my experiments on the golem and the missile, including the reward for Queen. Anyway, my mana level was safe.
(Where was I? Ah, right, I need to prepare a machine gun.)
I thought for a second. The sky golem’s engine gave me an idea of how to make use the bullet’s propelling power to remove the spent cartridge and load the next one. However, because I wanted a bigger size gun for the machine gun, I couldn’t use the existing handgun or rifle cartridges, and developing a new one would need a lot of trials and errors to get the right amount of explosive stored.
Thus, after creating a gun for the tests, I made a batch of cartridge samples and tried shooting them one after another. When they ran out, I made the next batch. When the gun exploded, I created a new one and recovered myself. I continued until I found the impact that I wanted.
Afterward, I had the dungeon absorb the cartridge, materialized its replicas, and arranged them together in ammunition boxes. Each box could contain up to three hundred rounds and would serve as the magazine.
Finished with the magazine, I began to play with the machine gun’s mechanism. It didn’t turn as easy as I first thought, and I had to resort with a core in the end. But most importantly, the weapon was finally done.
The next step would be installing the death-bringer tools to the ship.
For that purpose, I made a part of the sky golem’s nose hollow with a double door at the bottom side, right behind the front wheel room. I then created a machine gun holder in the new room, in a way that it could be lowered down and rotated to almost 180 degrees at every direction, before attaching the said gun replica and its ammunition boxes.
After that, I added hangers for missiles under the wings, six in total, and placed the missile replicas there. Last but not least, I had the golem took control of the cores of the machine gun and the missiles.
My sky golem was finally ready. Still, for an insurance, I summoned another sky golem and gave it exactly the same equips; two jet engines, one anti-overheat machine gun with 1,500 rounds, and six guided missiles.
Seeing my masterpieces, I grinned. No matter how many times I ran battle simulation in my head, even with the worst case scenarios I could think of, it always ended up with my overwhelming victory. However, there was one thing I was concerned with. Should I have Jiwa cornered, he might decide to kill father. I would need to be careful at this one, or everything would be in vain.
‘Master, keek,’ Ken called through our link.
‘Ken? What is it?’
‘Keek keek keek. The job’s done, master,’ he said proudly.
‘Oh? Tell me the details,’ I asked while accessing the flies’ shared vision, making a quick scan to assess the overall situation in [Firzoa].
‘Keek. We’ve captured a thousand of living prisoners, master, three hundreds of them are mages. I’ve also distributed the dead among our people, but there are still around two thousands corpses left you can absorb. Now, I’m confused at how to deliver them home, keek keek keek.’
‘What about the rest of the enemies? There should be tens of thousands of [[Dragora]]’s army.’
‘Fled, keek. I doubt they’ll dare to show their tails again after I assassinated their pack leader and sub-leaders.’
‘I see, good job. What about Haz?’
‘Keek keek keek. The fool got himself beaten half-dead for good, master. You should see his state yourself. And after you decide he’s no longer useful, allow me to kill and eat his core. Keek keek keek.’
‘Watch your snout-ss, rodent-ss. I’m here-ss, master-ss, still recovering-ss.’
‘Keek. You’re the one who should watch your tongue, lizard. Be grateful I haven’t eaten you right now, keek.’
‘Quiet, you two. Haz, what happens with your speaking?’
‘My wounds-ss are affecting me-ss, master-ss. It should be back to normal once-ss I recover-ss.’
I nodded, even though they couldn’t see me. ‘You can delay your return until you feel strong enough. And Ken, we’ll use the tunnel to transport our spoils. You pick a rendezvous point and secure the area, I’ll handle the rest.’
‘Keek? The tunnel, master?’ he sounded doubtful. Obviously, because the current tunnel wouldn’t fit even a person, let alone such a big entourage. But as he didn’t ask any further, I didn’t bother explaining.
‘That’s right, I’ll contact you when I’m done,’ I sent, ending our conversation.
My mood was shooting high. I couldn’t hope for a better result in this war. The news would spread, and it would open up a new path for us to collect mana, as a mercenary dungeon. In addition, I saw a new race among my creatures there that both strong and should be easily ignored by ordinary travelers, suitable defenders for my relay towers. I wondered how I had missed them when I had been checking the biological list before.
Anyway, I decided to spend some time developing the subway train.
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First, I went to the gi-ant colony underneath the dungeon entrance, where all the tunnels to the three nearest towns began. From the passage to [Firzoa], the worker gi-ants were crawling out in crowd after I notified them what I was about to do. Although, it should be fine even if they had stayed.
Once the tunnel clear, I used
Repeating the process, it took me less than an hour to set the six meters in height and twelve meters in width tunnel all the way to [Firzoa], surpassing even the original tunnel, with no less than eleven transceiver orbs installed. Ken and his rats were already gathered near the town’s east wall by then, but they had to wait for a bit longer.
Next, I created two pairs of railways, each at the side of the supporting pillars, made of the strongest and the most dense stone I could create. They would, after all, withhold tons of weight once the subway train started operating.
Finished with that, I made eight connected wagons on each railway and summoned four golems in form of locomotives; a pair for each railway, one at each end of the wagon series. They were simple in design, I just made sure the wheels and the brakes worked properly with or without a load.
Pleased with how they looked, I had the locomotive golems do a test run. The result was satisfying.
Of course, a bullet train would be better, but, as far as I knew, it applied electromagnetic field, which required electricity to run. Unfortunately, to produce electricity I still lacked the essential material, magnet. Moreover, materializing items that were made of metal and reshaping them would cost me several times more mana than conjuring and shaping stones. Thus, as of now, working on electricity wasn’t in my to do list yet.
Now, with my trains ready to go, I made a stone orb similar to the transceiver orb but with a handheld. Subsequently, after inserting a core, I set the round surface to absorb mana of whatever touching it, before putting the item in one of the locomotive golems.
‘Ken, the transport is on the way to your location,’ I sent through our link once I had the golems depart. ‘Ah, I forgot to make an entrance. Wait,’ I added, building a wide staircase and an opening beside the town wall.
The rats made a ruckus when the roofed structure suddenly emerged, showing a wide hole that led to underground in front of them. However, seeing their boss remained calm, the commotion didn’t last long. Thereupon, the ratsassin stepped forward, entering the area unreached by the moonlight. His rat army followed behind while dragging the struggling prisoners.
‘Don’t get too close to the railways, er, the long and thin stones attached on the ground,’ I warned, before giving my orders. ‘There’s a tool in one of the front cars that I need you to deliver to Dava. Also, have the newcomers gargoyles a priority seats to get back, I’ve a task for them.’
Right, gargoyles, they were the evolution of great bats. Finally. Along with the fierce rats, the great bats were one of my dungeon’s first monsters, after all, although their growth was very slow compared to the rats. Anyway, it seemed the battle in [Firzoa] was the last push they need.
A gargoyle had an appearance of batman of some sort, with an ability to turn into a stone statue - which tripled their defense and recovery rate while in that form. Their arms and legs had grown long and strong, their eyes had become able to see, and their teeth had gained a vampiric ability. Not to mention their whole new different level of supersonic screeches.
If I had them stay in their statue form, they shouldn’t be regarded much unless the bypassers were high-level adventurers who recognized gargoyles. At least, that was how I hoped it to be.
Didn’t think there was a need to watch the trains’ voyage or loading process, I decided to contact the queen gi-ant instead.
‘Hey, Queen, how’s our guest?’
‘Fufu… She’s sleeping with satisfied expression, master.’
‘I see, she must be very tired after the long journey.’
‘Sorry, we soiled your bed. I tried to be careful, but it couldn’t be helped with the so many rounds we went.’
‘Wha- Wait, what did you do? No, nevermind. On a second thought, I don’t want to know.’
‘Fufufu… Do you need something? Want me to consort you in night activities, perhaps?’
I smiled wryly. ‘Thanks, but I need something else. Ken is about to send a lot of packages, we’ve to prepare more prison cells.’
‘Oh, okay. But, I can’t do it myself if they’ve to be ready soon. Where do you want to place the packages, by the way?’
‘Hmm, below the level 1? Just leave a guard to accompany aunt Ehrisya and meet me there. We’ll split the job after I teach you
‘Okaay~.’
Soon after, I already met the boss lady of the gi-ants and formed connection with her core. Using
Of course, I had tried to teach magic to both of the other demons too. However, for some reasons, it seemed she was the only one who had an aptitude for magic.
Once she regained her composure after acquiring my years of training experience, Queen gave it a try. She laughed like a madman while playing with her new ability.
Still, I was impressed by how fast she adapted with the
Together, we thereafter built several layers of prison in the level 1.5, underneath the gi-ant colony’s nest. My plan was to put the mages and most dangerous warriors in the deepest layer, while the least dangerous ones in upper layers.
Morning came, we finished at about the same time with the arrival of the first group in train. As decided earlier, I let Queen took charge over the prisoners. Her minions worked diligently, carrying the tied people from the wagons through portals to the prison cells and had them chained with mana-absorbing-shackles.
Occasionally, some prisoners were close to break free and escape, but queen gi-ant’s supervision was flawless. To begin with, even if they managed to get to the gi-ants nest at the first layer, there wasn’t any real exit they could use. Thus, every one of them was handled thoroughly.
Meanwhile, after getting a mana boost from absorbing the corpses, I led the gargoyles into the runway room through many portals. There were about a hundred of them at the moment, it should be more than enough number to guard all the towers to Jiwa’s location.
Materializing enough transceiver orbs, I then told the gargoyles their mission through our link. Very soon, they were starting to pick the orbs and gathered near the planes. While they were busy, I used the time to create a large stone basin and chained it to the sky golems.
(Hmm, but I’m not really satisfied with sky golem name. It’s preferable to call them fighter, but, fighter golem is already used. Let’s see, aero fighter? Wait, I know. What about sky fighter? or SF in short. Yup, that definitely sounds better.)
SF-001 and SF-002 started their jet engines at my command, generating loud sounds and strong exhausts. I almost laughed when I saw how the gargoyles suddenly turned quiet because of it.
‘Hope on,’ I ordered, not giving them time to confuse.
Complying, the flyers scrambled to get into the basin. Soon after, the SFs released their brakes and accelerated. It only took seconds for them to take off and it couldn’t be helped that a bunch of gargoyles fell from the basin before passing through the portal to outside world.
I quickly erected a tower at the edge of my safe magic radius, right in time before a gargoyle jumped down from the basin with an orb. Since I already had all the orbs connected to my mana when they had been leaving, I could raise the next tower without delay, matching the super speed of the SFs.
Every time a gargoyle succeeded in landing on the top of a relay tower, they would turn into a statue while holding the transceiver orb above their head. They wouldn’t die even without food for months. In fact, as they were exposed to my mana at such a close distance, their mana supply was guaranteed and they would only grow stronger within time. My order for them was clear, to remove anything that threatening the orb.
My squad left behind the main road between [Rahziel] and [Jowsar] in no time and was now approaching the [[Dragora]]-[[Alishine]] border fast. As Jiwa and father had also left before dawn, I estimated we would meet within fifteen minutes.
When the squad got closer to our target, I had the several remaining gargoyles to leave the basin and grab its chains instead, before cutting off the basin itself. Afterwards, the SFs splitted their way; one would welcome Jiwa from the front while the other would chase him from behind. All while I kept establishing new relay towers.
With the unnaturally loud sound, it couldn’t be helped that Jiwa realized something was off. And with the towers kept emerging in the open and the SF-001 coming from the sky in front of him, it couldn’t be helped he was on guard. Not that it mattered.
Now that they were entering my magic radius, I made the first move. I moved the ground under father’s feet and brought him away. Being surprised, Jiwa reacted quickly by reaching out father’s hand, but I raised a wall between them. It was a neat trick I had learnt from Dava.
Once they were separated far away, I enveloped father with a dome-like stone wall. At the same time, a missile was on its way to Jiwa.
The missile met his barrier resistance, but I had been expecting that. As the warhead crashed, a tiny black hole-like thing appeared, sucking in mana from its surrounding and creating an opening in the barrier. Exactly three seconds later, the loaded mana converted into a big explosion.
*BOOM!*
It sent the bald and skinny soul mage flying thirty meters away with serious wounds, but still alive nonetheless. For me, seeing how the missile performed in an actual battle gave a good reference for future improvement.
In order not to give the enemy a chance to recover his breath, SF-001 fired the second missile. However, when I thought we finally got him this time, something unexpected happened. A thread caught the projectile from a side and made use of its momentum to change the course back to the flying golem.
“Wait, that’s… Spidey? You’re still alive?”
I was surprised. I knew Tig had gone, I had seen Jiwa use its core when he had been developing the new
With the white, eight-legged critter within my sight, I tried to contact it once again through our link. I couldn’t, though, as if something was obstructing the path.
In the meantime, SF-001 had evaded the missile and guided it back towards Jiwa one more time. From the opposite direction, SF-002 had also arrived and released two missiles at once.
Spidey, knowing it was futile to change their direction, came up with a different plan. It made a layers of webs. The elasticity and durability of the webs were able to stop SF-001’s missile while, at the same time, preventing it from exploding.
The terrortula turned around, this time it opted to stick its threads to both of SF-002’s missiles and pull them to each other. When the two collided, it created two black holes that exploded three seconds later. The explosions were smaller this time, though, due to the lack of nearby mana source to be sucked in. For my missiles, it was the least ideal condition to explode.
Jiwa, who had managed to drink a health recovery potion during spidey’s action, tried to sit up. He then erected a new barrier around him and the spider, stopping the barrage of machine guns’ bullets.
The splendid display of teamwork from the two made me jealous. I was supposed to be the man whom spidey protecting with its everything, not my enemy.
With his telekinetic, Jiwa sent my terrortula upward. Up there, it accurately sticked its thread to SF-001 and swung closer, trying to land on my flying golem. When it did, it raised its scythe-like forelegs to cut the wing part, but my SF maneuvered acrobatically at the right moment, forcing the monster to hang on a thread instead.
Yet, showing an unyielding spirit, it shot another thread to SF-002. It tried to tie both SFs together, probably planning to make them collide.
(Impressive, but I’ve seen enough.)
I decided to intervene. With
(Gotcha!)
Seeing this, Jiwa tried to run away. I wondered where did he want to go in this open plain, there shouldn’t be any place he could hide.
(Wha-!)
Suddenly, my sight was robbed, I couldn’t see anything at the battlefield. When I checked, I found every single s-fly in the area had all perished. Jiwa had to have realized the bugs’ true nature and decided to wipe them with mind attack.
(Nice try. But, it wouldn’t change anything at this point, you know.)
I sensed one of the SFs guiding a missile in its track. It hit, blew off Jiwa’s barrier, and sent him to his peril. Then, another missile finished the job, sucking the soul mage dry of mana and destroying his flesh.
I could no longer detect Jiwa’s presence. However, just in case, I summoned two normal golems to check the area thoroughly.
(Good riddance, uncle.)