With the Darkness Dragons carrying the containers that were full of monsters, weapons, ammunitions, and potions, we left Avalon.
In the case of a [War] that was treated more like a game, the entrances between participating dungeons were linked by the Creator. Due to this, a Demon Lord didn’t have to worry on how to get their monsters to another dungeon. However, for wars that didn’t apply to this, a mode of travel for the monsters and their weapons was necessary.
The number of ways to transport a large amount of fighting force was surprisingly limited.
The first one was through [Transfer].
In terms of speed and potential for ambushes, it was unquestionably strong.
However, there were difficulties with it.
Transfer could be freely used within one’s own dungeon but when at least one end was located outside of the dungeon, it could only be used if Transfer arrays had been set up beforehand on both ends.
Additionally, even a B rank monster could only Transfer, at most, three monsters at once for probably a total of only ten times. An S rank monster could perform better but given the circumstances, I could not afford to make one at the moment.
The second mode of travel was through a Demon Lord’s [Storage].
This one involved placing up to ten monsters into a Demon Lord’s Storage, thus enabling the said Demon Lord to transport those monsters.
Doing this meant the Demon Lord had to expose himself to the dangers of the battlefield but in return, by using it in conjunction with Transfer, the efficiency goes way up.
That being said, only monsters could be placed into the Storage. This meant that golems, weapons, and other such things could not be transported.
The last mode of transport was simply for the monsters themselves to go to the target location.
Of course, this was full of problems too like the travel speed of the monsters being too different; some were going too fast while some were going too slow.
It was also too conspicuous. If a large amount of monsters were marching on a land route, it would surely alarm the humans and then cause too much unnecessary problems that one would rather avoid.
Considering all that, I had decided that the best way for me was the last one but via the air. Like so, worries such as travel speed, volume to be transported, and privacy were all minor.
"Oto-san, are our enemies this time strong?"
Kuina who was in the same container as me asked so while shaking her fox tail.
By the way, also present in the same container was Fel and Rozelitte.
"Yeah, they are. This is going to be the toughest fight we’ve had so far."
After all, these Demon Lords have already lived for several years and have accumulated so much over those years.
Challenging them directly was a sure way to fail.
Only after making full use of the advantages that I had could I see a glimmer of hope.
As for what these advantages were, it included:
The weapons that were made by my [Creation] and were further improved by Rorono.
Being the only one out of all Demon Lords who could naturally make S rank monsters.
The wind angel Rozelitte who could strengthen all of my army and also build an ultra-wide communication network.
Each of the Avalon-Ritters which were stronger than the average A rank monster.
How I would make use of these advantages would determine the outcome of this campaign. Fortunately, we were on attacking side and could therefore choose which weapons and methods we were going to employ.
"Okay. Then, Kuina will work harder than usual. If Kuina is Oto-san’s best monster and if Oto-san is the strongest Demon Lord, then it means that Kuina is the strongest monster ever. And because of that, Kuina won’t lose to anyone."
After hearing so, I beckoned to Kuina. In response, she got close, sat on my lap, and leaned on me. Like so, I brushed her head.
I started this war due to my own selfishness and that was all the more reason why I didn’t want to lose any of these children. I will not allow it.
Despite planning as much as I could in order to prevent my monsters from dying, I was uncharacteristically tensed. In an effort to calm myself down, I tried hugging Kuina and brushing her fluffy tail.
And yet, while doing that, I still wracked by brain for ideas.
◇
Several hours later, we were almost at [Beast] Demon Lord Marchosias’s dungeon. By using high-performance binoculars, I surveyed the surrounding from up in the sky.
"As I thought, it’s surrounded."
Her dungeon was an orthodox castle dungeon. But even more relevant for the moment, it was surrounded by several monsters. More than hundreds of them.
By doing so, they were able to prevent enemy reinforcements going into the dungeon as well as provide reinforcements of their own to those already sieging within.
What a bother. Just going inside Marcho’s dungeon is this bothersome already.
Her dungeon wasn’t surrounded only on the ground, on the sky too.
As we neared the dungeon, the closer we got to the flying dragons and gigantic bird monsters circling in the sky.
Humans couldn’t reach us in the sky but the same couldn’t be said about Demon Lords and monsters. Just because we were flying, it didn’t mean we were safe.
"Aura, it’s as we assumed. Are you ready?"
Aura wasn’t in the same container that I was in. Normally, my voice wouldn’t be able to reach her ears but since it was her, she could, through the wind, pick up the sound in my vicinity.
<Yes, master. All the members of the sniping corps are in their designated positions. Awaiting for your commands.>
Aura sent her reply to me via the wind. She sounded more excited than usual. Full of joy even.
"I grant you permission to fire as you see fit. Take your prized sniping corps and work together with the Darkness Dragons to take control of the sky. Let the High Elves focus on the small fries while you focus on the ones with great amounts of magic power."
<Leave it to us. We will teach them who rules the sky! ♪>
Like that, the sound of gunfire began.
Even though the Darkness Dragons were superior among B rank monsters, carrying a heavy load would cause their unarmed fighting prowess to fall down. So, to compensate for that was the sniping corps.
The sniping corps was composed of the elves including Aura. Each member wasn’t inside any of the containers but on the back of the Darkness Dragons. Each one also carried their own anti-materiel rifle which could pierce even tanks.
With the elves’ special eyes and with wind on their side—instead of the enemies’—even fast flying monsters were dealt with in one shot.
That wasn’t all. Since they had leveled up a lot, they could now use wind magic aggressively.
For example, as a group, they could control the weather. For the flying enemy monsters, this was the worst obstruction. Due to this, the enemy’s flying dragons and gigantic bird monsters’ movement got worse.
As expected of Aura, she’s very skillful in using her powers.
"Rozelitte, contact Wight. Tell him to immediately strengthen the Darkness Dragons. Also tell him that as soon as we have complete control of the sky, quickly commence the eradication of the monsters on the ground."
"Certainly, Procell-sama."
The reason I placed Rozelitte in the same container as me was so that she could relay my orders to everyone via telepathy. Her Wide-range Empathy skill was truly amazing.
As long as she was here, my voice could reach anywhere.
A few moments later, the Darkness Dragons were covered by a black aura.
It was the effect of Wight’s special ability, the [Ruler of Death], which provided army-wide strengthening to undead units.
Because it continuously consumed magic power while active, I had chosen to preserve it until this moment.
And so, the speed of the Darkness Dragons rose and the elves of the sniping corps got into better positions. As for the enemy aerial defense force who were already in a bad state due to the weather, they just got into an even worse state of affairs.
With the Darkness Dragons taking care of those in the front with their breath attacks and with the elves shooting those in the rear with their anti-materiel rifles, the enemy—who by comparison could only attack those in front of them—stood no chance in this aerial dogfight.
A few minutes later, the elves and dragons had managed to easily annihilate the enemy monsters and thus take control of the sky.
The sky now calm and devoid of enemies, the Darkness Dragons then turned around and got themselves into the best possible positions. When they were ready, they then began to drop the large amounts of napalm bombs from the containers.
By activating their [Miasma (Weak)] skill, the Darkness Dragons who were already superior B rank monsters in terms of offense, further increased their offensive capabilities.
Moreover, Wight had also activated his [Ruler of Death] skill while Rozelitte had activated her [Angelic Halo of Light]. With all of these three strengthening skills working at the same time, everything on the ground was being turned into ash by the flames that were dyed black by the miasma.
It was dark hell made real.
Only monsters with extreme resistance to fire could survive such a hell but that didn’t really matter since the sniping corps led by Aura were executing such survivors.
The cursing of countless burning and dying monsters could be heard from the ground. Try as they might though, we were so high up that no attack of theirs could ever hope to reach us. Before long, their cursing died down.
"They were intended to be their defense but for us, they’re just food."
By this point, we had successfully destroyed the enemy encirclement. However, that wasn’t much cause for celebration.
We had consumed a considerable amount of napalm bombs in our previous war and even though the undead monsters were working full time in the undead factory to make more, there were only so much they could make. And now, with this attack, our inventory of it was nearly gone.
We had two reasons as to why we chose to use the powerful napalm bombs instead of preserving them.
The first was that eliminating the monsters near Marcho’s dungeon’s entrance was absolutely necessary so that we could get inside. Choosing to charge our way in wasn’t wise as we could easily be surrounded by the enemies. On the other hand, annihilating the enemy monsters with napalm instead of charging in meant that Marcho’s monsters and my own would be able to surround the enemies that had already entered her dungeon.
The other reason was to level up my S rank monsters. We had predicted that the outside of Marcho’s dungeon would be surrounded and thus planned to bomb those enemies. Since we knew that this was going to happen, we partied the Darkness Dragons with the S rank monsters. In other words, the several hundreds of monsters we killed just now were going to be nourishment for my S rank monsters.
I then looked at Kuina’s direction.
Her face was red and she was embracing her own body.
Something was weird. While it was quite normal for Kuina to be drunk on the ecstatic feeling she gets from leveling up, something was different this time.
Her eyes were drowsy, her tail was trembling, and her breathing was heavy.
"Oto-san, Kuina, Kuina’s body feels so hot."
And then, her deep red eyes shined obscenely.
Following that, Kuina grew up. At first she looked like 12 or maybe 13 years old but then she looked 14 or even 15. Her tail became fluffier and the fur on it became softer.
"Oto-san, Kuina has reached it. Finally, Kuina’s a proper Celestial Fox."
While leaning on me and breathing heavily, she looked up at me.
"I see, I see"
What becoming a proper Celestial Fox meant was that she had finally reached level 70 which was the standard level for fixed-level S rank monsters to be born in.
By nature, Celestial Foxes were the late-blooming type of powerful monsters.
Because I had made Kuina with a progressive level instead of a fixed one, she was unable to make the best use of her original powers. Her stats were dampened and a portion of her special abilities were sealed.
She had always been strong but as an S rank monster, she was just at the starting line.
As her trump card, she had been using her [Transform] to temporarily borrow power from her future self. However, put in another way, this borrowed power was just the power she should already have anyway. It wasn’t a power up, it was only the removal of a negative effect.
I decided to look at her status but upon seeing it, my face twitched.
So this is the true power of a Celestial Fox, I thought, Kuina’s power until now was just a small fraction of this.
"Can I count on Kuina who has grown so strong?"
"Yup, Oto-san. Kuina has grown much, much stronger than ever so rest assured. I won’t lose to anyone. Also, now that I’ve grown, I have become able to do various things!"
This was a happy miscalculation.
Let’s use that power to the utmost.
When the napalm-born fire died out, the Darkness Dragons dropped down to the ground to secure a position, crushing the few remaining survivors in the process.
The containers then opened and let out my monsters and golems.
Just as instructed to them beforehand, they didn’t forget to bring ammo with them.
Also, the crow monster proceeded to set up a Transfer array here. Just in case.
I too went out of the container and walked to the front of my adorable monsters. Once there, I turned around, looked at each of them, and then spoke.
"The one to take command of the defense force shall be that Dwarf Smith. Kohaku the Byakko will be her counselor. Defend this entrance to the best of your ability so that the assault force going inside the dungeon won’t be attacked from the rear. That must not happen. You all are their lifelines."
The defense force included half of the Darkness Dragons and High Elves pairs to protect the sky. To guard the ground were five normal-type Avalon-Ritters, many Mithril Golems equipped with improved heavy-machineguns, and the ones to control them both, the Dwarf Smiths.
Wight who I considered to be a trump card wasn’t part of the defense force. Because of that, the one to take command was the monster next in line to him. In other words, his very skillful adjutant, the Dwarf Smith. Also, Kohaku was there to aid her as well as to serve as backup for when things get too dangerous.
"To the assault force, from here on out, we will be going into enemy lines. I have just one command to all of you: rampage. You all are my monsters and are therefore part of the strongest army there is. There is no way you are going to lose to these moldy old timers. Now, let’s go. Follow me!!"
"Yay ♪! Understood!"
"Master, let’s show them the power of the new weapon."
"I still have lots of ammo. The potion stocks are also a-ok."
My monsters each gave a strong reply and then followed me.
The first step in our strategy was a success.
Now, with this vigor, let’s crush them all.
Like so, we walked toward Marcho’s dungeon.
From here on out was the real war.
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