Chapter 190

Chapter 190

Chapter 190 – Magic Sparkling Stone Bomb

“The enemy base is no longer resisting.”

“Leonard, send the infantry in.”

“Understood.”

It was the second day of operating the high-speed strike force. On the way to Merinesburg, we were again destroying the bases of the Holy Kingdom’s army. Yesterday, we destroyed a total of four defensive bases of the Holy Kingdom Army. Today is two. The skill of the high-speed strike force is improving with each successive attack.

The riflemen led by Jagira immediately sealed off the entrances and exits after issuing a warning and a recommendation to surrender. Then, in coordination with Harpy’s scouts, the messengers and other means of information transmission were destroyed, and at the same time, elite troops led by Sir Leonard began preparations for a raid.

Basically, the Holy Kingdom’s army will take a siege position without surrendering, so the Harpy bombardment unit will bomb the stronghold relentlessly. After neutralizing the enemy’s resistance, elite soldiers rush into the enemy base. The base is suppressed. After confirming control, I enter the enemy base with my escort and quickly remove the debris and collect the loot. Meanwhile, Isla and other mage troops heal the enemy survivors with magic. Then we quickly moved on to the next battlefield. In general, we were steadily conquering enemy strongholds with this kind of flow.

“The enemy strongholds were no longer resisting, or rather, had barely collapsed?”

“Was the builder a slacker?”

“From what I can see, it doesn’t look like they’re being stingy with the stones…”

“The stones are piled so high that if they were to collapse from the side in an explosion, there would be no way to stop it. And if one part collapses, the rest will collapse in a chain reaction.”

“””I see.”””

The Grand Dragon certainly is an expert when it comes to dealing with ground and stone.

“That’s the bomb those Harpies are dropping. If you want to deal with them, you should not build high walls but dig many moats in all directions and fight within them. Even if falling bombs explode on the surface, you will not be exposed to the shockwave or debris if you are inside the moat. If the bomb is completely inside the moat, a direct hit will probably kill the target, but the area of damage will be reduced. And it would be easier to hide from gunfire.”

It is amazing that Grande, who would have never heard of the concept of trench warfare, came up with the idea of digging trenches as an effective defense against bombing and gunfire. Nevertheless, the wisdom of the dragon is not to be underestimated.

“That’s the way it’s done. Clever.”

“Yes, indeed. I am impressed.”

“I know, I know.”

Grande is in the best mood after being praised by Isla and Ms. Zamir. But you shouldn’t slap the floor of the airboard with your mighty tail. It will shake and break the floor.

It’s a bit heartwarming, but we’re still in the middle of a battle. We’re not kidding around. I wonder if my senses are getting numb to it.

“Kosuke, we will use that thing at the next fortified base.”

In response, Sylphy looked tense with a difficult expression on her face for a long time. I am becoming numb to the situation, and Sylphy is maintaining a sense of urgency. I don’t know which one is better.

“…I’m not too keen on it, but experimentation is necessary.”

Saying that, I took out of my inventory the special air bomb I had made up last night.

It is not much different in size from an ordinary air bomb. However, this bomb has a folded parachute attached to it. The detonator is also of highly reliable specifications, utilizing a golem core.

Why is a parachute attached to the bomb? It is to prevent the Harpy from being caught in the explosion after the bomb is dropped.

And this bomb… this bomb does not contain explosives. Instead, it contains one standard size magic crystal and two very small pieces of magic sparkling stone.

Yes, this is a magic sparkling stone drop bomb.

I did not fully understand the principle of its operation, but Isla, who analyzed it after dismantling it, told me that the magic power of the magic crystal is amplified by circulating it between the two pieces of magic sparkling stone and finally produces magic power that greatly exceeds the capacity of the two pieces of magic sparkling stone, thereby causing a large explosion. This is said to cause a huge explosion.

I see. I don’t understand.

“According to my calculations, the output is enough to blow up a small fortress.”

“According to the calculations.”

If, by some chance, the calculations are off by one digit, it could blow up the entire fortress and us. So we need to take all possible precautions in operation.

“The control is complete. Recover and rescue.”

“Well done. Mage corps to the fort. Kosuke, too.”

“Hmm. Okay.”

“Okay.”

Following Sylphy’s instruction, I put the aerial magic sparkling stone bomb in my inventory and got out of the driver’s seat. Next, Isla and Ms. Zamir, who was carrying a weapon, also got out of the vehicle. Sylphy and Melty stayed behind, and Grande seemed to have no intention of getting out of the vehicle in the first place. She is smart but basically lazy. She is a dragon, after all.

“Well, let’s get to work…”

“Hmm.”

We headed for the collapsed fort, checking the shortcuts so that we could retrieve the weapons at any time, just in case.

What we are doing now is an act of war, washing blood with blood and treating the lives of our enemies as if they were dust. But even so, we have established a line of defense.

Since the Holy Kingdom only recognizes us Liberation Army as bandits, there is no law of war between the Holy Kingdom and us. Therefore, no one can blame us for torturing the survivors or using them as human shields.

Of course, this does not mean that there are no problems. If we commit too many atrocities, we will not gain the support of the people, and it will affect the political negotiations later on. Moreover, if the enemy learns that surrender is meaningless, they will become a desperate army, and, true to their word, they will resist us with deadly vigor. That would be a big downside for us. So far, we have destroyed them without any resistance, but that is not a good thing.

Well, to put it bluntly, it’s like creating an alibi for negotiations with the Holy Kingdom later on.

We have adopted three major stances.

“We give notice and recommend surrender before the attack.”

“Treat enemy soldiers who are wounded and have lost their fighting ability.”

“We do not leave the bodies of the dead unattended but cremate them together.”

That’s it. In fact, since there are no laws of war, we can attack the enemy without warning and without mercy, and we don’t have to give aid to wounded soldiers or bother to dispose of the bodies of enemy soldiers.

However, we would hate to have the content of this battle later used as material for the Holy Kingdom to use in their verbal attacks. That’s why we are treating the Holy Kingdom’s army with a certain degree of moderation. We are not trying to play the good guy or anything; we are just doing it because it is necessary.

As I was walking along thinking about this, I was poked in the side of my head. I turned my head to look at Isla, who had poked me, and her big eye was staring up at my face. Hmm, cute.

“Are you nervous about using the magic sparkling stone bomb?”

“Things are a bit complicated. I can’t say I don’t have psychological resistance.”

The magic sparkling stone bombs don’t cause serious radioactive contamination, and the fallout doesn’t fall over a wide area, but when I see the incredible destructive power of the bombs, I have a psychological allergy to them.

Turning a fort into a pile of rubble with a massive air bomb or turning a fort into a pile of rubble with a single magic sparkling stone bomb is no different.

“When the main force is coming from the home country, we cannot just go out there and do it on the spur of the moment. Well, we’ll just have to do it.”

“Hmm, necessary.”

While we were talking like this, we arrived at the collapsed fort. Isla waved me off and walked away to the area where the wounded were being collected, and I went with Ms. Zamir to store all the debris and pieces of enemy flesh scattered all over the place in my inventory.

While clearing away the debris, we sometimes find buried survivors, and other times we find bodies that have been badly disfigured. If a soldier with a good nose finds a survivor buried in the rubble, they will dash to the bottom and remove the debris. They are treated like heavy machinery.

Well, that’s all well and good, but the hardest part of this work is seeing so many dead bodies. Nothing could be harder than this. A corpse with a part of the body missing is still a good thing, and there are usually a lot of corpses that have been cut in half or have the upper and lower body missing. I’m used to it now, so I don’t puke anymore, but it’s not a pleasant job.

After cleaning up, I dig a hole and put the collected corpses in it, and the mage corps burns them all down at once with fire magic. Then we bury the ashes, carve today’s date and the words of this world’s repose on a stone monument, and the job is done.

All the supplies in the fort, including weapons, armor, food, money, materials, and even the wreckage of the collapsed fort, are stored in my inventory. This time, the entire fort was destroyed by bombing, so it is almost completely cleared. Only the memorial stands as if to prove that the fort once stood here.

“Shall we go next?”

“I guess so.”

While saying so, Sir Leonard, who had been watching me set up the memorial nearby, now turned his attention to the survivors of the Holy Kingdom soldiers, who had gathered around and were stunned.

The healed soldiers of the Holy Kingdom were given only enough supplies from the fort’s stockpile to get to nearby villages and towns and then released. They were treated until they could barely walk, so they were left to fend for themselves. Frankly speaking, we don’t have time to take care of them.

“I have a thought.”

“Hmm… those feckless people are of no concern to me. Let’s move on, then.”

“I see. Right.”

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I shrugged my shoulders and followed Sir Leonard’s back as he walked away. He seems to be restraining himself.

“Next time, I plan to use the magic sparkling stone bomb.”

“Is that so? The Holy Kingdom’s army being blown up by the experiment is a little pathetic.”

The back of Sir Leonard shook slightly as he said this. He is probably laughing at the fact that the entire fortress of the Holy Kingdom is being blown up by the magic sparkling stone bomb.

Normally, Sir Leonard is a carefree, easygoing old man, but he had his wife killed by the Holy Kingdom’s army in the war 20 years ago. And he was severely disgraced. Even though he may sympathize with them in words, his true feelings of resentment probably make him feel a little better.

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“And, well, that’s about it.”

“Leonard has become quite well-rounded since then, though. He’s been hunting remnants of the Holy Kingdom army here and there for the past few months as a general in the Liberation Army, and I think he’s starting to feel the sting of old wounds.”

Sylphy said as she looked out from the trench that Isla and I, with the help of the mage corps, had built and turned her gaze toward the fortress.

After arriving at the third enemy defensive base of the day, we immediately made the surrender announcement and are now waiting to see what the enemy will do. Since they were not prepared to intercept us at all when we arrived, it seems that we were still able to advance the attack faster than the enemy’s information.

“They must be puzzled.”

“No doubt. An enemy suddenly appears on an unseen vehicle and then destroys the fort after a quarter of an hour. And in addition, they are surrounding the fort from afar, digging a moat and hiding in it.”

It must have been incomprehensible to the Holy Kingdom’s army.

But they seem to be making preparations for defense in spite of their incomprehension, and there is no sign that they are going to surrender at all.

“Sylphy-ane, it’s about time.”

“Right… Kosuke.”

“Yes.”

I took out a wind-magic loudspeaker from my inventory and handed it to Sylphy. This is the one that was made together with the airboard loudspeaker when it was made. It is a magical version of the so-called transistor megaphone.

“To the Holy Kingdom’s army holed up in the fortress. Surrender immediately! Or the entire fortress will be destroyed!”

Sylphy called out, but the reply from the Holy Kingdom’s army was a sporadic shower of arrows. The arrows were barely reaching us because they were out of the effective range.

“Well, there it is. Pirna, let’s execute the operation.”

“Roger that. The magic sparkling stone bomb will begin to drop.”

“All personnel take anti-shock defenses. Watch out for incoming fort debris.”

The captains of each unit replied over the radio.

Incidentally, the airboards are already stored in my inventory. It would be a disaster if they were broken by the explosion’s impact.

“Hmm, Pirna’s flying.”

“Yeah. She dropped it. Let’s get under cover. Sylphy, too.”

“Yeah.”

I pulled on Sylphy’s sleeve to make her hide in the trench to watch the moment of explosion.

Still not there yet? The next moment, I saw a blank, and the sound disappeared.

I should have been hiding in the trench, but my sense of equilibrium was strange. I couldn’t tell whether I was standing or sitting. I thought I could hear a keening sound coming from my ears. I wonder if my eardrums have been damaged.

“Kosuke, Isla, are you okay?”

“Hmm, I’m fine.”

“I’m still dizzy.”

I put my hands on the ground and shut my eyes, and as I managed to recover, I stood up and looked out of the trench.

“Oh…”

“I don’t see a trace of it.”

“The power was largely in line with my calculations.”

The fort that should have existed at a distance had been blown clean away, leaving not even its foundations. There was probably not a single survivor.

“It would be dangerous to abuse this. It should only be used as a last resort.”

“I wonder. Well, we’ll decide that at tonight’s war council.”

“Hmm, that’s a good idea.”

Sylphy and Isla disagreed with my cautious argument on the spot.

The final production and supply of the raw material, the magic sparkling stone, is very much dependent on me, so even if my opinion is not accepted, I think I can control it… I have to be careful, yeah.