Side: Yuki
Right now, everyone has returned to the meeting room in Weed.
The current time is 10:00 AM.
Having finished our usual daily duties and meals, we've gathered together, but from here on is where the real work begins.
"First off, before getting to the main topic, let's go over the current situation regarding Amanda, the others, and us. Eris, if you would?"
"Yes. First, regarding the Flying Dragon Corps that went to aid the August army, everything went safely, and the results were credited to Dragon Knight Amanda."
Yeah. I'm really sorry about that.
However, I entrusted Wy-chan to Amanda with that intention from the very beginning...
So, well... just bear with it.
I heard about the interaction with the King from Eris personally, but it seems Amanda was completely frozen up, her mind utterly unable to process what was happening.
Well, it's only natural—a squad of flying dragons under Wy-chan, whom she'd never seen before, arrived first as reinforcements, scored the victory, and then the entire accomplishment was handed to Amanda as her achievement.
Since she had no sense of having accomplished it herself, and her personality wouldn't allow her to claim someone else's achievement as her own, Eris ended up handling all the interactions with the King on her behalf.
In a sense, leaving it entirely to Eris was actually safer than having Amanda handle the communication poorly.
"Next, regarding our escort mission for August VIII, the current King, to the royal capital. Since the enemy has been repelled and things have settled down, we can't simply take His Majesty and leave immediately."
That's true.
If we were evacuating him because things were still dangerous, that would be one thing, but now that everything is over, we can't just drag the person in charge away without warning.
"It will take about two days to complete the general aftermath processing and issue necessary orders. Therefore, we plan to depart after a day or two. Amanda and Eoid are already resting in the quarters provided within the fortress. As for security, our Doppel units are monitoring everything, so there are no issues. That concludes our situation report."
"Thank you. Next is the main topic. Let's start with the conclusion. Milly, please."
"Yes."
Saying that, Milly walks up to the whiteboard and the large monitor.
"Just as Yuki-san mentioned, I'll start with the conclusion. First off, among the enemy ranks, Yuki-san's predecessor—that is, the former Dungeon Master—has been resurrected as a Lich, an undead."
Then, the footage recorded by the flying dragons is displayed on the monitor.
It shows a beautiful woman with long, straight blonde hair captured from various angles.
"I would like to confirm once more in this place: Poppuri-san, Sia-san, Kishua-san—this person is definitely the former Dungeon Master, Comet Tail-san, correct?"
"Yes. There's no doubt about it."
"...No mistake."
"...It is a fact."
The three of them answer with somewhat complicated expressions.
"We also checked with Luna-san, and she said, 'Ah, I feel like her face looked like that.' ...Well, I think we can trust it."
...There's no way that creature would remember clearly.
Our existence probably only occupies about the tip of the iceberg in her memories.
It's pretty much what you'd expect.
"Furthermore, it has been confirmed that the enemy is using guns and artillery. What's more, they are using remarkably refined weapons."
Next on the screen are images of captured guns and artillery.
There are even images of them disassembled, and apparently they've already test-fired them.
As expected of Zargis. He works fast.
...Seeing Narjia-san smiling joyfully at the corner of the footage is probably just my imagination.
"Their overall performance is several levels below the weapons we have officially adopted in Weed. However, their actual firepower is comparable."
Well, naturally.
The power of anti-personnel weaponry had already hit its ceiling during World War II.
Firepower only needs to be sufficient to kill a person. There's no need to go out of your way to pack artillery-level firepower into a rifle.
Since she specifically said their performance is inferior, there must be differences in things like rate of fire, ammunition options, and ease of maintenance.
"However, there is one very obvious difference between these and our guns."
Huh?
A difference in the guns?
What does she mean?
As I stare intently at the gun footage to figure out where the difference lies, Narjia-san walks over and stands beside Milly.
"Nufufufufu. It seems even Yuki-san doesn't realize it. The point where they differ from our guns is right here."
Saying that, Narjia-san takes out an empty cartridge case.
The container meant to hold the gunpowder used to fire the bullet.
"Actually, this cartridge case wasn't filled with gunpowder."
The moment she says that, I realize it.
"Don't tell me... magic?"
"Exactly. Now that I've said that, can you figure it out? Just as Yuki-san said, instead of gunpowder, they put an explosive spell inside it. The way it's used is no different from an ordinary cartridge. It's loaded into the gun, and when the primer receives an impact, the spell activates. Still, I have to say, they did a remarkable job. Gunpowder is more stable to formulate, and its production system can be established relatively easily. But with this method, you need people capable of imbuing the magic. If you ask which is more efficient, Weed would definitely use gunpowder."
"So it's different for the Holy Nation of Hiffy, then?"
"Yes. In our case, we obtain not only gunpowder but even completed products through Yuki-san's Dungeon Master skills. That's why we don't need to go through the process of producing them ourselves. There's also the fact that we want to keep our guns secret. But with other methods, saltpeter, which is a raw material for gunpowder, isn't exactly easy to obtain. Given that, replacing gunpowder with magic is actually a very good solution. Considering all this, we should assume that there is another person who taught them about guns and cannons. Someone other than the previous Dungeon Master."
"Right. If the previous Dungeon Master, Comet Tail, could simply order guns through DP, there'd be no reason for her to make this kind of modification."
"Exactly. And there are numerous other firearms that primarily make use of magic as well. Their firepower is sufficient. Compared to Weed's firearms, they have issues with accuracy, rate of fire, maintenance, and so on, but they're perfectly usable in actual combat. It's incredible, really. This is exactly what you'd call a fusion of science and magic. They're using magic to compensate for what they lack. That's certainly a fusion."
That's right.
The problem isn't just the firearms.
As Narjia-san said, there must be someone with the intellect to make all of this possible.
"Speaking of which, what happened to the previous Dungeon Master's skills? Considering that they're replacing gunpowder with magic, should we assume that she lost her skills?"
Once something has been shown to you—or rather, once you understand that it exists—you can use Dungeon Master skills to order it.
Still, Jessica may be right. It's possible that the previous Dungeon Master lost her skills.
I mean, she's an undead now.
"Jessica's suggestion that she lost her skills is certainly possible, but I think there's another possibility."
Eris says this.
"What would that be?"
"Well, to be honest, as Jessica said, since the predecessor has turned into an undead, having her lose her skills would be more convenient for us. However, we shouldn't base our assumptions on what we'd like to be true."
She's right.
If everything happened according to our wishes, life would be pretty easy.
"So, I think we should proceed on the assumption that the enemy can still use Dungeon Master skills. As for the ammunition, perhaps there was an issue with DP?"
"""Ah."""
Everyone immediately understands what Eris means.
That's right. Procuring items requires DP. Moreover, on this continent, the cost is inflated twentyfold.
The question of why she didn't use DP suddenly makes sense—she couldn't afford to waste it. That's why they probably compensated for various things with their own technology.
If she bought mass-consumed consumables like ammunition at twenty times the price, her DP would run out in the blink of an eye. Unlike us, she doesn't have endless financial resources.
"That pretty much wraps up the discussion on weapons. Basically, everyone should exercise even more caution than before. Now, the real issue is that since the predecessor has appeared on the frontlines as an undead, it means there's another leader behind this. On top of that, there's also someone with knowledge of guns from another world. Expecting the leader to be the same person is too convenient, so we should assume they are different individuals."
"Mm. Hiffy Holy State has existed for a long time. I don't know anything about that otherworlder, so we should assume they were summoned while I was at the Academy."
"They could have kept it secret, but it seems they've been making a big public announcement about it, so that possibility doesn't make much sense."
"For now, our opponents are these three: the leader of Hiffy, the previous Dungeon Master Comet, and the person summoned from another world. Whether we actually have to defeat them or not is another matter, though."
Ratz speaks up.
She's right... If we could settle this through discussion, that would obviously be preferable, but...
"Realistically, that's impossible this time. Regardless of the reason, war has already begun. Or rather, they were the ones who picked a fight with us. If they were open to dialogue, they wouldn't have declared war in the first place."
"Yeah, I figured."
Ratz immediately responds to Seraria, which means she probably knew that already.
"The problem is that there's a very high probability the enemy withdrew intentionally. And that August's main force will merge and invade Hiffy in about ten days. If we don't handle this first, the August army will suffer devastating casualties, you know? I feel bad for Poppuri and the others, but deciding what to do about the predecessor Comet will have to wait until we deal with this. If she shows up as an enemy in the meantime, I won't show mercy. As long as there's a possibility she can use Dungeon Master skills, we can't afford to let her escape. If she appears, we crush her in one go. Luring enemies into your own territory to defeat them in a favorable location, and gaining even more DP in the process—that's something we used to do all the time. By no means can we allow the August army to be turned into DP."
That's right.
As I'd discussed with Seraria beforehand, one of the reasons for luring them into their own country is probably to gain DP.
Of course, since there are weapons that are hard to transport, they've probably built trenches and pillboxes to dig in and fight at an advantage.
If the August army gets wiped out, things could turn even more troublesome.
"Like Seraria said, the fact that the previous Dungeon Master has appeared means that, in the worst case, we'll have to launch a dungeon attack."
Conquering the predecessor's dungeon.
Tension runs across everyone's faces.
That's how difficult it is to challenge someone else's dungeon.
The more one knows about the original functions of a dungeon, the clearer that becomes.
Unlike dungeons designed to be conquerable in order to continuously earn DP, a life-or-death Dungeon Attack means facing an obnoxious number of brutal traps deployed everywhere.
"Well, it won't suddenly come to that right away. First, we need to gather information on both allies and enemies. The information we're discussing now could very well change down the road, so keep that in mind."
"""Yes."""
We talked for a long time, but we still have almost no information.
Even less than we had with Alfin and Grad.
Actually, we still don't even know the true identity of the enemy.
What is clear is that whether the enemy knows the predecessor was a Dungeon Master or not, they are the kind of opponent who would send her to the very frontlines.
We can't even say for certain that Hiffy's leader is really the mastermind... The previous Dungeon Master, the otherworlder, and whoever—or whatever—is coordinating them.
I asked Luna about the predecessor, but she said it was her first time hearing about someone being used as an undead... There's also the possibility that she resurrected herself...
In our current state, everything is pure speculation.
For now, as requested by the Princess, we'll escort the King back and then observe what action the main army takes. As long as we know their march route, we can provide backup.
Even though the Holy Nation of Hiffy is a small country, it's not impossible for us alone to take down all their key strongholds. That said, we don't want to show our hand either.
We need to subdue the enemy with the minimum amount of effort possible.
...Still, things are really starting to feel like modern warfare now.
Man, what a hassle.
* * *
