Chapter 103
“No!”
Everything seemed to be going smoothly.
Under the Head Mod's command, most of the hidden magical beasts had been hunted down.
In that hopeless situation, the Head Mod had become their eyes.
Just when their hopes of reclaiming the World Tree were beginning to grow again.
-Boom!
The drone exploded right in front of the frog-like mutant magical beast.
A wave had begun.
“Ah...”
They had lost the drone.
The elves' only eye had disappeared.
The elves watched the scene in a daze, but fortunately, they quickly came to their senses.
They immediately drew their bowstrings and fired arrows at the magical beasts crawling out of the rift.
When they were at their most defenseless, with all their positions exposed—that was their last hope.
-Ting!
“Huh?”
That was, until the arrow helplessly fell beneath the transparent barrier.
“Melang, use magic!”
Eliana shouted at Melang, the vice-captain, who looked as though her soul had left her body.
Melang, who was both vice-captain and well-versed in magic, cast a spell almost immediately, but...
-Kaboom!
“M-magic doesn't work!”
Magic was useless beneath that barrier, too.
The barrier had been made by converting the mana of the elves absorbed by the fog.
They could neither attack nor observe.
“W-what should we do...?”
Eliana's mind was beginning to go blank.
-Whirrr.
A familiar sound of wings came from somewhere.
When Eliana turned her head, something identical to the Head Mod's familiar from earlier was flying there.
“Huh?”
Hadn't it just exploded?
*
Drones were cheap.
They were cheap, and they offered excellent performance, too.
They had no fear, and they were convenient to control.
There was a reason drones were used more often than people in war.
I used a new drone to approach the World Tree again.
-Grrrurgh!
The enormous mutant magical beast extended its tongue, but this time, I wasn't caught.
“Slow.”
Now that I had mastered flying drones, I could dodge such a simple straight-line attack.
[Notice: Elves Must Read (Fourth Revision)]
Author: Head Mod*
31. (A picture of the grass near the roots of the World Tree)
32. (A picture of something camouflaged against the World Tree's trunk)
[Upvotes 9999+] [Downvotes 0]
- Damn;
- I saw this in another post, but what the hell is that thing flying through the sky?
- It looks like the Head Mod's grand magic for sharing vision.
- Isn't it a familiar?
ㄴ No, no. Familiars have emotions, so they wouldn't perform mindless acrobatics like that.
ㄴ It didn't look like it was alive in the first place.
ㄴ Wasn't Supreme Storm Mage researching how to operate magic golems right now?
ㄴ Hahahaha, over there they can barely move one arm, while this thing is doing acrobatics in the sky.
ㄴ Supreme Storm Mage) Fuck, how do you do that?
The mutant magical beast couldn't be attacked because of its barrier.
As a stopgap, I continued sharing the locations of the ordinary magical beasts that remained.
As a result, I succeeded in catching most of them, but the situation barely progressed.
“So we have to take that thing down after all.”
It was obvious that the situation wouldn't be resolved without killing the mutant magical beast, which could be considered the boss of the wave.
But time was the problem.
- Wow, damn, it's already pushed right up to the front.
- People keep talking about elf-hating, but this is a real crisis, isn't it?
- Uh;
- How are we supposed to stop that?
Even in war, there was such a thing as a standoff.
But ever since the mutant magical beast appeared, there had been no standoff.
There was no way to avoid the endlessly generated fog with the empty World Tree as a base.
The fog soon grew even larger and spread as if it intended to devour Elrad Forest.
[Title: Eladrien Situation...jpg]
(A picture of fog that had reached the city entrance)
(A picture of magical beasts entering the area near the city by following the fog)
- Wow, we're fucked.
- Seriously, seriously, what do we do?
- But isn't there no way to stop that even if they weren't elves?
- Fuck, they're attacking it with every weapon imaginable.
Eladrien was hidden deep within the forest.
Its narrow entrance and numerous hiding places made it a true fortress of the elves.
But the fog rendered all of that useless.
They had no choice but to retreat helplessly, and they lost the entrance in an instant.
- But don't elves have guns?
ㄴ Oh.
They had the mines and guns I had given them during the previous great invasion of Elrad, but those were a problem, too.
In the end, they were only useful for temporarily holding back the incoming magical beasts.
[Title: Remember Us!]
(A picture of the elf knights holding guns and swords)
(A picture of them approaching the fog via a back route)
(An elf giving a thumbs-up emote)
In the end, they had no choice but to approach.
No matter if it was a mutant magical beast or a barrier, it was powerless before a gun.
The elite elf knights took out the guns they had been saving as their final bulwark and formed teams.
- (I'll remember! Knight emote)
- X
- Wait, they're actually going in?
ㄴ But what else can they do?
ㄴ Even so, almost all of them will die if they go in, fuck;
A reckless death squad that was practically no different from a suicide mission entered the fog.
My slave—or rather, the sub-mod FullHPElf—was at the front.
Watching the elves disappear beyond the dense fog, I stood up.
Then I leisurely began opening the packages piled up in one corner of the room and smiled.
“Well then, shall I do my part too?”
When I opened the packages, countless drones began to emerge.
They were different from the previous drone in both size and appearance.
All of them had been made to carry something heavy in the first place.
[LMAMS]
[Ranchet]
“It's about time we saw what suicide drones can do.”
I didn't know much about them, so I bought one of everything.
I bought suicide drones used for warfare, as well as ordinary drones and explosives separately.
That was what made drones frightening in the first place.
As long as it could carry a suitable payload, any drone could be used as a suicide drone.
All you had to do was load explosives onto it.
[Title: Aren't These Guys All Going to Die?]
(A picture of elf knights trapped in a desperate situation)
It's a repost, but no matter how I look at it, it seems like it's over...
I did hate elves, but this is a bit much.
Watching the posts being uploaded in real time, I slowly picked up the drone.
[The item has been delivered safely!]
“All right, let's roll.”
Now it was time to see how well it performed.
*
“Shh, wait here.”
Eliana quickly lowered herself behind the debris of a fallen tree.
The elves who had followed her held their breath.
Each of them carried a long sword and a gun.
Eliana carefully peeked her head out and looked at the mutant magical beast that had settled on the World Tree.
‘If it's the Head Mod's magic, it should definitely work...’
The problem was how to hit it.
Countless frog-like magical beasts had surrounded the mutant magical beast as if forming a formation around it.
Even if they fired, there were obviously too many of them to take the shots in its place.
She already knew how powerful the guns were, but their effectiveness was strongest against a single target.
So Eliana's plan was simple.
“While the vanguard cuts through the magical beasts, shoot the mutant magical beast.”
“...Understood!”
It was a surprise frontal breakthrough.
Besides, they had asked the Head Mod for several grenades and brought them along.
They had brought them to throw at the mutant magical beast at the final moment, when there was truly no other way.
But every elf here knew.
‘Even if we manage to kill the mutant magical beast by some miracle...’
The fog would not disappear immediately.
They were holding out with mana for now, but that would soon run out as well, and they would fall asleep.
The moment they fell asleep helplessly in the middle of enemy territory, the outcome was obvious.
“We have to do it.”
But there was no other way.
No, there wasn't even time to hesitate.
Even as they thought, the fog was continuing to penetrate farther into Eladrien.
Eliana caught her breath for a moment, then sprang out from behind the tree.
“Now!”
At Eliana's shout, several elf knights revealed themselves in a surprise attack.
-Bang!
They opened fire almost simultaneously, but unfortunately, it had no effect.
-Grrrurgh!
The magical beasts protecting the mutant with their bodies were taking the shots in its place.
“Don't stop!”
Eliana threw grenades at the mutant magical beasts approaching in a swarm.
-Kaboom!
The grenades flew along graceful arcs and turned the magical beasts in the area into ash.
But even that wasn't enough.
-Grrrurgh
-Grrrurgh
Other magical beasts instantly filled the gaps.
The magical beasts that had appeared in this wave had not invaded the kingdom proper in the first place.
They had merely formed a kind of nest around the mutant magical beast and protected it.
-Shhk, shhk!
Even now, their mana was draining away at an incredible speed.
Eliana displayed movements bordering on acrobatics as she split the magical beasts in half.
The elves following behind her also rapidly closed the distance to the mutant magical beast, but that was all.
“Captain, the front...”
“Ugh...!”
Using their overwhelming numbers, the magical beasts had created a living wall of flesh.
In the end, their breakthrough was blocked much sooner than expected.
‘There's nowhere to get out.’
Eliana rapidly racked her brain amid the fog and magical beasts.
But no matter where she looked, the area was filled with nothing but magical beasts.
It was at that moment, while she was thinking of a way to turn the situation around.
“Aah!”
“Captain!”
The heads of the magical beasts blocking the front exploded.
She was startled by the unexpected situation, but in that instant, the mutant magical beast's tongue flew through the gap like a sword.
The mutant magical beast had used its own kind as bait to launch an attack alongside them.
Eliana's leg was cut, and she collapsed where she stood.
“Nngh...!”
A large amount of blood flowed down her leg.
She clenched her teeth and used her sword to support herself as she stood, but that was all.
The wound caused her mana to be drained much faster, and the fog grew even thicker.
‘Am I really going to die like this?’
No matter where she looked, she could see only a horrifying future.
Just as the death looming clearly before Eliana's eyes began to turn her composed expression deathly pale,
-Whirrr.
“Huh?”
A quiet yet alien sound of wings.
The drone that should have been flying above had somehow come up beside her.
“An iron fairy?”
No, its shape was subtly different.
It was a little larger, and looked as though something had been attached underneath it.
Then it leisurely flew past the elves and headed straight for the mutant magical beast.
-Grrrurgh!
The mutant magical beast reacted extremely sensitively to the drone's appearance.
All the large and small waves so far had been nullified because of the Head Mod alone.
Hadn't the situation nearly been settled before the wave because of that one thing?
Though it appeared to be nothing more than a reconnaissance device, the mutant magical beast did not let down its guard.
-Crack!
The tongue of the rapidly flying frog-like mutant magical beast pierced straight through the drone.
But that was its fatal mistake.
Just as Eliana's expression began to fill with despair at the death of yet another drone,
- Head Mod*: Don't duck to avoid the explosion under any circumstances.
A notification appeared before her eyes.
“Never...?”
Eliana blinked blankly, then hurriedly flattened herself against the ground.
“Get down!”
“!”
At Eliana's shout, all the seasoned elf knights ducked down.
A flash suddenly burst from the drone.
Then, after a brief shimmer of light,
-Kabooooom!!!
The earth shook with an enormous boom.