Chapter 300
..."Golem unit! Advance! Hold them down by any means necessary! Everyone from Metallica, ram one of them with your armored vehicles!"
"Okay!"
I split myself and the Golem unit into two groups and sent them on a suicide charge against the elephant Hell Beasts. I had been doing my best to avoid destroying them, but now we had no choice but to use them up!
The elephant Hell Beasts struck the advancing Golems with their trunks and swept them aside, shaking the earth with every heavy step. The Golems that took direct hits shattered, while many others lost all four limbs and became unable to move.
"Baooh! Baoooon!"
"Baboooh!"
But perhaps sending them in on the assumption that they would be wiped out had paid off, because a considerable number of Golems finally succeeded in clinging to the elephant Hell Beasts. The two elephant Hell Beasts were shrieking as though demanding that the Golems let go. I absolutely would not waste this opportunity bought with sacrifices!
"Undead unit, move in! Half of you circle around to the rear! Archers, fire all at once!"
Following my orders, the Undead began moving as well. The elephant Hell Beasts' heads seemed well armored, so arrows could hardly be called effective, but several spears had pierced them. The attacks from the Undead who had circled around to the rear also seemed to be working.
The elephant Hell Beasts thrashed around from the damage, but the slow-moving yet powerful Golem unit was holding them down. It was proof that a fighting style making full use of numerical superiority could work even against a formidable foe. Though perhaps it helped that the difference in level wasn't all that great.
"Baooh! Bobbuuu!!"
"Babububub!!"
Perhaps the elephant Hell Beast had decided that it could not forcibly tear the Golems off with its trunk. This time, it aimed the tip of its long trunk at the Golems and sprayed a red liquid from it with tremendous force. It was probably the flammable bodily fluid used in its combination attack with the giant Hell Beast. It sprayed out with incredible force, like water from a fire truck's hose.
The Undead unit would have been swept away, and I might have been torn apart. However, the Golem hit head-on by the liquid did not budge an inch. Apparently, the pressure wasn't enough to topple something this massive, made from hard, heavy rock.
"Ugh!? It stinks!? This stuff reeks like crazy!?"
"It's got a fishy smell mixed with an alcohol-like odor, enough to make my nose wrinkle... Would setting it on fire make it more bearable?"
"Boooh!?"
"Hot!? Are you trying to roast me too!?"
I couldn't tell from where I was, but apparently the liquid smelled fishy. Eiji, who was fighting farther away, writhed in agony, while Toji grimaced and tried to burn it because he couldn't stand the smell. The liquid caught fire, engulfing Eiji in flames and making him scream.
The elephant Hell Beast was still spraying liquid from its trunk, so the flames traveled along the stream and burned it from the inside, making it scream. Well, well, now that's something to learn from.
"Power won't be necessary. Fireball."
"Bubooooo!?"
Taking a cue from Toji, I cast Fireball, the most basic form of 【Fire Magic】. I kept its power to a minimum, but the flammable bodily fluid burst into flames.
The Golems drenched in bodily fluid also went up in flames like Eiji, but suffered little damage. That was probably due to the patterns Scar and the others had inscribed on them. Besides, Golems weren't living creatures and didn't fear fire in the first place, nor did they panic even when engulfed in flames. That was precisely what made them ideal meat shields.
Meanwhile, the elephant Hell Beast that had continued spraying the fluid was burning from within too, just like the one fighting Eiji, and let out an ear-piercing shriek. If it wanted someone to blame, it could blame itself for having flammable bodily fluids without possessing fire resistance.
"Bubobah...!"
"Bobah...!"
"Whoa-ahhhhhhh!?"
The elephant Hell Beast was ablaze from head to toe, but the moment the flames reached its flabby torso, the beast exploded. The blast sent the Golems and Eiji flying through the air, while some of the Undead I had sent to the rear shattered. In the midst of it all, Toji conveniently lay flat on the ground and avoided the blast.
Damn it... Fire might make them easy to kill, but it turns them into powerful bombs that cause massive explosions! We had suffered needless losses. This was entirely my misjudgment.
"Whoa!"
"It's broken!"
When I looked toward the voices, I saw an armored vehicle carrying Metallica being crushed by an elephant Hell Beast. The vehicle had been squeezed by the beast's trunk and no longer retained its original shape. If anyone other than Metallica had been riding inside, no one within would have had any chance of survival.
But Metallica were an amorphous Race. A small, circular hatch about ten centimeters in diameter opened, and they slithered out through it. Since they could move through pipes running inside buildings, this was an emergency escape method unique to them. They took humanoid forms about the size of toddlers, then ran away, moving their short arms and legs.
"Only one enemy remains! Surround it and crush it!"
I sent the Undead unit forward all at once. A single elephant Hell Beast was probably stronger than the Golem and Undead units. However, we had the numbers to make up for it. We would overwhelm it with brute force!
The Undead unit charged the last remaining elephant Hell Beast with their spears leveled. The Hell Beast swung and slammed its trunk around, but the Undead blocked with their shields. Although they took damage, only one soldier was brought down.
"Baoooohhh..."
Its defense was fairly high, but it could not withstand the continuous spear attacks from all directions, densely packed around it like a bed of needles. The Undead unit successfully brought down the last one.
Once Eiji and Toji, whom I had left to deal with one of them, returned, I checked the damage. Eight Golems and five Undead had been destroyed. I regretted that better tactics might have reduced the losses, but I had to accept them as necessary expenses.
"Wow, they were far stronger than I expected. Especially that final self-destruct was something else."
"Were you okay after that? You were flying like in a manga."
"I made sure to break my fall. I'm not as good as Jigorou-san, but I'm pretty athletic, you know?"
Eiji returned with a cheerful laugh, his shield and armor covered in soot, while Toji sighed as though dumbfounded. This was what happened when a Race with superior stamina and defense chose a Job that enhanced both. I would continue relying on his ironclad defense.
Once things had settled down here, I asked my comrades on the battlefield to report the situation. Ruby and Scar had apparently lured the Hell Beast that fell from the sky to a pit away from the battlefield, trapped it there, and then fled immediately. Sei and the Centaurs were reportedly using their mobility to repeat charges and retreats.
According to Nenaashi, the Hell Beast that crashed into the forest had already been defeated by the Dark Elves' magic and arrows. However, several hidden Metallica weapons had been destroyed in the process, and some trees had been broken as well, so they had used extra magic to make repairs. Things never go quite that smoothly.
Mots-san and the others fighting in the air were engaged in battle as well. The giant elephant Hell Beast had thrown an elephant Hell Beast—the same kind we had fought. Among them, one with large ears began flapping them and took flight. Are you relatives of D◯mbo!?
Jokes that might get me erased by the Land of Dreams aside, the flying elephant Hell Beast was not agile enough to fly freely around the sky. However, it relied on its size, weight, and abundant stamina and defense to charge straight into Shiratsuki. They had been intercepting them with all their might, and apparently more than eighty percent of the elephant Hell Beasts that had come at them had already been defeated.
Cal's performance in particular seemed remarkable; apparently, he had devoured one alive in midair. It was good that he was brave and strong, but... don't eat strange things! I would have to make that clear to him later!
I hadn't heard from Jigorou or Genzuro, but Mots-san had sent a report instead. The two were still fighting the giant elephant Hell Beast, and surprisingly, the battle seemed to have reached a stalemate. Anyone could tell from its overwhelming size that it had enormous stamina, but apparently it was also gradually recovering its stamina.
On top of that, the giant Hell Beast perched on its head was supporting it with magic, making it difficult to approach carelessly. We would have to trust them to exploit an opening somehow.
"Izam-sama, how are our losses looking?"
The one who flew over to join me was Mikelo. He was probably one of the busiest people here, since he had been flying from one front to another to provide healing.
"The Golem unit can manage with the self-repair function Scar and the others installed. I can handle healing the Undead unit. So just focus on healing Eiji."
"Understood."
"How did the other battlefields look from your perspective? Were there any places that seemed particularly tough?"
Mikelo's perspective, surveying the entire battlefield from above rather than fighting on the ground, was important. As he treated Eiji with one of his Magic Eyes, he spoke.
"This is only my personal impression, but the Centaurs seem to be consuming their potions faster than expected."
"Ah, because of those offshoots that turn into caltrops... Mikelo, take these Metallica with you, return to Shiratsuki, and deliver some spare medical supplies to them."
"Understood. I anticipated something like this and had Shiitake prepare a transport-type flying Golem."
"Oh! That would be a big help...!?"
As I admired Mikelo's thorough preparations and was about to thank him, I saw something I really did not want to see. Several grotesque elephant heads were once again rising from within the flabby torso of the giant elephant Hell Beast Jigorou was fighting.
Everyone who saw it, myself included, must have realized what this meant: we were getting seconds. Perhaps because they followed my stunned gaze, the companions present here had also fallen silent. We could not afford to take our time. We immediately began moving to prepare for the next battle.