“I’m glad we made it in time...”
Titan Series Ship No. 4, Kleios—an aerial escort ship.
They had somehow gotten this giant ship, which had been undergoing final outfitting, to the point where only the bare minimum equipment could be used, and dispatched it to the skies over the Forest Kingdom of Levresta.
“Altitude 812 m, ground speed 496 km/h. We are on the verge of a stall. Recommend increasing speed, or gaining altitude.”
“After we release the Hopper units, we’ll accelerate—and we’re going to take out that Mountain Boar thing.”
“Yes-affirmative, Commander Ma’am.”
At present, Gigantia and three <Titan> series ships were also in the sky.
However, because they carried heavy loads, they couldn’t slow down, and because of the impact on the ground, they also couldn’t take altitude too low.
Also, it was awkward to have core combat power intrude into another country’s airspace, and in the first place, the Gigantia unit was the aerial defense of the United Kingdom of Aphrasia.
If possible, they didn’t want to pull it away from its post.
So they hurriedly prepared Ship No. 4, which might make it in time if they pushed themselves.
They kept the payload to the minimum, and by reducing hull weight, they also achieved flight at relatively low speed.
Of course, they could have dispatched a normal fighter and transport formation.
But that was, well—more in the realm of hobby and romance.
“Releasing four Hopper units. Engine output increasing—beginning acceleration.”
The U-class tactical AI loaded into Kleios: <Wederia Four>. Callsign, Kleios.
Tactical data transmitted from Kleios updated the monitor display one after another.
“Any concerns?”
“Report from Kleios. Target, Mountain Boar—durability performance unknown. Unable to estimate collateral damage to surroundings. Anti-air attack capability unknown.”
“Unknowns everywhere. Well, it can’t be helped. Tactical objective is repulsion or extermination. I want to believe it has no anti-air capability, but we’ll observe first. We’ve got no choice but to fire shells into it and watch.”
“Yes-affirmative, Commander Ma’am.”
*****
A gigantic monster advanced while blasting away everything in its direction.
A legendary-class monster that lived in a fairy-tale world, called the Mountain Boar.
According to the defense officer of Frontier Village Raran, there had never been any sightings before—apparently it was a being that only appeared in bedtime stories passed down over generations.
If so, there was room to doubt whether this really was the species called Mountain Boar.
But it was also hard to imagine there were many monsters that were 40 meters long and 25 meters tall.
Or rather, they didn’t want to imagine it.
Therefore, it was decided that this species of monster would be designated the Mountain Boar.
Fortunately, only this single individual had been observed.
It didn’t seem as though this species was swarming deep in <Demon Forest>.
However, for countries where humans lived, a monster of this size was simply unnecessary.
It would be best if it went back into the depths of the forest, but at least until the wyverns calmed down, that was probably impossible.
In that case, exterminating it here would be preferable.
<Wederia Four>, Kleios, set the aim of the multi-stage electromagnetic-projection coil cannon installed on the underside to the center of the massive body.
Fire.
A shell launched at 5,000 m/s crossed the 4 km distance in under one second.
Impact.
From the impact, the Mountain Boar’s massive body flew into the air.
That, in itself, was abnormal.
If a shell at Mach 12 or higher collided with an object that followed normal physical laws, the reaction would not be “it gets blown away.”
At best it would punch through; normally, the generated shock would make it burst apart.
Video analysis confirmed that the Mountain Boar, of course, was generating a magic barrier.
On impact, the shell shattered, its kinetic energy converted into heat energy and vaporized.
And the shock that could not be fully dispersed blew the Mountain Boar away.
Even so, they had already built experience countering magic barriers many times.
Saturate the barrier with missiles, railguns, and the like, and once it lost effectiveness, slam coil-cannon shells into it.
Kleios calculated the time-to-impact of each attack and immediately moved into execution.
Missiles fired one after another from the vertical launch system of Kleios itself.
The vertical launch system had ten tubes on the back and two on the underside. It was quite a spectacular sight.
And while using the time needed for the missiles to accelerate sufficiently, Kleios tilted its hull.
It was to point the two multi-stage electromagnetic-projection coil cannons mounted on the back toward the ground.
Kleios entered a circling flight centered on the Mountain Boar.
On its back, twelve multi-barrel railguns were also installed. These barrages would peel off the magic barrier.
From prior analysis, the physical(?) characteristics of the magic barrier were known.
While it was active, it basically cut all physical shocks. This was an inference, but it dispersed input force across the whole body, and also prevented the influence from penetrating inside.
If the external force was below its own body weight, there was almost no effect.
If a greater force was applied, it moved in the direction of that force—in other words, it got blown away from the impact.
And when external force above a certain threshold continued to be applied, it vanished abruptly.
After vanishing, once a certain amount of time passed, the barrier returned.
They didn’t have enough samples to fix exactly what level of ⊛ Nоvеlιght ⊛ (Read the full story) external force made it disappear, or exactly how long it took to return, but because it basically showed the same performance per individual, it was predicted to be determined by body size—or perhaps the size of the magic stone inside the body.
At minimum, it didn’t seem to depend on injury, condition, consciousness, or anything like that.
The twelve railguns spat plasma flame in a massed volley. At the same time, ground-attack missiles flooded in from above.
The target was a monster with its feet on the ground. No irregular movement would occur.
Every attack impacted at the calculated timing.
The Mountain Boar was blown away—and coil-cannon shells struck its massive body.
But they couldn’t punch through.
The magic barrier itself was confirmed neutralized. Yet even with a direct hit from the shells, they could not penetrate its fur.
By simple calculation, one coil-cannon shell had far greater power than the amount of work applied to the magic barrier in the preceding stage—yet still.
Kleios updated tactical data and changed objectives.
Destroying it with Kleios alone would be difficult.
If so, they needed to change the target’s direction of advance.
In short, they just had to prevent it from getting close to the Forest Kingdom of Levresta.
The Mountain Boar seemed dizzy from the series of attacks.
It lay overturned, unmoving, after mowing down trees.
It showed reactions like breathing, so it seemed only to be unconscious.
Even in this state, the magic barrier still functioned, and in the first place, its body was far too tough—so further pursuit probably had little meaning.
Even so, for now, they had succeeded in stopping it.
After this, if it regained consciousness, would it obediently return to where it came from?
There was also the option of requesting attacks from the Gigantia unit, or a fighter formation.
But with no injury at all despite direct coil-cannon hits, was there really an effective means of attack?
Strip the magic barrier, then slam in a massive volume of attacks. Even if they couldn’t pierce the skin, deal damage by making the shock penetrate inside.
Or, would they try searing it with a cermet warhead that generated ultra-high temperatures via a thermite reaction?
Even so, combustion reactions had time lag, and if fired at high speed, aerodynamic heating would ignite them prematurely, making them difficult to handle.
In the first place, Kleios didn’t carry cermet warheads.
What they should try was a maser cannon.
By emitting high-output microwaves, they could superheat the irradiation point.
Even so, in the corpse investigation of the previously recovered <Rain Kroin>, it had been confirmed that in addition to physical durability, heat resistance was also extremely high.
Basically, it had been determined that this class of monster possessed extremely high bodily strength and exhibited very high resistance to physical damage and alteration.
That is, cell damage from pressure was hard to produce, and tissue alteration from heating or chemical reactions also didn’t occur.
Fortunately, the target was currently silent.
If it had gotten dizzy from the shock of direct shell hits, then at least, it meant they had been able to deliver that level of shock to it.
If they fired into it each time it woke up, they might be able to make it give up on advancing south any further.
