The footage coming in from the reconnaissance bots showed a peaceful village.
“Nothing in particular... I guess?”
“Yes-affirmative, Commander Ma’am. It appears they are producing wheat here, but there are no other noteworthy characteristics. Labor is supplied by the villagers and their domesticated cattle. In addition, it seems livestock such as sheep, goats, and pigs are being pastured on fallow land.”
From the results of the recon, it seemed the Prava Divine Kingdom had adopted a four-field crop-rotation system similar to the historical Norfolk four-course method. Their agricultural technology could be considered relatively advanced.
“I checked everything within the range we can currently recon, and the farmland is almost all the same as here. The farmers are also diligently focused on agricultural work.”
“Hm... So food production in the homeland is stable. They really are strong, aren’t they.”
Moreover, even across lands covered in rural villages, there was always a network centered around churches.
“Many of their city clusters have the structure of a fine church and a town centered around it, with farmland spreading outward. From what I can see, their entertainment industry is not very developed. Likely due to religious control.”
“So religion keeps them nicely unified.”
At the church, they held a large gathering once a week. The surrounding farmers seemed to treat it as a day off: they would travel from morning to the town with the church, listen to sermons, eat meals prepared by the church, spend time socializing until evening, and then return home. Alcohol also appeared to be served with the meal.
“Occasional disputes do occur, but they are suppressed quickly by clerics.”
The clerics seemed to be using some form of magic. Given how easily they restrained grown men who were causing a scene, there was no doubt. Their physical ability appeared to be enhanced.
“The church also seems to function as a hospital. More than that, its role as an educational institution is significant. Even the villages have something like an outpost, where they gather and look after small children. After that, at around five or six years old, they seem to be taken in by the town with the church.”
Likely to keep parents focused on farming, the weaned toddlers were collectively cared for at the village center. Then, at a certain age, they were sent to the church dormitory.
Parents seemed to meet their children on the weekly day off.
In every household, the parent-child relationship looked healthy.
“The education must be good. They keep adults dedicated to agriculture to stabilize food production. They give children standardized instruction, teach religious concepts through sermons, and simultaneously instill parental affection. It’s a ◆ Nоvеlіgһt ◆ (Only on Nоvеlіgһt) kind of managed society, but it appears they’ve built a system where people can live in a physically and mentally healthy way.”
“Hm... Well, I don’t really care about that part. The point is, they’re running things well.”
“Yes-affirmative, Commander Ma’am. There are no signs of revolution.”
The “hospital” function was important, too.
No matter where you looked, there were very few injured or sick.
“Most likely, they are performing some form of treatment using magic. There are facilities that resemble sanatoriums, places that take in end-stage patients, but relative to the population, the number of patients seems low. We also confirmed cases where injured people brought in were discharged within a few days.”
The clerics were using some kind of magic to treat the farmers.
And most likely, it was being provided free of charge.
Of course, the operation itself was funded by what was effectively a tax under the name of donations, but to the farmers, it was the same as volunteer service. It was easy to understand why the church had earned their trust.
“I get it—magic makes it hard to predict a lot of things.”
“We have infiltrated the towns with reconnaissance-bot swarms. If we take a bit more time, we should be able to obtain more detailed information.”
“Okay. Then next is the battlefield. You were able to deploy bots there too, right?”
“Yes-affirmative, Commander Ma’am.”
Inside the Prava Divine Kingdom, reconnaissance was being advanced around the infiltration base. Other candidate base sites were also being selected, and soon enough, it would be possible to make the domestic situation completely transparent.
The problem was battlefield intelligence.
“The front line of the battlefield is constantly shifting, so rapid deployment and withdrawal are essential. For now, we are primarily conducting reconnaissance in areas close to the coast. We can advance bots from under the sea.”
“Yeah... On land, it gets harder to keep the carrier hidden.”
If it came down to it, they would probably fly aircraft at night.
For now, they were using the method of releasing and recovering bot swarms from the sea.
“We used bird-type bots that mimic local seabirds.”
There were large numbers of seabirds that looked very similar to gulls, so the bots were being released into the battlefield disguised to match them.
“What we are analyzing is the specs of the Prava Divine Kingdom’s warriors. There are individual differences, but on average, their running speed is 40 to 60 kilometers per hour. We also observed individuals with a peak instantaneous speed exceeding 80 kilometers per hour.”
“On two legs? That’s better performance than what we’re running right now...”
“Yes-affirmative, Commander Ma’am. Also, during combat, their body structure appears to be reinforced. Even when struck directly by arrows, they do not appear to be injured, and they are capable of destroying stone walls with their bare hands.”
They smashed through the horse barricades built on the battlefield head-on.
Even cities protected by stone walls were broken by ramming.
There were scenes where someone carried too much momentum, got buried alive, and their comrades dug them out and dragged them free.
Even then, they didn’t seem to have taken any serious injuries.
“They also appear capable of long-range attacks such as stone-throwing and spear-throwing. Their detection ability is excellent as well—we confirmed multiple situations where they skewered enemy soldiers hiding behind cover by throwing a spear through the obstacle from a considerable distance.”
“They’re seriously like one-man tanks...”
Body-structure reinforcement, enhanced detection, and reinforced strength—those seemed to be something all of the Divine Kingdom soldiers could bring out. Beyond that, each individual could also manipulate some kind of magical phenomenon.
“The most common ability is launching a fireball that causes an explosive blaze. Others produce water, control wind, and we also confirmed someone who manipulates voltage differentials.”
“Voltage?”
“Yes-affirmative, Commander Ma’am. Only one case, but we detected an electromagnetic pulse, so it is believed they are generating high voltage instantaneously.”
“What a freak show.”
And the most troublesome, apparently, were those who performed some form of healing.
“They seem to possess power that can heal external injuries via magical phenomena—wounds visibly closing, fractures healing, and so on. Divine Kingdom soldiers are nearly invincible while in combat condition, but we confirmed that they can be injured when caught off guard, such as during movement. We recorded an incident where someone who had been deflecting arrows in battle was pierced by an arrow from a surprise attack.”
“Huh. So maybe that body-structure reinforcement and all that... you have to consciously keep it up to use it.”
“Yes-affirmative, Commander Ma’am. And there may also be a limitation on duration. If it could be used without limit, they would simply keep it active at all times.”
“If it drops when they lose focus... then you’d expect more injured even on the battlefield. So a time limit sounds like the strongest hypothesis.”
“Yes-affirmative, Commander Ma’am.”
Even if you managed to injure them with a surprise attack—
If healing by magic was possible, that meant they could rapidly restore their fighting capability.
“To neutralize Divine Kingdom soldiers, we would need to knock them all unconscious, divide and isolate them, or catch them off guard and kill them instantly. Alternatively, we could perform saturation attacks that exceed their processing capacity. Those are essentially the only viable responses.”
“Annoying. No wonder random small countries can’t stand up to them.”
If you surrounded a small number with a large number and kept attacking, you might be able to bring them down—but until then, the casualties would be enormous. The question was whether the soldiers could keep attacking to the end without breaking and fleeing under those conditions.
If they were trained professional soldiers, maybe.
But in most of those countries, the majority were ordinary people drafted by conscription.
“We have no choice but to wage guerrilla warfare. That would minimize sacrifices. However, guerrilla warfare would amount to little more than harassment against Divine Kingdom soldiers. It can delay the invasion, but...”
To begin with, the Divine Kingdom soldiers were invading in multiple small groups—if anything, their side already resembled guerrilla warfare.
“Still, it sounds like the kind of nonsense where major cities fall to guerrilla warfare, somehow...”
Just imagining the stress on each country’s leadership, forced to push this back, was enough.
“I need to send Amajio a care package.”
