“408 lost. 522 red. 123 yellow, falling back.”
Kill marks were being overlaid one after another on the friendly green icons displayed on the tactical map.
“Ugegh. What the hell is that?”
Moving around at a speed that looked like teleportation, cutting down powerful multi-legged tanks with a single slash and rendering them inoperable.
What an absurd warrior to have on the field.
“The church’s Grand High Priest, huh. Strong.”
“The priest was strong too, but the Grand High Priest is even stronger?”
While sending updated engagement directives against the multi-legged tank groups to the frontline AI, Erika revised the Grand High Priest’s combat evaluation.
“Can we actually hold that thing back?”
After the number of lost multi-legged tanks passed twenty, Commander Eve asked that with a slight frown.
“If that thing gets onto a land battleship, wouldn’t that be bad?”
A land battleship was an extremely powerful weapon.
It carried powerful guns and stored a large number of autonomous weapons. Thanks to the immense energy generated by its three fusion reactors, including its accompanying craft, it had no meaningful limit on operational duration.
But because it was so large, would it not be vulnerable if a small but powerful enemy got inside?
“There are mechanisms in place to prevent anything from approaching in the first place, but even if one were to enter the interior, it would not be that fatal.”
<Ringo> answered Eve’s concern.
“To begin with, the interior is not built with human movement in mind. There are no corridors, and energy transmission lines are everywhere. Also, the temperature is not remotely comfortable enough for a living organism to remain active. The average is 60 degrees Celsius, and in some locations it exceeds 200. The basic structure is nonmetallic for weight reduction, but lightweight high-strength materials such as carbon nanotubes are used, so destruction is also difficult.”
“And by energy lines, if you break one carelessly, it backfires...”
“Yes-affirmative, Commander Ma’am. If destroyed, the circulating working fluid will erupt outward. It is several hundred degrees high and generates harmful vapor, so untreated metals and organic matter corrode rapidly. It is also possible to seal off a block and intentionally force a runaway.”
That was a rather vicious design.
Even if something tried to invade the interior, it was not an environment in which a living organism could survive in the first place. In a place where environmental damage was constantly being applied, it would be difficult to fight at full strength.
More fundamentally than that—
“Well, even if one gets destroyed, there’s always another one...”
Even land battleships were something the current <The Tree> could mass-produce.
They were only not being built in huge numbers because of resource constraints; if it truly wanted to, it could send as many as it pleased to the front lines. Naturally, the cost performance would be abysmal, so it would not actually do that.
That was what it meant for <The Tree> to have fully established production lines.
That said, it had judged that the Prava Divine Kingdom could be taken with three land battleships.
It would not conduct recklessly wasteful operations that allowed them to be sunk for nothing.
“Big Sis, force redeployment is complete.”
“Fire all at once.”
The Grand High Priest had carved open a path alone, and the evacuees were running through it.
After confirming that, the Grand High Priest stepped in even farther—at which point an enormous quantity of heat slammed into the target.
The anti-air laser batteries mounted on the land battleships and the multi-legged tanks had all fired simultaneously.
A combined output of several hundred megawatts of ultra-high energy was concentrated on the Grand High Priest at the focal point.
Matter within the target space was instantly vaporized and turned into plasma.
“That’s nasty.”
“And even that is still a somewhat unreliable level of heat output against wyverns. According to the estimates, we would need to concentrate ten times this much before it stops getting scattered.”
“That’s nasty.”
The evacuees of the relay city of Gheni, having lost their greatest fighting force, had stopped moving, surrounded by swarms of multi-legged tanks.
The cleric-soldiers had recklessly attacked, so all of them had already been eliminated.
The cleric-soldiers and priests of the Prava Divine Kingdom really were impossible to reason with.
They stubbornly tried to eliminate the enemy and would not respond even to surrender advisories.
That said, this had already become clear during the intelligence-gathering process through the bots that had been infiltrated inside.
Doctrinally, they recognized everyone except themselves as a potential enemy.
They would impose demands, but they would never compromise.
“At least the citizens who aren’t church-affiliated aren’t that fanatical, which helps. I mean, turning the place into literal scorched earth probably isn’t impossible, but even so...”
“Come on, everybody, let’s head back home now.”
In the local footage, the evacuees could be seen being driven back into the city by doll-machine communicators mounted on multi-legged attack craft.
Attack machines alone could not communicate, after all, so doll-machine communicators had to be used.
Unlike attack craft or tanks, they were structurally fragile, so they could only be brought forward after suppression had ended, or once safety had been secured.
“We’ll begin administration immediately.”
After confirming that suppression was complete, Ichigo issued instructions to the local AI.
The residents needed to be returned to their previous work as soon as possible.
If they carelessly imposed something like a curfew, it could easily develop into a riot.
Even so, it was certain that the environment around them would change in various ways.
For the time being, food and daily necessities were scheduled to be supplied by <Paraiso>.
There was, of course, a significant element of baiting them with material comfort in that.
“Refined flour, salt, sugar, yeast, various spices. Alcoholic drinks, sweeteners, preserved foods like dried fish. Smoked fish and meat too. Their diet seems to have been pretty plain, so this should make an impact.”
“We will also install fresh-water purification plants. Safe water is valuable as well.”
Water that could be consumed without boiling would be extremely welcome too.
They probably had not been able to use the lake water as-is, and had apparently been securing drinking water by digging wells and the like.
If water lines were laid, convenience would improve dramatically.
“We’ll lock down the inside of the city that way, and then the outskirts. This is going to be an invasion base, °• N 𝑜 v 𝑒 l i g h t •° right?”
“Yes, Big Sis. We will construct stockpiling zones and a runway. Railway construction from Yaakari Port is already underway, and once the connection is complete, it will become possible to transport massive quantities of supplies. According to the schedule, within one month, invasion of the entire Prava Divine Kingdom will be possible.”
As an invasion plan, it was naturally fast on a completely different dimension—but to Eve, who knew the power of <The Tree>, the impression was that it was moving rather leisurely.
All of <The Tree>’s units were machines, and if units were organized with supply and maintenance time in mind, effectively twenty-four-hour operation was possible.
Moreover, unlike humans, the post-manufacture familiarization period was extremely short.
For simple combat machines, deployment to the front was possible immediately after they came off the line.
Considering that, the idea of <The Tree> spending a full month storing up force felt somewhat excessive.
“Rather, the point is to make the Prava Divine Kingdom gather its forces. Given one month, it can gather every force it can currently move, at least for the moment. Once we cross this lake, beyond it is already the Holy Capital Staritsa. They will definitely move to defend it.”
“Ahh, I see.”
The Prava Divine Kingdom was extremely vast.
The plan was to make it gather as much force as possible from across that breadth, hollowing out the rest.
On this side, all they had to do was wait, and the enemy would gather of its own accord.
There could hardly be anything easier than that.
“And we’ll use that time to turn Gheni into a base. It has already been confirmed that there is a copper mine a little farther south. Geologically, there is a high probability that nearby ore veins produce multiple metals, including iron ore. Pacification is over, so test excavation will begin immediately.”
“So you’re going to turn this into a production base too?”
“The production base will be near Yaakari Port. Transport is easier there. Large weapons are difficult to airlift. Sea transport is the only option.”
The fortress under construction at Yaakari Port was vast.
That was because it was being built with the assumption that a large-scale production base would be constructed inside it.
It had been chosen because the surrounding land was broad and relatively flat, and because the port itself sat deep inside a V-shaped bay.
It was a port facing the calm waters of the Lafret Sea, which made it excellent as a logistics hub.
Since the Second Fortress Black Iron faced the open sea, it had the problem of rough waves.
“Gheni’s water resources are also excellent, so production facilities will be built here as well.”
The lake facing the relay city of Gheni was extremely vast, more than 200 kilometers across.
An environment in which huge quantities of fresh water could be used was also important for production facilities.
And so, <The Tree> had seized the southeastern part of the Prava Divine Kingdom in a lightning campaign—
but here, for the moment, the advance of the invasion came to a halt.
