“The smart shells are descending at Mach 9.”
Since then, the standoff with the two <Fenrir>—<Froze> and <Yarn>—had continued, but the pair had been inching backward.
The Jotun M facing them did not move, and kept its main gun trained on them.
Then, in the middle of that deadlock, red-hot warheads rained down from directly overhead. The propulsion units, having jettisoned their cluster-bomb modules, plunged in as mass projectiles. A split second later, huge numbers of submunitions poured down across the surrounding area.
The two <Fenrir> seemed to notice the incoming warheads overhead just before impact.
But this was a combined strike with hypersonic missiles approaching from another direction. The smart warheads and cluster munitions plowed up the ground, blasting away the footing beneath <Froze> and <Yarn> just as they tried to flee.
Even so, the two <Fenrir> kicked off the collapsing terrain beneath them and barely managed to escape. They were moving so fast they broke the sound barrier in an instant, and even hypersonic missiles could not brake in time to catch them. Several mass warheads grazed the pair and blasted apart the earth around them.
And that, apparently, was what decided it.
The two threat organisms, whose will to fight had already been fading, suddenly whipped around at tremendous speed.
They were now in full retreat.
And into that retreat, <The Tree> drove its pursuit force like a spike.
Jotun M units and the multi-legged machine groups sprayed shells everywhere, while lasers crisscrossed the field in every direction.
Additional anti-magic-barrier missiles that had already been launched came streaking in one after another, driving the fleeing pair onward.
The Gigantia force—Eurytos, Theia, Rhea, and Themis—opened full-power bombardment.
The attacks were adjusted with exquisite precision to block off the <Fenrir> pair’s escape routes. <Froze> and <Yarn> danced around the fire and avoided it, but because of that, they were unable to open up proper distance.
The computational AIs, having already observed the two thoroughly enough, were predicting their actions. And that predictive accuracy was improving with every passing second.
“Wow...”
The image feed was buried under smoke from explosions and clouds of dust. Eve had no idea what was going on anymore and could do nothing but watch.
The units and the <Fenrir> were at least being displayed as wireframes.
But <Froze> and <Yarn> in particular were moving so fast that she could not visually track them at all.
“The anti-magic-barrier missiles launched by the attack craft are arriving on target.”
It was a battlefield like hell itself—smart warheads fired from Blazablik raining down, while hypersonic missiles and artillery shells poured in by the masses.
And yet even then...
“It seems <Iris> is predicting that even this still won’t be enough to kill them, Big Sister!”
“If we could just hit them, they’d die...”
The problem, in the end, was simply that the attacks were not landing.
Forcing hits by cutting off escape routes was not enough to deal a decisive blow, but if they concentrated their attacks too much, the targets just dodged.
Unless they prepared something like a trap that could stop them in place, they would never be able to finish off these <Fenrir>.
“Something like a capture net to pin them down... would that be too difficult?”
“If we’d known they had this much explosive speed, we could have considered equipment meant to hinder movement. Threat organisms really are difficult to deal with.”
That was <Ringo>’s response to Eve’s muttering complaint. These were life-forms that did not fit within the bounds of ordinary biology—hell, they barely fit within the bounds of physics.
They were /N_o_v_e_l_i_g_h_t/ apparently recognizing the rain of hypersonic shells and submunitions pouring down on them, accurately avoiding them, and continuing to choose the optimal course of action.
Unfortunately, most of the sensors they had set up beforehand had already been destroyed by the bombardment.
That meant all information gathering now depended on the automated machines on site.
Even so, they had probably gathered the minimum amount of data they would need for any future encounters with the <Fenrir> species.
Still, the best outcome would be for them to keep retreating just like this.
“<Iris> is intentionally leaving them an escape route! It looks like both <Froze> and <Yarn> have realized it too! That’s incredible capability!”
“Both <Froze> and <Yarn> are unquestionably trying to flee. <Iris> intends to let them go.”
<Iris> kept driving the targets exactly where it wanted them. While cutting off their avenues of escape, it was opening a path that pushed them back toward the <Demon Forest>. The two were following that path and gradually increasing their distance.
“...What’s the plan after this?”
“Yes indeed, Commander Ma’am. We will continue committing air power to increase the pressure and pursue them to the vicinity of the <Demon Forest>. After that, we will firmly hold the defensive line established in the original plan. We will construct defensive installations and conduct patrols with defense units to define the boundary. The territory pushed back during this battle will be abandoned and designated as a buffer zone, thereby signaling our intention not to expand any farther.”
The final objective of the plan had been to force the <Fenrir> family back into its original territory in the <Demon Forest>. Extermination had been one possible option as well, but that risked turning the region into chaos again through a new territorial struggle among threat organisms, so forcing them to withdraw was probably the best possible result.
“Big Sister. The escort fighters have reached the combat zone.”
“This is Blazablik’s last bombardment.”
“The fighters are starting their ground attack.”
Then the finishing air power arrived overhead.
Its striking power was not on the level of the hypersonic missiles, but even supersonic missiles were more than enough to serve as a damage source. Some of the aircraft were carrying unguided bombs as well, but those were nothing more than extra weight, since they would be useless for anything beyond blinding the targets, and in the first place the targets were moving far too fast to hit.
“The ground-attack group is beginning missile release.”
The bombers opened their ventral release bays wide and began dropping the missiles they carried one after another. Once cast into the air, the missiles ignited their rocket motors in sequence and started streaking toward their targets.
An overwhelming number of trails of fire painted the sky.
Then, chasing after the missiles, fighter craft dropped altitude for strafing runs.
A mass of supersonic missiles closing in, along with multiple fighters.
Perhaps they recognized the threat of that situation.
<Yarn>, glancing back, unleashed a flash. <Froze> covered the slowing <Yarn> with its own body.
“<Yarn> has executed what appears to be a fireball attack. Muzzle velocity, 800 to 1,000 meters per second. Multiple fireballs confirmed.”
“The ground-attack group took losses!”
“Some of the missiles were shot down.”
An anti-air attack. An explosion erupted right in the middle of the bombers, which had been packed tightly together to concentrate firepower, and half of them were assessed as shot down.
Then six fireballs detonated at multiple points, catching missile swarms and fighters in flight.
“Bomber attrition rate: 13 percent. Fighter attrition rate: 7 percent. Missile loss: 22 percent. Quite an attack radius and quite a bit of firepower.”
“On the other hand, it looks like <Froze> took another anti-magic-barrier missile hit...”
The pressure from the ground-attack strikes weakened, and in that opening the two took off at once. <Froze> was bleeding from blowing missiles aside with body slams, but it fled with such force that its injuries seemed meaningless.
“Report from <Iris>. <Yarn> and <Froze> have withdrawn into the <Demon Forest>.”
Once the shells were no longer hindering their movement, their top speed was supersonic. The two <Fenrir> vanished from sight in an instant.
They had escaped in the end, but in terms of properly conveying <The Tree>’s threat to them, the operation’s objective had been cleared with a perfect score.
“...All right. A lot of things happened that weren’t what I expected, but the result’s good!”
“Yes indeed, Commander Ma’am. <Iris> has declared Operation Walking the Dog complete.”
And so, after expending huge numbers of automated machines and massive quantities of ammunition, <The Tree> succeeded in driving the <Fenrir> back into its original territory.
In terms of simple resource consumption alone, the cost had been far greater than the Prava Divine Kingdom invasion.
Multiple Jotuns had been heavily damaged, and in the end three of the mockup-type Jotun M units had also been assessed as destroyed. So many four-legged tanks and multi-legged tanks had been written off that counting them felt pointless. More than a hundred of those had been vaporized so completely that nothing remained.
Needless to say, the consumption of shells and missiles had been immense.
The energy expenditure had been enormous as well.
Accordingly, a great deal of fusion fuel had been burned.
Even so, compared with the resources they now stood to gain, it would probably not count as a serious loss.
Once again, <The Tree> had secured a vast stretch of land as territory. Because it had been under the <Fenrir>’s domain, it had not yet been surveyed, but judging from the surrounding terrain, there should be fairly substantial mineral veins lying beneath it.
“We can go over the results later, all together. Is there any urgent work right now?”
“Yes indeed, Commander Ma’am. Everything is proceeding without issue. Including <Iris>, let us hold the appreciation party first.”
