『Big Sister. <The Reflector>’s course has been confirmed.』
“I’m listening.”
Roughly eighteen hours had passed since they confirmed <The Reflector>’s movement.
At <Iris>’s report, Eve straightened her posture and prepared to listen.
『There is no mistake that it is heading toward fortress <Gladiolus>. Its course is wavering, but it is oriented almost directly toward <Gladiolus>.』
Iris displayed <The Reflector>’s movement route on the map.
The plotted course continued westward while meandering.
Ahead of it stood the front-line fortress of the <Demon Forest>, <Gladiolus>.
『Most likely, it cannot identify the precise location from long range. It is believed to be detecting something like a signal. Even while meandering, it appears to try to return once it faces somewhat away from the direction.』
“Looking at this, yes, there’s basically no doubt. ...I suppose we have to do it.”
<The Reflector> was moving with almost unmistakable intent toward fortress <Gladiolus>.
Based on their experiences so far, there was an extremely high possibility that this was hostile behavior.
『I recommend executing the operation to stop <The Reflector>.』
“Fine. I approve execution. Do it.”
『Yes, Big Sister. Beginning Operation <Blow Away!>. Moving forces.』
At Eve’s order, the intelligent entities of <The Tree> all began moving at once.
With <Iris>, the core of the operation’s planning, at the head, every automated machine began moving organically.
As Eve watched that from the corner of her eye, she enlarged the world # Nоvеlight # map displaying <The Reflector>’s point of light.
“Still, if this big thing is moving around this much...”
“Yes, Commander Ma’am. Significant chaos has already been confirmed inside the <Demon Forest>. A <Death March> will likely occur before long.”
Its body length was two hundred eighty meters. It was an absurdly colossal body. Just by walking, it destroyed the forest across a width of one hundred eighty meters and left bare ground in its wake. Naturally, the monsters and animals living there would be pushed out into the surrounding areas.
Even the Mountain Boar looked like an adult beside a child compared to it.
Of course, there were no threat organisms that would pick a fight with <The Reflector>, and they had begun fleeing into the surroundings.
“At this rate, it looks like the Piata Empire and the Kingdom of Reidia are going to suffer damage.”
“There is a possibility that large threat organisms will be pushed across the boundary of the <Demon Forest>.”
Eve traced several villages, or perhaps towns, that existed along the boundary of the <Demon Forest>.
There was also the problem that quite a few towns had disappeared in the war, but even so, these were stubborn places that had managed to remain.
“The monsters were already starting to become impossible to hold back, right? If a stampede happens here...”
“They will be annihilated, most likely. The boundary of the <Demon Forest> will move significantly. Human territory will be carved away.”
That said.
At the very least, the former Kingdom of Reidia was already under <The Tree>’s control.
The Piata Empire was the same.
In other words, if a stampede occurred, <The Tree> would need to move.
“What’s the initial response?”
“Handling <The Reflector> is being given top priority. Large weapons cannot be moved. Our surplus forces consist of previous-generation multi-legged tanks and drones assigned to combat reserves, but those were also ground down considerably in the previous battle against <Fenrir>.”
The boundary with the <Demon Forest> was extremely long.
If monsters overflowed from that boundary, extracting enough force to suppress all of them was, under current circumstances, extremely difficult.
“Hmm... It’s impossible to make <Iris> handle this response too, isn’t it? <Kakitsubata> has to support <Iris>, and the one with room to spare is <Ayame Zero>. Is it about time we added more AIs?”
“Yes, Commander Ma’am. From the standpoint of securing diversity as well, having a single AI cover a wide area is not recommended.”
In terms of force operation, it was preferable to have a single top command.
However, when events that needed to be handled occurred simultaneously in multiple places, processing capacity became insufficient.
And if there was only one will overseeing all of it, priority events could end up competing with each other.
If that happened, there was a possibility that the optimal solution for the whole could not be selected.
Of course, it would be enough for <Ringo> to support that, but if possible, it was preferable for local phenomena to be resolved within their local jurisdiction.
“Once this operation is over, let’s consider adding more. As for this time... Ichigo, you handle the stampede. Of course, I won’t place any limits on resource usage.”
“Yes, Big Sister. <Ringo>, I will use computational resources.”
“Permission granted. ...For the addition, let us consider an I-class. Operational results in the United Kingdom of Aphrasia have also been accumulating.”
“True. Let’s leave territorial governance to I-class units.”
Even as <The Tree>’s two top figures had that conversation, each AI in charge continued updating the situation one after another.
<Iris> had chosen an ultra-long-range attack against <The Reflector>.
From the previous battle with the <Wyvern>, <The Reflector> had been judged to possess extremely high combat capability.
Because of that, the conclusion was that bringing large weapons close was not a wise move.
If they carelessly brought land battleships and the like close to it, there was a high chance <The Reflector>’s long-range attacks would easily destroy them.
The most desirable option was to attack it one-sidedly without allowing it to perceive their weapons.
What they would use for that purpose were smart shells loaded with burnstone.
They would fire them from the battleship <Blazablik> at sea and snipe it at hypersonic speed from the stratosphere.
<Iris>’s assumption was that if the attack came from the sea more than a thousand kilometers away, even <The Reflector> would not detect the firing position.
Asahi agreed with that as well, judging that since it would be an attack with no direct intervention of will, there would be no problem. However, that would not apply if an AI were used in the control device installed in the smart shell.
However, this method had its own problem.
If <The Reflector> did not understand what it had been attacked by, then it was possible that they would be unable to stop its advance at all.
If it judged that it had been attacked by something completely unrelated to the place it was currently heading toward, then all they would have done was ravage the area around <The Reflector> with attacks.
Even so, at minimum, they could confirm <The Reflector>’s response capability.
If <The Tree>’s attack was effective, it would expand their options for future responses as well.
“The smart shells are fully autonomous, right?”
『Markers have been planted on <The Reflector> in advance. Directional radio transmitters. If the markers are lost, GPS guidance will be used.』
It was believed that <The Reflector> itself possessed organs capable of transmitting and receiving electromagnetic waves.
However, they predicted that radio waves emitted outward from its own back could be disguised to some extent.
In fact, even now, electromagnetic waves that functioned as markers were being transmitted periodically, and by using those, they were able to grasp <The Reflector>’s precise positional information through satellites.
So far, it had shown no sign of caring about those markers.
The problem was that if the first attack hit, the markers would probably be lost.
That said, they would pack everything possible into the first attack.
If that attack had no effect, the sad truth would be that they would have almost no cards left to play.
“The second option is a saturation attack from flying machines, huh... If firing down from the stratosphere doesn’t work, that one looks pretty rough too...”
“Big Sister, let me add something. The purpose of using flying machines is to make our hostile force clear to it! Of course, in terms of attack power, the smart shells are the clear standout!”
“Ah, I see.”
At this point, they had no choice but to respond flexibly as the situation developed.
No matter what, they had to stop <The Reflector>’s movement.
