Hell Mode: Volume 4, page 23
Unfortunately for the Demon Lord Army, Allen had sort of gotten advance notice of this new strategy due to having engaged them in battle two days earlier. He had then quickly drawn the conclusion that the Army might use the same trick when attacking Castle Lapolka, and therefore advised the elven generals to split up their 300,000 troops into three groups of 100,000 each and have them fight, stand by, and rest for eight hours in turn. In short, he had brought over the concept of the three-shift system from his own world to this one and applied it to war.
There were those among the soldiers who were worried about only having 100,000 fighting at any given time. To assuage those worries, Allen supplemented his strategy by bolstering their forces with Deputized Summons and doling out so many Blessings of Heaven that the soldiers could fight and use their skills with no restrictions whatsoever.
Within the framework of this strategy, sleep was considered as crucial as the actual fighting. To help the soldiers get the rest they needed, Allen had used Grass F’s Awakened Ability, Herb, to create two-meter-tall potted trees and placed them in the center of each of the resting areas. Earlier, when Allen dispatched General Griff to Lapolka, he had loaded it with not only Blessings of Heaven but also these potted trees that gave off a fragrance that lowered the natural MP recovery time from six hours to three for anyone who smelled it within a hundred meters. Additionally, the fragrance also possessed the same calming effect emanated by Grass F’s normal Ability, Aroma, the efficacy of which had already been proven when it helped Rodin, Allen’s father, sleep through the agony of his major abdominal injury.
Allen now asked the Spirit B stationed as his proxy in Castle Lapolka to walk into one of the resting areas so he could check it out. Sure enough, he found all the soldiers inside already fast asleep despite all the adrenaline that should have been coursing through their veins from fighting for their lives mere minutes ago.
“This is just killer, Master. I never cease to be amazed,” Ellie sighed.
All four sides are holding up pretty well so far, but the southern side is lagging behind quite a bit in dispatching the monsters. Hardly surprising, since I posted the least number of Summons there and they don’t have long-distance attacks.
Satisfied with what he saw through Ellie’s eyes, Allen then turned his direction to the south wall, where he found the attacking insect-type monsters crawling all over his four Stone Bs. The one general and three soldiers respectively possessed 7,000 and 5,000 Endurance. Similar to the Insect Bs to the west, these Stone Bs were also fully buffed with higher Evasion and lower damage taken, among other effects. This made them nigh invincible against the Rank B monsters, which only had around 1,000 Attack.
That said, there are monsters that can use skills too—for all I know, some of those skills may ignore Endurance or reduce Defense. And there’s bound to be the eventual Rank A monster.
The Stone Bs were twenty and fifteen meters tall, even taller than the fortress’s walls. This height allowed them to use their round shields to scrape off the monsters climbing on any parts of the walls. When they turned around to do so, however, a robed skeleton raised its staff tipped with a red jewel and pointed it at one of their exposed backs.
Oh? That’s a Rank A monster, right? Lucky us. Mirror, get ready to use Total Reflect.
A massive ball of fire appeared at the end of the skeleton’s staff and shot forward as if to burn both the Stone B and the elves on top of the wall. However, the Stone B turned around with perfect timing and used the shield that it had been scraping with to block the attack. The flames promptly reversed direction and blasted the entire area in front of the Stone B with even greater force than before, reducing the skeleton and all the monsters in the area to cinders.
＊ ＊ ＊
Even when the sun had set, the monsters continued attacking by the light of their magic and torches. Just as Allen had expected, they intended on fighting through the night. By now, sixteen hours had passed, so the next group of elven soldiers that had been on standby quickly took over for the third shift. The same was happening on Allen’s side too, and he was starting to feel it around the wee hours.
“Guess it’s about time I took a nap,” Allen murmured.
“Your will is our command, Master. We won’t let you down,” Ellie replied.
We still have 850,000 left to go. I went and promised to be back in five days, so I gotta pick up the pace. The monsters are doing all the work in coming to me, so let’s set tomorrow’s quota at 200,000. Would I be able to attack more of them at the same time if I went deeper into their ranks?
After taking a shower, Allen munched on a molmo as he reflected over how things had gone that day and brainstormed ways to raise his efficiency—this moment where he took the time to contemplate and theorize was his favorite part. Before long, he settled in for a nap on the back of his griffin.
＊ ＊ ＊
Five days had passed since the Demon Lord Army first began its assault on Castle Lapolka. The elves had desperately held the monsters at bay this whole time, firmly believing in their eventual victory. Still, although Allen had regularly dispatched Bird Bs to bring them more Blessings of Heaven to ensure that they never ran out, the elves’ battle strength was being slowly whittled down, with about ten percent of the 300,000 soldiers having lost their lives in the fighting so far. Of course, this sacrifice had brought about commensurate results.
On the eastern and western sides where the Dragon Bs and Insect Bs fought, half of the original 500,000 attacking monsters were now dead. Many different factors had contributed to this unprecedented feat, including having fought five whole days nonstop, the elves having had the ability to heal as much as needed, the introduction of the three-shift system, and the help of the inexhaustible Summons.
Over these five days, the number of Lil Antsys had continued growing steadily, such that there were now 3,000 more of them than at the start of the battle. And the more numerous they were, the more efficient they were at killing the monsters.
Currently, there was still no observable change in the Demon Lord Army’s policy of applying pressure on Castle Lapolka from all four sides. They did, however, redirect 200,000 from the north and south each to bolster the thinning numbers in the east and west.
Throughout all this, the No-life Gamers had contributed to the war effort as best they could from atop their Bird Bs. Krena and Dogora rode solo as Volmaar flew with Sophie and Keel with Cecil. All this time, they had been following Allen’s instructions to fight in a way that focused on helping the elves endure the onslaught.
“Allen’s late,” Keel grumbled. “Isn’t it about time he’d be back?”
“I’m sure he’ll be appearing any moment now,” Cecil replied. “He confirmed last night that he’ll make it back today.”
“What’s taking him so long, then?” Keel spotted a wounded elf and promptly cast Healing Magic on him.
Dogora and Krena, who specialized in close quarters combat, were fighting defensively by riding their griffins up and down the length of the fortress wall and attacking the backs of the climbing monsters, prioritizing the Rank A ones that were too much for the elves to handle.
Suddenly, Krena noticed three Rank A dragons come charging in. “Three dragons incoming! Dogora, help please!”
“You got it!”
Krena managed to stop one while Dogora worked with Volmaar to suppress another. That left the last dragon a clear path straight to the wall, however. The elves on the wall immediately began shooting at it, but they did not have nearly enough firepower to bring it down before it got close enough to attack.
Seeing this, Sophie poked her head out from behind Volmaar and cried out in a voice loud enough to reach everyone, “I’ll handle this! Krena and Dogora, please fall back!”
Sophie quickly swapped out the Endurance-boosting ring she was wearing with a +1,000 MP boosting one to match the ring already on her other hand, used a Blessing of Heaven to refill her MP, then lifted her staff with both hands. Upon seeing the heat haze springing up around Sophie’s figure from a distance, Krena and Dogora quickly broke up their fight and put some distance between themselves and the dragons.
“O grand spirit, please heed my call.”
A mass of flame appeared before the Bird B that Sophie was riding. It rapidly grew in size, eventually taking on a large humanoid form.
“I am the grand fire spirit, Ifrit. Daughter of the elves, your race’s contract with the Sovereign of Spirits binds me to lend you my aid.”
Sophie had used her Extra Skill, Great Spirit Manifestation, to call the grand fire spirit, Ifrit, to this world. His face did not seem to have a mouth, but his voice could be heard loud and clear.
Sophie said respectfully, “My heartfelt thanks, Lord Ifrit.”
In response to Sophie’s instructions, Ifrit quickly shot toward the dragon that was closing in on the fortress, his form covered in flames that roared with increasing intensity. When he caught up, he charged straight into the monster’s abdomen. The next moment, the dragon blew apart.
“What power...” Cecil, the only other Gamer capable of using Fire Magic, was the one most astonished by what just happened. Making a dragon that surely had fire elemental resistance explode was far beyond her abilities.
After that, Ifrit handily finished off the remaining two dragons and wiped out all the monsters in the area.
Through Grand Spirit Materialization, Sophie had the ability to call upon grand spirits of fire, earth, wind, and water and ask them to attack her enemy, heal her up, or assist her in battle in any other way. This Extra Skill’s cooldown time was a full day. Its duration was based on Sophie’s max MP value—activating the Extra Skill required using up her entire MP gauge—which was why she had changed out the ring she was wearing.
“Oh, I see you went with Ifrit this time,” a voice said from behind Sophie.
She whirled around in elation. “Lord Allen!”
Before Sophie’s eyes was Allen, perched on General Griff. Even though he had only been away for a few days, she felt as though it had been much longer.
“Ah, there you are.” Cecil had Keel bring their griffin close and clambered over to the back of Allen’s Bird B. Apparently she felt most comfortable in the seat behind Allen’s solely because of how often she had sat there in the past. “Did you have some trouble?”
“Sorta,” Allen replied. “I haven’t fully finished off all one million yet, but I’ve got things handled.”
As promised, Allen had returned to Lapolka. There were still about 100,000 monsters traveling across the ocean, but he knew his Summons were capable of handling that number by themselves and had thus hurried back on Griff.
Now...it looks like there are still about three million left in all. As expected, the north side has the most. Killing all of them is gonna take time.
Thanks to his Summons, Allen fully grasped the war situation. The south side was standing firm thanks to his four Stone Bs, so he added five Dragon Bs to support them.
“Doras, back them up.”
“You got it, Master!”
As for the north side, which was facing the largest number of monsters, Allen sent them seven Dragon Bs. The Summons promptly got to work roasting the monsters that were clinging to the walls while taking care not to harm the elven soldiers.
Yeah, Dragon B really is best for clearing away trash mobs, thanks to its AoE attack.
“So...the Demon Lord Army’s already finished changing shifts, right?” Allen asked.
“Huh? Oh, right, about two hours ago,” Cecil replied.
Okay, good.
In order to tired the elves out, the Demon Lord Army had been fighting in twelve-hour shifts. In other words, they were using a two-shift system. Although they had more stamina than the elves, the fact still remained that the monsters were fighting for twelve hours straight. And that was something that Allen intended on taking advantage of.
“Everyone, let’s go wipe out the exhausted monsters. You all still good to continue?”
“Wow, that sounds like such an Allen idea!” Krena replied, laughing.
I mean, I am Allen after all, Allen thought wryly before saying out loud, “All right, let’s go!”
“Let’s go!” Krena echoed.
The No-life Gamers dived back into the fight with the new burst of energy they had received from Allen’s return.
Chapter 15: In Exchange for Payment
The battle at Castle Lapolka went much faster once Allen joined the fight. Having left the battle above the sea and come to Lapolka in person, he could now adjust the number of Summons as needed and give them detailed instructions. Thanks to this, the number of elves getting killed went down considerably.
Allen and his companions had spent the subsequent few days doubling down on wiping out the monsters that were exhausted after consecutive days of fighting. Now, thirteen days after the Demon Lord Army first launched its assault on Castle Lapolka—or eight days after Allen entered the fray—the four million monsters assaulting the fortress were entirely gone.
The elves cheered like never before at their victory over a force with over ten times their own numbers. At the same time, many elves gathered in the center of the fortress where their fallen comrades, reverently wrapped in cloth, were being buried. There, they shared news of their victory with hot tears streaming down their faces.
The attacking force had included all those the Demon Lord Army had stationed north of Castle Lapolka. The fact that those had been annihilated meant the threat looming over Rohzenheim was now almost completely eliminated.
“All right... Let’s go.”
After the burial was over, the elves raised their heads and set their jaws. Their work was not yet over; they still had to take care of the monster corpses strewn around the fortress. Aside from harvesting the magic stones and other usable parts, they still had to burn away what was left before it began to rot. And so the elves applied themselves assiduously, carrying the pain of their grief in their hearts.
Unlike Allen’s battle against the monsters that never made it on land, there had been very real and deeply felt losses here. Now he helped out where he could with his Summons, with the Antsys and Lil Antsys proving their usefulness by harvesting and transporting while Doras readily incinerated whatever they were asked to. Allen kept quiet and simply threw himself into his tasks.
＊ ＊ ＊
Two days later, when most of the work that needed doing at Lapolka was completed, the No-life Gamers returned to Tiamo to inform the queen and generals how the battle had gone.
“—And that is the end of my report.”
“I see. I thank you from the bottom of my heart, Lord Allen. We will definitely repay this debt.” The queen bowed deeply as her dumbstruck generals watched on, still trying to process the report of what was nothing short of a miraculous victory.
“It only worked out because your men fought hard and put their lives on the line for their queen and country.” Despite his own overwhelming contributions in this war, these words came unaffectedly from Allen’s mouth.
“I...see.” Field Marshal Lukdraal, the first to recover, spoke on behalf of his fellow generals. “Even so, we are grateful to you. Truly.”
During the single month since Allen’s arrival, the Demon Lord Army had been completely obliterated, reserves and all. In the past it had usually attacked with only around 500,000 each year; however, the elves had managed to defeat fourteen times that number in an incredibly short amount of time. Those present no longer harbored any lingering doubts about the Sovereign of Spirits’ prior prophecy.
As for the Sovereign himself, he was still shining away on the queen’s lap, fast asleep on his back.
It’s been over half a month now. Does it take that long for him to evolve? Wait, do gods “evolve”? Since he’s becoming a deity, does that mean he’ll “dei-volve”? Heh heh, okay, that was bad, even for me.
Allen recalled a series of games he played in his previous life that involved gathering a bunch of monsters. A giggle bubbled up when he imagined how Rohzen would look after evolving. The queen gave him a puzzled look, so he quickly straightened his expression and continued from earlier.
“Your Majesty, my lords—this brings me no joy, but I remind you that this war is not entirely over just yet.”
“Our capital is indeed still under the demons’ control.”
“That is so, Your Majesty. Only after we defeat Demonic Deity Rehzel and recapture Fortenia can this war be truly declared over.”
The queen nodded, then suddenly recalled something and anxiously asked, “By the way, Lord Allen, in regard to that matter...did you do something untoward to the emperor of Giamut?”
“Huh? What’s she talking about?” Dogora asked, exchanging puzzled looks with the rest of the No-life Gamers.
Allen answered glibly. “‘Untoward’? Perish the thought, Your Majesty. Members of the Five Continent Alliance are in a give-and-take relationship with each other, are they not? I take it that negotiations went smoothly thanks to the prior investment I made?”
His companions immediately caught on to the fact that he was up to his usual scheming again. Cecil lightly prodded him. “What is this ‘matter’ that the queen is talking about? What ‘prior investment’ did you make? Explain.”
Oh right, I haven’t told everyone yet.
By “prior investment,” Allen was referring to all the Blessings of Heaven that he had sent to the Central Continent. It was not his intention to keep this secret, but this was something he had done after he had left his companions at Castle Lapolka, and it had slipped his mind after he rejoined them.
“I sent the Central Continent a few presents ahead of time in preparation for our fight with Demonic Deity Rehzel. I just needed Her Majesty’s help with what followed,” Allen explained.
“Allen, what did you make Her Majesty do?”
“I thought we’d need a helper, so I asked Her Majesty to make a request of the emperor of Giamut.”
