Chapter 842: December 19th: Absolute Steel Warfare
Author's Preface
Various tasks are piling up, but my real, practical deadline is the release date of Elden Ring. [*1]
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The Offense-Type Sub-Unit had two muzzles. One was a large caliber for firing low-power buckshot......... and the other was a thin barrel for firing an even smaller, even lower-power bullet. It was quietly positioned as if hidden inside the large-caliber barrel.
The bullet fired from it had no power; it wasn't toxic, nor did it explode after a delay. But from within a warhead fragile enough to shatter upon impact, it attached something to the target.
"Alright......... Attached."
The 【Safe Zone】, burdened with massive amounts of external armaments, had now taken on a grotesque four-legged silhouette far removed from a humanoid shape. Aiming at the coordinates of the enemy sniper displayed on his helmet, he launched yet another missile bombardment—he didn't even know how many times he'd done it now.
What was fired from the Assault Drone's other barrel was a transmitter; it stuck to the target's surface using a sticky gel similar to Techno-Magi-Gelus. The buckshot attack was largely meant to camouflage this transmitter. To begin with, if Mold were seriously trying to land an effective attack with a drone, he'd strap a bomb to it and charge it in.
"Man...... Even though I was told it's fine to do it, I still feel a bit hesitant about this......"
Releasing external missile pods pulled out from his Chestoria and bombarding the coordinates indicated by the transmitter, Mold felt apologetic toward the Thirdrema cityscape being destroyed by his own hands.
He recalled what happened right before the Kingdom Turmoil event started───
......
............
..................
"Ah, that's right, Rust-chan, Mold-kun."
"......What?"
"What is it?"
The role entrusted to the two of them. If the info brought in from their intel sources was accurate, a surprise attack would be launched against Thirdrema in the latter half of the Kingdom Turmoil event.
Rust and Mold were entrusted with defending against it. Mold couldn't help but wonder if it was really okay to leave it strictly to just the two of them, rather than leaving it to them alongside others, but Rust seemed fully motivated.
Furthermore, according to what they heard, there would probably only be about eight people launching the surprise attack. There was a chance wild, unaffiliated players might slip in too, but Pencilgon, solidifying the Grand Duke's Castle acting as the main headquarters...... along with unfamiliar players, would handle that somehow.
"About this defense battle, you guys don't need to think about keeping damages down or anything."
"......Really?"
"Eh, is that okay?"
Defense fundamentally means protecting. If they were told to protect the city without causing any damage whatsoever, they'd obviously have to reply that it's impossible, but the exact opposite...... being told they could destroy to their heart's content naturally made them want to ask why.
"Fufufu, did you forget my title?"
"......Advisor?"
"Exactly! The Grand Duke of Thirdrema places high trust in me! So if I just drop a little persuasion in...... right?"
The fact that someone who used to be on the Einwurf Kingdom's wanted list had wedged her way into the political core of Thirdrema made Mold feel a mix of wonder and awe over how on earth she pulled that off, but even hearing the explanation wouldn't make it something Mold could imitate.
"Still, wouldn't it be better to try and minimize damages to some extent........."
"Mold-kun."
"Ah, yes ma'am."
A half-lidded smile slid across Pencilgon's face, and Mold reflexively replied in polite language.
"Those were the Grand Duke's very words, you know? For the sake of the truly righteous royal lineage...... Thirdrema will fight to the bitter end, even if half its body is burned to ashes."
'In other words', Pencilgon continued.
"It means you can turn up to half of it into scorched earth."
"No, I'm pretty sure that's not what he meant!?"
You shouldn't take figurative expressions literally, and even if that were the case, having a tolerance level of half the city's functions doesn't justify treating blowing up half the city as a quota.
"Yeah, yeah, you're definitely right. But since we're doing it anyway, wouldn't you rather turn half of it into scorched earth?"
"Worst mindset ever!!"
"......Mold."
"Hm? Ah, yeah, what? Tell her something too, Rust───"
"......We just have to wipe them out before turning it into scorched earth; then we'll only burn about thirty percent."
"..............."
Thirty percent was apparently guaranteed.
..................
............
......
"T-The peace of Thirdrema is pressing on my shoulders......!!"
Despite feeling an inexplicable pressure, Mold didn't stop firing missiles. Even though he'd been continuously bombarding and sniping the coordinates completely exposed by the transmitter over and over again......... he couldn't finish him off. Part of it was that the enemy was skillfully using civilian houses and back alleys to shield himself from the bombardment and hide from the sniping, but.........
(He's gradually closing the distance......!)
He laid down suppressing fire, he blocked his path of advance, yet the transmitter's signal was steadily, surely approaching the Grand Duke's Castle in Thirdrema. He wasn't running away; he was pressing in.
(Did he give up on a sniping duel to aim for close combat? No, that's not the kind of movement this is......)
Mold had plenty of PvP experience himself. That was exactly why he could distinguish between movements aiming for melee combat and those that weren't.
On the Thirdrema map displayed inside his helmet, the moving transmitter signal was desperately trying to close the gap—or rather.........
"Ugh."
Click, click, a hollow sound rang out from the sniper rifle. It meant he was completely out of ammo and had to reload. The external missile pods couldn't be fired infinitely either; he was simply swapping them out with the pods stored inside his Chestoria as soon as they ran empty.
And those resources were also finite......... That inevitable "opening" had finally arrived.
───And this was the ultimate opportunity the enemy sniper had been waiting for.
"!!? He moved!!"
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"I don't care about the mechanics behind it at this point; my movements are completely leaked to the enemy."
Whether a transmitter had been attached to him, or if tracking him individually was possible with the remaining drones. Either way, under relentless bombardment and sniping, he had neither the time to leisurely search his own body for a bug nor the time to snipe the drones now.
In that case, there was only one tactical move Ginger Ale could take.
"The patience contest is canceled......... I'm taking them down all at once!"
The Tactical Mech designed by Ginger Ale, "GGMC: Hole in One," was a unit excelling in marksmanship, but that didn't mean it was bad at everything else.
He knew better than anyone that games don't go as planned; the scales of advantage and disadvantage could tilt endlessly from the slightest trigger. In that case, he had to keep the weight to tilt the scales back to his side in his pocket at all times.
"The enemy is fighting a defense battle, assigning mobile skirmishing to the other person + tactically speaking, he's a fixed turret specialized in defense and support! My location is compromised, so I'll force my own turn!"
He couldn't aim while hiding; he'd be targeted if he showed himself. If the current situation was a slow, losing grind, there was only one option left.
Abandoning the battle of patience and dragging this into a quick-draw showdown───!!
"Of course I packed it—flight capabilities!"
BOOM! The rear boosters of GGMC: Hole in One erupted with fire. The propulsion generated by magical energy blasted out alongside waves of heat, sending the mech leaping over the wall separating the upper and lower districts in a single bound.
The sky above was a field with nothing separating it. That meant Ginger Ale no longer had anywhere to hide, and simultaneously, that there were zero obstacles standing between him and the enemy.
"Now it's just a matter of how much interception fire comes my way.........!!?"
A sniper shot. But the sniper rifle used by the enemy was a magical type; therefore, for just the briefest moment, intense luminescence accompanied the instant of firing and its trajectory to impact.
"Then I can dodge it!"
Letting the beam of light graze his left shoulder, GGMC: Hole in One flew straight ahead. No missiles came—was he out of ammo, or was it a bluff? Ginger Ale no longer included his own survival in his win conditions; as long as he could crush that rear support, a 1v1 trade would yield stacks of bills in profit.
Besides, above all else.
"This is really bringing the fame......!"
Anyone carrying a sniper rifle gets the urge to just plunge straight into the frontline with it at least once. He was executing that right now, in this tactical situation.
Unlike an FPS where, taken to the extreme, re-queuing brings endless chances, this was an irreversible battle; that was exactly why the listeners watching his figure through the meteor iron mirror following Ginger Ale's mad dash from a short distance away were going wild, and simultaneously, Ginger Ale's own hype was skyrocketing.
"......Here goes!"
Gagon, the mechanism attached to his legs transformed, forming a turret. And──────
Bobobobobom!!!
GGMC: Hole in One and the Grand Duke's Castle. Smoke screens were scattered from both directions almost simultaneously.
Author's Afterword
If you listen veeeery closely, you can hear the transmitter making noise and slightly glowing, but Mold stuck it somewhere hard to see and masked the sound with the bombardment.
Also, a sneaky trap where the gel is hard to peel off with a Tactical Mech's thick fingers.
Translator's Notes
- [1]: Elden Ring released on Feb 25, 2022.
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