Chapter 105: The Encirclement of Fear

Brethren were gathered before the Teleportation Gate.

It has probably been hundreds of years since this many brethren gathered.

“Preparations are complete. From this moment, we commence the raid on the human countries. The target is the country of Dragon Knights, Dragonia! The objective is the heads of the Dragon Emperor and the Dragon Knights! Do not pay attention to other small fry!”

“Hmph, we are finally moving.”

“We had to move carefully so as not to be detected by the humans until now. From now on, it’s time for fun.”

“Rather, we should have attacked the weakened humans much earlier.”

Kuku, hearing that the battle is starting, the brethren are elated.

But I can understand their feelings.

Finally, the time of dormancy is over, and we are starting an all-out war with the humans.

“But do not be mistaken. This is merely the beginning. And as a gift for that beginning, we shall give the humans the head of their greatest military power, the Dragon Emperor!”

“OOOOHHHHHHHH!!”

Kukuku, Kuhahahaha! Now humans, it is time for fear!

$diamond$

The morning after returning from training, we were heading to the Adventurer’s Guild.

The purpose was to request the purchase of dragon materials.

Since we focused on Ryune‘s special training yesterday and returned late, we decided to sell the materials tomorrow—which is today.

Actually, on the way back, the Golden Dragon showed signs of wanting to take us, but because it caused quite a commotion last time, everyone strongly insisted that we return normally.

“Fufufu.”

“You seem somewhat happy?”

Ryune has been in a very good mood since morning.

“Of course! After all, I was able to defeat a dragon with my own power! Yesterday, I was too tired from training to really feel it, but when I woke up this morning and saw Master Rex‘s face, the feeling finally welled up!”

I see, it seems Ryune was happy to gain confidence as a Dragon Knight by defeating a dragon for the first time.

That’s to be expected; with that dull weapon that was hardly maintained, there was no way she could fight properly.

“With this, I can report to Father… no, Master’s grave with my head held high! And with the current me, I can challenge the Dragon Princess Rite without anxiety!”

Ah, come to think of it, there was that Dragon Princess Rite.

“If I recall, it’s a match to choose the heroine role for the ritual, right?”

“Y-Yes. Well, that’s true, but… I can’t help but wish you chose your words a little better, yes.”

Oops, my apologies.

“A-Anyway! Let’s continue to do our best in training! Even though I have tamed a Silver Dragon, I myself am still an immature apprentice Dragon Knight!”

Yep, yep, it’s important to keep improving without becoming conceited!

Especially having no negligence is good!

After all, there are good-for-nothing masters in the world who, immediately after their disciple learns a new technique through harsh training, say things like, “Alright, next is sparring with me to engrave that technique into your body! Ah, don’t use anything other than that technique, okay?”

“By the way, what does it mean that you tamed a Silver Dragon?”

Liliera, harboring doubt at Ryune‘s words, asked.

“Eh? Ah, yes. That is, I made a pact with the Silver Dra…”

It was just when Ryune was about to answer Liliera‘s question.

“I-It’s terrible!!”

Someone suddenly burst through the guild doors.

“What’s with the noise… wait, aren’t you a guard working at the gate?”

Ah, this person was a guard.

But why did a guard protecting the town come to the Adventurer’s Guild?

“Hey, did something happen?”

A nearby adventurer rubbed the guard’s back and asked what happened.

“M-Monsters are…”

“What? What about the monsters?”

The guard calmed his ragged breathing and shouted in a voice that echoed throughout the guild.

“The town… the town is surrounded by a massive horde of monsters!!”

$diamond$

“…Wh-What did you say!?”

The inside of the guild went into an uproar at the guard’s words.

“I-Is that true?”

“Yeah, suddenly a swarm of monsters appeared from the forest and mountains, and surrounded the entire town in the blink of an eye!”

“B-But if that’s the case, you could have called for evacuation before the town was surrounded, right!?”

To the adventurer who cast a doubtful eye saying that was impossible no matter what, the guard explained what he saw with a desperate expression, insisting it was the truth.

“It really happened in the blink of an eye. The monsters drew an encircling net while spreading sideways, and the fast monsters filled the gaps in the encirclement as if following up for the slow monsters. Then the subsequent monsters came to the places where the encirclement was thin, and completely surrounded the town.”

“That’s absurd…”

The adventurers who heard the guard’s explanation were at a loss for words in surprise.

Even so, the monsters move as if someone commanded them.

But if so, whose instructions led to surrounding this town?

After that, the guard was taken to the back room by a guild staff member, but returned in less than 5 minutes.

With the Guild Master next to him.

“Everyone, I want you to listen.”

And a stir arose in the lobby as the guard returned with the Guild Master.

“It seems the story that lacked reality suddenly became real with the appearance of the Guild Master, the influential person closest to them.”

Liliera explained as if speaking for the adventurers’ feelings.

“Some of you may have already heard, but right now, a massive horde of monsters is surging to surround this town.”

The guild was wrapped in a commotion.

It must be because the Guild Master voiced the same content, confirming what the guard said in the adventurers’ minds.

“Therefore, the Guild issues a Mandatory Quest to you all. The quest content is to intercept the monsters attacking the town.”

Hearing Mandatory Quest, the adventurers stirred again.

“Hey, what is a Mandatory Quest?”

Jairo whispered secretly behind me.

“You know, you were told during the explanation when becoming an adventurer. It’s the right to compel force to secure large-scale combat power when disasters involving the survival of the country or large demonic beasts that would cause terrible damage if left alone appear. If you refuse this, you will lose your adventurer qualification unless you have a very good reason.”

Mandatory Quest… huh.

In the adventures of the Great Swordsman Liegard, it was used in an episode where a powerful demonic beast capable of destroying a country appeared.

“Either way, since we are surrounded by a horde of monsters, we have no choice but to accept.”

“Yeah, even if we run, we have to reduce the number of monsters.”

The adventurers also resolved that they had no choice but to fight since there was no place to run, and decided to accept the request.

“Fortunately, the town has thick outer walls and large ballistas as countermeasures against dragons. We will reduce the number of monsters while besieged, and break through at a single point aiming for the place where the monster encirclement is thin when the outer wall can no longer hold. We will evacuate the town residents through the opened hole in the encirclement.”

Hmm, hmm, a typical siege battle.

“Although it is mandatory, if you survive, the Guild will provide the reward. So everyone, survive!”

“YEAH!”

$diamond$

“Man, things have become serious.”

The adventurers began to move hurriedly in preparation for the battle against the horde of monsters.

“We should prepare too.”

“Yes. We need to prepare recovery medicines like potions too.”

Mina and the others seemed a little restless, but they started moving to prepare for battle.

“Ah, in that case, I have a stockpile, so I’ll distribute it to everyone.”

I took out the stock of potions from the magic bag and lined them up on the table.

“Woah, you had this many!?”

“Yes, I made them just in case, but I didn’t really have the opportunity to use them.”

“I suppose so.”

“I can’t imagine a ‘just in case’ moment coming for Rex.”

No, no, preparation is important, Meguri.

You never know what might happen when.

“Sorry, but could you sell some of those potions to the Guild?”

The one who called out to us was the dismantling area Boss.

However, his appearance was strange.

“Oh, Boss? Why are you armed too?”

Yes, for some reason, the Boss, who is a dismantler, was also armed.

Looking behind him, there were also familiar dismantlers.

“Because of this situation, we dismantlers decided to participate too. We are former adventurers who retired due to injury or age, but we were hired by the Guild for our dismantling skills.”

Heh, so that was it.

I thought only people who specialize in that work did dismantling, but former adventurers were also hired.

“So, I have a request for the Master.”

“A request?”

“Yeah. This is a request from the Guild, but we want you to sell all the dragon scales and horns you have to the Guild. And we want you to help make armor using those materials.”

“Weapons and armor?”

“Yeah, dragon materials boast sufficient hardness even as they are. So just attaching a handle to a scale makes a hard shield. If it breaks nicely, it can be used as a sword or armor, but as expected, it takes too much time to process for use as a sword or armor. So we want to make at least shields to prolong the siege.”

I see. I often made do by making equipment from available materials in emergencies in my previous life.

Especially since shields are consumables, the more the better.

I turned to everyone just in case.

After all, everyone was the one who hunted most of the dragon materials in the past few days of training.

“That’s the situation, is it okay to provide the materials?”

“I don’t mind.”

“That’s right, since it’s a time like this, there’s no problem if you secure enough for us to use.”

Mina and the others nodded that it was fine.

“Th-Then I will also provide the materials of the dragon I hunted!”

Ryune also offered her cooperation.

“Thank you, everyone. Boss, that’s how it is, so we will gladly cooperate.”

“That helps. I want to ask the Master for the job of making holes to attach handles. Even small holes are in dragon material; we and the town blacksmiths don’t have enough tools to open them. But the Master, who can make knives processed from dragon scales for dozens of people in one night, would find it easy to make holes in scales, right?”

“Yes, leave it to me! Then I’ll borrow the dismantling area.”

$diamond$

“That’s an amazing sight.”

Jairo muttered while looking at the dragon scales piled high in the dismantling area.

“You’re right, seeing dragon scales piled up like small change isn’t a normal sight.”

“Fufu, a mountain of gold coins…”

Meguri, dragon scales aren’t gold coins, you know?

“Then I’ll start making holes.”

“Yeah, counting on you, Master. Make two holes around here on the scale with about this width.”

“Understood.”

Confirming the position to make holes from the Boss, I stood in front of the mountain of dragon scales holding a dismantling knife.

“Here I go!”

Instantly, I activated Body Enhancement Magic and jumped.

Reaching near the ceiling, I looked at the dragon scales visible directly below.

The dragon scales were not piled up randomly but were stacked neatly like when counting coins.

In other words, seen from above, it’s a single scale.

“Haa!”

As the fall began, the moment I intersected with the dragon scales, I performed two consecutive thrusts at high speed.

But it’s not just stabbing.

If I stab normally, the hole will be too big for the handle.

I stop the tip of the dismantling knife thrust out at high speed on the surface of the top dragon scale, then the shock of the contact point of the tip spreads extremely minutely to the scale, opening a hole of the minimum necessary size to pass the handle.

Furthermore, the shock of the thrust is transmitted to the scales below, and finally reaches the bottom scale.

As a result, two small round holes were opened in all the piled-up dragon scales.

When the hole making was completed, I headed to the remaining piles of scales, and it took less than 30 seconds to finish making holes in the required number of dragon scales.

“Okay, hole making complete.”

“……Heh?”

Huh? For some reason, the dismantlers are looking at me with dumbfounded faces. Was my technique bad?

“Wh-What is this!? You just poked the top scale, but the holes go all the way to the bottom scale!?”

Liliera and the others raised voices of surprise seeing the scales with holes.

No, no, I didn’t do anything that big.

“I adjusted the force during the thrust to control the expansion of the hole and the propagation of the shock to the scales below. Everyone will be able to do it soon if you practice.”

“No, impossible, impossible.”

Ehh? I don’t think that’s true.

“Ma-Master Rex is amajing… To think Dragon Knights had such techniques…”

No Ryune, this isn’t a Dragon Knight technique, but a normal thrusting technique.

“By the way, Boss, shouldn’t we start attaching the handles?”

“…Hah!? Th-That’s right! You guys, start working immediately! The Master did it quickly for us, we’ll work quickly too!”

“Y-Yes, Boss!!”

Receiving the Boss’s instructions, the guild’s dismantlers and the town’s blacksmiths hurriedly started working.

“Boss, do you know how long it will take for the monster horde to arrive at the town?”

“Yeah, if I recall the Guild Master’s story correctly, it was about another hour.”

“One hour… if we have that much time, maybe we can do a little more work. Boss, regarding the dragon materials sold to the Guild, can I use them to make other equipment?”

“Eh? Ah, yeah. We have enough materials for shields. If you can make other equipment, I’d definitely like to ask.”

“Then I guess swords and spears first. If there’s time, I’d like to make simple armor too.”

“Hahaha, surely there’s no time for that.”

Well, let’s try until the last minute.

$diamond$

“Hmm, the encirclement of the human town is going smoothly.”

The monsters we prepared are surrounding the human town so thoroughly that there isn’t even a gap to escape.

“But the Dragon Emperor commands dragons, right? Then won’t he escape riding a dragon?”

A brethren asks such a thing, but his thinking is shallow.

“Indeed, it would be possible for the Dragon Emperor and some Dragon Knights to escape. But that means abandoning the humans of the town. As long as the Dragon Emperor is a human king, he cannot abandon his people and flee. No, I don’t mind if he flees, though. If he does such a thing, no one will recognize the Dragon Emperor as a leader. If that happens, no matter how strong the Dragon Emperor and the dragons he commands are, there is nothing to fear. What we are concerned about is humans and dragons joining hands; if it’s just the Dragon Emperor alone, there are plenty of ways to deal with him.”

“I see, if he fights, he cannot win against the sheer numbers, and if he flees, he will be abandoned by his comrades as a coward.”

“That is correct. In other words, the moment this town was surrounded, the Dragon Emperor‘s defeat was decided!”

“FUHAHAHAHAHA”

Furthermore, the ones fighting are the monsters we command.

Even if they fight unexpectedly well, if we, unscathed, appear when they are exhausted from fighting a large number of monsters, they won’t stand a chance.

Hmph, a strategy is something you lay out in double or triple layers!

“Oh, it seems the battle has begun?”

Magic and arrows are released from the human town towards the monsters.

Receiving the humans’ interception, the movement of the monsters on the front line dulls for a moment, but they are soon pushed out forcibly by the subsequent monsters.

The pushed-out monsters die receiving the humans’ attacks, but the subsequent monsters soon step over their corpses and move forward.

“Ha, no matter how much they resist, it’s a drop in the bucket before the number of monsters we command.”

Exactly, the numbers in this battle are overwhelmingly different from the start.

No matter what clever scheme they use, it is impossible to overturn!

“Hahahaha, know the violence of overwhelming numbers, humans!”

It happened at that moment.

Just as I thought my vision was wrapped in light, a blast wind assaulted us along with a roar.

“Wh-What is it!?”

The wind was too strong to keep my eyes open.

And when the wind finally subsided, we checked what had happened.

“What on earth… Wh-What!?”

It was an unbelievable sight.

One corner of the monster encirclement attacking the town by our order had been blown away entirely.

“I-Impossible!? What is going on!?”

That wasn’t all.

Just when I thought I heard a rumbling of the earth, two long, thick, and gigantic walls grew from the ground as if to protect the hole in the encirclement of the blown-away monsters.

“What is that wall!?”

“No good, the encirclement has collapsed! They can escape from there!”

I see, that wall is to buy time for the humans to escape!

But this is no time to be surprised. We must take measures immediately!

“Do not panic. Assign monsters that can fly to the place where the hole opened.”

“I-I see. If it’s monsters that can fly, being blocked by a wall is meaningless!”

However, that was a trap.

Just when the flying monsters tried to cross the wall and fill the hole in the encirclement, gold and silver flashes assaulted the monsters.

“Wh-What is it this time!?”

“Th-That is…”

A brethren points to a corner of the sky and trembles.

“Is that… the Golden Dragon and the Silver Dragon!?”

Yes, what assaulted the monsters were the King of Dragons, the Golden Dragon, and the Silver Dragon, said to possess the next most powerful strength.

“I see, so that’s it. The Dragon Emperor himself is protecting the humans’ escape route.”

Looking closely, human figures, small as beans, can be seen on the backs of the Golden Dragon and the Silver Dragon.

“They’ve done it. But for a King to appear on the front lines is foolish.”

It seems the identity of the attack earlier was the dragons’ breath.

But in that case, if we have the flying monsters keep them in check, we can prevent another destruction of the encirclement net by breath.

“In the meantime, the other monsters will destroy the human town.”

Yes, it just means the counterattack was somewhat flashy, but it didn’t reach the point of bridging the gap in numbers.

Fast monsters are already moving to block the escape route.

“Get carried away as much as you like, Dragon Emperor. Soon I will dye your face in despair! FUHAHAHAHAHA!!”

The monsters resumed their advance and approached the town little by little.

And the humans must have run out of arrows; the counterattacks were decreasing little by little.

The humans must have understood that too.

The gate protecting the outer wall opened, and warriors for interception appeared from inside.

“Haha, is this when the true despair begins… hm? What is that?”

At that time, I felt a strange sense of incongruity.

“What is it? There are quite a lot of warriors with the same colored equipment? And they are all full-plate warriors?”

Does it mean they are this town’s knight order or something?

There’s only a vigilante corps in this town, and I haven’t heard reports of a knight order being stationed here.

Well fine, it’s probably just a knight order that happened to pass by this town in the middle of a mission.

“Hmph, despair that before this horde of monsters, the addition of reinforcements with somewhat matching equipment is meaningless!! HAAHAHAHAHA!!”