Vol 5. Chapter 19: Dispatching the Recovery Team
"May I send the recovery team out, Commander Sis-ter!?"
"Too early. Calm down."
"The crash site is at the one o’clock bearing from Northend City, roughly 21 km out. It is about 7 km north of the forest boundary. Since this is an area called the Demon Forest, there is a possibility that monsters will pose a threat."
We had not gathered all that much information on Northend City.
From the perspective of <The Tree>, it was the farthest city away in straight-line distance at more than 2,300 km, and the spybot network there was still incomplete. Even so, we had judged its threat level from the scale of the city, its total population, and so on, decided there was no problem, and proceeded with the invasion.
If we had a few more days, our information-gathering would probably advance quite a bit, but at this point we had almost no information on the Demon Forest.
"Is it okay if I use the Android Communicators to question the locals!?"
"Let’s leave that to the local Strategic AI, shall we?"
"I do not authorize direct operation by Asahi. For anything you want confirmed, coordinate with the local Strategic AI."
"Eeeeh! Whyyy!!"
There was no way we could leave it to Asahi, who was rampaging around Telek Port City.
On top of that, apparently she was making clever use of the three Brain Units she had and was running around twenty-four hours a day without sleep. <Ringo> had said she had not put in any such function, so it seemed Asahi had done something about it on her own.
It was a terrifying level of obsession.
And so, before recovering the Wyvern that had crashed into the Demon Forest, we first needed to confirm the threats.
Northend City had only just been subdued, but we decided to pick out some of the more spirited residents and question them.
In parallel with this, <Ringo> began analyzing the satellite images from before and after the Wyvern’s attack.
The last time this region had been imaged before the attack was roughly four hours earlier.
After that, Satellites No.1 and No.3 had passed overhead immediately after the battle began.
The first image was a wide-area shot, and its resolution was not that high. The image from No.1 was comparatively good, and the figure of the Wyvern in flight was clearly captured in it.
The image from No.3, after it had changed orbit and altitude, was the most detailed of all.
However, the only shots it was able to take were from some time after the battle had already begun. They would be useful for analyzing the Wyvern’s combat maneuvers, but were insufficient for determining where the Wyvern had come from.
"Commander Ma'am. I have finished analyzing the Wyvern’s movement route."
From the Gigantia Group’s radar data and the satellite images, <Ringo> projected the approximate predicted route onto the map.
"Here, in this satellite image from roughly four hours ago, I have found a flying object that appears to be the Wyvern.
At the foot of the Northern Limit Range there is an object reflecting sunlight, and a shadow it is casting.
Estimating from the position of the shadow, its flight altitude is between 600 and 800 m.
It is at a location roughly 500 km away from Northend City."
"...You’re saying it spotted us from 500 km away and flew over here?"
"If the flying object captured in this image is the same individual we engaged, that is how it would be understood."
Even for <The Tree>, in an unanticipated situation it would be impossible to detect a dragon that happened to be 500 km away.
Well, if someone wanted to say that we had been warned about the existence of a fantasy creature called a dragon and still neglected to be on guard against it, they might not be wrong.
"Well, it couldn’t be helped."
At least if we had even eyewitness reports, things would have been different, but at the very least, within the United Kingdom of Aphrasia and the Kingdom of Lepuitari, and even that Amagio Salmon, no one knew of the existence of dragons.
There had been ◈ Nоvеlіgһт ◈ (Continue reading) any number of rumors, though.
"Most likely, up until now, the human species has simply never intruded into the dragons’ territory.
Or if they did manage to intrude, they were wiped out."
"That sounds plausible. The so-called adventurers of this Northend City don’t seem aggressive enough to push hundreds of kilometers into an unexplored forest and then make it back, either."
As Commander Eve and <Ringo> continued their discussion, they organized the information that the Android Communicators had already started to gather.
"There are rumors of people who pushed forward seeking uncharted lands, but supposedly none of them ever came back."
"There are also stories that even if you establish a base inside the forest, it is immediately attacked by monsters. Apparently, fights over territory between monsters themselves are also frequent.
When adventurers hunt monsters, monsters from the surroundings rush in toward the newly opened gap."
Even from just a little bit of information, it sounded rather like a demon realm where blood-soaked conflicts were constantly repeating.
Well, in truth, it really was a demon realm.
"So, will recovering that Wyvern be difficult?"
"If we suddenly pour in our forces and annihilate the surrounding monsters, we should be able to buy ourselves some amount of time. The shallow layer of the Demon Forest—the area extending roughly 10 km in—is what they seem to call it.
Since it is the zone where adventurers normally operate, with our equipment we should be able to manage."
It was a somewhat optimistic assessment, but probably not wrong. Commander Eve nodded and decided to dispatch a recovery team.
In the first place, a creature that huge had just fallen out of the sky.
Any creature with normal sensibilities would be wary and not go anywhere near it.
Whether monsters possessed normal sensibilities was another question.
"We’ll drop our forces by airborne insertion from Gigantia. Then we’ll deploy heavy equipment from transports and level the surrounding terrain. Once safety is secured, we’ll bring in the rotorcraft. I wonder if we can even carry something that size?"
"Yes-affirmative, Commander Ma'am. If we operate multiple of the large transport planes we developed, suspension should be possible. This is only a rough estimate, but I expect its weight to be on the order of 2,000 tons."
"Two thousand tons, huh..."
That was a considerable weight. However, they had already developed ultra-large transport rotorcraft, and their load capacity easily exceeded 100 tons. They would probably need twenty to thirty of them, but the AI would handle the control of that sort of thing.
"Asahi. Route transport planes from the base. We’ll deploy multi-legged heavy equipment. Have the Gigantia Group reduce their radar output and move to the site."
"Yes, <Ringo>. I’ll issue those orders. This will be the first time we operate the multi-legged tanks inside a forest, though—will that be all right?"
"We will simply have to let them learn on-site. Keep a tight air cover with the aircraft. Deploy the spybot swarms at the same time."
"Okaaay."
Up to now, all of the multi-legged tanks’ combat experience had been in deserts and urban areas.
They had no experience operating in complicated rough terrain such as forests.
That said, they were originally combat machines designed more for operation in tangled rough terrain than in deserts or urban areas. If anything, they might be able to demonstrate their capabilities better in forested regions.
"Secure a foothold with multi-legged tanks. Eliminate surrounding threats with multi-legged attack craft. Support each task with various drones. We have received an outline of the operation from the local Strategic AI. I have approved the operation plan!"
"Okay, I ratify it."
Gigantia and Titan-Class Unit Three, Coeus, which had been withdrawing, altered course and once again began navigating toward the Demon Forest.
Titan-Class Unit Two, Oceanus, continued to maintain air superiority overhead.
Since the combat data feedback had already been reflected, even if the same threat creature attacked them next time, they would be able to repel it under even more favorable conditions.
"Good grief, it’s finally starting to settle down..."
After confirming things up to that point, she let the strength drain from her body.
She was exhausted, as one would expect.
"You must be tired, Commander Ma'am."
"Man. In just one day, the fantasy factor really shot up. A knight who cuts down a multi-legged tank with a single sword, adventurers who can stand up to our mechanical units, and to top it all off, a dragon that, with a single Breath, drove a Titan-Class to the verge of being unable to fight..."
"You have my sympathies."
"Commander Sis-ter, the outside world really is fun after all!!"
"Asahi sure is energetic..."
Well then, she braced herself and rose from the commander’s seat.
This time, since the operation objectives ranged over so many areas, the five sisters from Akane to Olive, whose direct computational capabilities were inferior, had been kept on standby.
It would be nice to relax and mess around with them for a bit.
Asahi was not inside <The Tree>, and she herself seemed to be happily continuing her work, so Eve left her be. She would probably complain about it later, but it was her own fault for not being here.
If she wanted contact, she could just come home.
"...Huh? I-is this what it feels like to be a parent eagerly waiting for the child who left home to come back...?"
Muttering such nonsense, Eve started walking toward the mess hall where the five sisters were waiting.