Vol 5. Chapter 23: Monster Weapons
“Let me also introduce what we’ve learned over time about the juvenile forms of Rain Croyne!”
Since defeating Rain Croyne, they had continued to keep and observe the four juveniles they had captured. Eve herself had not been particularly interested and had tossed the whole matter over to <Ringo>, but apparently Asahi had been diligently studying them.
“First, around the four-hundredth day after they were secured, the existence of a defensive membrane was confirmed. Therefore, we can consider that Rain Croyne’s defensive membrane is not an individual’s special ability, but a species-level ability handed down to its offspring by heredity or some other method.”
The large threat-creatures so casually possessed these defensive membranes.
It had now been established that this was a power they were born with.
“It appears this was discovered when a fight broke out between the juveniles, and they were blasted away with a water-stream gun to break it up! For an instant, the defensive membrane manifested and was confirmed!”
The footage from that time played. A high-pressure stream of water was fired at a juvenile that had its jaws clamped onto another. At the instant the water struck, they could see the juvenile’s body give off a brief flash of light.
“Incidentally, after this, fights between the juveniles started getting fiercer, so we separated the individuals. Each one is now being kept in its own dedicated tank, with slight variations in the environment for each, and we are continuing to rear them.”
<Ringo> added that clarification.
The juveniles—or rather, they had grown larger than an ordinary crocodile by now—were each being given plenty of feed and living a carefree life.
From time to time, blood was drawn, various stimuli were applied, and experiments were conducted on them, but on the whole it could be said that they were living peacefully.
“Also, their appetite is astonishing! Theoretically, they should not be able to digest the amount of feed they take in, and yet they move around with no apparent problem, and what’s more, their rate of growth is incredible! There is a distinct whiff of fantasy magic here! Whether their digestive organs are enhanced, or the cause is something else entirely, my interest never runs dry!”
“And furthermore,” Asahi said, bringing up the next slide.
“The ground worms we’re letting roam freely at Fortress No. 2 Black Iron are also growing remarkably! All we’re feeding them is fish, and yet they’re getting bigger by the day! It’s fascinating—just how large will they grow!”
“At the very least, they’ll grow to about the same size as that giant worm from before, right?”
Watching footage of worms that looked to be about two meters long by eye, Commander Ma’am responded like that.
“Exactly! The fact that worms of that size can exist as a matter of course makes this a rather dangerous country, don’t you think!”
Asahi shouted this in delight.
That said, neither the infiltration network <Ringo> had deployed, nor the surveillance nets managed at each base, had so far confirmed the existence of any threat-creature that seemed to match.
They probably did exist, but they had not been approaching the human habitation zones within the United Kingdom of Aphrasia.
“Or rather, most likely, in the threat-creatures’ territories, the humans have simply already been wiped out!”
Indeed, in sheer land area, the territory of the United Kingdom of Aphrasia was enormous.
And yet, the land where humans had built towns and settled would not amount to even one percent of that.
Almost all of it was untouched nature and sprawling wasteland.
“As for that silver dragon Wyvern, Asahi’s theory is that it came out because the Gigantia unit got close to its territory! Since humans of this world cannot fly in the first place, that may have been the first time anyone has ever fought it! Wow, being the first is just wonderful!!”
“...”
<Ringo> gave Asahi a long, flat stare, but was of course ignored.
However, that line of thought was extremely important.
The forces of The Tree were planning to develop the territory of the United Kingdom of Aphrasia to the fullest from here on out. If they had to say “hello” to threat-creatures every single time they opened up untouched land, they might not come out of it in one piece.
...Or would they?
“As you are all concerned, from here on out, contact with and combat against threat-creatures will surely be unavoidable! So Asahi thought about it! With our current defense posture, every time we fight a huge monster, the war costs balloon!”
“Do they?”
“No, not particularly.”
In terms of simple resource use, it was true that shells were consumables.
But metals like iron and other shell materials were negligible compared to the amount of metal currently being used for capital investment, and if they recovered any damaged weapons, they could be reprocessed as resources.
On top of that, the total volume of ❖ Nоvеl𝚒ght ❖ (Exclusive on Nоvеl𝚒ght) resource recovery itself was trending upward, so it was not something they needed to worry about. Furthermore, if they scoured the battlefield, they could probably recover the majority of the shells.
If anything, considering the accumulation of experience for the Tactical AI and Strategic AI, it was a net gain.
“However, if we can repel them more efficiently than we do now, then it is worth taking into consideration.”
“In that case! Ta-daaan! The Giant Weapon Construction Plan!”
The sound effects seemed to be her own.
With Asahi’s shout, some sort of silhouette appeared on the slide.
“Now then! How do we oppose threat-creatures!
They’re huge, tough, and strong! If we fight them in a normal way, we can’t easily drive them off!
Even if we line up tons of guns and slam vast numbers of projectiles into them, we still don’t know if we’ll be able to bring them down!
The machines we prepare are powerful, but from their point of view, we’re just a swarm of ants! They can crush us underfoot with ease just by stirring their bodies a little!”
“Can they?”
“No, not to that extent.”
The multi-legged tanks that made up their main ground forces had excellent mobility. Even if some gigantic body rampaged about, it would be easy for them to escape its attack range.
...Unless it had a long-range attack like the Wyvern’s Breath.
“To counter threat-creatures, all we have to do is throw a threat-creature of the same size at them!”
The words “Giant Weapon Construction Plan” appeared on the slide again.
“Since guns consume ammunition, our main offensive means will be blunt force! Most living things will calm down if you beat them hard enough!”
She had just rammed in an outrageous piece of sophistry.
“To apply centrifugal force, we give it a long, massive tail! And to secure mobility, gigantic legs! And to pin down distant enemies, long-range firepower!”
“You ignored the blunt force and just slapped more powerful ranged weapons on it again, didn’t you.”
“Furthermore, to keep maintenance costs down, it would be ideal if it could replenish its energy through eating and had an automatic self-repair function!”
“That’s a monster, isn’t it?”
Leaving aside Asahi, who was on the verge of creating a new kind of monster, the idea of deploying mobile fortresses for defense itself was not a bad one.
Basically, they only needed to defend the regions that contained resources, and there was no need to exterminate every threat-creature in every other region.
Once they finished mining out a resource, they would move to the next region. In that case, having the defensive base itself be mobile would shorten the time required.
“And that is where the corpse of Rain Croyne we have secured comes in!
As you know, this gigantic body, despite being a biological organism, has not rotted even after death and still retains its strength! The source of that mysterious phenomenon is this gigantic magic stone!”
Inside Rain Croyne’s body, there existed a crystalline mass of unknown identity that they still had not been able to analyze. This crystal was what was protecting Rain Croyne’s flesh from decay.
More than that, it was thought to be what made possible its scales, skin, skeletal strength, and the muscles that possessed such unscientific toughness.
“This magic stone has also been found inside the bodies of other threat-creatures we recovered! None of them can be analyzed, but we have determined that they all have the property of constantly producing some kind of magic phenomenon!”
In particular, the magic stones within monsters’ bodies were estimated to be strengthening those monsters’ bodies by some means or another. If they could unravel this mechanism, they might be able to operate gigantic structures even without using inertia and gravity control technology.
“Rain Croyne is still manifesting this property even now! Which means, by processing the body of Rain Croyne and manufacturing a giant weapon, we can operate a mobile fortress that can fight threat-creatures one-on-one and possesses a self-repair function for its body!”
“No, using a corpse as-is is just creepy! Denied, denied!”
“Aww...”
They had plenty of other things piled up that they needed to do, though.
The Tree was peaceful again today.