ONCE I was sure my Impenetrable Defense had completely blocked the Meteor Shower, I used Short Teleport to move behind the man in the gray robe. I knew where all the high-level cleaners were thanks to Scan and Evaluate, so I wanted to draw the attackers’ attention right before killing the man in the gray robe.
“He killed the King of the Underworld in one hit…”
“But…how…?”
But it looked like they hadn’t even seen what I’d done. Some of them were shaken by the man’s instant death, but the higher-leveled ones reacted immediately.
“Don’t you underestimate us!” shouted the bald man with muscles like a set of heavy armor as he twirled his massive spear, practically the size of a pillar.
“You’re Arius Gilberto, aren’t you? You’ll make a good opponent!” cried the long-haired man before he poured mana into his sword, which burst into raging flames.
“You think you can take all of us by your lonesome?” said the woman in scanty leather armor before she melted into the darkness. The next moment, she was coming from behind with a reaper’s scythe.
The boy-faced monster tamer released two Cerberuses. “You are dumb. You came all this way just to be my cute beasties’ snack?” Wreathed in black flames, they were each over level 600.
“Hahaha! Finally! I can kill someone!” the man with bloodshot eyes shouted before he transformed into an abnormal shape, his nails lengthening to claws. He wasn’t a normal human, was he?
The girl-golem fusion rushed at me with incredible speed. “He’s mine. You’re all in my way, so you can just die.”
“Don’t fight. We must torture everyone to death equally,” said the good-looking, bearded man in black religious garb. He cast a summoning spell, and massive black tentacles sprouted from the ground.
The seven cleaners acted at once to my presence. It wasn’t a bad reaction, all in all, but they were way too slow compared to the monsters in an extreme-difficulty dungeon.
I instantly accelerated faster than the speed of sound and rushed through them, each falling one by one. It took me less than a minute to finish them off, along with the two Cerberuses and the giant tentacles.
“Y-You… Arius Gilberto… Wh-What did you just do?” Duke Jordan asked, his voice trembling. To anyone who couldn’t see me moving, it looked like the cleaners had just suddenly split into two.
Seeing as the most powerful people had suddenly been wiped out, the rest of the forces were hesitant to act.
“I don’t need to bother explaining it to you. And besides, your opponent is Eric. I’m just adjusting the forces so he can have his fight. I don’t plan on killing you.”
Eric had told me I could do what I thought was necessary to reduce casualties as much as possible, but I didn’t want to interfere with his plans. I intended to examine the state of combat and only take out the enemies Eric couldn’t handle.
I left the battlefield and joined Alisa in the sky, trapped in the Impenetrable Defense, where I was sure she’d have a good view over the entire battlefield.
“Arius… Your speed just now… You annihilated those high-level cleaners, and they couldn’t do anything…” She was dumbstruck.
“Taking them out was easy. I’m not sure you can say I’ve annihilated them all, though, because there’re still more than ten of them over level 500.”
“Arius… No. Never mind.”
The battle had already begun. Ministry Agents hidden by Perception Block and Invisibility now cast offensive magic spells in unison, blowing away the attacking forces. I’d expected the gray-robed man to cast Meteor Shower on the manor, so I told them to put distance between them and the base.
With the agents revealed, the attackers swarmed them. The enemy overwhelmed our numbers, but it was their side that kept falling; each of the agents was over level 200.
“Are these agents from the Royal Intelligence Ministry? Not too bad,” observed a man in a top hat with a mustache like catfish whiskers.
“I suppose we have no choice but to take them out first,” said a woman in what looked like a white Noh mask.
The two of them turned toward the Ministry agents. They were both cleaners with levels higher than 500.
“If this is all they have, we should be able to handle it ourselves. Douglas, you and your squad support elsewhere,” barked Leon, the gray-haired Section Three Chief in all black. He was talking to Douglas Freed, a plain-looking man with black hair and the other section chief.
“Understood. Section Four, shift to Point F.”
Douglas’s squad disappeared after casting Perception Block and Invisibility, leaving Leon and his team behind to deal with the two high-level cleaners.
“Are we being underestimated? Do they really think they can take us with this few people?” queried the Noh mask woman as she readied a crude sword as tall as she was before rushing toward the agents and punching through their formation. She tried to lay them low with a sweeping blow, but steel-like strings had been put up at some point and stopped her from moving.
“You’re the one underestimating us. Weapons ready! We’re taking these two out,” ordered Leon.
“Like I’ll let you!”
This time, the man in the top hat attacked. He fired mana bullets from two pistol-sized magic guns at close range toward Leon. However, Leon dodged at the last moment using Short Teleport, and the Ministry agents all focused their spells on the top hat man. He obviously hadn’t expected to find himself under fire and took the hits head-on.
“You bastards… Are you insane? One wrong move, and you would’ve hit your ally…” he gasped.
“No, that wouldn’t happen. My agents are excellent,” Leon smirked. At over level 500, he was powerful himself, but he was even better at directing his agents.
From above, I saw that Douglas and his squad had also begun a fight against other high-level cleaners. It seemed like I could leave the attackers on the outside to the Ministry agents. Six cleaners above level 500 were heading toward the manor and Eric. Among them were some cleaners levelling in the 200s and even more that were over 100.
Maybe I should reduce their numbers a bit.
I cast Short Teleport and took out a woman who looked exactly like a witch with a pointed hat, as well as an abnormally thin man. Two cleaners over level 500 down.
“You can take out a cleaner who’s over level 500 like it’s nothing… Well, I’m just not even surprised anymore,” sighed Alisa.
The high wall around the manor blocked the advancing invaders, but those who could fly were already moving in to attack. Suddenly, a bullet of mana traveling faster than the speed of sound blew away the leading attacker.
“I’d lose all my reputation if I let Master Arius and the Ministry agents do all the work. Come on, you bastards, it’s time for us to show you what we can do,” bellowed Gregg, leading his knights up into the air to intercept the attackers.
On top of the walls was a formidable force. Oscar, Turner, Zeihl, Jarred, and Guyer at its center were joined by Zeke and his guards, Bela and Isha, and Milia and Sophia, all fighting back the attackers. The wave of cleaners was putting up a challenging assault, and Bela, Isha, and Milia were doing their best to treat the wounded.
“Dark Flame!”
From the rear, Sophia was acting as support by casting her tier-three Dark-element AoE spell. It didn’t do much damage, but it did reduce the stats of its targets, which slowed down the enemy. That’s when the knights and guards finished the enemies off. Sophia had really come to understand the function of her spells.
Once the remaining level 500, 200, and 100 cleaners were wiped out, all that was left were the stragglers. They might have had numbers on their side, but they were no match for Eric.
When their impending loss became obvious, some of the attackers began to flee, but the Ministry Agents and Gregg’s squad weren’t so soft that they were going to let anyone escape. The deserters still found themselves wiped out with AoE spells and magic gunfire.
All Duke Jordan had left around him was a handful of knights. More than half of them were down, and the Ministry agents surrounded them.
“How…? How did this happen?” the duke shuddered.
“If you ask me, it’s because your execution was poor,” declared Eric, his voice ringing out across the battlefield. He was on the wall of the manor using Amplify Voice. “If you’re going to take someone on, you must enact a perfect plan that your opponent will never see coming. If you can’t do that, you should crush them with force from the onset.”
“Eric, you bastard…” The duke ground his teeth in frustration, but the only reason he was still alive was because Eric ordered it.
Standing on the wall, Eric appeared to be out in the open with no defenses to goad the duke. Obviously, if the duke tried something, everything would have gone exactly as Eric had planned without him having to take a single injury.
“I… I haven’t lost yet… Eric, I swear…”
The duke drew his sword and rushed toward the manor, but of course the Ministry agents weren’t going to let him. His head, along with all those of his knights, were removed from their bodies.
“I commend you for at least continuing to resist until the very end. Farewell, Duke Jordan,” said Eric.
It was a disappointing end to Duke Jordan, the head of Ronaudia’s Three Great Dukes.
“Your Highness, it’s done. We’ll finish cleaning up here,” Leon reported as his and Douglas’s squad began clearing out the remaining enemies. Not a single enemy would escape.
“This is what a real battle is like…” moaned Zeke, sinking to the ground after the tension of combat left him. He looked at the corpses of the attackers around him. He’d learned a lot in this battle.
“Well done, Prince Eric,” Sophia offered with a smile, unwavering. She was trembling slightly, and I could tell the smile was forced, but that was just how determined she was as Eric’s fiancée.
“Sophia…” began Milia. She’d also been prepared for this to happen, but it was still a shock seeing so many dead. Still, Milia took Sophia’s hand in order to support her.
“I’m sorry to make all of you stick this out until the end,” Eric said with his usual smile. “But I do understand that this is all my doing. You can fear me or despise me—that’s fine. I intend to shoulder the burden of what I’ve done as I carry on in life.”
And so, the anti-royalist faction of Ronaudia had been wiped out. With Duke Jordan eliminated, Eric had achieved essentially all his goals. To him, this was nothing more than a stepping stone paving the way toward the future as king of Ronaudia.