Albion Castle, Holy Milishial Empire
Ticking with pleasant air and greenery. The Albion Castle is what they've called an "eco-friendly" building on Earth due to the presence of various trees and flowering plants engulfing half of the castle; it's really a fantastic medieval castle, which oddly does not fit in the modern landscape of metropolitan Runepolis.
in the throne room, where the imperial conference was about to end. Specifically, the ASEAN movements, the Gra Valkan-Muish rapprochement, and the looming danger of mechanical civilizations like them as a threat to the new world's magical civilizations
The third prince of Milishial, who had finally arrived after a three-month journey, stood outside, staring at the people, who were disgustingly pushy toward the Emperor. Specifically, how to deal with the Great Valkas Empire and ASEAN's mechanical civilizations
The emperor only half-nodded, like a typical weak and submissive yes man-an old, senile emperor who can't process and decide things without the assistance of his ostensibly loyal vassals in parliament. The dangerous discussion continued for a while. Then, moments later, the imperial conference finally came to an end. The crowd began to pour out in an orderly fashion; most of them saw Gaius and respectfully bowed their heads and paid homage as a member of the Imperial family, despite Gaius himself not being bothered by them as he entered nonchalantly without paying attention to the big shots of the conference.
As the room vacated, Gaius and the Emperor, together with their few personal retainers, stood face to face in the throne room.
"You look stupid when you play like a senile old man in front of those useless leeching rats of the Parliament." confirming that no one was listening in on them. Gaius opened his mouth and launched a barrage of rude remarks at the Emperor.
"What a thing to say, you insolent brat." The Emperor's former weak and submissive stature was revitalized into a healthy and mockingly dignified persona. As if his previous personality of a senile old man were a lie.
"So what the hell are they asking to do now? They are pretty pushy in my perspective earlier outside."
"Hmm? Those fools? They are demanding a thorough punishment to ASEAN by imposing economic sanctions, together with Gra Valkans, oh I remember, there's another one, these idiots demanding to cut ties with Mu and annex all the remaining civilizations in the Millicent under our direct wing than helping them flourish and develop."
"You're letting those idiots ran rampant in parliament and conference while freely authorizing them to utter those powder keg topics? It seems your senile old man personality isn't just for show; your age must have gotten into you."
"Shut up, you womanizing jerk, I can't even count the number of grandchildren I have on you."
"Official and nonofficial is 752 grandchildren, 76 great-grandchildren, and 34 great-great grandchildren, of course including the nonofficial family of mine. I support them financially and with other things I can give them. As their father, grandfather, or great grandfather, I know their names; I also occasionally visit them twice a year because there are just too many of them to visit within a month."
"You're a real piece of work." The emperor was exasperated with his son, who was literally having children left and right.
"As an imperial prince of Milishial, Its my duty, that I must protect the imperial bloodline through the proliferation of my descendants!."
"Horny bastard, putting your stupidity aside. What happened in the scouting mission? I already heard you engaged unknown forces there, but..." The Emperor's sudden shift from a casual to a serious tone didn't faze Gaius, who was still wholeheartedly laughing at the Emperor.
"I don't know, I thought It was work of ASEAN ambushing units but those are magically powered weapons, based on Aether's analysis on ASEAN warships in Altaras, they don't have any significant magical signatures, I believe we engage a pure magical civilization like us, not those of ASEAN and Mu."
"So? Your conclusion?."
"It's either an unknown isolationist civilization that hid their shadow for centuries if not millennium... However, I got another suspect."
"Hmm?."
Gaius scratched his brow as the Emperor gazed in wonder, because most of his thoughts and suspicions were self-conclusions. He doesn't have enough evidence or actual information about them. Despite his bravado in this room, he despises making himself a clown in front of others. That's why he wanted everything under his radar and in his calculations. If he did something wrong, he would likely going to punch his face. He musters his breath and utters the word "Annonrial Empire."
In brief silence, the Emperor thought for a second. Annonrial was weak, uncivilized, and inferior to Milishial in most regards. However, this country is mysterious. They never let any foreigners lay their feet on their lands. It's suspicious, but it's not unusual for their southern world's seas to be teeming with dangerous monsters that made navigation difficult. Nevertheless, and strangely. The Annonrial thrive in that regard, it's nothing but suspicious for anyone who notices those abnormalities.
Why are they not allowing anyone to enter their land? With their primitive civilization, how could they travel in a sea filled with ferocious monsters? How could that be possible with mere wooden sailboats? How could they possibly be the only ones capable, given that Muish and Milishial's massive ships aren't? Why do their expeditions always fail? That's currently floating in the head of the Emperor. Thus, he agrees with Gaius in some regards.
"Those winged creatures, huh? They are undoubtedly the supposed descendants of Ravernals, whom my father saved from extinction in Millicent 7,000 years ago. Certainly, it wouldn't be weird if that were the case. However, if I remember it right, there should be no islands or landmasses south of Rodenius, with the exception of two large continents in the southern world."
Twelve thousand years ago. Descendants of Ravernals were on the brink of annihilation due to the sudden disappearance of their mainland; only scattered remnants of land and underwater bases remained in the new world, with no hope of resupply or support. They were left to rot and were on the verge of extinction during the reign of the current Emperor's father, seven thousand years ago.
However, the Emperor during that time didn't wipe them out but rather banished them to the uncivilized southern world. For the next thousands of years, the descendants of Ravernals, now called Annonrials, flourished and thrived in the harsh conditions of the southern world. They breed and proliferate with the natives there, resulting in a new race called winged people, but they have weaker magical prowess compared to their ancestors. Then, everything changed after Central Calendar Year 1152, when they discovered a cave system that led to one of the largest and most complex overseas underground shelters of the Ravernal Empire, Magicaregia, which was only completed a week before the transfer of their mainland. It was left in good condition as their workers, soldiers, and civilians abandoned it for their mainland before the continental transfer magic was completed.
They used everything left behind by their ancestors to conquer and expand their territories, using mind-control devices to command the sea monsters to deter any foreign powers, advance their technology, and recreate crude ravernal war machines. Unbeknownst to the New Worlders, they gradually became the strongest country in that era and one of the strongest in the New World in the present era.
"Then, like Mu, Gra Valkans and ASEAN, those lands might been transferred too, then got discovered by Annonrials in their expansion of somesort then successfully annexed those lands."
"Transfer again? Are we on the whims of the gods? Are they mocking us, to be challenged by those absurd alien civilizations?." Both are in deep thought, their conversation is relatively hard, that their aids is hardly understand what they've meant. The Emperor sigh, breaking the silence and resumed the conversation. "How about ASEAN, how can you define their threat?."
"Very dangerous."
"Oh? Sounds interesting."
"Their civilization should be strong enough to defeat my fleet, or if we pitted them against regular fleets, they could probably destroy 3 or 4 imperial fleets without any sign of adverse effect on combat efficiency, and they will continue to destroy a couple more fleets if my prediction of us being on the offensive was off by a few charts."
"How could you tell? I don't want to hear some stupid prediction without any proper reasoning."
"First would be their vertical mana-firing modules were too compact, they could use and fire smaller, inexpensive but could be fired in mass arrows of light, considering that, if they are capable of deploying compact and powerful weapons like arrows of light, then it would not be surprising that they will be superior in that regards, second is their secrecy, they are mysteriously shutting off their door from the outside world with the exception of their construction galore in the Lauria and Philades, exhibiting their technological might in terms of the civilian sector. Third and the most significant one, our Mana resonance systems neither Mana conduit systems, that act as targeting and search apparatuses, cannot lock on those ASEAN warships in Altaras, we don't know what kind of locking on system ASEAN have, but considering they are scientific civilizations like Mu, all I can guarantee is that they can fire and attack beyond the horizon without a reliance on mana resonance, and in war between us and ASEAN, our battleships like Orichalcum, Mithrill II and Adamant class battleships will become blind and nothing but sitting ducks in a long range shooting war with ASEAN warships. Furthermore, any smaller than silver class cruiser doesn't have an extra space to be equipped with arrows of light like what we have done to Mithrill II, which was originally not designed to be armed with arrows of light but has enough room for modifications to be armed with it, but ASEAN is equipping their small ships with arrows of light, I can infer that they are preferring inexpensive, small and weak small ships to be frontline units but equipped with arrows of light, over large and expensive cruiser and battleship class ships, which too valuable to be lost in a naval combat, the price of a single Mithrill II battleship could be equal to 5 to 7 platinum class small ships. With much inexpensive maintenance and less complexity and easy to mass produced, if we armed them with arrows of light, we could probably have enough ships to outnumber all the Muish and ASEAN fleet combined with smaller but lethal small ships in service."
"Small ship... armed with arrows of light? Did I heard it right?." The concept they can't think of, because that was not remotely logical on their sense. Why would they go out of their way to arm those vulnerable ships with expensive weapons in the first place? Small ships were intended for anti-piracy and escorting larger ships, not as frontline combatants, unless they were thrown into low-level conflict with weaker civilizations. Against similar powers, small ships are nothing but cannon fodder. Even Ravernal never employed arrows of light equipped small ships.
"Yes, they have some weird preference of having small ships as their frontline units."
"How could we possibly do that?."
"I don't know, remove some guns and glue an orichalcum 16 inch Eldridge armored box launcher on them? I'm not a magical engineer old man."
"Hmm, I'll take it on consideration of putting arrows of light on our small ships. Then, how our country should deal with ASEAN in an event of war?"
"You don't need to declare war." Emperor lifts his brows at Gaius, bewildered and curious about what he meant "Who do that on an unknown foe like ASEAN? Do a surprise attack, war was never been fair to begin with, throw about 15 imperial fleet and all of our Pal Cowne and Pal Chimeras with tandem of our entire armada of ravernal relics in single swing to decapitate them and not allow them to recover in our surprise strike, have most of their people killed, burn their cities and industrial sectors to cripple them, and gather enough prisoners to milk them information about their country in the process, then continue to attack their important parts, if we fail then we are fucked. In the first place, attacking or declaring war on them is wrong in many ways that can lead to our downfall if not resulted in a fucking expensive war, furthermore, we are clueless on what extent of their civilization is, neither map to identify where their capital is located. Only fool will do something that stupid unless you senile old man authorized that. Nonetheless, we could use them in other way around..."
In lengthy commentary of Gaius, leaned the Emperor on his final sentences. "Hoh?."
"Once the Ravernal Empire returns, we can't guarantee where they are possibly going to be positioned. However, in preparation, we got the north as a buffer zone with convenient terrain for the northern defensive district, the west where's Mu and Gra Valkans as meat shields, and nothing worth mentioning in the east as the Parpaldians were too weak to possibly resist Ravernal, and neither had the ability to give us enough time to prepare. The east had nothing to offer in terms of strategic means until the arrival of ASEAN. They are exponentially stronger and a very useful trump card, making it very ideal to leave them alone and have them bleed each other; whichever of them emerged victorious, we could swoop in and take the trophy. The remaining problems were in the south, with the Annonrial, and if that is what I am thinking, then they are more dangerous to our national security than ASEAN, either way, our civilization's survival is all but guaranteed, we will mostly left the war with Ravernal unscathed, have other countries work and bleed for our cause."
"You're truly my son, do you still vehemently refuse being the Emperor? Gaius, you could kill me and eliminate your brothers to become one, seize the throne with your cunningness, that's what Milishial needs, and I have no doubt you can succeed if you want to."
Hearing that, Gaius laughed a little, then turned to face the Emperor with a uniformed and unyielding smile, and raised his right hand with a thumbs up then twisted it into a thumbs down, and said, "Hell no, I'd rather screw a few more dozens of women than deal with those shitty governmental works or deal with those stupid-looking people in the parliament for the next centuries, so give me a break."
"How unfortunate, be matured enough. Your abilities to lead is being wasted on your womanizing tendencies."
"Who cares, I'll do whatever I want, and imagine... that an Emperor of Milishial is seducing women left and right; wouldn't that reflect poorly on the Milishial image right? Furthermore, did you forget? I'm a half-blood, the long bloodline of pure high elves being tainted by mere human...? and I guarantee because of that, many idiots will definitely go against it from happening. It will likely going to split the country in half, I don't want to cause any chaos that's why I relinquish my rights on the throne."
"Half-blood? Quite blabbering and take the throne already-once you become an Emperor, no one will question it. You are now the most powerful person in Milishial; you are the emperor, their ruler, and their god. They are mere servants and pawns for you to use. You know yourself; there aren't many idiots who would be foolish enough to oppose an Emperor."
"I see... I understand, so nothing will change that I won't become one... Furthermore, our pressing matters comes first than those nonsense. It's not you're going to die any time sooner right? Let's talk about it after a hundred years later."
"How boring. Pressing matters? Threat assessment of Gra Valkans and Muish arms expansion, and the challenge of visible ASEAN influence encroaching the third civilization."
"Gra Valkans? Ah, the Eighth Empire it is? I've lost my interest after learning they were no more than a decade more advanced than Mu. They were an insignificant threat compared to ASEAN. My fleet alone could put that country on its knees. Probably they could threaten weaker countries, but I highly doubt if they could even land a single bomb or soldier in our sovereign territories... Then Muish arms expansion; they are a long-time rival of our civilization, they have some interesting weapons on their side, and they are allied with ASEAN, assuming that they are close, the ASEAN may or may not help them in their development of possible arrows of light in their arsenal, which is extremely dangerous for our side being sandwiched by those civilizations armed with comparable weapons to ours. Lastly ASEAN? What I recently heard is that they demobilized their forces in Philades and reduced them somewhere close to an army division for peacekeeping purposes, though there's something happening that more assets are being poured into the airports and naval ports of Philades. It seems there was an accident involving a missing aircraft, and that's it. I'd say they are more oriented toward civilian than military matters, as evident from their demobilized army and mass infrastructure projects."
"You're more knowledgeable than my vassals huh? Still demobilization and infrastructures... Hmm? Where's that accident happened?."
"I believe it was around north east of Philades, around Gahara it seems?."
Unknown frozen wilderness
"Where the hell are we? It's been seven hours of walking, but all that is in sight is snow."
One of the soldiers in a pair of forward scout units in the freezing cold spoke up. He is Dane, a Singaporean sergeant paired with Malaysian grenadier Lance Corporal Hussain, who is holding a map of Philades in an attempt to figure out their location.
"We should move 2 or 3 kilometers dead ahead. If this is the southern region of Rheem, then there should be a settlement in this mountain valley up ahead."
"Alright then, lemme radio it to the others...." Dane operated his radio with a freezing breath. Meanwhile, Hussain stopped looking at the map and temporarily watched the surrounding area while Dane radioed their team. "Vanguard to Core 1, do you hear me? I'll repeat, Vanguard to Core 1, do you hear me?"
"Zzz...his is Core 1, loud and clear vanguard."
"Advance by 800 meters, it's clean over."
This is their set up that was agreed upon earlier: one pair of forward scouts is assigned to clear and navigate a safe route for the main team, which is currently babysitting a badly wounded personnel and carrying supplies that made them a bit inflexible to combat situations, and they don't want to leave their material supplies either if they ended up in a disadvantageous situation. Thus, it's the task of the forward scout to help avoid those chances and pick the best route for them. Furthermore, they agree not to become unnecessarily engaged in combat, even if it's just monsters. It's just a last resort if it's inevitable.
"Wilco Vanguard." The transmission ended the same time Hussain dragged Dane in the snow, suddenly slumping his face on the white snowflakes. "What gives?!."
"10 o'clock, contact."
Dane took his binoculars and saw some people running in the frozen wilderness. "Humans? Should we get in contact with them? But... they are running?."
"Sounds like they came not to play by competitively running 'coz it reeks of trouble."
"Bandits?."
"Maybe? Let's wait and observe them for a whil---" Then Hussain ended his line as the ground shook, alerting him and Dane. It's not a consistent quake; as if something were running, every step is causing the ground to tremble.
"Something's coming."
Where the group of humans came from, a large humanoid figure emerged, it was about the height of a 3-story building. with large muscles, a hairy body, predominantly black with whitish-tipped fur, and red eyes as if out for blood, armed with a large tree trunk.
The way it ran was as if in slow motion, however, at this rate. It will reach the group of humans a few minutes later. Knowing the predicament, some people seemed to have detached from the fleeing group. Dane and Hussain clearly saw they were armed with swords and spears; heading straight at a 10-meter-tall beast is pretty much a suicide attempt from any angle. They are silent, looking at the charging people, who are probably thinking of buying some time. Then, the giant swung its weapon with eerie speed, raking in the group of men. The first victim was vertically swatted down like a nail being striked down by a hammer.
"Ugh, like a squashed tomato."
The men continue to fight, being trampled by the giant's foot and kicked and swatted by the large tree truck. All possible horrible fates were hammered down on their engagement. In less than a minute, all of them were killed, and now being feasted by the beast.
Both SEADF soldiers didn't move an inch, as they were armed with guns that could potentially be disadvantageous on their part. This valley is sandwiched by snow-covered mountains that could cause an avalanche if they handled it poorly. They hate to admit it, but all of the remaining survivors will likely be slaughtered by the giant, and they can't do anything. Because entered the area that it's too narrow to be of any help, the area ahead is only about 50 meters wide, and any major vibration will likely make the snow collapse. It's probably at breaking point due to the quake created by the large beast; they don't want to create any more unnecessary factors that would likely trigger an avalanche. They are fearful that the survivors' slim chance of surviving will be even slimmer and that they will burrow below the mountains of snow due to their intervention.
"Let's lure it here. It shouldn't cause any major avalanches if we engage it 200 meters away from that narrow valley?" Dane suggested it, and Hussain nodded. "But how to lure it? Also, we weren't allowed to engage according to the initial plan earlier right? Withdraw the moment we encountered hostiles, that's what we've agreed upon."
"Shot it in the head? It's a Northern man-eater, a subspecies of cyclops, its hide and fur were pretty sturdy for pistol and rifle class bullets, but the face was soft, we might able to kill it with a single bullet if we landed a fatal hit in the face and for the original agreement... Ugh, just ignore any radio from the team and said it's inevitable encounter." Dane cut his words as the monster began to face the valley.
"Yeah, let's think about it later... that thing is already on the move, as planned ignore any radio transmission from them once we engage it." Hussain stands up and fires his pistol once. Drawing the attention of the giant northern man-eater, it noticed the duo. Armed with their respective rifles, aimed at it, locked and loaded.
"How's the magazine?"
"It looks like it isn't frozen. Let's pray they won't fail. Let that monster close for a better shot, and don't make it cautious by remaining passive in its face. Allow it to advance to as close as possible then make a shot...then if it fails and push comes to shove..." Hussain, look at his back, a long tubular thing is hanging there. Seeing it, Dane looked back at the giant that slowly walked his way to their position.
"Yes, that's good. Come to daddy."
"Dane, I'm counting by three, we shot burst round simultaneously in the head to increase the chance of success, and preferable on the forehead, there's a chance we might hit the brain and kill it in one go."
"Affirmative."
The giant, who seems satisfied by killing the earlier cluster of survivors, thus took its time in approaching this newly discovered duo, who look foolish enough to draw his attention.
But something isn't right with them; they aren't running and haven't looked scared at it as they faced its overwhelming body without fear, making it irritating somehow for those of the inferior race to face him without any semblance of fear.
"SOFT SKINS! I HALULA! TEAR YOUR BODY!."
"It spoked?." Dane opened its eye wide, same goes to Hussain. Both of them have experience using monsters like man-eaters as shooting targets in Lauria. But they never knew they were capable of cognitive and intelligent conversation with other species.
Halula, the man-eater, began to run at a menacing speed towards the SEADF soldiers. Both duos aimed their reticle at the head, holding still and waiting for the man-eater to get close enough for the highest chance of hitting its vulnerable part. "Three, two..." with a short pause. "One fire!."
A burst of mixed M4A1 carbine and SAR21 rounds flew at supersonic speed, flying towards the unsuspecting man-eater about the threat of guns. Split seconds later, a little over a dozen 5.56x45mm rounds brilliantly hit their mark. Blood sprouted like a fountain, and the monster held its face as it suffered pain and shock about the attack.
"Did we get it...? No--Oh shit! Fire fire! On the head!."
The giant stood up, with its bloodied face, more enraged than ever. Covering its face, it charged at the SEADF soldiers. "Die already!." Shouted by the Malaysian.
The frenzied full-auto fire slammed into the thick hide of the monster, visibly puncturing it but not deep enough to kill it. It howled in pain but continued to approach the duo. Feeling the pressure about 80 meters away, Dane aimed the M203 grenade launcher attached beneath his rifle towards the dangerous monster closing in.
With a small puff, the 40mm grenade ammunition draws a semi-parabolic, almost straight line of fire against the monster, hitting its right arm, blowing it, and pulverizing the trunk it is carrying.
The damage caused by the grenade launcher is quite immense, the arm was only connected to the shoulder by a few strands of muscle and flesh. It's almost severed, but guaranteed it will never be used by the monster ever again.
Due to pain, it rampages in agony, throwing tantrums under the hail of rifle fire. However, seconds later, it grabbed a large piece of debris from the destroyed tree trunk and yelled with incomprehensible anger at the SEADF soldiers, "Fuck! Get down!" and threw in the relentless duo, prompting them to dive down into the snow.
The wooden debris flew 10 meters above the ground and missed by over 30 meters. The monster was too disoriented in pain to throw an accurate attack on the duo, who rapidly jumped to save themselves despite how inaccurate and far off the attack was.
"I am alive?!." One of them frantically checked their body to confirm if they got hit or not, alive or not.
"Sure you do!."
Then on the other side. The last ditch attempt of the man-eater to hit its enemies failed. "Soft ski... SOFT SKINS!." Suffering in pain. The man-eater is still attempting to crawl on the duo, who have already ceased their fire. The monster they faced is too weak and is already on the brink of death. It's not worth wasting bullets on something that will only last for a couple of minutes and is way too incapacitated to be offer by any attention.
"Finishing blow?."
"Can you? I'm out of breath."
The Singaporean draws his reloaded rifle with a freshly fetched STANAG magazine in his vest. From a faraway distance, Dane is looking daringly approached toward the convulsing monster, in fact, he is anxious.
He once again aimed his rifle and fired another shot in the head. Halula is no longer protecting its head, it's too weak to even raise it's left arm to defend, a sign it won't last long in the mortal realm. A low groan is the only thing it could throw at the approaching southeast Asian.
"It's practically dead." Said by Dane as he unleashed one final bullet on the head of Halula, effectively ending its suffering.
Dane returned to Hussain, who is currently clarifying what happened in the forward unit. "Yes, we are surprised and got ambushed by a monster burrowed under the snow, thus we are unable to respond on the transmission... we already eliminated it, also, it's an intelligent monster, as evident from the fact that it killed a couple of humans not long ago by ambushed, yes we clearly saw it jumped from the snow, I suggest to take cautious approach as usual, uh, yes, Lieutenant, there's a sign of civilization here, but failed reach and made contact with any of those humans, they ran too fast due to the monster, as per information we gathered, it's correct to assume there's indeed a settlement up ahead this valley, nevertheless, we hit the mark, we might be able to return back to our country after contacting them and use manacomms to communicate with our motherland."
The communication ended with the stupefied face of Dane in front of Hussain on how ridiculous his evasion speech was. "That's practically..."
"I admit it's lying, yes, but in this situation it's more like information manipulation for convenience. We aren't allowed due to the danger it might pose to our main team as they are still babysitting one of our wounded men and the luggage they are carrying at the back. Still, the fact is that if we don't engage it and eliminate it here, that monster might cause harm to our rear unit later."
"Why not say that?."
"It's too late to enter on my head, I already answered the transmission, there's no going back, thoughtless, I'd say."
"What the hell are y——who's there?!." When Dane was about to express his amazement at Hussain, without a warning, a small thud reverberated, alerting them in the process. As muscle memory kicked in, it prompted each other to point their guns in the direction of the valley up ahead, and saw a black robe person, slumped in the mouth of narrow valley.
While the robed person is about 150 meters away. They slowly back off, cautious about what it is. Then that person stood up dizzily and removed it's hood, revealing a golden-haired elf, bleeding badly, thereafter collapsed.
"A woman? Holy shit, cover my ass!."
"Roger!."
Both later rescued one of the survivors of the earlier cluster of people, one of the possible keys to establish a connection to their motherland. They reported it to their main team and camped outside the narrow valley until morning after tending the wounds of the woman.
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Second to the last update of the year