Chapter 218 - The Dwarves' Madness

"... Holy shit."

"Why are there so many? Is that really a tower with just one Demon King?"

The soldiers gaped at the spectacle of monsters filling the lake.

What would happen if all those demonic creatures were unleashed on land? Several kingdoms would simply be wiped out.

"... There are a lot."

"Far too many, sir."

Duke Olten, the commander-in-chief, swallowed a groan.

The heroes who had participated in the expedition using the levitation ship had all said the same thing: Lies had helped Hellfire, bringing an enormous army.

So he had known this would not be easy. But actually facing tens of thousands of demonic creatures drew a hollow laugh from him.

'This goes well beyond difficult.'

An army of demonic creatures filled the land, the sky, and the lake.

Even with a hundred thousand troops under his command, he could not be certain of victory.

"Is that Lies?"

He inspected the demon that had fired the flash through his telescope.

"No, sir."

"Then a mere high-ranking demon can do that?"

The attack had been aimed at the leading ship carrying the heroes and the Crown Princess, and they had blocked it completely. Yet even the aftermath of the impact had made his skin tremble and raised goose bumps.

And that was not a Demon King?

"... Perhaps we have given Lies far too much time."

This was a Demon King's true face—the one revealed when given enough time.

"We must eradicate every Demon King, not merely Lies."

"They're moving."

Duke Olten surveyed his surroundings. The shock wave had stirred up waves, disrupting their formation.

"Re-form the fleet."

"Yes, sir!"

The order went out.

"Restore formation!"

"Battle formation!"

The ships bustled into position. The duke turned his gaze toward the leading vessel.

"My task is to get them safely to the tower."

They could reach the tower more easily if they expended the heroes' strength from the start.

But ultimately, the Demon King was what mattered. Whether they killed him would determine the success or failure of this expedition.

He could not even begin to imagine how powerful a Demon King commanding an army of this size would be.

Under those circumstances, conserving the heroes' strength as much as possible was the right choice.

"Tell the Guildmaster to move the heroes' ship to the rear, and prepare to fire."

"Yes, sir."

SPLASH!

The distance closed rapidly: a swarm of monsters like dark clouds, wakes cutting across the lake.

If there was any consolation, it was that the monsters on the island were still staying put.

But was that really a consolation?

'The ones on the island look particularly strong.'

Most of those densely packed figures were demons.

He knew instinctively that disaster would unfold the moment they moved.

'Before then, we must kill as many of the others as possible and prepare to face them.'

The veteran, who had spent long years on battlefields, quickly reached a decision.

'If we weren't on a lake, there would be plenty of other options...'

The confined environment of the lake imposed many restrictions. All they could do was their best.

"Preparations complete, sir."

"Open fire."

"Open fire!"

BOOM!

BOOM!

BOOM!

Thousands of mana cannons fired shells in unison. They tore across the intervening space in an instant and slammed into the monsters.

SCREEECH!

SKREEE!

A griffin plummeted with a scream, its wings torn apart. A giant sea serpent took dozens of hits and floated to the surface, reduced to pulp.

Corpses and blood stained the lake. The soldiers cheered at their enemies' screams.

But compared with the whole army, the damage was not particularly great.

"Prepare the torpedoes."

"Prepare the torpedoes!"

CREAAAK!

The bottoms of some ships slowly opened. Mana projectiles modified with magic circuits bared their vicious teeth and acquired their targets.

"Fire!"

"Open fire!"

RUMBLE!

The torpedoes tracked demonic energy and warmth through the cold lake, sending shock waves through the water as they struck their targets. Monsters stealthily approaching the ships screamed and were blown apart.

Watching the corpses float to the surface, the duke gave his next order.

"Prepare cluster shells. Target the sky."

"Prepare cluster shells!"

The ships' guns adjusted their elevation skyward in unison. Newly developed mana shells were loaded.

Then, as the flying monsters rapidly drew near:

"Open fire."

"Open fire!"

The mana cannons belched fire together. Their shells flew into the air and exploded, spewing hundreds of smaller bomblets.

BOOOOM!

Thousands of shells became hundreds of thousands, ravaging the sky. Monsters fell before they could even scream.

ROAAAR!

A balrog—a ten-meter monster more powerful than any monster on land—roared, its wings shredded and its hide torn open.

True to its reputation, it did not lose its fighting spirit and smashed straight into a ship. Screams rose from the vessel as it rocked, a hole punched through its hull.

"Stop it!"

"Kill it!"

One ship sank. But as the balrog tried to move to the next vessel, dozens of mana cannons awaited it.

BOOM! BOOM! BOOM!

The balrog screamed as shells gouged its open wounds. Knights with aura honed for battle hunted down the wounded creature.

"... Impressive."

Duke Olten gave his honest assessment of the sight.

"Cluster shells, were they called? Those mad dwarven bastards. Putting shells inside other shells."

They had supplied hundreds of thousands of those shells. And that was not all. There were breaker shells specialized for shattering hardened aura and barriers, and incendiary shells that sparked fires.

The dwarves' weapons were beyond anything humans, who had barely begun to take their first steps in the field, could imagine.

'The torpedoes, especially...'

They had modified some ships to use torpedoes and supplied the ammunition.

Why had dwarves who had no connection to lakes, let alone the sea, made something like torpedoes?

Curious, he had once asked the Berft envoy who had agreed to supply the weapons. Honestly, he had not expected an answer. Matters involving strategic weapons were treated as top secret.

["We began the moment the levitation ship was destroyed. As long as the Demon King of Hellfire's tower remains at sea, we will continue developing weapons effective at sea."]

There was no other way to describe it than the fury and obsession of dwarves who had lost their kingdom's treasure to a Demon King.

'Well, that's understandable.'

The levitation ship, an aerial fortress masquerading as a ship, was worth that much. If he had lost something like that, he too would have gone mad.

'I shouldn't think this, but in some respects, I'm grateful to the Demon King of Hellfire.'

The thought of a flying levitation ship firing those damned cluster shells from its mana cannons gave him goose bumps.

Even so, there was no denying that the dwarves' obsession and madness had been an enormous help in this battle.

Just look at that clear sky. They had not cleared everything out in one attack, but hundreds of demonic creatures were falling. It gave the coalition breathing room—and confidence.

"W-we have the latest dwarven weapons!"

"Come on, you sons of bitches!"

"Let's kill the Demon King!"

That terrifying destructive power naturally raised the soldiers' morale.

Because they, too, knew the power of those shells.

And they knew there were plenty left.

* * *

Under the pretext of conserving their strength for the final battle, the ship carrying Berge and the heroes hid among the fleet.

Thanks to that, Berge could watch the battle at his leisure.

"... Incredible. Just what you'd expect from dwarves."

Ernyan marveled as bombs exploded and demonic creatures fell all around them.

"Beautiful."

Berge was impressed as well.

"Cluster shells? I'll have to get on Logger's case when we return."

A flying tower. Thousands of mana cannons filling it. Cluster shells fired from those cannons.

The miracle of thousands of rounds becoming hundreds of thousands.

It would truly be capable of laying the land to waste.

"Anyway, what do you think, Hillen?"

Berge turned his gaze toward the island. Hillen followed it.

"That one."

The Demon King was still motionless, having done nothing since his initial breath attack.

"Can you beat him?"

"... I don't know."

"Because I took your weapon?"

"I won't deny that's part of it, but even if I had it..."

Hillen swallowed hard. The presence emanating from the motionless figure was enough to send shivers through him.

"He's a demonic dragon. The greatest, strongest race in the Demon Realm. It looks as though he's lifted all his interference, too."

"... I see."

Dorche was a Demon King who had completely conquered no fewer than five dimensions.

Completely conquering a dimension meant defeating all its heroes and corrupting all its dimensional power into that of the Demon Realm, reducing it to a subordinate dimension.

How much negative emotional energy would he have received in the process? How many heroes would he have devoured?

'No, would it actually be that few?'

Arain had more than three thousand heroes, but other dimensions had no more than a hundred, even at most.

And those were exceedingly rare. Usually, there were around ten.

Conquering just five such dimensions would amount to...

'Fifty.'

Even if one dimension had many heroes, that would make a hundred and forty.

Immediately after his regression, unable to make sense of the dimension called Arain, he had practically lived in the Demon Realm's library for a while. There, he had learned about dimensions and heroes.

'The number of heroes...'

It was an expression of a dimension's power.

The countless dimensions stretching out endlessly each possessed different amounts of power. That power manifested in the number of heroes.

Having many heroes meant a dimension possessed great potential and power.

The greater a dimension's power, the greater the total amount available to the beings born within it.

In other words, having many heroes did not mean each individual hero was weak, nor did having few mean each was strong.

It meant there were that many talented people capable of becoming heroes, and enough dimensional power for them to do so.

'If anything...'

The Stars who shone even among thousands of heroes were far stronger than heroes who had survived competition among dozens.

So a mere Demon King who had conquered five dimensions with only a few dozen heroes...

"Is there really any need to rate him so highly?"

Berge had probably killed more heroes himself by now.

"Pardon? What do you mean?"

"Nothing."

Still, considering the strength of the demonic dragon race and the power he could currently sense, Dorche was not weak.

The instant that thought crossed his mind:

- Foolish humans.

The creature finally raised his massive body.

He spread his wings and opened his maw.

BOOOOM!

A black flash shot forth.

It tore through the air, the lake, and space itself, striking one section of the coalition.

"B-block...!"

The feeble defensive magic circles inscribed on the ships could not hold out for even one second.

The frantic mages never finished their incantations.

The soldiers' screams were cut short.

Four ships sank into the lake.

"..."

"... Huh?"

At the disaster that had unfolded in an instant, the morale of the soldiers intoxicated by the dwarven weapons plummeted.

At the same time, the demons and demonic creatures that had been watching from the island began to move.

The mood changed abruptly.

* * *

At the top of the Tower of Lies.

Jason slowly savored his wine as he watched the battlefield.

Exploding bombs. Monsters and demonic creatures dying.

"They've prepared thoroughly."

Dwarves were a nuisance, as always.

Humans united were a nuisance, too.

That was why he had tried to proceed as quietly and cautiously as possible.

Had he succeeded, their shells would have been aimed elsewhere, rather than at him.

Jason clicked his tongue and shook his head.

"What good would regret do now? I must blame my own foolishness for failing to recognize Lord Berge's true nature at the outset."

"The heroes aren't taking action."

"It's obvious. Since we've come out openly, they intend to let army clash with army and conserve the heroes' strength as much as possible until they send them into the tower."

But that was not what Jason wanted.

"They will not enter the tower today."

"Must you do this? Meeting the enemy outside means abandoning the tower's advantages."

Aina Sermyun voiced her objection.

"I know it's foolish. It goes against the Guide, too. But you know very well that I detest the Guide, don't you?"

"But you aren't someone who does foolish things, are you?"

"Indeed, I wasn't until recently."

CRACK!

The glass shattered. Aina wiped away the wine running down the back of Jason's hand.

"But now that things have progressed this far, a cleansing is necessary."

"A cleansing?"

"Yes, a cleansing. Everything I've laid out until now has come to nothing, so we must clear the air and move in an entirely different direction."

Having cast aside the moderate path, all that remained was domination by force.

"They fear Lord Berge. That fear has spread and reached me as well. They fear Hellfire, but think I'm an easy target."

Why did humans take others for suckers when treated kindly?

"Isn't it ridiculous?"

"It was Berge's scheme."

"Correct. Rumors have been circulating that I helped Lord Berge. But do you truly think that's all there is to it? That they're attacking me for that reason alone?"

"... No."

They had failed repeatedly at the Tower of Hellfire. To restore their honor and reverse the public's bleak mood, they had to conquer a tower—any tower.

But Hellfire was impossible, Adamant was already dead, and neither Carnal Desire nor Bitter Cold could be found anywhere.

In the end, only Lies remained. It was inevitable.

"That means everything I've done has already become meaningless."

The Demon Kings' reputation had reverted to what it had been over a hundred years ago.

So had the humans' anger and hatred.

There was no going back to the old days.

"A changed environment demands a changed strategy."

And so:

"They must be taught who I am, what a Demon King is, and whom they have dared to bare their claws at."

He had to make them feel it in their bones.

"It is rather ironic that, after all my efforts to make them forget that, I must now do the opposite."

This was a declaration.

A declaration that his strategy had changed.

"A declaration that a Demon King will set out to conquer the continent as a Demon King should."

CRASH!

Jason crushed the glass on the table beneath his palm, then pushed up his monocle.

"It will take a long time to recover."

"Indeed it will. But the dimension's potential is still overwhelming. I've already waited hundreds of years. Can I not wait longer?"

He clicked his tongue.

"Without Lord Berge, I could have easily taken not only Jespine, but several other nations as well. What a shame."

Nothing was going according to plan.

"At any rate, now that things have come to this, all I can do is my best. Shall we go out to greet the heroes, then? As a Demon King, I must show my guests some hospitality."

The Demon King who had concealed his strength and deceived the world had finally declared his campaign.