CHAPTER 9 - PART 1 & 2

Part 1

By the time I returned to the mansion, it was full of screams and chaos.

"Run! The further the better!"

The panicking Aqua said as she ran in circles, knocking over a lot of things.

Megumin who had already packed her bag placed it to the side as she sipped some tea with a resigned look.

"Panicking now would be of no use. Since everything including our home would be lost, we might as well challenge the demon king's castle directly."

I was planning to gear up and head to the guild, but was lost for words as I looked at the two of them.

"Eh… what's with the two of you? The guild issued an emergency broadcast, so let's put on our equipment and head over."

After hearing what I said, the two of them finally noticed my presence.

"Kazuma, what nonsense are you saying? Don't tell me you want to fight the mobile fortress destroyer?"

Aqua was shocked.

She was cradling a pillow with one hand.

Or rather, I just heard the emergency broadcast and had no idea what was going on.

From how tensed the broadcasting voice was, I could tell that the thing that was approaching was bad news.

"Kazuma, the thing that is approaching the town is renowned for destroying everything except devotees of the Axis cult. The ultimate bounty target, the mobile fortress destroyer. Taking that thing on would be reckless."

"Nah, why are you speaking about my believers in such a way? Wiz said something like that too, why are you so afraid of these children? They are all good and normal children!"

Leaving Aqua's shrieks aside, I still didn't understand despite Megumin's explanation.

I heard this name not too long ago, what is this mobile fortress thing? From the sound of it, it was probably huge.

"Can't Megumin's explosion take care of that thing? Its name seemed to imply that it is large, so it should be visible from far. Just blow it away with magic?"

Megumin said in response:

"It won't work, the destroyer has a powerful magic barrier. It has no problems blocking a couple of explosion spells."

Just what the hell is this destroyer?

"Nah, my believers are really good kids! Listen to me Megumin! The disparaging rumours you hear on the streets are spread by those black hearted Eris devotees! Everyone beautifies Eris too much, don't be fooled, there are times when she behaves unruly! She is even more unreasonable than me when facing devils, and her personality is rather free-spirited! She may even go to the mortal realm to play in her free time! Axis cult! Please support the Axis cult!"

"Aqua, you are not satisfied with just self-proclaiming be a goddess; you're even bad mouthing goddess Eris now. Beware of divine retribution."

"It's not self-proclaimed! Can you just believe me—!"

I looked around me and didn't see Darkness.

"Weird, where did Darkness run off to? She should have come back before me."

I asked Aqua who was shaking Megumin violently with a tearful face.

"She charged back into her room."

Why were they all acting as they pleased?!

I didn't know what this destroyer was, but I finally got my hands on a house in this town.

There were more shops I had started to frequent, and most importantly, there was something I needed to do in this town.

It failed because of the barrier Aqua set up, but next time I will….!

Or I should that if not for these reasons, I wouldn't want to be bound by debts and would have ran off somewhere else.

That's right, the kind devils might not have a chance to set up their business in another town, and it wouldn't go as smoothly as this one.

Anyway, I had to ready my gear and head to the guild…!

"… I'm too slow! … Hmm? What is it Kazuma, hurry and prepare yourself. Going by your nature, you would definitely go to the guild, right?"

Darkness who came down from the second floor was wearing a set of heavy armor I had never seen before, and said that when she saw me.

Aside from her full plate armor, Darkness also put on a heavy cape made of chains, with a detachable shield on her left arm.

But she still wouldn't wear her helmet despite arming herself like this, it was something she refused to back down from as a woman.

She didn't run back to her room to pack her luggage to escape, but was getting her equipment.

As expected of a crusader.

It was impossible for her to abandon the citizens and run away by herself.

"Hey, you two, learn from her! After living in this mansion and town for so long, don't you have any attachment to it? Hurry, we are going to the guild!"

"… Kazuma, why are you so hot blooded today? The light shining in your eyes is too bright. And we had moved into this mansion for just one day…"

Part 2

"Oh! You are here, Kazuma! I knew you would come!"

I walked into the guild fully geared up, and saw Dust who was also equipped for battle.

I had faith you would be here too.

Keith, Taylor and Rin were beside him.

I surveyed the interior of the guild.

All the adventurers present had put on the strongest armor in their mind and rushed here.

They must love this town.

It felt as though the ratio of male adventurers seemed really high, but that was probably my imagination.

I should say that almost all the people I had met before were here.

I could see the wielder of the magic sword Mitsurugi who came from earth like me in the distance.

He hadn't noticed me yet, and I hoped he wouldn't come over to bother me.

Keep a low profile, and avoid his attention.

… And so, after most of the adventurers had arrived.

"Thank you everyone for responding to the emergency broadcast today! We will now start the emergency quest to repel the destroyer. There are no levels or job restriction, we hope everyone will take part. When the guild judges the quest to be a failure, we will abandon the entire town and all escape together. All of you here are the last line of defence for the town. We are counting on you!"

The staff announced with a loud voice inside the noisy guild hall.

After that, the staff pushed the tables in the bar section into the middle of the guild, setting up space for a temporary conference room.

Ohh, the atmosphere was definitely different. How should I put it; it felt pressing and tense.

This meant the destroyer was bad news.

"Well then, everyone, we will start the emergency war council. Please take a seat!"

We followed the instruction of the staff and sat on the chairs just like the other adventurers.

But, just how many people are there?

The guild was vast, but the people gathered here were several hundred.

Sitting at the table, the other adventurer's faces could be seen clearly.

… Eh, Mitsurugi noticed us.

He stared at Aqua who was sitting beside me, bored and playing with the water in her glass.

"Alright, I will brief the current situation! Erm… First, is there anyone who needs me to start by explaining what the mobile fortress destroyer is?"

Hearing the staff said that, several adventurers including me raised our hands.

The staff nodded in acknowledgement and began:

"The mobile fortress destroyer is a gigantic golem, built by the nation Norse, which has advanced magic technology to fight against the demon king army. Using their national budget and depleting their vaults, they constructed a colossal spider shaped golem, the size of a small castle. Utilizing large quantities of magic metals, it is far lighter than it looks, able to move faster than a horse with its eight gigantic legs."

The destroyer seemed rather famous, since almost all the adventurers looked as though they already knew about it, nodding profusely.

"Worth mentioning is its enormous body and attack speed. Even a large sized monster would be turned into mush if it got stepped on by its eight agile legs. The torso uses the fruit of Norse's accumulated technology, casting a large magic barrier over it at all times. That means magic attacks are pointless."

Hearing this part, the facial expressions of the adventurers became gloomy.

They were probably starting to understand how reckless it was to take on such an opponent.

"Spells are ineffective, so we can only attack physically… We will be squashed if we go near. So we only have ranged attack in the form of arrows and catapults left… But the golem is crafted from magic metals, the arrows would just bounce off; as for the siege catapult, it would be hard to use it with the speed of the mobile fortress. To guard against aerial attack from monsters, midsized golems are situated on the body of the destroyer, using small ballistae to shoot down objects flying towards the mobile fortress. Combat golems are also garrisoned on top of the torso."

… Woah.

"The reason the mobile fortress destroyer went out of control… was because the director in charge of developing it occupied the mobile fortress. And that researcher is still issuing orders from the heart of the golem till this very day… With its incredible speed, there are no places on this continent which hadn't been rampaged by it, the eight spider like legs can traverse all sorts of road conditions. As it does not discriminate between men or monsters, the rampaging mobile fortress is known as the destroyer. Whenever the destroyer draws near, the handling method endorsed by the guild is to abandon the town, wait for the destroyer to pass through, and rebuild the town. It is being treated as a natural catastrophe."

The adventurers that were chatting noisily moments ago turned silent.

"Right now, the destroyer is towards the northwest of this town, heading straight for us… Alright everyone, please give your suggestions!"

GG.

That was the common gamer phrase which immediately came to my mind.

… One of the adventurers raised his hand and said:

"… Excuse me, what happened to the magic technologically advanced nation Norse? A country capable of creating that thing should be able to build something to fight against it right? And they might know the weakness of the mobile fortress too…"

"It perished. When the destroyer went berserk, it was the first country to fall."

"… Any other suggestions?"

The staff prompted.

And so, another adventurer raised his hand:

"To deal with that thing, we need to dig a giant trap near the town…"

"It has been attempted before. A certain place gathered a lot of 'elemental masters', summoning the spirits of the earth to dig a big hole, and the destroyer fell in successfully. Everything was going as planned until this moment… But the destroyer was highly mobile, jumping out of that hole with its eight legs. Their plan included throwing down boulders to seal the hole, but they couldn't execute that in time."

"..."

The place fell into silence.

"… Any other ideas?"

Another adventurers said with hand raised:

"How did the demon king army handle the destroyer? Is the demon king castle safe from its rampage? How did they protect themselves from the destroyer's attack? They should be troubled too."

"Their castle has a powerful magic barrier, the scale is beyond that of humans. Right now, the demon king castle seems unharmed, so they have no plans on taking down the destroyer. They are not concerned with wild monsters getting trampled."

The staff said calmly:

"Any other suggestions?"