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Night Raid (2)
Cecile activated her Extra Skill [Small Meteorite].
She was the second person in the party to activate her Extra Skill after Kurena.
The ‘small’ meteorite was actually a huge rock, several dozen meters in size. It was doubtful which part of it was “small”.
A red-hot giant rock fell on the main camp of the Demon King’s Tiamo attack force, where 130,000 magical beasts were sleeping.
The magical beasts that were right under the falling meteorite disappeared, and the power of the meteorite rolled up the ground and created a huge crater.
The magical beasts who got caught in the attack were helplessly crushed and burned to the ground.
With the sound of impact, countless screams went up, creating an atmosphere of screaming. I wondered if there were many large magical beasts, and if their voices could reach up to a kilometer high in the air.
(Seriously, I can’t keep up with the log. She must have defeated close to 10,000 magical beasts with that attack. That’s Extra Skill in its fullest form. I wish Kurena would learn from this.)
The combination of the fact that Cecile used a ranged attack and that the enemies were quite dense in the camp seemed to have caused a tremendous amount of damage.
The log showing the defeat of the magical beasts that appeared on the cover of the Grimoire was flowing at a speed that my eyes could not follow.
Kurena was the first member of our party to activate her Extra Skill, but Cecile was the first to have full control over her Extra Skill.
“Good work. Kurena and the others are on their way.”
“Well, I did it. It’s too bad that I can only use my Extra Skill once a day.”
Extra Skills are quite messy, and their effects vary, even for the same Talent.
And in Cecile’s case, it consumes all of her mana, and it won’t even activate unless her mana is full.
This was an Extra Skill that was very Mage-like.
It seems that most of the Extra Skills have a cool down time of one day, and like Kurena’s, they can only be activated once a day.
I had heard rumors about their being equipment that shortens the cool down time and consumable items that allow immediate reuse of Extra Skills, but I couldn’t believe such folklore level rumors.
In addition, Cecile used 5,000 Gold coins that she had earned through nearly two years of dungeon raiding to buy a Ring that raises her [Intelligence] by 1000 and another Ring that increases her [Mana] by 1000 in an auction. Cecile’s sense of money seemed to be similar to mine, as she turned all her money into equipment.
With Cecile’s Extra Skill as the signal, Kurena and Dogora, followed by Kiel and Sophie, accompanied by the B-rank Dragons and Beasts, plunged into the Demon King’s army.
B-rank Dragons began to defeat the magical beasts using their ranged attacks, and Kurena, Dogora, and B-rank Beasts worked together to defeat the magical beasts that B-rank Dragons attacks couldn’t defeat, mainly A-rank magical beasts.
“It seems to be going well. There were a lot of beast-type magical beasts in that area.”
“Yeah, it worked.”
The Demon King’s army didn’t consist of only a single type of magical beasts.
There were many different types, such as zombies and skeletons with swords, beasts such as large bears and wolves, giants such as ogres and trolls, and Dragons such as basilisks and wyverns.
The various magical beasts were clustered according to their species, and there were many beast-type magical beasts to the east of the main camp of the Demon King’s army that we were currently attacking.
Kurena and the others’ goal was to reduce the number of enemies, even by one. The goal was not to seriously injure them, but to surely defeat them and reduce the number of the Demon King’s army.
Undead Spirits are hard to deal with, and ogres and trolls are relatively strong and have skills like self-regeneration.
However, beast-type magical beasts are relatively easy to defeat, despite their [Attack]. Whether they were easy to defeat or not, one was still one. War is about numbers, so the number of enemies should be reduced.
However, that was the goal set for Kurena and the others, and not for me and Cecile.
And that was just the beginning.
“Allen, I think it’s started.”
“Yeah, it’s around there. Look, just like you predicted.”
“Thank you.”
We were flying about 1 kilometer above the main camp of the Demon King’s army.
In the midst of the fire caused by Cecile’s [Small Meteorite], the Demon King’s army realized what was happening and began to take actions.
However, the fire that Cecile caused was not the only light that illuminated the Demon King’s army.
The healers in the Demon King’s army used Recovery Magic and began to heal their allies.
Perhaps they are using range magic, but even Cecile and I who were quite high up could catch their light.
(Recovery Magic? Who’s using it?)
Using D-rank Bird summon’s [Night Vision], I checked to see who was using Recovery Magic. A magical beast, who looked like a Necromancer, wearing a robe and holding a skull staff, was casting Recovery Magic all over the place.
There seemed to be a variety of magical beasts that can use Recovery Magic.
I summoned and used F-rank Bird’s awakening skill [Transmission] to convey information to Cecile as images.
The awakened skill [Transmission] allows me to pass on information to my target about the sights I see, either directly or through the <Sharing> of summons.
“It looks like that skull staff wielding magical beast was using Recovery Magic. I’ll take this side, Cecile, you take that side.”
“All right. Just let me know where you are on a regular basis.”
With that reply, I sprang into action.
The E-rank Stones, which I summoned in batches of about ten to ensure that I could defeat them, began to fall naturally and rained down toward the center area of the magical beasts casting Recovery Magic.
Perhaps they weren’t that bulky, but they were getting blown up by my attacks.
This was my and Cecile’s goal. Kurena and the others’ goal was to reduce the number of enemies, and have them fight the ones that are easy to defeat.
Cecile and my goal was to destroy the enemy’s healers. If we could reduce the number of healers, we will be able to take advantage in the future battles.
I believe that prioritizing taking out enemy healers, commanders and long-range attackers as the most efficient way of war.
“I think I’m getting the hang of it.”
“Me too.”
Cecile, too, was exuding confidence as she mercilessly dropped large chunks of rock she had generated.
I felt envious that she could drop rocks without consuming magic stones.
(I have to save the E-rank magic stones as much as possible. I feel like I’m getting better and better at this. I feel like I’m growing up.)
Each E-rank Stone summon consumes 9 E-rank magic stones. I wasn’t sure how many I would need to defeat the magical beasts, so I was dropping 10 at a time, but it seems I didn’t need that many.
I was starting to get the hang of defeating the ‘Necromancers’, so I was changing to one or two per location and dropping E-rank Stone summons in different positions here and there.
(Three Dora-Dora are down. Let’s restock them.)
Since Kurena and the others are fighting in close quarters, the burden will increase as the number of summoned beasts decrease.
As soon as the number of B-rank Dragon summons decreases, I <Create> them, use <Strengthening> on them, and send them as reinforcements from above.
As I continued to defeat the healers while also supporting Kurena and the others in this way, the Demon King’s army seemed to have noticed us.
“Something’s flying!”
“Gargoyles! Griff, rise.”
“”Grrr!””
A number of winged stone statues of magical beasts noticed us and  came at us.
I instructed my B-rank Bird summons to begin ascending.
(You’re late. You’re no match for my Griff. Come on!)
While sharing and also checking Griff’s vision, I bombarded the Gargoyles with Stone E’s summons.
“Okay, if there are any magical beasts flying towards us, let’s take them out as fast as we can. We’re in a higher position than they are, so we’ll have a huge advantage.”
“Yeah.”
Cecile thought that Allen always seems to enjoy fighting magical beasts.
After that, in addition to the Gargoyles, several other flying magical beasts, such as deadly spirits, came at us, but we shot them down while reducing the number of the Demon King’s army that could recover.
“Mmm!”
“What’s wrong?”
No, there was a movement of 30,000 troops in front.”
(They’re moving already? It’s just the beginning.)
The main army of the Demon King’s army was 130,000 strong. However, in front of us, 30,000 troops were waiting by the north gate of Tiamo.
In the end, it was a matter of time before the Demon King’s army decided to send 30,000 troops to face Kurena and the others.
Kurena and the others were sandwiched between the main camp and the 30,000-strong army.
I used F-rank Bird summon’s awakening skill, “Transmission,” to convey the situation I saw with D-rank Bird’s [Night Vision] as a video to Kurena and others.
I then instructed them to head for me and Cecile while the B-rank Dragons and Beasts were stalling for time.
Soon, I could see Kurena and the others with my own eyes.
“I defeated a lot of them!”
“Yeah.”
Since she had cut up a lot of beastly magical beasts, but Kurena’s entire body was stained red with blood.
“I defeated a lot of them too.”
“Yeah, Cecile’s Extra Skill was awesome!”
Kurena said that it was very powerful to see it on the ground. Cécile replied, somewhat happily, “Right?”
“This must have been quite a blow to the enemy camp.”
“Yes. But apparently not enough.”
“”Not enough?””
I told them Tiamo’s situation as seen and heard by B-rank Spirit who I had put on standby with the Queen.
“Right now, they are using the [Blessing of Heaven] to help the injured recover.”
It had already been about two hours since we had headed out for the night raid, but it seemed that the injured would not be able to recover in that amount of time.
“At this rate, they won’t be in top shape when attacked tomorrow.”
I explained. As for the Nest City, which was currently in a hurry to recover, half a day or so will not be enough time to recover all the injured, and it will take time to reunite the troops after they recover.
(We need to have a better sense of time around here.)
“So what do we do now?”
“It looks like there are 50,000 troops to the south, so I’m thinking of making a night raid there as well. Everyone can still continue, right?”
I checked with my friends like I’m playing an online game and didn’t want to log off yet.
“Yeah, I can continue.”
Dogora replied, his whole body red, covered with fresh blood.
Allen and his team headed to the 50,000-strong army south of Tiamo City.
Thus, Allen and his friends continued their night raid on the Demon King’s army until dawn.