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The Gamer Chapter 1154 – Logistics of Invasion
🕑 Added 2022-02-04 21:22:34 +0000 UTCThree immediate questions had to be answered.
Number one, could he even take an entire army with him into the Adventure? Number two, how many soldiers did he want? Number three, how many soldiers were available?
Answer number one: up to 250. This was a part of John’s system that he hadn’t previously inspected more closely. Maximum number of people in his party scaled one to one with his Charisma. His haremettes were exempt from this, being inside the Harem Party, a parallel system that had a few extra features.
Answer number two: As many as he could manage, without having them stretched so thin that the line of command broke down. John didn’t want his soldiers to fight Ironborn, except maybe the Lords. They were a pacification force first and foremost. Combat experience would have to be gathered in carefully moderated environments. A force too large also brought with it the risk factor of John being unable to leave, as he could only exit the Adventure if the entirety of his group was in a secure location (Escape Rope notwithstanding).
Answer number three: Fusion’s military was still quite stretched due to the numerous obligations it currently had outside of drilling. The only troops available was a small response force of fifty people, housed in the Guild Hall garrison.
That wasn’t as much as John would have wanted, but it was a good base. John had fairly little to do with the actual organization of the troops. Because him leaving equalled the totality of the party leaving, he couldn’t personally see to their mobilization. Instead, he used the text feature of the Harem Party to drop a quick set of instructions for the women that had remained on Earth. They then carried those over to Chemilia.
A day later, John left the barrier to greet his support force. There were fifty soldiers and Ted on the military side, the general serving as the main commander for the troops so John didn’t have to micromanage their assignments personally. Further attached was a force of volunteers and a trio of incredibly useful headaches. The former was characterized by a handful of explorers and engineers, ready to check out another Kingdom and to risk their safety in the process. The latter was made up of Apothecaries, headed by Dokt Medelnick.
John really hadn’t wanted the personal doctor of his harem to tag along, for various reasons, but once Chemilia had reached out to the Apothecaries for medical support, that ship had sailed. It wasn’t like the Gamer could fault his general for making that call either. Having healers around was a strictly intelligent decision. Apothecaries’ tendency to delve into experimentation could be curbed by the constant guard they would be assigned anyway.
They returned to the city and continued their work. The three extra healers did fairly little in terms of alleviating Undine’s burden. Because the slime girl could split, she had been coping well with the numbers she had to cover. Instead, the Apothecaries were left to investigate Mettle and its side-effects. There was a risk here that they discovered how to make it, which was the kind of knowledge John didn’t want in anyone’s hands. That was a possibility he just had to live with.
The rest of his operation was aided greatly by the extra numbers. Controlling the streets was quite easy with fifty pairs of boots on the ground, the extra teachers allowed Momo to switch to the translation effort instead, and the engineers started work with Gnome to overhaul the layout of the city. If there was a benefit to the complete destitution these people had lived in, it was that resettling them was incredibly easy. A sack was typically enough to carry the belongings of an entire household.
John sat in the highest tower he could find and looked down at the city. Aside from the Ironborn’s homes, practically everything had been torn down and replaced with rows of stone barracks. A wall surrounded the entire perimeter, a second garden had been erected in the city centre, a lake had been created, and further terraforming was in process. John felt like the engineers were having a bit too much fun, using the immense powers of his elementals to realize some of their more ambitious landscaping projects.
Then again, replacing this monument to human misery with a quirky city was a definitive net positive.
As for him, he was inside the fanciest of the former Ironborn offices. He had hijacked it for his purposes, using it to plan his further strategies. A sleeping bag in a corner marked where he had spent the night. Putting a bed together here felt like a waste. This wasn’t going to be John’s base of operations in the Iron Domain. It was too far away from the mainland.
‘It’ll be time to move soon,’ he thought. Leaving the support troops and a few of his haremettes behind would ensure that the situation remained stable even after they were gone. That gave John the necessary ease of mind to progress his invasion. After three days, there still hadn’t been a response to their invasion. The communication network of this world was evidently poorly developed. That drawback did not extend to Fusion. Smartphones no longer worked, since they had left the world of satellites behind, but good old radio waves did just fine. That was a tremendous advantage.
John checked out the map of the area again.
According to what he knew with reasonable certainty, the fortress to their southeast was about two days of travel away. It was the centre of operations for the area, so the Archduke would most likely dwell there. John was not quite sure where the three Dukes under them dwelled. Typically, one would expect the feudal lords of a society to be around places of importance, but then at least one of them should have been around the city he was currently inhabiting. Either there were places not marked on the map that were reasonably important, or the Duke of this city was travelling, or they preferred another residence. Nobles throughout history had often gone to permanently stay at a summer residence, rather than return to their palaces.
‘The best place to learn that would be somewhere important,’ the Gamer thought and tapped on the fortress. Without a doubt, that had to be the next objective. ‘And why wait any longer?’
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John left behind Aclysia, Beatrice, and Sylph to guard the city in his absence. Obviously, those tasked with staying behind had to come out of the cadre of John’s familiars, specifically those that had an ability allowing them to instantly teleport to his position. In case things went south unexpectedly, it was best to be prepared.
‘When are you getting a teleport ability?’ the Gamer asked the metal fairy, flying above him.
‘Ask Gaia, like I have any control over my destiny,’ Momo responded grumpily. Although John gave her all the agency possible over her power development he could, it was clear that she would have preferred to learn her own spells. Having a selection of three Perks was a tad constricting. This was the sacrifice she needed to make to profit from the frankly ridiculous power of the upgrades and be part of the mental connection.
Momo flew a little loop. Her flying speed scaled with her Mental Stats, which allowed her to far outpace John, who was running as fast he could without exhausting himself. Like usual, this meant that he was the slowest of the bunch. Rave, Metra, Momo, Eliana and Nia all could have left him in the dust. The elementals were sparing themselves the trouble of running, following incorporeally instead.
Although John dragged the speed down considerably, they still moved at the speed of a car on the highway. What was a two day’s travel, they could bridge in a matter of hours.
Staying on track was a mild issue. They had a compass and that was it. Travel was incredibly rare in this world and there was nothing that resembled a road in the sparsely forested plains. Estimation and Momo’s eyes were all they could rely on. At her height, she should have spotted the fortress eventually.
And she did.
‘Target in sight.’ Momo shared with him the picture of the fortress. It was a magnificent construction of smoothly cut stone, rising high out of the green plains. Style appeared to be the goal more so than effectiveness, as the shape, size and location were all far from optimal for a defensive position. It was a grand endeavour placed almost randomly in the plains. The stones must have been brought there all the way from the mountain range.
It was getting dark by now, the short day ending as quick as the previous two. Baleful green light illuminated the inside of the fortress, oozing out of the windows and gaps in the stone as glowing mist. The iron decorations seemed to absorb that light, giving the entire fortress a dark and menacing feeling the more the night crept in.
‘What’s the plan?’ Momo asked on behalf of all of them.
John answered, both out loud and mentally, “We’re breaking straight in. Salamander, Momo, you two join the Mandala Sphere in keeping watch on the perimeter. I don’t want any escapees or unexpected reinforcements!”
A series of affirmations rang out, Salamander manifested and flew up. If they had any element of surprise left, it was gone when the living torch cut through the darkness in all her blazing glory. Momo’s fireflies fanned out from her poncho. The two of them flew towards different sides of the fortress, while the Mandala Sphere went far above.
Through it, John caught his first glimpse of an Ironborn. Standing on the balcony attached to the highest central tower of the construction, she looked around with confusion at the sudden happenings. The moniker of her kind no longer fit her, as her body was made primarily from an aquamarine metal that shimmered with elemental magic. Her hair was made out of water, mechanical fins adorned her limbs, and swirling gold patterns wound all over her slender curves.
‘Archduchess Lethele, level 264,’ John read the Observe. ‘Bingo. Metra, be a good bitch - go fetch.’
“OH, FUCK YOU!” Metra screamed; rage ignited.
Stopping suddenly in her assault, she drew her arm back while heels still ploughed the dirt from her deceleration. A new light joined the others in the sky, a halberd charged with spatial magic and crackling with thunder, flying towards the tower. One moment Metra stood there, the next she dropped through a rift in space.
What was confusion on the Archduchess’ part was immediately replaced by shock when the halberd that had been about to narrowly miss her was gripped by a blonde berserker babe that dropped down from the air right above it. Just barely, Lethele raised her arms, water streaming out of her body and creating a protective sheet between her and Metra. The surface of the liquid was hardened immensely, but not enough to stop the Breaker of Armies. Rex Magnar slammed through, unloading lightning, slicing through the Archduchess and cracking the tower, all in one swift scream of shredding guitars and violence.
‘…Maybe should have sent someone else,’ John reconsidered his choice of assailant, while the tower’s structural integrity gave in. The roof tilted gradually, accelerated, then fell downwards, causing a chain collapse of a primary support beam that had the entire central spire sink in on itself. Water and prismatic light shone through the rubble, while Metra continued to dominate the Archduchess.
John turned his attention away from that. Even if Metra was wreaking havoc upon the fortress, he trusted her enough to not kill the Archduchess. He had his own priorities to consider. To start with, an energy field had been erected between the remaining group and the fortress. ‘Been a while since I saw a Mana Barrier used like this,’ John thought, effortlessly slicing through the defences with Purgatory. He grabbed the edges of the tear. Particle Skin and the forcefield let loose arcane sparks, silver and blue respectively, while John widened the gap with violence alone. The rest of the party slipped in, before he followed them with Magus Step.
The gate of the fortress was wide open and they stormed in. The moment they were in the courtyard, a group of ten Ironborn descended on them. All of their attacks were focused on the woman heading the assault. Eliana was showered first in magic, then had four weapons swung at her.
A sword between teeth, a hammer by a palm, a dagger stuck between fingers, and a gauntlet slamming against abs – all were stopped simultaneously by the superhuman body of the blood mage. They failed to do as much as break her skin. “For a bunch of eloquent tin cans, you chromium cunts sure love to fight dirty,” the pretty little psycho growled.
‘Pretty good coordination,’ John thought, while the Ironborn all simultaneously dropped their weapons and jumped back, to give a clear shot to the backline that was positioned on the elevated ring surrounding the courtyard. The magical support they bet on never came.
Faster than they could react, the Ironborn mages were dismantled by Rave, Siena, Gnome, Nia, and John himself. Limbs were melted, exteriors sliced, chests caved in, control extinguished, and heads obliterated by spellwork and raw violence. “I got two, I win!” Rave shouted.
The weapons Eliana had stopped fell cluttering to the ground and the blood mage rushed forwards. Grabbing one Ironborn by the leg, she flailed them around at a second of the four targets. Both flew towards the nearby wall. Before they collided with the stone, the blood mage turned into a roundhouse kick. The spine of the Ironborn Lord turned from an I into a sideways V shape. For a moment it looked like they would get stuck on the limb, then they were catapulted away.
Even with that moment of slowing, Eliana was surprised when the punch directed at the last Ironborn was a narrow miss. They were the ones who had fought with bare hands and dove down in an attempt to deliver another punch. Before they could raise their fist, the blood mage’s elbow came down on the Ironborn’s skull, cracking it and sending the humanoid down onto the floor.
“I got fucking four!” Eliana screamed. “I FUCKING WIN, SEIZURE HANDS!”
“You double win,” John commented, putting a foot on the back of that last Ironborn. They squirmed on the floor, the cracked skull mending before the Gamer’s eyes. “You got the Duke.”
Flawlessly timed, Lethele slammed into the courtyard in an explosion of rubble. Metra followed right thereafter, landing a little bit more gracefully. “Call me a bitch again and I’ll sit on your face!” the First of Wrath shouted at John.
“Threaten me with a good time.” John grinned. “One thing after the other. Dismember them. Gnome, seal them in stone afterwards. Everyone else, we’re scouring the rest of the fortress for stragglers.”
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