Chapter 44 – Tunnel Battle

As I descended further the various tunnels quietly following some of the military folks, I could hear echoes of clashes between soldiers. A battle had ensued somewhere below the inner city. Injured folks were being carried on stretchers to higher floors through the tunnels. Somehow, the enemies were able to cut off the escape routes of everyone here.

A battle underground? How did that happen? Didn't we have the underground covered?

I was baffled at how humans managed to sneak past the defenses that quickly. It had to be humans. Unless, the invasion plan had been made years in advance. Even with my meager knowledge of this world's technologies, this shouldn't have been an easy feat, especially knowing that two kingdoms fell just recently. Troops would have to be reorganized and plans be made carefully before another large scale invasion such as this took place.

According to my understanding, the Kingdom of Teir was the largest kingdom within the empire. It also held the second most powerful military that only came after the joint military forces controlled by the Highland Emperor. Although I could only speculate, the Kingdom of Faf where Haelley originated from was likely one that specialized in aerial combat. With that kingdom out of the way, it could be said that the enemies now likely held significant advantages in the sky. As for the navy, that was out of the equation when battles were fought inland.

Unfortunately, there likely wouldn't be any assistant from the joint military forces this time, or at least they wouldn't make it in time because they were apparently holding the line elsewhere.

This country needs new commanders.

With how well the tunnels were constructed and illuminated, it wasn't hard to see a large scale battle head of me. This was just one of three main tunnels leading to other cities. Where the tunnels walls had collapsed or blown apart, hundreds of enemy troops were flooding in. And, unlike the humans I had fought so far, they were mostly using normal weapons of this world. They consisted of melee combat equipments such as shields, armors, and swords. Very few of them had that magitech rifle like the man I had encountered in my early days. If I had to guess, rifles were somewhat new technology and hadn't yet been distributed into the army.

On our side, we had no rifle users but a few crossbow users. It was kind of sad to see the disparaging gap in technology.

I should target those snipers then. But, I don't see the big box? I wonder if the big box was only for long distant travelling? Huh. Whatever, you're mine!

I synthesized a dozen leaf airplanes and threw them in the direction of the enemy snipers. In addition, my new creation, strawberry grenades were synthesized! They just resembled strawberries and they weren't red for obvious reasons. These were black, and loaded with toxins and poisons. Where the seeds would normally be, thin barbed needles slightly protruded. And, poof! Needles coated and installed with tiny poison sacs would pierce clothing and skin easily. Though, armor piercing was beyond my capability.

Since people would die in this war regardless of what I did, I figured I should participate in style!

While observing the snipers from afar on high ground, I took note of their firepower, reload speed, and accuracy. The hand held rifles used by these snipers were nowhere near as potent as the ones powered by those mana cores that also powered the mobile suits. However, their accuracy was decent. As long as they were able to hit vitals, it was a guaranteed kill as long as the armors weren't too thick. In terms of reload speed, it seemed on average they only fired one shot per minute which was quite slow in my opinion.

Even as my leaf airplanes carrying strawberry grenades closed in on them, no one paid any attention. Since they were dangerous enemies that threatened the country that treated me well, I couldn't go easy on them.

I'm sorry, not! Rest well in the after world and thanks for the meal.

Immediately after the strawberries were dropped, the leafy airplanes along with those strawberry grenades burst like popcorns. Green prickly vines supplemented with paralyzing neurotoxins bound the oblivious invaders. Screams and shouts intensified as poisonous needles discharged themselves from the vines I had synthesized.

Success!

Within minutes, rows upon rows of enemy combatants had fallen. Of course, that wasn't the end of it. I had used quite a bit of my mana and resources for that attack, so using this opportunity, I absorbed everything I could utilize from those bodies, be them mana or nutrients. Nothing was spared.

Cruelty? Non-sense! It was legit self-defense. If those people got through, Smoothie's life might be forfeit. I still needed Smoothie to help me with stuff. 

All that stuff I just did was causing quite a bit of commotion. However, no one from the beastfolk side had any spare moments to look my way. There were a few cheers but that was it. Now, the enemies were being more cautious than before as they tried to hold their positions while investigating the incident I had caused. As expected, there were some of the enemy combatants scouring the area with their gazes which eventually reached me. Being a fey and whatnot, I kind of stuck out like a sore thumb.

Ahaha... I better hope they don't bring any big guns. I'm holding precious stuff in my body.

Thinking that, I didn't give them any chances to snipe me with a cannon or something. That being said, I didn't see any cannons, but there might be powerful mages capable of the same. Rifles wouldn't kill me, but I rather not receive any hits.

Poisonous darts and needles sprayed at whichever human gazing at me or my clones. One by one, they all went down. Once the clones had absorbed everything they could, they would absorb themselves before quietly disappearing. Here in the tunnels, they wouldn't grow any way. The stone ceilings, walls, and floors were simply too thick for plants to root themselves.

Despite killing many soldiers, probably less than a hundred, I had yet to level. It was just that these humans soldiers had rather subpar levels. Most of their combat prowess came from their skills and equipments. Though, I should be fairly close to levelling up.

Since I wasn't sure how many tunnels had been breached, I was careful not to be blinded by the battle in front of me. After all, if we get routed around or something, I would have to fight my way out of encirclement. I definitely didn't want that.

However, that idea was shattered when I saw tanks being rolled in. They resembled those doubled turreted light armored tanks I had seen in my previous world. However, I could tell their movements weren't fully mechanical but required human labor to some degree. Each shot fired were more powerful than the larger rifles used by those black mobile suit people. Fortunately, they didn't seem to contain explosive shells. But still, beastfolks were dying left and right from single shots.

Seriously, how did they manage to move so much troops from below? And to think no one noticed earlier? Did they have noise cancellation barriers or something?

You can't just take out tanks out of nowhere. That's not how it works!

Obviously, taking out tanks was not an easy feat especially now that more were coming through while the enemy soldiers acted as their escorts. No one could even get closed to those tanks. Speaking of powerful foes, as of now, I hadn't seen any powerful individuals capable of dominating the battlefield. If such time came, I would love to watch and learn some combat tricks.

Though, I did see a few soldiers on the beastfolk side use some simple elemental magic but they weren't super effective or anything. I had to give them my stamp of approval for putting up a simple barrier to prevent an one sided slaughter, and to give themselves more time to reorganize. No matter how I looked at it, they just didn't seem like professional soldiers.

Nehh...Here goes nothing!

I threw some more mini leaf airplanes, and this time aimed at the tanks. My goal was to immobilize their turrets, eliminate the operators, and absorb the compressed mana from the mana cores.

Unfortunately for me, things didn't go as smoothly as I expected. A few tanks had their sights on me. Looking down the barrels pointing at me was quite intimidating.

Ah crap!

Before I could get filled with holes, I ducked to the side and forcefully made my body fly with fey magic to avoid the incoming projectiles. My flimsy armor could protect me against a few sword slashes at best so there was no way I would stay there and take the hits.

And despite there not being any explosives, a layer of stone wall behind where I just stood crumbled with plumes of dust.

Woah there, you almost got me. Bad doodles deserve punishments!

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