Chapter 45

Knowing that the tanks didn't have quick reload speeds either, I made a mad dash into another tunnel at the intersection out of their sight before I could get blown into pieces.

Commencing backup plan!

Since there was no way the tanks were capable enough to target and destroy all my small airplane shaped clones, I decided to send more and more of them. And, for each, they would drop strawberries or split into more clones midair using [conglomerate]. It truly was a convenient ability. By the way, these were regular seedless strawberries, not the deadly strawberry grenades.

Aha! Strawberries away!

Then, I dropped a few strawberries at the corner of a tunnel where I currently hid as my safe spot. And, knowing that my light armor likely wouldn't work in conjunction with [strawberry substitution], I dropped a few other clones here to mark my space.

Here goes nothing! Behind enemy lines once again! Operation Swapberry.

Of course, I peeked first before swapping my positions with any of the strawberries. I wouldn't want to end up in someone's mouth. Yuck.

Though the tunnel where the battle taking place was wide, the amount of plants I could synthesize was more than enough to suffocate everything here. I hadn't been saving up my resources for nothing. In the worst case scenario, I just wouldn't have enough for Smoothie's level ups. But that shouldn't come to pass because I could easily recover a good chunk of my mana and majority of the resources spent from the plants I synthesized.

Before I swapped position, all my regular clones excluding the strawberries burst forth with explosive greeneries to act as my cover. A small jungle, unless the tanks had enough power, they would have trouble mobilizing.

Floosh.

My mana decreased rapidly as a green wall rose and smothered the battlefield. After I teleported in, I confronted a tank right in front of me. Because of the vines everywhere, the tank was entangled and bound, unable to move. Shouts were coming from within the tanks where soldiers were struggling. No matter how hard they tried, they couldn't move the tanks because I clogged the gears. Well, not all the tanks were caught since some were still entering the scene.

I wish I had a tank license. Oh hey, why don't I just capture all these tanks? Sometimes I wonder if I'm secretly a genius. Now isn't the time for that, is it?

The first was to find how those people entered the tanks. Well, normally there was a lid at the top so that was where I checked first. And after checking that no barrels were aiming at me, I jumped on top. I didn't forget to initiate [absorption] on everything within the tunnel within the vicinity. Since the tanks were quite far back relative to the line where the infantries were clashing, I didn't have to worry about hurting the beastfolks. Those human soldiers on the other hand were fighting with every ounce of strength they had but ultimately those caught in my garden quickly perished.

Ahh... Let's hope the lid is easy to open.

However, before I even tried to open the lid in front of me, it was flung open. An angry soldier's head popped out.

"Heyo!" I greeted him with an overly eager grin.

"Goddess..."

Excluding my slightly pointing ears, my human face should be ravishing, probably. I didn't know the beauty standards of humans since they all looked the same to me right now. Soldiers were soldiers.

His death was swift; my hand reached out, poisonous darts splattered on his face before I jumped in and quickly neutralized the other two soldiers.

Even after using [absorption] on all three corpses, the interior of the tank still was quite cramped.

Capture complete. I guess I'll come back later to play this new toy. Toys... I finally have a toy! The first toy of my life! I'm so proud of myself.

It wasn't like I had time to continue my random thoughts. I quickly jumped out and continued to capture more tanks trapped in my big garden. Thankfully, these tanks weren't airtight or anything like certain ones from my previous world. Even if they didn't open those lids, my thin vines would eventually creep into tiny gaps and eliminate the soldiers inside. It was just a matter of time.

Meanwhile, humans outside my field were slowly cutting into my garden using their swords. I couldn't really see them directly, hence I didn't waste my resources trying to attack them. After all, resources were precious, and human bodies couldn't fully replenish my spent resources. Their composition was different from plants; it couldn't be helped. I had to take into consideration the resource ratios.

Right now, the enemies troops were in a mess since my surprise attack on their backline. Their frontline was collapsing, forcing the troops further back to readjust their positions. All in all, they were retreating.

The moment I grasped the locations of the attackers, I unleashed waves of poisonous needles and darts in their direction. Using these captured tanks as barricades, I was able to hold my position, and allow the beastfolk troops to push forward and slowly reclaim this section of the tunnel.

I definitely deserve a promotion. How about a special agent?

Even though I was capturing tanks one after another, I didn't feel any excitement, or any challenge so far. As I captured more tanks, and eliminated more enemies, my "garden" shifted with me towards that tunnel breach just before the mass of debris blocking the tunnel.

No matter what I did, I likely wouldn't be able to seal that huge hole. Plants were just plants after all.

Further down the main tunnel, part of it had already collapsed so there wasn't more I could really do around here unless I too entered that hole where who knew how many enemies were around. Not to mention, it was definitely possible that other tunnels in the inner city had already been breached as well. In this sense, I felt it was better if I didn't push forward and leave this section to the professional soldiers.

As much as I would like to play with the tanks right now, I didn't think it was a good idea in case the enemies in the future recaptured this position. So, I decided to instead drain all the condensed mana.

I loved free stuff. Any overflow would be stored in |gourmet|. No issues!

On a side note, since absorbing clothes and equipments took a lot more effort, I mostly just left them there. This meant that the ground and tanks were littered with clothes, combat gears, and perhaps chunks of bones that were missed. The scene kind of looked super creepy around here. Yet, I was unfazed, completely unfazed. There was no blood around here; that was probably why.

By the time I had drained all the compressed mana from the mana cores in the tanks, the beastfolk soldiers, with my assistance, had occupied the positions around the tunnel breach. 

Ugh, I guess this is as far as I go. I really want to steal all of their mana cores. Mana cores! Well, whatever, I'll check some other places and see how Smoothie is doing. Hopefully she learned something useful.

Since I figured not all the beastfolks were fluent in the common language, I didn't bother saying anything to them. They already knew I was on their side and I was a fey being, not normally under their jurisdiction. By the time I made the turn to go back up, I saw some beastfolk troops pushing those tanks toward the tunnel breach to use them as barricades.

Oops... Well... It's not like anyone here would know how to drive one... Right?

blanksphere