17-8 Opening Of War

The day after Balan of Scorching Heat fell.

News of the Bernstein Emperor’s death was brought to each nation.

That report raced across the entire continent.

And the Empire began preparations for the emperor’s funeral.

The next emperor had not yet been announced.

The entire Empire was probably already in utter chaos.

But I knew.

That while they made it look like they were in confusion, they would launch a surprise attack tonight.

Man, surveillance cameras and reconnaissance satellites really are convenient things.

Our reconnaissance satellites could move freely above the planet, and since they could also be stopped wherever I wanted whenever I wanted, they were far superior to Earth’s, which were restricted by orbit and time.

Preparations were perfect.

My meetings with His Majesty the King and His Highness Michael were finished.

They also agreed to my plan.

His Highness the Crown Prince apparently would go to the front.

Even that man did what needed to be done when the time came.

It was not as if he would fight directly himself, and that spirit was what mattered.

The next king would stand on the battlefield.

That alone would change the soldiers’ morale.

The Beast-Ear Garden issued an emergency alert.

With Ars as the main force, I had also asked the Guildmaster to have the two B-rank adventurers who came before come as reinforcements.

If it came down to it, this time we had arrangements to evacuate to the Spirit Forest.

I had also called Eri’s family to our place.

The little ones seemed to have become anxious too, but I firmly stroked their heads and fluffed them.

Then there was someone who tightly grabbed the sleeve of my clothes.

It was Remi.

I smiled at the little one and picked her up.

Usually, even when something happened, she would smile and wave to me, but today, for some reason, she looked like she was about to cry.

I hugged the little one tightly one more time, then gently lowered her down and softly stroked her head.

“All right, everyone. I’m off. All that remains is hunting down the Empire’s rabble. There’s no need to worry that much. The most dangerous guy has already been dealt with first.”

Since I had dealt with that Balan bastard before the war began, my heart felt extremely light.

I had thought the rest would just be cleanup work.

I immediately headed toward the great Eel River, the border with the Empire.

I could continue monitoring the site with the spirit magic satellites I was still using.

Those guys were crossing the river one after another.

If I had just left them alone, various things would probably have gotten bad.

Of course, there was no way I would just leave things alone.

The Empire soldiers landed in platoon-sized units, groups of thirty.

Since they had formally come to wage war, they wore equipment properly identifying them as the Empire’s army, and at last, they invaded.

The moment the first of their soldiers marked his first step on this side of the bank, that was the moment war began through a surprise attack without a declaration of war.

With this, I could openly make my move too.

Of course, I had filmed every bit of that lawless invasion perfectly.

There was no way I would let them feign ignorance in front of a Rare Visitor who had come from twenty-first-century Japan.

Very politely, there were even special-forces-like guys among them using invisibility magic, but to the spirits scouting from high above, they were completely visible.

There was no way those guys would overlook “the enemies of the Fals.”

We also lay in ambush using invisibility, perception-nullification skills, and the like, and the golems, who had set their magic rifles to stun mode, knocked them down the moment they landed, stripped all their equipment, wrapped them up, then carried them by teleportation magic to the Glass Garden and casually rolled them aside.

They swiftly knocked them down and teleported them away, aiming for the moment when they safely landed and let their guard down.

For those who used magic, they fastened magic cancelers around their necks.

Against powerful enemies who still could not be defeated, invisible inhuman soldiers mercilessly latched onto them, swarmed them with overwhelming numbers, and beat them down without mercy.

The image was almost like a zombie movie.

Before a tsunami of powerful inhuman soldiers, a mass of interceptors far beyond anything the enemy expected, the enemy soldiers, including the elite units, helplessly submitted.

The scene around here was a disaster that looked like something out of a Hollywood B-movie.

I was a severe B-movie maniac, after all.

I had lined up one million golems in advance on this side of the river.

Empire, don’t underestimate my copying ability.

It gave me a strange feeling, like I had become a queen ant or something laying eggs.

The golems made by a diligent Japanese person were truly hard workers.

Over the course of a night, they captured the ten brigades of enemy troops that had attacked, three hundred thousand men, then attacked the two hundred thousand rear support troops too, tied them up, and rolled them aside.

Honestly, it was impressive they had gathered this many soldiers in a world like this.

These guys were probably mainly farmers gathered through conscription.

They surely were not even receiving proper wages.

Normally, they should not have been a fighting force that could be used, but they had probably trained during the farming off-season for many years.

Their movements were not those of complete amateurs.

However, it was an old way of fighting unthinkable in Earth’s armies, which were composed of specialized soldiers today.

They might have worked if used as assault troops against fortresses around the time of the Russo-Japanese War.

Though perhaps that would have required massive amounts of methamphetamine.

I wondered whether ordinary people who received draft notices in the Pacific War had actually been able to fight properly.

The weapons back then should probably have required specialized handling too.

Japan at the time boasted the highest science, technology, and education standards in Asia, so perhaps they became proper fighting strength after several months of training.

I thoroughly stripped all equipment from the Empire soldiers.

To be precise, they were completely naked.

For the sake of my honor, let me say that not a single woman was among them.

I had never been so grateful that this novel had no illustrations.

Who exactly would benefit from five hundred thousand naked men?

Among them, I presented the mages with spell-canceler collars, so they became an even worse image: naked, with only slave-like collars on.

Unaware that such a thing had happened, that bastard Sharion was confronting the Kingdom’s one hundred thousand troops while leading thirty thousand vanguard soldiers.

All of them were probably elite professional soldiers.

They were imperial guards, after all.

In that country, it was probably an army led by nobles as commanders.

Without suspecting in the slightest that their own forces were gathering one after another, they confronted an army more than three times their number.

But they had chosen the wrong opponent.

The Empire did have powerful magical forces too.

Normally, the Albatross Kingdom would have been trampled by the violence of numbers, and the continent’s largest hegemonic state would have been born.

Since the Kingdom of Eldoa occupied the center, other countries could not attack them directly.

As long as they kept the brave but not very modern grassland kingdom west of the Empire in check, they probably would have made a triumphant advance straight through the Albatross Kingdom along the highway to the port of Hyde, the final conquest target on this continent.

They could probably have seized a large amount of useful magic products from Albatross too.

It would have been the worst if they took things from the royal treasury that absolutely could not be revealed publicly.

And then I brought them out.

The robot army that had been shelved.

They were truly robot-like things, twenty meters tall.

Their interiors had also been upgraded to autonomous golems.

Their number was, in fact, twenty thousand.

I thought I might have overdone it a little, but I did not care.

It was fine.

Each three Empire soldiers only had to face two of them.

If they valued their lives, they could run.

Though I would shoot anyone who ran without surrendering in the back.

And then the golems began mock battles with each other.

Some grappled barehanded, while others clashed with swords.

Some had stage-like face markings painted on their faces and performed a grand technique of whirling spears over their heads.

The raging winds threatened to blow away the soldiers of both countries.

When the Empire army witnessed that, they fell completely silent.

The idiot prince did not seem to understand what was happening.

Well, the ones I had brought out were not normal things.

They were beings that could not be understood from the common sense of this world.

It was completely the world of robot anime.

And a war anime that consumed huge numbers of robots at that.

Since the enemy army had no robots, our guys would not be consumed, though.

All of this was being broadcast live worldwide through my magic.

I filmed the idiot prince’s stupid face from four directions in particular and displayed it on a four-way split screen.

From here on, it was a cosplay tournament.

A skull-faced grim reaper swung a great scythe around with a whoosh.

Even in this world, grim reapers had this kind of style, and since death was closer to people here, they were hated even more than on Earth.

And then came the dragon, my work into which I had poured my heart and soul.

Its form had been captured from old man Baldos, so calling it impressive did not even begin to describe it.

His cute granddaughter was watching, so the old man had been extremely enthusiastic.

For the sake of his sworn friend Takeshi Funabashi’s descendants and the granddaughter he doted on, the golem unit defeated, after a desperate battle?, a dragon golem that traced the passionate performance of a five-thousand-year-old grandfather dragon who was ultra-fired up.

The whole world was probably watching those images while holding its breath.

Yes, this was entertainment.

Not merely winning.

Winning overwhelmingly, showing it off.

I declared that to the members of the royal family and the army commanders.

It was a live broadcast of war against the world using a video media strategy.

That was an idea the nations of this world did not possess.

I had not gone to Las Vegas, an entertainment city, over and over for many years for nothing.

Never lay a hand on this country again.

I filled it with that much intent.

Naturally, I also made sure it would reach the others besides the Empire.

More precisely, I firmly put in the intent of, “You won’t lay a hand on my home, right?”

The images were also displayed in the sky above the Glass Garden.

While completely naked and unable to move, they would be forced to watch their allies suffer a crushing defeat from here on.

Most of their hearts should be broken.

And the thirty thousand imperial guards similarly despaired at the sight of their five hundred thousand friendly troops lying naked in the Glass Garden, sobbing in despair.

Of course, I had also provided the Empire troops with the magic images from the Glass Garden as a service.

I was truly a man overflowing with the spirit of entertainment.

And I loudly declared.

Together with a very wicked smile.

“You don’t have to surrender if you don’t want to. I already have five hundred thousand prisoners, after all. It’s fine if you choose to scatter here honorably as soldiers. Though if you surrender early, I might spare your lives.”

Of course, these images were being broadcast thoroughly throughout the entire Empire, beginning with the imperial capital.

They were also shown in the major cities of other nations.

“Will you surrender? Or won’t you? Well, either way is fine with me. What will you do?”

The whole world watched the outcome while holding its breath.