第２８１堀：偵察 (Part1)
**Chapter 281: Reconnaissance**
**Side: Yuki**
"Listen up, don't you dare die!! You absolutely must come back alive! If you do, I’ll help you find a girlfriend!"
"Wait, isn't that a total death flag!?"
We are currently initiating the operation to stop and defeat Ground Zero. With no way of knowing when the enemy might move, we’ve compressed our strategy meeting into roughly two hours to ensure we strike first.
Fortunately, Steve and his team are already prepared, so we can move straight to direct action and reconnaissance. However, launching a full-scale assault immediately is problematic, so we need to gauge the enemy's strength and eliminate as many variables as possible.
To that end, Steve and his Goblin squad are to pose as wild monsters, launch light, direct attacks, and test the enemy's durability.
"I don't care if it's a death flag or what, just come back alive!! If Steve gets taken out, our situation becomes that much more disadvantageous! For the sake of your husband, you must return! I’ll make sure to find you a woman myself!"
"Whoa!! That sounds so cheap!! Isn't my life worth more than just a blind date!?"
Seraria’s desperate encouragement is meant to keep me from having to stand on the front lines, but as Steve pointed out, it does sound a bit cheap. Then again, I threw in a similar line as a joke, but since Seraria is being completely earnest, maybe that makes it worse?
"Alright. Then, my turn. I’ll be waiting with a special salad, so don't be late."
John is in charge of operations while Steve is away, so he obviously can't go. But that line...
"Shut it!! Your salads are just piles of cucumbers anyway!! Besides, the character who said that line died! And you—you’re going to get finished off by flying debris!"
Steve is right. In that story, the character was captured by the enemy and crushed by a manipulator... and the one who said they were waiting with a salad died from debris caused by the battle.
Yeah. A textbook death flag.
Still, both the one captured by the enemy and the one making the salad were ace-pilot-class core members and super-mechanics, so I found it pretty tragic.
"Hahaha, as long as you’ve got that much spirit, you’ll be fine. I don't want to have to take over running this unit in your place, so just come back in one piece."
"Tch, is that all you care about? Fine, I get it. I don't want to die either. I haven't said a word to Princess Aslin yet."
"Right. Come back safely so you don't make the Princess cry."
"You got it."
That’s right—Aslin and Firia know nothing about this operation. In fact, they should still be fast asleep. I didn't wake them on purpose.
Firia is one thing, but Aslin would surely think that if the opponent is a Tamer with a massive dragon, there must be room for negotiation. She might be right, but if those negotiations fail, war begins immediately. In that scenario, we are at a massive disadvantage, and the collateral damage would be catastrophic.
Therefore, even if we do negotiate, we have no choice but to bind the enemy’s movements first. In this context, "binding" them means hurting Ground Zero enough to teach Alfin that she doesn't stand a chance. If she has even a shred of breathing room, she’ll assume we’re only talking because we’ve run out of options. We have to push them to the very brink of destruction.
This is a cruel reality for Aslin. That’s why I’m hoping she stays in the dark. If she wakes up, I’ve left a note telling her to come to the conference room.
The idea of simply focusing all our efforts on taking down the Tamer, Alfin, was brought up. But that was rejected because of the risk that Ground Zero, once freed from the Tamer’s control, would go on a rampage. And if anything happened to Aslin, the monsters under her command would likely go into such a blind rage that only I could stop them.
In a way, it’s a brilliant selection of monsters. We could deploy countless monsters capable of suppressing them, but we’d have to steal control via dungeonization or annihilate them within the dungeon. We could easily suppress Alfin herself.
But Ground Zero is different. Even trying to steal control would cost us roughly twenty times our current DP, and then twenty times that again. Honestly, trying to steal control of something with over a hundred million DP multiplied by four hundred is impossible.
Well, it’s not *strictly* impossible if we push ourselves, but according to the calculations by Eris and Ratz, we would have to shut down parts of Weed and stop the supply of trade goods to make it happen. If this were the continent where Weed is located, that would be our first resort, but here in the New Continent, that’s a last-ditch option. Explaining that to the stakeholders back home would be a nightmare, too...
Nations are always such complicated things.
And the Holy Sword Users—well, they’ve been gathering them for 400 years for a reason. This situation is tied to Alfin’s safety as well. Without her, there is no one to control Ground Zero. Aslin might be able to, but we can't ignore the danger to Aslin herself or the potential for collateral damage.
...In war and negotiation, the most important thing is to anticipate the worst-case scenario and prepare for it. The absolute worst case right now is that the team sent to stop the Holy Sword User and Ground Zero just ends up angering them and getting wiped out.
So, for now, we’ll start with Steve’s reconnaissance team, and I’ll use my dungeon skills to create a pitfall disguised as an underground water vein to test their reactions.
"Steve. As planned, your deployment point will be 10km away from Ground Zero. Communication via magic, skills, and radio is possible for now, but keep in mind that might change."
"Understood. And the extraction point is a different location, right?"
"Correct. I’ll erase the deployment point. I don't want them to think we came out of a dungeon. Once you’ve finished gathering intel, Steve, form a new dungeon with the core and withdraw."
"Just disable the transfer gate function and leave it, right?"
"Yeah. We’ll leave a dungeon core there to keep it operational. If we use it well, it could be useful for a surprise attack."
Taiki and I both believe that if we don't plan on using every single thing at our disposal, we won't be able to take down that monster. Honestly, I’m at the point where I wish a giant of light or a monster king like the ones the Ground Self-Defense Force struggled with would just show up.
But even then, we’d have to account for the damage, so I don't actually want that to happen.
The "happily ever after" ending only exists in those movies. They always ignore the reconstruction after the destruction. In reality, the reconstruction after that kind of devastation is a soul-crushing, stomach-churning ordeal.