Chapter 17: Demonsteel

"Captain Sakaba! The joint testing unit just returned."

"Is that so... Gather everyone in the conference room."

The joint testing unit was a force formed by the Ground Self-Defense Force and others, conducting live combat tests with prototype weapons.

"Captain Kumada, how’d it go?"

I cut straight to the point, staring at the crisp salute. I needed the results fast.

"Sir! The results exceeded expectations. Against humanoid creatures, it took just one hit to knock them down. Compared to conventional firearms—need at least twenty rounds to silence a target—I’d call that a success."

"Is that so...?"

The prototype weapons were made from a metal mined from parts of the ashen earth. In Japan, this metal was known as "demonsteel," due to its contained magical essence.

Currently, it was being used to craft swords and blunt weapons, to test in real combat.

By using demonsteel only on the impact surfaces—edges and striking parts—and standard metals elsewhere, we could drastically reduce demonsteel consumption.

It was hard to mine and extremely rare, so we couldn’t use it freely. This time, we’d managed to secure just enough material for six weapons—enough to approve limited testing.

Of course, for safety, we’d kept dozens of other personnel on standby with firearms to provide cover.

"Captain Sakaba. How many more of these weapons can we make?"

"With the current materials, maybe twenty to thirty at most..."

"Twenty to thirty...?"

Not nearly enough... The Self-Defense Force did have specialized mining units, but in reality, they were understaffed. With so many units already suffering casualties in battles against monsters, manpower was stretched thin.

There are plenty of places besides Tokyo and Fukuoka where monsters are spilling out—Hokkaido, Yamagata, Fukushima, Niigata, Nagano, Ibaraki, Tottori, Hiroshima, Kochi, Miyazaki, Kumamoto... all suffering heavy casualties.

Still, what’s weird is Nagano. Even though it’s close to Tokyo and has massive underground upheavals within the prefecture, reports say civilian casualties are surprisingly low.

Coincidence? Can’t tell for sure. Not enough details...

“Um… Captain, may I have a word?”

“What is it? Kodama.”

“Actually… after engaging the monsters, one of our team members started saying something… odd. I wasn’t sure whether to report it or not…”

“Odd? What kind of thing?”

From the back row, a female soldier stepped forward.

“You’re Sakuragi, right…? What happened?”

“I… I can see it…”

“See what?”

“Like… a job or something… in front of people… kinda like a game status panel…”