The base now looked like a medieval fort except that its walls were mounted with unmanned rail coil guns. If this was the real world it would be ridiculous that they would be able to build such a structure so quickly, but although their speed and efficiency was not anywhere near that of Lain, the students could still create structures when they worked together.
“I don’t really care if I get killed.”
“Then you must also not care about not being killed, right? In that case there shouldn’t be a problem Mr. John II. The Master wants to have the data related to your attack on the tower’s walls which made it collapse. I am also curious how you avoided the monsters inside the tower.”
“Oh that was easy. I just phased through the walls of the tower, and set explosives at all levels. I messed up the timing a bit. Next time I should find a way to detonate explosives remotely. Unfortunately, I failed.”
“You failed?”
“Yes, Raphael had tasked me with killing the dungeon boss, but she was able to sense my presence at the very last moment, even in the confusion purposefully caused by Lain, that’s the power of the dungeon core, and now as you can see she is threatening the students. I wonder if Raphael will kill me for this.”
“Master is too soft to do that. This whole plan is too soft, no students have died so this whole exercise to weed out the weak among us, has been a failure.”
“Isn’t that what your master wanted?”
“Yes, unfortunately it is so. Master John II, can you defend the base while I am going to deal with that airborne annoyance?”
Rina had carried John II all the way to the base.
“Was that a joke? Even I can deal with these weaklings.”
Rina collapsed all of her copies of herself on the battlefield to the one closest to her target. Now, the only two ‘copies’ of herself were the one in the Senate.
“Is she alone?”
“Yes, that brat was able to blow away all of the other level mini-bosses. Well, if they could have been taken out by a simple explosion like that then it wouldn’t have made a difference even if they were here.”
“No, on the contrary, it means that the students can defend themselves mostly without our help.”
“Who cares about them! More importantly can’t you divide into more copies and attack her. Her speed is crazy but maybe if you attacked her from multiple sides, we might be able to distract her for long enough to get a hit.”
“How are her offensive capabilities?”
“You should know that? Weren’t you hit by a direct attack?”
“That is only one possibility among many, Master Lain.”
Arthur was taking attacks from every direction from the dungeon boss which was buzzing around him at an incredible speed. Although he could withstand the damage for a while like this, there could only be one outcome to this one sided attrition.
“Lain, what the hell are you doing! Come and help me already?”
“Huh. We are having a strategy meeting. My attacks are not that precise. Collateral damage is inevitable.”
“Just attack her!”
“Fine, remember you asked for it. If you survive, that is.”
Lain created a giant ball of blue light which floated a few inches off of her finger and then launched it in the direction of the battle.
The ball of light instantly teleported next to Arthur and the girl in golden black armour causing a giant explosion which engulfed them and destroyed half of the island, killing all of the remaining monsters and destroying the barrier protecting the temporary base, and destroying the fort-like structure. Lain and Rina flew into the sky to avoid the explosion.
“Master Lain, you should have warned me before launching that attack.”
“If I had done that, it might have tipped off the enemy.”
“Are the students dead?” I asked Rina who was in the senate.
“No, First Consul Raphael. The students were moved underground before that could happen. I calculated there was a 67% chance of an event like this happening. Although it’s going to take some time for the base to be able to have any defensive or offensive capabilities.”
“First Consul, huh? Well, let’s see how long you can hang onto that title until I catch up to you!”
Eilis openly taunted me. I smiled amicably.
“Pretty rich coming from someone who’s no longer even a Consul.”
“You are just Raphael’s minion. How dare you!”
“W-what did you just call me!? You hot-headed bitch! I challen—”
Thunk!
“Ouch!”
“ORDERRRR!”
Peter held his head in pain. Rina had thrown her little judge-like hammer like a boomerang at him and then caught it back. Although it was probably her ear-splittingly loud voice, that stopped the argument.
“Why, only me! This is discrimination! See I am being oppressed by the elite faction who must have paid off and bought off the government to manipulate NPCs.”
Although it was my intention to create a bunch of fake made up positions and titles and have everyone compete for them, while I pulled the strings in the background, I got to admit this was pretty annoying.
When the light cleared there were still two girls standing on the battlefield.
