The Lizardmen's Assault
The day after giving the family members, who had been radiating pent-up lust, an essence massage to ease their fatigue, everyone woke up feeling refreshed. The hunters had gathered in the largest central tent for a strategy meeting, led by the on-site commander who had received no orders from above. Teams with numerous casualties naturally pushed for an immediate withdrawal, while those with fewer injuries insisted on continuing the search for the sake of their bonuses.
"Are you out of your minds? We don't know when those things will show up again! You're willing to throw your lives away for pocket change in this situation?"
"Hah! Only someone with pathetic skills would nearly die to a bunch of lizards. My team doesn't have a single injury."
"That's because you abandoned us and ran! You saw it yourselves—when that many of them start firing, we turn into Swiss cheese in seconds!"
"We've got protective barriers here, armed military vehicles, and soldiers. Even if they come, we can repel them easily. If anything, we should hurry up and find the survivors before those things get here!"
"You want us all to die for people who might already be dead?"
"Do you even know how much we're getting paid per person? It's worth risking our lives!"
The shouting of dozens of people grew louder, blending into a chaotic mess. It was surprising that some hunters were still willing to continue searching in such a dangerous situation, even if they were the type to gamble their lives for money. Across from our team, who had been quietly listening, the Dokkaebi team paid no attention to the meeting and were laughing and chatting among themselves. Watching them, I leaned close to Oppa, who stood with his arms crossed, and whispered.
"Oppa, shouldn't we add our voices to the side arguing for retreat?"
"You can tell at a glance those guys won't be convinced by words. The fact they're acting so recklessly means they have something to fall back on. See that loudmouth in the center?"
"Yes, the one with the nasty expression."
The large bald man with a skull tattoo on his head was repeatedly raising his voice, insisting they continue the search. I remembered him because, despite trying to hide it, he kept shooting lecherous glances at the women in our family whenever he got the chance.
"He's a decently successful hunter, but not nearly as impressive as he claims. The Dokkaebi guys behind him probably put him up to it. They're thirsty for war."
"Hmm..."
I hadn't understood why they were ignoring the meeting and talking among themselves, but it seemed they had already made their move. From Oppa's words, it was clear they were deliberately stalling for time because they wanted to fight the lizards. I was horrified by their fanatical attitude, completely indifferent to whether other hunters lived or died.
The divide in opinions remained unresolved, and the standoff continued. Then, the radio on the commander's chest crackled to life. He had been standing there with a troubled expression. After asking everyone to quiet down, he listened to the voice coming through the radio, and his face hardened. Raising his head with a grim expression, he spoke under the questioning gazes of the surrounding hunters.
"They're coming. Prepare for battle."
"Damn it!"
"Kheheheh! It's war!"
"Let's go!"
The excited Dokkaebi team members cheered and rushed out of the tent, while the faces of the hunters who had been advocating for retreat filled with panic and anger. The hunter who had been most vocal about withdrawing grabbed the bald man by the collar and spoke in a voice thick with rage.
"If even one of my team members gets hurt because of this, I'll kill you with my own hands. Without fail."
"Hah! Worry about your own life first, weakling."
With a sharp smack, he knocked the hand away and led his team out of the tent. The other hunters, glaring at his retreating back with eyes full of hatred, began filing out one by one to prepare for battle. Oppa, who had remained still until everyone else had left, finally stood up and addressed the women looking at him.
"Haah, I guess ominous premonitions never miss. Let's get ready too. We're all making it back alive, no matter what."
"Yes, my lord."
At Ekaterina's reply, everyone bowed their heads respectfully. While soldiers busily checked the sandbag trenches and inspected firearms, the hunters also prepared for combat in a flurry of activity. We returned to the tent we had been using as our quarters, took out our equipment, and began gearing up for the real battle ahead.
First, I stripped off all my clothes and stored them in the extradimensional bag, then summoned Las and had it cover my entire body. I then equipped the gear I had brought one piece at a time. Once I was wearing the magically reinforced combat equipment, the reality of the impending battle finally sank in.
'Just in case, I'll keep assisting you in combat.'
'I'm counting on you, Elisa.'
'I'll do my best to keep you from getting hit by stray bullets, but if things get really dangerous, I might have to use overclocking, so be mentally prepared.'
'Okay. By the way, Elisa, since we have firearms too, how about providing long-range support?'
'To shoot accurately, you'd need to maintain a stable posture and aim visually. Isn't that risky? If a bullet hits your relatively vulnerable head, the damage would be severe.'
'Hmm... I should've gotten some head protection equipment too.'
As I finished equipping the rest of my gear, I wondered why I had overlooked the head. Running my fingers over the holy scar on my forehead, I put on a bulletproof helmet to finish. Ekaterina, still wearing her nun's habit beneath her body armor, was helping Oppa, who was in leather armor, don his ballistic gear. Ruya and Charlotte were also assisting each other with their leather armor. I was the only one in the family wearing metal equipment. Everyone else preferred leather because it was more comfortable than metal, so they had insisted I wear the metal gear instead.
Once we had finished all our preparations, including the ballistic equipment, we took our positions in the assigned trench, hiding our bodies while keeping watch on the forest ahead. Despite Elisa's objections, I pulled out my gun and checked it. I kept thinking that a firearm would be a useful ranged attack option for someone like me who lacked long-range capabilities. I was practicing my stance and aiming according to the information in the combat assistance program when Charlotte tilted her head and asked, watching me.
"Can you actually shoot a gun, nya?"
"Yes. The combat assistance program contains information on marksmanship. There's also an automatic aiming correction feature in the fire control program."
"Nya. Robots really are amazing, nya."
I gave her various tips as she mimicked my posture with her own gun. Unlike me, who had aiming assistance, I wasn't sure how accurate her shots would be, but I made sure to teach her the correct stance. Looking around, it seemed many other hunters had the same idea. They were all fiddling with the firearms they had been issued, and some were already aiming toward the forest. Soldiers hidden behind the armored plates on the vehicles were scanning the forest with binoculars while loading ammunition belts into machine guns.
Amid the tense, uneasy atmosphere of battle preparations, the silence of the forest was broken by the sound of something moving in large numbers. Oppa, staring at the forest ahead with a tense expression, swallowed hard and muttered.
"They're here."
"It reeks, nya."
"Everyone, be careful."
At the same time, the voices of the soldiers watching the forest through binoculars rang out, and countless lizardmen began charging toward our position, firing wildly.
"Attack! Open fire!"
Tat-tat-tat-tat! The machine gun mounted on the vehicle opened up first, and a hail of bullets began raining down from both sides.
"Kiyahoo! Let's go!"
"Urararar!"
While other hunters fired from the safety of the trenches, the Dokkaebi hunters charged forward without a care for the incoming bullets. Few shots managed to track their high-speed movements, and even those that did were deflected by the barriers surrounding them with sharp pinging sounds.
"Th-those crazy bastards!"
"A barrier that can block physical force from all directions is ridiculously expensive, and they all have one!"
Fwoosh! Ruya's spirit-infused arrow sliced through the air, piercing through three lizardmen before finally embedding itself in one's head. Having killed four lizardmen in an instant, Ruya continued loosing arrows one after another. The lizardmen, who had been charging confidently, seemed momentarily pushed back by the machine guns' overwhelming firepower. As the hail of bullets thinned slightly with lizardmen dropping like flies, we were finally able to poke our heads out and return fire.
Assuming a shooting stance and taking aim, a reticle and predicted impact point appeared on my retina. I fired at the lizardmen's heads, matching the automatically calculated impact point as they moved within my sights.
Bang! Bang! Satisfied after dropping one with each shot, I was stunned by the sheer carnage the Dokkaebi hunters ahead were inflicting. Covered head to toe in blood like berserkers, they roared wildly while mercilessly severing the limbs and heads of the lizardmen. They were demons of the battlefield incarnate.
"The Dokkaebi team is incredible!"
"They're insane, but their combat ability is no joke!"
"At this rate, we might hold out longer than expected?"
"It's only been a few minutes! Don't let your guard down!"
"Yes!"
At Oppa's words as he launched a sword aura at a lizardman that had broken through the barrage and approached the trench, I refocused on shooting. Ekaterina was concentrating on healing injured hunters and soldiers hit by stray bullets, while Charlotte was fighting as best she could, albeit awkwardly, with her gun. Ruya continued to drop three or four lizardmen with each volley of arrows, and Oppa was defending against those that got close. When the machine gun paused to reload and its suppressive fire weakened, lizardmen would surge forward in waves, forcing me to keep shooting without pause. Corpses began piling up, obstructing our view.
"Just how many of these things are there?!"
"It's scarier that they keep charging even while their own kind are dying like that, nya!"
As Charlotte said, the lizardmen's frenzied charges despite the massive casualties were demoralizing our side. We were only holding because the Dokkaebi hunters were drawing their attention in the enemy lines; without them, the concentrated firepower would have made a counterattack impossible.
"Medic! Medic!"
"Aaaagh!"
"Damn it! We should've run earlier!"
Amid the chaos of screams and shouts from all directions, the military commander bellowed through a megaphone.
"Attention, hunters in enemy lines! Mortar strike incoming! Mortar strike incoming!"
That explained why they hadn't used explosives earlier—the Dokkaebi hunters were mixed in with the enemy. Upon hearing the commander's words, the Dokkaebi team began retreating in an orderly fashion. Insane as they were, they fought well—their movements were impressively agile. At the same time, a series of thump sounds rang out, and shells began raining down on the clustered lizardmen.
Boom! Boom! KABOOM! The explosions, far louder than gunfire, momentarily deafened my auditory sensors before they recovered. Flames and dirt flew everywhere as the shattered remains of lizardmen scattered in all directions amid their death cries.
"Keep firing!"
Boom! Boom! The explosions continued for a while, and the surrounding forest began to burn. Even without the emotion of fear, I kept blowing off the heads of charging lizardmen and reloading. After the bombardment stopped and a brief silence fell, the lizardmen resumed their charge with wild roars, filling the air once more with gunfire and screams.
"Fuck! These goddamn things! How long are they going to keep coming?!"
Curses erupted from all sides at the endless lizardman charges that showed no sign of stopping no matter how many we killed. I had already counted over five hundred dead lizardmen in my field of view alone, yet they kept appearing without end.
'Elisa, is there any way to gauge the enemy's numbers?'
'You could fly up and look directly, or use radar. The latter would be safer, so let's go with that.'
'Ah, radar! I should've used it to find survivors earlier.'
I had known the radar function was built-in but hadn't thought to use it.
'Its performance drops too much in a forest to be useful anyway. At least this area is flat, so it's possible here.'
'I see. That's how it is?'
'Still, not even thinking of it is very much like a simple-minded doll. I'll activate it now.'
The moment Elisa spoke, my body's movements stopped, and my skin began to tingle. She was probably emitting electromagnetic waves like before. Shortly after, a circular panel appeared in my vision, and as the waves spread outward, dots began appearing on it.