Raid (1)

The potions sold in the shop are usually as follows.

Those three are the standard lineup, and anything with stronger effects — elixirs and the like — costs considerably more.

Each one goes for 40 coins, and the Machine Legion unit capable of mass-producing them is the Medic Commander.

"By using the medics, we can transmute the human body into machinery. That's why the medics have a 100% understanding of the human body."

Of course, even future technology has its limits — the system would never just hand over the secrets of the human body.

"If they reveal part of the body's secrets, the corresponding medical tech advances, and then there's less and less technology left for this world to implement! So let's just ignore all that and focus on advancing science instead, okay…? I mean, we've got potions! Ah, and for this round we can use—"

Pitasha rattled on and on.

Watching her like this, it was impossible to believe that speech from before had come out of her mouth. She flatly despised the idea of the human body being converted into machinery.

So how had a woman like that ever climbed her ‍‍‌‌⁠​​⁠‌​​‍​​‍​‌​⁠‍‌‍⁠⁠‌⁠‌‍‌‍‌‌‌‍⁠​‌​‌​‌‍‌‌‌⁠‍​​‌‍⁠‌‌⁠⁠way to the rank of Commander?

"Pitasha. How did you live before? Before I summoned you, I mean."

"Uh… well, you see… haha… I'm not allowed to say…"

"…I see."

Her face wore an apologetic expression, yet underneath it was one of relief.

I watched her for a moment, then spoke up, partly to air the room out.

"First things first — how should we pull our troops? We're only on stage 30, and orcs are fine to handle all the way up to Superior grade, so maybe I should cut back on the number of Superior Combat Units?"

"No. Let's pull 100 Superior Combat Units."

‍‍‌‌⁠​​⁠‌​​‍​​‍​‌​⁠‍‌‍⁠⁠‌⁠‌‍‌‍‌‌‌‍⁠​‌​‌​‌‍‌‌‌⁠‍​​‌‍⁠‌‌⁠⁠

"Why?"

She was telling me to dedicate a full third of the roster to combat units.

"Well, the numbers are only going to keep growing from here, right? Better to just blast them away with breath attacks and clear them out fast! And we'll earn coins to keep the factories running, too!"

"Hmm. Good thinking."

The plan: use the Superior units' breath to blitz through the gates at speed, then farm coins on infinite repeat.

Perfect.

"By the way, could we make potions that improve your skin, too?"

"Mm… yes! I think we could even handle hair loss. Given another twenty years of research on baldness, this place could conquer it, you know?"

"Wow. Let's make them right away."

And so the new factories rose. Three apiece for the standard potions, plus one each for the hair-loss and skin treatments — and after that, we built still more factories to push out even greater quantities of artifacts.

"But the territory's gotten way too big. I heard other people's aren't nearly this large. What's even the reason I have to protect this crystal in the first place?"

"Hm? Sun Wukong?"

"…Don't tell me you just want to expose the gods' truths and throw them into disarray?"

Whenever I'd spent a Question Ticket, the system never gave a straight answer.

To put it precisely, any information about transcendents or gods got deflected and glossed over.

So they say I burned through a whole stack of tickets.

For example: Do any of the sponsors fall into the category of evil?

The answer came back: [Definitions of "evil" vary depending on the exact concept applied.]

So the next question I framed as: Among the sponsors, do any fall under the ordinary concept of evil as it exists on present-day Earth?

The reply: [That depends on which era's standards you use.] — more of the same garbage.

In other words, the conclusion was this: those beings were probably nothing more than the organizers, and as such, they couldn't directly disclose information about the ones sponsoring this whole circus.

Of course, it would be a different story if a sponsor chose to reveal it themselves.

Which meant Sun Wukong telling me to ask carried enormous significance for humanity as it stood.

"Then here is my question. Why is my territory larger than everyone else's?"

"What? Then… you're telling me we're guarding land that's supposed to be theirs to protect, in their place?"

"…No need. That's probably the right answer as it is."

I could feel Sun Wukong's delight radiating all the way from wherever he was.

"Omnissiah's been quiet."

"I could probably take on another sponsor, you know. Just having you alone — eh, that's not quite right either."

"Hard pass. I have no intention of accepting any sponsor you recommend."

After that, I traded idle banter with Sun Wukong for a while before heading back inside.

Repeating stage 30 over and over, the barricades at the front and the command room built atop them had all been born anew. The zones were properly laid out too, and it was fair to say I'd finished everything that could be done in the current situation.

"Maybe I'll try drinking a potion."

Gulp.

Gulp.

Fwoooosh.

"Whoa… insane…"

The moment the Recovery Potion went down, every trace of fatigue in my body simply melted away. The mental exhaustion lingered, but even so, my body felt light enough to fly.

Wasn't this the stuff of every office worker's dreams?

I stuffed my pockets with potions of genuinely extraordinary performance and climbed up to the command room. Staring at the gate, after all, was tiring work in its own right.

"Let's begin."

Kuooooooo—

This time, the gate spat out not one, not two, but three Tier-3 orcs.

The brutes emerged bearing tiger, ram, boar, and wolf tattoos spread evenly among them. The instant they appeared, they flared their fighting auras and activated their tattoos — and even so, they took the breath head-on and dropped where they stood.

"Hmm… that's overkill. Let's just clear the stages quickly instead."

And so, in the blink of an eye, I cleared stages 33, 34, 35, 36, 37, 38, and 39.

The reason I stopped at 38 was that the enemy had finally started multiplying.

"Figured this was the spot."

Since the Tier-3 orcs had appeared, no Tier-4s had shown up; instead, the count of Tier-3s crept up and the ordinary orcs began to surge. From there, the regular orc numbers kept climbing, and goblins started appearing again as well.

Stage 40 would most likely unleash a Tier-4 orc, so I parked myself here for the time being to mine coins.

"Let's hoard as many coins as we can. And then… what should I buy, I wonder…"

Coins beyond counting. With every coin earned, the ‍‍‌‌⁠​​⁠‌​​‍​​‍​‌​⁠‍‌‍⁠⁠‌⁠‌‍‌‍‌‌‌‍⁠​‌​‌​‌‍‌‌‌⁠‍​​‌‍⁠‌‌⁠⁠land kept expanding, and in step with it, the factories multiplied.

"Shall we build smart farms too?"

"Sounds great, Master!"

Construction on the smart farms began immediately. It wrapped up in a mere three days, and the first crops we started cultivating were survival staples — potatoes and sweet potatoes, grown as the core of ‍‍‌‌⁠​​⁠‌​​‍​​‍​‌​⁠‍‌‍⁠⁠‌⁠‌‍‌‍‌‌‌‍⁠​‌​‌​‌‍‌‌‌⁠‍​​‌‍⁠‌‌⁠⁠the operation.

"Hmm… though the lab-grown meat is still a bit much for me."

According to Pitasha, the future had seen all sorts of products developed to fill humanity's protein needs. Most of them became useless technology once the majority of people turned mechanical — but she said now might be just the right moment for them after all.

"Running ranches feels like a bit much, though… let's just stick with crops. We'll grow rice, and wheat while we're at it."

Call it the firm belief that human beings need their rice bowls, but I started rice cultivation too.

I amassed an endless sea of coins, and with them purchased a whole catalog of artifacts. Before long, I'd begun mass-producing the ones I liked and found genuinely useful — and at last, I could construct subspaces of truly enormous size.

That said, building subspaces devoured such staggering amounts of materials that my coins drained away in a rush. In the end, I created exactly ten — just enough to haul off everything stored here — and built no more.

"Repeat, repeat, repeat, repeat, repeat, repeat."

Chanting "repeat" on loop was exhausting.

Still, since the breath attacks left no corpses behind, I was having the Snipers and Raptors clean up the remainder. Combat time never exceeded ten minutes, so I was itching to summon a new Commander and hand the whole routine over.

Right as that thought crossed my mind, a message abruptly flashed into being.

"What the—? A Raid! Who's the enemy?!"

"…If you won't tell me the enemy, then I won't participate."

I floated the topic on the community, sly as you please, and apparently not a single soul had received a message like this.

Which meant participation in Raids was unlocked once you possessed force above a certain threshold. Raids were probably open to everyone across the globe who had crossed that line.

But was there anyone else equipped with force on my level?

Most likely, I was alone.

"Holy shit… that's a lot of them? No, wait, that's not the problem — what the hell does a 1st Platoon even do?"

"Pitasha! Know anything about the Spider Queen?"

"Uh, uh… no, Master. We never fought things like her."

"Tch… Sun Wukong! What do you think?"

"Got it. I accept."

At those words, light began to rise from my body. This time, the radiance burst all at once and my body vanished in an instant — it seemed to be in quite the hurry.

When the light faded, a devastated wasteland spread out before my eyes.

"…What is this place?"

Everything around me was ruins. The land hadn't yet turned red — but it looked like it soon would.

Still, there was one thing that struck me as strange…

"So many corpses…"

There were bodies everywhere — bodies that looked human. And perched atop those corpses sat spiders.

"Summon. All Machine Legion combat units."