Chapter 6 - Destined for the Spotlight (3)
Chapter 6 - Destined for the Spotlight (3)
"It's the Swarm!"
Amidst the blaring alarms ringing from all directions.
Leon shouted while running toward the [Dormitory].
The Swarm is one of the three major factions constituting the Demon World and one of the Player's primary antagonists.
Their appearance and characteristics are...
"Ugh?!"
With a deafening roar, something large dropped down in front of the running Leon.
A biological pod made of sticky mucus, writhing flesh, and an exoskeleton.
What crawled out from inside was a monster that looked like a human upper body grafted onto the torso of a giant praying mantis.
"---!"
The Swarm's mass-produced ground unit, the Xenomorph.
The moment the large hooked claw on its chest swung toward him, Leon reflexively kicked off the ground, creating distance and dodging it.
'Their exoskeletons are so tough that attacks don't work well unless you aim for their weak points. That's why I usually dealt with them using high-accuracy ranged units.'
Just before the enemy, letting out a horrific screech, could swing its hooked claw and lunge again.
Recalling how he used to take down this monster back in his Player days, he straightened his kneeling knee and drew up his magic power.
'The lore says its exoskeleton also has high magic resistance. That's why mages specialized in area-of-effect attacks are naturally a bad match. But with the 「Dead Eye」 trait, plus the Thunderbolt Spear magic specialized for single-point attacks... This versatility is the very reason I chose magic in the first place.'
In a fleeting moment of just a few seconds.
Catching his breath, Leon calmly cast the one spell he had been steadily increasing his proficiency in.
Thanks to his trait, the magic, completed much faster than a typical mage's, erupted from his hand.
Unlike other spells, the Thunderbolt Spear is a combat spell that fires a spear made of a single bolt of lightning, concentrating all power into a narrow point.
"---!!!!"
The human upper body, hanging pale like a corpse and screeching, is not the Xenomorph's weak point.
The Thunderbolt Spear Leon fired flew accurately and embedded itself into the large, split-open eyeball located on the chest where the Xenomorph's hooked claws were attached.
Struck in its weak point, the monster staggered with a horrific scream, then collapsed to the floor with a thud, spewing bodily fluids from holes all over its body.
"..."
First magic, first real battle, first victory.
Leon bit his lip, feeling his own heart pounding wildly.
There was no time to celebrate.
I dealt with one Xenomorph on the way, but the [Dormitory] I entered by breaking the nearest first-floor window was already in chaos.
Because that one Xenomorph wasn't the only monster to pop out of the biological pods that had separated from the mother ship in the sky and fallen.
Screams were rampant everywhere.
Dozens, hundreds of monsters resembling giant ants or spiders, the size of large dogs, had burst out like a ruptured egg sac and swarmed the [Dormitory].
"Le, Leon...!"
I ran up to my room, and Hermann was trembling in terror.
"I already saw five pods fall around here on my way. I took care of one, but the ones that popped out of the remaining pods are going to swarm this place."
First, I grabbed my sword.
A large single-edged longsword that I had kept well-maintained and hung on the rack.
Magic is reliable, but I still need my sword to fight at full power right now.
"The entire [Eisenblut] is already under air raid. It's hard for the training battalion troops to protect us. You have to protect yourself."
I pointed to his weapon, the bow and arrows.
Hermann reflexively grabbed them, but his body was still shaking.
"Those monsters attacking us right now are Zeromorphs. They're monsters that push in using their numbers as a weapon, and they have a weak poison, so you'll get poisoned if you're bitten or stung by their fangs or stingers."
"You know your stuff."
"Eek!?"
Even though he was on the verge of panic, Hermann recited the enemy information written in the book without missing a single syllable.
He had more extensive knowledge about the Swarm than I thought.
I chuckled as I knocked a Zeromorph that had crawled up to the window back down, along with the window itself, using my scabbard.
"We'll hold out using the [Dormitory] as our base. Follow me."
It's time for choice and focus.
[Eisenblut], which is just lumped into a single building image in the game, is actually a place as big as a decent-sized university, composed of numerous huge buildings and facilities.
The Swarm, dropped by the mother ship from the sky, has attacked the entire area.
It was impossible to protect every place in this situation.
"Other places might be able to fight alongside the training battalion troops and cadets, but the freshman [Dormitory] we're in is the most remote. It'll take time for the training battalion troops to get here."
The hallway and building interior I stepped out into with Hermann were still in chaos.
With my sword drawn in one motion, I struck the neck of a Zeromorph that had broken through the window and intruded.
The Zeromorph is the weakest unit among the Swarm's units.
The kind of mob you can beat 1-on-1 even if you put your lowest-tier unit on auto.
In other words, it means that the personnel selected to be here at [Eisenblut] can handle them sufficiently.
"Get a grip, everyone!"
After slicing open the monster that was about to pounce on a female trainee who had fallen to the floor and was screaming while crying, and kicking it away, I took a deep breath and shouted with all my might.
It was enough to make the hallway, which was a mess of screaming people and monsters, go quiet for a moment.
"Multiple Swarm pods have already landed in this area, and the ones that woke up from the western pods are crawling up the windows right now. We can hold out for now just by blocking the windows. Don't try to run, hold out from inside. If you try to run, you'll get caught by the ones that have already surrounded this place."
While everyone was paying attention to me, I commanded them as best I could in the rush.
There wasn't much time.
Because Zeromorphs were continuing to crawl up even at this very moment, I threw myself into action and sliced the monsters to death as soon as I finished speaking.
"The vanguard will push back the ones that have already crawled in. Those with ranged attack capabilities, leave the perimeter to the vanguard and fire your firepower out the windows!"
Whether it was manipulating units with that crappy control feel where they'd only understand a few seconds after a click, or commanding my dazed peers with words, it was similarly infuriating.
Still, fortunately, it didn't take long for the trainees to join forces and succeed in pushing back or killing the Zeromorphs that had infiltrated.
As those using bows, guns, and magic stuck to the windows and used the building as a defensive wall to create a kill zone, the crawling Zeromorphs now started bursting and dying one by one in the open field outside.
"Wh, where are you going?!"
"Downstairs. Need to block the entrance."
I had only solved one of the many problems scattered around.
Without a moment's rest, I headed to another place.
"The dorm supervisor was injured and lying down. Then, is this being led by the instructor cadets?"
Just like the other floors where Zeromorphs were crawling up, the first floor was also in an emergency.
The only upside was that those fighting on the first floor had voluntarily come out and were fighting to protect this place.
At the center of that organization were those wearing armbands.
They were the 1279th class instructor cadets, including Rosaria and Seira.
'They fight well.'
As expected of a group composed only of the elite, they fought better than the other trainees.
Rosaria's martial prowess, handling the reliable vanguard and sending the rushing Zeromorphs flying like baseballs as she swung her large spear, was particularly outstanding among them.
I sheathed my sword.
It seemed better to support with firepower and wipe them out with magic here than to run around wielding a sword.
"You..."
"Leon!"
Rosaria's eyes widened as I appeared along with Fire Blast, an area-of-effect spell that wiped out multiple enemies with hot flames.
Seira, who was also supporting allies using magic, looked happy to see me.
"What happened to the upper floors?!"
"It almost collapsed, but it's holding up properly now."
Rosaria asked about the upper floors with an urgent face.
Does she think she needs to protect that place too?
I thought she was only ambitious for success, but she has a considerable sense of responsibility, more than I thought.
"As soon as the incident broke out, I grabbed my weapon and came down to the first floor. I thought I had to block the enemies from entering, and if necessary, stop other peers from panicking and trying to escape."
"...That's a good idea. Through the assault, an unknown number of them have already spread everywhere. If you try to run away half-heartedly, you'll just be hunted down one by one."
When I was going up to get my weapon, they had already grabbed their weapons and were coming down. Even though they're still green, their judgment is excellent and their decisiveness is good.
I wonder if things would have been different if I had units like this in my past.
"If we hold out using the [Dormitory] building as a fortress like this, reinforcements will soon..."
"Rosaria! Look over there!"
However, the raid event of the highest difficulty level doesn't end with just this much.
Before we could even catch our breath.
With someone's scream-like shout, our heads turned toward the entrance.
"Xenomorph...!"
Five hideous monsters, easily over 2m tall, are looking exactly at us and approaching, stepping forward on their slender legs.
Even though they are approaching slowly, the bizarreness and murderous intent they exude feel like they are dominating the area.
I glanced at the surroundings, crushed by that aura, and drew my sword with a small sigh.
"Da, dangerous! The Xenomorph is a monster classified as mid-tier or higher among the Swarm's ground forces. On top of that, its unique exoskeleton and magic resistance. At our level, even if we all attack together, it'll be hard to handle even one. But five of them..."
As I tried to step forward, Hermann grabbed my arm firmly.
It seems this guy really is a Swarm nerd.
"That would be true if we just fought blindly."
I smiled bitterly, let go of Hermann's hand, and continued to walk forward.
Naturally, the gazes of everyone who had been terrified were fixed on my back.
"I'll take one. The rest of the vanguard, in groups of three, take the remaining three."
I turned to them and organized the groups. Pointing fingers at some because I couldn't remember their names.
"The rear guard, in groups of four, will distract them, and the snipers confident in their accuracy will snipe the eye on their chests."
The numbers are different, but the formation itself is the standard strategy for dealing with Xenomorphs.
If they just execute it like this, in the game, they would be able to catch them without much trouble.
"Can you do it?"
The problem is whether these 'living, breathing' greenhorns in front of me can actually pull it off. I saw them flinch for a moment as they met my gaze.