That evening. The Lord's office.
I was lost in thought, twirling a fountain pen in my hand.
‘The recovery of the bodies and the reconstruction of the city... It's happening unbelievably fast.’
As the imminent destruction disappeared, people from all over the world, realizing the gravity of the frontline's work, volunteered in droves.
Thanks to this, we have an abundance of manpower, and it's expected to increase further. The scale of the volunteer army is also rapidly expanding.
‘But the elite forces gathered from various countries are virtually annihilated.’
Volunteers and workers will leave tomorrow morning to retrieve the bodies of those elite soldiers...
I steadied my aching heart and began to assess the current state of the frontline.
‘First, the troops.’
The 30,000-strong unit of elites from the World Guardian Front is annihilated. The airship fleet is similarly wiped out.
The only operational airship is 'La Mancha'. Even that needs significant repairs due to the strain from the 'Night Closing' operation.
‘If there's a silver lining, it's that the soldiers who were originally part of Crossroad are still here.’
Specialists in monster battles who have fought alongside in this hell since the first year. The main force of the Monster Front, who grew from a ragtag bunch of rookies to master monster hunters.
Additionally, the Everblack Empire infantry have also maintained their strength.
The allied units of other races have also maintained their strength, though they were never nurous to begin with.
Living under oppression in their autonomous regions, they couldn’t amass large forces. However, their quality of troops is high.
There are also several remaining units, and finally...
‘The volunteer army...’
The volunteer army began to integrate into Crossroad during the Autumn Festival.
Their numbers are quite large, and they've been undergoing solid training since then, but they're still unpolished. Especially against the current enemy, the Black Dragon, they couldn’t be deployed at the frontline.
‘Their morale is high...’
Can they really be deployed in battles against monsters? Even if they are, can they fight properly against the dreadful monsters of the late third year?
"..."
After organizing the remaining units and small units from various regions into docunts, I placed my pen on new papers to handle the next issue.
‘Next, the defense facilities.’
It’s awkward to say this myself, but Crossroad has beco very proficient in demolishing and rebuilding.
All sorts of facilities and collapsed structures within the city can be quickly restored.
The problem, as always...
‘The city walls.’
They were completely destroyed by the body slam and subsequent self-destruction of the King of Flies, and when we finally rebuilt them, they were torn apart again by the Night Bringer’s breath and darkness.
The southern wall has always had a hard ti.
‘We need to restore it.’
Yes, we need to, but...
‘How are we going to do this? Ugh.’
Structures like city walls naturally require years of construction ti.
During the last reconstruction, we were able to drastically shorten the construction period thanks to magical construction technology from the Lake Kingdom and wall parts airlifted from the Imperial Capital of New Terra,
But this ti, we can't rely on such luck.
‘The broken wall... the wrecked forward base...’
With my hand on my forehead, I let out a deep sigh.
‘There's really a lot of work to be done.’
No imdiate solution is in sight.
At least the wall parts brought from New Terra were assembled in a modular fashion, so the undamaged parts are still standing firm.
We’ll have to focus on restoring from there and devise so kind of strategy as we proceed.
City walls, forward bases, barracks, supply depots... After reviewing the list of damaged facilities and outlining a rough restoration plan,
I looked down at the next stack of docunts.
‘And lastly, the equipnt.’
The equipnt of the heroes fighting the nightmare monsters at the frontlines is even more crucial than ordinary military supplies.
And that vital equipnt...
‘Wow, this is insane.’
As I flipped through the docunts listing the damaged equipnt, my jaw dropped lower and lower. Damn, how much did we wear out?
Starting with my own equipnt.
[Great Commander’s Banner], lost.
"Ugh!"
I couldn't help but cough violently, hastily grabbing my coffee cup and drinking it like water.
"Hoo, hoo, hoo."
Calm down, calm down, calm down... Damn it! Damn it all! Arrgh!
‘You damn Black Dragon bastard! How dare you destroy my personal equipnt! Do you have any idea how much I went through to get that!’
I gathered the pieces that were split into five through gacha! If it weren't for the blessing of the SSR God, I wouldn't have been able to gather them all!
Rembering the days I painstakingly collected those flag pieces, tears welled up in my eyes. This is so damn unfair. Sigh.
Still, thanks to my fusion... or rging...? or jogress... with Super-Ash, I can still use most of the functions that were on the flag.
Though I'm still pissed off that my personal equipnt got destroyed.
‘Sigh, fine.’
At least so of the functions were preserved. Let's move on to the next equipnt.
‘[Lord of the High Tower], repairable. [Light and Shadow], repairable.’
The armor made from the King of Flies, [Lord of the High Tower], was almost reduced to dust, but since its concept is decomposition and recombination, it's fortunately repairable.
The flagpole made from White Night, [Light and Shadow]... I used it as bait, and this piece of equipnt managed to avoid severe damage by disassembling itself into a sheath and a ceremonial sword in a critical mont.
Its survival instinct is just like its original.
The rest of my equipnt was neatly stored in the inventory. That's so relief, at least.
‘Next, Evangeline...’
This is another big issue. I opened the equipnt damage report of our frontier margrave's heir.
‘The Cross Family's Spear, the Cross Family's Shield, destroyed...’
Oh my god, you bastard! My painstakingly upgraded, spirit-infused personal equipnt... I an, Evangeline's personal equipnt is...!
‘Damn Night Bringer, you bastard! Change your na right now to ‘Personal Equipnt Breaker’! You claim to destroy the world but only break personal equipnt! Die! Die again even though you're already dead!’
Grinding my teeth, I cursed vehently.
The only consolation is that according to Kellibey, although the exterior of the equipnt is destroyed, the core is intact, so there's a chance to salvage it...
"Sigh. Everyone went through hell."
Yeah, let's think positively. At least she's alive and only the equipnt is lost. Kellibey might perform so magic.
Evangeline's armor [Snow White] was also significantly damaged, but since it's a self-repairing magical armor, it's fortunately being repaired.
‘Next, the Nightmare Slayers.’
The [Slayer of the Full Moon] that was attached to Kuilan has been separated again. Kuilan himself has lost all the curses of the wolf and returned to being a normal human male character.
He says he's gained so sort of enlightennt and that his martial arts skills have improved...
‘It was really great to have double-layered equipnt...’
To be honest, his specs are downgraded now. The negative trait ‘Glass Body’ has returned. He no longer gets buffs and debuffs depending on the phases of the moon.
‘Instead, the [Slayer of the Full Moon] has been purified.’
This purified leather cloak now provides Kuilan with various significant buffs.
While wearing this equipnt, he's immune to all kinds of curses.
‘It seems to also consider ‘Glass Body’ as a curse, as long as he's wearing it, he's sturdy Kuilan. I'll have him wear it 24/7.’
‘...What about in the sumr?’
I don't care. I'll think about it after this winter.
Anyway, the purified [Slayer of the Full Moon] provides Kuilan with several buffs, mostly focused on speed.
Having lost the curse of the wolf, Kuilan’s durability has significantly decreased. His character concept seems to be shifting towards an evasive tank. I hope he can endure it.
‘Hang in there, Beast King.’
But all the wolf curses are gone. Does that an he's still a beastman? Considering the divine blessing still resides in him, it seems the tribal god still sees Kuilan as an avatar...
‘Whatever, next.’
Additionally, all the Nightmare Slayers in our possession have been ‘purified.’
Each equipnt user overca the darkness in their hearts with strong will and awakened.
Besides the equipnt made from the magic cores of Nightmare Legion commanders, various new equipnt forged from dragon hearts also underwent purification.
And with the ordeal overco, all their specs have dramatically improved.
Among them, Lucas's equipnt is particularly noteworthy.
‘Wait, [Excannibal] could be purified?’
The cursed sword [Excannibal] has transford into the holy sword [Excalibur].
If we examine the details closely, it's actually the opposite; it seems that the holy sword [Excalibur] had fallen and beco the cursed sword [Excannibal], and now it has regained its original form.
‘...That sword that used to tremble and beg for fresh food was a holy sword?’
The result was so unexpected that I was utterly bewildered.
Anyway, the holy sword [Excalibur], which has regained its original form, possesses incredible performance.
Its base specs are far superior to the [Bestowed Sword] that Lucas originally used. The attached special abilities are also at an insane level.
‘Looking at it this way, it wasn't all bad.’
As I reviewed the list of purified equipnt, I sighed. Objectively speaking, it’s a blessing in disguise; in terms of equipnt, we actually gained more.
‘More than anything, we obtained a lot.’
It’s not just the purified equipnt.
We defeated that damned... no, more than damned, the most wretched monster in history, the Black Dragon, so the rewards were also enormous.
First of all, we harvested a massive amount of materials from Night Bringer's corpse.
I didn't manage to get an intact corpse since I burned it all with the bombardnt of light at the end, but I still managed to gather a lot.
A dragon's entire body is made of top-grade equipnt materials.
A mountain of these materials is piled up right in front of the city. Scales, bones, horns, claws... all sorts of parts were swept into the forge.
Without exaggeration, it's enough to outfit all the soldiers on the frontline with weapons and armor. The equipnt of the entire frontline will be able to level up.
‘The materials to watch out for are, of course, the magic cores and the dragon heart.’
Night Bringer had a structure with the dragon heart, the core of the magic power, and another magic core assigned to each of its seven heads.
So, there should be one dragon heart and seven magic cores.
‘We got one dragon heart and eight magic cores.’
At first, I wondered why this was, but upon examining the recovered magic cores, I found the reason.
One magic core belonged to Scalian, who had been absorbed by Night Bringer at the last mont. Although his body was lost, the magic core wasn’t fully absorbed and thus remained.
I could tell because it had the mark of my flag, which had pierced Scalian’s heart.
"..."
What should I do with this?
Should I make equipnt out of it, or...
Pondering, I reviewed the rest of the list.
Besides the intact seven magic cores (actually, six auxiliary heads were eaten by Jörmungandr, so we recovered them from Jörmungandr's severed body).
And, similarly, the dragon heart with the mark of my flag.
‘As much as you destroyed our equipnt, you shall beco our equipnt, Night Bringer...’
Since the forge is extrely busy right now, I'll make the equipnt request when things settle down a bit.
I looked up at the pile of golden and white boxes stacked in a corner of the office.
These are the stage clear rewards. Besides the EX-grade boxes, I also obtained eight SSR boxes.
‘In the ga, I could barely get ten in one round...’
It seems I got close to twenty SSR boxes during this three-year campaign. Why is the ga being so generous? Did Aider pull so strings? Or...
‘Looking back, they did provide so weirdly complete set items... They are pretty generous with items.’
Despite the hellish difficulty of the ga, at least there's a minimal sense of fairness. Hmm.
Thinking this, I reached out to the boxes. I intended to open them all right here.
But then,
Thud-thud-thud-thud!
I heard soone running down the corridor, and
Bang!
The office door was flung open.
Startled, I looked towards the door. It was Lucas who burst in. Catching his breath, Lucas shouted.
"It's an ergency, my lord!"
"What? What's going on?!"
Lucas panicking like this? What on earth happened?
‘An enemy raid? Or internal strife? A construction site collapse? A defection of an allied nation? Which one?’
All sorts of thoughts flashed through my mind in an instant,
"Uh, Evangeline! Evangeline...!"
"Evangeline?!"
Hearing the na of our lee commander made even more flustered.
What about Evangeline? Is she hurt? Did she have an accident? Did she run away? Did she get PTSD and splash pink paint all over the construction site? Damn, which one is it?!
Then Lucas delivered the answer I never could have imagined.
"She got a confession of love-!"
"...?"
For a mont, I was so confused that I stood there blankly.
Then, without realizing it, I scread.
"Don't lie to -!"
--TL Notes--
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