chapter 147
147 – Chapter 45. Sandstorm – 2
– 148 –
“In the Holy Kingdom, this is the limit for the reinforcements right now.”
In the command barracks.
The commander of the Selmeier Expeditionary Force, who was examining the documents Ireana had handed him, nodded slowly.
“Still, you have prepared a lot in just a few days.”
“I can’t let Kanbal stand still. An oracle has come down to eliminate all misfortunes in Ireland and meet the enemy…….”
Ireana frowned and looked around her troupe.
The Holy Kingdom side is the commander, staff, and representative Ireana. The Selmeier side is also the commander, staff, and me.
In the command barracks, the heads of the two kingdoms gathered to help Kanbal’s resistance.
In terms of the importance of those including myself, it was not enough to lead each corps one by one, but the actual number of troops gathered was at most one division.
Even though they brought in excellent elite soldiers, I don’t think they will be able to defeat Kanbal’s Kingdom Army with this amount of force.
In the end, it was up to us to decide whether to send more troops over time, looking at the size of the resistance and the possibility of victory.
Even though Ireana received an oracle, she didn’t bring much of his troops, so she seemed to be paying attention.
I deliberately drew attention by coughing and then asked an appropriate question.
“Is there no response from the Kanbal Kingdom Army?”
“There was no military station permanently stationed in the northern desert of Kanbal, so there was no warning message. He doesn’t seem to react unless he crosses the border.”
“Where is the tangent to the resistance?”
“It’s near here, but a messenger or communication is supposed to come to the detailed contact point.”
“Well… …. If the resistance army is actually fake, and Kanbal and the demons are weaving and deceiving us, it’s worth watching. We would have trespassed on the border without a declaration of war, and we might be surrounded inside Kanbal.”
The temperature inside the barracks dropped by a few degrees at a sudden thought.
The commanders looking at the staff in charge of contact with the resistance with an anxious expression, Ireana restless, and Royman who distorts his expression by silently moving his mouth in the corner and saying, “What are you doing?”
“Ah, Erif-sama. Could it possibly be?”
One of the staff said with an unfair expression.
ttt. Soldiers these days are too honest.
During the Shinma War, huh?
It was also common for demons to steal and imitate friendly communications.
Well, the possibility that this was a trap was infinitely low.
I don’t think modern demons or Kanbal would use this method.
“I was half joking. But in the next communication, the Resistance will definitely have to tell them where they are or their course of action.”
At my words, the liaison staff swallowed dry saliva.
“To the extent they need us, we are not sorry. Information about demons? If you like, you can search the entire country to find the bases of hidden demons. In fact, I am still looking for it.”
It is absurd to come to help and be swayed by your opponent.
The staff nodded eagerly as if he had realized something.
“I see. We will make sure to deliver it.”
“Ummm. Erif-sama also has a lot of experience like this.”
When the commander of the Holy Kingdom patted his white beard and spoke, the commander of Selmeier smiled broadly.
“Heh heh. He will be the great enemy of our kingdom.”
I have no intention of ascending to such a burdensome position, but for the first time, I folded my arms and grabbed the weight.
Ireana gave her longing glances, she was elated for a moment, but Roy Mann’s unlucky look made her steamy.
“I won’t be able to take all the troops to the place where they meet the resistance, so just in case I have good mobility, a helicopter unit, and a paladin and a few warriors who are strong in person-to-person combat can go together.”
“Yes. We will select troops.”
After the meeting, the people moved in unison according to the commander’s instructions.
I didn’t directly take charge of the helicopter units, but instead followed them and was put in when a solo operation was needed.
The helicopter unit had many motives that they had worked with since the days of the military academy, so they could trust and entrust the operation.
I heard that there is no runway in the destination desert, so you have to take over air supremacy with a helicopter.
However, if you go beyond the desert and go to the southern steppe of Kanbal, there will be a city, and the Kanbal Kingdom Army, which is occupying there, is likely to have fighters and a runway.
It is normal for Kanbal, which is cut off from the outside world, to have almost no aviation power that has suddenly increased over the past few years, but the demons probably did their best.
So if you cross the desert, it will be difficult to seize the air supremacy.
At that time, you may have to attack the non-desert areas of Khanbal directly from the side of Canael or Selmeyer.
After thinking about various things, I arrived at an empty lot lined with helicopters.
There are three seraph types that are minor copies of my body.
Four types of drakes modeled after the helicopters of the warriors.
One Cherubim type, a reconnaissance and multi-purpose helicopter.
The transport helicopter was approaching the tropics.
If there are many, there are many, but less than half of the helicopters that participated in the Aitian Civil War.
“There are a lot of transport helicopters.”
“Yes. We are all attack helicopters, and military pilots will mainly be in charge of transport helicopters. Oh. We are soldiers now.”
“The desert requires a lot of transport helicopters because it is difficult to move troops or transport supplies.”
Friends who arrived here yesterday gave me some information.
Recalling that, even during the Aitian Civil War, the transport helicopter did a great job.
Helicopter pilots lined up in front of the vacant lot.
The comrades who were walking next to me ran quickly and lined up next to them.
I exchanged salutes with the elderly soldier in front.
“Win win! My name is Modrun, the commander of Opanim’s Alpha Team in the 1st Army. In this operation, he was given command of a transport helicopter unit.”
“Pilseung. This is Erif Cruel. Let’s do our best to finish this operation safely.”
“Yes!”
The transport helicopter units went to their respective helicopters after saluting.
The soldiers carrying supplies from behind looked at us for a moment, then picked up a heavy box and started loading it into the helicopter.
“Erif. When are you leaving?”
“We are going to meet the resistance in a little while. The advance squad will get on the helicopter little by little, so leave the back seat empty.”
“Rager.”
While the attack helicopter unit was preparing, I took out the main body and loaded the supplies.
I got on the helicopter and checked it with plenty of spare mana stones and combat rations for consumption, when someone knocked on the window in the back seat.
“Erif. Long time no see.”
When I opened the door, two paladins in white armor naturally sat in the back seat and started talking.
“Do you remember us? In the Aetian Civil War…….”
“Yes. Sure.”
When I heard the voice of the husky female paladin, I remembered defeating Earthworm together.
“It’s reassuring to be with you two.”
“We are fortunate to be able to work with the strongest person who will carry out the orders of the Holy Father and the Holy Father.”
Probably these two are the strongest under Ireana.
So last time and this time, you must have attached them to me.
The other helicopters were also loaded with soldiers, including paladins, one after another.
If this is enough, even if you encounter the demon army, you will be able to deal with it to some extent.
「Chiik- Ah, helicopter unit, please respond.」
“Yes. This is Erif Cruel.”
“Ah! Mr. Erif. An operator riding a cherub. The call sign is given a Sierra number, starting with Erif’s seraph. If you need operator or cherub type support, you can call ‘Sierra 0’.”
“Rager.”
Put on the seat belt and start the engine.
The main rotor of the helicopters rotated, creating a sandstorm in the vacant lot.
“Then we will take off from Sierra 1. Please follow the guidance to your destination.”
The coordinates of the destination were shared in the Cherubim, a reconnaissance helicopter.
It flew towards the blinking red dot on the map floating in the corner of the window.
When you think of a desert, it’s easy to think of a place with sand and sand dunes, where your feet are immersed.
However, there are few deserts made of pure sand than I thought, and the Kanbal Desert in the south-central part of the Irish continent also had a larger area of wasteland with cracks and rubble rolling than sand dunes.
It is very difficult to move by car or on foot, so naturally there is little traffic.
It was only natural for the resistance to be there.
It’s a difficult terrain for the Kingdom of Kanbal’s army to come to capture.
However, it was also said that the resistance did not exert much influence.
If you have at least a few cities or towns, wouldn’t it be a fight?
Besides, there were demons attached to the kingdom army, so it was a weight class that was not fightable in the first place.
If you find a base of demons while helping in moderation, you will contact your home country and think about just hitting it and leaving.
It would be better if we could extract information from the Resistance in the meantime.
The vast desert horizon was covered in whitish sandstorms.
There was no problem because the distance was far and the direction was horizontal, but exclamations came from communication for a while as everyone was overwhelmed by the size.
The sandstorm disappeared in the distance, and we continued on to the center of the desert.
While I was at the forefront and flying in a V-shape like a flock of geese, a call came from a reconnaissance helicopter.
“Propagated from Sierra 0. Confirmation of large-scale magical reaction in tangential place. It is scanning with reconnaissance magic, but the jamming is strong, so visual observation is required.」
“Something happened all of a sudden.”
“Let’s get ready, Sir Marcel.”
The paladins who were sitting in the back seat after hearing the communication began to pick up their weapons.
It’s clear what’s happened to the Resistance, so let’s speed up.
After turning on the communicator, he threw a word into the rather cluttered communication network.
“This is Sierra 1. This aircraft has observation equipment and is fast, so I will go and reconnaissance first.”
Permission was issued from the reconnaissance helicopter that communicated with the headquarters for a while.
「Sierra 1. Please check in advance. When an enemy is found, first priority is to ensure the safety of the resistance force, then hit the enemy and share the location.”
“Rager.”
As soon as the communication was over, I activated the Spirit Reinforcement and pushed the lever forward.
When the main body began to fly at a speed close to twice that of the flight, the Paladins swallowed the wind.
“It will take about 5 minutes to arrive, so please prepare yourself.”
“Oh, yes!”
“By the way, Erif-sama. You said you have an observation device, where is it?”
“[[Unification]]”
The helicopter’s speed slowed slightly and a silver helmet appeared on my head.
Looking at the paladins who were startled by the sudden change through the rearview mirror, they smiled slightly.
“It’s the same part as the wing I gave you last time.”
“Ah.”
The Paladins who had tried a helibon with their wings and drones nodded their heads and pretended to know.
“This seems to be Erif-sama’s special armament.”
“I can say that.”
Slowly I was near my destination, so I lowered the visor and looked around, and I saw an intense magical flow.
The subordinate spirit in the helmet marked its location on the front window, and immediately the location was shared by all helicopter units.
When I raised the visor and approached it, I saw an old off-road vehicle running with a cloud of sand blowing.
After that, an unidentified group was chasing after them, generating tens or hundreds of times more dust.
“These are magical beasts!”
The paladin with good eyes shouted, and I immediately prepared an armament.
“A large amount of magical beasts have been discovered! The target is being pursued. Elimination of threat agents will be a priority.”
Spread-type Hellfire became rain of flames and fell on the desert.
The group of Beasts was hit by Hellfire in the center and split on both sides, but the speed of pursuit was still there.
“It is getting caught up.”
You have to deal with the ones closest to you, but if the attack is too big, the resistance army’s vehicle may be involved.
We were flying side by side next to a resistance vehicle.
Beasts that look like hairless wolves looked at this and barked like crazy.
The paladins gripped their swords with the momentum to jump off the car.
“[[Unify]], [[Attribute change]]”
I handed the summoned gauntlet to the paladin near the window where the beasts were, keeping the speed similar to that of a vehicle.
“Erif, what is this?”
“Wait a minute. ‘Minigun’.”
Green energy gathered in the gauntlet, and a long machine gun appeared.
“Wow!”
The paladin was a little embarrassed, but with the help of the spirit in charge of arming, he opened the window and mounted his machine gun.
“Shoot!”
Drink-
The paladin fired a magic bullet towards the beast, which was almost clinging to the vehicle.
Dozens or hundreds of magic bullets turned the beasts into honeycombs.
The leader was defeated, but the beasts that followed came up by trampling on the fallen ones.
“There will be no end to this. Please keep shooting.”
“Yes.”
The paladin continued to pull the trigger, and I slowly drove the body into the top of the group of beasts.
I lowered my nose, put my finger on the chaingun lever and carefully pulled it.
Tutututu-
With a sound heavier than the minigun, the beasts in front exploded.
After shooting for a long time, the demonic beasts began to scatter.
The beasts that had gathered from the rear were attacked by the attack helicopters that followed, and were completely scattered and annihilated.
The stopped vehicle did not look like the Kingdom Army or the Regular Army.
They, who were riding in a four-wheel-drive vehicle with large wheels and a camouflage color resembling soil and sand, that are good for activities in the desert, opened the door slowly and got off, perhaps frightened by the helicopters that landed in all directions.
Boys and girls, who look quite young, looked around with anxious expressions, and when they saw me, they somehow looked relieved.
The tall young man got out of the driver’s seat, hid them behind his back, and put his hand around his waist.
I don’t think you’ll be able to fight us with old-fashioned long guns and long swords, but…….
The staff in charge of contacting the Resistance got off the helicopter and started talking to them.
I secretly put on the interpreter bracelet I brought and activated it.
“#%@ Resistance @#?”
“%! There is an oasis @#$.”
It was not properly translated because it was a local dialect among Kanbal’s words.
As a result of guessing based on the rare words, it seemed that the Resistance was living in a village in a hidden oasis.
“They say you have to follow them. However, there is a trace, so we will go back a little bit.”
“I see. We’re leaving right away.”
We flew for almost half a day and managed to reach the resistance village.