The Archmage’s Destruction Strategy - Chapter 137

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This chapter was translated by Lunox Novels. To support us and help keep this series going, visit our website: LunoxScans.com
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#137. Departure Ceremony

It took me precisely a week to complete all the refitting work after joining forces with Hive Hornet alongside Barden.
Even with Barden’s unique authority—the power to conjure massive fortress walls in an instant—the sheer volume of modifications necessary for the advance into the Eastern Region demanded that much time.
The silver lining was that after our devastating defeat against a coordinated assault of ten Level 8 Corrosion Entities, not a single creature attacked during that entire week of refitting, as if our enemies lacked the capacity to strike.
As though they too were stretched thin.
Thanks to this reprieve, General MacFarlane’s Western Defense Force had sufficient time to conduct funeral rites for their fallen and recover from the exhaustion of battle.

“We’ve heard from the soldiers that you intend to advance directly on New York and engage the enemy. General, we apologize, but we must depart.”

Where there were the dead, there were also the departing.
Families who had lost husbands and children in the previous battle declared their intention to return to their home communities, fear of the coming conflict overwhelming them.
As General MacFarlane watched the survivors prepare to leave, he desperately tried to convince them that hiding would only delay the inevitable hunt, but those who had resolved to depart would not be swayed.

“I will stay. But I ask that you give me the chance to fight. I want to avenge my father.”

Where there were those departing, there were also those willing to fight alongside us.
Volunteers—mostly young men who had lost their fathers in the recent battle—witnessed the endless stream of Steel Golems pouring from the automated factories within Hive Hornet and volunteered to become pilots themselves.
General MacFarlane ensured each volunteer received a Steel Golem suited to their preferences, and these newly recruited pilots devoted every moment outside of sleep and meals to intensive training in the cockpits, desperate to master the controls as quickly as possible.
Observing the entire process through a magical projection, I decided to undertake one additional task for those who wished to remain.

“I will construct a large-scale camp for those who choose to stay.”

At my announcement, Barden—who had been dozing in the corner—snapped his eyes open and stared at me.
Though sleep held no necessity for an undead like him, the murderous schedule of refitting work I had demanded was grueling enough that even Barden, possessing the unique authority to accelerate construction, felt mental fatigue.
Adding yet another task while he was already laboring like a slave was more than enough to provoke his anger.

“Are you in your right mind? No, scratch that—from what I’ve seen, you’ve never been in your right mind. Let me rephrase: when exactly do you plan to regain your senses?”
“Your words are rather short.”
“Damn it. I’m already doing everything I can. And now you want me to build houses for cowards who won’t even fight? I can’t. I absolutely cannot. You might as well kill me!”

Barden’s objection wasn’t truly about the burden of constructing the survivor camp itself, but rather that any available effort should be allocated to tasks benefiting those actually participating in combat.
So I explained to him why building the survivor camp was actually advantageous.

“Listen carefully. Right now, there are thousands of non-combatant personnel permanently stationed within Hive Hornet. Most of them are families of those actually participating in combat. When General MacFarlane was persuading survivors scattered throughout the Western Region, he couldn’t have assembled so many without guaranteeing their families’ safety.”
“That’s likely true.”
“Originally, until the previous battle, the relationship between them and the Western Defense Force was a form of mutual cooperation. In exchange for the survivor families providing some of their members as combat strength to Hive Hornet, we guaranteed the safety of family members not participating in the fighting.”

However, once the combat personnel Hive Hornet had provided fell in battle, the organization’s obligation narrowed to merely ensuring the safety of their surviving families.
Of course, such a burden could be shouldered as a matter of respect for the fallen, but the real problem was that the remaining families didn’t want it.
In their eyes, the Eastern Region that Sung-jun and the Western Defense Force intended to march toward was a hellish place from which no one could return alive, regardless of who went.

“But now the enemy numbers have dwindled so drastically that they can’t even attack while we’re openly regrouping here. Moreover, once we begin our advance eastward again, even the remaining Corrosion Entities will converge entirely to stop us. Which means….”
“Since we’ll be drawing all the enemies toward us, those who remain behind will be safer, correct?”
“Exactly. So there’s no need to construct excessively powerful defensive installations at the Survivor Camp.”

The Survivor Camp design I proposed took the form of a massive fortress surrounded by fortress walls.
Rather than being encircled by mana-infused alloy strong enough to withstand high-level Corrosion Entity attacks, it was instead surrounded by organic fortress walls that actively utilized the corpses of Corrosion Entities obtained from previous battles.

“Fortunately, since the enemy’s main forces consist of insectoid Corrosion Entities, we won’t face material shortages. Even smaller Corrosion Entities possess hard exoskeletons, so we can simply strip those and attach them to the outer surface. We’ll use earth as the base material, embed the Corrosion Entity muscles within the walls as reinforcement instead of rebar, and attach the stripped exoskeletons to the outer surface like armor.”

The only concern was the risk of the materials stripped from Corrosion Entities decomposing, but once I agreed to handle that aspect through magic, the Survivor Camp installation plan gained momentum.
From Barden’s perspective, it was work without significant burden, and the ability to reduce the number of non-combat personnel who contributed nothing to the fighting could serve as a major advantage in the coming battle.
Thus, the construction of the survivor fortress utilizing the mountainous piles of Corrosion Entity materials was completed rapidly in just one hour.
The completed fortress walls were impressively finished, complete with massive farmland for self-sufficiency during prolonged sieges, reservoirs, and wells for drinking water supply.
Once the fortress for survivors who wished to remain was completed, as I had anticipated, most of the non-combat personnel in Hive Hornet decided to stay behind in the fortress.
The survivor fortress that Barden completed possessed such a sturdy appearance that it seemed impossible it had been finished in just one hour, and defensive turrets for repelling approaching Corrosion Entities were installed throughout the fortress walls.
As the majority of civilians who had joined Hive Hornet relocated to the fortress, additional free space opened up within Hive Hornet, and I allocated those spaces as rest areas for combat personnel.

“Now we can finally focus entirely on our role as an airborne carrier.”

Once General MacFarlane confirmed that all renovation work was complete, he suggested to me that we hold a departure ceremony.
The General proposed that since many families had newly joined the Western Defense Force seeking vengeance for their loved ones, or had chosen to remain in the fortress with family members already there, it would be appropriate to give people time to say farewell to their families before departing eastward. I readily accepted the General’s suggestion.
Had the General not proposed it, I would have suggested it myself.
The departure ceremony that began proceeded, following my suggestion, not as a formal ceremony but rather as a festival-like atmosphere accompanied by alcohol and food.

“Our official departure is at noon tomorrow, so today let us eat, drink, and celebrate freely. Let us pray that in the battles to come, we will defeat the Apocalypse-class Corrosion Entity and reclaim the peaceful and prosperous lives of our past.”

At that moment, General MacFarlane, holding a cup, raised it toward me and shouted loudly.

“To humanity’s future!”

Then all the humans participating in the departure ceremony simultaneously raised their cups and echoed General MacFarlane’s toast.

“To humanity’s future!”

Some held wine glasses, others held cups filled with beverages, but whether they had chosen to stay or decided to fight alongside the others, in this moment everyone prayed with the same heart.
They prayed that after this battle ended, the abundant life they had once enjoyed would return to them.
And that never again would there come nights when they could not sleep, trembling in fear of Monster attacks.
Just as the massive campfire that Sung-jun had conjured with magic burned brilliantly through the darkness of night, they prayed that the courage of the heroes marching toward the battlefield with their lives on the line would send those terrible Monsters to hell.
As everyone’s hopes and expectations blazed magnificently alongside the flames, the night of the departure ceremony was slowly drawing to a close.

***

“Ugh, I think I drank too much….”

Captain Cooper, suffering from a tremendous hangover thanks to Soldiers who offered him drinks every time they saw him, stumbled zombie-like between Soldiers collapsed on the ground.
Then Sung-jun’s phantom, who had approached his side at some point, spoke to Captain Cooper.

“Would you like me to cast a hangover-removal spell for you?”
“No need. Why would I waste good alcohol like that?”

Before D-day, it might have been different, but now that alcohol itself was precious, even the pain of a hangover was one of those sensations he missed, so Captain Cooper declined Sung-jun’s offer.
Yesterday too, he had forcibly swallowed back the alcohol that had risen to his throat, simply because it seemed wasteful.
The events from last night surfaced in Captain Cooper’s mind.
After witnessing a Soldier who had drunk excessively vomit up everything he had consumed, the other Soldiers rushed toward him, shouting “What are you doing wasting good alcohol!” and playfully kicked him.
Incidentally, Captain Cooper himself was among the group of Soldiers laughing and kicking the vomiting Soldier.

‘It’s been a while since I had that much fun.’

Sung-jun had once said that if they could eliminate the Corrosion Entity that had appeared on the American Continent, it would become possible to install the dimensional gates connecting to China and Japan that Sung-jun had prepared in advance.
Sung-jun’s plan was to first prioritize eliminating the Corrosion Entity that was blocking ultra-long-distance dimensional travel, then open the dimensional gates to summon the Awakened from Cheonmugwan, China and the Japan Conquest Union to clean up the remaining Corrosion Entities.

‘China, huh….’

Before D-day, China had been one of the U.S. Military’s primary adversaries, but Captain Cooper wasn’t particularly worried about that point.
The Steel Golems that Sung-jun had created were powerful enough to easily defeat even the top-tier Awakened of Cheonmugwan as of before D-day.
Now that there were thousands upon thousands of such Steel Golems, Captain Cooper judged that even if China betrayed them, suppressing the Chinese military would not be difficult.
Moreover, if the Chinese side possessed something called reason, they would not choose to betray their fellow humans during this time when humanity’s very survival was at stake.
However, all of that was merely something to consider after eliminating the Corrosion Entity awaiting them in New York.
If the Corrosion Entity that had appeared on the American Continent proved too powerful to be defeated even by the thousands of Steel Golems here and the newly awakened Atlas, then thoughts of Chinese Government betrayal would be nothing but a fantasy that would never come to pass.
The Captain, watching the Soldiers staggering from their hangovers, turned his gaze toward the Steel Golems arrayed in orderly formation.
Before meeting the man called Sung-jun, he could never have imagined that such military strength would be added to the U.S. Military—these knights of steel.
All that remained now was to ride atop this magnificent steel giant alongside the Soldiers stumbling about like zombies and sweep away the enemies.

“Come on! Wake up already! We need to sweep out those bug bastards as soon as possible and raise a toast to victory!”

Of course, there was no guarantee that Sung-jun had any other alcohol besides the enormous quantity he’d provided yesterday.
Rumor had it that he’d even thrown drinking parties while traveling aboard Atlas.
Yet Captain Cooper held firm to his baseless assumption that Sung-jun would somehow procure more alcohol and ensure they could toast their victory.
The Sung-jun he knew was humanity’s strongest Mage—a man who turned the impossible into reality.

‘Well, if we don’t have any, he’ll probably just conjure some with magic.’

Captain Cooper, who had come to regard Sung-jun as something like a wish-granting Fairy from a lamp, moved to wake the remaining Soldiers.
As he roused them, he posed the very same question Sung-jun had asked him.

“You look rough. Should I ask Sung-jun to cast a hangover cure spell for you?”
“No thanks. Why waste good alcohol on something like that?”

Watching the Soldiers give the exact same answer he had given, a satisfied smile blossomed across Captain Cooper’s face.

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This chapter was translated by Lunox Novels. To support us and help keep this series going, visit our website: LunoxScans.com
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