Chapter 260: 260 Gold Coins

“Next! Fire!”

In accordance with the command, arrows poured down beneath the wall.

Monsters climbing the walls and attacking the gates fell, but others immediately filled their places.

The battle, which had begun at sunrise, continued past noon.

Knocking down monsters scaling the walls, dealing with those battering the gates.

Though the battle had raged for hours, the monster horde did not seem to have thinned out in the slightest.

“Unit 2, rotate!”

Soldiers who had exhausted their arrows stepped back, and the next unit waiting on standby immediately took their positions.

There was no need to even aim. Every spot outside the wall was so densely packed with monsters that no matter where an arrow flew, it was bound to hit something.

A soldier atop the watchtower could look down upon the entire scene.

From his high vantage point, the soldier saw far more waves of monsters than what the common soldiers could perceive.

Observing the sheer number of monsters, the soldier hurriedly raised a flag.

As the soldier on the tower signaled toward the ground, an adjutant spotted it and tapped Rebecca on the shoulder.

“Lookout signal! Forward at 2 o’clock!”

It was a signal announcing the appearance of a monster capable of dealing significant damage to the walls and defensive lines.

Turning her head, Rebecca scanned the area outside the wall and soon located the target approaching through the monster horde.

…A Minotaur!

Amidst the countless varieties of monsters, one particularly massive frame was poking its head out.

Having confirmed the monster’s location, Rebecca shouted toward the inner wall.

“Unit 3! Chloe!”

A waiting mercenary captain turned her head at Rebecca’s call.

Rebecca pointed outside the wall with a hand gesture.

“Take out the 2 o’clock target!”

Nodding, the captain led a few mercenaries up onto the wall.

The scene was chaotic, with battles breaking out everywhere against monsters that had scrambled up the walls.

Finding a clear space amidst the fray, the mercenaries took their positions and surveyed the area outside.

The mercenary captain, soon finding the target Rebecca mentioned, pointed out a few nearby mercenaries and soldiers.

“Cover for the sniper!”

One mercenary who had come up with her pulled out a massive bow he had been carrying on his back.

Receiving the signal, the mercenaries and soldiers raised their shields, surrounding the archer on the wall.

The archer carefully drew his bow from between the shields protecting him.

The Minotaur approached the wall.

The tip of the arrow was aimed toward the target, which looked small in the distance.

“….”

The [Eagle’s Eye] trait precisely identified the weakness that could neutralize the Minotaur, which still appeared as small as a dot.

The arrow nocked on the string was slowly pulled back.

[Steady Aim] kept his sight fixed accurately on the target without wavering, even in the chaotic situation.

[Snipe], [Expose Weakness], [Precision], [Projectile Augmentation].

As numerous subsequent traits resonated, they drew lethal power into the tip of the arrow.

The clamor of the noisy battlefield gradually grew quieter.

In the heavy, sunken silence, only his heartbeat echoed, and soon, even that sound gradually faded away.

When all sound vanished and a moment arrived as if the world had stopped.

His fingers released the arrow.

And then, a flash.

The fired arrow left a long, straight trajectory from the wall to the target, letting out an explosive sonic boom.

The arrow pierced accurately into the Minotaur’s knee amidst the monster horde.

Struck, the Minotaur stumbled, lost its balance, and fell to its knees with a thud.

No matter how powerful a monster was, once it became immobile, it was nothing more than an obstacle blocking the path.

The Minotaur was pushed over by the monsters swarming behind it and was soon swallowed up by the wave of creatures.

Chloe, watching the scene, turned to Rebecca and shouted.

“Target neutralized!”

But Rebecca, hearing the report, instead barked back at Chloe.

“What do you mean ’neutralized’? Just kill it, it’s an eyesore!”

“I’m running low on arrows!”

“I told you guys to prepare plenty of arrows!”

“Do you know how much a single one of these costs? Say that after you give us a bigger down payment!”

Before their bickering could even end, the adjutant tapped Rebecca’s shoulder again.

“Lookout!”

Scowling, Rebecca turned her head back toward the signal from the sentry.

“Gargoyle swarm at 10 o’clock!”

Above the monster horde, Rebecca spotted small shapes flying toward the city.

They were the flying ones that always made defense a nuisance.

Most of the time, the damage caused by monsters infiltrating the city interior was due to these aerial types.

“Unit 2, follow me! Bring them down before they cross the wall!”

Rebecca immediately led a group of mercenaries and sprinted along the top of the wall.

***

The Mercenary Guild command post, established near the front lines.

At the command post that directly controlled the battle from the foremost front, messengers arrived incessantly from all directions, and information from all front lines continued to pour in.

Numerous staff members received and organized the information from the messengers, sending up only briefly summarized contents, yet…

Information continued to stack up to the point where the command table lacked space.

“Rock Turtle sighted in the East. Unit 6 has been deployed.”

“Gargoyle swarm in the North has been dealt with.”

Organizing the numerous reports coming to him and grasping the situation of the front lines, Kael, the Vice Guild Master of the Mercenary Guild, suddenly felt something was off.

While a mountain of information was flooding in, there was one area from which there was suspiciously no news at all.

“What about the underground sewers?”

At Kael’s question, one of the staff members searched for and checked the reports for the underground sewer area.

According to the messenger’s first situational report after the invasion began, the scale of the slimes was about double that of last year.

Ian, who was in charge there, was facing his first invasion, and the defensive forces had been reduced compared to before, so it wouldn’t have been strange if a problem had arisen.

The staff member soon checked the most recent report from the underground sewers.

“According to the person in charge, things are proceeding smoothly without issues.”

“….”

Proceeding smoothly, huh.

In this kind of situation, everyone is busy just sending urgent reports, so reports from the underground sewers saying there are no problems would naturally be pushed to a lower priority.

Kael’s expression hardened as he fell into a brief contemplation.

If it went well… that’s a relief.

But hiding a bad battle situation to cover up a blunder and trying to fix it alone was a typical mistake commanders made. Especially a novice commander.

“Where is Chris’s unit?”

“They’ve finished clearing the East sector and are back at the center on standby.”

“Can we afford to pull out one response unit?”

“The offensive is waning, so it should be fine.”

“…Send Chris over there.”

He just hoped it wasn’t a situation where they had to seal off the underground sewers.

With that hope in mind, Kael sent a new order to Chris.

***

In the underground sewers, flames were flowing instead of water.

The seemingly endless wave of slimes also began to lose momentum as it passed through concentrated firepower zones several times.

Rin, from within the outpost, watched the swarm of slimes pushing through the flames.

The slime horde, having continuously passed through the trap zones, was clearly weakened compared to the beginning.

The slimes, diminished in number, failed to break through the wooden barricades they had easily swept away before and were blocked in front of them.

Rin watched without lowering her guard to prepare for the next response, but the slimes ultimately failed to pass the barrier and melted away, engulfed by the flames on the floor.

Only then did Rin relax and take a deep breath, turning her gaze toward the soldier beside her.

The soldier made eye contact with Rin, nodded, and stood up in the outpost, clutching the document he had just written.

Outpost E-7, defense successful.

Enemy’s 3rd wave eliminated.

The soldier ran toward command to relay that information.

Since one couldn’t grasp the battle situation directly by sight in the underground sewers, they had to constantly move in pairs with soldiers and send messengers to relay news one by one.

The momentum of the slimes, which felt like they would pour in forever, was gradually receding.

That initial wave-like offensive was nowhere to be found, and it seemed safe to say the slimes’ attack had completely lost its strength.

Phew…

Intuiting that the Monster Wave was finally coming to an end, Rin let out a sigh.

With a weary face, she waited for the next offensive to arrive.

Not long after, a messenger ran toward Tanya, who was waiting at a rear strongpoint near Rin.

The messenger delivered the order he had just received to Tanya.

“Orders from command. Support Outpost E-7 with supplies and then join the defense.”

“….”

Tanya nodded with a stiff face.

This was news that the defensive operation was successfully concluding…

And it was also the signal previously agreed upon with Ian.

…Is it now?

Having sent the messenger back, Tanya approached the crates stacked at the reserve strongpoint.

On one side, just as Ian had said, a few crates marked with red were stacked in the corner.

Tanya picked up one of those crates, scanned her surroundings, and then carefully began to walk.

During the training period, Tanya had taken extra time to memorize the route for this secret mission she couldn’t tell anyone about.

Tanya was stationed near the hidden underground laboratory they had found previously.

It was a place she could reach quickly by slipping slightly outside the operational zone.

Carrying the crate and checking the perimeter, Tanya slipped into a side path.

“Phew…”

Carefully opening the door to the secret room, she moved the crates one by one.

Setting down the third crate she had just brought inside, Tanya belatedly noticed someone standing at the entrance of the secret room’s passage, watching her.

“….”

A one-eyed mercenary wearing an eyepatch.

It was Chris, who had come down to the entrance of the non-combat zone alone to check the situation of the underground sewers and happened to discover this location by chance.

Chris’s sharp gaze swept over Tanya.

…Was she the rookie from the Ian Mercenary Group?

Finding it strange that she was outside the operational zone, Chris’s gaze shifted toward the suspicious passage Tanya had emerged from.

An interior of a secret passage that would look suspicious to anyone.

Chris immediately spotted the crates stacked inside.

They were military supply crates.

The frozen Tanya carefully reached into her tunic and, with a trembling hand, held something out to Chris.

Taking the pouch Tanya held out, Chris opened it to check the contents.

“….”

It was gold coins.

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