After he studied the bosses around the dungeon for a while, Ryan noticed one thing: as soon as the Frozen Whisperers spawned, they hurried to leave the dungeon. The cold in that area was so powerful that even them were suffering damage thanks to it. Those creatures were hidden outside the eye of the storm, where the visibility was annoying, to say the least.

Even though the bosses seem like inorganic creatures, I can't underestimate them. They probably can control the whisperers to some extent," Ryan said.

"How do you plan on dealing with them?" Femradiel asked. "Let your back unprotected against so many of them might be dangerous."

"Thank you for your valuable insight, captain obvious," Ryan said. "I need to make some tests, but I guess I will use the battle machines to keep the perimeter safe."

While Ryan would rather use summoned creatures to fight because they obeyed all his commands, the battle machines could be useful in a situation like that. After doing some tests, Ryan confirmed that they operated following different rules since they weren't organic machines. They didn't rely on eyes to find their targets. Instead of that, they felt the presence of their targets by using mana. Thanks to it, even hidden underground in the snow, they still could attack the whisperers and cause a lot of damage pretty fast. Thanks to their range, they also could attack much earlier than the whisperers could find them. The only real issue of that strategy was that Ryan had to collect iron ores for two days to set up hundreds of battle machines in a perimeter of five hundred meters away from the dungeon.

"Now, I just need to find a way to kill those bosses before they kill me and before I freeze to death," Ryan said.

"Ryan, are you busy now?" Gustavo asked via the telepathy link.

"Yes… what do you want?" Ryan sighed.

"If you are too busy, we can talk later," Gustavo said.

"I will be much busier later, so just spit it out," Ryan said.

"First of all, I would like to thank you for helping Alissa and Lucas join our group," Gustavo said.

"… Please, don't tell me that you just called to tell me that," Ryan sighed again. "Just go straight to the point if that isn't the case."

"Right, I wanted to ask if something changed around the coast of your country," Gustavo said. "We were already having enough problems with that dragon slayer, but now we are also constantly attacked by a new species of monsters… they are the giant turtles. Their numbers are pretty high, and their endurance rivals the dragons."

"I am currently pretty far away from my country and from the ocean…" Ryan said, imagining a dungeon that could spawn such troublesome creatures every one hundred seconds. "Did you talk with Alissa about that?"

"No, she barely uses the telepathy link or accepts calls of others," Gustavo said. "She must be someone busy. That is why I decided to talk to you."

"What are you trying to imply?" Ryan frowned. "Whatever, I will alert her, and she will alert the people in my country."

"Right, if your people don't find those creatures, I also would like to ask for some assistance," Gustavo said. "Of course, we will pay those you might send."

"I will talk with Alissa about that too, but you shouldn't expect much. We are even more short-handed than you are," Ryan explained.

The call finally ended, and Ryan let out a long sigh… he already had too many problems, and he even had to hear that kind of thing from others. Still… to think that a new troublesome monster would suddenly begin to spawn in the ocean.

"Come to think of it, why were you hiding in the ocean when I first saw you, Femradiel?" Ryan asked. "How come the megalodons didn't attack you?"

"Their population has been decreasing as of late, so the ocean is more or less safe for dragons like me," Femradiel replied. "I don't know the reason, though."

Since Ryan didn't intend to hunt monsters in the ocean anytime soon, that mystery didn't bother him all that much. While having such blind spots behind might be a risk, it couldn't be helped since there was only so much Ryan could do alone.

"In my draconic form, you should be able to fight in the ocean relatively well," Femradiel said.

"I don't plan to fight underwater, and I don't plan on using your powers to solve such small problems," Ryan said. "Rather than that, focus on the mission ahead of us."

"I want to focus, but honestly, I can't imagine you defeating so many of those creatures in such a limited space," Femradiel said. "Just like your battle machines, those creatures can sense traces of mana so that magic traps won't be useful. Following the same logic, poison won't work either."

Ryan already knew that, but he still wanted the opinion of someone who might have a different perspective. Still, as expected from Femradiel, since she was a dragon, her best plan of action was to overpower her enemies or not to fight when the victory seemed improbable.

In the end, Ryan understood that he was unfair to Femradiel. It was a bit too much that she would give him a good idea as to how to defeat four hundred bosses by himself, considering that each one of those bosses should be defeated, in theory, by twenty-four people.

Ryan didn't have a proper skill that would let him defeat all those monsters by himself… directly at least. He will have to improvise quite a bit… Ryan hesitated at first since he feared that by changing his tactics, he might win, but not without relying on the things his father taught him. However, in the end, Ryan found the middle term… the perfect method to fight against those bosses while keeping his ideas in mind. Ryan decided to create some ballista…