I officially have a headache. No, not me, its Shiina. My headache is already over.

Not even making the sniper rifle (which I still hadn’t named) gave me such pain. The notes were just so hard to believe.

As the fat noble gave us a horrible briefing along the words of how generous they are by allowing us to have a chance to fight with veterans, which is a lie, I recalled what was written in the notes.

This raid, is not a raid. It is a culling event.

And the ones being culled were adventurers with little experience, those that only do easy missions or did few missions.

We were not expected to survive even the first fight, and we were to weaken the main force of the enemies so that the

veterans could easily sweep the rest of the mobs.

It was all under the hands of a group of corrupted nobles, and they have control over almost everyone. With assassins lying at every corner, they kept the citizens silent of this by targeting their families and friends. Even the shopkeeper who disclosed this information to me was forced to escape from the town, if the devil did not lie. In fact, I’m sure that she didn’t.

I couldn't even understand how they got control over everyone.

I mindlessly walked with the excited crowd. They were still unaware of what is going to happen to them while I myself couldn’t think of anything.

“Shiina! You’re here!”

With a cry, all my thoughts were pushed out from me as a person hugged me from behind. “Where were you after the first mission?” She asked as she spun me around, while standing on her staff which was gliding forwards.

“You should be an acrobat. How are you not falling?” I asked while pouting. The sorceress who was called Mel simply smiled happily.

“Magic~” She happily replied as she set me down. “So, how are you now?”

“I’m… fine?”

“Why is that a question…?” She looked at me with a worried face. “Are you reeeeaaaallly fine?”

How did she change so much in a week? I still remember the shy girl I met last week!

“Hm. Not going to answer? Ok then~” She was still wasting mana gliding on her staff as she smiled at me.

I sighed as she sat on her staff, finally distracted at something. I still need a plan for this.

After a while of immersing myself in absent thoughts, the group stopped, and started to take a small rest. A few acrobats and assassins walked to the front to scout as we did so.

“…Erm… Shiina… could you tell me what you are thinking?” Mel suddenly said in a light voice.

Ah, the shy Mel is back! Is it the staff? I shook my head to clear the idle thought, before replying, “I’m worried, it’s going to be dangerous and we… some of us will not survive.” I muttered.

She smiled as she sat down beside me, “…I’m worried too. This seemed to be… different compared to the… first mission.”

“It is similar in many ways. We are just a bunch of newbies who has little experience in fighting and supporting each other. There is no clear commander, rather, there are a few people taking command, but there was little to no loyalty.” I sighed, “And the major problem is that the veterans. They will come 2 days later, while Dusk came to help even before the battle started.”

“…Dusk?”

“The gladiator that took command in the first raid.” I explained, “He was following us from the side, making sure we don’t make any huge mistake.”

“Eh…? He was… stalking us?”

“It isn’t stalking!” I shouted at Mel before I could stop myself.

“Ah… Ah…?”

I shook my head as I pulled myself up with my cannon. “We should get ready soon. From the looks of them, we would start our attack by about noon.”

With a nod, she closed her eyes, and started meditating. After wasting quite a bit of mana, it was a logical choice to try to regain it as much as possible.

I feel slightly guilty on making her listen to my rants. But it calmed me down as well.

“Okay, the plan is simple. Vanguard, slide down into the pit. Try not to fall. Mid-range units, follow after, while the long range units attack from the top of the pit. Assassins, cover the rearguard. Acrobats support the vanguard but be alert for a signal to rush up the pit to support assassins.”

“Isn’t the plan a little too simple?”

“It is, but my mentor always told me to go for simple plans. Less variables means less chances for a tragic fail. Any other complaints? Ok, let’s go!” The army mobilized as they followed the main command force.

With a gulp, I picked up my cannon and followed the rest, while Mel got on her staff and started to laugh gleefully.

“Charge!” As I heard the commander shout, everyone broke into a dash. I stopped just a few metres away from the cliff, and aimed my cannon into the air, firing a special shell.

As we were told by the scouts, in front of us was a huge pit, with a tower made of stone in the middle there was quite a number of holes, most likely former caves, on the pillar, and they had a huge bunch of monsters in the pit, with almost double our force.

I fired a large mortar shell to the air. It curved beautifully and smashed into the mobs in the pit.

But, even with the huge explosion, only a few goblins in the middle of the blast died. Most of them were only slightly damaged, even after taking a frag shower and a cluster bomb from another two engineers. And they got up almost instantly to meet the vanguard, almost unfazed.

I was about to fire another shot, but Alferdo quickly dashed in front of me, and swung one of his pistols. With a clang sound, an arrow dropped to the side.

But the others weren’t so lucky. A few archers fell instantly as arrows struck vitals perfectly.

“Beep.” Alferdo said, as he continued blocking.

I activated Alferdo’s camera function, and using it, I fired a few more shells at the mobs below. Most of the other rangers were occupied as they dealt with the skeleton archers.

The problem is that the skeletons are very durable. Even our strongest archers need 3 shots to kill an enemy archer, while the skeletons only need one.

“Alferdo. Move while covering me!” I shouted as I aimed my cannon to the front, and primed an attack. After covering one more arrow for me, he moved to the side.

I fired 10 shots, each splitting into 6 tiny guided missiles. The missiles flew, and targeted the archers. Normally, they would track heat, but I had Alferdo manually select targets, which the rockets flew towards.

With a huge series of explosions, the army cheered, but the commander suddenly shouted from behind. “Everyone, get down!”

I turned around in reflex from the sudden command. Luckily, I had Alferdo, but most other people doesn’t have such a convenient robot helping them.

To my sides, a rain of arrows flooded the ranged unit, shredding most of us into pieces.

I turned to the front in dread. And I realized a harsh fact.

My shots did kill the enemies.

But the replacements instantly followed up.

We already lost a quarter of the ranged units, but the enemy force didn’t even have a dent.

I remotely activated mecha duck, who quickly flew up, dodging the arrows from the skeletons, and scouted the battle below with it.

My face paled.

The main force was fighting a giant Minotaur, while fighting the monsters, but there was no support fire. All of us were

still occupied from the skeleton archers. And then a notice flashed in front of me, as my Mecha duck revealed a few things that we couldn’t see. Inside the caves were more skeletons in reserve. The moment we kill some, they would

replace the losses.

A warning appeared in the screen as I observed the enemies.

Everything suddenly clicked into place.

The enemy wasn’t so stupid to place all their forces below to let us fire from a safe spot. They deliberately set their forces there so that we would leave minimal defense here. While they were fighting the battle below, archers would come and snipe us. And with their insane numbers, defense and level, we could hardly do anything to them as they picked us off.

We were stupid for falling to such a trick.

But as I was thinking, I noticed that the number of arrows flying towards us had reduced, and I scanned the archers through Alferdo, setting Mecha duck on auto mode.

There are suddenly a few caves without any archers. In fact, I saw a glow from one of the caves, and suddenly the skeletons were blown out. They fell into the pit, and was smashed into pieces.

I had a lot of questions, but there was something important to do. With less archers, I could finally do the thing we were told to do.

I rapidly fired 6 shells to the air, which fell down on the monsters, burning them. Although I was forced to aim far to the enemy’s side, hence, the enemy vanguard was mostly unharmed.

I started unloading the cannon, and I loaded a giant shell.

The skeletons were almost wiped at this point, although we have less than a quarter of our rearguard.

I aimed up.

And with one attack, I turned the tables.

I fired the shot.