Chapter 707: Kraft’s Hidden Agenda

It felt as if Knight Forcas and his army was just the warm-up practice as the subsequent waves of troops which entered afterwards were obliterated much more quickly than previously expected.

After being among the few who had consistently ridden into battle with King Baal, Lord Wolte instinctively knew the composition of the armies that came in, especially since he had in designing some of these, giving Jin and the others a battle advantage. This was even truer since most strategists had to receive King Baal’s approval before being allowed to change any tactical plans.

Thus, the Orc Artillery Company was able to amass a successful killstreak of over six hundred soldiers thanks to this obscene lack of feasibility.

While some of the demon soldiers were able to move out of the area in time, mainly the ones with heavier constitutions, they were all later killed one by one, courtesy of the snipers from the Royal Snake Sniper Company.

A series of them were taking encampment at the nearest floating platform, taking shots with heavy-duty Barret M82 sniper rifles. Their captain stated that this was a perfect time to train up their long-distance kills since there was little to no wind to be taken into account in this particular ‘dungeon’ instance.

However, the captain severely underestimated Jin’s weapons store as it had provided these snipers rifles with a little perk. The scope that was attached to it had been calibrated with an assistive AI system, giving minimalistic help functions to subtly direct the shots.

This was merely a one-time offer because the System for once calculated that they could not afford any misses that would hit its precious clay statue defences. Thus, the mini AI system within the scope was built to avoid these clay statues and increased the chances of the snipers hitting their actual targets.

Obviously, the captain did not know any of this, since the snipers were wise enough not to tell him, especially when he was already too busy coordinating where the snipers should go afterwards once the main bulk of the army would arrive. This made the snipers chuckled at the fact that they collectively manage to bluff their captain.

Despite the assistive AI system, the Royal Snake snipers themselves had something more riding on this ‘warm-up’ exercise. Priding themselves as the finest snipers in the Snake Clan, they had made a bet to count how many times their AI ‘crap’ would appear to assist them, especially when there was a kill count statistics in their app.

Within the statistics, there was a section for the kill count with assistance, and thus, the sniper with the highest kill count in that section would have to treat the entire Sniper company a celebration drink after this exercise.

So far, all of them managed to hit on sight with at most one to two misses without any assisted kill. This subsequently prompted some to increase their bets with weird conditions such as sniping down two foot soldiers with a bullet.

As for the clay statues, they remained deactivated until the battlefield would fill up, which seemed rather soon, considering how there was a sudden break in the intervals of army waves coming in.

——————-

“Hmm, that took longer than expected.” Lord Moloch pondered at the war table with Kraft after returning to unlock the dungeon core to bring the city shields down.

“Isn’t that a good thing? It should mean that it’s chaotic back in your demon king’s city.” Kraft questioned as he leaned back on the chair and tinkered with another Tact Tweak from the System, the technical device which enabled Jin to check the status of the monsters and equip them with items quickly.

“Still, their response shouldn’t be this slow. Something must be way off, or they are preparing to give a huge push forward to find the dungeon core.” Moloch stated worried as he looked at the war table and the statistics of the kill count.

“But didn’t you say the first wave of army troops shouldn’t resurrect until maybe a day or two later?” Kraft asked before he ‘realised’ something vital.

“Ah yes, my bad, that capturing thing that Jin has is still affecting all of us, including the soldiers using our weapons. Oh ho ho. That means no resurrection of demons on their end. Do you think they found out?”

“How could you forget such an important detail?” Moloch suddenly remembered, that he was talking to the fox bellator, and regretted to have bothered asking. Yet, to get 600 soldiers worth of disciplined, armed Tiefling soldiers would definitely prove to be a boon. Maybe they could utilise them at a later stage to cause mass confusion in the war.

“After Jin had been so into rescuing the animal tribes I totally ‘forgot’ he even had this cheat-like ability as a glorified and improved Necromancer. Well, at least that solved the problem of further reinforcements.” Kraft chuckled as he drank a cup of blue mountain coffee at the side of the table.

“Imagine if we capture King Baal. Wouldn’t that be absolutely hilarious? Not only would we probably outright end this war, but we would also most likely gain another huge-ass city and let’s not forget about singe-handily solving a heck lot of money and resources problems that Jin has.”

“Honestly, I did not think that far, even though I said King Baal will personally attack the place. Besides, we would have to kill him to manage that first. If what Wolte claimed about his power multiplying many times over, we will be happy he doesn’t annihilate us first.” Moloch replied as he remembered how the little minotaur puppet submitted to Jin with just a knock of his phone.

“Tsk, why are all of you Brainiacs always so uncreative? No ideas for any quick insertion team into your ‘greatest’ demon metropolis in the dungeon world to make use of the probably once-a-century opportunity of your King’s absence? Shit man, and here I thought you are a shrewd person with far greater ambitions.” Kraft leaned forward and shook his head disapprovingly. Even if Jin and his allies managed to capture King Baal, chances were the Demon Metropolis he owed would be transferred to the next in line King’s candidate.

“I mean, I did think of it, but the feasibility is near zero. It would be simply sending out a suicide squad. Jin does not have the resources to waste to consider putting together a quick insertion team to get their dungeon core. Besides, I am sure the defending forces would prove to be a pain in the ass. Only a madman would even want to attempt to do that.” Moloch replied and as soon as he did, a crude smile appeared on Kraft’s face.

There were no two ways thinking about it.

The Minotaur Lord only wished he could take his words back as the smile turned into a quiet, sinister smirk. Moloch didn’t doubt that Kraft had led him down this particular rabbit hole with his line of peculiar questioning, and he was sure that the devilman always had this agenda to be the solution to the aforementioned ‘impossible’ problem.

And so, three magical words came out from Kraft’s mouth.

“Just do it.”