Earth Dungeon 81.1

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Chapter 81.1. Grassland

I drive the jeep into the grassland, but I frown. There's barely any asphalt road left. The side of the road is lined with gentle hills. They looked flat in the distance, but.

"The visibility is poor."

I don't like how subtly hilly it is. The grass has grown up to knee height. What I mean to say is.

[This is an excellent spot for an ambush, isn't it?]

Floating in the air, Shizuku gazes around.

She squints her eyes.

"Yeah, it is. If you lie down on a hill a bit further away, they won't find you."

If there's no line of sight, it's hard to see both mana and fighting spirit. It's possible to see through the grass like a thermal imaging camera, but if someone hides on top of a hill, it's hard to tell.

"Long-range surprise attacks are quite scary."

While the jeep's engine roars, I sigh and shake my finger mixed with a sigh. A flame serpent is conjured from my finger and burns the wolf that emerges from the grass.

"Besides, fire is a better choice. But here, with all this grass, I'm afraid of starting a fire. Using ice or shadow magic would delay defeating the enemy."

When the body gets engulfed in flames, the enemy panics, and their movements stop. Freezing with ice or shadows takes more time than fire, and unless you bind the shadows, the enemy won't stop. That's why fire is the only option, but it's not very convenient in this area.

[Shall we call in combat helicopters and armored escort vehicles?]

I smirk and reply to Shizuku, who puffs up her chest. Yeah, calling in my unit might be the best option.

"Well, that's probably the best choice. [Weapon Crow], [Weapon Tiger]."

I stop the car, snap my fingers, and faithful familiars emerge from the shadows. They're 3 glossy Black Crows with wings like flexible, lightweight blades, sharp beaks, and the usual 3 Armed Shadow Tigers.

"One crow will scout ahead. One will remain vigilant directly above me. The last one will surveil from high above the area."

"Caw."

Understood, the crows spread their wings and fly into the sky.

"Mike, you'll scout ahead as well. The other two will watch over my front and rear."

I brought Mike along for the first time in a while. He usually works at headquarters, but this new place is dangerous.

"Myaa."

As always, Mike lets out a cute meow people wouldn't expect from his imposing size and heads forward. I wonder why Mike seems smarter than the other shadow tigers. I have no idea why.

I have high-altitude reconnaissance and ground surveillance. With this, the possibility of me getting a surprise attack is reduced.

[Well, for Sakimori-san, I, the most adorable little kitten, will share my familiars' sight for confirmation.]

Pressing her body against me as if clinging to my shoulder, Shizuku smiles sweetly. I can't touch her because she's a spirit, but her smile is so cute and comforting.

I wish I could pet her, but I can't. So I drive on. It's a bit bumpy, but military jeeps have good off-road capabilities.

[Zaza. Is this the sight? Zazazaza. Sight jacking is a hassle. I see middle-aged men and women waiting at the church. It's the one that gets canceled if it airs during a commercial.]

"Um, Shizuku-san? Can you please not have your usual illness right now? I don't know if it's true or a lie, but there's no way there's a church here."

She tilts her head with a cute tongue sticking out and dances in the air like a fairy, but she's puzzled.

[Why is the landscape so different on this side of the river?]

"That's a valid question. It's because of the Behemoths. This landscape will probably persist for a while."

[Ah, there are a lot of Behemoths. They're A-ranked creatures, after all. They primarily use surface-to-ground missile attacks and earth magic like [Quake] to cause ground disruptions, [Behemoth's Roar] to send shockwaves throughout the area, and wide-range lightning magic like [Thunder Rain]. Finally, they used [Heaven and Earth Reversal] to flip the earth. If you don't defeat them quickly, the city will collapse.]

I nod in agreement with Shizuku's explanation, it reminds me of the past.

"More than 10 Behemoths appeared in this area. Luckily, they were across the river, but the embankments got destroyed, and the city got buried in the earth. Since there were refugees, we couldn't launch a large-scale missile attack, and the city collapsed."

They were terrifying enemies, and I remember the past. It had been only a few years since dungeons started appearing. I watched the city collapse on TV and got terrified at how strong these monsters were.

Afterward, the military decided to attack large monsters without worrying about the collateral damage. It was because we understood that leaving them alone would cause tremendous destruction.

"Later, the refugees returned to the city, but..."

[Medium-sized and small-sized monsters have appeared to wipe out the survivors, right? Infantry got deployed for that.]

"That's right. They still tried to rebuild the city, but..."

The government intended to invest substantial funds in reconstruction and took action, but since this situation was happening all over Japan, it proved to be impossible.

In hindsight, this might have been the beginning of the financial collapse, and Japan began to lose to the dungeons.

Plains and forests. Ironically, the world devoid of human activity appears peaceful.

[So, this region has become a territory for animal-type monsters to roam. They appeared to attack the crows.]

As I align my vision with the scouting crows, just as Shizuku said, three hawks, each about two meters in size, emerge from the nearby forest. Their wingspan is around two meters, quite large. And why are hawks forming squads even though they're hawks?