"...Saint Rosaline, we've finished placing all the explosives in this district," a soldier spoke to me as I looked around the kingdom, seeing the people living their normal lives, unaware that they would be blown up.
"...Great..." I simply said "great" as I watched the soldiers arming explosives throughout the kingdom's space, common explosives without much magic, mainly using highly unstable materials.
Since there's not much magic in them, the Demon King won't notice what it is, and the fact that they're hidden will blend in normally with everyday life.
So the anti-mass destruction magic barrier won't activate because there are thousands of explosives instead of a single magical attack. After this kingdom, there's the main kingdom.
So we're planning to stop the Demon King here in this kingdom. I look at the inhabitants living their lives without realizing that we're arming explosives to blow them up along with the Demon King's troops.
'Lucius, your idea is so terrible and monstrous.' It's madness to consider his idea, but the kingdom is so desperate that they decided that blowing up thousands of people was worth it if it was to destroy the Demon King's troops.
Of course, I can't really argue much. We've sacrificed many lives before when we summoned heroes. This time it will be similar, but the difference is that the number of people sacrificed will be greater, with the aim of damaging the Demon King's troops.
We could evacuate everyone from here, but the king and the nobles didn't want to, because with the people here, it will be impossible for the Demon King to notice the explosives, while if we took everyone to the main kingdom, we would have overcrowding.
'3 kingdoms have already fallen...' It's been four weeks since Lucius started his journey and completely disappeared, so I've been responsible for the church and all the responsibilities that come with it.
And while I was taking care of things, that damned abomination was advancing. The Demon King is truly an anomaly, because it's really advancing in a straight line.
The Demon King is using some kind of giant monster to consume everything in front and open the way to the main kingdom. Fortunately, this brute method makes the Demon King predictable.
As the Demon King is moving almost all its troops, there are more than 1 million soldiers with it, which makes it complicated to make turns, and considering that the Demon King wants to be fast, it doesn't change its path.
And since the path is clear, we had time to arm more than just these explosives. I have here with me more than two million soldiers, the maximum the kingdom can gather in the little time we had.
'2 million soldiers against the Demon King's troops and the Demon King itself...' I wonder if we'll win. If everything goes well, the Demon King will invade this kingdom where I am now, and its troops will be blown up by the explosives.
This should damage its troops quite a bit, but it won't stop it, so it will continue to advance and find our soldiers on the plain in front of the main kingdom. If it passes the two million soldiers we have, it will be able to invade the main kingdom, which will have almost no protection.
"..." I'm fearful. We have a giant army, a functional strategy, and a number of troops superior to the enemy, but the Demon King truly scares me. As Lucius said, the Demon King must be weakened.
But even weakened, we're still talking about the Demon King, which can be compared to a natural disaster or a walking calamity. I can't tell if we're going to win.
"Hey, Amiya, do you remember the plan, right?" I turn to Amiya, asking her. There are only two living heroes, Amiya and the angel girl who serves as a potion factory, but she's weak, so she can't fight, and as an angel, she can probably be controlled by the Demon King.
"U-Um, I think so..." She speaks nervously, the fear is clear. She told how it was to fight the Demon King, and she said it was disturbing, even though she was knocked out at some point. Her descriptions alone clearly demonstrate how the Demon King is a monster.
'Debuffs seem to be useless against the Demon King...' I don't understand this process, but based on what Amiya said, applying debuffs to the Demon King is practically useless, depending on the type of debuff.
Only certain types work, and even those that do still have their effect drastically reduced or something.
'I wonder...why only Amiya came out alive.' She wasn't the strongest hero, but she seems to be the most useful against the Demon King, as based on her description, the Demon King's body agonized and retreated from her because of her specific magical girl outfit.
"Amiya, you mustn't think! You must succeed! We need to kill this abomination, and you're probably the only one we have available capable of dealing lethal damage to the Demon King."
We have some S-rank adventurers as well, but no one who really has something focused on dealing specific damage to the Demon King. Only Amiya has shown to have something that is specifically effective against the Demon King, since she fought against it before.
'That damn Mikael Calamitas who doesn't show up when we need him the most...and Akari said she wouldn't help!' It's a farce. The strongest man is missing, and the strongest human mage said she wouldn't participate in the war. I don't even know why Akari decided not to participate, as the director of the academy, she should help, but we can't just force her, as fighting with her would only cause problems.
"O-Okay...I'll do my best," Amiya says nervously as I look at the soldiers finishing arming the explosives in secret in the other district of the city.
"Amiya, let's go. Now that we've finished this here, we should go to the plain where the soldiers are. We can only wait for the Demon King to fall into this trap and continue advancing to face our troops."
I speak, pulling her hand.
'The Demon King probably can't know about this...' I made sure that no one could send information out in any way, so the Demon King won't be able to know about this trap, as it practically doesn't involve magic.
...
...
...
"Your Majesty, you seem happy," Kaelith speaks in a contented tone as we watch another kingdom destroyed below, my dragon soaring above everything to see the damage, while the shark advances, consuming everything along with the advancing troops behind the shark.
"Yes, yes, I like this chaotic sight," I say, not because that's the reason. Over time, I've finally started to recover naturally. I'm now at 50% of my total mana.
And almost 100% of the damage I had is already recovered. This will make my mana recovery return to normal. Without damage like these, even if I spent my mana down to 0, it should recover in a maximum of two days.
But since I had such severe damage, my body focused on recovering and only then restoring its mana. And of course, my arm is now back. I remove that darkness armor, seeing my lovely right arm in its place.
'It looks great.' I move my fingers, feeling the sensations perfectly. It's a true pleasure to have my arm back with me. To test the permanent damage to the mana path, I try to form a medium magic circle with my hand.
I hear a cracking sound and see the magic circle cracking due to lack of control, while the mana in it practically has three times the normal expenditure.
'Hmm...it's really bad.' If even with a medium-level magic, the expenditure and difficulty increase so much, then performing a powerful magic attack with this arm will be extremely difficult and costly.
'And the mobility? It seems good...' Normal movements have no problems, but I try to make complex movements, twisting my arm back and my fingers forward with a rotating motion between the fingers and the arm, and it just locks up.
'...' I can do it with the other arm, but with this one, the nerves don't respond well to the complex command, drastically reducing the original mobility. As my master said, it doesn't affect my daily life, but it will affect my magic and fighting style.
'Haaa, what the hell...those fuckers will regret this...I'll torture them so much that they'll wish they never existed.' It seems I can never really just "forget" them. Now every time I fight with this arm, I'll have the memory that the heroes did this to me.
'Maybe there will be a way to cure it in the future...but certainly not now.' Healing magic won't restore this, so for now it's impossible. What annoys me the most is how this will affect my true form.
With the mana path damaged, every time I transform into my true form, half of the arms of the true form that are based on my body will be limited. Because my true form uses the same mana path as my flesh and bone form, the difference is that in the true form, the mana path becomes more fluid and smooth, allowing it to be molded into the forms I assume.
"Your Majesty, is something wrong with your arm?" Calypso asks, seeing that I've removed the darkness armor and am testing the arm.
"..."
"No, it's perfect. I'm just...testing new ways to use magic," I lie as if it's nothing important. A slightly defective arm will never stop me.
"Anyway, can you two take control here? I'm going to 'sleep' a bit before we reach the fourth kingdom. It's the last one before we reach the main kingdom."
I ask for this favor while deciding to enter my sea of consciousness. I want to see how my defective arm affects the other Pandoras there. I hope they don't have as much trouble as I'm having.
"Of course, Your Majesty. Sleep well," Calypso says, crawling to the head of the dragon calmly to control it with force if necessary.