Ultimate Gamer System: Factory Must Grow!

"This isn't good…"

The abyss' guide muttered, retreating a step from where he stood once he, too, sensed the now concentrated waves of mana radiating from all over the place.

"Stay as you are!"

Callane shouted.

'If I even allow one of them to move…'

From how they remained unsquashed by those explosions that continued to happen all over the place, them being in this exact spot was what the owner of this place designed for them.

Moving away, even if only because of a simple, primal fear…

How would it be any different from provoking the entity that owned this place?

And to see just how powerful that being was, one could just throw a glance in seemingly any random direction, only to see constant explosions going off, holding off the invasion of yet another horde of monsters.

Sure, the monsters now were noticeably stronger than the ones before, and by one hell of a massive margin to boot, but…

But their numbers had also greatly decreased.

Still, if judging the situation by just the mana, the danger of the current battle grew to roughly ten times the danger Callane would assign to the attack that came before!

It wasn't all that useful of a classification, however, with how each of the monsters from the first wave would be enough of a threat to get the upper ranks of adventurers mobilized if it appeared by its lonesome near any of the towns.

And when it came to the monsters that were attacking right now?

Callane bit down on her lip, struggling to resist the sense of powerlessness.

Judging just by the degree of mana those monsters had, just one of them would be enough to give Callane's party a run for their money! And while it was a threat they might just be able to contain and overcome…

From the spread, pace, and the directions the noise of the constant explosions was coming from, there were tens, if not hundreds, of those monsters attacking this place all at the same time!

'I don't think even the emperor could rally up a force necessary to deal with a threat of that kind,' Callane thought, gulping her saliva while keeping vigil over her men to ensure no one dared to try to run, only to anger the being that decided to leave them alone for the time being.

"My lady…" the leader—or rather, the strongest—of the mercenaries approached, careful only to move within the already established limits of the space their group occupied. "What are we to do?" the man asked, nervously looking around, as if rather than fearing the monsters whose presence he could feel coming from the wall, he was more worried about the source of the power that held them at bay.

"What else can we do?" Callane allowed her focus to fade for but the shortest of moments, splitting her attention to have this conversation.

As much as she wanted to focus fully on the situation around… As the de facto leader of this group, she had the responsibility to uphold the group's morale. Even if only to prevent them from wandering off and thus angering one of the two powerful sides that continued to crash against each other as the two of them spoke.

"Men are… worried," the mercenary spoke, the look on his face making it quite clear he happily used others to excuse his own fear. "What will happen when this battle ends? What would stop those explosions from focusing all on us?"

Hearing this, Callane gritted her teeth a bit.

'And how the heck would I know?' she wished to scream out, just as powerless and clueless as the rest of her group.

But while others could vent by carrying their worries over to her, her position disallowed her from showing any sign of weakness.

Even if it was to be fake, she had to appear certain of her own goals and the path that led to them.

"If it wanted us dead, we would be dead already," Callane pointed out, even though she was already repeating what she said not that long ago. "Don't you remember this short pause in all the noises after the first monsters died off and before the current phase of this clash started?"

While short, the break from all the mayhem was still quite noticeable.

That break was long enough to give them a momentary hope it was all over, only to then painfully shatter those hopes when an even greater threat emerged!

For a moment, the two of them simply stared at each other, their opinions and worries clashing in silence.

Then, an explosion went off just a few tens of steps behind them, right in the direction they came from!

'What?'

Callane's thoughts spun up.

In a single instant, she ran through all the options she could conceive.

'A missed shot?'

'Is it done letting us live?'

'Another direction for us to follow?'

'Or…'

Callane did see a few instances of the explosions going off away from the wall, pretty much marking two points along the shortest possible path away from the wall and towards what she believed to be the center of this whole place.

And the nearby explosion from just now…

"RUN TO THE SIDE!"

Before she could even fully process her own thoughts, reasons, or conclusions, Callane screamed from the bottom of her lungs, herself already dashing off to the side.

But between herself and the strongest mercenary, the man remained rooted in place, his face fully terror-struck as he stared off in the direction the explosion came from.

'A shock?! NOW?!'

Screaming out in her mind, Callane dug her feet into the ground, stopping her dash and turning around…

Only to then see what the mercenary had locked his sights on.

It wasn't just the explosion now flowering just beside them.

It was an eight-legged monster, rising nearly as tall as the nearby trees, speeding down directly through the woods with the speed of a wheelcart pushed down the hill's edge!

'Heavens, grant me strength!'

Faced with the monster, all of Callane's worries, all her hesitations… vanished.

From where she stood, she lowered herself onto her knees, already swinging her mace to the back, putting it over to the starting point of the path that intersected with where she expected the monster to arrive in just a moment.

Up ahead, most of the mercenaries managed to get away in time… But not all.

Two died when the monster merely trampled them down in its wake, with one more momentarily pinned to the ground when the sharp point of the monster's leg skewered him across the shin, only to then drag him up and throw him aside when it raised its leg for another step.

When the monster reached the strongest of Callane's mercenaries, however… It stumbled.

No, that crazy old man somehow pushed off the monster's advancing leg, introducing an element of chaos into its otherwise perfect charge… And slowing it down just enough for Callane to leap forth, trace an arc with the weight of her mace, only to then bring it down against the lowest of the two joints on the monster's leg, crushing it into pieces in the process!

This wasn't enough.

It was just one leg… and her group was already scattered, even going as far as to suffer casualties. Continue reading at My Virtual Library Empire

The monster didn't turn, though. It merely adjusted for its now wounded leg, only to then continue charging ahead, not paying Callane's group even the slightest mind.

Still, with her eyes locked on the beast, Callane merely blinked…

And then she saw a silvery bolt suddenly crash straight into the thin point that connected the arachnid's cephalothorax to where all its legs connected, and its massive, bloated abdomen, severing the two and sending the terrifying monster crashing just a few tens of meters away from where it nearly slaughtered all of Callane's group.