I Was Connected to Earth’s Black Market From Another World With The Skill [Market]! (WN)

Chapter 321

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Chapter 321 – Gun Emplacement

A magic circle hovered in the path of the armored personnel carriers, and Myrril’s warning indicated that it would form a blocking line. Sure enough, a huge wooden stake that looked like it had been carved out of a large tree, nearly two meters in diameter, appeared before our eyes as if reaching for the sky. A horse-proof fence. This was the same tactic we had used in Casemaian. It was not a road full of stakes appearing at the same time. You could dodge them left and right, but where they ended, there had to be a place for carnage. At the end of the line of sight, there is light. I saw a magic circle glittering in the air, appearing from above the top of the Imperial Palace.

The deceleration would not be in time. The large-displacement engine with a supercharger can accelerate the huge body, but it cannot twist the law of inertia. The brakes would try to stop the tires, but it would probably take several hundred meters for the ten-ton-plus vehicle to come to a stop.

“Damn it!”

I almost shouted, but I had to hesitate for a moment. Should I stow the Casspir, grab Myrril, and get out of harm’s way by shifting?

“You underestimate us, do you know that?”

The calm, almost quiet voice from the gun emplacement made my impatience disappear.

“Did you really think that little trick would stop the Demon King of Annihilation?”

The grenade, which is fired with precision and disregarding the shaking of the raging vehicle, exploded high in the sky. The mages on the upper floor it was aimed at were torn from the top, and the entire magic circle in the air was blown away.

The Casspir finally came to a halt, skidding spectacularly in the snowy mud in front of the main gate of the Imperial Palace, which was not only at the place of carnage but nearly a hundred meters beyond it.

“Thank goodness, Myrril.”

“I told you. If it had been just the two of us…”

A pale red light gently enveloped me.

“…We could do anything.”

About ten soldiers appeared scattered around the entrance of the Imperial Palace. The figures were wrapped in familiar ink-colored cloaks, but their size, movement, and balance were strange.

“…Oh?”

Myrril looked at them, sounding a bit impressed. They are what you might call body prosthetic golems. In short, they are cyborgs with golem technology. Their limbs are extended for attack and movement, and they have bulges and protrusions on their heads and hips as if their sensory organs have been augmented.

“When you see all those ugly, inferior products, even something of this level doesn’t seem so bad.”

“Well, you know. At least they don’t hinder their friends, and they increase their strength. They should have mass-produced these things from the beginning.”

“If the enemy could come up with such a problem, then of course our own army could have thought of it. There were reasons why it could not be done. Either it was too expensive to develop, or it required too much skill to operate, or it was too fragile to send to the battlefield, or the compatibility success rate was too poor… or all of the above.”

Taking a step forward, the long-limbed golem soldiers leaped into the air. In their backhands, they held a spear bar barely two meters long. The mounted golem that had invaded Casemaian had a similar object. Perhaps it was a traditional weapon of the Empire.

“Yoshua, hold the vehicle. Fall back as fast as you can on my signal.”

“Copy that.”

The sound of a series of shots from a light machine gun, probably an RPK, rang out, knocking down the long-armed and long-legged soldiers who had jumped up. The fact that even the assault rifle rounds were able to get through meant that the only additional armament they had was the prosthetics they used to attack and move around, and their defensive capabilities were low.

“They are not well-armed.”

It would be harsh to blame them for not being able to withstand bullets since they are basically a military unit designed for pre-modern warfare. If it were a battlefield of swords, spears, and bows and arrows, they might have been able to run rampant.

“Now, fall back!”

At Myrril’s signal, I put the transmission in reverse and stepped on the gas. As my eyes darted upward, I saw four soldiers of stocky build charging at us, their stances low and ready. This time, they dodged bullets, rebounded a few, and came right up to Casspir’s doorstep.

“Stop!”

The sound of a shot rang out from the gun emplacement before the vehicle came to a complete stop. The sound pressure was high, and the rate of fire was fast. Was it a PKM light machine gun with small arms ammunition? The heavily armed golem soldier was within inches but was shot through the movable parts of his elbows and knees and collapsed on the mud. They rolled over with the momentum of a sprint, and with a light bang, probably from a handgun bullet, they were shot through the eyeballs and cut off.

“Where are the rest?”

“They were still spread out. I thought they had long-range weapons, either throwing or shooting.”

That was it for the rest. We got out of the car and grabbed our guns. I got an AKM and an Ithaca shotgun. And…

“Hey, Myrril-san, isn’t that a little excessive?”

“If they’re in a building, all you need is a few rounds of ammo.”

She held on to her holster pistol but uncharacteristically gave up her UZI, so Nojaloli-sensei took one in each hand instead. There are about 30 box magazines in her bag and a drum magazine attached to the spare she carries on her back. That’s over 1,000 rounds in total, right? How many shots are you going to fire?

“Let’s go, Yoshua!”

An M79 grenade is fired, and the front door of the building is blown off. The grenade launcher, which can’t be used indoors, is out of action. I take it and put it in storage.

I noticed a group of mages holding magic staffs hidden in the back of the floor. Or rather, they were trying to hide.

“Haven’t these guys learned that magic barriers are ineffective against bullets?”

Single shots of pistol bullets pierce the mages one by one. As soon as the bullet lands, a bluish-white magical light bursts out, diffusing and disappearing as the body collapses.

Myrril climbs up the stairs, and I follow, keeping a watchful eye on the surroundings.

We must be inside the last line of defense, but it’s quiet inside, with no metallic clash of swords and spears, no sound of footsteps, or angry shouts from the defenders.

“Are there any soldiers?”

“I can sense them. But it is strange that there is no sound.”

It wasn’t just the Imperial Palace that was strange. Looking down from the walls of the Imperial Capital, I saw no fleeing civilians, nor did I hear their voices, feel their presence, or sense their existence in any way. They don’t seem to care about evacuating the city in case of battle. In fact, the impoverished area outside the city walls was still intact.

“It’s a strange country.”

I was about to mutter something like that when I remembered what Rinko had told me earlier.

“I think we have different opinions because you think about a “country” in the world Yoshua knows.”

At that time, drones had not yet been made in Casemaian, and we had only set foot in a small part of the Kingdom, the Empire, and the Tribal Confederations, so most of what we knew about the country was based on hearsay.

The former eccentric saint and mad engineer high school girl wagged her finger and told me.

“For example, Yoshua was from Koriyama, right?”

“That’s my parents’ hometown, but I wasn’t born and raised there.”

“It doesn’t matter. I saw this in the Imperial Archives, but… Right, what’s the population of Koriyama?”

“I don’t know, but I think it’s 300,000 or so. It can’t be up to 400,000.”

“That’s right. The population of the kingdom is just a little more than that.”

A little more. The population of the kingdom is only a little more than that.

“The official number is one million, but the real number is probably a little over 700,000.”

A little more, you say? That’s more than double. But that’s not a lot for a country.

From what I can see, the level of primary industry is high, but the level of culture is pre-modern, like my former world. Perhaps it is not possible to concentrate the population too much. I don’t know how magic and the presence of demi-human races will affect the situation. Magic should at least contribute a lot to medical care. According to Rinko, healing magic also hinders the development of medicine.

“By the way, how big is the kingdom?”

“Hmm~… I don’t remember the exact number, but I think it’s at least the size of six prefectures in the Tohoku region, or even larger. The maximum area is the Tohoku region plus the northern Kanto region. The topography is similar because it is a landlocked country with a long north-south axis divided by steep terrain on the east and west sides. There seem to be few high mountains on this continent, so the area of flat land is larger than that of Tohoku.”

The kingdom is like a huge county state that ruled the entire Tohoku region, right? No, huh? What an example. That doesn’t help my image at all.

So what’s the point? What does this strange analogy mean?

“Even with a small amount of human and capital resources, they are dispersed and can’t operate in a centralized way. They also rely on human and horse power for transportation and travel, so you get the idea. This means that development is difficult and reconstruction after major damage will take time. Or…”

The clumsy saint tilted her head and laughed.

“Reconstruction itself is hopeless.”

“Yoshua, what are you thinking?”

I found myself at the top of the stairs when Myrril looked back at me. She was still looking around, but she read the signs and pointed to a corridor leading to the upper floor. At the end of the corridor, I saw that a barrier had been set up with tables and wooden boxes.

“I feel like I’m forgetting something.”

“That happens. It’s usually in your mind. Whatever it is, do your thinking after the fight.”

Well, that’s a good point. I shoot through the table with my AKM, and the soldiers hiding in the shadows fall silently. Fresh blood spreads across the long pile of carpet.

“Threat elimination.”

Why do I suddenly remember this? Is it a reaction to something that’s stuck in my mind?

The interior of the Imperial Palace is too quiet. There are too few people in the imperial capital. The rapid decline of the population means that the capital is no longer a nation if the cause of the discomfort is the same root.

“Hey, Myrril!”

“Have you found what you forgot?”

“Could it be that the Imperial Capital has already been abandoned? The whole city has been used as a summoning sacrifice.”

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