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Walter Hellhound immediately went to Phineas and urgently requested the organization of around 100 Eramenia cavalry under his command. Since General Phineas had promised not to refuse the hero’s requests, Walter was able to secure a rescue team of 100 to prepare for the situation where Jenis might be in danger.

After infiltrating the cavalry of Eramenia, Walter even organized Bernard, who had the optimal skills for logistics work, into the unit, feeling anxious as he watched Jenis soar into the sky.

First, Jenis sent a test fireball towards the mechanical device from the sky to see if she could destroy the prototype Moriarty Machine without getting too close.

The attack from Jenis flew towards the north in a parabolic arc similar to the dispel spell that had just been cast. The hero’s party hoped the attack would hit the machine, but the fireball, heading towards the position with the wagon, wobbled in a strange trajectory in the air and ended up falling in a totally wrong spot.

“What was that just now?”

Walter shouted at Jenis, who was peering through the crystal ball in mid-air. Jenis replied, eyes wide in surprise as she observed the images in the crystal.

“There are five liches that just reinforced near the wagon! They definitely had to be somewhere. If that machine is some kind of mana battery, then a wizard to recharge it is necessary! It seems they’re either trying to repair the machine or recharge the mana.”

It’s not that one typical lich is stronger than an average wizard. Moreover, with Jenis’s current abilities, facing a dead lich lord head-on would be no issue.

However, the problem was that if fairly skilled liches were surrounding the wagon, attacking from kilometers away would make it impossible to hit the target.

In the end, the only choice left was to quickly launch a concentrated magical assault with guaranteed power, like ‘Star’s Radiance.’ Of course, the enemy likely sensed through the recent movements that the imperial army was prioritizing the destruction of the Moriarty Machine as an important strategic asset, so they would be readying their defenses accordingly.

The longer the operation dragged on, the more disadvantageous it would be to them. Walter set a goal for Jenis to complete all operations from departure to return within 45 minutes.

“There’s no strict rule to keep it down to the second, but if we don’t destroy it quickly and it drags on, the main force of the enemy might move. If a large-scale battle inadvertently starts up, it could deal unexpected damage to our unprepared unit. I’ll have a few legions ready for combat while you’re away, but I hope we can avoid having to use them.”

Just after Walter conveyed the final instructions regarding the mission, Jenis began to swiftly fly towards the northern region, the stronghold of the Demon King, as if she had no time to waste.

Watching Jenis fly with a speed that wouldn’t lag behind any dragon, Rose mumbled to herself.

“Were vampires always that fast?”

“She must have cast an acceleration spell on herself. Well, it’s a necessary technique for now. Rose, just in case you don’t know, be on standby. If a small-scale clash occurs, you need to clean it up quickly.”

“I’m always prepared for that.”

Rose replied by sticking out her tongue. Meanwhile, Jenis had already covered several kilometers in an instant and revealed herself over the land where the Demon King’s army stood.

Unlike the confused orcs struggling to reactivate the Moriarty Machine, the skeleton-like liches clad in robes had quickly refueled their depleted mana and established a defensive barrier using the Moriarty Machine as soon as they were deployed to protect the wagon.

With the situation already exposed, the magic barrier extending from the wagon had clearly concentrated solely on defense rather than stealth, as they deemed any further hidden movements to be irrelevant. This left Jenis in quite a bind.

“A refractive defensive barrier, huh… It’s not impossible to destroy, but…”

Jenis muttered as she looked down at the shimmering magical barrier from the skies. While the wagon was concerning, the orc battalion that had started to reinforce around the wagon was a growing issue as well.

The longer time dragged on, there was a real risk that overly excited orcs would come down south, escalating the scale of the clash. To ensure she had enough distance to destroy the magic barrier, Jenis slightly folded her wings and began to descend slowly.

In that moment, a thin beam of mana passed closely by Jenis’s face. She hastily turned to avoid the beam and exclaimed.

“Whoa, that can reach this height!”

Upon realizing that the liches, located next to the wagon, had raised their bony hands and were targeting her, Jenis shouted. The liches didn’t stop there; they fired a few more mana arrows at her, and to prevent any annoying injuries, Jenis once again had to gain altitude to float slightly into the sky.

Though she had fought against dragons in the air before, Jenis was still not entirely accustomed to aerial combat. While suspended in the air, taking a light breath, she steeled her resolve and positioned herself to descend nearly vertically towards the ground.

The dragon was a tremendously large target. When aiming at such a massive dragon with a body length exceeding 50 meters, even from the sky, there was no need to precisely aim to destroy the defensive barrier.

However, while the wagon was relatively large, Jenis didn’t feel particularly confident about landing a perfect shot from her current height. Even if she fired roughly, the defensive barrier would likely shatter, but ‘Star’s Radiance’ was not a technique that could indiscriminately shoot with ease within Jenis’s limited mana.

If possible, she wanted to deliver a single powerful blow to knock the target away cleanly. The enemy’s anti-air fire was pretty accurate, thus while descending slowly at low altitude while only in her robe, Jenis had no choice but to employ one strategy.

Like a Stuka dive bomber, she would dive toward the ground, choking off the liches’ mana projectiles, and hit the wagon’s defensive barrier at the closest distance with ‘Star’s Radiance,’ turning the wagon to cinders.

The vampire noblewoman didn’t hesitate as she began her descent, almost entirely folding her wings while angling her face downwards, keeping approximately a 50-degree angle towards the ground.

The liches immediately began to react, but as she folded her wings, her target area to be hit was significantly reduced, and it became easier for Jenis to dodge most of their attacks.

As the wagon hovered sufficiently close, Jenis pushed the crystal ball end of her staff towards the ground and began to chant.

“Star’s Radiance!”

The red crystal gleamed brightly, shooting forth a thick blue ray from her staff towards the wagon. As Jenis confirmed that the ray was fired in the right direction, she spread her wings wide to avoid crashing into the ground and began to ascend back into the sky.

Simultaneously, as Jenis rose, her magic collided with the defensive barrier. The result was, of course, a victory for ‘Star’s Radiance.’ The blue ray straight-up smashed through the barrier generated by the Moriarty Machine, hitting the wagon. If it hit correctly, it had enough force to completely turn the large wagon into ashes.

“Good… huh?”

As Jenis thought she had successfully completed the operation and looked down at the ground with a clenched fist, she couldn’t help but tilt her head slightly upon seeing the situation below.

The massive wagon, about 25 meters wide, had undoubtedly sustained considerable damage and was utterly destroyed. However, the extent of the destruction was not up to the standard she had anticipated. The prototype Moriarty Machine was no longer operational, but its condition was closer to semi-destroyed than fully wrecked.

“Did I miss?”

Jenis muttered quietly. It seemed the power of the magical barrier was stronger than she had anticipated, and the beam attack she believed was aimed directly at the center had refracted when breaching the barrier, causing it to slightly veer off course.

The liches appeared flustered in their own way, but Jenis also began to question whether returning to the main base was the right move now.

After a moment of thought, Jenis gently tapped the crystal ball with her finger. Soon, the figures of Walter and Rose were projected on the crystal screen, chatting together.

“Hero, can you hear me? Hero?”

Using the ‘remote communication’ magic of which she was trying for the first time, Jenis spoke to the hero. Walter, looking flustered as he glanced around, seemed confused.

“Harker? Where are you talking from?”

“I hit the target. It’s incapacitated, but it’s only half destroyed. Can I consider the mission completed and return?”

Jenis reported without going into detail about her magic. Observing Walter, who was still glancing around in confusion, Rose appeared with a perplexed expression.

The reason Jenis could communicate from a distance was due to the powerful magical artifacts that the hero’s glasses and the Great Sage’s red eyes possessed, both having similar mana wavelengths.

Walter must have realized that Jenis’s telepathy was being delivered through the glasses, as he readjusted his gold-rimmed glasses.

“I don’t know what kind of trick this is, but thanks for your hard work. However, if possible, I’d like you to destroy that wagon without leaving a trace behind.”

“Is there a reason? At this level of damage, the machine won’t be recoverable for the time being.”

“The Demon King is trying to restore the artifact envisioned by his father. The fact that he suddenly appeared after a long silence indicates that this is likely a prototype for performance testing. If we only think about immediate threats, then indeed that device could be left alone without major issues. But I don’t want the Demon King’s army to have the resources and time to develop that technology further. Please deal with this in a definitive manner, to the extent that recovery from the remains is utterly impossible.”

“Understood. I’ll start right away.”

After all, the so-called ‘Mana Battery’ was a completely new discovery and a shocking technological breakthrough in the magical community, something that didn’t exist until now and likely wouldn’t in the future.

Thus, Walter’s highly sensitive reaction to such an item was not strategically unusual; Jenis accepted his request without further discussion and temporarily severed the communication between the two.

Jenis hovered in the air, watching the scene as enemies gathered around the area she hit with her magic.

Five liches. One of them had recently taken a massive hit from Jenis’s ray and was on the brink of death, so there were practically four left.

It looked like one battalion of orcs was being additionally reinforced. They were not particularly threatening to Jenis at the moment, but she needed to be aware that if she stayed airborne, the orcs’ arrows could soon become a danger to her.

“Well, it looks like I need to land.”

Harker concluded that fighting on the ground would be more efficient than conducting an aerial assault from above and drew the Elven sword from his waist.

With a staff in one hand and a long blade in the other, Jenis Harker slowly descended to the ground. Since the prototype of the Moriarty Machine was no longer operational, the magical barrier that had hindered her descent earlier was, of course, no longer in existence. Although one lich fired several mana arrows, Jenis easily dodged or blocked them and successfully landed in the middle of a clearing right next to the Moriarty Machine.

“So I have to break this thing, huh…”

Jenis muttered as she gazed up at the massive wagon, which measured around 20 to 30 meters in length. Naturally, its height was much greater than a person’s, with its running wheels towering above Jenis.

It was clear that moving such a valuable asset would certainly require the strength of a dragon or an ogre. Even after being attacked once, it was reasonable to immediately relocate such a valuable asset, and yet the demon tribe struggled to transport this wagon for a reason.

The sheer size of the wagon rendered the wheels practically useless. While this had made the destruction mission easier in some respects, if her aim was to leave no trace and turn it to ash, that might actually pose an obstacle.

“You vampire! Are you that arrogant to serve as the servant of the living with the blood of the undead?”

A skeletal lich appeared from the corner of the wagon, growling at Jenis. With a look of opportunity, Jenis aimed both her staff and sword at it.

“True, I should prioritize taking these things out first.”

“Taking them out? How dare you, little human-”

“Boom!”

As soon as Jenis made a weird noise that might be considered a spell, the crystal at the end of her staff glowed brightly, causing the joints of the skeleton lich who dared challenge her to crumble like a sandcastle. Looking at the mound of bones that had once belonged to the undead, Jenis muttered.

“I want to live as a human more than as an undead, just for occasions like this. At the very least, if you’re going to die, you should leave behind at least a drop of blood or something.”

 

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