Ever since the Conductor arrived, Cheng Yu had become a hands-off boss. He would never forget how, when he discussed what tactics to use to conquer the Monster Forest, the Conductor had responded with solemn admiration.
"Commander, someone as distinguished as you need not personally direct the campaign."
"All you need to do is tell me whom you wish to attack. Leave unit composition and battlefield coordination to me."
Just listen to that! Such admiration for his magnificent wisdom! The Conductor didn't even dare challenge his views, only asking him to make the decisions.
"Are you sure the Conductor wasn't just looking down on you?" ( ¬､¬)
Shut up, System! I was so close to successfully fooling myself! ┭┮﹏┭┮
Cheng Yu shook his head helplessly. What could he do? The system had told him that the Wisdom unit had a super quantum computer in his head, capable of calculating the optimal solution for any situation.
In other words, the Conductor was a genuine battlefield artist. Cheng Yu knew perfectly well what he himself was capable of. If all he needed to do was set the overall direction, then that was what he would do. Unfortunately, he could only unlock three Wisdom units, and none of them were researchers.
The system's answer was that the research institute could only supply enough computing power for three Wisdom units, unless he deployed a planetary computer or upgraded the institute further.
Besides, according to the information available, this world didn't yet require specialized research Wisdom units to develop advanced technology. He hadn't even finished unlocking his Purger planetary warfare series.
Whatever. Let's see what I've got first, System.
Basic Units: 30,000 Purifier 0-1: 80,000 Purifier 0-2: 30,000 Purger 0-3: 5,000
Hmm, excellent. We now command a hundred thousand soldiers fit for battle. We are most pleased. Our dear Minister System, why do you remain silent? →_→
"Your servant beseeches Your Majesty to take your own life." (¬д¬.)
Tch. You're no fun. (￢‸￢)
Cheng Yu shrugged.
Whatever. I'll go have tea with the big shot.
Cheng Yu arrived at the main city's command room. Sure enough, the big shot was still drinking tea.
When Cheng Yu arrived, Miss Puppet deftly poured him a cup of tea and set it on the mechanical console in front of the first seat.
Yog said,
"Sit down. A grand show will begin shortly. As the commander, you should sit where you belong."
Cheng Yu nodded. Well, the big shot had told him to sit, so it wasn't overstepping his bounds.
The mechanical doors opened again, and the Conductor entered. He first addressed Miss Puppet.
"I offer you my highest respects, supreme intelligence."
Then he addressed Cheng Yu.
"My respects to you, Commander."
When Cheng Yu saw that he made no further move, he screamed inwardly.
The big shot! There's another goddamn big shot here! Are you blind? Are you blind?! Can't you see your highest-ranking superior standing behind him?! This is what a fucking super quantum computer amounts to? You don't understand the slightest thing about social etiquette! (っ°Д°;)っ
At that moment, Miss Puppet said softly,
"Wisdom Z-01, it is His Eminence here to whom we must offer our highest respects."
At the same time, Miss Puppet modified the core data of every RTX Destroyer.
A light flickered briefly inside the Conductor's head, and he bowed to Yog.
"I offer you my highest respects, Your Eminence."
Yog waved it off, indicating that he didn't mind. He let them continue; he only wanted to watch the show.
The system popped up to say,
"He's just a robot. Where would he get social etiquette from?" 乁( ˙ ω˙乁)
Cheng Yu sneered.
Then why didn't you come out and explain earlier? You only showed up after everything was over? →_→
"Well, actually, I was pretty scared too." ^_^|||
Heh. Fucking bootlicker.
After taking that jab at the system, Cheng Yu turned to the Conductor.
The Conductor bowed and said,
"Commander, in accordance with your orders, I have come to report upon completion of the iron collection. We will now begin the conquest of the Monster Forest."
Cheng Yu nodded and said,
"Proceed however you see fit."
The Conductor bowed, then took a seat on the second tier. The light inside his head began to flicker.
Gu swallowed. It had watched these monsters emerge one by one from those strangely shaped buildings with its own eyes. There was also a new kind of monster resembling a scorpion, larger and fiercer-looking. There hadn't been nearly this many monsters when it arrived, either.
Sixty thousand Purifier 0-1s, twenty thousand Purifier 0-2s, two thousand Purger 0-3s, and ten thousand Basic Units—a mechanical army ninety-two thousand strong—marched into the Monster Forest toward the great lords' territories.
A horde of warlike, bloodthirsty monsters had entered the forest. After Gu surrendered, the remaining monsters in its territory scattered for their lives, spreading news of Cheng Yu's army advancing into the forest.
Some great lords remained constantly on guard against these monsters. But they had heard about how the monsters fought, and their pitiful little brains couldn't come up with a single countermeasure. Thus, they all sent emissaries to report to the Beast Lord, hoping it would intervene.
The Purger army swept aside everything in its path. Almost all its minor losses came from the 0-1 series, and those were caused by particularly powerful monsters and traps. There was no helping it; they were fighting in a forest, after all.
The Conductor reported that, on open plains, this army could annihilate these monster packs without suffering any losses.
Cheng Yu nodded. He had seen even a heavily armored, pangolin-like lord pierced straight through the chest by a single Piercing Beam Cannon shot from a 0-3 unit. Of course it would—the system had described it as a strategic siege-class Piercing Beam. Unless a creature was bronze rank, no organism below bronze could withstand it head-on.
The army reached a relatively open area. Opposite them stood what appeared to be the combined forces of several great lords, numbering somewhere over a hundred thousand.
A wolf-like lord stepped forward and called out,
"I do not know which lord you are, but you have already proven the strength of your kind. If you withdraw now, we can cede the territories you have already conquered to you. If you insist on fighting, however, we have already informed the Beast Lord. Surely you would not wish to face the Beast Lord's wrath."
After arranging the army's formation, the Conductor turned to Cheng Yu and asked,
"Commander, would you like to respond?"
Suddenly, Cheng Yu felt his inner actor stirring. Before transmigrating, he had always thought the villains who steamrolled entire worlds were cool as hell, ever since he was little. Take that black dragon with the huge iron jaw, the queen of the insect swarm, or that oh-so-filial son who commanded the undead scourge.
He could also reveal some information to the outside world and see whether he could flush out the fragment's owner. Sigh. Since the big shot wouldn't give him a script, he could only experiment bit by bit.
Besides, he glanced at Yog. If he borrowed the big shot's authority again, perhaps that fellow would suffer a complete mental breakdown.
Using his authorization, he spoke through the resonance of the energy inside the Purgers.
"Hehehe. I am the apostle of the great God of Primordial Darkness, the Judge of Destiny, Yuri Constantine. Foolish beings of the lower realm, someone among you has stolen something belonging to the great God of Primordial Darkness. As my god's first apostle, I have come to deliver judgment. I pronounce you guilty!"
The voice seemed to come from every direction, making the entire sky hum. The wolf-like monster was utterly stunned. Its opponent sounded ridiculously impressive, with all that talk of being the God of Primordial Darkness's apostle and the Judge of Destiny. That sounded far more powerful than the Beast Lord.
Then it noticed what seemed to be movement within the opposing army's formation, and apparently realized something.
"This is bad! Charge! Awoooo!" That final howl seemed to be the wolf-like lord's innate ability. Every monster charged with bloodshot eyes.
Seeing the entire horde charge, Cheng Yu sneered. They actually dared charge masses of 0-2s and 0-3s in open terrain? Tsk, tsk.
Sure enough, countless white points of light shot out, blasting the horde into pieces. Some powerful lords were also picked off by Purger 0-3s, pierced straight through the chest.
Half an hour later, the charging monsters began scattering in flight. Their charge simply couldn't break through the 0-2s' and 0-3s' net of fire.
After losing eighty thousand of their comrades, they began fleeing in every direction. And that was with the wolf howl whipping them into a frenzy; otherwise, they might have broken much sooner.
Just then, a white elk roughly eleven or twelve meters tall smashed into the army's formation from the flank at tremendous speed. Around a thousand 0-1s, several hundred 0-2s, and a handful of 0-3s were sent flying.
As though they had caught sight of their faith made manifest, the fleeing monsters stopped running and turned, galloping toward the enormous white elk.
Cheng Yu abruptly stood, narrowing his eyes at the giant white elk wreaking havoc within the army's formation.
"That must be the Beast Lord."
Then he looked at the Conductor, wanting to see what he would do.
Roughly twenty thousand of the 0-1s on the front line charged out before the scattered monsters could regroup, killing those running toward them.
The twenty thousand 0-1s in the middle stayed in place, preventing the monsters from charging through and damaging the 0-2 series behind them.
All ten thousand units in the rear threw themselves at the Beast Lord, buying the 0-2 series time to retreat. Then a hundred 0-3s moved up to pin the Beast Lord down completely, while every remaining 0-3 fired its Piercing Beam Cannon.
Cheng Yu nodded. He didn't know how those orders had been issued, but the mere fact that all these maneuvers happened simultaneously proved that the Conductor was one hell of a battlefield commander.
A Piercing Beam Cannon shot struck the Beast Lord squarely in the head, but only tore away some flesh, exposing bone. The Beast Lord shook its head, then raised a green screen of light around its body.
It then blasted the nearby 0-1s away. The 0-2 series, having retreated to a safe distance, raised all their arms and fired furiously at the giant elk.
Before long, the Beast Lord's green barrier vanished. It seemed to want to flee, but the surviving 0-3s around it clamped their massive pincers firmly around its four hooves, their tails frantically firing Piercing Beam Cannons.
An hour later, the Beast Lord collapsed in a pool of blood.
Cheng Yu shook his head at the sight and couldn't help remarking,
"That fucking thing could really take a beating. No wonder it was a four-star bronze creature. How many cannon shots did it take?"
At that moment, the Conductor answered,
"Reporting to the Commander: the creature sustained 1,251 Piercing Beam Cannon hits, 35,613 Thermal Ray Projectile hits, and 279 thermal cannon hits."
Cheng Yu clicked his tongue. Was the gap between black iron and bronze really that enormous?
Yog spoke then.
"The ranks we established have barriers that cannot be crossed. Without relying on external means, doing so is extraordinarily difficult."
Cheng Yu understood. If even the big shot called it extraordinarily difficult, then it had to be very, very, very, very, very difficult indeed.
A few days later, the system announced,
Congratulations, host. Achievement unlocked: Ruler of the Monster Forest (three-star bronze)
Before you continue