Looking Forward to Another World

Loki Familia’s strategy for dealing with the Floor Boss of the 37th Floor, Udaeus, a Level 6 classified monster, was to have several Level 5 executives take the front line while the rest of the members, those below Level 5, handled guerrilla tactics and support.

Typically, the main offensive force consisted of rear-guard mages rather than the executives fighting up front. By forming groups of dozens and engaging in a large-scale battle against the Floor Boss of the 37th Floor, they could secure victory, but even so, it was impossible to come out of the fight unscathed or without any energy loss.

Unless the three Level 6 top executives of the familia stepped in, Udaeus would remain a formidable opponent for Loki Familia, or else Ais wouldn’t have been beaten so badly when she dueled Udaeus back then, nearly losing her life.

On the other hand, the knights of the Mavros family had greater collective strength than Loki Familia. Even though Loki Familia had around a hundred members, which seemed comparable to the number of knights present, not all the familia members were Level 4, as many were still Level 3 or even Level 2, creating a wide power disparity.

In contrast, the knights of the Mavros family that had arrived were equivalent to Level 4 adventurers, giving them an overall combat power advantage over Loki Familia. Naturally, considering Loki Familia still had three Level 6 top executives and four Level 5 executives, their strength would surpass that of the knights.

However, the Mavros family also had Kaiser, who was equivalent to a Level 6 adventurer, along with Axel and Diego, who were comparable to Level 5 adventurers. If adding these three, the gap between the two sides was significantly reduced.

Simply put, without the three Level 6 top executives, Loki Familia’s combat power was likely still inferior to that of the knights of the Mavros family.

Given this, if Loki Familia needed considerable effort to take down a Level 6 Floor Boss like Udaeus without their top executives stepping in, then even with the combined strength of the three Mavros brothers, the knights would also struggle to handle a single Autonomous Guardian.

Compared to Udaeus, Autonomous Guardians were at least just as powerful, if not stronger, especially the ones guarding the city entrance, which might not even be easy for Raven, a Sword Saint, to take down.

Now that they were facing a total of around sixty such enemies, even with Raven and Nibald in the equation, there was no way they could handle them all.

Let alone them, just imagining himself going up against sixty Autonomous Guardians, each with higher STR and END than himself, made Riezel feel troubled.

No.

If it were Riezel, he should’ve been excited instead of feeling troubled, right?

In any case, given that circumstance, it was no wonder Raven had called this situation ’a difficult thing to deal with’.

”Should we call for reinforcements from Bessare then?” Kaiser asked hesitantly.

”No, that won’t work. They have to stay behind to defend Bessare while we’re gone.” Raven rejected the idea without much thought.

Right now, not only was Raven, the lord of Mavros Territory, absent from Bessare, but so were his three sons—Kaiser, Axel, and Diego.

If anything were to happen to Bessare at this moment, what then?

Bessare was the frontmost city in all of Jinas, the closest one to the battlefield against Reiburg that needed to be properly fortified with enough personnel in case of an emergency.

Because of this, Raven didn’t want to deploy too many knights here.

”We need to find a way to take this ancient city with the forces we have now.” Raven stated seriously.

”In that case, our strongest fighters will have to lead from the front and take down the Guardians one by one, right?” Nibald summed up the situation.

”Yes.” Raven nodded slightly. ”Only if the three of us are at the front can we clear out those Guardians quickly while keeping our losses to a minimum.”

Needless to say, Raven had already counted Riezel and Nibald in.

Riezel had no objections to this plan.

Even though he honestly just wanted to rush in alone, the moment he thought about the possibility of more magic dolls hiding in the shadows and the mastermind controlling them, he figured it was best not to be forced into going all out since he didn’t want to give the enemy a chance to figure out his full strength.

He hadn’t forgotten that they were also inside the Underground Demon Beast Yarakulon’s body, and this demon beast was, in some way, connected to the mastermind behind all this, seemingly cooperating with them.

Such a fact made Riezel wonder if this ancient city had some kind of trap specifically set up for him, or maybe something else entirely.

If that were the case, then he definitely didn’t want to be the lone fool charging in and giving the enemy a free shot at him. Before uncovering all the mysteries that were still unsolved, it was better to hold back a little and keep some trump cards in reserve.

In that case, moving together with the Mavros family might not be a bad way to throw off the enemy’s expectations.

It couldn’t be helped.

Riezel was now aware that whoever was hiding in the shadows, creating and controlling those magic dolls, had set all this up just to eliminate him, so he had no choice but to be extra careful.

Of course, this did not mean he was going to start acting timid.

”I can take one of them down myself.” Riezel chimed in calmly, looking at Raven. ”You and Sir Garland should be able to take care of the other one fast enough, right?”

As soon as these words dropped, everyone turned to look at Riezel.

”By yourself?” Nibald said while frowning. ”Isn’t that pushing it a little too much, Sir Brynhart?”

Riezel didn’t respond and simply continued looking at Raven.

Seeing Riezel waiting for his answer, Raven thought for a moment before answering Riezel’s question with another question.

”You want us to take out the two guarding the entrance before the Guardians inside the city come out?”

”Yeah...” Riezel nodded calmly. ”I used magic to take a quick look inside the city. If I’m not wrong, the Guardians inside aren’t as strong as the two at the entrance.”

Riezel wasn’t just making things up since, before conducting this strategy meeting, he had actually used magic to observe the ancient city—specifically, he had used a 9th Tier surveillance magic known as ’God’s Eye’.

As had been mentioned before, this magic created an invisible, intangible magic eye that could fly far away and conduct surveillance. Not only could this magic eye share its vision with the caster, allowing it to pass through walls, but it also had an invisibility function, making it the perfect tool for sneaking around and gathering intel.

Unfortunately, it had its drawbacks.

If it got attacked, the damage would backlash directly onto the caster as true damage. It was also easily countered by anti-surveillance magic, which could trace it back to the caster or be blocked by offensive magic barriers.

For this reason, God’s Eye wasn’t the kind of magic that could be used carelessly.

Luckily, the Akasha Continent wasn’t like the world of Overlord, where tons of countermeasures against surveillance magic existed, so Riezel didn’t hesitate much and directly went ahead to use God’s Eye, sending the magic eye flying into the city to scout the area.

At first, Riezel thought the magic eye’s invisibility might get seen through by the Autonomous Guardians, causing them to attack it, but fortunately, they didn’t. As a result, the eye smoothly flew into the city, scouted around, and gave him a clear view of what was going on inside—including the Guardians.

It was precisely because of this that Riezel said the ones inside the city weren’t as strong as the two guarding the entrance since he found that most of the Autonomous Guardians inside were just like the one he and Raven had first encountered—about five meters tall. Compared to the two guarding the city entrance, their size was nothing.

In other words—

”As long as we take out the two guarding the entrance first, the rest won’t be too hard to deal with, even if all of them rush out from the city.”

Riezel explained his plan to everyone.

”But if those inside come out before we finish off the two guarding the entrance, they’ll team up, and getting into the city will be way harder, so the best-case scenario is to quickly take down the two and then get ready for those inside to charge out.”

”Since those Guardians are just autonomous ancient weapons, they don’t have much intelligence. As soon as they hear fighting outside, they’ll most likely rush out without thinking.”

”If they come out one by one instead of all at once—because of different distances from the city entrance or whatever—then we can take them down one at a time, right?”

Upon hearing Riezel’s plan, Raven and the others exchanged glances before nodding in agreement.

”Let’s do it.” Raven nodded solemnly. ”Nibald, you and I will team up and take down one of the two as fast as possible. If the Lightning Sword Saint hasn’t finished by then, we’ll go help him.”

”Hmm... alright.” Nibald thought for a moment but ultimately had no objections.

Meanwhile, Kaiser, Axel, and Diego exchanged strange looks at Riezel and Raven.

They couldn’t help but feel that the hostility between these two Sword Saints had cooled down a bit.

Riezel, who had been so aggressive before, wasn’t targeting their father anymore, while their father, who was usually so dominant and hard-headed, had softened his tone.

Somehow, these two Sword Saints had naturally come to cooperate.

’What happened?’

Such a question filled the minds of the three Mavros brothers, who were both puzzled and curious.

They had no way of knowing that Riezel had two reasons for this shift—first, he wanted to use the Mavros family as a shield, and second, he had started to suspect that Raven might not actually know what Felix had been up to.

Logically speaking, as the lord of Mavros Territory, Raven shouldn’t be that clueless about his own nephew and should know exactly what kind of person he was. However, people weren’t always what they seemed, so given how Raven was acting, Riezel had reason to suspect that this lord had been kept in the dark.

Having such a belief caused Riezel to hold back his temper a little.

As for Raven, he had simply acknowledged Riezel’s strength and knew Riezel wasn’t someone to underestimate, especially after the shock from ’Gate’—his usual overbearing nature had softened without him even realizing it.

Because of that, they had naturally reached an agreement and even cooperated, or else, with their personalities, they probably would’ve just gone at it alone.

Now that everything was settled, everyone moved into action.

”Spread out!”

Kaiser ordered the knights to spread out, forming a perimeter to block off the road leading to the city entrance.

Swordsmen took the front, magicians positioned themselves at the back, while the three Mavros brothers stood in the middle, forming a basic battle formation.

Meanwhile, Riezel, Lizbeth, Raven, and Nibald stepped forward, splitting into two groups.

Riezel and Lizbeth headed toward the Autonomous Guardian on the left while Raven and Nibald moved toward the one on the right.

As soon as the four of them got close enough, the Autonomous Guardians moved.

*ROOOAAAAAARRR—!!!*

A deep, powerful roar echoed, shaking the air.