Gacha Kingdom Building

And on the last battlefront, Claire seemed to be using her full power to unleash a magic bombardment onto her enemies.

Licia: "Tough..."

Fighting this monster properly was impossible for us. The level difference was too much.

This thing could defeat almost any citizen of the Kingdom with a single strike, so our best shot was using Elizabeth, the only one with a level comparable to his.

Thus, Licia, Eir, and I, focused on grabbing his attention and impeding him from reaching the magic barrier that Elizabeth had constructed to protect the kingdom's walls.

Miwen: "You know the saying right? The bigger they are...."

While incredibly strong, we were able to dodge his attacks, mostly due to Ellie lowering his speed and stunning him whenever possible, as well as his tendency to use wide swings whenever possible.

Still, getting hit by the trees that he was swinging would be a disaster, so I used my Kingdom Points to cheat this fight as much as possible.

This guy found out that the ground in the Kingdom might be way more hollow than he expected, as anytime a swing came too fast, the terrain would give in, making his leg fall into a hole, completely fucking up his balance and leading the attack nowhere.

This mysterious dimension is one I rule over, and here, buildings and walls would suddenly appear to block his way or vision, sometimes, even being thrown his way without the use of any magic.

My control over the Kingdom, paired with Eir's barriers and Licia's ice magic, made us able to hold him quite decently.

Every one of his attacks met an obstacle, which allowed us to dodge him completely.

Since we had his attacks mostly dealt with, we wondered if it was possible to damage him.

We knew that killing him would be impossible, but by hitting his knee joints we could at least hinder his movements, making everything easier for us.

It was no use though, as Licia herself confirmed, his skin was too tough for us to do anything about with our current strength. Even paired with Cassandra and empowering herself with magic, it was not enough for even a superficial cut.

It didn't matter how we approached him, slashing or stabbing, it was all the same. The sword would simply be deflected.

The only one who was able to penetrate him was... Ellie.

She was focusing her shots on his ears, the only area that seemed softer, but out of reach for anyone else besides Eir.

While Licia and I could use magic to create platforms and move through the air, it wasn't worth just to risk an attack when it would provide such a small advantage.

It was better to keep those to facilitate dodging his attacks, and we left Eir, who didn't need to use magic, to take care of the skies.

Even with Cassandra equipped, the status increase still wasn't enough for Licia or me to damage him, so I changed weapons for a second and used the new version of Ngom's Tempest Blade that the Merchant gave me in exchange for the one that had acquired Elizabeth's Demonic Power back during her Invasion Event.

Unsurprisingly, something made by a member of the Caravan was actually sharp and powerful enough to make up the difference between us, and I could draw his blood.

Not only that, the sword also provided a nice secondary effect.

Cassandra: "It's absorbing his Demonic Power... Hey..."

Miwen: "Hm?"

Cassandra: "Can I have that?"

It was the first time Cassandra had asked to eat one of my swords... well, at least one made of metal.

She told me before that she doesn't really go for weak or uninteresting ones, since their taste is so bad that she has trouble properly eating them, which could hurt her internally, or make her throw up the sword in pieces.

As part of our mutual agreement, she asked for the final say on what weapons she eats since I can get some good ones through the Gacha.

However, that would mean she could eat any weapon she wanted, which I ended up not allowing.

As a condition, she's the lowest on the priority list.

First, any weapon that looks useful or fits a citizen's fighting style will be given to them, then, if they are replacing a weapon Cassandra wants, she can eat it.

And in case a weapon comes out that no one wants to use but Cassandra wants to eat... that's fine too.

Since she's my main weapon anyway, giving her this one didn't matter too much to me, and I was impressed by how much stronger she became from eating it.

Not only that, she absorbed its effects, as well as the Demonic Power that it had stolen from the troll.

The only defect of this blade is that it was clearly made to fight against a humanoid creature, as during this fight, it didn't have enough reach for me to properly damage the giant monster we were facing.

That problem didn't exist with Cassandra though, as she could change herself into any type of bladed weapon to fit my needs.

In her dagger form, this allowed me to equip another weapon if I wanted to, but for now, it was better to use her sword form as I needed it to cut deep into the monster.

Licia: "His stamina seems endless... maybe this is his Gift?"

Miwen: "That's a good question. I think it's either that or a simple boost to strength."

It was hard for me to determine how much stamina a level 300 monster should have... it was definitely more than any of us, but he had been fighting Ellie since the beginning while running toward the wall, the forest, and then to the wall again.

Now, he had to face three opponents at once, and there were no signs of him getting tired.

This battle should be way more taxing for him, and yet, we were the ones showing signs of slowing down.

Miwen: "I could go for a break. See ya next round big boy."

I summoned a few stone towers high above him and threw them down in his direction.

They came with so much speed and power that for a second I thought I had trouble imagining that anything would survive it.

But I wasn't that lucky, and that beast rose from the stones with a loud roar.

Miwen: "...Elizabeth has already killed two. The last one shouldn't take long... as for Claire... she's doing a pretty good job... I'm not sure what else we can do here..."

Licia: "Hm... you managed to damage his knee joints... can't we do something about his eyes?"

I had to spend a lot of mana and Kingdom Points to create that opportunity, and it only worked because I summoned a house around his face to make him blind for a second.

To reach his eyes would be difficult...

Miwen: "Neither of us can do that, I don't think... maybe you can Ellie?"

She was already hitting his ears so...

Ellie: "Hm... I've tried, but he blocks the arrows if I aim for his eyes. Mouth and nose were the same. I got him poisoned but... I don't think it's enough to kill him within this decade."

I didn't think abandoning the Kingdom for a decade was a good strategy, but I kept notes in my head just in case.

More realistically, I thought that perhaps we could use the fact that he blocks his eyes from Ellie's arrows...

And with what we had available...

Miwen: "Valkyrie... you can reach his eyes, right? Do you think you can give him a nice stab for us?"

She has been pretty useful in provoking the troll due to her flying abilities. With almost no enemies in the sky to speak of, she's a hard target for the ground-locked monster.

Her ability to maneuver through his attacks in the air is way more effective than what Licia and I can do, even when we use magic to do some 3D movement of our own.

The biggest problem for us to hit the monster's eye is that we need to have Cassandra equipped, and then, we would need to get close to his face, which is extremely difficult to do when his speed, even under Ellie's debuff is still comparable to ours.

Just to avoid getting hit we have to waste a lot of mana or some Kingdom Points, so to reach his eyes would be too much to ask.

Knowing that a single hit of his would spell the end for any of us also doesn't help in making the decision.

Eir: "Can you turn into a spear?'

Cassandra: "Any weapon with a blade missy."

Between us, she might be the only one capable of doing it.

However, for that to work...

I was going to need some trees.

With just a few lines around him, I could create some cover to hide Eir and Ellie while also acquiring a more favorable terrain for Licia and me to provoke and dodge him.

Due to his size, he would have to destroy the trees to make his way to us, which meant that it was obvious who he was targeting at all times due to the sound, and we were one step ahead.

Like before, I used Kingdom points not only to make holes for him to fall into but also to create tunnels that would allow us to dodge and reposition ourselves.

I also had to replace a lot of trees or change them to make him confused and keep the girls hidden, but it was all worth it as when they were perfectly positioned, our strategy came to fruition.

By making his leg fall into a hole again, he became furious and distracted. It was still not enough to prevent him from blocking Ellie's arrows that were trying to reach his eyes, but by protecting his eyes with his hand, he had effectively made himself blind for a moment, which allowed Eir to approach him.

Ellie stopped shooting and focused back on his ear, which led him to move his arm down, only for Eir to quickly stab one of his eyes.

Miwen: "One down... now how do we get the other..."

Elizabeth: "You don't need to worry about that. This battle is over."

Using her lightning magic, Elizabeth burned down all the trees around us, and with multiple air bursts, she started to push the troll away.

Miwen: "I never thought I'd be so glad to see you."

Liz: "Oh? And I thought you were starting to like me a bit more..."

Miwen: "I'll like you a bunch if you can defeat him."

Liz: "If...? I see you're underestimating me. Perhaps my last display left you with the wrong impression. Watch closely Your Majesty, I shall remind you of my power."

Full of pride as always.

But even I knew that the battle was settled once Elizabeth stepped in. This is the girl who managed to make the Merchant throw at least one serious-ish punch.

The only thing to worry about was his Gift. Since we didn't notice any use of it, it was a complete unknown.

Still, we could infer a few possibilities.

First... it could be a complex Gift. One with restrictions or conditions to activate. Or maybe its effects aren't so simple that an opponent can notice easily notice them.

In that case, it could also be that this monster didn't know how to properly make use of it, or he never got to fulfill the conditions for its activation.

Another possibility would be what Licia and I thought about, a simple Gift that boosted a status he wasn't making use of, such as his strength.

Since no one was getting hit, that status was pretty much meaningless.

However, since this monster managed to climb so high in both power and rank, the chances of him knowing how to use his Gift were high in my opinion, so I thought the second option was more likely.

In the end, the truth was revealed to be somewhere between those two possibilities.

Facing Elizabeth's sky-covering thunderous dragon, the monster finally triggered his Gift.

It was a defensive one, but it wasn't so simple as a status boost.

By roaring to the sky when the dragon was about to hit him, we finally understood what it really did.

Elizabeth sensed that her dragon had met something... and it could only have been the soundwaves of his roar, as there was nothing else standing between them.

Liz: "Very interesting... I wonder how he'll react to this then..."

This time, she replicated the wind tornados that she used against the Merchant.

The size of those things made even the troll look small.

He once again used his Gift's ability to destroy them, but interestingly...

Miwen: "It doesn't affect us."

Liz: "Yes. Seems to me like it only works against magic... not only that, since he didn't use it against the ice walls... the condition is that it will block offensive magic."

He also tried to use it against the stone towers that I threw at him, but those weren't magic, so it didn't work.

If our opponent was human, he could intentionally not use his Gift in certain situations to hide its true power and trap us into thinking about it wrong, but...

This monster's rationality probably wasn't that developed.

And sure enough, as Elizabeth engaged in a battle of attrition with him, this became all but confirmed.

As the hours passed, the monster's roars became less and less powerful, and the Demon Queen's magic started to hit him.

Then, it started to hurt him.

A few burn marks came after... and then blood started dripping... until she took an entire limb.

Liz: "...Now would be a good moment to scream. Such a shame that you have meaninglessly wasted your voice. I wonder... did you save enough to beg for your life?"

If his Gift had come with unlimited stamina, or a regenerative throat... he might've stood a chance.

But against Elizabeth's incessant attacks, there was nothing he could do but despair and tire himself out.

Even his signals of intelligence and adaptiveness couldn't do much, as all he could think about was blocking the magic or attacking Elizabeth from a distance using trees and dirt.

The image of Elizabeth's overwhelming might... the last time I had seen this was during our battle.

It kind of sent shivers down my spine. Perhaps it was due to her being defeated last time, but she looked incredibly sadistic.

She finished him off after asking if he wished to join us. Of course, he could not answer her, so she blew his brains out with a pillar of lightning.

Due to his size, it was an incredibly bloody view.

Not long after his death, we joined with Claire, who had managed to kill her target and was finishing with their backlines.

It was quite interesting to see what she came up with.

She started by focusing on her own abilities, bombarding the enemy relentlessly until she was almost out of mana.

It could be misinterpreted as her relying solely on herself, but in actuality, she did it just to thin out their lines and then tasked Beatrice with the rest of the artillery business.

To kill her target, she used the valkyries to provide support from the air by killing all enemies close to them.

She used Anna's power as a tank to take the brunt of the attacks while she charged ahead with Mia, and together, they quickly defeated the breeder.

The way she took control of the air to support herself, and cleared the way from afar with firepower to allow for a quick assault looked like a pretty modern tactic, although it lacked any technology you would see accompanying such an operation.

Once we were all reunited though, the remaining monsters didn't stand a chance, and without being able to regenerate their numbers, the event quickly came to an end.

[Invasion! The Monster Horde Second Last Stand

Ending Achieved: Repeating Fate

The rewards for achieving this ending are:

50% Increase in your current amount of Kingdom Points.

5 Uncommon Gacha Tickets.

Dark Magic x1

Demonic Power: 17]

[Due to successfully completing the event, you can choose to either add or subtract two days from the event timers permanently.]

Of course, I chose to add days to the timer.

Between this and the Infinite Hotel, it felt like we barely had any time to breathe, and it made me halt the kingdom's development temporarily.

Considering my plans to increase the number of citizens, I was also going to need some time between events.

Miwen: "Liz... these monsters had Demonic Power, right?"

Elizabeth: "A little. I was going to ask if I could absorb it, but... it seems like you already did."

Miwen: "I see. Can I pass it to another person somehow?"

I knew I could throw it to Cassandra by having her slightly scratch me until she absorbed it all, but I was thinking about someone else who would make good use of this.

Elizabeth: "I can facilitate that, but... are you sure? It makes you stronger."

Miwen: "But it's also a bit troublesome, right? I'd rather keep it with someone else until it's enough to do something with. I'll just keep some to train with if you're willing to teach me."

Elizabeth: "Of course."

It wasn't a resource I knew how to use, so until I learned, this felt like the correct path.

Claire: "Miwen! We won!"

Full of energy, she came running and jumped to hug me.

She looked happier than I was.

But I could understand. This was the first event that we had completed without outside help, or that wasn't handed to us, like the Merchant or the Infinite Hotel.

It was a true victory, earned by the forces of the Kingdom and without the interference of a single ally.

Everyone was happy with the results.

Mia: "Are you forgetting about the Valkyries?"

Claire: "Hm... they don't count, right? They were like your tribe. Part of the premise and all..."

I ended up agreeing with Claire. While the Valkyries helped, they were part of the Event, and even without them, we would probably be fine.

Miwen: "It does beg the question... what do you guys want to do? I can look for your home world if you want to."

Lana: "Hey! Why didn't you make that offer to me?"

A little catgirl jumped out of my shadow upon hearing that.

Miwen: "It's the same offer, it's just that yours is under a timer. Also... thanks for before. I'll prepare something nice for you. But. That was reckless, at least tell me when you're inside my shadow.

And try to value your life more next time, in that situation, you could've died."

While I would've gotten hurt if not for her, I could still heal myself. In case she dies, I would have to go to the trouble of summoning someone to replace her, and it would also hurt the chances of the others remaining inside the kingdom.

Lana: "Hmph! You better. And don't talk like I'm going to do it again."

She jumped out of the walls and went inside her house, still refusing to interact too much with me.

But surprisingly, out of everyone that was summoned with her, she's the one showing the quickest development in loyalty. If she didn't start in the negatives, it could be at a comfortable level now.

While he had our exchange, the Valkyries discussed among themselves what they wanted to do, and then, the tallest among them, a girl with long, dark hair came to answer me.

?????: "I am Skuld, and I speak in place of my sisters, Eir, and Liefdis. A small kingdom like yours has performed a great deed in defeating the Monster Horde. It would be an honor for us to be under you."

It was a nice offer, so I accepted it.

They were all fairly strong, and due to saving them, their loyalty was pretty high from the get-go.

I also thought that in case I needed to send someone to help my family in the future, these three would be good alternatives to Elizabeth, as no one on Earth is close to their levels.

Miwen: "Hm... Are you sure you're fine forming a pact with a spirit called Apollo? Won't Odin get mad with you or something?"

After registering them as citizens, Apollo seemed enthusiastic about approaching them, and they immediately agreed to form a pact with him once I asked them to.

Skuld: "Hm? Who's that?"

...I really need to visit the Infinite Hotel again.

Last time, I focused on the most pressing issues, things to do with me or my Gift directly.

But... Elizabeth being a demon that came from a world called Hell. Valkyries existing, but not knowing about Odin... Angels, dragons...

A few elements of Earth's culture and mythology seemed to fit with what exists in other worlds, and I couldn't help but wonder if there's a reason for that.

Still, today's event ended up with our hard-fought victory, and I threw a large banquet to celebrate the new citizens as well.

The only thing left today was to wait for the Divine Event explanation from Catherine, as that could change my plans moving on, depending on what happens.