"Are you certain?! What are their numbers? And what type are they?"
Prime Minister Agiley, who sat next to Ignomas, began asking questions to the knight.
"Sir! At their current speed they'll be here in one hour. They've reached Purole, and are heading straight here. Judging by the size of the fishes, we believe they are accompanied by A Rank monsters!!"
According to the knight, there were around 100'000 monsters heading there at high speed, traveling as a single army.
From their size, it was easy to assume most of them were A Rank monsters.
(So it's started. All cities are supposed to have watchmen and means to give early alerts, but one hour is a pretty short time. Did they just skip over other cities and head straight here?)
Allen had expected the Demon King's Army was planning something, and now they were coming to attack Patlanta as an army.
Most big cities had communications magic devices, but the enemy seemed to have evaded all of them somehow, being quite close to the capital already.
'Where is Purole?'
Allen whispered through the Bird G summon hidden in Cecile's clothes, asking Princess Rapsonile.
"It's a city to the north of Patlanta. What should we do? Why would an army of monsters come just at this time…"
Princess Rapsonile looked pale, whispering back an answer to Allen.
Purole was located around 100 kilometers to the north of Patlanta.
(100'000 A Rank monsters, that's quite a lot. That's just outside of Eagle's search range too. I guess this will become a race against time.)
Allen used his Bird E summon's Awakened Skill [Clairvoyance].
That allowed him to see everything in a 100 kilometer radius, but that was not quite enough to spot the enemies yet.
Enormous monsters shaped like fish and marine reptiles were heading straight to Patlanta.
Calculating with their speed and distance, they would get there in one hour like the knight said.
This was a quite dire situation, so Allen decided to call his 4 meter long shark summon.
He had summoned it 50 meters above everyone, to not cause a panic.
Then he put two Bird E and A summons in its mouth, and sent it swimming north.
If Allen wanted to bring Allen's Army to Patlanta's north, he would need a Bird A's [Nest].
And the closer they were brought to Patlanta, the more likely monsters could get through and into the city.
That could lead to many casualties from the city.
He wanted to confront the monsters as far away from the capital as possible.
Allen's Army was also ready for combat.
There were around 100'000 monsters coming.
He had already evaluated the power of such enemies.
Allen had fought seven million monsters in Rosenheim.
At that time, most of them were B Rank monsters, with only one amongst every 100 or so being an A Rank monster.
That meant that there were less A Rank monsters there that time, and the battle had lasted around two months.
Allen had also been surrounded by A Rank monsters in the S Rank Dungeon's death zones.
His entire party at the time had likely hunted around 10'000 A Rank monsters in a day there.
It was easy to conclude that this fight would be harder than those ones.
"Wh-what should we do?"
While Allen considered his past experiences to figure something out now, Prime Minister Agiley was talking to Ignomas, sounding distressed.
"Hmph. They're morons for sending monsters when Lord Makris is here. Get the soldiers ready to counterattack!! Don't let the monsters close to the city."
The nobles sitting nearby began getting nervous hearing Ignomas give that order.
But Ignomas had been filled with a warring spirit.
He stood up from his seat full of emotion.
"Yessir!"
"Use the magic devices and activate all alarms. Emperor Ignomas has designated this an emergency situation!"
"What will happen with the event then?"
Prime Minister Agiley was still unsure, this was an important event that happened only once a year.
"Stop the event, obviously. We're about to go to war. Hurry up! And give me my trident!!"
His blood boiling, Ignomas snatched his trident from a nearby knight.
'What's happening?'
The second round was about to start, so the Sacred Fish Makris circled back to the seats where Ignomas was.
"Lord Makris, there are monsters coming to attack my city. We have to prepare to fight back, so the event needs to be canceled."
He reported the current situation to the Sacred Fish Makris.
'Monsters? Where from?'
"From the north, it's an army of 100'000."
Makris asked more questions, and Agiley answered in more detail.
Makris then faced north, but the enemy was still so far away he could not see it.
He tilted his head a little, surveying the event again.
'My oh my, what's happening? Everyone please calm down, everything is perfectly fine. No need to raise your voices.'
(Hmm, could he be..?)
The starfish-faced host used the megaphone magic device to say everything was alright.
Allen had been observing the entire time, and felt something odd in his behavior.
"Hey, what do you think you're doing?! Give me that and stop saying nonsense, we need to tell them of this emergency!"
Prime Minister Agiley reached out, trying to take the magic device to tell everyone about the emergency situation.
The starfish-faced host answered by throwing away the mic.
'Look, I worked hard to gather all these people here. The Evil God's resurrection demands a large amount of blood and souls.'
While Agiley looked agitated, the host spoke with a mocking voice, saying something unbelievable.
"Wh-what are you-?!"
Bash
"Kyahhhhhhhhhhhhhh?!"
Agiley was unable to say anything more.
A magic circle appeared behind the starfish-faced host.
Then three figures appeared, and one of them cut off Agiley's head with a greatsword.
Fresh blood spread out, and the audience went hysterical watching Agiley be killed.
'Ahh, this was bad. Everything was going so well. Ahhhh, now it's all a mess.'
The starfish-faced host had not a smidgen of pity for Agiley.
Instead he gave an insincere reprimand to the large muscular man with the greatsword, who had a strange thing covering his entire body.
Because of that, the audience went into a panic, and attempted to escape as fast as possible.
'You should thank him, you were playing around too much, Kyubel.'
Amidst the chaos, Bildiga who looked like a beetle with metallic shell spoke with an emotionless voice.
'Huh? Did'ya just thank me for the first time?'
Answered the other Demon Great General Basque, who was once known as a S Rank adventurer, and the Shura King.
'You must've misheard. That's not what I said.'
''It has become quite a mess, though. If we need blood and soulds, shouldn't we just kill everyone? Chief of Staff Kyubel.''
While Bildiga and Basque stared daggers at each other, the third figure, one with a male and a female head, and two sets of limbs, spoke up.
The Demon Great General Ramonhamon asked what to do with the audience that was starting to run wild.
'The Demon King ordered us to successfully carry out our goal this time.'
Bloop!!
There was a sound as something like smoke covered the starfish-faced host, the Demon Great General Kyubel emerging from it, the Demon King's Army's Chief of Staff.
Ramonhamon insisted they focus on accomplishing their goal.
(So that was Kyubel in disguise. I guess it was them who planned that army of monsters too. And the Prime Minister had never been an enemy.)
Allen had already expected the Demon King's Army presence there.
They only had one day to prepare, but Allen had already given orders to Allen's Army.
They had all returned to Heavy User Island yesterday, and had gotten things ready.
Allen had noticed the Demon King's Army's influence in everything he saw so far.
The Demon King's Army current location:
-The monsters were still 100 kilometers away from Patlanta
-The crystal flower was 100 kilometers wide, and Allen was in the center
-That meant there was 150 kilometers in total between Allen and the Demon King's Army.
"You fiend!"
Ignomas glared at Basque and his group, enraged by seeing them kill Agiley.
While the audience focused on escaping, Ignomas was gathering the enemy's attention, brandishing his trident.
'Wah, how scary. But tell me, was the throne Sinorom give you feel comfortable?'
Kyubel seemed intent on enraging Ignomas even more.
(Ohh, I see, so Ignomas was being deceived by Kyubel. But thanks to him getting their attention…)
Kyubel and Ignomas' conversation was really interesting, but there were still a lot of people there who could not fight.
There were things Allen could do while Ignomas distracted the enemy.
Allen made his Bird G summon move out from Cecile's clothes, flapping through the water to the item Kyubel had thrown away.
'Everyone, listen carefully. I'm Ignomas! A large army of monsters is coming from the north, as emperor of Prostia, I declare this an emergency situation!! Sound all alarms!! All knights get ready for combat!!'
"Wha-?! Th-that's my voice?"
Ignomas was shocked hearing his own voice say that.
The Bird G summon's Special Skill [Voice Imitation] allowed him to copy someone else's voice.
Allen ordered his summon to head to the magic device Kyubel had thrown away, and speak into it using Ignomas' voice.
The magic device was configured to be heard not only atop the crystal flower's style, but also anywhere in Patlanta.
Thanks to that, everyone was able to hear about the emergency alert.
'Oh, does this mean that Allen is around here too? Where are you~ come out already~'
Kyubel looked around in an exaggerated manner, perfectly understanding the situation.
He instantly knew that this was Allen's work.
"So you were looking out for me then?"
Allen slowly approached Kyubel, trying to give the audience as much time as possible.
'Of course, it's always you getting in the way of our plans. It'd be odd if I didn't look out for you. Wait, what? You look like a merman now? How strange?'
He seemed surprised to see Allen looking like a merman.
"Heheh, this is my true form. You looked better with a starfish face too, but you were merely imitating my power."
'Heheheh, nothing is impossible for the Demon King's Army. But it seems our plans always end up intermingled.'
Kyubel had played along with Allen's banter in Rosenheim, but now he did not seem interested.
(Now, let's see if I can figure something out about Peromus.)
Allen still did not know what had happened to Peromus, and could do nothing to help him.
He figured there was something he could find out by talking to Kyubel.
It seemed like Peromus had been taken away after he found a connection with the Demon King's Army, but Kyubel did not mention him at all.
"Wh-wh-what's the meaning of this?!"
(Oh, you didn't run away? The event is over, just go already. I would appreciate some support too though.)
Everyone there were mermen, so even though the flower's style was one kilometer tall, many had simply jumped off.
The majority of the audience had already left.
But Rosalina had not escaped, and instead wanted to know what was happening.
Allen explained in simple terms that the Demon King's Army was attacking and the event had been called off.
It was still a lot to take in, and yet another person got closer to Allen.
"Did you say the Demon King's Army? That Demon King's Army that keeps warring with the humans on the surface?"
Somehow Ignomas understood that Allen was also involved in this.
"Yes, that Demon King's Army. It seems they're trying to take over this underwater city now."
While Patlanta entered a state of emergency, they prepared to fight against the Demon King's Army.
