PSA: This one's a bit longer than the last one.
Steel and Sorcerers - Chapter 29
A bright stage was lit with a two prominent chairs to the right, a podium in the centre, and a table off to the left. A crowd gathered in the darkened hall, waiting for the debate to begin.
Seated on the two main chairs were the two current candidates in the running for election, and in one of their cases, re-election. These were Bumio Kishida, and the former prime minister, Kenichi Yamato.
One of the people from the side-table got up and walked over to the podium.
He announced, "The second round of elections for 2024 will now begin. The topic of this debate will be the 'special region'. The first question being, do you really think that magic and monsters exist in the special region, and what could that mean for Japan? First up is former prime minister Kenichi Yamato."
There was a great deal of whispering amongst the crowd as Yamato took the podium.
"I'm sure that we have all heard the rumours and saw the videos claiming to have been filmed inside the special region. However, in my unique position of having been involved with activities regarding the special region, I can say with confidence that these videos and images are fabricated, or at least edited. From my knowledge, with the exception of the gate itself, nothing resembling magic or monsters exists within the special region. As for what this means for Japan, while the special region isn't the fantastical realm that many present it to be, it still presents great opportunity for Japan. If we were to successfully exploit the special region, then Japan could rise to a new position of great influence throughout the world, and many of the current crises we are facing could be solved. It is for this reason that I urge citizens to act with restraint regarding this affair, and allow the government to do its work to make Japan great again."
As Yamato took a bow, stepping back down and taking his seat, there was a great deal of applause, but also chatter, as people questioned the validity of what he was saying. The promise of new prospects for Japan such as breaking out of the recession was tempting, but it was also suspicious that Yamato seemed hesitant to provide details about the special region. People didn't want another repeat of his recent run as prime minister.
It was then Kishida's turn to take the stage. He was a familiar face to many in the audience, having been a candidate to replace Binzo Abe in a previous election, but losing to Boshihide Suga. Identifying as a centrist, and previously serving as the foreign affairs minister, many viewed him as someone capable of restoring stability, and improving Japan's current negative image with the world.
Kishida began to speak.
"Based on the overwhelming amount of evidence, I can only say that something like magic and monsters must surely exist within the special region. What this means for Japan though is currently unclear, due to the lack of current government transparency on this issue. What I can say however is that this will be a time of great challenge, and great opportunity for Japan, and how we handle this situation will be of immense significance for our future, and even that of the world."
There was a great deal of applause as Kishida sat back down, as the tight restriction of information regarding the special region was a source of contempt for many. Although, there were some government hardliners and nationalists that viewed it as a necessity for preventing the infiltration of foreign powers.
The announcer stood back up to present the next round of questions. "We would now like to ask the candidates: How do you think the special region should be classified?"
Yamato was first up once again.
"The gate is a portal situated within Japan, which seems to be connected to another world. In this regard, the special region, as it is named, should be treated as a special region within Japan, which is Japan's responsibility to administer, with or without the assistance of foreign powers as Japan sees fit. There have been attempts by other countries to internationalise the gate, and I would like to briefly explain the insanity of doing so. The gate is situated within Ginza, Tokyo, one of the most heavily populated regions of Japan. Opening the gate up to allow foreign powers to come and go through there would cause a huge disruption to everyday life for citizens, not to mention also be a security risk, as hostile states may take that opportunity to infiltrate key strategic sites or conduct reconnaissance. It is for these reasons that the gate must remain as Japan's responsibility."
Next was Kishida's turn.
"I would first like to state that I agree with many of the points that Yamato has made regarding this topic. However, due to the immense significance of the gate it would only be reasonable to allow small teams of approved international researchers to visit. I would envisage such a situation being similar to the current technology-sharing arrangement with the US, where we would work together with key allies for mutual benefit, while sharing some findings to help improve the state of the world."
After Kishida went to sit back down, the announcer declared the final question.
"Lastly, we would like to ask the candidates: Under your leadership, how open will we expect the government to be. How much information about the special region will they be willing to release to the public?"
Yamato went up to the podium.
"As you all know, I used to be the prime minister until I resigned just a few weeks ago in light of heavy sanctions applied to Japan. A big contributor to those countries' decision to apply these sanctions was no doubt my government's refusal to release much information about the special region. I have learnt from these mistakes, and by re-entering the running I hope to present myself as someone with a changed mindset. If I am re-elected I plan to be much more open about the special region to the public, as it is an issue and opportunity that we must work together to solve. However, there is just one more thing I must say. I must warn against the unrestricted disclosure of information about the special region, particularly to those entities that may seek to bring down Japan, Anyone promoting such a stance should be viewed with suspicion, as there is a good chance they may be being funded by foreign powers seeking to exploit the special region for themselves, rather than for Japan."
At this, there was a great deal of discussion within the crowd. Firstly, Yamato's promise to be more open about the special region was unprecedented, considering how restrictive, perhaps even authoritarian, he had been so far. As a result, there were many that doubted he was really sincere. On another note, it was well known that the major promise of Kishida's campaign was his intention to have 'unrestricted discourse' about the special region. Thus, it seemed as if Yamato was indirectly accusing him of being a puppet controlled by foreign powers. At first glance this sounded like a conspiracy theory, but it was true that Kishida had been receiving a large quantity of donations from overseas ever since he had proclaimed the campaign slogan. Either way, it would be up to the people to decide who to trust.
Kishida stepped up to speak.
"As I'm sure you all know, if I am elected as prime-minister I plan to have unrestricted discourse about the special region, as the public deserves to have insight on such an important matter. I would also like to clarify that despite this openness of information, it doesn't mean I will let foreign powers come and go as they please. Rather, it would be citizens loyal to Japan that would be allowed to come and go. I would like to conclude by saying this. Japan is a democracy, where the people make choices about what the government does. Now, how would the people make the right choices if they didn't have all of the information available to them? That will be all, thank-you."
All was quiet in the previously abandoned dwarven city of Feo Raizo. The defenders had heard of what had happened at Feo Jera just a few days before, so they knew that they were next. Forward scouts had already indicated a large force of Quagoa, and likely demons were converging on their location.
Excluding the path to the surface, there were seven tunnels that led into the city. Of these, five had been intentionally collapsed with explosives in anticipation of the incoming attack, leaving only two points they had to defend.
Within the city was a sizeable force of soldiers and armoured vehicles. Although Feo Raizo didn't have as much support from the dwarves, it was closer in proximity to the gate, and since Feo Jera had the obstacle of the Great Rift, most of the US-JSDF heavy equipment was funnelled through here. Thus, defending the city were approximately 300 infantry, 10 Type 74 tanks, 10 M1A1 Abrams tanks, 20 M2 Bradley IFVs and a large amount of other miscellaneous equipment and vehicles. This force was roughly divided into 3 groups, two defending the entrances with one in reserve. All in all, they were ready for a fight. Still, hearing what had happened to the defenders at Feo Jera put them on edge, despite having prepared for a possible large-scale assault from the air.
Of these defenders, Akira Yanagida, a 1st lieutenant and acquaintance of Itami was among them. He had been put in charge of a squad of soldiers helping defend one of the entrances to the city. He was hoping that their defence here would hold, and he would be promoted so that he would at least be on the level of that goddamn otaku Itami, who seemed to rise through the ranks due to pure luck. Well, due to the secretive nature of their operations in the special region they apparently wouldn't be getting any promotions anyways, not until the government started being more open about what was really happening here.
All of a sudden he could feel a faint trembling in the ground, as if an earthquake was starting, and sirens began to blare. Yanagida quickly took one long last drag of the cigarette he had been smoking, getting a good lungful of cancer before tossing it aside and rushing over to his unit. He and his team had set up heavy machine gun positions on the roof of a dwarven building overlooking one of the entrances. Arrayed some distance away were 4 M1A1s, 3 Type 74s and 7 Bradleys. One of the soldiers racked back the slide on his 50cal machine gun as Yanagida set up his rifle on a sandbag, peering into the dark entranceway through his optics.
All of a sudden the sirens stopped, and a series of blindingly bright floodlights illuminated the entrance. The rumbling in the ground reached a fever pitch, to the point it was almost becoming difficult to keep his weapon still.
A few moments later a stream of Quagoa came bursting forth from the tunnel. With their arms raised to block out the harsh light, they quickly tripped and became ensnared in the barbed wire that had been strung in several rows around the opening.
Promptly, the US-JSDF forces unleashed a hail of gunfire, some of it electrically enchanted, obliterating the stalled enemies as they entered the cave. Yanagida didn't even have to fire since the Quagoa were being eliminated so quickly. It was a meatgrinder, with the Quagoa not even making it 10 metres into Feo Raizo before being blasted apart.
The sound of gunfire was deafening. Even through his ear protection Yanagida could hear it reverberating off the cave walls.
This onslaught continued for some time. They had to have killed thousands of Quagoa, their compatriots having to climb over a veritable mound of bodies only to be quickly shot to pieces as they poked their heads out the top. Yanagida mused that they might kill off all of the Quagoa at this rate.
All of a sudden though, new enemies began appearing. Demons.
They wore full plate armour armed with bastard swords wreathed in black hellfire, and looked like warriors, with black wings protruding from their backs.
As the first one flew up into the air it was instantly confronted with a hail of gunfire, causing it to howl in rage as it weathered the storm, bullets ricocheting off the metal plates of its armour. However, after a moment it suddenly jerked back in the air, revealing a large hole had just been blasted in its chest, likely from one of the tanks. It paused for a moment to examine what had just happened, before a second tank shell blasted another hole in its stomach, passing straight through and hitting the cave wall, sending down a small shower of rubble, and causing the demon to abruptly disintegrate into particles of darkness.
This victory was short lived however. Many more began to appear, this time not remaining still, and weaving in evasive patterns through the air while Quagoa continued to flood over the mound of their corpses, the sheer amount of bodies forming a barrier obscuring direct vision of the tunnel entrance.
"Shit, they just don't stop coming!" exclaimed one of his men.
Due to the rapid movements of the demons, and their immunity to small-arms fire, they were free to wreak havoc among the defending forces, each swipe of their swords causing soldiers to become consumed in dark flames. It was only through concentrated fire by the Bradleys with their 25mm chain guns, and lucky shots from the tanks that they could be brought down.
The defenders were starting to take major casualties, and there was another problem too. As Yanagida glanced over to their supply cache, he could see that there were only a few more boxes of 50cal ammo left, and at this point his gunners were firing near constantly, the ground littered with shell casings and chain links. In addition, the ground tremors had barely decreased in intensity, indicating there were many more monsters well on the way.
Yanagida retreated back down to the second floor of the building he was stationed in where it was quieter to make a radio call.
"Yanagida of Beta-group to Beta-group commander, how copy?"
After a few moments the response crackled through. "Yanagida, copy."
"Commander, my men are low on ammo, suggest retreat."
"Copy. I heard similar reports from the others. Initiate withdrawal on my signal as practiced."
"Copy."
Yanagida then hastily climbed back up onto the roof. The armoured demons were starting to get closer to his location, so he anxiously glanced up into the air, waiting for the signal. He could see some soldiers already beginning to break formation and flee as demons wreaked havoc amongst their lines.
At last he saw it, a red flare was shot up into the air, and the alarms, barely able to be heard over the sound of gunfire began blaring for a short moment.
At this, his squad-mates equipped their rifles and began quickly filing down the stairs, leaving their heavy machine guns behind on the roof. After the last of his soldiers had headed down, Yanagida followed after them.
As they made it down onto the streets, he could see teams from other buildings also making their way out down the road, where an M1A1 Abrams tank was holding the Quagoa at bay, now that the infantry had left their posts. Due to how narrow the streets were, the tank blocked most of the way, so they had to go through the back paths and climb over some walls until they were behind it.
On cue, there was the sound of a massive explosion, probably the charges that had been set up earlier to cave-in the tunnels to buy time for their retreat.
As Yanagida and his men jogged down the road towards the tunnel to the entrance, which was their evac point, he glanced behind him, seeing one of the demons plunge through the air, coming to land with an earth-shuddering crash on the roof of the M1A1. Ignoring the 50cal machine gun fire from its roof-gunner, the devil cut a dark flaming gash in the top of its turret as the crew desperately put the vehicle into full reverse, shaking the turret from side-to-side in a vain attempt to throw it off. As the demon once again plunged its sword into the tank, raking its blade from side to side with a screech of metal, the crew began bailing out. However, as they began clambering out of the hatches, the demon shifted its focus to them, casually bisecting them as if it were playing whack-a-mole with a sword.
Shifting his focus back to his front, Yanagida spotted what looked like a traffic-jam ahead, as dozens of vehicles tried to squeeze through the small path leading to the surface.
As he and his squad arrived at that mess, he took another moment to look behind him. What he saw was a huge force of Quagoa and those armoured demons bearing down upon them. Evidently, collapsing the tunnels hadn't stopped them somehow. With the greatly decreased volume of firepower being put downrange in lieu of the retreat, they had almost free range to charge towards them unhindered. He estimated it would only be a couple of minutes before they were on top of them at this rate.
"Alright men, we're going over the top!" Yanagida announced to his squad, climbing onto the roof of a Type 74 and jumping between vehicles, steadily making his way towards the tunnel leading to the surface.
Seeing what he was doing, many of the other soldiers began following his lead, and they soon made it out onto the surface.
It was apparently assumed by the leadership that the demons and Quagoa wouldn't follow them outside, which was why their rally point was there. However, Yanagida seriously doubted that logic. It made sense that the Quagoa wouldn't follow them, due to their sensitivity to light, but there should be nothing stopping the demons. He had brought this issue up with the higher-ups at the newly formed USJSPECCOM(US-Japan special region command), but they had insisted that even if that was the case, the enemy had to be prevented from making it outside onto the surface, as it would be much more difficult to deal with them when not funnelled into the natural chokepoints the caves provided.
This would've been sound logic, but at this point Yanagida wasn't sure that they could hold them off even from the surface, given much of their heavy equipment had to be left behind in Feo Raizo. Yanagida began eyeing up several armoured cars, plotting an escape route for his squad in case things went south.
His concentration was disrupted as he heard the sound of roars and screams coming from the tunnel. It seemed the worst had happened. He had seen several armoured vehicles make it out so far, but if the demons had already almost made it to the surface then almost half would have been lost.
As Yanagida's squad took up positions around the small supply compound that had been set up around the tunnel entrance, the first demon emerged, roaring in triumph as it took a short break from hacking apart fleeing soldiers and vehicles.
At that moment, Yanagida heard an announcement blare through his radio.
"Attention all units in the Feo Raizo region, be advised in t-minus 30 seconds an artillery strike is inbound on the city entrance, danger close. Seek cover immediately."
Danger close? The higher-ups he had spoken to hadn't mentioned anything about an artillery strike.
This message continued to repeat itself every 5 seconds, counting down the timer.
Yanagida got his squad together and they hastily began getting as much distance as they could between them the tunnel entrance.
"Attention all units in the Feo Raizo region, be advised in t-minus 5 seconds an artillery strike is inbound on the city entrance, danger close. Seek cover immediately."
As his squad dived behind some rocks, he could hear and feel the shocks from the impact of the artillery rounds exploding on the tunnel entrance. It would be a pain to later try and re-excavate the entrance to Feo Raizo, so it seemed command was trading future strategic options for time. Although, there was a chance the demons might do the job for them since the cave-ins they had triggered earlier didn't seem to have stopped them from making it into the city.
The bombardment continued for several minutes, after which a new announcement came through.
"Attention all units in the Feo Raizo region, proceed to the new rally point at Charlie base."
Charlie base was an outpost set up in the East side of the Great Forest of Tob, where from the gate you would either head on to Feo Jera or split off to Feo Raizo, a sort of crossroads. It was about 35km away, so Yanagida hoped that they would be safe there from the demons, at least for a while.
With the Quagoa and demons knocking at their door, and the fall of Feo Raizo, several high-ranking individuals initiated an emergency meeting within Feo Jera.
"Members of the Regency council, don't you think it's about time we contact Ainz Ooal Gown to ask for help?" asked the commander of the USJF (US-Japanese forces) Feo Jera garrison.
In response to this prompt there was a great deal of murmuring amongst the members of the dwarven council.
"Commander, we've been through this before" proclaimed the Forgemaster, "We absolutely cannot trust or work with the undead!"
The Cabinet Secretary spoke up. "I do agree with you on that point Forgemaster, but what other choice do we really have? It's only a matter of time before those monsters find a way into the city."
"Exactly" said the commander, "In fact I can't believe you sent him away like that in the first place, you didn't even wait to see what he had to say, even if he is undead!"
The room went silent as everyone anxiously weighed up the options.
"Everyone, if you will."
Everyone turned their heads to see who had spoken. It seemed Habiki Ito, the new Director of Operations within the Special Region had something to say. Though, since he was fairly new and had a weak personality, most of the people here didn't really have high opinions of him, particularly because it was around the time when he took office where things had started going downhill.
"Rather than contacting that undead for now, I have an alternative."
Everyone's attention was now keenly focused on him.
"How about we hire adventurers to help."
There was a moment of silence before the garrison commander spoke.
"Are adventurers really that much better than what we have? I feel like they would just get overwhelmed by the Quagoa, and be a waste of money. Surely there isn't any individual powerful enough to turn the tides so easily?"
Ito smiled.
"There are actually a few such individuals."
"Oh, really?
"Yes. One that comes to mind is Momon of Darkness."
"Darkness… are you sure he isn't a chuuni?"
"Commander, please take this a little more seriously. Anyways, a short list of his, and his companion Sebas' accomplishments includes: clearing a graveyard of undead, subduing the large rat-like monster that attacked us during our initial foray into the special region, clearing a bandit hideout, defeating a number of ogres, and slaying a gigant basilisk."
"Oh! I'm not sure what a gigant basilisk is, but that rat, or hamster monster did give us a little trouble early on. I suppose if this is the calibre of individual we are dealing with then it might be worth the price of them learning of our capabilities."
"Are we all in agreement then?"
Everyone else nodded.
"By the way, Ito-san" asked the commander, "Did you come up with this idea yourself or did Yamato suggest it for you?"
There was an awkward silence, as many had heard the rumours or suspected that Ito was simply a puppet following Yamato, the previous prime minister and director of operations within the special region's orders.
"No, I actually came up with this on my own" smiled Ito. "I was out on a walk around the edges of the compound, when I was struck with a sudden inspiration."