After having passed through two whole enemy formations, one would think that their enemy to be prepared for their charge attack, right? Well, that was not what was happening here and the reason for that was the utter chaos due to the situation below.
On top of Bacon, Apollo couldn't look down to see the exact progression of the boars rampage. Actually it would require him a blood colder than liquid hydrogen to be able to check the mini-map while riding a giant boar in high speed through enemy formations in a terrain as flat as a mountain. Yes, he was getting better, but he was still far from this level of cold bloodedness, so he couldn't even imagine his plan had actually failed while successfully completing his objective by pure accident at the same time.
Due to the method Hime used to acquire the egg, the boars didn't chase after her as they were too scared fleeing themselves. Their flee was chaotic as they spread to all directions, charging through the forest in panic while having the illusion that the forest was trying to devour them.
It was like a little child being impressed by an horror movie and becoming unable to go to the bathroom. The problem is that in this situation the "bathroom" was the whole forest, so they needed to escape the sooner the better to not be devoured alive by vine tentacles growing from the ground.
In their panic to flee, a dozen or so boars ended up colliding with troops down below, making the Oni's Master's sedan chair fly from their hands and their Master fall on the ground, breaking his arms as a consequence.
These events put the Oni in confusion as they didn't know what to do, after all breaking an arm is far from a fatal wound but this doesn't make it any less painful. Feeling his newly found pain inside his arms, the Oni's Master was torn between continuing the siege and retreating to treat himself, ending up with him being unable to do neither as he suffered in pain on the floor.
Looking over Bacon's mask, Apollo saw a hellish sight on the battlefield ahead. His hand grip grew stronger and sweat started dripping his face, but he didn't avert his sight and stared right in the middle of it.
Up ahead were the Fire Oni who had started their attack just a few minutes ago, transforming the whole mountain coast into a fire sea, using the corpses of the fallen soldiers and weeds as fuel, as they stepped over their bones and ashes proceeding to slice Apollo's soldiers down.
Apollo was not calm enough to count down his losses. Looking at another plant girl being killed right in front of him he felt his anguish grow inside his chest. This was one of the reasons why he didn't went directly to the enemy's main camp, he wanted to lessen their burden as much as he could, while the other motive was simply due to the path being not all that different, with only a few seconds delay between passing through here and bypassing it all.
Because of all the screams and shouts from the fight, the Fire Oni failed to hear the approaching boars until it was almost too late. Seeing the silver masked giant boars a few meters away from them, they didn't panic or tried to run, but instead organized themselves in small groups responsible to slow down the boars any way they could, while everyone else attacked them with all they had.
Bacon noticed their reaction but didn't slow down at all. Swinging her head right and left to make her eyes harder to target, she used her mask as a shield, bashing them to the ground before trampling them all.
Against Bacon and most other boars the Oni's plan ended up in failure as their momentum couldn't be stopped by the strength of just two or three Oni, but even then there were cases of success, resulting in a total of 5 boars being sacrificed in this attack.
Their death opened a hole in the boars wedge formation, allowing more Oni to evade the charge by taking advantage of it. Even so, half the Fire Oni had been trampled and Yuu's troops wouldn't let go of this chance, jumping right over them as soon as the boars had passed.
After having lost their numerical advantage, the battle proceeded in Apollo's favor. While the Fire Oni were excellent warriors, nobody in Apollo's team lacked soldier training as well, allowing them to capitalize on their newly acquired advantage as well as the fact the enemy was now not only focused on them but on the surroundings as well, fearing another charge attack.
Making and adjustment in their route, Apollo's boar cavalry reformed their formation while heading to the enemy's camp. Now that it was on sight, Apollo could notice something had went wrong. He expected the boars to be attacking relentlessly the Oni, but what he saw was no sign of boars at all. They had just passed by, spreading destructions, but none of them dared to stay behind.
The enemy camp saw the masked boars approaching and formed a barricade with the carts and supplies they had. They grabbed their weapons and focused on defending their Master who was still laying on the ground.
Apollo knew this would be a risky move, but if he didn't grab this chance, he would have no chance at all! And just as he started preparing for the collision, something changed in the enemy's camp.
"Eh?"
All of a sudden a light flashed in the bottom of the mountain, followed by all Oni loosing their conscience at once, marking the end of the battle.
-/-
A few minutes ago...
Exiting the cave with an egg in her hands, Hime ran back through the forest, taking the long way to reach the back of the enemies temporary camp.
The last part of her mission should be no less dangerous than the first one, she had to invade the enemy camp and hit their head with this egg.
At first she thought it was like a child's prank, but now, as she felt the weight and resilience of the egg, she was forced to change her mind. While she had no doubt a poisoned arrow would be more effective, this egg was no less of a deadly weapon if hit at the right place with enough power.
As she approached, she already expected to be easily detected by Ector's bracer so she readied herself for a fight, but she was surprised by the lack of reaction from the enemy which meant her movements had yet to be found out.
Seeing the boar unit approaching his camp, Ector didn't feel any danger and efficiently organized all his troops to give a warm reception to them. First he set up a barricade, then a spear wall, and last but not least, every available hand grabbed a bow to shower the iron pigs with arrows before they could reach this place.
"Ready the arrows! Fire on my command!"
Arriving silently at the outskirts of the camp, Hime observed the Oni's movements stealthily, confirming she had truly not been discovered yet. Since she was carrying the egg with both hands, she could hold no weapons, so this was even better to her.
"Ready!"
Step by step, Hime grew closer to her objective. The enemies were all focusing on defending their front, so they left their behind wide open, making it a perfect chance for her to strike, but just as she was a few meters away from her objective she was noticed, making time freeze for a second as the Oni and a single Plant girl stared at each other.
"Set!"
"Enemy assassin!"
"She is holding something in her hand!"
"She is going to throw!"
"Quickly! Protect Master!"
"Sh-What!?"
Hime's hand move just as quick as the Oni's mouth. She was already close enough to her target, so it was now or never! Holding her egg with both hands like doing a "throw-in" in a soccer match, she threw the ball, I mean, egg, on a direct trajectory to Ector's face.
Seeing the huge white egg flying toward his face, he couldn't even lift his arms to defend himself. For the first time since the start of the battle, Ector got a bit startled by a situation going out of his control, and before he could make any kind of answer or further reaction the egg his it's target, downing the already wounded man.
"Gah!!!"
You know, I kinda have a odd sense of humor.
People say that in the teather, if you put a gun in the wall, you will have to shot before the end of the show.
In my case, I put a gun on the wall, making everyone expect the moment of the shot, just to not shot it at all.
Sorry if I betrayed your trust by not using the mining mech to end the battle, but let's be real. That thing has been abandoned for dozens of years, there is no way it's in working conditions right now! If it was an engineer that found it, maybe she could repair it, but our tentacle lover Alyssa? No way! XD
March was walking out of the teleporter when a flash of light was triggered right behind him, revealing an unconscious Ector on the teleporting platform.
"EH?????"
Feeling quite confused, March carefully approached Ector and sensed his pulse by touching his neck.
"Hey mom, call in the medical team. We got an unexpected visitor here who arrived on his own..."
"I'm not your- fuck man, whatever! The team is on their way. Can you tell me his ID for the report?"
"ID number 762, Ector Messias, male, around twenty years old, maybe younger... DNA blueprints Fire type, score... 3077!?"
"Oh! The Oni guy!"
"Oni guy?"
"Yeah, this guy is a pervert for muscles. He designed his servants to look like muscle builders but because of the DNA blueprints' native feature, the horn, he ended up with an Oni."
"What the hell is an Oni??"
"You know, the ones from videogames. Giants with horns in their heads and bodies made of muscles."
"Ugh! Sounds creepy!"
"Hahahaha! We live in a free society. Let him like whatever he wants!"
"Sure, but keep his fetishes away from me! Anyway, why did this guy appear here?"
"Oh! It's an emergency feature of the Player's bracers. If the Player takes damage in any vital area like head or organs, and the system deems them unable to continue, they are teleported back here for treatment."
"...Doesn't this feature makes my job redundant?"
"Of course not. The bracer only teleport the Player after the damage is made. If the player suffer fatal damage at once, it's completely useless. Imagine if we ignored the guy exploding his own base last time. Both players there would have died before any of them could be teleported back here. Also, if the bracer is damaged, it may not teleport the Player successfully. Anyway, there are plenty of reasons for you to do your job."
"Couldn't you just remotely activate the teleport instead of sending me out?"
"Technically we could, but this feature is not available due to security reasons."
"Security?"
"Yeah. There are plenty of limitations imposed to us by you know who."
"You mean, the mi-"
"YEAH! EXACTLY THEM!"
"Man, chill out. It's not like they are tapping our communications."
"You never know. I got enough reasons to believe otherwise."
"...Are you serious? Don't they have better things to do? I mean, no matter what we say, we are as isolated as we can be. No word will ever get out before this is over."
"Can we stop talking about this now? Please..."
"Sure, whatever. So, how did this guy got taken out? He got the highest score I ever saw."
"Hahaha. You won't believe this! Do you want to hear?"
"Stop teasing me and say it already!"
"He got an egg thrown on his face!"
"...What?"
"An egg! A boar egg! He got an egg thrown on his face!"
"Since when boars lay egg!?"
"Every servant lays eggs, no matter their model or supposed gender."
"What!?"
"Yeah..."
"Men and women!?"
"Yeah."
"How!?"
"Yeah!"
"Fuck. I knew the people on the science department were crazy but this goes way beyond anything I imagined!"
"Yeah, I also got surprised a few days ago when I first heard about it."
"...This world is crazy."
"I completely agree with you."
At this moment the door opens and a team of 4 medics arrive with a floating bed.
""Thanks for your hard work.""
Answering to their greeting with just a nod, March gives them some space and observes as they move the body to the floating bed, leaving as quick as they arrived.
"What happens to the guy now?"
"Hmm. I'm not sure. We have already reduced the number of players by a good margin, so it's possible they will give a second chance for high scorers like him."
"Sigh... I wish they didn't..."
"Why?"
"That's more work for me, right?"
"Hahahaha! True! But the next phase should be a little less chaotic."
"Is that so?"
"Yeah. Some guys from other team leaked a few images of the new Planet undergoing terraforming."
"They are terraforming a whole planet just for this!?"
"Yeah, well, did you know that weapon experimentation is prohibited on habitable planets?"
"No idea."
"So, this is what a senior told me. You know who wants live tests, but the law doesn't allow it, so, to avoid the law, what they do is: they get permission for weapon tests in inhabitable planets, then they terraform the planet, and finally they have a habitable planet where they can shoot whatever they want!"
"...So you are scared of saying their name but you aren't scared about talking about this?"
"Oh God! You are right! Forget what I said! Delete the logs! Don't spread the word!"
"Hahahaha!... Hey, isn't that the sound of them knocking on your door?"
"Very funny! I'm in the office now! They don't need to knock on the door to come-Wah!!!"
"...? Mom? Are you there?... Hey! Say, something!"
"Sorry, mister March. Your previous operator will have to attend to an emergency meeting, so I will be taking over for him. Is there anything you need?"
(...Are you kidding me?)
"N-no. Not really. Contact me when another rescue is required. I will be going now."
"Of course! Have a good rest, Mr. March."
"Y-yeah. You as well."
-/-
Back in the Planet, Apollo slowly jumped down as Bacon reverted to her humanoid form, allowing the silver colored mask on her face to fall flat on the floor.
"...They..."
"They are sleeping, Master."
"Hmm..."
As he observed the unconscious Oni, suddenly a plant girl in maid clothes teleported to the place right in front of him, she went down to her knees and bowed down her head while talking in a crying voice and holding a cracked egg in her hands.
"M-M-M-M-Master! I'm extremely sorry!"
"Hime!?"
"You ordered Hime to break the egg on that guy's head, but even though Hime threw the egg on his face, the egg failed to break! Please punish Hime as you see fit!"
Saying so, she extended her hands, showing the cracked egg.
"Hmm... what happened to him?"
"I-I-I don't know! After I threw the egg on his face, he fell backward, but then he suddenly started to shine and after releasing a flash, he disappeared at the same time as all Oni fell to the ground!"
(Flash? Disappeared? You mean he teleported?? Hmm... That's probably it. Then, this means, he is out of the game! Which also means this battle is over!)
Slowly a smile of relief sprouted on Apollo's lips as tears started falling from his eyes. Apollo grabbed Hime by her waist and lifted her up in the air, throwing her up in the air, catching her back, and spinning her around.
"We won! We won!!! Victory is ours! Well done Hime! Well done!!!! Hahahahahahah!"
"Gyaaahh!! M-master! Calm down! Master! Help! Stop! Put me down! Somebody help meeeee!!!!!"
After a short celebration over the unexpected victory, Apollo and the girls started the clean up operation.... well, the girls did. As for Apollo, he couldn't handle the smell and the sight, so he was sent back to the base as he was getting in the way, instead of helping out.
As night arrived, all survivors gathered in front of Apollo's Palace.
Apollo praised their efforts and prepared a vegetarian barbecue for them, which was warmly welcome as nobody was in the mood to eat meat after being bathed in blood all day.
Apollo wished he had some alcohol but was forced to content himself with lemonade, but even so the mood alone got him drunk as they continued to party all night long and as the sun raised again in the horizon, the party come to an end and everybody could be found asleep all over the place.
Then, several hours later, as Apollo woke up below a table while having his arms hugged by Rose and Hime, he noticed an army of Oni arriving in front of him at the same time as an army of notifications started beeping in his bracer non stop.
"Ugh! My work never ends..."
Merry Christmas everyone.
No matter your religion or beliefs I wish you health and peace through this year's end and the following years as well.
PS.: I think it's pretty obvious but March calls his operator "mom" due to how naggy he is sometimes. The operator is a man, so maybe it would be best to call him father, but March's father was not naggy, so he calls him "mom" anyway XD