Andgrund, Operation Feint East, Strike West, Day Three.

0350 hours.

"How long has it been?"

"Exactly three hours. Are you sure you didn't use an alarm spell? How does anyone sleep with accuracy down to the second?"

"Training. Repetition. Mastery."

Ivan answered as he opened his eyes.

Closed Tunnel 12, Northern Sector. According to the map, it had no intersections with other tunnels, placing it outside the patrol routes. An eminently suitable hideout.

Ivan clenched his fists and wrapped his muscles in mana, tuning his body. The sensation was much like tightening the slack strings of an instrument.

With sufficiently delicate control of neural acceleration, one could force oneself into a "state of wakefulness." Apart from the sleep indispensable to sustaining life, fatigue was merely a disruption of the senses.

Only after shaking off every sticky remnant of fatigue in his head did he stand. Lucia was watching him with concern.

"Why don't we rest a little before leaving...? Starting today, you'll be... pushing yourself nonstop."

Recalling the operation outline, Lucia trailed off.

The key to Feint East, Strike West was for those responsible for each front to draw the enemy's attention to the fullest extent of their abilities.

The dwarven main force hardly needed to try. Simply arming themselves sufficiently and marching toward the enemy would constitute a show of force.

Not so for Ivan and Enrique. Each had to cause as much commotion alone as an entire legion.

Enrique would use the "notoriety of the Hero's Party."

Ivan, the notoriety of the "Venomous Spider."

That was one thing for the already famous Enrique, but ordinary battles would not remotely suffice for Ivan to announce his dreaded presence in enemy territory when everyone considered him dead.

Thus, from dawn on the third day to the operation's conclusion, his schedule was packed with planned engagements.

"I've rested enough."

Ivan crunched through the nutrition bar Lucia handed him, swallowed, and silently rolled up his sleeve and offered her his arm.

She spent a long time studying the dark circles beneath his eyes with a sorrowful expression, then sighed and muttered,

"Men. Honestly."

CRUNCH

Her fangs sank into his forearm. Along with the sharp, tingling pain, he felt his blood being drawn out.

Lucia could obtain calories from ordinary food as well as blood, but on deployment, the less space combat rations occupied, the better. A healthy body could produce as much blood as necessary.

Ivan adjusted his mana, forcing his heart to pump harder and raising his blood pressure. The volume of blood drawn through his forearm increased sharply.

Once the brief respite ended, he took a bottle of healing potion from inside his coat.

"..."

He stared at the clear glass bottle in momentary indecision, then turned his head away and pulled off the cap.

A good agent would pour healing potion with his own hand when necessary, even onto his own arm.

SIZZLE

The wound stopped bleeding.

"Move out."

"Yes... Tell me if you're tired."

"Quiet."

"Yees... Senior."

* * *

Less than half a day later, a total of eight outposts, twenty-five sentry posts, and forty-seven tunnels had fallen silent.

This happened north of the northern industrial district where Andgrund's rebels had established their main base, in the rear area bordering the outer reaches of the Sky Mountains.

Not even word that the sentries sent out had vanished reached the central command post. Like the Black Death, the absence of information stained part of the tactical map dark.

Command headquarters, already on edge over the threat of all-out war sparked by fighting in the south, only began to realize what was happening that afternoon, thanks to news brought by a single dwarf.

"He's here!! He's here!! He's come back!!"

The sentry who had run in with blood streaming from below his severed shoulder died with those words.

The answer to headquarters' question, "Who exactly is 'he'?" came from another sentry who arrived thirty minutes later.

"He's... still alive...!! At the northern gate... No one's alive at the far end of the northern gate...!!"

That sentry, too, bled to death from a severed shoulder.

Investigating the two sentries' identical conditions took another ten minutes to establish that both had been dispatched to Outpost 17, known as "Northern Gate 5."

An hour to confirm that none of the other troops urgently dispatched to Outpost 17 had returned alive.

Another hour for word to arrive that the detachment sent to Outpost 15 had vanished.

Then thirty minutes to realize that contact had been lost with everyone who had left the city heading north.

Only after the last survivor of a dispatched unit returned, gasping, "The bodies... The bodies...!" before collapsing with foam at his mouth, did the command headquarters of the northern munitions factory district finally recall a strikingly similar lesson from the past war.

Deliberately cutting off intelligence assets. Paralyzing an entire area so completely that no one even realized information had ceased to flow.

These tactics, designed to provoke extreme terror and gradually rob the enemy of its ability to operate in the field... bore an astonishing resemblance to "their" methods.

"But they should all be dead...?"

The officers at headquarters murmured in fear. Until they remembered that the very first report they had received was, "He's come back."

"Available troops... What troops do we have available?!"

"Apart from the slaves, the entire army has marched to the front! There are only engineers left in this city!"

The war was not so forgiving that they could leave combat troops at the farthest point in the rear, opposite the front lines.

Looking at the long railway stretching from the munitions factories to the front, headquarters made the soundest judgment it could despite its fear.

"Send a courier to the necromancers! Tell them the Venomous Spider is here!"

"B-but we aren't certain, are we?"

"And if we aren't? Are you telling me to check whether he really is the Venomous Spider before sending a courier?!"

Only after the courier departed did headquarters manage to muster the factory district's engineers, struggling to maintain a semblance of calm.

"The enemy is few in number."

Of course they were. Sending a force above a certain size across the outside of the mountains to infiltrate the rear was beyond Krasilof's logistical capacity.

If they truly wanted all-out war, there would have been no need to infiltrate the rear at all. They could simply deploy the legions stationed in the north and march alongside Andgrund's forces.

Those lurking beyond that informational darkness could be no larger a force than a small strike team.

"The Extermination Unit isn't the only force capable of this. Get a grip! It means this is the only option available to a small force infiltrating the rear!"

The information blackout and isolation they were experiencing were not some special stratagem only the terrifying Extermination Unit could execute.

Rather, even the mighty Extermination Unit had no other tactical option available.

Sufficient numbers were themselves a means of fundamentally reshaping the tactical situation. Most great strategies and tactics in history began with committing "sufficient numbers" at "the right time," with "their full strength intact."

Thus, for a small strike force to threaten a large army, there was no answer beyond tactics like these. Turn that reasoning around, and the situation became simpler.

Bring a large force to bear head-on and overwhelm the enemy through sheer numbers.

Unless one possessed an individual on the level of the Seven Dragon Generals, beyond a certain scale, troop quantity overwhelmed troop quality.

Therefore.

"Prepare for a pitched battle. Clear the outskirts and open the gates. All armed personnel except goblins will assemble with every firearm we have!"

The enemy's specialty was "whittling down" its opponents.

The dwarves' favorite tactic, meanwhile, was closer to "forming a mass too solid to whittle down."

If they simply waited, the necromancers would arrive, wild-eyed at the Venomous Spider's appearance. They only had to hold out long enough.

Unorthodox stratagems were best met with orthodox tactics, after all.

This time, they would kill the Venomous Spider. The dwarves rose, wearing courage like a mask over their fear.

* * *

Andgrund, Operation Feint East, Strike West, Day Four.

1320 hours.

"Wow..."

Lying flat at the cliff's edge, Lucia let out a quiet exclamation of awe.

Countless railings lined the cliff, with stairways running between the tunnels that honeycombed its face.

Below, goblin slaves hauled their burdens back and forth along the lower stairs like ants.

HISSS

Black fumes billowed from deep underground. The dwarven munitions factory district lay below them.

Andgrund was often described as a subterranean city. This was a common mistake among surface dwellers. It was not a city, but a world unto itself.

Unlike humans, who piled buildings atop the ground, the underground inhabitants faced no limits on vertical construction.

No tower, however tall, could compare with dwarven structures built by excavating the earth. Every "city district" completed when Earthweb Excavators were commonplace boasted a scale rivaling Prizhenkaya.

Tunnels branched out in a tangled maze like roots spreading from the urban district at their center. Countless goblins swarmed through those still being mined.

The enormous underground cavern, the innumerable nonhuman races visible within it, the roaring machinery and huge rails, even the heat from factories producing military supplies.

Lucia stared down at the sight, unable to close her mouth, before turning to Ivan.

"A-are we really going in there? Th-the difference in numbers is a little... a little extreme, isn't it?"

"We needn't fight them all."

Ivan inspected his weapons as he looked down over the city district.

The number of dwarves he had slaughtered on the way here was already well beyond a few dozen. It had to be counted in three digits. And that was merely from disposing of detachments. Had he deliberately allowed about ten dwarves to return alive from those engagements?

Having sent that many back, they would have realized by now that enemy infiltrators were responsible for the radio silence around the northern gate.

"It's... a trap, isn't it?"

"Mm."

Ivan's assigned objective in this operation was to assassinate "Aviditas's remaining followers."

With no way of knowing where they were holed up, the surest tool at his disposal was "resentment."

Aviditas's remaining followers hated Ivan more than anyone else in the world. He was the very man who had killed their master.

So, to those mustering troops with the intention of desecrating even the supposedly dead Ivan's corpse, he would suddenly announce:

'I am still alive.'

'I am here.'

They could never resist. The minions who had served the Lord of Desire could never resist this temptation.

Part of the grand strategy was to make them come to Ivan, rather than have him go to them.

And what that required was enough terror to drive their rear-echelon troops to request aid from those necromancers.

That terror would make them huddle together. Just as they were now.

"With a sure prospect of victory, a trap can sometimes become an opportunity."

"... Pardon?"

"Setting a trap means concentrating all your available forces in one place, Lucia. The risks of a failed stratagem like a trap are too devastating. For them, this will be an all-or-nothing gamble."

To Ivan, the city of munitions factories looked like a beast huddled like a turtle, its spines raised. Growling in terror. Struggling to hide its fear beneath flamboyant valor.

It would actually have been a problem had they dispersed. Fighting an urban battle against scattered local troops lying in ambush would have been a nightmare for him.

So he had to force them into a "pitched battle." The terror of his reputation would make that possible.

The tactics the city's dwarves would choose were not truly of their own choosing. Emotions deliberately induced by someone else were narrowing their options.

As he had reflected before, encirclement was sometimes a perfectly viable tactic even for a small force. Provided one could exercise the right degree of control over the information reaching troops in the field in real time.

Ivan clicked open his pocket watch and checked the time. By now, Enrique would be searching in earnest for the Secretary's son.

There were five possible locations where the Secretary's son might be held. Assuming she searched every one of those sectors, she would need about three days.

Aviditas's lackeys must not be wiped out before then. At the same time, Enrique's rescue must not take place while those lackeys were still alive.

The mission required two agents operating on diametrically opposite sides of the mountains to achieve their objectives at precisely the same instant, without the slightest discrepancy in timing.

It was as difficult as running a three-person, four-legged race blindfolded and standing on one's hands. Of course, Ivan and Enrique were perfectly capable of standing on their hands blindfolded and moving in step.

"Transmit to Enrique. Point C7-A. Commencing 'Antlion Pit.' Estimated completion in seventy-two hours."

"Yes, Senior. Message sent. Any other orders?"

"Stay close behind me. Keep quiet."

And, if possible, don't die today.

Swallowing those last words, Ivan hurled himself off the cliff.

When Aviditas's lackeys arrived, taking all of them on at once would be nearly impossible even for him.

From this point on, he therefore had to reduce the enemy's numbers as much as possible. All while preserving his full fighting strength for the final battle to come.

It was difficult.

And it was something he had done before.

A properly trained agent must never feel daunted by doing something he had already done once.