The Apostle’s powers manifested in various ways.
They opened dimensional passages and stunned foes with pillars of light.
In that respect, the non-human Apostle’s power seemed to call the sea.
It altered the environment to favor them.
“That’s why there are almost no archers included.”
The enemy intended to fight underwater from the start.
And underwater, no projectile can deliver its full force.
The archers present now were probably intended to attack from outside the water.
The lake stopped expanding once it reached a certain size.
And the whole lake moved together with the enemy forces.
Their destination was the Third City.
Whether they moved with knowledge or not, it was not good news for us.
“First Apostle. Transmit to the Third Apostle. Withdraw the troops immediately and abandon the city.”
-What is the matter?-
“The enemies are moving under a vast lake. If we fight in such an environment, we will surely lose.”
No matter how many troops or how good their equipment.
If the environment is unfavorable, the chance of victory drops.
The First Apostle listened to me and went silently into thought.
Then.
Oh Master of the Dimension, if it pleases you, could you grant us a short time to hold a meeting among ourselves?
“A meeting?”
Yes, perhaps. We may be able to defeat the enemies easily.
That answer left me completely taken aback.
How will they stop them?
Will they use a power?
Do any of the Tinyfolk Apostles possess an ability suitable for this?
[Among the powers currently held by the Tinyfolk, there are no offensive powers.]
The System notified me that such an ability did not exist.
The System does not lie, so that must be true. If so, how would they respond to the enemy?
-Master of the Dimension.-
“Yes, have you found a method?”
Yes.
“What is the method?”
Before I explain, I would first like to show you this.
The First Apostle held up a book.
The book looked worn even from the cover, and the title read <Words for Future Apostles>.
This was written by Seitus, the first of the high Apostles.
“Seitus.”
He was the high Apostle who had saved his entire people from a foreign parasite.
I did not expect to hear that name again.
The High Apostle said that one day we would face enemies we could not even imagine.
“So?”
He said that although the Master of the Dimension would always help us, we must also be able to manage on our own without troubling the Master.
“Huh. And?”
Therefore, he specified that we should always construct tactics and train for responding to arbitrary enemies in arbitrary environments.
We had prepared for it in case we faced unknown foes.
“Prepared countermeasures?”
Yes, we had already considered underwater warfare.
How adorable and clever these creatures were!
Training has been conducted sufficiently, though it has never been tested in actual combat.
“Still, you can do it?”
The First Apostle answered with a confident voice.
If we limit it to defensive underwater combat, we can.
***
The First Apostle immediately gathered all One-Direction forces to the Third City.
Normally the distances between cities made assembly difficult, but the Apostles had a clever solution.
“We installed dimensional passages in each village and used them as transit routes.”
Dimensional passages ignore distance.
Using that feature, troops from each city could move to the Iron Dimension and then converge from the Iron Dimension to the Third City.
-It was devised after there had been difficulties arranging troop deployments.-
“Impressive.”
The failures and painful mistakes of previous generations had been improved upon by their successors.
The number of troops massed in the Third City reached thirty thousand.
A considerable force for a war that might occur at any time.
“Is this because of numerical inferiority?”
Yes. Since we do not know how many enemies will come, we expanded our military beyond sufficiency.
“Well done. Any shortages?”
None. By securing the Orchard Dimension, food is also sufficient.
They had continuously developed using the resources and environments available.
At first I thought they would go extinct quickly.
I felt a pride that was hard to put into words.
Master of the Dimension, the enemies are now visible.
The enemy force dragging the lake covered a distance that normally would take three months to walk in only a single week.
Though armed with traditional iron weapons and armor, their prowess underwater was overwhelming.
The soldiers on the city walls who faced them grew tense as they watched the vast lake.
“Can we win?”
We dedicate victory to the Master of the Dimension.
“Very well.”
Commence the battle!
At the First Apostle’s cry, a shout of spirit rose from the Third City.
In answer, the moving lake shook violently.
The lake crashed against the city walls.
Kwaaaang!
A massive tsunami slammed into the Third City’s walls.
The wave had the force to smash everything, yet the walls did not budge.
“Construction tech already surpasses medieval levels.”
The Tinyfolk were dexterous.
They specialized in deepening existing technologies, and as a result, their dimensional construction techniques exceeded late medieval standards.
But the true strength of the walls resisting the enemy’s assault did not end there.
“The walls are high, so the lake cannot overflow them.”
If the walls had been low, the entire lake would have swallowed the walls long ago.
But the lake could not surmount the tall walls.
The non-human warriors roared while looking out of the water, but none dared to leap out.
They preferred to keep the advantageous battlefield rather than step into a disadvantageous one.
They provoked and scraped at the walls to lure us out.
And that became their downfall.
We will commence major underwater operations.
At the First Apostle’s instruction, the soldiers on the wall moved busily.
In their hands were not swords but iron nets.
The tightly woven nets had sharp metal shards embedded throughout.
Chwak!
The warriors cast the nets into the lake as if they were fishing.
Some landed near, some as far as possible.
“What an inventive idea.”
Once a net is entangled, it is not easy to free it.
Even more so underwater.
Many sea creatures die from abandoned nets for a reason.
And the tactic worked.
Many of the non-human warriors are entangled in the nets.
Those scraping at the walls became caught.
They struggled to free themselves, but the more they flailed, the more the metal shards embedded and tore their bodies.
The once purely blue lake gradually stained with blood.
Damn.
“This tactic was prepared for enemies we may never know we’d face?”
High Apostle Seitus.
He had shown great dignity even in life, and after his passing he left such a legacy.
My attachment to a figure I thought I would never see again deepened.
Master of the Dimension, we will now proceed to the next stratagem.
“Show me.”
Under the First Apostle’s command, those below the walls brought something up.
It was a large oak cask.
Carried carefully lest it be dropped, the oak cask was cast into the lake.
“What is that?”
It is something we prepared assuming we would not enter the water ourselves…
The oak cask was destroyed by the enraged non-human warriors after it hit the water.
And the lake darkened.
It is poison.
The black toxin spread quickly through the lake.
The sapphire-colored water blackened, and the non-human warriors beneath screamed as they rushed toward the shore.
Waiting there was.
We have captured them.
Our ambushed warriors.
Arrows strung on bows poured down, piercing the bodies of the non-human warriors, and swordsmen armed with iron blades cut their necks.
‘There has never been a warrior who overcame a perfectly organized unit since ancient times.’
As the bodies of the non-human warriors piled around the lake, the lake’s size steadily decreased until it finally vanished entirely.
“They’re nearly all dead.”
[Remaining forces are around one hundred.]
Half died from poisoning, half died after leaping from the lake to escape the toxin.
What remained were only a few warriors who stubbornly endured even after being poisoned.
Master of the Dimension, may we take them alive?
“Take them alive?”
We must learn everything about them so that future conquests of their dimension proceed more smoothly.
The First Apostle was not satisfied with victory alone.
As if he would not forgive anyone who dared touch us, he vowed to wipe out their seed.
Will you grant permission?
“…Yes.”
Thank you. Capture them alive!
Then all the forces of the Third City moved to surround the remaining non-human warriors.
They cut the tendons in their limbs so they could only speak, and captured them one by one.
What did I grow?
They had prepared plans to secure victory against any enemy.
They extracted needed things from the captured and prepared yet more plans.
Seeing this sequence of processes unfold naturally was comforting to the point of being slightly frightening.
“…I don’t think we need to worry about dimensional wars anymore.”
When I came to my senses, I had a premonition that I might be commanding thirty or so more non-human slaves in the future.
***
The dimensional war ended more smoothly than expected, and the attack on the company was resolved even more easily than anticipated.
“After checking with the factory manager and the store owner, they said the person was a short-term part-timer.”
“A short term? Were they short-staffed?”
“Not exactly, but apparently he begged them to let him work.”
“…He used the factory manager’s and owner’s goodwill?”
“Yes, it seems like an intentional approach from the start.”
Because he was a short-term part-timer, there was no separate resume.
Wages were paid in cash on the spot, so no detailed records remained.
On the surface that made things frustrating, but it also helped.
“If there’s no proof that the person is our employee, we can show the post is false.”
Once it was shown that the post contained falsehoods, people assumed everything was false.
Then what remained?
Capture the culprit and interrogate him.
And that was not hard either.
“When we reported to the police, they caught him quickly.”
“How?”
“There are CCTVs in the factory and the branch. His face was all recorded. Also, the IP that posted the message was traced, so tracking was not difficult.”
The perpetrator had apparently prepared thoroughly, but was sloppy somewhere.
“Who is the culprit? Motive?”
“Uh, his name is Hwang Hyejin, a 47-year-old man. He apparently had a grudge against the boss.”
“Against me? Ah.”
Hwang Hyejin.
I remember the name; it sounds feminine for a man.
“Do you know him?”
“Yes, he used to work at Kangseong Steel. He tried to fleece me during iron ore transactions, but ended up getting stripped instead.”
“…There’s plenty of motive.”
“Indeed.”
To think he had recruited a real grudge-bearing man to carry out the move.
This was troublesome.
“Is it likely to end as a personal grudge incident?”
“Yes. Very likely. There’s no evidence that Kangseong Food is involved.”
We could sue Hwang Hyejin and demand compensation.
But that would be unsatisfying.
We needed to trip Kangseong Food with this incident.
“Yuha, even without evidence there will be testimony, right?”
“…What do you plan to do?”
“What else? My specialty.”
I rose from my seat and gave a sly smile.
“Shall we make a deal?”