Dictator From Outer Space

After a long silence, Drizden opened his mouth.

“There’s no need to spill blood here. I think we’ve said all we have to say. Let’s part ways. But…”

He glanced at Leobold and Margareta with a sly smile.

“I have no intention of harming you. But I don’t know if the citizens outside will think the same. They are very angry because of Hyperion. You should be careful.”

He meant that he wouldn’t interfere directly, but he wouldn’t help them either in case of trouble.

And outside, there were elven knights disguised as citizens who would cause a commotion.

Maybe if they launched Hyperion, some unknown airships would attack them.

Leobold smirked.

“So this is the way of the elves.”

“Didn’t you come prepared? If you want protection, just say so. I’ll shamelessly ask for your favor.”

Anyone who saw him pretending to be ignorant and widening his eyes would want to punch him.

But Drizden couldn’t die yet.

He had to complete his mission after driving Elvrande to ruin with his rampage.

Leobold put his hand on Margareta’s shoulder and said.

“Let’s end the meeting here.”

“You’ve worked hard. I won’t see you off. Be careful. May Rustel watch over your path.”

He deliberately invoked the name of Rustel to provoke Margareta.

Her shoulder twitched and Leobold slowly left the conference room.

Just before the door closed, Drizden’s lips twitched and Elarion bowed his head.

‘He’s doing it on purpose.’

To make the prey tense enough.

Leobold asked Arma to guide him to the dock through Yggdrasil.

「I’ll mark it on your sight. There are a lot of excited elves.」

Some of them might be so excited that they would resort to violence without mercy.

The knights escorted them and the group left the mansion and entered the road.

The elves who were calmly watching when they arrived were pouring out onto the street and raising their fists.

“Death to the lowly humans!”

“Compromise with humans is impossible! Only violence can make them see!”

“Glory to the elves!”

They must have been stirred up by Drizden’s instigation.

He never intended to let Leobold’s group go peacefully from the beginning.

The reason why he came here knowing that was first, for the meeting, and second, to check out Yggdrasil’s main body in person.

If a war broke out, Yggdrasil, which was almost a symbol of the elves, would inevitably suffer some damage.

He wanted to assess that in advance and have Arma come up with a countermeasure.

‘The last reason is because of teleportation.’

Spatial teleportation through warp gates was only valid for places Leobold had visited before.

That meant he couldn’t open a warp gate to an unfamiliar place.

According to Arma, it was close to a law and there was no way around it.

‘It’s strange that Lucia appeared in a mine she had never been to.’

Leobold covered Margareta’s head with a hood and quickly passed through the street.

Soon, the elves noticed the group and gathered one by one.

“There goes the delegation!”

“Stop them! Stop them!”

It didn’t turn into a violent situation right away, but it was a very ominous atmosphere.

In the midst of that, Leobold finally got to see Yggdrasil face to face.

“Wow…”

It was an unbelievably huge tree up close.

The diameter of its base was close to several km and its golden leaves covered the sky.

Sunlight burst from its branches that stretched out as if protecting all of Medea.

If you saw something like this as soon as you were born, you might mistake it for a god.

But Leobold didn’t see Yggdrasil as a god.

‘It’s just a big tree with some special functions…’

He was confident that he could replace Yggdrasil with anything once he completed the ether origin.

Arma reported similarly.

「All functions of Yggdrasil have been identified from the flow of ether. It will be useful for updating the origin.」

‘That’s good news. But we need to get out of here.’

The elves were gathering more and more.

In a tense atmosphere that could explode at any moment, the delegation headed for the dock following Arma’s guidance.

They boarded Hyperion without any interference, but instead they received countless insults towards Margareta.

“You wretched princess…how dare you crawl in here!”

“Traitor who sided with humans! Die!”

They didn’t throw stones, but they spat saliva and made a fuss.

Margareta’s green eyes were soaked in gloom.

She was blamed by her own kind for no big fault and received abuse.

No one could understand how she felt.

“I’ll come back someday. Then I’ll ask those people.”

She nodded weakly when he comforted her.

The group hurriedly got on Hyperion.

Leobold escorted Margareta to the cabin and then went to the bridge.

The crew under the captain’s command were waiting for his orders.

“Skip the procedure. Cut the mooring and launch.”

“Launching!”

At the captain’s vigorous command, Hyperion gained buoyancy and rose up.

It was so big that it caused a gale around it and when the ether thrusters were activated, the airship quickly left the city.

But this was just the beginning.

When Hyperion gained momentum and was about to leave Medea, small airships poured out from somewhere in the city.

They were small airships of several tens of tons.

Drizden watched the sky leisurely from the mansion.

He had increased the output of the thrusters mounted on the airships, ignoring the side effects, so they were much faster than Hyperion, which was slowly accelerating.

“Let’s see if you can show your power on board.”

***

“They made something like that. Impressive.”

He seemed to disdain ether engineering, but he was still an elf after all.

Dozens of airships flew in like a swarm of bees and the bridge became busy.

The captain checked all directions with several mirrors and immediately ordered interception.

“Prepare to fire ether cannons! No need to report! Shoot as soon as you aim and drop them!”

If they had 50 guns, it wouldn’t be hard to intercept the airships.

But Hyperion was too big and the crew were not skilled enough.

It was inevitable that they would be inferior compared to the floating continent fleet commanded by Admiral Hampton.

That difference was decisive.

Before the ether cannons were ready, the airships rushed towards Hyperion.

They were too close to intercept, or else they would be hit by the debris.

And most of the 50 ether cannons were on the starboard side.

There were some guns on the bow and stern, but they were weak in firepower.

“Fire!”

Beams of light shot from the starboard side and some airships were swept away.

Explosions occurred in the air and a 5,000-ton airship tilted.

It was pushed by the blast.

Not only that, but a few airships approached the rear.

Beams of light shot from the stern guns, but they couldn’t avoid the last one.

Bang!

A huge explosion occurred and black smoke spewed from Hyperion.

It seemed that they had installed ether stone bombs on the airships.

Kane, the divine being, was protecting them, but it was too much to handle such attacks.

Leobold clicked his tongue at the reckless charge.

‘Not even kamikaze… By the way, were those elves on board?’

「They are presumed to be humans and beastmen. They probably brought them from the autonomous region.」

That’s how elves are.

He originally intended to leave peacefully.

He had achieved his goal and had no reason or desire to fight any more.

But if they came at him like this, he felt the need to teach them a lesson.

‘Parents who let their kids cry and make a fuss are not qualified. Right?’

「Master is not a parent, but more like a neighbor who has a connection. Should I deploy Settler ship?」

‘Do I need to use Settler ship to discipline them? Lightly…’

He was about to give an order, but there was a thud and the deck became noisy.

Judging by the amount of ether released, someone had climbed onto the deck.

「A wave has been detected. It’s Elarion, the elf who was in the conference room.」

‘He has some guts to come here. Does he want to smash something with Goliath?’

「He just took out Goliath」

Even if it was Hyperion, it would be too much to handle Goliath rampaging on the deck.

Leobold ordered the captain to go straight ahead and then went up to the deck.

The modified Belial-class was about to attack the crew when it stopped.

“Oh ho. You came out.”

“The deck is quite spacious. It would have been crowded on a normal airship.”

“You’re relaxed. This damn ship is going to crash and you’re still like that!”

Leobold glanced at the starboard side.

There was an ether cannon made of living metal aiming at the Belial-class.

Elarion noticed that and quickly approached the cannon.

“My responsiveness has increased greatly since I received divine power! I even surpassed Tirendell!”

Goliath’s arm touched the barrel and made a clanking sound as it changed into a sword-shaped weapon.

He certainly had amazing responsiveness.

But there was one thing he didn’t know.

Leobold was the strongest psycher that humanity had created after years of hard work.

‘Let’s see how long you can last in space.’

The ether heart activated and Elarion’s sword changed its shape on its own.

“What’s going on?”

He tried to grab the sword, but it split into two and stuck to both sides of Goliath.

What was finally completed was an ion thruster.

Transforming living metal from a distance and creating ion thrusters on the spot like a plague were Leobold’s abilities.

“What, what is this!”

“Well, you can find out for yourself.”

The ion thruster ignited and pushed Goliath into the sky.

“Aaaah!”

The Belial-class carrying Elarion flew out of the atmosphere and headed for space in an instant.

The air became thin and it was so cold that his breath froze.

“Uh, ugh… Huh!”

He gasped and looked at the darkening sky.

Soon, everything around him turned black.

“It’s cold…”

In his fading vision, he saw something shining.

They were Mare and two moons orbiting Terra planet.

The ion thruster finally pushed Goliath beyond space and slowly detached itself.

Elarion regretted it when he was about to breathe his last breath.

‘That’s what the dwarves said… Damn, am I going to die like this…’

The Belial-class carrying him became a coffin and began to fly somewhere in space by inertia.

It wouldn’t stop unless there was an obstacle in between.

Leobold, who had sent the troublemaker into space, looked up at the sky.

“He’ll have enough time to enjoy space.”

It seemed to end here, but it didn’t.

Many airships and fleets gathered in front of Hyperion, which had started accelerating in earnest.

It was like hyenas flocking to smell the blood of a wounded lion.

Unfortunately, Hyperion was not injured at all.

And the Elvrande fleet was not hyenas, but mere mongrels.

“Let me teach you that from now on. Arma, detach the armor.”

「You’re going to reveal Hyperion’s true form, are you sure?」

“It doesn’t matter. They want to fight, so I’ll play along.”

「Detaching the armor.」

The armor plates made of Yggdrasil’s shell were detached one by one.

Hyperion shed its armor like a husk and even threw away the deck.

What was finally revealed was a slender spaceship with a dark color like space.

It was cute in size compared to Settler ship, but it was still quite shocking to the elves.

“What, what is that!”

“It looks like a black ship…”

“I know that! What kind of ship is that!”

The Elvrande fleet was confused as Hyperion detached everything and activated its ion thrusters.

Leobold, who had come down to the bridge, gave an order to the bewildered captain.

“You don’t need to understand, just accept the reality. Starboard full ahead.”

“Sir, full ahead! If we do that, we’ll dive into the encirclement!”

“I won’t give the order three times. Starboard full ahead.”

“Starboard full ahead!”

The wheels spun and Hyperion turned its bow.

The Elvrande fleet expected it to have a large turning radius because of its huge size, but it wasn’t.

Hyperion sprayed ions from its bow to minimize its turning radius.

And then it changed direction in an instant.

The Elvrande fleet was now chasing after Hyperion.

Leobold put his hand on the captain’s shoulder.

Margreta had hesitantly entered the bridge.

“Let’s go to the president’s mansion. We need to give them a gift.”

Surely, that gift wasn’t an ether stone bomb?

Margreta opened her mouth wide and the captain gave an order as if to let it be.

“Full speed ahead!”

The ion thrusters were fully activated and Hyperion reached a speed that the Elvrande fleet couldn’t keep up with.

A black ship appeared in the sky of Medea in an instant and an alarm sounded.

“Where did that ship come from!”

“I don’t know! It just appeared!”

“Quickly, activate the ether cannons! Stop it from approaching Yggdrasil by any means!”

“It’s too fast!”

It passed by before they could even aim, so there was no way the air defense network could work properly.

Medea was turned upside down.

***

“Hoo…”

Drizden drank his wine with a triumphant feeling.

He had sent a newly developed airship unit and Elarion, so he must have inflicted some damage on him.

‘I won’t let you go easily. Even if you don’t die…’

It was enough to shock and destroy Hyperion as a warning.

It would be better if he could sink it, though.

‘No matter how powerful you are with divine power, you are inexperienced in aerial combat.’

He was the oldest elf and knew the tactics of the Great War.

If there was a lesson learned from the Great War, it was that even a very powerful being had a weakness.

For example, the champion of dragons preferred to use Goliath, so he was vulnerable to attacks from above.

If he poured ether stone bombs on him, he would have no choice but to surrender.

Leobold wouldn’t die from that, but his pride would be hurt for sure if Hyperion broke down.

‘You shouldn’t underestimate elves. Even Altima couldn’t look down on us, how dare you…’

Now, when Elarion returned, he would hear how the ship was doing.

Drizden closed his eyes with joy and felt a sense of unease.

He heard a buzzing sound from somewhere far away and then it became louder.

And someone opened the door with a bang and disturbed his rest.

“What is it? I told you not to come in until I call you.”

The attendant shouted anxiously at him with a grim expression.

“Yo, your Excellency! You have to escape right now!”

“Why? What’s going on?”

“A strange black ship is coming and dropping bombs!”

“What?”

Drizden jumped up and opened the window and looked up at the sky.

A black ship was approaching from afar.

The crimson flames rising from below were definitely not flowers.

Then he felt the ground shake and a strong wind blew.

“Damn it!”

Drizden broke the window and jumped out, forgetting that he was a mage.

He barely used levitation magic to float in the air, but the black ship was too fast.

In the blink of an eye, it flew over the mansion and dropped something from its hull.

‘That’s an ether stone bomb…’

And a huge one at that.

It wasn’t one or two, but more than ten at once, so the power was no joke.

The old elf couldn’t withstand the shock of the explosion and was swept away by the blast.

Boom!

The mansion collapsed completely as explosions occurred one after another.

Flames and black smoke rose everywhere and elves screamed and scattered in all directions.

Margreta watched her hometown being destroyed from the bridge.

She didn’t look happy about it.

“Is this the power of the ship that Leobold brought from another world?”

“No. This ship is nothing. The real one is beyond that sky.”

She looked up at the ceiling and then turned her eyes to him.

“Why did you do this… You could have just taught them a lesson.”

“Do you think they would accept it? They blamed you and tried to kill me. Do you think they would surrender if I showed them a spaceship?”

Leobold had learned something after fighting for decades: people don’t change easily.

Some might realize their mistake right before they die, but most don’t even have that kind of feeling.

Once they decide that they are right and just, it is almost impossible to change them from outside.

Even humans who live for only decades are like that, how stubborn would elves who live for nearly 300 years be?

“They won’t change. To change them, we need a strong shock, that is, war. This is just a declaration of war. The real war will start from now on.”

“…”

Margreta bowed her head silently.

She had nowhere to go back to now and had no choice but to rely on Leobold.

She didn’t mind that, but she felt depressed thinking that she couldn’t go back to her hometown.

Leobold stood behind her and comforted her by rubbing her shoulder.

“You didn’t lose your home. You’re just going back a little late. I’ll kick out the crazy elves, including Drizden, and return Elvrande to your arms. I promise.”

“Thank you…”

She turned her body and hugged Leobold’s broad chest.

Hyperion, which had dropped a bunch of bombs, slowly turned and left Medea.

There was nothing to hinder its course.