Chapter 40 - The Bloody Moon

Deep in the forest...

"Liantra, come on! Hurry up, let's go!" shouted a lanky male elf with blue eyes.

"I'm coming damn it, there's too many of them! Where are the reinforcements!?" Shouted his female elf companion.

Another bulkier elf quickly chanted a spell and sent a wind blade to a group of goblins that were chasing them. Decapitating a couple, the elf then sprints towards the other two.

"Less talking more running! They probably laughed us off when they saw our request to be saved from goblins, even though we noted that there are well over 300!"

"FUCKING HELL! WHEN I GET BACK I'M GONNA SLAP THOSE OLD FOGIES!" shouted the lanky elf with venom in his voice.

*fwish*

An arrow narrowly missed the female elf's face, causing her to startle and trip.

The goblins laughed at this and rushed her, cackling as they closed in for the kill.

The two male elves quickly stopped and rushed toward the female elf, though they both knew they weren't going to make it in time.

*CRACK*

A loud cracking noise sounded out and a goblin fell over dead, with 3/4 of it's head missing.

*CRACK* *CRACK* *CRACK* *CRACK*

Crack after crack sounded out, and each time it sounded, a goblin fell over dead.

The elves looked around for any sign of the person who had saved them, but the cracking noise sounded like it came from all directions, making it impossible for the elves to pinpoint the location.

Seeing several tens of their fellow goblins dead, a goblin wearing a full set of crude clothing chattered to the rest of the goblins as they ran away at full sprint.

What neither the elves nor goblins knew though, was that the one who took all of those goblins' lives was actually a man in a ghillie suit, holding a Cheytac M200 Intervention.

Breathing out, the man grumbles "I'm asking boss for a raise. This is the 7th batch of those fuckers I've killed in the past week. Supposed to be an simple recon mission they said, it would be easy they said. They were right about the easy part, but come the fuck on, this is absurd!"

That's right, the man was a part of Myr's Clockwork Army, and he was in a sniper's unit.

Slowly getting up, the soldier, whose name was Brian McNeil, faded back into the foliage.

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"So let me get this straight. You were sent on a recon mission by your squad leader to map out the forest, and you've killed a total of 371 goblins so far, and you think there's more?" Myr asked with a sigh.

Nodding his head, Brian, still in his full gear, said "Boss, I went a little deeper into the forest when I followed a group and I found a weird thing that looked like a portal. The goblins kept pouring in by the dozens and they were carrying hostages, all women, chained together and bound. They also had slightly larger and bulkier goblins, and some giant goblins that reached well over 3 meters in height. The largest ones had full plate armor, and heavy weaponry. Boss, I'm 100 percent sure that they're gearing up for an assault on the elves."

Myr sat back in her chair while swearing loudly, causing Chloe to burst into the room with the intention of scolding Myr for swearing too loud, then she saw Brian and immediately understood that the swearing was justified.

Walking over to Myr, who was throwing a small fit, she placed her hand on Myr's head and started to rub her ears, calming Myr down considerably.

"Myr, what's wrong? You don't swear this much unless you're extremely stressed out."

Myr looked at Chloe and took a deep breath.

"Chloe, remember the anime that we've watched? Do you remember Goblin Slayer? Well, a portal, or rather a stationary rip in the fabric of reality, opened up near the elven territory and they're gearing up for an assault. Their weapons are usually poisoned, lethally so, and their heavy units would require a level 6 to solo, or a team of 4 level 5's. They have mages, archers, and even wolf riders. If Brian is correct, then they most likely have well over 10,000 goblins amassed. In a forest, just like the elves, they have the terrain advantage. They may not be bright, but they know how to use the land. They have hostages, all women, and I doubt they just stuck to beating them."

Chloe's eyes widened, then she frowned while asking "Couldn't you just get rid of them with a snap of your fingers?"

Mye shook her head. "I may be talented in many fields, but closing a tear in the fabric of not just one, but two realities is a bit much for me. I'd have to take a trip over to their side so I can analyze it. Otherwise I could risk collapsing both this world and the other one, and I'm not willing to risk that."

Chloe nodded her head and hugged Myr. "I'm assuming you want to take care of this on your own? Should we at least tell Riveria?"

Sighing, Myr picks up her mug of juice and downs it in one pull. "Yeah, tell Riveria and the other high ranking Familias to be on high alert. If anyone spots a goblin outside of the walls and kills it, tell the guild I'll pay 500 Valis per body. Alone they're insanely weak, but a whole horde of them could put even Mom's Familia heavy hitters at risk. Put in a notice at the guild and inform Ourania. Have Mom's Familia and Freya's Familia on stand-by, because knowing those crafty little shits, they know about Orario already. We can't move out yet though, because if we do, the elves will probably take it as a declaration of war. We need Riveria to convince them to not attack us if we enter the forest. I'll have a special unit whipped up before you even finish doing these things. Thanks Chloe."

Chloe nods and kisses Myr. Teleporting away, Myr sighs again and looked hard at Brian, making him metaphorically sweat bullets.

"Brian McNeil, from now on, I'm promoting you to a 5 Star General that can work in the field. You'll be in charge of all sharpshooters assigned to treacherous terrain and/or terrain that heavily favors the enemy. Your task is to assemble an elite crack team of sharpshooters at least 40 strong including yourself, and it starts now. Congratulations, General McNeil, now hop to it. We can't let those fuckers gain any more ground."

Standing up and saluting, Brian sees his gear get swapped out to a very stylish General's uniform with 5 stars on each pauldron.

Teleporting away to Nekopara, Myr grimaces and prepares her weapons for the upcoming battle.

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Riveria was shocked to say the least when Chloe relayed Myr's message to her. Riveria quickly sent her father a letter saying that they absolutely have to forge an alliance with Myr and her forces, saying that the elves could be wiped out by an external threat.

This got his attention when he received the letter, and seeing that Myr herself tasked Riveria to pass along this message, he took it seriously and agreed to let Myr station her troops in the forest.

In the meantime, Myr was busy finalizing her black ops unit, the elite of the elite, the Hunters. Each of them had a code name that corelated with the design on their ballistic mask. There was Smiles, Ace, Divide, Hush, Skull, Crimson, Midas, Ghost, and Hex, with Ace being the leader of the unit.

Each of them had gear that Myr let them customize due to them being given orders directly from her, being that the are her personal unit.

Ballistic vests, arm and leg guards, enhanced nanotech clothes, grenades of all kinds, two personal wristwatches that contained every known weapon from firearms to melee weapons, even wires and nails.

They each had "unique" weapons that matched their code names, like Ace's favorite, heavily modified Beryl M762, with "ace" marks that covered everything from the gun, to the magazines, the attachments, and even the bullets, or Smiles' heavily modified Knights M110 that had smiley faces with "X"'s for eyes all over the gun, attachments, and ammunition.

Each of the Hunters had top of the line armor, weapons, and accessories made by Myr herself by hand as a symbol that they were the best soldiers she had.

The Hunters all lined up in full gear, and just the sight of them saluting her gave Myr chills of excitement.

"Alright Hunters, listen up! Your mission is straightforward: Kill any goblins that you see. You'll be deployed near the portal, and your job will be to cause disruption and bag as many kills as you can. 1 gold for every goblin you kill. You each have a stat tracker. 2 gold for killing a hobgoblin, and 5 for killing a champion. I'm expecting to go into debt from you 9, so don't disappoint!"

The last part got all of them to chuckle.

"Hey Boss, what happens if we kill an ogre or a troll?"

Myr turns to look at Midas. "If you kill any of those two types of enemies it's an automatic 10 gold. If it's a troll warlord, 15 gold. If it's a red ogre, then it's 25 gold. A red ogre will be able to cast magic that rivals that of what Riveria can cast, and has massive amounts of speed and strength to boot. They also can regenerate any wounds given that they don't lose too much blood or their head is intact. Again, I'm expecting to lose a lot of money from this, so don't disappoint me."

""""YES MA'AM!""""

Nodding to each of them, Myr checks the time.

"Alright! You will be deployed in 60 seconds! Weapons out!"

Each of the Hunters checks their weapons and gear one last time. When 60 seconds was up, Myr gave them all a wide smile.

"Green light! Happy hunting!"

Snapping her fingers, Myr teleports them about 100 meters away from the portal. She installed a magic eye that was invisible to everyone but the Hunters and Myr that showed a live feed of what they were seeing in real time.

Myr teleported back to her mansion and found Chloe waiting for her in the command room, where multiple personnel could be seen manning comms, watching the magi-radar, and manning the different sorts of equipment.

Going to her personal station, Chloe sits Myr on her lap and starts rubbing her ears to help Myr calm down, as Chloe could tell that Myr was extremely stressed at the prospect that this will be the first miniature "war" she'll have directed.

Riveria had already contacted her father and told them to prepare as many final defense measures as they possibly could in the absolute worst case scenario that Myr's army is wiped out for some reason.

Officially, Myr's army's job was to stall the goblins long enough for the elves to either hunker down and fight or evacuate, though Myr was confident that they could wipe out the green pests.

Tapping a few keys on her holographic keyboard, 9 large holographic screens pop up that showed the Hunters in action, and it was gruesome to say the least.

Chloe and Myr saw Hex rip the head off of a goblin after it had hit his mask with a club, while they saw Smiles laughing while blowing the heads clean off any goblin that was stupid enough to enter her line of sight.

Midas was mowing swathes of goblins down with his tri-barreled heavy Gatling gun, and at the same time they saw Hush killing any goblins that made it past Midas' constant stream of bullets with her favorite HK-416C.

Ace and Ghost were side by side killing with Ace using his Beryl M762 and Ghost using his FN MK-17.

Skull was using his AA-12 which he asked Myr to make it fire at 700 RPM instead of 300, and as a result was turning goblins into literal mush.

Divide was her HK MP5 to rapidly kill any goblins she saw, while Crimson was using her grenades and her favorite AMC Hardballer to, in her words, "skull fuck" any goblins that tried to fight her.

Myr checked all of their body counts and it added up to a staggering 947, and was rising quickly.

She couldn't help but be amazed at how well they were decimating the goblins, though it worried her that there were no signs of them slowing down.

"Ma'am! We have a problem! Approximately 30,000 goblins are charging towards the front lines of the 3rd, 4th, and 5th companies! Permission to engage openly?!"

Myr nodded. "Permission granted. Light those fuckers up! Use the artillery if they have it set up yet. 800 meters out is the kill zone. Tell them to use whatever means are needed to keep them away from the elves!"

The operator gave Myr a curt nod and went about ordering the use of artillery and gave the green light to engage.

Another operator soon piped up. "Ma'am, trolls and a few troll war lords have been spotted charging towards companies 1 and 2!"

"Damn! Pull them back 100 meters posthaste and use their heavy weapons and explosives to kill them off. They regenerate, so make sure they completely destroy their heads and burn their bodies!"

Chloe hugged Myr. "Myr my love, it's a full moon outside, though if you look closely, it's tinted red. I think this is heaven above the heavens giving you a blessing."

Myr leaned back into Chloe's embrace and quietly said "I hope so Chloe, I really hope so..."

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'Partner, have you completely analyzed the tear yet?'

{Give me a moment... and... done! You're good to close it!}

Myr sighed in relief and concentrated on the structure of the tear and using her Time, Space, and Void Divinities, she snapped her fingers and the tear instantly mended itself and sealed off the remaining goblins.

After a couple more hours, the fighting had completely stopped, save for a few times when the Hunters encountered stray goblins and the occasional troll in the forest.

Little did Myr know, but the total kill count of her entire army and the Hunters numbered in the 600,000 range. A force that large would have overwhelmed almost any army on this planet in a forest terrain.

The war that lasted only a single night was later known as the "Night of the Bloody Moon" to the elves who had the chance to witness the fighting.

Myr was given the honorary title of "Guardian of the Forest" by Larfal, Riveria's father, himself. He also presented Myr with an abundant space to live within the elven community, where she would be treated on par with Larfal himself.

They also hammered out various trade deals, protection details, and even exchanged their respective knowledge of magic to a degree.

Larfal would provide some elven bows for Myr, and in return, she would give Larfal some customized sets of light ballistic armor and various knives and swords.

Riveria once again denied going back home when her father asked her, to which he only wryly laughed and shook his head helplessly.

The appearance of Myr's Clockwork Army was, unknowingly, a big road block for Ares, and a wonderful show for the Land of Heroes who watched with anticipation of what was next.

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{You sure put the hurt on those goblins. I'm counting exactly 601,395 dead goblins, hobgoblins, trolls, troll war lords, ogres, and red ogres. There was even 1 elder litch that was giving Company 8 a hard time, though not a single one was killed. There WAS one casualty though}

Myr paled. 'Please tell me it's not serious!'

Systi coughed and Myr could tell she was trying not to laugh.

{No, he wasn't injured per say, but according to the medical report, he ate some weird mushrooms he found on the ground and started shouting his first name while charging at the goblins and shooting them point blank. His name is Leeroy Jenkins}

Myr deadpanned and asked with a neutral tone 'Is he alright? What the hell sort of mushrooms did he eat?'

{I'm not sure. The elves have never seen this type of mushroom before, and from what I can tell after I scanned it, the mushroom is not native to this planet}

Myr sighed and held her head in her hands and muttered "I'm gonna need to have a talk with this Leeroy..."

Thus started the amazing legend of Leeroy, a soldier who would give Myr as many headaches as she did to others.