Gacha Kingdom Building-Chapter 290: War Toys

Half a kilometer from the airport, we received the warmest of welcomes.

A dozen airplane replicas, no bigger than civilian drones, fired their guns indiscriminately.

The entire street block was caught in their one-sided hellfire.

If not for one man standing at the street’s highest point, drawing every bullet and bomb to himself.

As the black smoke hid his body, the blue light he cast pierced the sky, like a pillar of light.

Not a single building fell, and not a single person bled.

With the shockwaves of a thunderous clap, enhanced by his absurd strength, the toy planes surrounding us fell from the sky like flies.

Some had shattered, others exploded.

All of them became scrap metal.

Or rather, scrap plastic.

Marcus: "Everyone alright?"

The escort’s crew members were shocked, but not by the electricity emanating from his body.

Toy or not, each bullet fired by the planes had enough power to break through the defenses of a top-tier adventurer.

That he withstood their onslaught and still found a window to take them down was a feat that few could replicate in this world.

Miwen: "Strange. I’m not seeing the crew or any equipment."

As the army took their positions in nearby buildings to continue watching over us, Dad and I approached the airport on foot.

The resistance we faced was numerous, but weak.

One hit, max two, and they were taken out.

The guys behind us dealt with cleaning up, and we continued on our way forward.

Then, once I could see the runway and the hangars, I looked for any signs of the army.

There were none.

Next, I tried the terminal and the control tower.

I couldn’t see everything inside, just what the windows allowed me.

Again, empty.

Miwen: "...How many hangars did this airport have, again?"

Our mission covered the control tower, the terminal, and four hangars.

Yesterday, satellite images confirmed all four.

Now, there were only three.

Strangely, as we closed in on the missing hangar, we found no signs of explosions or damage of any sort.

An airport had no right being this clean, especially one being used as a forward operating base.

Even more uncanny, we didn’t find anything resembling tents or leftover equipment.

After clearing the four hangars and stationing the troops, we proceeded to the control tower.

On our first step onto the runway, a wave of tanks and planes surprised us.

Once again, all miniatures had explosive power.

Even more worryingly was...

Marcus: "Tch! They don’t call these gunships for nothing."

Even bigger toy planes bombarded us with ridiculous force.

Father was tanking an entire platoon’s firepower, complete with tactical airstrikes, all by himself.

Extending his barrier to the other hangars all the while.

This was too much.

The cracks were beginning to show.

His light went from a dark blue to a light green, flickering into complete whiteness.

The troops fired back at the toys, but they were as resistant as the real thing.

Most bullets just bounced right off their armor.

Marcus: "Miwen... Can you hold them for a second... So I can..."

I had some protective skills and enough mana to withstand a few seconds.

But the window he created was much bigger.

Miwen: "Nah. You hold them. I’ll bring the fire."

My [Fire Magic] was nowhere near Claire’s level.

However, my control over it was.

I could even pair it with [Lightning Magic] to create devastatingly powerful, precise bolts.

Even if the toys resisted the fire blasts, the digital components controlling them would be damaged from the electric discharge.

It wasn’t as impressive and destructive as Father’s thunderous clap, but my thunder caused the planes to fall all the same.

The tanks could still fire, but, unable to move, they were easy targets.

Since they were more fire-resistant than I thought, I tried cutting them in half with wind blades and piercing them from below with ice and earth magic spikes.

Using this many different elements, and advanced ones on top, was very draining on my mana, but thanks to my contract with Elizabeth and my mana-sharing skill, I’d recover with time.

Miwen: "We need a scout."

These toys were tricky.

They had no mana signature I could trace.

Their size made them impossible to notice from a distance.

Worse, they made little noise while being absurdly fast.

We had to take away the element of surprise.

Ellie was too fragile for this firepower, and the corridors were too tight for her range.

Anna could help her by tanking, but she’d wreck the place.

Risky with potential hostages.

Angie would just be a target in the sky.

That left one option.

It was either Lana or bringing enough girls to fight a war.

At least until we had confirmed the situation, I chose Lana.

This decision started to pay off almost immediately.

Despite not knowing much about an airport’s architecture, her past as a thief came in handy.

She knew which spots were most troublesome to clear and took charge of them for us.

The tower was crawling with AOTG members, waiting to ambush us.

Lana would cause a small distraction first, barely sneaking a hand out of the shadows.

Then, we’d hit them, knowing their positions before taking so much as a step inside the rooms or a turn at the corridors.

Thanks to her, we had the tower under our control in just a few minutes.

Like the hangars, there was no visible damage done to the tower’s equipment.

However, for some strange reason, nothing seemed to work properly.

We decided to move on to the terminal, but before that, I stationed Ellie at the tower.

It was the perfect place for her, since she could watch over the entire airport from there.

I also posted Bea and Anna with her to ensure they could resist, in case they suffered another attack, be it magic or toys.

With these three there, the tower and the hangars were secure.

All that was left was the terminal.

The biggest and most difficult of the bunch to navigate, with even more corridors and rooms for enemies to hide in.

Yet, until we reached the reception, we found no enemies.

Lana continued scouting ahead of us, just to be sure, but I couldn’t even feel the tiniest bit of mana leaking in the air.

Either there were no AOTG members in this place, or every single one of them was an elite-level mage.

I didn’t know what would be worse.

Marcus: "This is a good position, I’ll prepare a barrier here."

The reception was the most open space inside the terminal.

It was also the only place where the windows were large enough for natural light to make up for the lack of electricity.

Still, standing in a large, empty building like this was eerie.

Even the ground beneath my feet felt wrong.

Every step sounded-

Lana: "Miwen!"

A few minutes after separating from us, Lana returned.

She was desperate, jumping from shadow to shadow to hide her body as much as possible.

I caught her before she jumped on mine, only to see something grotesque.

Her right leg had changed.

The skin next to her feet became yellow, and her feet became...

Blocky.

Like those building toy bricks.

According to Lana, since she found no enemies, she continued searching until she heard strange noises coming from a closed room.

They sounded like cries, so she thought she had discovered the hostages’ location and used a shadow inside to enter.

She peeked out of the shadow, but found nothing.

Yet, the sounds continued.

She was sure they were inside this room, and seeing that there were no enemies around, she exposed more of her body, eventually leaving the shadow to take a look at a miniature set resting on a table.

It was a coliseum set.

All types of toys battled there, from gladiators to modern soldiers.

The crowd clapped and cried as the battle raged on.

Then, she noticed it.

One of the toys lost its arm, drenching itself and the coliseum’s ground in blood.

She realized they were real people.

The shock stuck her in place.

That one second was all it took.

She wasn’t able to escape the room unscathed.

Lana: "He said... I appeared on the screens..."

...We were careless.

Since the lights were out, we thought the terminal was without electricity, like the tower.

That wasn’t the case.

The cameras were still working.

And no place has more security cameras than an airport.

Despite her abilities, Lana had no idea that she had to look out for them.

Miwen: "...I’ve already informed Agatha. Angie and Rae will take a look, too, so you’ll be fine, ok?"

Lana: "Y-yes..."

She could’ve mitigated the damage by returning to the Kingdom.

Yet, her instinct was to run to me, for safety, and to bring me what she had collected.

Old habits die hard...

??????: "Where did the kitty go? Did your Pa not teach you it’s wrong to steal from someone else’s collection?"

A kid appeared from the same direction Lana came from.

He looked like a boy, about ten or twelve years old, max.

His tone was playful, completely contrasting the reality of the airport’s terminal and the shock I felt seeing Lana’s leg slowly "toyifying".

I would’ve told him to get lost.

But I couldn’t.

Not with the squadron of toy soldiers accompanying him.

Miwen: "Tough luck. You get to play with me now."

Boy: "Tch. I’m not interested in playing with the Aegis, you’re all boring! The only fun toy in your set is your leader, Maya!"

What a fuck up.

What a tremendous, gigantic fuck up.

Marcus: "I think... Are you the new kid from the Saturn division? Yomi? Yummy?"

Boy: "Yuri. The Toymaker. Shouldn’t you know that, being from Alpha Team and all?"

Marcus: "So you do know we are not from the Aegis."

Yuri: "Tch. ’Course I do, dumbass. I’m still looking forward to having your daughter in a glass box, though."

Even though he was talking to my father, he clearly directed that jag at me, looking me in the eye after each word that left his mouth.

I wasn’t sure why he wanted to provoke me so badly, but I had to give it to him.

It worked wonders.

The moment he first mentioned Maya was already enough to make my blood boil.

Calling her a toy, saying he’d put her in a glass box...

The boy was looking for death.

And I didn’t mind being his reaper.

I summoned Cassandra and equipped her as my black scythe of death.

Miwen: "This one is on me."

Marcus: "Funny. I was thinking the same."

Dad had lost most of his mana in the previous fights.

He had also tried to heal Lana when he saw her hurt.

There was no way I could leave this to him.

I charged forward, but Dad grabbed me by the collar.

He threw me into a corridor.

The place where I stood was bombarded by four new AC-130 toy planes, just like the one before.

Miwen: "Where the hell did he get his hands on so many of those?"

Marcus: "I don’t know, but... If the toys are real people, we can’t destroy them anymore."

Miwen: "...You couldn’t heal Lana. Most likely, his Gift acts like a curse."

So, either we waited for the curse to lose its effects, or we broke it.

With enough time, Liz could probably do it.

The same was true for the Saints of the Kingdom through their [Holy Magic].

However, I wasn’t gonna bet Lana’s life on that.

Marcus: "The quickest way to break a curse is to force the caster to dispel it themselves."

Miwen: "Or we kill them."

Marcus: "Haven’t you already tried cancelling his Gift?"

I did it the moment I saw him with the toy army.

Thanks to that, he couldn’t use his Gift on us, but it didn’t cancel the effects on those who had already been toyified.

Miwen: "...We need a distraction. Let’s separate."

The toys were only as durable as their counterparts, but Yuri was level 77.

We needed a powerful attack to bring him down in one blow, which would risk destroying the weaker toys.

Attacking from multiple directions gave us the best chance of a clean hit.

With this in mind, Father went to the cafeteria, the second largest space in the airport, where he could draw Yuri’s attention and hide from the more troublesome toys.

Meanwhile, I took the security room.

From there, I could watch his movements and wait for my chance to attack.

With my speed, I could reach the cafeteria in a matter of minutes, faster than any tank or vehicle at his disposal.

If I noticed him or his toys coming towards me, I could freeze them in place and stall for Dad to attack.

Thankfully, that wasn’t necessary, and the Toymaker, through his wide array of vehicles, quickly discovered Father’s position and went after him.

I went after him soon after confirming he had left no toys behind to intercept me.

Then, once I reached the cafeteria, I saw the two battling it out.

Father was holding back too much not to destroy the toys, and it was costing him dearly.

The best he could do was defend against them and change positions, but he was beginning to get surrounded.

Thankfully, he had the Toymaker’s attention.

I dashed forward, boosting my speed with [Air Magic].

Yuri: "You really thought I’d forget about you? Dumbass."

He took a side step, and my tackle missed.

Miwen: "Tch."

I was standing in the least ideal position, between him and Father.

I created a dome of earth around me, capturing as many toys as I could before erecting a pillar below my feet and leaving the dome through the ceiling with my [Earth Magic].

Miwen: "Let’s go!"

Capturing every single toy was impossible.

There were all types of planes, all types of tanks, all types of artillery.

It was just too much; we had to retreat.

Thankfully, I blocked a few paths in advance, so reaching the reception again wasn’t hard.

Marcus: "Smart kid."

Miwen: "It’s not a kid."

In the meantime, I had Isa, who was still at the penthouse, look at the documents regarding the AOTG.

There wasn’t any Yuri mentioned in there.

At least not with the official members.

There were speculations, however, that Yuri Nowich, an old man, had made a deal with the AOTG in exchange for rejuvenation of his body.

Coincidentally, this man was the head of a toy company.

What’s more...

Miwen: "In the logs we received, they didn’t mention AC-130s, HIMARS, Blackbirds, or anything like that."

Marcus: "...Did he get them from somewhere else? Or..."

Miwen: "I think it’s as you thought. His ability goes both ways."

He could toyify real things, and he could also "detoyify" toys.

Most of the equipment we were seeing wasn’t real.

They were just toys turned war machines.

Miwen: "Are you alright?"

Marcus: "It’s not a big deal..."

With the crucial information out of the way, I decided to address the second most pressing issue.

Father’s chest was much smaller than normal, almost normal-sized.

He’d been hit with the Toymaker’s Gift.

Miwen: "We need to finish this quickly, then. Before it spreads."

Marcus: "Any ideas?"

Miwen: "A few. Do you trust me?"

Marcus: "Make the call."

Summoning the other girls would only put them at risk.

Yuri had enough power to turn even buildings like the hangar and possibly the tower into toys.

He could potentially turn the entire Kingdom’s army into a collection.

The only one who could shake off his power was Cassandra, since she could naturally change her shape.

I’d have to defeat him by myself, without killing the troops.

Tough call, but...

After taking a break to recuperate my breath, I stood in the center of the reception, waiting for him to come.

Yuri: "Play time is over."

Miwen: "What? Mama won’t let you play past 4 p.m.?"

Yuri: "Where’s your Father? Did he abandon you again?"

Miwen: "Nah. The only thing he abandoned was his hopes of saving you."

The artillery fire rained down on me from all directions.

The barrage was so strong that its sound was enough to break the windows before any bullet or bomb had even reached them.

The barrage turned the reception desks and the figure standing behind them into dust.

But there was no blood.

Only dirt and mana.

Yuri: "What!?"

As the dust of my clone settled, I stepped out from the false wall I had raised.

Using the same tactic as before, I captured every single toy inside a bunch of different ice and wind formations.

For Yuri, I erected a pillar, binding his feet to it.

The toys would soon break the formations around them, but it didn’t matter.

All the way from the runway, a tank came flying through the window with absurd power, courtesy of Anna and Ellie’s teamwork.

Thanks to the first’s monstrous strength and the latter’s pinpoint accuracy, they hit the target right on the head.

The toymaker was sent flying through multiple walls until he finally landed on the other side of the airport.

Where my father waited for him.

He looked smaller, his clothes hanging loose on his frame, but his fist was still heavy enough to crack the concrete.

I stepped out from the rubble and stood beside him, clenching my own fists.

Now that there weren’t any children’s toys around...

It was the adults’ turn to play.