Magic Missile was like it had some kind of built-in lock-on mechanism. Even when he fired a large number at once, each bolt still found its intended target with precision.
That sounded simple. In reality, it was anything but.
And reaching that level wasn't just a matter of "being good at Magic Missile." It required multiple complicated, finely tuned factors stacked together.
First, unquestionably: perception.
Before casting, Gauss had to split his attention—then keep each strand of that split focus pinned to up to a dozen specific targets at once. And it had to be continuous, because what he was trying to kill were living, moving monsters, not stationary practice dummies. Even in the final second before casting, he had to collect real-time information based on their movement.
All those messy bits of data then poured into his mind and assembled into a kind of dynamic visual web. He had to judge speed, direction, and trajectory, and predict where each missile would land.
Then came the casting itself—and even that had its own nuance.
Even though the mana cost of a single missile was, to him, basically nothing, his habit of refinement meant he still adjusted the output of each missile based on the toughness of its target. So the sky full of sapphire bolts—every single one of them carried real thought and calculation.
It wasn't just brute force smashing everything flat.
He didn't know if any other caster could push Magic Missile to this level. He suspected not—at least not anyone at his level, and probably not even someone several levels above. As for true archmages and legendary wizards… he couldn't say.
But even if they could, it would be meaningless for them anyway. They had stronger magic—or could simply invent an entirely new spell.
As the last missile punched through a goblin, the forest suddenly went quiet.
Gauss and Shadow didn't take long to wipe out the logging monster convoy.
Gauss's missiles killed the majority, while Shadow and her shadow clones intercepted any stragglers who tried to flee.
The snowy ground helped; the monsters' movement was sluggish. Otherwise, a few would inevitably have escaped.
Maybe because of the activity, Gauss even felt the air had warmed by a few degrees.
"Let's rest for a bit," he said, waving Shadow over as she continued her careful sweep for threats.
He took out the magic pot and started heating food.
Objectively, the fight hadn't drained them much—but in the wild, keeping body and mind in good condition mattered.
As the pot simmered with hot meat soup, Gauss brewed a cup of pine-needle tea from branches he'd gathered nearby, and poured one for Shadow.
Holding his cup, he stared quietly at the snowfield.
His mind felt oddly calm.
The scene in front of them wasn't beautiful: a bald clearing, corpses strewn at awkward angles, filthy entrails and clotted blood spattered everywhere. If an ordinary civilian walked into this, they'd probably panic and think they'd stumbled into a massacre.
But the two of them had long since grown used to monster bodies. They could ignore it all.
"Gauss… we need to be careful," Shadow said after a sip of tea, her worry showing.
"There are probably a lot of monsters gathered here."
Gauss followed her gaze to the missing forest. The cleared area was huge. And that convoy alone had more than two hundred monsters.
If they came from a mid-to-large tribe, they wouldn't have just one logging crew. Which meant the tribe's total count likely exceeded five digits.
That was a terrifying scale.
Individually, these monsters weren't necessarily impressive. But gathered together, they became a monster army that could make people go pale just hearing about it.
He'd even gone out of his way to read books on massed monster warfare, because he suspected they might run into an army eventually.
From the campaigns he'd read about, once monster numbers passed a certain threshold, a horrifying collective force formed—something like an invisible "momentum."
In those accounts, personal strength got suppressed under that mass pressure. If you were unlucky enough to be caught at the focal point and "focused down," then even if your strength was decent you'd experience shortness of breath, freezing limbs, and a crushing pressure like a mountain on your shoulders. If you weren't strong enough, you might literally be scared to death.
In Gauss's own terms, it sounded like a "military presence," "battle formation aura," or "war halo."
And that, too, was why human armies still mattered in a world with supernatural power. A trained, organized human legion—backed by discipline or faith—could generate a comparable presence to fight a monster army head-on.
After the short rest, Gauss quickly harvested anything valuable from the dead.
Then he and Shadow wiped their scent clean and followed the wagon ruts and footprints backward, tracking toward the monsters' base.
After a while, Gauss knew they were close.
The temperature was rising fast as they advanced. Snow had melted away, revealing wet, dark soil underneath.
"BOOOOM—!"
A deep, thunderous roar echoed from a huge valley ahead.
Gauss signaled Shadow to move carefully.
The two approached the sound slowly, scouting terrain as they went.
"Hrhh… hrhh…"
At the valley's mouth, ugly gnoll soldiers stood guard along a wall, scanning the open plain with dull, constant vigilance.
Luckily, Shadow's approach method was both safe and silent.
She wrapped Gauss in shadow power, melted them into the ground, and guided them around the front wall, climbing along steep, bare slopes on the side.
Once they reached higher ground and confirmed there were no nearby enemies, they emerged from the shadows.
"Whew…"
Gauss raised his hawk-eye monocle and looked down into the valley—and let out a long breath.
This… was overwhelming.
He swallowed hard.
Down below, the valley plain looked like a giant, roaring furnace.
Dense swarms of monsters—like ants—hauled timber in from outside and fed it into massive blazing smelters.
Not one or two, either.
Dozens of furnaces lined the cliff face in a row, each three or four stories tall, built from rough stone and some kind of dark red clay. Their mouths gaped like beasts, vomiting heat and black smoke.
The furnace bodies glowed red-hot, warping the air around them.
That was where the heat came from—melting snow, steaming water vapor, blanketing the whole valley in a stifling, foul haze.
It was winter, but down there felt like midsummer.
"Hh! Hh! Hh!"
Molten iron was poured into molds. Once it set, other ogre smiths hammered the rough ingots—still glowing a dull red—again and again until they became crude weapon blanks: knives, axes, spearheads.
Goblins and Kobolds handled the finishing work, grinding edges with whetstones and binding hafts with sinew and vines.
Gauss felt his scalp tingle.
This "production line" was too grand.
And he spotted even larger silhouettes: frames of giant timber and hide. He couldn't see the whole shape clearly, but from the scale and structure, they were likely siege engines—catapults or towers.
The entire valley was a gigantic monster factory: loud, filthy, brutal… and efficient.
Tens of thousands of monsters labored inside it. Screams, hammering, and roaring fires combined into a savage tidal roar that battered Gauss's ears and mind.
Or rather—he realized he was only this shocked because his old assumptions had been wrong. Deep down, he'd always thought of monsters as low-intelligence, chaotic creatures. A mass-scale assembly-line industry felt like something they simply couldn't do.
But the scene proved the opposite.
The lowest monsters were stupid and violent, sure—but they obeyed stronger monsters absolutely. And monsters could produce "thinkers." These high-intelligence individuals could organize and create just as well as human geniuses. Under their control and command, the masses could run like a real army.
Gauss took out a recording orb and began filming.
He needed to bring this intel back.
He rotated the orb, adjusting angles again and again, recording as much of the valley's activity as possible.
As for launching an attack while the monster army was "unprepared"?
Gauss had no intention of doing something that stupid.
Yes, he could rack up hundreds—maybe thousands—of kills quickly.
But after that? Wyverns, commander-class monsters, and a tidal wave of fodder would swallow them whole.
Once he finished recording, he waved Shadow over.
She carried him out of the area immediately.
Before leaving, Gauss also surveyed the surroundings.
A force this size couldn't march without room, so they would have widened routes. Using his mental map, he studied the logging directions and found three major corridors.
One of them pointed straight toward Grayrock.
So Grayrock really was one of their targets.
"We're going back," Gauss said.
With enough intel gathered, he didn't linger.
They mounted up and sprinted toward the Jade Forest's outer edge.
Only after exiting the forest did they call Hephaestus, then accelerated back toward Grayrock.
From what he'd seen, most monsters were already equipped—meaning war might not be far away.
The earlier they prepared, the steadier they'd be.
Back in Grayrock, Gauss went straight to the town square and into the Adventurers' Guild.
"I need Guildmaster Eberhard—now. Is he here?"
He stopped a staff member and asked directly.
The staffer recognized him instantly, and clearly Eberhard had given prior instructions—because she didn't waste time, immediately bringing a superior to escort Gauss up to the third floor.
"Sit."
On the third floor, Eberhard—just setting down paperwork—motioned for the dust-covered pair to take a seat.
He knew Gauss wouldn't be here unless he'd found something real in the forest.
"Look at this."
Gauss produced the recording orb.
"We found their base. We recorded it up close."
"Thousands of monsters. They're arming soldiers."
When the images projected into the room, Eberhard saw what Gauss had seen.
And he sucked in a sharp breath.
The numbers on screen were beyond what he'd imagined.
When the projection ended, Gauss drew a rough map from memory, sketching three routes.
They were the most likely invasion corridors.
"Thank you, Gauss. This is critical."
Eberhard carefully pocketed the orb and the hand-drawn map, offering a solemn thanks.
"Looks like we won't be celebrating the year-end in peace."
He sighed.
Before, they'd only known monsters were gathering. They could guess there'd be raids on nearby towns, but couldn't confirm routes. Now, Grayrock was clearly on the list.
"I need to report this immediately. Give me a moment."
Eberhard pressed his palm to a landscape painting on the wall. The wall shifted, revealing a hidden room.
After a short wait, he returned—empty-handed, meaning the intel had already been transmitted upward.
"Will the kingdom send troops to reinforce Grayrock?" Gauss asked.
Eberhard nodded.
"Under the kingdom's border defense regulations, once a large monster army poses a verified threat to a border town, the nearest fortress and the provincial capital are obligated to send reinforcements immediately. Iron Anvil Fortress is closest to us; it keeps a mixed regiment on standby."
"The commander there is Sir Belrock—an experienced border general."
"If nothing goes wrong, Iron Anvil's garrison will reinforce Grayrock."
"But even with reinforcements, the outcome still depends on Grayrock's own defenses."
Eberhard inhaled slowly.
"Resisting monster armies is the reason Grayrock exists."
Gauss listened, thoughtful.
Even with proof… it sounded like they still wouldn't get massive support.
Why?
When Eberhard said he would call a meeting with the mayor and the captains to plan, Gauss immediately excused himself.
He was an adventurer, not a decision-maker. He knew his role, and he wouldn't insert himself into their council.
And he also needed to prepare for the war that was now clearly coming.
He wasn't as heavy-hearted as he could've been. With Hephaestus around, even in the absolute worst case—if the town fell—he could still get family and friends out.
At the same time, he wanted to use the next few days to fully master the Level 4 Spell Control Water, adding more power to his side.
He'd need it.
~~~
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