Old Hunter John squatted on the stone steps at the entrance of the clinic, the old pipe that had accompanied him for decades dangling from his mouth.
The tobacco in the pipe had long since burned out, but he had forgotten to refill it.
He simply stared blankly at everything happening in the yard, his cloudy old eyes filled with doubt and confusion toward the world.
"Is... is this still the Ogres continent?"
John muttered to himself, feeling as if his entire sense of reality was being ground into the dirt.
In the open space before him...
A squad of beautiful women wearing tight black nurse-sister habits, with wings on their backs and figures so hot one barely dared to look directly at them, were lined up in a neat formation. They were holding ferocious-looking... repeating crossbows?
No, those weren't crossbows at all.
When those things fired, they let out a terrifying "rat-tat-tat" roar. The arrows they shot formed a line of fire, capable of turning a target a hundred meters away into a sieve in an instant.
And on the other side...
That headless knight who had just gotten a new head... oh no, she was called Lady Helena now.
She was riding a bizarre mount made of bone and steel, wreathed in blue ghost fire, performing drifts in the yard.
The roar from that mount was louder than thunder.
The tongues of flame spitting from the exhaust scorched the grass on the ground to a crisp.
Not to mention the giant stitched monster in the corner, using a welding torch to weld iron plates onto its own body.
Sparks flew everywhere, accompanied by a sizzling sound.
"Guns... motorcycles... Gundams..."
Although John didn't know these words, his feeling at this moment was exactly that sense of collapse from a complete clash of art styles.
"Isn't this a world of swords and magic?"
"Why..."
"Why does this look more like a factory than a goblin's high-tech workshop?"
"Has the vibe... skewed a bit too far?"
John felt his brain wasn't enough to process this.
He even suspected that he had died long ago, and everything he was seeing now was actually a hallucination in hell.
"Skewed?"
A flat voice sounded behind him.
John jumped in fright, nearly dropping his pipe on the ground.
He turned his head to see Victor standing behind him, holding a metal plate covered in complex patterns, with that signature, inscrutable smile on his face.
"I think it’s quite good."
Victor adjusted his glasses, looking at the bustling scene in the yard with a satisfied glint in his eyes.
"It’s called 'keeping up with the times.'"
"Magic is miraculous, but it relies too much on talent and incantations; it's inefficient."
"Mechanics are precise, but they lack energy and spirituality; they're heavy and rigid."
Victor walked to the center of the yard and held up the metal plate in his hand.
It was a freshly etched 【Magic-Conduction Circuit Board】.
"But, if we combine the two..."
"Using magic as the energy, science as the logic, and alchemy as the craftsmanship."
"What we will get is—"
"A miracle."
Victor turned and walked toward the corner of the castle's first floor, where a sign for the newly established 【Research Department】 had just been hung.
"Zoe, come here."
"Coming, Director!"
The alchemist girl, wearing thick bottle-bottom glasses and with hair as messy as a chicken's nest, immediately rushed out of the lab clutching a pile of blueprints.
Her face was pitch black, clearly having just experienced an explosion, but her eyes were incredibly bright.
"Director! Your idea was a success!"
Zoe excitedly waved a metal tube in her hand.
"We successfully compressed the rune array for the 【Bursting Fireball】 into this tiny metal tube!"
"As long as you pull the trigger, the firing pin triggers the mana crystal, and it instantly releases a miniature bursting spell!"
"Really?"
Victor's eyes lit up as he took the metal tube.
It was actually a magic-modified "gun barrel."
In this world, to cast magic, one had to chant incantations and mobilize mana. It was not only slow but also easily interrupted.
But Victor's "magic-conduction firearm" theory completely overturned all of that.
Engrave magic runes on the bullet (or the barrel) and use a mana crystal as the primer.
No incantations needed.
No talent needed.
As long as a creature had a finger to pull the trigger, they could fire a bullet with power comparable to a fireball spell!
This was simply—
A mage's nightmare, a commoner's divine tool!
"Come, let's go to the lab and test it."
Victor took Zoe and eagerly ducked into the laboratory.
John watched the tightly closed door, listening to the "booms" and maniacal laughter coming from inside, and pulled his neck back.
"Madmen..."
"These people... are all madmen."
...
Inside the lab.
Victor was not satisfied with just making a few guns.
His ambition went far beyond that.
"Zoe, we need to establish a set of standards."
Victor stood before a blackboard, quickly drawing complex blueprints with chalk.
"We need to turn magic into a mass-produced 'industrial product.'"
"For example, this."
He pointed to a pattern on the blackboard resembling a "battery."
"We will cut mana crystals into uniform specifications and make 'universal mana batteries.'"
"In the future, whether it's Helena's motorcycle, the sisters' crossbow guns, or even the armor on Roadhog, they can all use this battery."
"Out of power? Just pull it out and swap in a new one!"
Zoe listened, mesmerized, her pen never stopping as she took notes in her notebook.
"Genius... it's a simply genius idea!"
"Previous alchemists each had their own standards; the things they made were completely incompatible with others."
"If we can unify the standards... our production efficiency will increase more than tenfold!"
"Exactly."
Victor nodded.
"And this."
He drew something similar to a "walkie-talkie."
"Utilizing the principles of the 'Message' spell combined with radio wave frequencies."
"We will create a device that allows everyone to communicate instantly."
"Imagine, on the battlefield, I can sit here and directly command Helena several kilometers away."
"What kind of intelligence advantage is that?"
Zoe's eyes had turned into stars.
"Director, just how much is packed inside your head?"
"It’s all... science."
Victor gave a mysterious smile.
Over the next few days...
The Research Department of the Benevolent Heart Clinic became the busiest and most dangerous place in the entire castle.
The sounds of explosions, electricity, and Zoe's fanatical screams rose and fell one after another.
But under this frenzied atmosphere...
One "black tech" product after another, capable of changing the world's warfare landscape, was being continuously born.
【Magic-Conduction Communicator (V1.0)】: Although there is occasional static, it has already achieved instant calls within five kilometers.
【High-Explosive Grenade (Holy Light Edition)】: Filled with concentrated holy water, it is exceptionally effective against undead creatures. Roadhog's favorite toy.
【Automated Operating Table】: Integrated with mechanical arms and some of Victor's own surgical data, it can automatically complete simple suturing and bandaging work.
And...
The ultimate weapon currently under development, codenamed "Destroyer."
...
"Phew..."
A week later.
Victor looked at the room full of new equipment and let out a long breath.
Although his points had flowed out like water, and his current account balance had returned to double digits...
Looking at this "modernized" force that was now armed to the teeth, he felt it was all worth it.
"Assemble!"
Victor issued the command to the entire clinic through the newly developed 【Magic-Conduction Broadcast System】.
Soon.
All employees were assembled in the yard.
Elizabeth had changed into a new bulletproof nurse uniform, with two magic-conduction pistols loaded with anesthetic rounds tucked at her waist.
Alice's great scissors had been magically reinforced, their edges shimmering with an eerie purple light.
Mia wore a custom tactical vest, carrying a massive alloy battle axe forged by Roadhog on her back.
Helena sat on her motorcycle, the radar on her helmet constantly rotating.
Roadhog held a massive handheld cannon (though it was modified from a sewer pipe), smiling simple-mindedly.
And there were the five battle sisters flying in mid-air, their automatic crossbows glinting in the sunlight.
"Very good."
Victor looked at this team, a surge of pride rising in his heart.
This was what he wanted.
A team that combined magic and technology, savagery and civilization...
An invincible legion.
"With this equipment, even if the Holy Light Church's crusaders come, I can knock out two of their teeth!"
Victor was full of confidence.
However...
Just as everyone was immersed in the joy of the equipment upgrades and preparing to hold a victory feast...
"Beep—! Beep—! Beep—!"
A rapid and piercing alarm suddenly blared from Helena's mechanical helmet.
It was the highest-level enemy attack alarm!
"What's going on?"
Victor's expression shifted, and the smile on his face vanished instantly.
"Commander!"
Helena's voice was cold and urgent, without a trace of emotional fluctuation.
"Radar has detected a high-energy signature!"
"Position: Directly above! Altitude: Two thousand meters!"
"Quantity: Extremely vast!"
"It's not a ground force..."
Helena looked up, her two red-glowing electronic eyes locking onto the seemingly calm clouds overhead.
"It's an air raid!"
【Warning! Warning!】
【Large number of hostile creatures detected diving at high speed!】
【Type: Flying magic beast swarm!】
【Preliminary identification... Harpy legion!】
Victor looked up sharply.
His true sight eye pierced through the cloud layer.
He saw that above the thick clouds, dense black dots were blotting out the sun like a plague of locusts.
They were monsters with the faces of women and the bodies of eagles.
Their talons clutched giant stones, burning oil barrels, and even venomous javelins.
They let out sharp, ear-piercing shrieks, like a fleet of diving bombers, lunging fiercely toward the defenseless clinic castle!
"Damn it!"
Victor cursed, his face becoming extremely grim.
He had calculated everything, pushing the ground defenses to the limit.
Walls, traps, skeleton guards, heavy tanks...
But he had overlooked one thing.
This world... had an air force!
And his clinic, aside from those five not-yet-proficient battle sisters...
Had almost no anti-air defenses!
This was a...
Dimensional strike!
"Everyone! Find cover!"
Victor's roar had just left his mouth when...
BOOM—!!!
The first burning oil barrel slammed onto the clinic's roof.
The exploding flames instantly engulfed the giant red cross emblem.
War...
Had descended from the sky in a way Victor had completely failed to anticipate!
Rate on N.U.
