The Extra Prince Sets Out To Conquer The World

“Oh, my back is stiff.”

Even though I slept on an air mattress using Navi’s power, my back felt stiff.

It seemed like the air mattress was too soft.

Of course, if I had slept on the bare ground, I would have been groaning in pain rather than just stiffness, so it was fine.

On either side of me, Jade and Gilbert were sound asleep on their air mattresses.

I got up from my spot, careful not to wake the two, patted the spirits, and went outside.

I went to bed early yesterday because I was tired, so dawn hadn’t broken yet.

Perhaps because it was a high altitude area, it was quite chilly to the point where it felt like winter for a moment despite being full-fledged spring.

“Oh, a barrier?”

Since no one was keeping watch, I looked around and felt a subtle barrier in place.

Judging from how it wasn’t Silua’s magic formula, it seemed like Jade had cast it.

I gathered firewood and lit a bonfire with Nuni’s power, then checked my pockets.

“Huh? The demon was sent back?”

I didn’t notice because I was sleeping, but the contract linked to the demon was half crumpled.

That meant that the Arcana executives had likely invaded to target the seal overnight.

Well, I had prepared countermeasures to some extent, so Yekatrice would take care of it.

I had no room to worry about others.

“Are you awake?”

Precia came out of the tent and greeted me. I asked while boiling water in a magic kettle.

“You can sleep more, did you wake up because of me?”

“No. I woke up early because I rested from training yesterday to prepare for the subjugation.”

At her words, I giggled and laughed.

“Certainly, Precia’s training is terrifying.”

“It’s not to the point of being te-terrifying.”

Precia blushed, embarrassed.

No, maybe it just looked that way because of the bonfire.

I brewed tea with the boiled water and handed it to her.

“Ah, would you prefer coffee over tea?”

“No. Anything is good if it’s given by you, Young Master.”

I smiled wryly at Precia’s skilled social etiquette and poured tea for myself to drink as well.

Drinking the warm tea, it felt like my frozen body was melting.

While warming our bodies by the bonfire and chatting with Precia, the rest of the party woke up one by one.

“Good morning!”

I responded to Silua’s lively greeting with warm tea.

“Yuan oppa, I analyzed the cave yesterday and as you said, mana crystals and ethersteel were buried there!”

Upon closer look, giant moles were endlessly mining mana crystals and ores from the cave where ‘Mist’ resided.

I think the deposit was about 30 tons?

If it were an iron or copper mine, it might have been discarded as unprofitable.

But 30 tons of ethersteel was a deposit large enough to buy a small country.

“How long do you think it will take to mine it all?”

“Hmm… the Ethersteel is in large quantities, so a week? Mana crystals will likely be mined in three days.”

Ethersteel was buried and mana crystals were condensed in the cave, so the efficiency couldn’t be helped.

“Then Silua, keep working. I’ll leave Gilbert and Precia, so have them cut through rocks and such with sword energy.”

Precia should be able to cut through things that even named dolls can’t handle, so she would be helpful.

It would also be sword energy training for Gilbert.

“What about you, oppa?”

“I have to go catch ‘Lightning Steps’.”

Among the five great magic beasts, ‘Lightning Steps’ had the widest habitat, but it was picky with food, so it was relatively easy to pinpoint its location.

It meant that if you found its main prey, it would naturally come.

“Don’t worry. ‘Lightning Steps’ is weak for a great magic beast, and I’ll call you when I catch it.”

If things went well, I could catch ‘Iron Armor’ today as well.

Just in time, the Arcana executives had invaded where Yekatrice was, so while she held them back, it was best to finish the subjugation quickly.

If by any chance they found out we were subjugating the great magic beasts and retrieving the mana stones of sealing, it would be a headache.

*******

“It really runs around filthily. Doesn’t it get tired running around like that?”

I clicked my tongue while observing the giant snow leopard ‘Lightning Steps’ through optical equipment.

Thanks to ‘Lightning Steps biased eating habits of mainly preying on cow-shaped monsters, it wasn’t too difficult to pinpoint its location.

The problem was that the damn thing ran around like crazy.

I thought it would at least stay still when eating after hunting.

But it took one bite, ran around playing, hunted again, took another bite, and repeated running around.

It was too fast to chase after, so I had to predict its movements and get ahead of it.

At my question, Jade observed ‘Lightning Steps’ through binoculars and said,

“But it’s still a great magic beast. Honestly, I think it will be the hardest to catch among the five great magic beasts except for Red Eyes. Not only will it not fight because it’s weak, but with that mobility, it will run away before we can cut off its escape route.”

It wasn’t unreasonable to think that way, since ‘Iron Armor’ was slow, ‘Unicorn’ seemed to have a pack to take hostages, and ‘Mist’ had a fatal weakness to sunlight.

In reality, it was the opposite for all of them.

‘Iron Armor’ was insanely fast underground.

‘Unicorn’s pack was just bait to buy time for it to escape.

And ‘Mist’ couldn’t be caught when escaping in an open space due to its fog transformation unless in extreme cases.

“Eh, it will be the easiest.”

‘Lightning Steps’ just had fast legs. The problem was that it was insanely fast.

Come to think of it, in the novel, ‘Lightning Steps’ took the longest to catch, right?

Unlike other great magic beasts, it didn’t get injured, but it frequently escaped when confronted head-on.

In that sense, Jade’s concern could be considered valid.

At my confidence, Jade smiled brightly. Perhaps because I had proven it with results so far, he trusted my words.

“But that thing seems to only eat the heart when hunting and discard the rest?”

“You’re right.”

Eating only the cow’s heart and discarding the rest. I didn’t know it would be so picky.

Well, it doesn’t matter anyway.

“But if we know its behavior patterns, it’s not that difficult to induce its actions. However, it’s impossible in this area. Can we transfer the traps we set up as they are?”

The prey had all fled as soon as ‘Lightning Pace’ appeared, so there was no bait left to lure it.

“Yes, since they are magic traps, transferring them isn’t difficult. Where should we move them to?”

I examined the map and found the location ‘Lightning Steps’ would be most reluctant to enter.

“If we create a huge swamp right as it enters this ravine, its mobility will decrease, right?”

The moment it steps on the ravine walls to escape the swamp, it would be quite a sight to see the walls collapsing as well.

‘Lightning Steps’ was just a slightly tougher monster than an average large monster, except for its fast legs.

“But how do you plan to lure it to the trap?”

“Don’t worry about that. Is it hard to skewer a beast?”

I took out what I had prepared in advance.

“A potion?”

“Yeah. It’s a pheromone perfume cows give off during mating season.”

For beasts, the proper way to lure them was with prey.

I sent reconnaissance dolls with the pheromone scent to all of ‘Lightning Steps’s territories and drove all the prey to where the trap was.

“Now then, if it’s hungry, it will have to run around diligently, right?”

I took out a modified crossbow and aimed at ‘Lightning Pace’ through optical equipment.

A sensitive ‘Lightning Steps’ would diligently run away from this attack.

While the cowardly thing ran around alone for a while, I gathered the prey in one place.

Then, the hungry thing would naturally enter the trap. That was the outline of the plan.

“Fire!”

Nuni devoured the mana from mana stones and accelerated the arrowhead, and the arrowhead flying at seven times the speed of sound followed the air current towards ‘Lightning Step’s head.

“Lightning Steps is fast and agile unlike Unicorn, so it will easily dodge… huh?”

‘Lightning Steps’, which was several kilometers away, was hit by the arrowhead I fired, bleeding from its head and staggering.

I instinctively quickly took out another arrowhead, nocked it on the crossbow string, and shouted,

“Reload! Fire!”

Navi pulled the string and hooked it on the trigger catch, and Nuni once again sent a huge current through the copper tube to accelerate the arrowhead.

It hit the head again, and ‘Lightning Pace’ seemed to have regained its senses from the second impact and tried to escape.

True to its reputation, it ran at a fast speed even after being hit twice in the head.

But it was clearly a different speed than before.

Before the arrowhead pierced its head, it was so fast that it was impossible to hit, but now it seemed possible to hit it even while running if done well.

As if possessed, I kept taking out arrowheads, loading them, and firing.

And two shots hit the right hind leg, three shots hit near the ribs, five shots hit evenly throughout its body, and the last shot pierced between the eyes.

“Uh… did we catch it?”

“Uh… seems like it?”

It’s not moving. Like an ordinary corpse.

“It’s not an illusion magic, right?”

I had a really hard time catching ‘Red Eyes’, which had become quite weakened after 20 years of hibernation, let alone ‘Mist’, which we subjugated just yesterday, so catching it this easily was surprising.

I was dumbfounded beyond surprise.

“Probably not. Even in the records of the predecessors, there was no information about that snow leopard using magic. …Probably.”

Jade and I blinked in disbelief.

“My, my, the effort of making traps has become futile.”

“Indeed.”

I didn’t know whether to be happy that I caught it easily or regret that my efforts had gone to waste.

But now, the only one left was the great magic beast ‘Iron Armor’ in the center of the mountains.

When I retrieved the unexpectedly caught snow leopard’s corpse, Precia nagged me for recklessly pushing myself again without her.

It’s unfair!

But faced with the terrifying force emanating from the superhuman, I had to make excuses that weren’t excuses while sweating nervously.

At the word ‘again’, I reflected on the past but couldn’t think of anything.

I hadn’t particularly overexerted myself, so I was perplexed that she seemed to view me as a thrill addict.

How does she see me?

*****

Precia hid behind a rock located in a huge cave and observed the giant scorpion visible in the distance.

Snip! Snip!

At the gruesome sound of flesh being torn and bones being crushed, she tensed up and gripped her sword handle.

The sharp pincers easily cut through the tough hide and sturdy bones of the hunted large monster like cutting cake.

The giant scorpion brought the chopped prey to its mouth.

Precia inwardly recited the information she had heard from her lord and slowly drew her sword.

The great magic beast ‘Iron Armor’ had an incomparably narrower territory compared to other great magic beasts.

However, it was a monster that wasn’t easy to subjugate due to its hard exoskeleton that wasn’t easily cut even with sword energy, extremely potent venom that could kill large monsters with a small amount, and its ability to quickly burrow into the ground and escape in a pinch.

From her position, it was hard to realize it was difficult to catch since she didn’t have a particularly hard time catching any except ‘Unicorn’.

However, looking back, all the previous great magic beast subjugations were possible because of thorough traps and calculations.

‘Red Eyes’ was already in a near-death state by Yuan before she even arrived.

And for ‘Mist’, they thoroughly exploited its elemental disadvantage and weaknesses.

Even ‘Unicorn’, the only one that gave her trouble, could be ended in a short battle thanks to Yuan’s arrowhead shattering its skull.

“Really, the prince is amazing.”

Precia’s heart swelled with trust in her lord, but at the same time, her worries deepened.

Starting from when he faced assassins alone on his birthday despite knowing they would come, to recently fighting the strongest great magic beast ‘Red Eyes’ without her as his guard.

Her lord frequently engaged in too many reckless acts.

Indeed, he couldn’t do without her.

Thinking that, Precia stroked her lord’s spirits sitting on her shoulders one by one.

As she took a deep breath and kept an eye on the great magic beast ‘Iron Armor’, Yuan’s signal flashed from afar.

It was the start of the subjugation operation.

TN: Pew pew