Miss Witch Doesn't Want to be a Diva

The visor of the Knight Helmet was covered and obscured by red-hot splattered metal fragments, and her armor was full of various bloodstains. Cutting down one enemy after another, Hyacinth's consciousness grew increasingly faint. If not for her well-trained body maintaining reflexive movements, she would have long fallen amidst the swarming Mechanical Cluster.

Even though she had exerted all her strength, the endless enemies still seemed to have no end. Finally, her consciousness gradually descended until she could no longer resist the dizziness from blood loss and physical exhaustion.

Her world darkened.

...

...

Several days later, a small aircraft skimmed across the sky, overlooking the battlefield below, now reduced to ruins. Corpses were piled everywhere, both of the Mouse-Ear Clan and the Mechanical Bodies. Broken firearms and bayonets were slanted into the ground, with some flies and insects constantly rising and falling, feasting on the decaying flesh and blood.

After the last force of the Iron Rat Kingdom was vanquished, the Mechanical Cluster began to spread relentlessly across the kingdom, passing through villages and towns like a plague of locusts, destroying everything in their path.

"This is the sixteenth town we've passed by." Tilan murmured as she looked at the desolated ghost town below.

"It seems there's still a faint life signal down there." Loloria said as she flew to the side of the cabin.

"Are there any survivors? Let's go down and take a look." Tilan felt a certain joy, as seeing survivors amidst this devastation, though she was unrelated to the Mouse-Ear Clan, brought her some solace.

The aircraft slowly descended as Celestia flew out directly, while only Ores and Tilan walked down.

Ores felt a bit uncomfortable with the environment here. She leaned behind Tilan, holding onto Tilan's sleeve, moving forward slowly, covering her mouth and nose with the sleeve. However, her gaze was quite curious about her surroundings. Despite the many corpses, she was not afraid, perhaps because she did not yet understand the sorrow within.

Tilan carefully stepped over the wreckage on the ground, walking to a mound of corpses and mechanical debris. She thought for a moment, then raised her hand to let the piled items float up one by one, revealing a figure buried beneath. It was a member of the Mouse-Ear Clan, whose life signal was near critical, judging by the armor she wore, she seemed to be a knight of a high rank.

Letting her slowly fall on the ground before her, Tilan bent down to carefully check her condition and began treatment, while Celestia looked on curiously, interested in Tilan's methods of healing.

About 20 minutes later, some clear water flowed from the air, falling onto the face of the weakened Mouse-Ear Clan member, some dripping into her mouth, and she slowly opened her eyes.

The blue sky...

Gazing at the blue above her, a few seconds later, she managed to gather some awareness and recall what happened before she lost consciousness.

She was unexpectedly still alive, feeling the urge to move, but the aching and numbness from various parts of her body told her it was impossible, even her consciousness was unusually weak, making her thoughts slower than before.

Dragging her weary gaze, she managed to move her eyes and observe the people around her, one of whom seemed to understand her thoughts and carefully helped her up, handing her a cup of water.

As the clear water slowly flowed down her throat, she felt slightly more awake.

"I am Hyacinth, captain of the Guard Knight Order. Who are you?"

"We are travelers from afar. We have seen many ruins and wreckage along the way, but found you still alive." The black-haired girl behind her said, offering her another cup of water.

The weak Hyacinth looked up, glancing at the winged woman beside her and the silver-haired, pointy-eared girl across from her, recalling the species with such appearances in her mind.

"Thank you, can you tell me what you saw along the way?"

Tilan thought for a moment, deciding to tell her the truth.

"The situation along the way isn't good. Everywhere is a ruin after the Mechanical Bodies' rampage, and all remaining settlements have begun to migrate to other places."

"It's good they can migrate away." Hearing this, she seemed somewhat relieved.

"Phew, I probably don't have much time left. If there's anything you want to ask, just ask." She didn't feel these people saved her just to give her water.

"This... could you talk about what you discovered in the ruins?" Celestia asked.

"For the ruins, eh? I suppose so." Hyacinth reflected, then slowly began to recount.

"...I wasn't among the first to know about it, but at the time, the Queen indeed asked me to lead people to the ruin site to blockade it."

"The excavation site was in the Mulan Manor, surrounded by several large ranch lords, who had many clan members and followers, with their own combat teams, and were very dissatisfied with the personnel sent by the Queen seizing the ruins."

"Initially, the disputes were not intense, just hoping for more compensation from Her Majesty the Queen, like 100 sets of Knight Armor and weapons, which were within allowable limits."

"But as the excavation continued, the discoveries inside became increasingly astounding, not only were there intact ships, the electronic equipment preserved inside, and some electromagnetic weapons were also usable."

"These items caused disagreements within the excavation team, some greedy members wanted to take them for themselves, leading to internal conflicts due to uneven distribution."

"Later, the news leaked, the local ranch lords also learned of the astonishing treasures inside the ruins, became unsatisfied with the Queen's gifts, and thus surrounded the ruins, intending to directly seize the treasures inside."

"This led to conflicts with our stationed personnel, which then escalated until it awakened the dormant Mechanical Bodies inside..."

"Subsequent events were a disaster, the Mechanical Bodies began massacring any living creatures they saw, and started sending signals to summon more mechanical lifeforms."

"Seeing the situation spiraling out of control, both sides of the original conflict had no choice but to put aside differences and face the attack of the Mechanical Bodies, then I led the assembled troops here to blockade and have a decisive battle."

"As you can see, I ultimately failed." She looked at the scene spreading several kilometers below the hillside and sighed silently.

"No, no." Loloria, who had been silent this whole time, suddenly spoke out.

"These Mechanical Bodies are extremely outdated models, not left by the troop ships from a thousand years ago." She said, familiar with the Mechanical Bodies following Olivia when she descended.

"If they were Mechanical Bodies from that era, there wouldn't have been such intense fighting, but rather a one-sided slaughter." She pointed out the flaws in the narrative.

Currently, the nomadic Mechanical Clans on the planet are degraded, crude versions of several iterations, produced at the expense of many weapons and parts, with the alloys used far poorer than back then.

Otherwise, the sturdy metal armor of Mechanical Bodies crafted by the Mechanical Council of that era couldn't possibly be pierced or destroyed by these little mice.

"I don't know about that." Hyacinth shook her head, her available information was limited as well.

Watching Loloria speak confidently on the side, Celestia's eyes flickered as if thinking of something, then they helped the slightly recovered Hyacinth onto the aircraft.

"A few dozen kilometers away, there's our temporary camp, where there are fellow Mouse-Ear Clan members who can take good care of you." Tilan instructed Hyacinth, leaving her personal letter on the aircraft.

"Get some sleep, the plane will take you there in a bit." After that, the unmanned plane gently ascended and returned, sending Hyacinth inside to a distant place.

Watching the small airplane slowly disappear into the sky, Tilan continued to ponder the information just inquired.

If it's not a troop ship from a thousand years ago, then it's a ship built in a later era, which means the Mechanical Council still had high-level personnel remaining several hundred years later and attempted to leave this planet with a ship, but ultimately failed, with the ship crashing and unable to leave.

Recalling how the Rose Federation once searched the entire Milky Way, monitoring countless silent star systems without discovering this planet's presence, it indicates that this planet must have special means of concealment, or it would have long been discovered by the Rose Federation.

This suggests that even if one could build a ship, it may not necessarily leave the planet, she vaguely concluded.

The situation doesn't look good, though it's a bit early to worry about this now; let's head to the excavation site of the ruins and see what can be discovered there.