Sinner System-Chapter 482: The Means to Fight Back

"I’d say five per day, maybe ten at most, if we really push ourselves. It’ll be tough, but we should be able to conquer about half the Calamity Level Dungeons before the Stampedes," I suggested, a tiny bit optimistically.

"And maybe once we get used to the intensity, we could switch to teams of two for the last couple of days, and try to knock off a few more than we could as trios," Added Aria.

There’s nine of us, so...well, I suppose I can handle myself solo, with the support of Ai and the Apostles excluding Ira and Acedia, of course. But let’s not get too far ahead of ourselves.

"Hm, maybe we could have teams of Aces attack the High Level Dungeons, possibly a few Critical Level ones, depending on how that goes? Based on yesterday’s investigation, we’ve already confirmed that it’s mostly Low and Mid Level Monsters in the High Level Dungeons, right?" Inquired Aarav.

"Yes, at least in the ones that were investigated."

"Exactly how many Aces do we have left, anyway?" Spoke up Iseul.

"Forty-three. Thirty-six if we aren’t counting Support Mages, and thirty if we’re only counting Combatants."

"Huh, if we form around eight teams of five to six, to start off with, we should be able to clear a decent number of High Level Dungeons. And depending on how successful these Ace parties are, we could form more teams by reducing the number of members to, say, four," Mused Jaden thoughtfully.

"I think having K-Ranked Attack Mages backing up Ace Combatants should be feasible too, that’ll let us form a larger number of these parties. Say, three Ace Combatants per team, which would mean ten parties total," I added in response.

"You know, that could actually work."

"We should start off more on the cautious side, though. I know the situation is dire, but that’s exactly why we can’t play it too risky, the last thing we want is to lose even more of our forces."

"Agreed, too many have died already."

"I know how this sounds, but...we are going to have to make some sacrifices. That doesn’t mean throw lives away recklessly or unnecessarily, of course, but I think it’s safe to say that it’s impossible to suffer no further casualties in this battle. More people are going to die, that much is all but inevitable...but it’s our job to make the decisions that minimize our casualties as much as possible."

"Hate to say it, but you’re not wrong."

"Yeah, I’ve never felt closer to death than I have over these last two days, any one of us could end up dead," Responded Jaden somberly.

"We can’t afford to lose any of you X-Aces before we take on the Final Dungeon, that much is certain. Given the threat posed by the Demon Lord and his Sentinels, we need all of you alive."

The implication here is pretty fucked up, they’re basically saying that the lower-ranked Hunters are expendable.

But it isn’t simply a case of them being cold or heartless...no, that’s just the stark reality of our situation as things stand right now.

"We can’t forget about the evolution factor of the Monsters. Especially with these numbers. We have to eliminate as many of the strongest among them, before any of the weaker ones evolve," Pointed out Aarav.

"Yeah, that’s true. From what know, evolution takes time, but with our current situation, we’re dealing with a whole lot of unknowns and new precedents, so we can’t be sure of anything," I replied with a nod.

"Agreed, we should consider and prepare for every possibility. We can’t afford to overlook anything, it’ll be too late for regrets if we miss something crucial," Remarked Jaden in agreement.

"Alright, let’s sleep on it and decide our next course of action tomorrow morning. The HUC will hold a meeting early tomorrow, and once we’ve hashed out the details, we’ll proceed right away. Time is of the essence, after all, we can’t afford to waste a single second. But you X-Aces need to get an adequate amount of rest, all the planning in the world would be pointless if your run yourselves ragged."

Yeah, we’ll need to be in top form by the time we’re ready to take on the Final Dungeons. Considering how the fights against the first three Sentinels went, we can’t afford to be anything below our absolute best.

Not to mention the Demon Lord himself, of course. Vaszel Vos Kealfaos, the most powerful being on either side of this conflict, and by a hell of a margin.

He’s got a very personal vendetta against humans, and especially the humans of this world. Whatever he went through in this world before reincarnating as a Demon in that world, it was bad enough that he drove a entire civilization, one that had no connection to his experience in this world, to extinction.

So, if he has his way and wins this war, there’s going to be absolutely no mercy shown to the people of this world.

Anyway, as we wrapped up the conference call and hung up, I let out a strained sigh as I leaned back in my seat and stretched my arms up.

I feel so drained...

"Come on, let’s go home and sleep, Kai. We’re going to be super busy, so we should get as much rest as possible whenever we can," Remarked Aria, as she patted my shoulder.

"Yeah, sounds good. You should head home too, Cleo. Now that you’ve been officially factored into our plans, you’re going to need to keep pushing yourself to improve with every battle," I informed her.

"Don’t worry, I’m well-aware of that fact. I won’t let myself despair, you can be certain of that. I know what it’s like to feel helpless and overwhelmed by the threat of the Monsters, so this isn’t anything new to me...the difference is, this time, I have the means to fight back," She replied with a smile, before adding, "And if I do end up going down, well...I’ll make sure to take as many of them down with me."