Published at 17th of February 2020 7:45 am

Chapter 353: Aerial Battle, and Miscalculation.

This chapter is updated by NovelFree.ml

(Note: the second part of the title is actually “misread” if properly translated, but that sounds kinda weird, so I changed it. They’re close in meaning anyway.)

“Don’t tell me… You’re the real Magicraft King?”

“Precisely. The humanoid-type golem over there was a puppet that served as my substitute. I had transferred my brain to this place, and escaped the yoke known as a physical body since ten years ago.”

To think he had already abandoned his humanity a long time ago… Within Hekatonkheire’s forehead, the brain floating within the emerald-green solution shook lightly.

The thing he’s doing is the same as Professor Babylon in a way. It’s just, while the professor transferred her consciousness into an artificial lifeform made from a combination of magic and technology, the Magicraft King transplanted his brain into the body of a Legacy golem.

Well, considering he needs another fifty extra auxiliary brains to control that body, it’s clear that the level of his techniques is far below that of Professor Babylon’s.

“Kakaka. As expected, even someone like you are astonished, no?”

“No, not really?”

“Mu?”

While I was surprised by that appearance—with his brain hanging out in the open and all—the act itself isn’t very surprising. Something like cyborgs are often-used materials in sci-fi stories anyway.

Well, it’s true that when you see one of them in front of you, you do feel somewhat unsettled.

“Eh, whatever, really.”

I aimed Brunhild which was loaded with a [Explosion]-enchanted bullet, and pulled the trigger without hesitation.

A large explosion occurred at the forehead area of Hekatonkheire. However, when the smokes cleared, what showed itself was the same brain as before, suspended in the emerald-green solution without any injuries.

“Mu.”

“Kakaka! Don’t underestimate Hekatonkheire! The armor of this thing completely nullifies any magic!”

When I took a closer look, countless small patterns were drawn in a dense manner on Hekatonkheire’s armor. It’s a form of magic engraving, huh. It seems to have been carved to the last detail in order to maximize its magic defense.

Considering it’s purpose as a weapon used in the ancient war between golems, instead of anti- magic users, its design was probably to counter skill-holding golems. More like, old man, that’s not your achievement.

“Reload.”

I changed all bullets to regular ones and pulled the trigger again.

However, with *gakin* sounds, the bullets hit something right before reaching Hekatonkheire and were deflected.

Tch, as I expected. There’s a protective wall in place similar to my [Shield]. It’s at a level where I can’t penetrate it with Brunhild. Probably, it’d be hard with Yae and Hilda’s swords as well. No matter how sharp the edge is, using a shaving razor to handle a whole tuna is going to be pretty tough.

Suddenly, a series of rumbling sound came from the floor again; we immediately looked around us in vigilance. We can probably handle anything that comes at us; however, if it’s something we’re seeing for the first time, there’d be an unavoidable lag in our response time.

Even though I’m gradually becoming a god, it’s not like my thinking ability increased as well. If I did something like keeping [Accel] constantly active and boosting my reaction speed that way, I probably wouldn’t have let my magic power be sucked out that easily back then.

And while it’s an obvious thought, I’d like to excuse myself from living life constantly in a broken speed.

The loud sound of something breaking apart resounded within the underground factory. Right after that, as if in a chain reaction, breaking sounds came from all over the place.

Hekatonkheire had began moving from its spot underneath the floor. Is it planning to break through the factory like this!?

“Kakaka! It’s finally time to say farewell to this cramped space, eh!”

“Oi! This is directly under the castle, you know! There’s a huge number of people above…!”

“What about them? Would you take care to not step on ants when you walk? What a weird sensibility.”

Kuh, this geezer, he already abandoned his identity as a human mentally.

The large eye-like part on its forehead as well as the smaller ones on the side of its head closed, and when they reopened, the Q-crystals and the Magicraft King’s brain was nowhere to be seen. Did they move to someplace deeper within the golem?

Well, that’s an obvious move. As if anyone would leave those obvious weak points hanging in the open like that.

Hekatonkheire began moving. Things in the factory are breaking apart one by one from the reactive force. It’s dangerous to stay here any longer; there’s no telling when the ceiling may collapse on us entirely.

“[Teleport]!”

I hugged Yae and Hilda close to me and transferred to a place in Eisengard’s capital.

The destination of the [Teleport] was on top of the roof of the tallest building in the capital, south of the castle. From here, we can get a good view of the castle.

The tower which looked like a ship’s crow’s nest was raising smoke and looking like it was about to collapse at any moment. The figures of people escaping from the castle can be seen from here.

“Target acquisition! All remaining persons inside Eisengard’s castle!”

“Beginning acquisiti—”

Covering up the voice from my smartphone, large explosions occurred one after another within the castle. And then, gigantic mechanical wings appeared from within the flames and smoke.

Right now, “that guy” was trying to rise up onto the ground from its underground prison, while explosions and sounds of destruction echoed from all over the collapsing castle.

“—Acquisition finished.”

“Transfer everyone to the plains three kilometers from the capital! Activate [Mega Heal] right afterwards!”

“Roger.”

Upon hearing the report from my smartphone, I immediately gave it further commands. I don’t think I managed to save everyone. The ones who have already died, and ones who have some sort of protective talisman on them that prevents targeting via magic would be beyond my ability to help.

As if sneering at my thoughts, the central tower of the castle finally toppled, and disappeared in an explosion.

In exchange, the gigantic wings from before appeared from behind the smoke again, and cracks began appearing on the ground not just within the castle, but even on the roads connecting to it. Wait, what the… Does its body reach all the way to the area underneath the castle town as well!?

Breaking through the cracks in the ground, a black twisted-looking metallic tail appeared. And not just one. Two, three, the number kept increasing. The vicinity of the castle already could not be seen clearly due to the billowing smoke as well as flames.

“Kakaka! How pleasant! Truly the best feeling! I have finally surpassed those guys from the ancient civilizations! By my hands, the incomplete Hekatonkheire was completed! Kakakakaka!”

From within the black smoke, the Magicraft King’s crazed-sounding voice could be heard. No, not just sounding, he’s already gone truly mad.

From underneath the castle that’s now wrapped in flames, at long last, “that” showed its full appearance.

Its body was entirely black with brass-colored lines running through it, and on its head were two sinister-looking large horns. On its face were eyes and a widely-opened mouth.

Four large arms extended out from its torso; at various other places, numerous smaller arms grew out of its body as well. On its back grew two large wings.

If I were to describe it, it’s a mechanical-looking multi-armed devil. Several long tails were attached to its body as well, and on the tips of those tails were snake-like heads.

With twirling motions like whips, those tails easily broke the ramparts of the castle to pieces. Seems like they have quite the power.

Still, it sure is big… Isn’t it around the same size as an advanced-class?

To think something like that was sleeping underneath that castle.

“Touya-dono, we have to stop that! With our Frame Gears…!”

“Ah… While Reginleiv is inside my [Storage], yours are in Babylon so…”

“Ah!?”

Both Yae’s Schwertleite and Hilda’s Siegrune are in Babylon’s Hangar, after all. I would have to jump back to Babylon back in the Surface World with a [Dimensional Transfer] if I want to use them.

I should’ve put the frames of the two of them in [Storage] as well if I knew this was gonna happen. Or more like, shouldn’t I have just placed them inside the [Storage] enchanted on their engagement rings… Oh well. It can’t be helped, guess I’ll—

“Now now now! Troubled, lost, in a big pinch! At times like those, answering your call, your reliable Onee-chan takes the stage-nano yo!”

“Waah!?”

I was shocked by the sudden loud voice coming right besides me and almost fell off the roof we were on.

Over there was Karen nee-san, who was throwing her chest out with a *fuun* feeling. When the hell!?

“Aneue-dono!?”

“Onee-sama!?”

Yae and Hilda were looking at Karen nee-san with round eyes as well. Really, how much must you personify the word “elusive” before you’re satisfied!? You aren’t even a person though!?

“Karen nee-san, why are you here!?”

“My Onee-chan radar was beeping-no yo. Touya-kun was crying and in trouble, and I must go save him! Or something like that.”

Who’s crying, oi. That radar of yours must be broken, no, isn’t it more like a “Something fun is happening” radar instead!?

“And because of that, I brought Babylon over to this world as well. There.”

“Eh!?”

While saying that, nee-san pointed towards an empty sky. There’s only a thin layer of clouds in that direction.

“There’s nothing there…”

“Use your [Divine Eye] and look-no yo.”

“Ah, right.”

Babylon’s stealth function, huh. When I activated [Divine Eye], Babylon was indeed floating in the sky over there. More like, she transferred that entire thing over to this world…? That’s still beyond me at the moment…

Wait, shouldn’t she have used divinity for this? Using the powers of a god to interfere in the human world should be (except me who’s a trainee) forbidden…

“… Isn’t that Touya-kun’s belonging-nano yo? Which means, it’s a belonging of the trainee god. So that means it’s not something which belongs to the human world, so it’s probably okay!”

Sophistry!? Did you just think of that right now!? You’re averting your eyes, you know!?

Eh, whatever. It’s not like arguing about that will change anything. For now, after sending Yae and Hilda to Babylon via [Gate], I turned to look at Hekatonkheire which looked like it’s ready to begin rampaging.

Hekatonkheire opened its wings widely, and began floating upwards into the sky. Since it’s not doing anything physical like flapping its wings, it’s probably flying with the use of something like an anti-gravity field.

Tch, [Slip]’s not gonna work on that. With that size, a [Prison] would become too weak to contain it, and opening a [Gate] to drop it somewhere else had also become impossible.

“Well, if that’s what you’re going with, I have my own options as well.”

Moving to an unpopulated—due to all the people escaping—square within the capital, I called out my Frame Gear, Reginleiv from [Storage].

I immediately got into the cockpit, set my smartphone on the console, and started up Reginleiv.

The monitors around me began projecting the outside view. While capturing Hekatonkheire in the center of my vision, I sent magic power through the control sticks and made Reginleiv fly upwards.

“Activate Fragarachs.”

“Fragarachs, activated.”

With a *bakin* sound, the twelve crystal boards attached to Reginleiv’s back detached themselves. The long plate-shaped crystal boards began orbiting around Reginleiv like satellites.

“Mode change: Sphere.”

The plate-shaped crystals changed themselves into spheres. Twelve crystal spheres lined up in front of me like hour markings on a clock.

“Go.”

The twelve spheres turned into bullets and attacked Hekatonkheire; however, they crashed into an invisible barrier before reaching Hekatonkheire itself, and couldn’t deal any damage.

“Muu?”

The Magicraft King, who had become the brain of Hekatonkheire, noticed me from that attack. I maneuvered Reginleiv to a spot above Hekatonkheire’s head.

You can really appreciate the size of that thing when looking from above, eh.

“Kakaka. Is that the golem you found somewhere? I see, certainly it’s a rare one that I’ve never seen anywhere else before. But, it will not match up to this Hekatonkheire.”

“Is that so? Personally, I think it’s far better than some useless antique with size as its only selling point, you know.”

“What impudence!”

Hekatonkheire waved its wings slightly as it started approaching Reginleiv.

While dodging Hekatonkheire’s attacks, I made Reginleiv head towards an empty field some distance away from the capital. I’ll draw Hekatonkheire over to a spacious area in the opposite direction from the plains I transferred the people in the castle to.

If it’s here, it should be fine for me to fight harder.

“Mode change: Dagger.”

The twelve crystal spheres around me split into four, and each of those pieces morphed into the shape of a dagger. Forty-eight crystal daggers began hovering around Reginleiv in a radial pattern.

“Divinity bestowment. [Gladius].”

The forty-eight daggers, clad in divinity, launched themselves towards Hekatonkheire simultaneously. Forty-eight sacred sparks of light assaulted the sinister-looking multi-armed devil.

“Kakaka! Useless effort! Before Hekatonkheire’s protective barrier, that kind of, wh, at!?”

Easily punching through Hekatonkheire’s invisible barrier, the crystal daggers pierced into its body.

To be honest, I think I can penetrate that barrier even without using divinity, but it’s troublesome to do that.

“Wh, what is going on!? For Hekatonkheire’s protective barrier to be broken through…! You bastard, what did you do!? Tell me!”

“No way.”

The crystal daggers freely flying around in the sky punched hole after hole into Hekatonkheire’s body. However, due to the size of the opponent, the daggers can’t deal enough damage to be considered decisive. Not only that…

“Self-regeneration…”

Within the Legacy golems, ones who can repair a certain degree of damage by themselves aren’t rare.

However, those should at most be able to handle things like surface injuries to the body, and by no means are they strong enough to deal with holes punctured through its entire torso or the like.

At that stage, it’s already similar to the super regeneration ability owned by [Fanatic Viola], the purple [Crown] serving the “Lady of Madness”, Luna Trieste.

“Could its high regenerative powers have something to do with its size?”

The holes opened up by [Gladius] on its body were closing by themselves. At least, the surface area definitely has a strong regeneration. I don’t know about the insides, though.

“Looking down on me, huh!?”

From the palms of Hekatonkheire’s arms, beams of light shot out. Beams in the triple-digits assaulted Reginleiv from all sorts of angles.

“Mode change: Reflector.”

The forty-eight daggers combined into six crystal plates, and deflected the beams coming at me while circling Reginleiv.

The rain of beams kept coming without pause, but none of them managed to reach Reginleiv.

At that moment, one of the arms firing the beams was cut off at its elbow.

“What!?”

The one who cut it down was a purple armored samurai. Yae’s Schwertleite. Following that, another frame started cutting off the other arms as well. This one was an orange-colored frame, Hilda’s Siegrune.

Both of their frames had some extra equipment in the form of vernier units on their waist and feet. The extra equipment enabled the two of them to fly in the air despite having no flying capabilities originally.

“So that was finished, huh.”

During a battle against variants, the only ones who can fight in the air are me and Linze. Due to that, the flying-type variants are basically handled by either us or Leen, Yumina and Luu who had long-range options.

Taking that into consideration, the thing Rosetta of [Workshop] came up with was that. It’s a convenient equipment that grants flying capabilities to Frame Gears which don’t have those, but its operation comes with a time limit, and it’s basically only used by the Valkyrias. Exclusive equipment for the exclusive Frame Gears (sounds confusing), so to speak.

Using those units, Schwertleite and Siegrune weaved through the rain of light beams, and cut off Hekatonkheire’s arms one after another.

If it’s the two of them, they shouldn’t have much trouble cutting through Hekatonkeire’s barrier. As expected, even that Hekatonkheire doesn’t have the power to regenerate lost limbs, it seems.

“Impossible! Hekatonkheire is the strongest golem! It’s supposed to be the invincible golem that combined ancient wisdoms and my, the Magicraft King’s techniques!”

“You only messed around a bit with something that’s basically completely built by others, didn’t you? What’s with that proud tone. Like, if you’re gonna say something like that, why don’t you build one yourself from scratch?”

Dr. Elka too was trying to create a golem that surpassed the Legacies, but she’s doing it through her own efforts after all’s said and done.

“On second thought, didn’t it become worse because you added unnecessary things to it?”

“Yo, you bastard…! You dare! You dare belittle this me who is the Magicraft King!? Unforgivable! I’ll never forgive you, brat—!!”

An intense roar of anger came from Hekatonkheire.

“Prepare to face hell, brat! Taste the golem skill of this Hekatonkheire with your body! There’s a reason why it was called a final weapon. Know that no matter how many thousands, tens of thousands of golems you send at me, Hekatonkheire will never be defeated!!”

Right after that, green-colored smoke blew out from all over Hekatonkheire, and started drifting around its surroundings.

Don’t tell me, poison!?

However, while the same could not be said of old Frame Gear models, Yae and the others’ Valkyrias have special filters installed. There should be no way for poison to make its way into the cockpit. However, since there’s always the possibility of something happening, I called Yae and Hilda back to my side.

“Do you feel anything wrong with your body?”

“No, nothing. There’s no problems.”

“Same here.”

So they’re fine. Still, what’s with that smoke…

“Kakaka! What happened!? Are you not going to attack? How does it feel to have your golem not respond to your commands!?”

?What’s this guy saying? The Magicraft King seemed to have misunderstood something when he saw us who retreated while checking the situation, and laughed.

“Kukuku, this smoke, you see, has the power to paralyze the Q-crystal, in other words the brain of a golem. It can pass through any kind of small opening, and corrode the Q-crystal in an instant following the nerve lines! Your golems are already nothing more but scraps—”

“… Mode change: Lance.”

The crystal boards orbiting Reginleiv piled themselves onto its right arm which was raised overhead. Within moments, the right arm changed to the shape of a large crystal lance.

“!? Wh, what is going on!? No matter what kind of Q-crystal it is, it should’ve stopped its functions! No golem should be able to resist…! How are you moving!? Impossible! Such a thing is impossible!!”

“I don’t remember ever saying that this is a golem, you know?”

“Wha…!?”

Unfortunately for you, Frame Gears don’t have anything like Q-crystals, you know.

“Impossible… You say it’s not a golem…!? T, then just what… Just what is that!? If that isn’t a golem, what is that!?”

“I see no need to answer that.”

I pushed the verniers on my back to full throttle, and also activated [Accel]. Reginleiv, which had become a single lance, plunged straight towards the torso of Hekatonkheire.

As Reginleiv plunged into the interior of Hekatonkheire with the force of its charge, I enlarged the size of the lance while still charging. The enlarged lance, like an opened umbrella, increased the amount of destruction it dealt, and eventually, I broke out of Hekatonkheire from between its wings.

“Impossible…! Impossibleeee!!”

Hekatonkheire lost its balance after having a giant hole opened on its chest. Seems like I destroyed the component in charge of gravity manipulation as well.

And then, Hekatonkheire fell. While raising loud rumbling sounds, the multi-armed devil dropped onto the ground.

- Pixel

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