Rokujouma no Shinryakusha!? - Volume 41 - Chapter 5

Technical Issues

Thursday, September 29th

Koutarou and the girls had no way of knowing if Ralgwin had really used human sacrifices on top of animal ones to gather spiritual energy. Since the weapons produced were meant to be used by people, human sacrifices were more effective. But if people had gone missing, it would’ve endangered their operation’s cover. Forthorthian criminal investigations were more advanced than Earth’s, so that was a huge risk to take for a small bump in production efficiency.

Nevertheless, they could see human figures in the puddle. It was possible their likenesses belonged to people who’d been caught up in the explosion, but one way or the other, it was clear there had been human fatalities at the facility.

“Satomi-kun, it’s worse than we thought!” Maki called as she ran over to Koutarou to report what she’d just learned. She’d been analyzing the situation with Clan, Ruth, Yurika, and Sanae, and the tension in her voice and on her face told Koutarou just how bad it was.

“What’s the damage?” he asked.

“That puddle’s moving on its own.”

“We saw that earlier.”

“No, I mean... it’s chasing after people.”

The puddle in question—the negative energy waste—was behaving like a monster. It was attacking people with the predatory behavior of an amoeba.

“Does it have a will of its own? Or is it just instinct?” Koutarou asked. “No, more importantly... what happens when it catches someone?”

“Anything it touches is polluted by negative spiritual energy and turns into a living corpse, except when it integrates its victims instead.”

The puddle’s negative spiritual energy infected whatever it touched. Normal creatures were draped in positive spiritual energy, but it was weak compared to concentrated negative energy. The puddle was strong enough to eat through that natural barrier and turn people into living corpses who lost their minds and began preying on other living creatures too. It was also swallowing people up, absorbing their power, and continuing to grow.

“And it’s impossible to get to the damn thing because of the fire... Things are only going to get worse at this rate!” Koutarou lamented.

The situation at the factory was dire. The initial explosion had been caused by a release of negative spiritual energy, but the resulting fire had ignited chemicals at the facility. The result was a tricky situation in which the chemical fire made it harder to deal with the negative energy and vice versa. The fire would eventually subside on its own, but who knew how many living corpses the puddle would create by then? The workers who’d been slow to flee the factory were falling prey one after another.

“Koutarou-sama, let us go. No one else could handle both tragedies at once,” said Harumi, her hair glowing silver.

She’d concluded that, with the powers of science, spiritual energy, and magic, they were the only ones who could right the situation. Although she appeared calm, an invisible anger burned within her. There was a stronger insistence in her words than usual, and her eyes gleamed with similar resolve. The innocent people of Forthorthe were now threatened by one man’s malice—and she wouldn’t stand for it.

“You’re right,” Koutarou agreed.

Going in had been his plan all along. He didn’t know how much he and the girls could do. There were only ten of them to cover the massive factory. The odds were against them, but they couldn’t stand by and do nothing. Every minute they hesitated, the death toll only increased.

“Okay, everyone, let’s get ready to—”

As Koutarou spoke up, Nefilforan appeared on the bridge’s holographic monitor.

“Your Excellency! We’ll rescue the workers! Please take care of the waste energy and living corpses!”

“No, Princess Nefilforan! It’s too dangerous for you!”

Koutarou was stunned by Nefilforan’s offer. He and the girls had relayed what they’d learned to her unit, so she was well aware of what she’d be walking into.

“Rest assured, Your Excellency. We have the PAF just for situations like this.”

“Oh! You could use that!”

Nefilforan wasn’t about to charge in without a plan. Since they were traveling undercover in merchant ships, they hadn’t been able to bring traditional heavy suits. But they were all outfitted with early military-grade PAFs, which they could use to avoid direct contact with the puddle. Their PAFs would also protect them and their oxygen tanks from the flames. It was the perfect tool for the job.

Ralgwin had known that Koutarou and company would eventually discover his stronghold. He’d accordingly readied the facility for that inevitability... yet all those preparations were now in vain. There was widespread panic due to the fire and living corpses. No one was capable of enacting protocols and defenses. The best they could do was run for their lives.

“To think the waste would create undead with negative spiritual energy... Things have taken a strange turn,” Grevanas muttered.

While everyone was panicking, he alone remained calm. It was just a fire, after all. As a man who’d returned from the grave, this was hardly enough to unnerve him.

“I was hoping to pilfer some technology in the chaos, but perhaps I should look into this a little more...”

Grevanas had stayed behind in the factory after ordering his guide and the others to evacuate. He meant to get his hands on valuable spiritual energy tech. In addition to finished products, he could take the large crystal used in the manufacturing process—and Ralgwin would never be any the wiser after the facility burned to the ground. He was thinking ahead.

“Now then... I should compare the performance of the living corpses and get a sample of the waste.”

Inside the burning factory, Grevanas began an incantation in Ancient Forthorthian. It was one of his specialties—a spell to create zombies.

“Gather, wandering souls! Denizens of the underworld! Inhabit these vessels and trample the ground with their feet! Rise up, corpses, and form a mighty legion! Let out a war cry! Army of the Dead!”

Heeding his call, corpses began rising all around him. They were victims of the fire who’d died from burns and asphyxiation. Because they’d never come into contact with the spiritual energy waste, they were perfectly normal corpses—ideal fuel for Grevanas’s zombie-making spell. There were over a dozen of them in total. It was hardly an army, but they were more than enough to be useful to Grevanas.

“Let’s start by seeing their strength and combat abilities... You, attack the enemy before you.”

Grevanas wasted no time getting to his sick experiments. He ordered one of his magically created zombies to attack a living corpse born from the spiritual energy waste. The zombie shuffled forward with sluggish steps, and thus the undead controlled by the dead began fighting the lingering emotions of the deceased. It was madness, yet Grevanas looked like he was enjoying himself. He’d long lost his mind along with his morality.

Koutarou and the girls had experience fighting zombies conjured with magic, so when they encountered the living corpses powered by negative spiritual energy, they could immediately tell the difference.

“Be careful! These are way faster than the zombies we know!” Koutarou warned everyone.

Indeed, the living corpses were far faster than normal zombies. That was partly because the corpses were so fresh, but more than that, they were imbued with spiritual energy.

“That’s all they’ve got going for them,” Theia scoffed. “Their attacks are as simple as could be.”

“Their brains are powered up, but they’re just attacking by nature. They’re not thinking about working together,” Sanae added.

Even with their brains powered by negative spiritual energy, the living corpses were effectively mindless. They had no distinct consciousness and they acted on instinct. They were drawn to attack by their hunger. Their clouded minds also made them fearful and even more prone to violence. They were incapable of coordinating with each other, making them easy enough to deal with individually. Koutarou and the girls made their way forward, safely taking out the undead one by one as they went.

“Maki-chan, the magic-made zombies fought more as a group, didn’t they?” Yurika asked.

“Yes. They can also follow simple orders and perform uncomplicated tasks. You could say that magical zombies are smarter, while spiritual energy zombies are stronger,” Maki explained.

“Stay on your toes!” Harumi called out. “They’re not just strong—their senses are sharp too!”

“Harumi is right. They’re gathering at an impressive rate,” Clan informed the group.

“Waaah, they’re coming!” Shizuka cried. “There’s a ton of them coming from that corridor!”

“Keep calm. I shall handle them.”

“Whatever you do, Uncle, don’t you dare chew on them like you did last time!”

The living corpses couldn’t cooperate the way magically conjured zombies could, but when they converged on their targets, they appeared to move strategically together, coordinating charges, attacking in waves, et cetera. That was the result of their heightened senses—something unique to spiritual energy zombies.

“The waste tank isn’t far now, everyone! There will likely be more enemies there!” said Ruth.

“Be wary of the spiritual energy waste in particular. You won’t come out of an encounter with it unscathed,” added Kiriha.

The group had left the rescue operation to Nefilforan and her unit while they advanced toward the waste tank. That was where the living corpses were coming from, and it was continuously producing more. Koutarou and the girls wanted to clean up the monstrous puddle of waste there before it could break out and cause even more chaos.

“Where next, Ruth-san?” Koutarou asked.

“Please head through the gate to your right, Master!” she responded. “Cutting through the room with the blast furnaces there will be the quickest way there!”

“Got it!”

Koutarou and the girls (including all three Sanaes) numbered twelve, but only ten of them had entered the factory. Clan and Ruth remained on the Hazy Moon as backup. Normally Kiriha would have stayed behind as well, but she was with Koutarou and the others this time. Since spiritual energy technology was involved, it was more beneficial for her and the haniwas to stick with the group.

“Bad news, Satomi-kun!” Shizuka shouted. “The hallway is covered in flames! I’ll be fine with Uncle’s power, but getting through here will be impossible for everyone else!”

“Clan, do something!” Koutarou shouted in turn.

“I am! Okay, okay, okay... Everybody, hold your breath for a moment while I activate the building’s active fire protection!”

Via a drone she’d sent in with the group, Clan hacked into the local system to turn on the fire suppression. It was enough to put out most of the flames in their way. Magic would be enough to protect them from what remained.

Koutarou and the girls thus continued to make their way forward through enemies and obstacles alike. The disaster afoot spared them combat with Ralgwin’s forces, however, so it wasn’t all bad. Nefilforan and her unit were a massive boon as well. With them handling the rescue operation, the Corona House crew was free to focus on disposing of the spiritual energy waste.

“How are things going for Nefi?” Theia asked Ruth over the comms.

“They appear to have encountered living corpses as well, but she and her men are doing fine against them,” she responded.

“So they’re already getting the hang of their PAFs, huh? I guess I should’ve expected that from the unit who ordered them before anyone else...”

Nefilforan’s unit was currently putting out fires, finding survivors, and fending off living corpses—all with the help of PAFs.

In addition to its standard functions, the military-grade PAF was also equipped with an oxygen tank. That made the device a little larger, but it was still far more portable than a traditional power-assisted suit. The oxygen tank activated as soon as the PAF was deployed, allowing Nefilforan and her unit to get to work straight away.

“Captain, we’ve received word that Lashanta’s squad has engaged the living corpses,” said Nana, reporting the latest to Nefilforan.

Nefilforan was currently in a camp set up outside of the factory. She’d wanted to go in with her unit, but her soldiers had vehemently objected. They hadn’t yet known if the PAF would be useful in live combat, and the unit wasn’t willing to risk their commander in a burning building. In the end, Nefilforan had relented. She understood that her men worrying for her personal safety in such a dangerous situation would only make things riskier. And so she’d stayed back—although she wasn’t happy about it. She was administering orders to each squad based on the reports from her vice captain, Nana.

“How’s the battle going?” Nefilforan asked.

“The first wave of undead was eliminated without problem, but one soldier was hit in the second wave that was attracted by the commotion,” Nana informed her faithfully.

“How bad is it?!” Nefilforan went pale when she heard the news. She knew how the living corpses worked thanks to the intel she’d gotten from Koutarou and the girls. She knew they were capable of infecting their victims with their negative energy.

“The medical check presented no cause for concern. It seems the PAF completely prevented any infection. The rest of the wave was dispatched without issue.”

“I’m glad,” said Nefilforan, letting out a sigh of relief.

This was the first real test of whether the PAF would protect the soldiers. They knew it shielded them from fire, but living corpses and negative spiritual energy were another matter altogether. Knowing her troops would be safe from those too, Nefilforan felt a weight lifted off of her shoulders.

“Vice Captain, ready cleaning equipment for chemical weapons just in case,” she ordered. “We’ll need it later.”

“Right away,” replied Nana.

“How is the rescue operation going?” Nefilforan asked next.

“It’s proceeding smoothly. So far, 582 people have been rescued.”

“Most of them are from the central and western areas, I see... Progress in the east is slower,” Nefilforan observed.

“Clearing the rubble is taking a while,” Nana explained.

“Hmm... Have some of the soldiers head east when they return from their evacuation runs. The exact number is up to you. Once the rubble is out of the way, they can return to their original missions.”

“Understood. I’ll make the arrangements.”

Nefilforan’s instructions were swift and precise, no doubt because she was less worried now. She had faith in the PAF, but deep down, she’d been nervous about how it would perform in combat conditions.

“I’m glad you ordered PAFs straight away, Captain,” Nana said with a bright expression. She was just as relieved as Nefilforan. No commander wanted to see their troops exposed to unknown danger.

“Likewise. I don’t want to imagine how this situation would be playing out without them. It’s a good thing you have connections with His Excellency,” Nefilforan responded.

“It was all thanks to your quick decision-making.”

The PAF thankfully protected the troops from the intense heat of the chemical fire, provided clean oxygen to breathe, and prevented contact with the spiritual energy waste. It also enhanced their strength to fight and clear rubble. The devices could also easily be shared with anyone who needed to be rescued for extra protection. Without PAFs, there would have been deadly delays in the rescue operation. Nefilforan’s quick decision to adopt it was already paying off.

“I suppose we have all of them to thank too, especially His Excellency the Blue Knight,” continued Nana.

“Indeed. We wouldn’t have been here at the right time if things hadn’t fallen into place the way they had. Here’s to our luck—and to our friends,” agreed Nefilforan.

“You’re right... Oh, it seems Ikoran’s air force is dropping fire suppressants.”

“Tell the troops to stand down temporarily.”

“Right away!”

With the assistance of their PAFs, Nefilforan’s unit was well on their way to completing their mission. The fires were steadily growing weaker, and the rescue operation was going off without a hitch. The only remaining disaster was the spiritual energy waste deep in the factory. The real determiner of their success would be whether Koutarou and the girls could dispose of it. Little did they know there was someone in the stronghold who would make that as hard as possible for them...

Grevanas’s initial goal had only been to learn more about the living corpses. He now had a firm grasp of their properties—their physical strength, their potential military use, their reproduction, and their compatibility with magic. His experiments had yielded rather detailed intelligence.

“Hmm, so undead are weakened by contact with the waste...” he muttered.

A body was lying on the floor before him, writhing awkwardly. It was both a living corpse and a zombie. Grevanas had intentionally ordered one of his zombies to interact with the waste, which flooded its body with negative spiritual energy and made it difficult for the zombie to move properly.

“I see... It’s struggling, confused by two conflicting orders. But this, too, has its uses. How interesting!” Grevanas declared excitedly.

The lich was controlling the zombie via his magic, but his orders were now fighting the negative spiritual energy in the zombie for dominance. It left the corpse helpless, unable to function properly as either a minion or an independent entity. This new discovery thrilled Grevanas.

“This interaction between magic and spiritual energy needs to be explored carefully... I couldn’t stand it if this were to happen to Maxfern-sama.”

Grevanas’s dream was to bring back his late lord. Maxfern, however, had been dead for over two thousand years. Resurrecting him wouldn’t be easy. Grevanas believed he’d need the assistance of spiritual energy tech, but the struggling zombie on the floor in front of him told him pulling it off would be more than a simple matter of combining spiritual energy and magic. He needed an intermediary to safely use them together.

“For now... this is all I can do.”

Grevanas released the spell he’d cast. When he did, the corpse on the floor stopped writhing and sprang up with great agility. No longer under the influence of Grevanas’s magic, it was now a living corpse controlled only by negative spiritual energy.

“Now...”

Grevanas swung his arm, and the nails and teeth of the living corpse began glowing red. Using the mana dispersed from his zombification spell, he’d cast another to enhance the newborn living corpse.

“The potential is brilliant, so it’s a shame I’m reduced to something so petty.”

Trying to control the corpse with both magic and spiritual energy at the same time disabled it, so Grevanas had decided to relinquish control in favor of using his magic to strengthen the creature—specifically its means of attack. It was the best synthesis of magic and spiritual energy he could think of under the circumstances.

“Go forth. You have plenty of prey awaiting you ahead.”

Grevanas then created illusions of people screaming and running away. They were simple holograms enhanced with sound and smell, enough to provoke the living corpse. And just as Grevanas hoped, his enchanted undead began chasing after them.

“What will you do now, Blue Knight? This isn’t what I’d had in mind, but it’s not so bad...”

As Grevanas watched his new army of combat corpses leave, he disappeared into the crimson flames and pitchy shadows. There was still more he wanted to test. More he needed to do. He didn’t have time to wait and see what happened here.

Koutarou used Saguratin to attack the living corpses. The positive and negative energies clashed, canceling each other out at first. But Saguratin was overflowing with an abundance of positive spiritual energy, which surged forth after the initial clash—right into the living corpse, returning it to a normal one.

“There’s so many of them! We’ll never get through them if we deal with them all one at a time!” Koutarou cried.

A single living corpse didn’t pose much of a threat to him or any of the girls. They were now galactic heroes with plenty of battles under their belts, after all. The only real advantage the corpses had was their number. Koutarou had already taken out dozens of them, but they just kept coming. The spiritual energy waste was generating more of them by the minute, and they were showing up faster than Koutarou and the girls could stop them. At this rate, they’d eventually be surrounded.

“But if we use any powerful attacks, it could bring down the entire factory! We’d lose any remaining survivors!” Theia objected.

Resorting to missiles or explosives to clear out the undead horde was a sound tactical decision—or it would have been if not for the unstable building. If the factory collapsed, it would doom the ongoing rescue operation. That meant Koutarou and the girls would have to stick to defeating the living corpses the old-fashioned way—with elbow grease and teamwork. It would be slow going.

“Wait, I know!” Koutarou suddenly exclaimed. “What about Yurika’s poison gas?!”

“I can’t say it wouldn’t work, but...” Yurika faltered.

The living corpses were powered by negative spiritual energy, but they were still reliant on their physical bodies to move. That meant chemical agents would indeed be effective against them, but such a play was off the table.

“Satomi-kun, we can’t risk any survivors breathing in the poison,” Maki cut in.

Carelessly using a gas attack could jeopardize anyone still in the factory. Poison gas would kill them, and sleeping gas would leave them vulnerable to the fire. Yurika’s signature magic was too risky when friend and foe were intermixed on the battlefield.

“Damn... You’re right,” Koutarou muttered.

Time was running out fast. The spiritual energy waste had a finite number of victims to convert into living corpses, but there didn’t need to be a limitless number of them. There only had to be enough to overwhelm Koutarou and the girls, whose stamina was limited. All they could do now was suppress their impatience to rush ahead while hoping they’d outlast their undead foes.

But they were staring down another problem. The first to realize it was Harumi.

“Satomi-kun, something’s been bothering me,” she spoke up.

“What is it?” Koutarou asked.

“I don’t think the corpses are only coming after us. What if they’re heading into town too...?”

The factory was located on the outskirts of town, but it wasn’t too far from civilization. There were neighborhoods nearby for the factory workers, and there was a convenient commercial district just a short drive away. Harumi feared the undead would make their way there if Koutarou and the girls took too long.

“I see! Ruth-san!”

“I’m on it, Master!”

The Hazy Moon on standby overhead had been monitoring vehicles leaving the factory and mine to catch any enemy troops attempting to flee the scene with weapons or technology. But with so many people trying to escape the fire, it hadn’t been realistic to monitor individuals too. That is, until now when they had good reason. Ruth quickly adjusted her cameras and sensors to detect people moving away from the factory.

“Master, this is terrible!” she reported, pale in the face. The initial reports confirmed Harumi’s worst fears. “A group of living corpses is headed for the urban area!”

“And with great speed!” Clan added. “They’re running abnormally fast!”

Living corpses were undead, so they wouldn’t run out of breath from running nonstop. They could go full tilt without breaks, and it appeared that the corpses outside of the factory were moving even faster than the ones Koutarou and the girls had been fighting. They were closing in on the town with frightening speed. No one knew why they were running past the evacuees outside to head for civilization, but there was no time to contemplate the matter. If Koutarou and the girls didn’t stop them, they would flood the town and turn the factory disaster into a city-wide catastrophe.

“Satomi-kun, we have to do something!” Harumi pleaded. She was just as pale as Ruth. Her terrible hunch told her the worst had yet to come, leaving her on the verge of panic.

“Ruth-san, send all of your drones!” Koutarou shouted.

“But that would leave you without backup!” Ruth argued.

“It’ll be a living nightmare if the corpses make it to town! Hurry!”

“Understood!”

Advanced spatial distortion technology had made teleportation a reality, but making it safe for human use required extra precautions and preparations. Machines, however, were a different story—and that included Ruth’s drones. Koutarou wanted her to warp all of them at once to intercept the horde of undead, but it was a risky move. Ruth’s unmanned fighters were currently supporting Koutarou and the other girls. They provided combat assistance, as well as relay points for hacking and other critical functions. Losing the drones would effectively mean severing their connection to Ruth’s and Clan’s backup.

“Damn it! Was this a trap?” Koutarou shouted in anger. He’d made his decision aware of the danger, but he felt like he was dancing in the palm of the enemy’s hand. It was beyond frustrating—especially with so many lives on the line.

“No,” said Kiriha. “A ploy of this scale would’ve been impossible. Nevertheless, it’s obvious that someone here is pulling the strings.”

There was no doubt in Kiriha’s mind that the situation at the stronghold had begun with an accident, but someone had since taken advantage of that. There was no way the living corpses had decided to charge the town all on their own. They normally attacked on sight, yet they’d run right past the soldiers and workers outside of the factory.

“You think one of Ralgwin’s men is doing this?” Koutarou asked.

“Based on how fast the living corpses are moving, I think it’s Grevanas. He must have used magic to enhance their movement speed.”

Kiriha suspected the grand wizard was the one maneuvering in the shadows. He had access to powerful magic that would allow him to both strengthen the undead and guide them toward town. That would be child’s play for him.

“Magic makes it easy to turn a situation in your favor... What a terrible thing for a villain to have!” Theia said with a grimace.

As a princess who aspired to be a good ruler, the idea of twisting a tragedy like the factory fire for personal benefit disgusted her. Elfaria, too, knew how to use a situation to her advantage, but Theia drew a clear distinction between her mother and Grevanas. Elfaria never acted in such a way selfishly. It was always for the people’s benefit.

“I don’t like it either,” said Kiriha. “But you can’t make an omelet without breaking a few eggs. We’ll have to follow his lead this time.”

The situation was dire. They’d need a bold play to turn things around. And Kiriha was willing to borrow one directly from Grevanas’s book.

“What are you thinking?” Koutarou asked.

“Change of plans,” she replied. “We’re going straight for the command room.”

They’d been headed to the waste tank in order to cut the problem off at its source. But without the drones’ support, it would be dangerous to proceed. The way there was packed with undead. So Kiriha had plotted out a change of course in hopes of improving their prospects.

As Kiriha postulated, Grevanas was responsible for the living corpses that had left the factory for town. He’d enhanced them with magic and guided them using illusions with two goals in mind. The first was to spread the confusion in the city, allowing Ralgwin’s forces to escape. The other was to distract Koutarou and his crew, hopefully dividing them. While splitting them up would be ideal, even splitting their attention would hinder them.

“Hmm... So they sent their machines. The way the Blue Knight prioritizes human life is predictable—an obvious weakness.” Grevanas observed his undead racing toward the city via the magic of far-sight. It hadn’t taken too long for drones to descend on the horde. “I suppose this will suffice for now. It’s not a bad result under the circumstances.”

Luring the unmanned fighters away from Koutarou did split their forces, if only slightly. Grevanas hadn’t hoped for much, however, so even this result pleased him. All that remained was to take advantage of the confusion and escape. Grevanas hoped Ralgwin’s troops would be able to flee the scene with ease—just like he was about to with the technology he’d grabbed.

“...Oh? What’s this the Blue Knight and his friends have called in?”

Grevanas was prepared to make a quick exit from the factory when he noticed what Koutarou and the girls were doing. He was observing them too with the power of his far-sight.

“I could just leave them be, but... Hmm, I suppose I should play a card just in case.”

Grevanas saw no harm in simply leaving now that he had what he wanted. Yet since he had the mana and time to spare, he also saw no harm in taking a few countermeasures. It was a smart call.

But what Koutarou and the girls had just called in would exceed his wildest imaginings.

Once Koutarou and the team on the ground decided to head for the command room, Ruth made her move too. She leaped up out of the Hazy Moon’s operator’s seat and made for the bridge exit.

“I leave the rest to you, Clan-sama!” she cried.

“Right! Good luck!” Clan replied as she watched her go. Heh, she looks like she’s about to go out on a date...

Ruth was practically skipping as she left. There was a bright smile on her face too. She understood the gravity of the situation, but she couldn’t hold back the joy welling up inside her as she entered the elevator.

“To the hangar!” she instructed her AI. Even her voice was cheerful.

“As you wish, my lady.”

Ruth had been waiting for this—although she’d felt bad since it meant hoping for a fight. Nevertheless, the fact that her time had now arrived meant the world to her. She pushed her way through the opening elevator doors and gave the AI further instructions.

“Bring out Warlord! Equip the Yellow Line backpack!”

“As you wish, my lady.”

The steel form, stored horizontally in the corner of the hangar to keep it out of the way, now slid over to Ruth. The frame it was affixed to lifted it upright in front of her. A blue giant over five meters tall looked down at Ruth.

“Beginning backpack exchange,” her bracelet informed her.

“Open the cockpit!” she commanded.

The giant, Warlord III-Revised, opened its front armor to reveal its cockpit. There were now two seats inside, which crowded the cockpit. Two grown men would have struggled to cram in, although Koutarou and a girl would be able to fit snugly.

“Backpack exchange complete. Yellow Line is equipped.”

“Activate land warfare mode! Omit any unnecessary system checks!”

“As you wish, my lady. Bypassing checks on space equipment and related systems. Ten seconds until activation.”

Multicolored lights from the monitors and various indicators illuminated Ruth’s face. Her eyes tracked the information scrolling by. The checks returned no errors. She knew they wouldn’t. She’d prepared perfectly for this exact moment.

“Activating Warlord III-Revised in land warfare mode with default anti-mobile weaponry.”

“I’m ready to go, Clan-sama!”

The second the activation process completed, the locks on the frame holding the suit of armor released. Warlord then proceeded toward the hangar exit. It would use the Hazy Moon’s launch system to take off. The stronghold was some distance away, but with an assisted launch and thrusters, Warlord would be there in no time flat.

“Good luck, Pardomshiha. I’ll be praying for your fortune.”

Warlord mounted the launch system. Once its legs snapped into place, Clan disabled the safety.

“Thank you! Ruthkania Nye Pardomshiha in Warlord III-Rev Yellow Line... taking off!”

Ruth’s eyes were practically sparkling. She’d fought from the back line for so long because her information processing prowess was conducive to a supporting role... yet she’d never been fully satisfied with that relegation. She belonged to the proud and storied Pardomshiha family. She, too, was a knight of Forthorthe, and she longed to fight by Koutarou’s side. She couldn’t stomach being the only one to fight from safety while her beloved took all the risk on the front line. She wanted to be with him, just like Theia, Nefilforan, and Shizuka. And if worse came to worst, she wanted to share his fate. The discrepancy between her talents and her heart’s desire tortured her.

Warlord rocketed out of the Hazy Moon with a loud whoosh. The machine had been modified to hold two pilots, but it had also received an upgrade to its gear—an interchangeable backpack system. This allowed Warlord to be outfitted for different situations, and it was currently wearing its Yellow Line loadout, which lived up to its name. It enhanced comms, sensors, and processors. It was perfect for Ruth, but she didn’t think of it as equipment to help her out.

“I’m on my way, Master!”

Ruth saw Yellow Line as a tool for her to defend the other girls and, most importantly, Koutarou.

The factory was designed to accommodate the coming and going of large transport vehicles, so the five-meter Warlord had no trouble getting inside. Ruth was more cramped in the cockpit than Warlord was in the base.

“Veltlion, do you know where the command room is and how to get there?” Clan asked over the comms.

“Yeah, I do,” Koutarou replied. “But I dunno if we’re gonna fit.”

“Let’s try this way, Master,” said Ruth from beside him. Her face was practically next to his. They were so close that they could kiss if either of them leaned in just a little.

“Yeah, okay. Thanks, Ruth-san.”

“You’re welcome.”

There was barely any room inside Warlord. Its two riders could barely move, so Koutarou was piloting the machine with the automatic controls that read his thoughts. It was identical to the way he controlled Blue Knight or a PAF, so it was easy enough for him. He was mostly worried about Ruth, who was stuck in the cramped cockpit with him.

“I’m dispatching small drones to keep a lookout,” she informed him.

“This thing is big with plenty of blind spots, so it’d help if you could keep an eye out too,” Koutarou told his AI.

“As you wish, my lord!”

Koutarou didn’t understand why, but he’d noticed that Ruth was unusually energetic. Her voice and expression were bright. She didn’t seem to care about being stuffed in the cockpit at all.

“Ruth’s sure fired up,” Sanae remarked from outside of Warlord. She could sense Ruth’s excitement even through the machine’s thick armor.

“This is what she’s been dreaming of, after all,” said Theia. She couldn’t sense Ruth’s aura like Sanae could, but she knew her best friend well. She didn’t have to see her to know how excited she was right now.

“What do you mean?” Sanae asked.

“Aside from ship battles, Ruth is usually stuck supporting us from the rear. Especially on missions like this where our vanguard is so strong. But with two seats in Warlord now, she can finally be on the front line with Koutarou.”

“Ah, that explains it.”

Ruth, who’d been watching her friends fight from afar for so long, was finally by Koutarou’s side. They would live or die together in this battle—not that she had any intention of letting Koutarou fall. She wanted to help him seize victory with her skills. That gave her drive and purpose. She was more pumped than ever. Sanae could understand that much. It wasn’t dissimilar from what Sanae-san had felt upon clearing up her long-held worry.

“I know what it’s like to wait to be with someone,” Kiriha said thoughtfully.

“Indeed, we should support Ruth-san this time,” Harumi agreed.

They, too, understood how Ruth felt, and they were happy to see her wish fulfilled. The other girls naturally felt the same way. They all happily followed behind Warlord, using its massive frame and heavy armor as cover as they advanced.

“Hey, Maki-chan, something’s coming out of its back,” Yurika remarked.

“They look like small unmanned fighters,” Maki replied. “I guess their unique design is because they’re Ruth-san’s signature equipment.”

Indeed, Warlord’s backpack opened in front of the girls to launch several unmanned fighters. Warlord normally carried the Motor Knights, but these smaller crafts were of a distinctly different build. They were Ruth’s signature drones, designed to have more than just combat functions. That meant they weren’t as powerful as the Motor Knights, but they were superior when it came to gathering intel and their power supplies lasted much longer.

The girls were all wondering what the drones would do. And to everyone’s surprise, they immediately opened fire.

“What in the world?! They just started shooting!” Shizuka shouted. She was the closest to the drones and leaped back in surprise.

“Ruth means to keep the enemy away from Koutarou at all costs. Heh, she must really be frustrated,” Theia mused with a smirk. She saw right through her best friend.

Ruth was trying to push back any and all threats to her beloved. Every foe that entered her range was instantly gunned down. She wasn’t even giving the enemy a chance to get to Koutarou. She was intent on defending him—and she was doing so rather aggressively. She showed no hesitation in taking out her enemies, although it helped that they were living corpses.

The living corpses were drawn to Warlord and the sound of its thunderous footfalls, and Ruth’s fighters dutifully shot them down as they approached. This formation allowed them to make smooth and steady progress through the stronghold.

“Clan, what should we do when we get to the command room?” Koutarou asked.

“You don’t have to do anything,” Clan responded.

“Huh? Then why are we going there?”

“We need you to get Warlord to the command room, Master,” Ruth explained.

“I’ll then use it as a relay point to hack into the mainframe,” Clan followed up.

In order to carry out Kiriha’s plan, they needed to reach the heart of the stronghold. The facility’s network had been fragmented by the explosion, preventing them from accessing the mainframe via any other terminals. They needed to make it directly to the command room to hack in.

“Oh yeah, I guess I did send away the drones you’d normally use for that,” said Koutarou.

“It was the natural division of resources since we couldn’t teleport Warlord,” replied Clan.

It was only safe to teleport unmanned crafts swiftly, as they could forgo most safety protocols. They could always be rebuilt if something went awry, after all. Ruth aboard Warlord was a different story. So it made the most sense to send the fighters to town while she sortied to Koutarou and company’s location.

“It’s a little bit bulky and awkward, but it’s sturdy and powerful, so it’s perfect for this mission,” Koutarou remarked.

“And now I have an opportunity to contribute to the fight,” Ruth added.

“But you’re always contributing, Ruth-san.”

“Only indirectly. Not like a knight should.”

“Ah, so your family pride is on the line.”

“Heh, something like that. Oh, Clan-sama, we are almost there.”

Warlord III-Revised stood five meters tall, so the group needed to find a tall and wide hallway to get to the command room. Fortunately, there was one that led exactly where they needed to go. And Warlord’s heavy firepower made clearing the way there easy.

“Find an access point to connect to,” Clan ordered.

“Right away!” Ruth replied.

“I’ll leave that to you while I take care of things elsewhere.”

“As you wish, my princess!”

The command room wasn’t far now. Clan would need to hack into the mainframe once the group reached it, but for now, she had bigger fish to fry. She was one busy princess.

Clan had teleported ten unmanned fighters from the Hazy Moon. It was nearly the ship’s entire force, but there was no guarantee it would be enough against the growing army of living corpses. There had only been ten at first, but their ranks increased as they approached the city. There were now several dozen and their numbers were only increasing as they attacked people and even animals along the way. Rats, wild dogs, and reptiles endemic to Ikoran had joined the horde. There weren’t too many just yet, but at this rate, they would hit a hundred or more in the blink of an eye. And once they reached the city, it’d be all over.

“Not on my watch!” Clan cried.

She knew she needed to prevent the horde from breaching the urban area, but ten drones wasn’t much to work with. They had considerable firepower, but there simply weren’t enough of them to track down and dispatch all of the living corpses. Attempting to do so would cast a net so wide that many would slip through.

“How vexing! To think I’d wind up fighting back another outbreak!”

Clan couldn’t hide her frustration. The worst part was that Ralgwin’s tactics were disturbingly similar to Maxfern’s. It had been a virus with no cure two thousand years ago, and now it was a zombified army. She suspected Grevanas had had a hand in both plans, and she hated that he was so quick to prey on innocent people. It reminded her of her old self.

You’d better lend me your ear later, Veltlion...

All that bolstered her were Koutarou’s words. Clan was angry, but she knew what she needed to do. She put her past behind her and focused on the fight ahead. Fortunately, it was going well so far.

“I can’t use all of the drones to attack... I need some of them on the search.”

She had ten unmanned crafts at her disposal. Focusing too much on offense would leave too many blind spots. Too few drones attacking meant it would take too long to stop the horde, however, so she had to strike a careful balance and divide her resources wisely.

“Okay, go!”

In the end, Clan ordered seven drones to attack and three to carry out the search. The attackers gunned down any discovered living corpses, and the searchers kept watch over the area. Clan had no way of knowing if she’d made the right choice, but she had no time to worry over it either. She simply had to go with it.

“Ah, you little...!”

Living corpses moved by the power of the negative spiritual energy that shrouded their bodies. It made them faster than most people, and when they sensed danger, they fled on instinct. Clan was having a hard time hitting them. But that wasn’t the worst part.

“Even when I hit them, they don’t go down!”

Since the living corpses were undead, certain weapons like laser cannons were less effective on them. They could keep going even with gaping holes in their chests, and the light-based attack made no impact to slow them. A shot to the head or legs would still stop them in their tracks, but those were tricky targets at the speeds the corpses were running. And though Clan didn’t know it yet, the living corpses she was up against had been enhanced by magic to make them even tougher.

On the other hand, projectile weapons were proving more effective than normal. They lacked the raw power of lasers, but the physical force of their hits still did the trick. Repeated blows were especially effective, particularly as most of the living corpses weren’t wearing armor. Explosives were just as effective for the same reason. As physical weapons, however, they were restricted by ammunition—a drawback lasers didn’t share. Clan wasn’t sure she had enough rounds to take out all the corpses.

“There’s more of them than I thought... This is bad.”

Clan’s three unmanned crafts searching out targets were continuing to find more and more living corpses. For every one defeated, another showed up. She was making it nowhere, leaving her with a sinking feeling that a few would manage to slip past her and into the city. But before that could happen...

“Clan-sama, we’ve found an access point!” Ruth called over the comms.

“Finally!” That was the report Clan had been waiting for. If all went well, her situation could turn around. Hope brightened her face. “Please let this work!”

Clan was practically praying as she typed away at her computer. Hacking into the stronghold’s mainframe was now a race against the clock. Once she was in, she would still need time to work her magic. And she had to make it happen before the living corpses closed in on the city.

“Oh, Goddess of Dawn... please...”

Clan wasn’t particularly pious. She believed in science, which wasn’t compatible with faith. But at the same time, she believed it was the goddess who’d brought her and Koutarou together. She had no other way to explain such a fateful meeting. She couldn’t imagine finding anyone she loved more. So she prayed to the goddess. If Koutarou was her destiny, she wanted to believe everything would work out. And she intended to give him an earful later.

“Access granted to the mainframe of Ikoran’s third factory,” the computer said. “Welcome, Your Excellency Ralgwin.”

“I-I did it!” Clan cheered. She was in. The system thought she was Ralgwin, giving her full control of the stronghold. “And now for this!”

Clan now had administrator access to the entire facility, but she’d yet to clear the final hurdle. This was the part she’d prayed hardest for. She swiftly input the necessary commands manually, which was faster than doing it vocally for her. Her fingers danced across the keyboard.

“I’m counting on you here, Ralgwin!”

Finally, she pressed the enter key, executing a plethora of commands with three primary goals: to reconfigure the classification of hostile forces, reboot the communications network, and reactivate the base’s defense systems.

“I hope you’re a careful and competent commander!”

The stronghold’s system identified any Imperial Army forces as enemies, and Clan had changed its settings to target living corpses instead. Because of their low body temperature, they were easy to differentiate from normal people. She’d also patched the fragmented network, rerouting broken lines and enabling wireless connections where that didn’t work. The base generally refrained from wireless for security reasons, but there was equipment for it in place to use when necessary. Then, last but not least, Clan had reactivated the stronghold’s defenses that were disabled during the explosion. Any base had a system for intercepting enemies, and Clan was betting everything that Ralgwin had set up a good one.

“Veltlion, a large number of mobile weapons are mobilizing!” she excitedly reported.

“Great job! What about the town?” Koutarou asked.

“The gamble paid off! Like Kii thought, Ralgwin prepared an ambush for us!”

Ralgwin had specifically prepared to take out human invaders—Koutarou and company. Clan had hacked into the mainframe hoping to reroute those defenses and turn them against the living corpses. Just like Grevanas, they were working with what they had to turn the situation to their advantage. Nevertheless, it had been a risk. They hadn’t known the size or scale of the defenses Ralgwin had set up.

Kiriha had anticipated they would be enough. This base was critical to Ralgwin’s operation, after all, and she believed he would have readied himself for the arrival of the Imperial Army. Moreover, Ralgwin was short on manpower, so she’d suspected that he would rely on mobile weapons. But the reality of the situation could have been much uglier. If Ralgwin were any less of a commander, his defenses could have been quite sorry indeed. But thankfully, the gamble Koutarou and the girls had taken paid off. His stronghold was well guarded with mobile weapons, and they were stationed in the city to pincer any invaders attacking the base.

Once Kiriha heard the report from Clan, she was so relieved that she almost slumped over on the spot. Never before had she resorted to hoping her enemy was an excellent and exacting leader.

Getting the mobile weapons up and moving was Clan’s job, and after that, it was showtime for another member of the group—Ruth. She glanced at the data extracted from the computer in the command room and reorganized the mobile weapons into new formations based on the information gathered by the surveillance equipment. Naturally, she turned them on the living corpses approaching the city. The mobile weapons had been planted to ambush Koutarou and company, yet now the machines were working for them. Between the mobile weapons and the Hazy Moon’s fighters, they were now effectively keeping the corpses at bay.

“I knew we’d be fine as soon as Ruth-san stepped in,” Nana exclaimed. Koutarou had contacted Nefilforan’s unit in advance and asked them not to harm Ralgwin’s mobile weapons, as they would be key in defeating the corpses. Seeing it come to pass, Nana couldn’t contain her excitement.

“She certainly made me work for this,” Clan remarked on Ruth’s involvement.

“I am very sorry about that, Your Highness,” Nana apologized.

At a joint training session, Nana had once said that Koutarou would be invincible with Ruth by his side in Warlord III-Revised. That was what had inspired Ruth to plead for the construction of the Yellow Line backpack. It was an immense amount of work for Clan, but Nana had been right. With Ruth in it, Warlord was eliminating the living corpses in the factory at an astounding speed as well as looking for survivors.

No one could match Ruth’s speed and precision—not even with magic. In that sense, she was like a wizard of technology.

“I hardly need to be here,” Koutarou joked with a dry smile.

“That’s not true in the slightest, Master. Please look at this.”

But there were problems not even Ruth could solve, and she’d just discovered one such problem.

“Is that... a tiger?” Koutarou asked warily.

“A living corpse made from one,” Ruth explained. “For some unknown reason, laser attacks don’t work on it.”

Ruth had indicated a beast that looked much like tigers on Earth, but it stood three meters tall and was over five meters long. Its body temperature and behavior indicated it was a living corpse, yet laser bombardments did nothing to it. It was odd. Either the animal was neutralizing the attacks or they were all missing somehow. Ruth couldn’t tell which.

Fortunately, the two magicians in the group recognized the threat.

“Satomi-san, that’s a magical creature from Folsaria!” Yurika shouted.

“It’s a blink beast!” Maki added. “It’s a troublesome foe capable of conjuring illusions to conceal its location and using short-range teleportation!”

Magical creatures fell mainly into two categories: beings summoned from other worlds, like angels and demons, and animals that had developed under the influence of mana. This feline beast was the latter. It had grown up in the mana-rich lands of Folsaria, so it could use magic instinctively much the same way Alunaya and Shizuka could. And it used that magic to conceal itself and fake out targets with illusions. They weren’t hitting its real body at all. All in all, the blink beast was a dangerous hunter that was next to impossible to stop.

“Is this Grevanas’s doing too?!” Koutarou gasped.

There was no way a magical creature from Folsaria had made it to Ikoran coincidentally. Someone had to have unleashed it, and the most likely culprit was Grevanas. He’d likely brought it to the factory and exposed it to the spiritual energy waste to transform it into a living corpse, and his motivations for doing so were obvious. He wanted to cause further chaos and buy time for Ralgwin’s men to escape.

“Ruth-san, where is it right now?!” Koutarou asked.

“It’s close to the waste tank! But it is moving toward people!”

“Out of the frying pan and into the fire! We need to chase it down!”

If the beast was headed toward people, that meant it was headed outside where the rescue workers and evacuees were gathered. If it reached them, there would be a massacre. And even if it didn’t, it would make quick work of any survivors it crossed paths with in the factory. Koutarou couldn’t just let it run amok.

“Veltlion, I could use some backup here too!” Clan called over the comms. “There are some corpses in the horde that the unmanned crafts can’t handle!”

“You’ve really done it now, Grevanas!” Koutarou shouted angrily.

Grevanas had specifically set his corpses loose in such a fashion that they were now forcing Koutarou and the girls to split up. Someone would have to head toward the city to defend the urban area.

Yurika could teleport, making her the perfect candidate to head to the city. The teleportation spell was grand magic that bent space itself, so it could only cover ten kilometers at most, but that was enough right now. The real problem was that she was a poor match against the living corpses at her destination. They were much stronger than she was physically. Moreover, by nature, magic wasn’t sustainable in a long fight. It could do unbelievable things, but it used great quantities of mana to make them happen. Fortunately, Yurika would have the activated mobile weapons to protect her on the edge of town. Between them and Clan’s drones, she’d have plenty of backup.

“I made it, Clan-san!” she reported when she arrived. She’d followed Clan’s instructions and warped next to where the mobile weapons and drones were engaging the corpses, which were too distracted to notice her.

“Good job, Yurika!” Clan cheered. In truth, she was stunned by Yurika’s magic. As a scientist, she understood just how complex teleportation was, so she couldn’t help her astonishment at seeing a single human accomplish it single-handedly. But her astonishment lasted only for an instant.

They had a job to do, and that was to defeat the troublesome specimens that had blended into the horde.

“So where are these enemies that you can’t handle?!” Yurika asked bravely.

“Right there! The ones fighting Ralgwin’s mobile weapons!” Clan pointed out.

“They have magic cast on them...” Yurika’s expression turned grim as she surveyed the enemy. She could see the light of mana glowing here and there on their bodies.

“I thought as much! There are several of them in the pack! Lend me your aid, Yurika!”

“Okay!”

The troublesome specimens that Clan was talking about were the ten living corpses Grevanas had personally enhanced. She’d suspected something was strange about them based on how fast they moved, and Yurika had just confirmed it. With the sword crest on her forehead, she was able to see the same manalight Yurika was looking at—which had been impossible to detect via the drones’ cameras.

“I just need to take out those guys, right?” Yurika asked.

“That’s right!” Clan replied. “They’re too fast for my unmanned fighters and Ralgwin’s mobile weapons!”

Thanks to the power of negative spiritual energy, living corpses were fast, tough, and strong. They were also liberated from normal physical constraints like fatigue and pain. They could move so swiftly that they pushed their very bones to the verge of breaking. And Grevanas’s magic had enhanced them further, enabling them to move at truly inhuman speeds.

“Are they really that fast?” Yurika asked dubiously.

“Imagine that you’re fighting Shizuka or Sanae!” Clan warned her.

“Got it!”

Unmanned craft and mobile weapons were built to fight people and vehicles, but the living corpses were harder to deal with. They were the size of human targets, but they reached speeds of a hundred kilometers per hour with the ability to change direction suddenly. The machines’ firing systems had trouble keeping up. If only size or speed had been an obstacle, things would have been fine. But modern weaponry wasn’t prepared to deal with fast-moving undead. They were opponents as unique as Shizuka or Sanae, so Yurika had to adapt.

“Rotten Swamp! Modifier: Effective Area, Colossal!”

Yurika’s opening move was to transform the ground into a swamp, which she adjusted to be wide rather than deep.

“I see!” exclaimed Clan. “Now we can fight back!”

The living corpses were dependent on their legs to run, so muddy terrain slowed them down instantly, allowing Clan to train her weapons on them effectively. More importantly, slowing the undead down delayed them from reaching the city. And best of all, since Clan’s drones were airborne, the mobile weapons could attack from a distance. Yurika’s clever spell only put their enemies at a disadvantage.

“You sure know how to use your magic! I’m impressed every time!” Clan praised her.

The mobile weapons and drones were now gunning down corpses one after another, including the magically enhanced ones. They were just as slowed by the swamp, making them sitting ducks for the machines.

“I could never let the kids see me like this...”

While Yurika was at it, she used a paralyzing poison gas to defeat the living corpses. Even as undead, they were reliant on their muscles to move, leaving them vulnerable to nerve agents. All Yurika had to do was move her poison cloud around to finish them off. Naturally, said cloud didn’t affect Clan’s mechanical weapons. And unlike in the factory, there was no need to worry about survivors getting caught up in it. It was a brilliant strategy, yet in stark contrast to the smiling Clan, Yurika was crying for some reason.

“It looks terrible, yes...” Clan admitted. “But this is a landslide victory.”

“This isn’t how a magical girl should be winning!”

“Buaaaaaaargh... uuueegaaaah...”

Living corpses were half-buried and twitching in the fetid bog. Sinking into the mire forced the air out of their lungs in strange and ghastly groans. Like Clan said, it was a terrible sight. It was truly gruesome. It looked like innocent people had been left to die slow, horrific deaths in toxic wasteland.

“I-I’m sure that everyone in Nefilforan’s troops would praise you too!”

“But the children would run away crying!!!”

The kindhearted Yurika had chosen her attack to avoid violence, but despite her noble intentions, it sure didn’t look that way. Any child who saw it would surely think she was an evil magician.

Nefilforan’s unit engaged the blink beast before Koutarou and company could reach it. After hearing about the monster, Nefilforan had avoided combat with the monster out of caution. But now that it was headed for the survivors, she was forced to send her troops to intercept it.

“Our lasers can’t hit it!” one of her men cried. “They just go right through it!”

“It’s just like the intel said! We’re basically up against a hologram!” another soldier added.

“Still, it has to be close by!” a third rallied. “Send a barrage in that general direction to keep it from closing in!”

Seven soldiers fired their lasers in unison—but not at the blink beast. They knew it was just a mirage. By dispersing their fire throughout the area instead, they could keep the real monster at bay. Meanwhile, the remaining three soldiers were trying to pull survivors from the rubble. As the men worked away, a soft bell began ringing.

“It’s coming!” one of the firing soldiers shouted. “Everyone, set your distortion fields to maximum output— Whoaaaaa!”

There was a loud crack, and the man went flying like he’d just been struck by a car. The blink beast had closed in and swiped with one of its paws—although it still looked like it was ten meters away. It had left a false image of itself while attacking with magical stealth.

“Are you okay, man?!” one of the other men called.

“S-Somehow! But that nearly exhausted my distortion field! I’ll need thirty seconds to recharge!” the attacked soldier replied. Thanks to his barrier, he was okay.

“Fall to the back of our formation until you’re on line again!”

“Roger that!”

Seeing the soldier get back up, the blink beast began to back off with a growl. Living corpses weren’t capable of thought. They relied on instinct, and the beast naturally sensed danger from prey it thought it had killed now rising back up again. It thus leaped back—both its real body and its false image—and the bell fell silent.

“Sounds like we scared it off,” the captain remarked.

“Our training is paying off!” a squad member cheered.

“After the way Instructor Yurika put us through the wringer, we’d better have something to show for it!” another soldier threw in.

With that, the squad captain tapped the bell hanging from his waist. It wasn’t just a decoration; it was an alarm with complex sensors built into it. During their anti-magic combat training, Nefilforan’s unit had tackled the challenge of preventing ambushes from magic-wielding enemies. Magicians could make themselves invisible and move without a sound. Forthorthe had optical camouflage of its own, but it only made a user’s appearance and heat signature difficult to distinguish from their surroundings. Magic was different. It actually made light and sound disappear, so even Forthorthe’s advanced technology struggled to detect it.

Fortunately, Forthorthian engineers had come up with a solution. By constantly scanning for noise levels and electromagnetic waves, they could detect breaks in base-level environmental patterns instead. In other words, they could detect when such stealth magic was being used. And the bell the captain was carrying was a device meant to do exactly that. Since it was made to detect even the slightest disturbances, however, it was extremely sensitive and only had a short range. It was effectively limited to melee-range opponents. But even that was a huge step toward preventing surprise attacks.

“Now... the question is whether the same trick will work twice,” the captain mused. The fact that the bell had warned the squad of an incoming ambush was proof that it worked. But that didn’t mean it would save them a second time. The creature could find a different means of attack. “Meldea, how’s it going over there?!”

“We need a minute! We’re almost done!”

“So we gotta buy a minute, huh?” the captain said to himself. He knew he needed to buy time for his subordinates to pull a survivor from the rubble. The real dilemma was how. “Keep firing! The barrage seems to be working!”

“Understood!”

The squad had yet to formulate a proper counterattack to handle the blink beast, but their laser barrage was proving an effective defense. The seven soldiers continued firing in the general direction of the beast even as the bell began ringing again.

“It’s coming!”

Based on the chime of the bell, the beast was closing in fast—yet its false image wasn’t moving this time. Everyone knew it was nothing more than an illusion, but the men kept their eyes glued on it like it was the real deal. Because humans naturally relied on their sight, illusions were dangerous and deadly tricks.

“How is it getting close in this barrage?! Is it not working after all?!”

The troops couldn’t see the monster, but the clamoring bell told them it was close now. Somehow, it was speeding nearer despite the volley of lasers. And it was hard to imagine the giant animal dodging them all. Either they were actually hitting it, or they were firing in the completely wrong direction.

Suddenly, a piece of the ceiling crashed to the ground in front of the soldiers. It appeared to be nothing more than coincidence—the factory crumbling in the aftermath of the explosion. But one soldier suspected otherwise.

“Captain! Above us!” he shouted.

“Aha! It’s kicking off the wall and ceiling to— Aaaggghhh!” the captain screamed.

The warning hadn’t come soon enough. The blink beast was rapidly moving in three dimensions, kicking off of chairs, desks, walls, and the ceiling. And it struck just as it reached the group of soldiers. Its target was none other than the squad captain. Aiming for the leader of the pack was a wild animal’s instinct, and its massive claws zoomed toward the captain. While he had his distortion field up, the blink beast’s attack was supercharged by the momentum of its descent from the ceiling. Unable to bear the full brunt of the swipe, the barrier collapsed.

“Captain!!!”

The soldiers screamed when they saw the beast strike their leader. Luckily, he survived the blow. His barrier had broken the impact of the attack, but even so, he was in grave condition and bleeding badly.

“What are you doing?! Open fire! You can aim for the beast now!” he ordered.

“U-Understood!”

In a strange twist, the captain’s blood was just what they needed to turn the tables. The blink beast was invisible, but its footprints weren’t, and one of its front paws was now covered in blood. The soldiers could track the beast by its prints.

“And shoot me too,” the captain continued.

“What?! But—”

“I’ll turn into one of them soon! Don’t let me attack you!”

The soldiers’ barriers protected them from the negative spiritual energy, but the blink beast had broken through to strike the captain directly. He was right. Odds were that he was already infected. It would only be a matter of time before he turned on his squadmates, and he wanted to prevent that at all costs. He’d made the right call, but that didn’t make the order easy for his subordinates to accept.

“I can’t shoot you, Captain! You might not be infected!”

“Do it before it’s too late!”

Not a second later, the soldiers were all blinded by a surging cloud of white smoke from seemingly nowhere. They could tell it was the doing of a smoke grenade—but they had no idea who’d thrown it or from where.

“Never fear!” a new voice called. “Help has arrived in the nick of time!”

As the shaken captain tried to decipher the situation, a lone girl appeared from the smoke. She looked completely out of place in the burning factory. She was dressed casually, like she was going out shopping, and she had a clay figure floating on either side of her head. They looked like ancient deities. The puzzled captain only grew more confused.

“You were right not to shoot him,” said the girl. “We can still save him.”

“We can still save him, ho!”

“It’s our time to shine, ho!”

“Who... are you?” the captain asked.

“Don’t you worry!”

The girl in question skipped over to the squad captain and raised her palms to his wound as the two floating clay dolls began circling around her. In short order, the bleeding stopped and the pain receded. At the same time, the area around the wound that had started turning black reverted to the color of healthy skin. The captain’s fever and urge to vomit also diminished considerably. Only then did he finally realize he’d seen the girl in front of him before.

“Okay, you’ll be fine now,” she said.

“I see... You’re part of His Excellency’s band...” the captain murmured.

“That’s right! I’m Sanae-chan the Purple Knight!”

“And I’m the Flame Knight of Justice, Karama!”

“Cat Knight Korama at your service, ho!”

Sanae’s psychic powers, enhanced by the haniwas, had purged the negative spiritual energy polluting the squad captain’s body. In addition, she’d healed his wound with her surplus power. The opening smoke grenade had only been a measure to buy time—but not just for her. When the white smoke cleared, it revealed a five-meter steel giant and seven girls on the scene.

“The Blue Knight! You’re here!” the captain shouted.

“I’m glad you’re okay,” replied Koutarou. “You did well to hold out for so long.”

“You honor me, Your Excellency.”

The smoke screen had allowed Sanae to close in and heal the captain. It had also stopped the blink beast from interfering with any of the rescue work. And it had afforded Koutarou and the other girls an opportunity to get close without getting ambushed by the monster.

“Ruth-san, the injured have all been rescued now,” Harumi reported.

“Understood!” replied Ruth. “To Nefilforan’s squad, please retreat with the survivors! You can leave this to us!”

“Roger that. We wish you the best of luck,” the captain confirmed.

Nefilforan’s troops now understood just how dangerous the blink beast was. It was too risky to stay and fight while also trying to protect the rescued factory workers. It was safest to withdraw with the wounded. They would have loved to fight alongside the Blue Knight, but a tactical retreat was the best option for everyone.

The blink beast was wary of the white smoke and the new opponents who’d appeared from within it. It was especially cautious of Warlord, the biggest among them. Living corpses were primal rather than rational, and the blink beast instinctually targeted the steel giant.

“All right, let’s get this started...”

Koutarou was equally leery of his opponent. The blink beast could use illusions and teleportation. It was as big as Warlord, too, and no doubt just as powerful. He knew the monster could take him down in a single attack if he let his guard down.

“Aika-san, Sakuraba-senpai, can you do something about its magic?” he asked.

“I’ve tried several different detection spells, but they’re not working,” Maki replied. “I think the monster is concealing its mana and spiritual energy.”

Wild beasts, especially predators, were skilled in stealth. And for magical beasts, that included learning how to camouflage their mana. It was an important part of their survival, so even an expert magician like Maki was having trouble tracking the monster down.

“Satomi-kun, I will extend the range of your sword’s slashes. I think maximum-area attacks are the only way to deal with this foe,” offered Harumi.

“You’re probably right...” he agreed.

That was their solution. Harumi would imbue Warlord’s sword with Signaltin’s mana so that he could fight as he normally did while she enhanced the blade, including its range. After all, a longer sword was better against a foe they couldn’t see.

“Master, that won’t be necessary,” Ruth interjected. “I know where the enemy is.”

This news staggered Koutarou. “Wait, what?!” he asked in a stupor. “What do you mean?”

“Please look at this,” Ruth answered calmly while bringing up an image of a four-legged creature on her computer. It was a model she’d generated, which showed the blink beast’s current location and posture.

“How did you do this, Ruth-san?!”

“The smoke grenade earlier gave me an idea. The enemy can completely negate its presence, but it can’t affect the air around it. So when it moves, naturally it displaces air too, and I’m using Yellow Line’s sensors to monitor that displacement.”

While watching the smoke dissipate, Ruth had noticed it moving around various objects in the room and realized something similar must be happening with the blink beast. And Yellow Line’s powerful sensors were the perfect thing to detect it.

“I’m also using laser measurements of ground vibrations as an aid,” Ruth continued to explain. “The enemy cannot escape Warlord III-Revised’s watchful eyes.”

Certain variables, like accuracy and timing, came into play when measuring air currents. So to compensate for that, Ruth was also measuring ground vibrations, which would be gauged swiftly and precisely. And with all of the information she’d collected, she’d constructed the model she was showing Koutarou. It wasn’t a perfectly accurate real-time display, but it was close enough.

“That’s something only Ruth would notice, and something only she could pull off. The second seat is already paying off,” Kiriha remarked with a smirk. Even she was surprised.

Ruth had only noticed the way the smoke was moving because she was in the vanguard with Koutarou. Had she been on the rear line, she might have missed it entirely. Even if she’d realized it, she wouldn’t have had the necessary sensors to measure it at her fingertips. And she was the only one capable of collecting and analyzing the data to come up with a model of their enemy on the spot. Having her aboard Warlord with Yellow Line equipped was already paying off.

“Well done, Vice Captain,” said Koutarou. He was as stunned as he was grateful. He then drew Warlord’s sword. Now that the tables had turned, there was no need for petty tricks. The giant blade began glowing with Signaltin’s mana like normal.

“It’s an honor, Master,” Ruth replied. Praise from her commander brought her immense joy, for he was both a legendary knight and the man she loved. It tickled her heart, both as a knight herself and as a woman.

I will protect him from any enemy or danger! And I shall assist his victory in every battle!

Determination glimmered in Ruth’s eyes. Her skills and desires had never aligned in a way that allowed her to fight alongside Koutarou, but right now, she could protect him with her own strength and help him seize victory. She’d never been more eager for a mission.

“Everyone, move out!”

Naturally, the order to attack came from Theia. Ruth had shared her intel with the princess as well, another function enhanced by Yellow Line. Theia’s Combat Dress overlaid the model of the blink beast directly onto Theia’s vision, allowing her to fight as if she could see the creature. Theia was currently equipped with her Command Green accessory for maximum flexibility, and its primary weapon was an assault rifle that fired a constant stream of bullets. Theia’s marksmanship was good, and she fought the wild recoil of the weapon to keep its fire locked on the monster.

It let out a confused cry when struck, which was a new experience for the blink beast. Nothing had ever before landed an attack on it while it was using its invisibility and illusions. Naturally, it felt no pain as a living corpse, but if it had been alive, it would have been left reeling.

The blink beast then let out another roar. The first wave of Theia’s barrage had disappeared into the invisible monster, but her bullets now passed through the CG model and landed in the wall behind it. The model itself then disappeared.

“What just happened?!” Theia shouted in confusion.

“It blinked! It’s using short-range teleportation!” Maki explained.

This was the blink beast’s third power. Its unique combination of abilities meant it could move from place to place in the blink of an eye, hence its name.

“It must have used that power by reflex to escape the bullets... but that was a mistake!”

“Hyaaaaah!”

As soon as the blink beast reappeared in a new location, it was greeted by Shizuka’s fist. The monster’s instantaneous teleportation left it momentarily disoriented and vulnerable. That meant it was completely open to Shizuka’s attack, which struck the beast with great force. It let out a mighty yelp.

“Take that! Hyah! And that!”

Shizuka continued to assault the beast with one attack after another. With the strength of a dragon inside her, each blow hit with the power of a cannon. Her aim was true too. She targeted the creature’s joints, jaw, and other vital points.

She’d known exactly where the blink beast would be because it had teleported. Since Alunaya could manipulate gravity, he could sense spatial distortions. So when the beast bent space to teleport, Shizuka saw it—albeit for a brief moment. The warped space quickly returned to normal, but that was more than long enough for Shizuka. Before she lost sight of it, she’d punched it eight times, kicked it twice, and knocked it down.

“It seems this beast can use magic instinctively, but it’s just magic. It doesn’t affect the flow of air or vibrations of the ground. Likewise, the monster doesn’t know about gravitational waves, so it doesn’t know how to cover them up. We have the advantage of science on our side. If this creature were as intelligent as Clan-dono, we likely never could have detected it,” Kiriha mused.

She was in the process of unraveling the blink beast’s abilities and their limits. The monster’s inborn magic was both a strength and a weakness. Since magic manipulated reality according to the caster’s will, the caster’s perception of the world was reflected in that. In simple terms, the beast couldn’t compensate for forces it didn’t even know existed. Ruth and Shizuka were preying on that.

“Master, the enemy is running!” Ruth called.

“Is it fleeing because it sensed danger?” Koutarou wondered.

“No!” Sanae shouted. “It’s being called by that black sludge! And not just it! All of the zombies are being called!”

“What?!” Koutarou shouted in turn.

Their enemy wasn’t going to go down without a fight. After being attacked repeatedly, the blink beast was mortally wary of Koutarou and the girls—a fear that was relayed back to the spiritual energy waste and then to the other living corpses. In order to survive, the spiritual energy waste intended to consolidate its power. In other words, it was gathering all of its forces.

At first, the spiritual energy waste had no clear consciousness. But that changed after absorbing humans with the ability to think, and its mind now responded to the fear it sensed in the blink beast under its influence. It recognized a threat to its existence, so in order to ensure its survival, it was summoning its minions to protect itself.

Of course, after Clan had awoken the mobile weapons planted in the city, not many living corpses were left. Still, their real power was spiritual energy. Even if their bodies were destroyed, the negative spiritual energy that powered them could still return. So when the waste recalled all of the energy at its disposal, it surged with power far greater than it had originally possessed. This was thanks to the spreading infection, and the waste fully intended to use its newfound power to defeat Koutarou and the others.

“You mean the corpses weren’t just to increase their ranks?!” Koutarou gasped when Sanae explained what was happening.

“Yeah!” she confirmed. “This factory is like a farm for that black stuff to get stronger!”

Sanae had only just put it together herself. Like on a cattle farm, the living corpses had been allowed to multiply freely. And now that they’d reached a sufficient population, they were being culled for the resources they provided. Effectively, they were being called to the slaughterhouse.

“Is this what Grevanas was after?” Koutarou muttered.

“It’s hard to imagine,” Kiriha replied. “Grevanas had no reason to blow up the factory. It was just an accident, so it’s more like Grevanas and the waste used each other.”

Kiriha didn’t believe that Grevanas had orchestrated the spiritual energy waste. She couldn’t imagine he’d rigged such a disaster just to intercept them. Even if it successfully took them out, it meant using the entire stronghold as collateral. That wasn’t worth sacrificing everything here, and she was sure Grevanas knew that. If he’d plotted something on such a destructive scale, he would’ve unleashed it in a city rather than Ralgwin’s factory. That was why she suspected he was merely using the circumstances to his advantage, and the spiritual energy waste had similarly benefited from the living corpses he’d conjured and the beasts he’d summoned.

“You mean Grevanas...” Koutarou began.

“He’s long gone by now,” Theia concluded with a nod. “He wouldn’t know how strong the waste has gotten until we fight it, and there’s no way he’d stick around for that. So after stirring up all this chaos, he probably took what he needed and ran. He wants to resurrect Maxfern, so he won’t take any unnecessary gambles.”

Theia was certain of that much. If she were Grevanas, she would have done the same. The initial accident was unexpected, so his priority would have undoubtedly been minimizing other risks. And the risk of fighting Koutarou and the girls alongside the waste when he didn’t know its strength was simply too high. Instead, he simply would have gathered his resources and fled.

“Maybe we’re lucky the mean old wizard ran away,” said Sanae.

“Why’s that?” Koutarou asked.

“Because this thing is pretty nasty...”

When Sanae saw the spiritual energy waste, she recognized the danger at hand. As an expert on spiritual energy, she could tell at a glance that the waste was extraordinarily powerful. Her usual smile had given way to a grave expression, and cold sweat was running down her face.

After recalling the negative energy throughout the stronghold, the waste reformed itself. It needed to transform from black sludge to something more suitable for a fight, and the form it chose was the blink beast. The blink beast was the strongest of the living corpses it had consumed. It was the only one that had survived the mobile weapons, much less defeated any. It was also agile and tough. So, using the blink beast as its core, the waste poured all of its spiritual energy into the creature. Or perhaps it was more accurate to say it took over the beast. They became one, and the new horrific monster the process generated was both intelligent and undead.

“Sanae-chan Ultra Burning Fire Mega Hurricane!”

A massive vortex whirled around the beast. The vortex produced neither wind nor flame, but it kept the giant creature trapped within. Even the blink beast struggled to overcome Sanae-chan’s incredible power when she went all out.

“Use this sword, Onee-chan!” Sanae-san called, tossing Saguratin to her older self.

“Got it! Saguratin, chaaarge!” Sanae-nee took the blade and filled it with spiritual energy. The sword began glowing purple with a light just as strong as Koutarou’s shining Signaltin.

“Take this! Special Sanae Combo Attack!” Sanae-chan cried.

“Purple Lightning Flash! Dominating Thunder Booooolt!” Sanae-nee likewise yelled as she attacked.

Her slash wasn’t actually wreathed in lightning, but she’d poured so much spiritual energy into it that it was just as powerful as any thunderbolt. The roaring sword tore toward the blink beast. The creature was still trapped in the vortex, but Sanae-nee’s sword passed right through it. This incredible feat was the result of the Sanaes’ teamwork. Because they all shared the same spiritual energy, their attacks could harm their enemies but not each other.

But the blink beast roared loudly as it met Sanae-nee’s mighty blow. The positive energy shrouding the sword clashed with the negative energy in its claws, and Sanae-nee was at a disadvantage. The beast was stronger and had more energy to spare, ultimately pushing her back.

“I was afraid of that!” Sanae-chan said, looking desperate as she watched Sanae-nee fly backward. She quickly slapped her bracelet to activate the comms. “Koutarou!”

“What is it?” he answered.

“It really is thinking while fighting now! It’s completely different from before, so be careful!”

Sanae-chan’s desperation wasn’t because Sanae-nee had been overpowered. It was because she’d recognized the blink beast’s clever interception of Sanae-nee’s attack. If it were purely fighting on instinct like before, it would have mindlessly attacked the vortex keeping it trapped, which would have left it vulnerable to Sanae-nee’s slicing and dicing. But instead, it had focused its response on her—the real threat. This demonstrated understanding that the vortex was nothing more than a binding. In other words, this version of the blink beast was smart. It was no longer a simple monster.

“Blue Knight, it’s going to blink to escape the vortex!”

Immediately following Alunaya’s warning, the blink beast disappeared from within the vortex. It had escaped using its natural teleportation abilities. If it had tried to do so sooner, it would have left itself open to Sanae’s attack. It only attempted to flee after ensuring it could do so safely—another sign of its intelligence.

“Why did it suddenly get so smart?” Koutarou looked around from within Warlord, but he saw no sign of the monster.

“It probably gained the abilities of the creatures it consumed. Otherwise, it shouldn’t be able to teleport,” Kiriha reasoned.

Blink beasts could teleport naturally, but not the waste. That meant it had gained something more than just energy from the monster. It could now use its magic too, so it wasn’t a stretch to assume it was gaining other powers—intelligence included—from its other prey.

“Master, I can’t detect the enemy anymore! It seems to be compensating for air currents and ground vibrations now!”

“So it’s overcome its weakness!”

The waste had also absorbed factory engineers, giving it new insight into its own existence... and a mind capable of making plans accordingly. It was making up for its shortcomings, even when it came to mana and gravitational waves.

“Kyaaaaah!”

Because of this, not even Alunaya could tell where the beast had teleported. It thus blindsided Shizuka with an attack, knocking her to the ground. She quickly sprang back up thanks to the protection of Alunaya’s powerful mana. Anyone else would have been in serious danger.

The blink beast was more than just intelligent now. Its merger with the spiritual energy waste had enhanced its powers of illusion and invisibility.

“Everyone, please gather up in one place!” Clan requested over the comms.

“What are you trying to do?!” Koutarou asked.

“Just hurry! Do you want to get killed?!” she responded.

“Everyone on me!” Koutarou called.

The girls fell in and gathered around him.

“Whoa!” Theia yelped in the process. She’d been attacked, but her keen senses had allowed her to avoid the strike by a hair’s breadth. It left a massive gouge in her Combat Dress instead.

“Now, Pardomshiha!” Clan shouted.

“Right!”

The moment everyone was together, Ruth’s unmanned crafts and Ralgwin’s mobile weapons started gathering around them as well. The blink beast was so large that if it tried to attack now, it would have to pass through the encirclement of machines first. It wasn’t an ideal tactic, but it was good for a desperate measure.

“The problem is what we do next,” Koutarou observed.

For now, the blink beast could no longer ambush them. But Koutarou and the girls needed to do better than that. The drones and mobile weapons were already falling one by one as the blink beast used its magic to get rid of them carefully. There wasn’t much time.

“An explosive attack would be effective, but we’d have to accept that the factory would collapse, which I’d prefer not to do,” Kiriha said over the comms.

That was the first solution that had come to mind, but it was extreme. Just because the beast was invisible didn’t mean it wasn’t there. An indiscriminate wide-area explosion would certainly catch it too. The problem was that such an attack would also catch Koutarou, the girls, and the rest of the factory. It would have to be a last resort.

“Not having Yurika right now hurts. Sakuraba-senpai and I can’t use magic together...” said Maki.

She would have loved to cast a wide-area spell, preferably a ritual spell, to interfere with the blink beast’s magic. But that would require multiple magicians to be more effective, and Yurika was still with the Hazy Moon’s drones on the outskirts of town. That left only Harumi, who used a different type of magic. There were discrepancies in the magical theory behind modern and ancient magics, making them difficult to combine. The best Harumi and Maki could do together was share mana.

“We can’t afford to let it escape! We would never be able to capture it again! Whatever the method, we need to defeat it here and now!” Harumi insisted with increasing urgency.

The blink beast was attacking because it thought it could defeat Koutarou and the girls quickly. Perhaps it even believed that it was wisest to kill off them as soon as possible. But if their defenses proved too difficult to overcome or if they put up too much of a fight, the blink beast would reassess and retreat. And if it wanted to flee, there was nothing Koutarou and the girls could do to stop it. The beast was impossible to track. Wherever it went, it would create more living corpses. By the time they found it, it would be too late. So Harumi was right. They needed to defeat the blink beast before it got away.

“Master, our defensive wall has been reduced to 60 percent. It’s almost at its limit!” Ruth reported.

Worst of all, time was working against them. The unmanned crafts and mobile weapons wouldn’t hold out for much longer. They were still falling one after another. Koutarou and the girls couldn’t afford to stop and think of a plan.

“Then there’s only one thing to do,” said Koutarou. “Sakuraba-senpai, please put up several wide barriers. They don’t have to be strong.”

“What are you going to do, Satomi-kun?!” Harumi was taken aback. She had no idea what Koutarou was up to, but nevertheless, she poured more magic into Signaltin and generated three layers of barriers around Warlord.

“The only thing we can do,” Koutarou replied. With that, he raised Warlord’s sword and shifted the machine’s weight to its back leg.

Ruth, an expert in Forthorthian swordsmanship, knew immediately what he was doing. “You’re going for a counter, Master,” she said with an approving nod.

She saw the value in the strategy. When the blink beast next attacked Warlord, it would destroy Harumi’s barriers. Using that as a signal, Koutarou could counterattack.

“I shall assist you,” Ruth continued with a smile.

She then altered Warlord’s distortion field to create a second triple-layer barrier. It was a simple task using the PAF’s control algorithm. But without increasing the energy output of the device, each of the three barriers was weaker than normal. Still, they would be good enough to serve as a signal.

“Attaboy, Koutarou!” Sanae cheered.

“Lightning Reflexes! Eagle Eye!” Maki incanted.

The other girls realized what Koutarou was doing and began offering their own support too. The Sanaes heightened Koutarou’s psychic powers, and Maki enhanced his reflexes and vision with magic. Both would help him time his blow.

“Thank you, everyone. Also... I’m sorry for putting you in danger, Ruth-san,” he said.

With his sword at the ready, Koutarou began advancing with Warlord. There was no time to let Ruth out. The machine was already outside of the defensive encirclement of drones and mobile weapons. The attack could come at any moment from any angle.

“Not at all, Master. This is what I want. No matter what happens, we share the same fate,” Ruth replied.

Between Maki’s magic and the PAF, Warlord III-Revised now had a total of six barriers. Koutarou needed to make full use of them to land his counter. He would only get one chance. The same move wouldn’t work twice on the new blink beast. But he had no idea where his opponent was. He wouldn’t even be able to see it when it happened. He’d simply have to thrust his sword in the direction of the force that shattered the barriers. It was a risky move. The end result might put them in harm’s way instead. But Ruth was fine with that. If she did everything in her power together with Koutarou yet still lost, she would be satisfied with that—both as vice captain and as a woman.

“We’ll just have to win,” said Koutarou.

“Of course. That is what it means to walk the path of knighthood!” Ruth insisted.

“You’re so strict, Ruth-san...”

Ruth wasn’t concerned about what might happen. All that mattered to her was that they fought with the intent to win. Koutarou flashed a smile at his knightly copilot and readjusted his grip on his sword. He felt no hesitation. Like Ruth, he now had his eyes on victory.

When the outermost barrier fell with a crack, Signaltin alerted Koutarou directly via mental link.

Here it comes!

Thanks to that, he realized the blink beast was attacking before anyone else and ordered Warlord to do an about-face. By then, the third barrier had already been breached. Once the machine turned completely around, Koutarou watched as the fourth barrier fell.

“There you aaaaare!”

Koutarou thrust out his sword as the fifth barrier gave way. He knew the blink beast was coming.

“Did I get it?!”

His sword stopped at the sixth barrier—the blade had disappeared there, but it wasn’t broken. Instead, Koutarou felt like he’d hit something. The “missing” part of his sword was buried in the invisible monster. And soon, the creature came into view with a roar. Signaltin was canceling out the beast’s magic.

“Huh? Is it trying to get away?!”

Warlord began shaking violently. The blink beast was trying to shake itself loose from the blade impaled in its shoulder. The creature was wounded, but not fatally, so it was determined to get away at all costs.

“I don’t think so!”

Koutarou used his left arm to resist. If the blink beast freed itself, it would turn invisible again and flee—and Koutarou was determined to prevent that.

“You’re not going anywhere!”

In short order, several unmanned crafts came flying in. With the blink beast’s invisibility negated, Ruth now had a visual on their foe and ordered her fighters to ram it. Her plan was to pin it in place with the drones.

On impact, the blink beast let out another yowl. It was warded in the strong negative spiritual energy from the factory, allowing it to escape both Koutarou’s sword and Ruth’s encirclement. And just as Koutarou expected, the beast immediately fled, turning invisible as it turned its back on them.

“It got away?!” Koutarou gasped with a terrible grimace on his face. Dark thoughts of what would happen next brewed in his mind. He was sure they’d failed.

“No, Master. We’ve won,” said Ruth.

An instant later, the blink beast reappeared on Warlord’s monitors. But not its real form. It was the CG model from before.

“How?!” Koutarou asked.

“Several unmanned crafts are sticking to it,” Ruth explained.

“From when you rammed it!”

“And they’re relaying their current positions to the other unmanned crafts using all possible communication methods.”

Ruth hadn’t ordered her drones to ram the blink beast just to hold it in place. She was using some of them like tracking devices. The blink beast was using magic to counter normal detection methods, but there were exceptions. Its magic had no effect on wired comms, and lasers and radio waves still worked at very close range. So as long as some of Ruth’s drones could stay close to the ones stuck on the beast, she’d have all the information she needed. That was how she’d located the creature again.

“You do the most incredible things like they’re nothing, Ruth-san...”

Though impressed, Koutarou immediately charged the beast with Warlord. He didn’t have the luxury of reveling in the moment. He needed to defeat the blink beast while he could see it.

“Only because of you, Master. This is all because you stopped the creature from moving.”

Ruth’s strategy had been a gamble, and she’d bet everything on Koutarou locking the blink beast in combat briefly. Her desire to see him victorious had inspired her.

“Guess who made it?!” a lone girl called out, appearing right in the path of the fleeing blink beast.

When Maki saw the new arrival, she let out a gasp. “Crimson?! What are you doing here—”

Indeed, the new face on the scene was none other than a former evil magical girl turned Forthorthian court magician—Crimson. She raised her two-handed staff above her head and jumped up high. Her target was the blink beast, which she could see thanks to the information being relayed to her.

“Save the chitchat for later! First we deal with this thing!” she yelled. “Haaaaah!”

Just before her staff made contact with the beast, she magically transformed it into a large axe. It slammed into the blink beast’s front leg and released the energy stored within with a loud crack. The heavy impact made the monster lose its balance. It collapsed to the factory floor, roaring wildly as it slid several meters down the hall before finally coming to a stop.

“You’re not even a challenge as long as I can see you! Okay, everyone, take it from here!” Crimson shouted.

“You help too, Crimson!” Green insisted.

“I’m not really cut out for dealing with this confusing magic.”

“God, you’re always like this... Anti-Magic Field!”

Crimson wasn’t the only former agent of Darkness Rainbow who’d arrived. Green, Purple, Yellow, Blue, and Orange were all with her. They surrounded the collapsed beast and worked together to cast a wide-area spell around it to cancel out all magic. With that, the blink beast’s invisibility was once again nullified. It couldn’t use any of its other spells either, meaning it couldn’t escape by blinking or other magical trickery. Of course, this also meant the court magicians were defenseless too, but that wasn’t a problem. They had plenty of allies on the scene who could protect them.

“In the end, they stole all the glory,” Theia mumbled.

“It’s fine,” Sanae-chan said. “Ruth got her chance to shine.”

“Ruth-san is the one person I wouldn’t want to make angry. To think she was that strong...” Shizuka added.

“And that means something coming from you, Shizuka.”

“Sanae-oneechan!”

Theia opened fire, Sanae let fly her psychic powers, and Shizuka chucked a massive concrete block. All three attacks were aimed squarely at the vulnerable beast. It naturally tried to flee, but its magic was unresponsive. And so the monster was finally defeated.

Forthorthe’s court magicians had come to ensure the subjugation of the blink beast. They had nothing to fear from the beast’s blinking powers thanks to their magic nullification zone, but they hadn’t been able to counter its invisibility or pin it down. And so they’d been lying in wait, hoping and waiting for Koutarou and the girls to do something about that.

“So that’s why you only showed up now,” remarked Maki.

“That’s right,” said Green. “But Crimson was hellbent on getting into the fray. She’s such a handful.”

“I feel your pain,” Maki replied with a smile. Judging by Crimson’s dramatic entrance, she could imagine how long her best friend had been waiting to enter the fight.

“Rude. I can show some patience when I need to,” Crimson argued.

“You were irked the entire time though,” Green argued back.

“That’s just proof I was being patient!”

With a warm look in her eyes, Maki chuckled at Crimson and Green’s banter. She was sure Crimson was enjoying herself too. It was an unexpected but wonderful reunion.

“Still, it’s sure convenient you guys were here,” said Koutarou, taking advantage of the lull to join in the conversation.

Orange, who was sitting on a concrete block wall with Sanae, kicked her legs as she replied, “We discovered this stronghold, and Her Majesty ordered us to stand by here in case of an emergency.”

“So you’re all still acting like spies,” Sanae remarked.

“Yup,” said Orange. “We just work for Forthorthe now.”

Elfaria had originally ordered her new court magicians to locate Ralgwin’s bases. After investigating several smaller ones, they’d finally uncovered his stronghold, but it was too large for them to raid alone. Moreover, Forthorthe wanted to keep magic out of the public eye as much as possible. And so Elfaria had instructed them to wait for Koutarou and Nefilforan. As magicians, they were equipped to deal with any situation that might arise. They’d even helped clean up the negative spiritual energy after the fact.

“Thanks to you, this ordeal is finally over, but... Ralgwin’s key players here managed to escape,” said Nefilforan, her shoulders slumping.

Forthorthe’s goal in striking the stronghold had been to gather intelligence. Besides hacking into the mainframe, capturing officers was their top priority—and the quickest way to corner Ralgwin.

“Well, they were prepared for an attack, so there’s nothing we could have done. Not to mention the accident. What happened here wasn’t a failing on our part,” said Clan, offering Nefilforan a gentle smile.

She was trying to console her fellow princess, but she spoke the truth. Ralgwin had armed his stronghold for just such a raid, establishing escape routes and fail-safes for disposing of critical intel. But the factory accident had ruined things for everyone. There was no way they could have done any reconnaissance under the circumstances.

“The old wizard didn’t attack us himself, so he must have been in a hurry too,” Shizuka reminded everyone.

That was true too. In the end, Grevanas’s only meddling had been indirect. Shizuka believed it was because he’d had no control over the situation either, so instead, he’d chosen to play it safe.

“What do you make of that, Kiriha-san?” Koutarou asked.

“Hmm... I believe taking this stronghold is a satisfactory result for us. This will be a major setback for Ralgwin and our single biggest victory to date.”

Kiriha was satisfied with the outcome. It bothered her to see a factory capable of producing spiritual energy technology so badly damaged, but she was pleased to see it liberated from Ralgwin’s hands. That was enough of a win for her. She thought Ralgwin’s loss today was much bigger. The factory explosion had prevented his troops from defending themselves according to plan. If they’d managed that, they might have succeeded in repelling Koutarou and Nefilforan altogether.

“So you’re saying they underestimated the technology they’re dealing with and paid the price for it,” Koutarou summarized.

“That’s right. If they’d properly disposed of the negative spiritual energy, this wouldn’t have happened,” Kiriha explained.

Indeed, the source of that misfortune was the enemy’s lax handling of the spiritual energy waste. Their greed had slipped a noose around their own necks, and the day’s disaster was nothing more than reaping what they’d sown.

Kiriha’s assessment of the situation was correct. When Grevanas returned to home base, he found Ralgwin furious. He took the loss of the factory seriously, severely reprimanding the officer in charge of it. Ralgwin hadn’t personally been the one to sacrifice safety for the sake of efficiency—that had been the production manager, who had also served as Grevanas’s tour guide. That simple trade-off had been the cause of the disaster, resulting in a devastating loss and necessitating an overhaul of Ralgwin’s strategy. His rage would not be easily abated.

“Calm down, Ralgwin-dono,” Grevanas urged him. “The result may have been the same whether we handled the waste properly or not.”

“I know that! But just think of the force they attacked us with—and try imagining what would happen if they struck any other base! We can’t afford to have careless accidents like this!” Ralgwin fumed.

“Still, it’s not all bad. We may be able to add a new weapon to our arsenal thanks to this.”

“What do you mean?!”

“This waste product is rich in negative spiritual energy. It turns any creature that touches it into a living corpse... meaning we could have a self-generating army.” Grevanas had brought back a sample of the spiritual energy waste in a pressurized container. His aim was to research it in detail and see if he could develop it into an infectious weapon not dissimilar from the virus he’d developed for Maxfern. “I’d say it’s necessary given our small numbers, but what do you think, Ralgwin-dono?”

“I see... That could indeed make up for our losses this time. So be it. I’ll overlook the factory incident, but there had better not be a repeat. Is that clear?”

“Y-Yes, sir! Thank you very much!”

Grevanas had finally managed to calm Ralgwin. The soldier in charge of the factory repeatedly bowed and thanked Ralgwin as he left the room.

“Now, can we really weaponize that?” Ralgwin asked Grevanas afterward.

“I’ve found signs it’s controllable to some degree. If all we’re after is destructive potential, we can use it as it is, but if we want to employ it on complex missions, it will need to be made compatible with our other technologies.”

“Use all the manpower and money you need to do it. We need to bolster our forces and recover.”

“Then I shall make that my priority.”

This latest defeat had made Ralgwin more dependent on Grevanas, and the old wizard couldn’t have asked for more. The current situation made it easier for him to work in secret. If all went well, he might even be able to build an army of his own. He knew a battle awaited upon Maxfern’s revival, and intended to begin preparations for it now.