Chapter 2: Golem
Back at the rooftop garden of the Galarc Castle, Sumeragi Satsuki gazed up at the sky.
What is going on...
In the early hours before dawn, a pillar of fire had risen in the capital. Then, a beam of destruction rained down from the skies to destroy the mansion. But before it could do so, a giant magic circle appeared and blocked the beam with a barrier.
After that, a metal robot-like being fell down and started attacking, but an unfamiliar pink-haired girl in a mask began fighting it as though to protect them. Miharu also began casting magic to fight it, before teleporting everyone to the rooftop garden of the castle, then taking Celia and teleporting away.
That left Satsuki and the others in their current situation: standing in the rooftop garden, wondering what had just happened. Were they dreaming? Their confusion was only natural, and they needed more time to process things.
However, what was certain was that the battle was still ongoing. The pink-haired girl in the mask—Aishia—and the metal puppet—the golem—were still exchanging blows. Miharu had restricted the golem’s high-speed combat by deploying barriers where she predicted it would move, but Aishia was fighting by matching its speed with her own.
The golem flew around fast enough to look like teleportation, but Aishia was moving at the same speed.
“Wow... She’s keeping up with that speed...” Orphia mumbled in wonder. Even as a high elf that specialized in flight-related spirit arts, she was incapable of such a feat.
“Who is she?” King Francois asked, wondering if anyone knew her.
“She’s a spirit. A humanoid one...” Sara answered hesitantly.
Francois had been given information about their contract spirits, but not everyone else present was in on the loop. However, now wasn’t the time to worry about the restriction of information. In fact, Sara’s hesitation was entirely due to the rarity of Aishia’s identity as a humanoid spirit.
“A humanoid spirit?”
“Humanoid spirits are extremely high-ranking among spirits. There should only be a handful that exist in the world.”
“And one of them is that masked girl?”
“Yes,” Sara said with a nod, then added in explanation, “though I don’t know who she is or why she’s fighting...”
Francois hummed in thought. “Hmm...”
“But she’s protecting us, right? She told us to run earlier,” Latifa pointed out. She looked over at Aishia with a worried gaze.
“Yes, she did,” Alma agreed gravely.
Suddenly, the evenly matched battle between Aishia and the golem tipped heavily in favor of one side.
◇ ◇ ◇
Aishia was flying around at a high speed, attacking the golem while taking care to keep her distance. The golem seemed to have deemed that closing that distance was the easiest way to overpower her, and was resolutely attempting to do so.
Aishia knew that if the battle turned into close combat, she would be at a disadvantage. The golem was covered in hard armor—the exact material was unclear to her, but it looked like a sturdy metal. If it was regular steel, she would have been able to dent it with a physically enhanced blow, but steel was nothing compared to the armor of the golem; she could guess that much from watching her spirit arts strike it.
The golem covered in hard armor was two meters tall, while Aishia was just a petite girl. Even if she physically enhanced her body, it was clear who would have the advantage in direct hand-to-hand combat, which was why Aishia was maintaining her distance while casting elemental spirit arts of fire, water, ice, and lightning.
Lightning is no good either.
None of the elements had any effect. Did the golem have no elemental weaknesses? If so, her only option would be to physically damage the armor, but...
In order to activate a spirit art with enough force to do that while flying at such high speeds, she would have to give up on using any other spirit arts to defend herself. That would leave her open to the golem’s attacks.
The golem was constantly manipulating its feather blades to attack Aishia as it moved towards her. Aishia intercepted each one by deploying several hundred bullets of light, but that left her unable to activate a spirit art to break through the golem’s armor.
“Ugh...”
A crack ran down the mask she was wearing. After being recognized as a transcendent one along with Rio, she fell under the influence of the same rules of god as him.
In other words, if she did anything to support a specific individual, a penalty would be inflicted that removed their memories of her. The mask was able to bear the burden of that penalty, but it had reached the limit of what it could withstand.
I’m going to run out of time like this. I have no choice but to do it.
Focusing on running would allow her to buy time, but that would only end in disaster once her mask broke completely; she had to defeat the golem before that happened. Aishia started allocating some of her defense to prepare her essence.
Unfortunately, the golem changed its attack pattern at the same time, most likely in response to Aishia’s constant aversion to close combat. It started increasing its means of long-ranged attacks in addition to the feather blades.
In other words, apart from the detached feathers from its back that were flying about freely, it gained a ranged attack that converted magic essence to destructive energy. One-meter-long spears of light started shooting rapidly from the sharp ends of its hand and feet.
The golem spread its wings, held its arms up, and directed its suppressive fire at Aishia’s most likely route of flight. The number of bullets was off the charts, and enough firepower to cause widespread annihilation was directed at Aishia alone.
Each spear of light had ridiculous might behind it. When several spears struck the large lake beside the capital, huge pillars of water rose in Aishia’s view. At that, she realized how bad it would be if the spears fell upon the castle or city.
Aishia immediately restricted her movement to the area above the golem’s head. Fortunately, the golem was unable to alter the trajectory of the light spears after firing them. Instead, it was able to precisely control the movements of the feather blades from its back. Thus, the light spears were used to limit her movements, while the feather blades were used to finish her off.
And so, in order to deal with the golem’s suppressive fire, Aishia was forced to deploy and maintain hundreds of light bullets. She was capable of controlling her light bullets with spirit arts, so she used them to block the approaching feather blades. It would be bad if the powerful light spears hit her directly, but she was able to dodge them all by watching them.
“Guh...”
The golem was using a tremendous number of projectiles, demanding control like threading a needle while running. Since Aishia was also restricting her movements to reduce damage to the castle and city, it was even harder for her to deal with the attacks.
Pushed back by the golem’s attacks that overwhelmed her in both power and number, Aishia was forced into focusing solely on defense. She normally didn’t show her emotions, but her expression was hard-pressed right now.
Why doesn’t it run out of essence when it’s putting so much power into each attack?
From the looks of its barrage, it was hard to believe it had an essence limit. How long could it continue firing like this? Was it possible to aim for it to exhaust itself? Aishia considered all the possibilities as she evaded the rain of light spears.
However, with no means of measuring the golem’s magic essence, aiming for it to run out would be as good as a gamble. There was a limit to how much her mask could endure, and there was a limit to her own essence without Rio to resupply it. It was more likely Aishia would reach her limit first.
Besides, it was doubtful if she could even continue to fend off the golem’s attacks like this. She was just barely blocking the attacks—a single mistake could result in a direct hit on her. If that happened, she would immediately be rendered incapable of combat.
I can’t wait for it to run out of essence. I have to be the one to attack...
Aishia came to that conclusion, but her hands were so full with enduring the barrage, she couldn’t think of any way of counterattacking and breaking through the golem’s armor. The number of projectiles was so stupendous, it was too risky to neglect her defenses to save essence.
Aishia panicked. At this rate, she would be wasting her essence and mask endurance and run out of time.
It was right after this that the barrage of light spears ceased, and she lost sight of the golem’s main body.
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