Invaders of the Rokujouma!? Volume 7.5

by Takehaya

  “Hahh, I even set her free. This is all because you took your sweet time, Blue Knight.”

  “Dextro... you bastard!”

  “Layous-sama!”

  Alaia’s repeated screams made the appearance of the giant even more fearsome for the people in the area. It was a steel giant that moved and fought on its own. Just based on its height and weight alone, it was easy to imagine how unbelievably strong it must be. Everyone who saw it could tell just how dangerous it was.

  “Uwaaah, it’s a monster!”

  “We don’t stand a chance!”

  “S-Someone, save us!”

  The villagers who had begun to regain their calm after Koutarou defeated the majority of the soldiers quickly panicked again. It was all they could do. They’d had a glimmer of hope, only to have it stolen away from them by the sight of something so terrifying.

  “Run away! Run as far as you can! It will chase you down no matter where you go!”

  Dextro watched the panicking villagers with joy in his eyes. He was absolutely confident in the power of the giant. Not even the so far undefeated Koutarou should be able to take it down.

  “Go, magic soldier! Kill them all!”

  Obeying Dextro’s order, the giant lumbered forward. Though it didn’t move very fast, it took steps commensurate to its massive size. It was closing the distance to Koutarou at a frightening pace. Alaia, who was still being held in its left hand, shouted out to him as they got closer.

  “Please run, Layous-sama! Without any antidote, I won’t survive anyway! So please save as many people as you can!”

  It was neither a cry for help, nor an order for him to fight. It was merely a worried plea for Koutarou’s safety. Alaia didn’t think even he could win against the giant, so she wanted him to escape. She didn’t want him to die in vain for her sake. And if it were an option, she wanted him to take as many villagers with him as possible.

  Your Highness...

  Hearing Alaia’s words, Koutarou shook off the shock of the giant’s appearance and made up his mind. He adjusted the grip on his sword’s handle and called out to Clan.

  “Clan, you get away!”

  “What are you going to do?!”

  “As if I could leave Princess Alaia behind!”

  Koutarou pointed his sword at the giant. Alaia was still in enemy hands. That’s why, because of the oath he had sworn on his sword, he couldn’t run away.

  Theia, nothing like this was in the play!

  While glaring at the oncoming giant, Koutarou internally berated Theia.

  “So the Blue Knight kid didn’t run off, eh? Good,” Dextro mumbled in a voice so low that no one could hear him. He was actually feeling relieved.

  After he’d confirmed that Alaia was suffering from the poison, she was no longer Dextro’s primary target. The opponent he needed to defeat was Koutarou, the powerful knight who hadn’t even been affected by the poison. Even if she got away, Alaia’s fate was sealed. But if he let someone who could take on several dozen men on his own escape, he would just become a bigger thorn in his side down the line. And since he didn’t seem to be ill, he couldn’t count on letting the poison run its course like he could with Alaia. Worse, he was sure to be scolded by Maxfern if he let him get away. It could cost him his promotion. Dextro considered it a necessity to put an end to Koutarou here and now.

  And that being the case, it would have been most troublesome for him if Koutarou had abandoned Alaia and run off. That’s why Dextro was glad to see Koutarou had stayed put and was still willing to fight.

  “Tch, this is turning out to be a real pain!”

  Koutarou dodged the giant’s huge axe with wide, evasive steps. The edge of the axe buried itself deep into the ground instead. With that kind power, it was uncertain whether or not his barrier could protect him against it.

  The giant moved on its own, but it had no mind of its own, so Koutarou wasn’t able to read its moves like he could with the soldiers. All he could do was jump out of the way of its attacks. His only saving grace was that the giant moved much slower than he did, so it wasn’t all that hard to dodge.

  “Haaaaaaaah!”

  Taking advantage of the opening he had while its axe was stuck the ground, Koutarou leaped towards the giant and swung his sword. The blade crashed into the front of its metal body. It hit, but the sword bounced off the giant’s armor. Because of the giant’s size, its plating was quite thick. Even with the aid of his power-assisted armor, Koutarou could only scratch it.

  “Damn, the sword does nothing!”

  Koutarou quickly jumped back. As he did, the axe came flying up, almost grazing Koutarou’s face.

  “Of course not, you idiot. It’s useless. You’re powerless against it.”

  “Shut up!”

  “Oh, scary. Well, keep trying, Blue Knight. Heh heh...”

  As Dextro laughed, Koutarou repeatedly attacked the giant. Every single swing bounced off without any real damage. He started to target the joints on the lower half of the giant’s body, but it seemed to have no effect either. They were almost as heavily armored as the rest of the giant.

  “Veltlion, use the same attack you used when you cut the Super Space-time Repulsion Shell in half! That should be enough to cut this giant in half too!”

  Clan’s voice came through the communicator in Koutarou’s armor. She had seen Koutarou make his sword shine bright white several times now. It could cut through barriers, split beams, and even cleave her repulsion shells in half. She figured an attack of that strength would surely do something against the giant.

  “No can do!”

  However, Koutarou shook his head while continuing to dodge the giant’s attacks.

  “Why not?!”

  “I’m not the one doing that! It always lights up and helps me when I’m in trouble! It’s not something I do myself!”

  “What?!”

  The light that made Saguratin glow only showed up when Koutarou was in danger or when he was extremely angry. It lent him power, but Koutarou had no way of controlling it or summoning it.

  “And we’ve been in this world for a while, but it hasn’t glowed once yet! We can’t count on it!”

  “Fine, I guess I don’t have a choice! Leave this to me!”

  Clan stood up as she spoke. She was currently on top of a roof several dozen meters away from Koutarou and the giant.

  “Cradle! The anti-material beam rifle!”

  “As you wish, my princess.”

  As Clan gave orders into her bracelet, a black hole appeared next to her with a big barrel sticking out of it. Clan waited for it to fully emerge from the black hole before taking the gun with both hands. She was now holding on to a giant anti-material beam rifle. It was the largest weapon she could handle herself, and its power was considerable. There was just one major flaw. The rifle was so large that she couldn’t move with it, so she could only use it for sniping once.

  If this doesn’t work, we’re out of options...

  Clan took aim from the rooftop. Koutarou was keeping the giant busy, and its massive body was slow to move. It was the perfect target for sniping.

  But if this didn’t work, there wouldn’t be anything else they could do. Because of its limited storage capacity, the Cradle didn’t have a lot of weapons on board, and the anti-material beam rifle was the strongest of them all. There was still one more repulsion shell, but if she used that, the entire village would be wiped out.

  Clan carefully took aim. Since Alaia was still in the giant’s left hand, she needed to make sure she didn’t hit that area.

  If I’d known this was going to happen, I would have gotten in more combat practice!

  While she rued the weight of the responsibility on her shoulders, Clan lined up her target in the crosshairs. She was aiming right for the giant’s head.

  “I’m firing, Veltlion!”

  Clan pulled the trigger as she shouted to Koutarou. He was still fighting the giant, but since she was aiming for its head, there wasn�
�t much worry about hitting him. Letting him know she fired was mostly a courtesy.

  A glowing white beam shot out from the enormous barrel. Since the weapon used electromagnetism to accelerate heavy metal particles, there was no recoil like with standard weapons that relied on gunpowder. Even so, Clan’s body was still pushed backwards by the reactionary force. That’s just how powerful the beam was. The beam flew through the air and closed the several dozen meter gap in the blink of an eye. The slow, massive giant had no way of dodging something that fast. The beam struck the giant’s head spot on.

  “Kyaaah!”

  “All right!”

  Alaia let out a scream of surprise at the sudden flash, while Koutarou cheered in celebratory joy that Clan’s attack had hit.

  “Did I hit it?!”

  Still holding the rifle, Clan looked up at the giant. There was some smoke around the giant’s head, but she could clearly see what had happened from where she was. Having taken a direct hit from the beam, the giant’s head had been completely blown off. The beam had pierced through the left side of the chin and exited through the back of the head. The head was shattered by the impact, and steam and steel fragments rained down on Dextro and the magicians.

  “D-Damn it! That woman again!”

  Dextro swatted away the falling debris and glared at Clan up on the rooftop. He had completely lost his temper. The invincible soldier he had put so much faith in was now injured. And by a young girl, no less. Every time he was sure of his victory, it had been taken away from him. That left Dextro boiling with rage.

  “Kill them, and start with that woman!”

  Dextro pointed the translucent globe in his hand at Clan. As he did, the headless giant began moving again. Unlike a human, losing its head wasn’t enough to defeat it.

  “It can still move?!”

  “Ahahaha! Die!”

  The giant lifted its axe and pulled its arm backward.

  “It can’t be— Clan, get away from there right now!”

  “What?!”

  Just as Koutarou tried to warn Clan, the giant hurled its axe with all its might. The steel axe spun through the air in a short arc towards Clan. It was far larger than she was, and made for a terrifying projectile. It would surely kill her instantly if it hit.

  “This is not funny!”

  Clan threw her rifle down and jumped for cover on the roof. However, the axe’s real target wasn’t Clan, but the building she was on. If it was destroyed, Clan would be caught in its collapse. It was a much safer move than aiming directly for Clan and risking a miss.

  “Kyaaaaah!”

  “Clan!”

  Just as Dextro had planned, the axe easily obliterated the wooden house. Clan vanished from Koutarou’s view in the collapse. All that was left was a mountain of rubble with the axe sticking out of it.

  “Clan-sama!”

  “Hey, Clan! Answer me!”

  Alaia screamed and Koutarou called for Clan through his armor’s communicator. But there was only static on the other end.

  “Oh, did that woman die? Too bad. If she’s alive now though, she’ll just get trampled. Muahahaha!”

  “Clan! Clan!”

  Please be safe, Clan!

  Koutarou called for her over and over, but the only thing reaching his ears was Dextro’s laughter. There was still nothing but static coming from the communicator. Not a peep from Clan.

  “Now then, you’re up next, Blue Knight!”

  The giant reached around to its back and pulled out a hammer. Since it was a spare weapon, it was smaller than the axe, but it was still around two meters long.

  “Here it comes.”

  Koutarou put his concern for Clan aside for the moment and readied his sword. However, since he knew that his sword wasn’t going to work, he wasn’t sure what to do.

  What am I supposed to do?! How can I win against this thing?!

  But the giant didn’t give Koutarou any time to think. It came charging right for him, hammer in hand. Since it was smaller than the axe, the giant could swing it faster. It repeatedly struck the barrier protecting Koutarou, greatly shaving away at the energy reserves used to maintain it.

  “Warning: At the current rate of energy usage, it will be impossible to maintain the barrier for longer than a minute.”

  “So it’s going to be a battle of attrition at this rate!”

  Koutarou dodged away from the hammer while desperately racking his brain. As hard as he tried to think, he couldn’t come up with any good ideas. If he ran away, the villagers and Alaia’s party would be in danger. That said, he had no idea how to defeat the giant. Koutarou was stumped.

  “Blue Knight.”

  Koutarou’s frantic thoughts were interrupted by a voice he heard inside his head.

  “Who’s there?!”

  “It’s me, Caris.”

  The voice belonged to Caris, but then he heard a second voice too.

  “Layous-sama?!”

  It was Alaia. As Koutarou looked up, his eyes met with Alaia’s as she was held fast by the unyielding grasp of the metal giant.

  “I can hear Layous-sama and Caris-sama’s voice inside my head? What is...”

  “Caris, what is this?!”

  Koutarou continued fighting the giant, though he was most puzzled by the sudden voices in his head. He started aiming for the thin fingers on the giant’s right hand. He was hoping to cut them off in order to keep it from using the hammer.

  “Since the situation is urgent, I’ll keep it brief. The reason we can talk like this is thanks to the power of magic. You can communicate with people far away without actually having to speak.”

  “So this is... magic? How convenient.”

  Koutarou’s sword was actually able to do some damage to the giant’s fingers, but a single strike wasn’t enough to sever them. He would need to land a few more swings to do the job.

  “According to Lidith, that giant is a type of magic doll.”

  A magic doll was a puppet created by giving life to something inanimate via magic. Such dolls were known by different names depending on what they were made out of. If it was made out of soil, for example, it would be a clay golem. Rocks made stone golems, and so on.

  Through a control gem, the magic doll followed the orders of anyone it had been registered to obey. That meant that even if the gem was stolen, an unauthorized operator couldn’t take control of it. Registering a new operator required a special ritual.

  Moreover, once the doll had been given an order, it was capable of making its own decisions to a certain degree. In other words, it was an artificial life form with an incredibly simple mind. Even if they destroyed the gem in Dextro’s hand, the giant would probably continue fighting. Such properties made fighting magic dolls rather troublesome.

  “That giant’s body is made of steel created by Maxfern’s alchemists, so it would probably be called a steel golem. Lidith is saying that she saw something like it being produced in the atelier.”

  Lidith was Maxfern’s niece, and she had studied alchemy at his atelier. During her time there, she had seen a large golem being created.

  “According to Lidith, various other alchemical enhancements have been added to it, so it will be hard to defeat. But since it’s a magic doll, it has a weakness.”

  “A weakness?! It actually has a weakness?!”

  Koutarou kept swinging his sword while talking to Caris telepathically. This was certainly something he didn’t want Dextro to hear.

  “It does. Inside the left side of its chest where a human’s heart would be, there’s a crystal roughly the size of a human fist. Destroy that.”

  “Will that defeat it?!”

  “Yes. I’ve created magic dolls myself, so I’m absolutely certain. That crystal is absorbing energy from nature and converting it into mana to move its body. You can see the flow of spiritual energy, right? Aim for the spot where the spiritual energy is most concentrated.”

  “Got it! I’ll give it a try!”

  Now
that he knew what he needed to do, Koutarou’s expression eased up. He eyed the left side of the giant’s chest... and then he froze.

  “By the left side of its chest, you mean...”

  “That’s right. That’s why I’m talking to both you and Princess Alaia.”

  The giant was covering its left side using Alaia.

  “I don’t mind. Please do it.”

  “What are you saying? There’s no way I could do that!”

  “Layous-sama, I will die from the poison either way. You can’t trade your life and the lives of the villagers for mine.”

  With Alaia in the way, Koutarou couldn’t attack from where he was now. He would have to circle around and attack it from behind, but it wouldn’t be easy. Aware of that, Alaia asked Koutarou to go ahead and attack regardless of what would happen to her.

  “Your Highness, I can’t do that.”

  “You don’t have any other options.”

  Koutarou firmly rejected Alaia’s idea, desperately racking his brain for another plan.

  What can I do? How can I attack the left side of its chest without harming Her Highness?

  As Koutarou was thinking, the giant brought its hammer down in front of him. While it was stuck in the ground, Koutarou swung his sword at the giant’s fingers once more. He hit the same place he had before, deepening the cut that was already there.

  Oh?

  An idea suddenly flashed through Koutarou’s mind.

  “Yeah, we could do that!”

  “Layous-sama!”

  Since they were telepathically connected, the idea was instantaneously transmitted to Alaia and Caris. They both supported his idea, and there was a discernable hint of hopefulness in their thoughts.

  “But what do we do before that? How can you crack that thick armor?”

  “That’s...”

  Koutarou’s idea hit a roadblock. He had a plan, but he hadn’t come up with a way to get to the crystal through the giant’s heavy armor.

  “Don’t worry, Layous-sama.”