The Knights' Spring (6)

The bronze giants were a threat. As if determined to prove they were no mere model kits beaten together out of metal, they moved of their own will, actively hunting to wipe their enemies out. When a human shape turned without warning into a beast and lunged, even he flinched.

Creak. Crack.

"Uoooo!!!"

"Oh, and now you're a bull?"

The bronze giant that had become a bull charged. Its horns flashed, keen enough that a mere touch looked as if it would split a torso in two, but Lee Han caught them in both hands.

Diamond Body. The cutting edge was nowhere near enough to sever his hands. The strength, though, was another matter.

Creeeak...!

Muscle heaved through his whole body. Stopping the all-out charge of a colossal bronze bull with his bare flesh was possible only because it was him; the very premise of a human wrestling a thing like that for strength was an error from the start. And yet Lee Han did it. He was the man who had at last made a seven-ton squat possible. It was the fruit of effort. His strength grew by the day, and the quality of the muscle grew with it. He was still a long way from the ten-ton deadlift he was aiming for, but a bull of this sort...

I only have to throw it!

Lee Han used Gyeong.

The release of a strength that was already immense produced a power that could lift even a mass ‍‍‌‌⁠​​⁠‌​​‍​​‍​‌​⁠‍‌‍⁠⁠‌⁠‌‍‌‍‌‌‌‍⁠​‌​‌​‌‍‌‌‌⁠‍​​‌‍⁠‌‌⁠⁠far beyond his own. An ant hauls prey many times its size all the way back to the nest. A rhinoceros beetle or a stag beetle, clenched in the hand, sends an extraordinary force through the whole body. Lee Han's Gyeong could put out a force of that same extraordinary kind.

Of course, learning Gyeong did not make it possible for just anyone. To bear thousands of kilograms as a matter of course meant a Vessel had been forged that could hold that mass in calm, and a strength like this belonged only to the one who had made that Vessel.

"Hraaaaaah!!"

Lee Han roared as if driving a focusing shout through his body. A shout was not merely a roar. It was one of the things that woke the strength of the whole body to a still greater pitch. His cry, laden with fighting spirit, pealed until the air rang, and the mages nearby burst their eardrums and clutched at their ears more often than not.

Rumble...!

But more unbelievable than ruptured eardrums was the sight of the bronze bull being heaved into the air, legs flailing. In a fight he could not tell for dream or reality, Lee Han threw the bull just as it was.

Which way?

Where else.

"——!?"

Toward the other bronze giants.

A tremendous boom shook the air all at once. A collision with a flying bronze bull could not help but deliver an enormous impact.

And yet.

Spurt!

"...That hurts."

Even Lee Han had not come through unhurt. In hurling the bronze bull he had spent strength past his limit, and blood burst from his palms.

Too crude?

Brute force really was not the better way. A man ought to use his head while he fought. Still.

Not that I can keep spending Sword River, damn it.

He had managed, in the end, to cut three bronze giants apart, but after that he had to stop using Sword River, if only for the sake of his stamina. Unlike Roen, who brought it out as naturally as breathing, he still wasted far too much power. Free use was impossible. He would need more time to refine it. In that sense, the bronze giants that remained had to be faced without Sword River.

If bronze giants were all he had to fight, he could keep drawing Sword River whether his stamina bottomed out or not. But by the feel of it...

I don't think this ends with bronze giants and old spell-slingers.

Lee Han's instinct told him so. There were still things left in the Magic Tower. Things far more threatening than the enemies that had already come out. Well, now.

Yeah. This is how spell-slingers ought to be.

They were living up to expectations, no denying it. Lee Han, a man who hated and scorned mages in exact proportion to how highly he rated them, felt, ironically, a measure of relief that the Magic Tower was not weak.

...It was a sight that showed all too clearly how frightening a crooked love and hate could be.

Meanwhile, the whole of the Empire had gone mad.

The Castle in the Sky, a landmark of the Empire, suddenly pitching down toward the earth was a sight that anyone in a position to see it had no choice but to see, and the news shook every corner of the Empire before long.

The news reached countless people, royalty, nobility, and commoners alike, and the Empire hurried into council. The question on the table was whether they ought to go and save the Magic Tower, or whether they ought not. But the Empire as it stood was a wreck, and even the officials who should have attended only stirred themselves in a lukewarm way. Besides, the Empire of this age was thick with private grudges against the Magic Tower. Moving slowly was only natural.

There were border-kings and great vassals still judged sound enough, but their thoughts leaned toward not going to the Tower's aid at all. If the Magic Tower took damage, they mused, might the imperial house and the central nobles not suffer as well? Cause and effect. It was a passage that showed just how much resentment the Tower had piled up, and how thoroughly it had made itself hated in every corner of the Empire.

...And yet, one thing.

They had certainly heard that the Magic Tower had suffered enormous harm, and even so—

"—beneath it all there lies a certainty, and a trust, that the Magic Tower cannot truly be defeated."

It was no illusion that every soul in the Empire showed a hard conviction the Tower could not vanish. Let it meet a crisis; they took it as given that the Tower would overcome that crisis whenever it must.

"Because it is that Magic Tower."

"...Right. The Magic Tower."

"......Is the Magic Tower really that amazing?"

"......"

"A-a person can not know things! Th-there are plenty of things I haven't seen!"

"...I was only startled by so unexpected a remark. If I was rude, I apologize, my lady."

"Hmph. Forget it!"

"...Haha..."

The gray-haired boy laughed awkwardly, at a loss amid the edged exchange of two young people with very strong personalities. But a moment later, in the black-haired boy's stead, he turned kindly toward the beautiful girl of gold hair and blue eyes, lovely as if a fairy had come down, and explained.

"...They are an organization that has commanded the Empire for more than a thousand years, so from an imperial citizen's point of view it is only natural that the premise they cannot fall is already laid down. ...That they would survive to the very end even if their own country collapsed."

"...At that level, isn't it a little like faith?"

"Faith of that sort could well arise. The power they have gathered across more than a thousand years is great enough that even Pendragon cannot ignore it."

"Hmm. Is that so...?"

"...?"

"If they're that great... then why are they getting beaten like that by the instructor and Sir Rak?"

"......"

...For a moment the gray-haired boy, Derek, lost every word he had. Even he could not open his mouth to answer Irene Windler's question.

And in his place—

"...Those two are simply abnormal."

The black-haired swordsman, Roen, answered with a thoroughly sickened look. Well, being sick of it was no strange thing.

Bronze giants. I'm certain every one of those is a weapon on the level of 7.5...

Bronze giants. The craft's name was Talos. Invincible bronze soldiers, giants in which all the wisdom of the Magic Tower had been gathered. The strength they possessed was about three times an ogre's, and their movements were as nimble as a hyena's. On top of that they could repair themselves, breathe fire of fifteen hundred degrees, and transform into the shapes of beasts.

A single unit is a mighty weapon that could destroy five cities.

And there were fully twelve such weapons. With that many, could they not erase a minor kingdom in a day...?

"...The instructor is toying with them all by himself."

Derek watched the instructor's fight through the skills Magnify and Enhanced Vision. Truly, toying with them. When the man lifted a bronze bull alone and hurled it, Derek's legs nearly gave out beneath him. Was that really a strength a human being could produce?

"No. He is not toying with them. The instructor, too, is giving it everything he has."

"...Pardon?"

"He is driving them with skill, strength, and spirit. He is only overextending himself a little. He is conserving his energy."

"Th-that's him conserving his energy?"

"Yes. He is likely preparing for the next opponent."

"......"

...Did a warrior's eyes truly see so differently? Roen watched the fight from a gaze unlike Derek's, and his expression hardened into something grave.

"Heeh. So that's it. Then Sir Rak is saving his strength right now, too."

Irene Windler, who had been watching the distant battle through a convex lens made of water mana, gave her attention to Rak's fight. Since she knew his face, she was looking to see how he fought. Not yielding an inch even against five archmages, picking their magic apart and answering instead with lethal killing arts—Rak's figure was enough, quite literally, to send a chill down the spine. If Lee Han's battle was a precarious circus, Rak's was the feeling of watching precision gymnastics. A fight in which not even a hairline mistake could be allowed.

As expected of the Dire Wolf.

Well, he is a Lv. 8 Hero. Of course.

The two boys' assessments diverged. The regressor who knew the future remembered just how mighty an existence the Dire Wolf was, and the other merely nodded, because he knew that even among the Hero Class of their own generation the man sat at the highest tier.

And in addition—

Ding—.

As expected.

Traits astonishing enough to suit the highest tier.

Heaven-Slaying Star and Ghost Talent must have been kept in check thanks to the Duke of Galahad. Normally the proper course is to climb to level 6 and then self-destruct, but this...

Master of All Arms, Iron Body—well, with talent of that order, of course he'd obtain them.

Embodier of Mysteries. Whoa. That one's just straight cheating. How does he even have something like that...?

River Guardian... I remember it showing an efficiency on par with Giant Slayer. Completely rare.

All-Rounder!? If he has that too, he's just broken, isn't he? This man wasn't even a character made to win, and yet this...

The more he looked, the more a hollow laugh escaped him. Heaven-Slaying Star and Ghost Talent alone were already the very top, and every other trait was nothing short of first-tier as well. In truth, looking at traits alone, the man possessed a potential greater than anyone's.

Of course, not everything is decided by traits.

Right in front of him, the traits of Maximus, the Northern Great Warrior, had held elements that overwhelmed the instructor, and even so the instructor had not been pushed back in a real fight. Traits only set a person's talent and ability down in writing. They did not show the gap in strength. They were nothing but tools, and how those tools were used was the individual's own share.

Above all, right now a level-8 powerhouse possessed of those solid traits was fighting on the instructor's side. Fighting the archmages. So the thing they had to do was this.

"Young master, young lady, we ought to move. Honestly, we're late."

Wasn't completing the mission the instructor had given them the thing that mattered? At Derek's words the young man and woman nodded, aware that this was no time to stand idle and watch those battles.

Even so...

"We did not arrive late because we wished to. If anything, I should think the strange ones are those two, ‍‍‌‌⁠​​⁠‌​​‍​​‍​‌​⁠‍‌‍⁠⁠‌⁠‌‍‌‍‌‌‌‍⁠​‌​‌​‌‍‌‌‌⁠‍​​‌‍⁠‌‌⁠⁠who got here faster than we did, and we flew."

"The artifact Assistant Instructor Derek brought isn't defective, is it?"

"...It is not defective. Those two are simply abnormal. And more to the point, I am not an assistant instructor!"

"R-right. Of course."

They had not been late because they wanted to be late. If anything, it seemed stranger that the pair who had come running had arrived faster than those who had flown in on an artifact. Clicking their tongues at the instructor's lesson, which taught with his own body that nothing was impossible for a human being, the three moved quickly all the same to carry out the mission.

"...I wonder if our kids have shown up by now."

Lee Han called to mind two young men and one young woman he could trust. He had not wanted to drag them in to begin with, but just in case, he had sent word ahead through that Taechang brat. From what he'd heard, they had a flight artifact, so they could make the trip well enough. Was that it?

If it hadn't been built for only three, I'd have ridden the thing myself.

He was smirking at the idle thought when—

...Screee...screeeee...eeek!

"...Ah, don't get mad. I'm not looking down on you."

Lee Han shrugged at his opponent. He had only worried, for a moment, about how well the kids would handle the work. Wasn't that only natural?

So.

"Get some proper rest."

"------."

...Screeee.........

Thud...!

The last remaining bronze giant reached toward Lee Han to the very end, and could not touch him. ...Because it locked in place and ceased to function.

"...A tough one."

Lee Han clicked his tongue. It had been strong. Not merely because its power was great, or because it knew how to transform and breathe fire. It had been filthy stubborn. However he beat it, the thing kept regenerating, and still it charged without end. It did not know exhaustion, and it came at him through methods ever more refined, ever a little better. Astonishing. So it had a capacity to learn, on top of restoration. Had this bronze giant developed even a little further, victory would not have been easy even for Lee Han.

But the winner was he, and the loser was the bronze giant.

So.

"Good work."

Tap.

Lee Han passed the bronze giant and gave it a light smack. As if to say it had done well.

Crackle...crumble....

The bronze giant became powder and vanished. It was the end of a guardian deity that had protected the Magic Tower for a thousand years at the Tower's command. Sadly, no one spared a glance even for an end like that.

And no wonder.

KRRRRRUMBLE!!

...A great battle was still being fought.

"Man. Those old spell-slingers really are vicious."

Storm clouds packing the sky rotated counterclockwise and formed a colossal air mass. Thunder and lightning, wind, and whirlwinds raged, sweeping everything away. A cyclone. A super-sized cyclone at that, falling upon the people below. After taking in, just once, that damned and magnificent landscape of destruction, Lee Han asked:

"You alive?"

"......"

"Hm. Dead at last?"

"...Don't kill me off as you please, scoundrel."

"Tsk. Alive."

"...You bastard!"

"Well, well."

Full of energy, the brat. Lee Han looked at the spell-slingers strewn around the spearman. Thirty, was it? Every last one of them had lost their head. But there was no need to waste a look on trash of that sort. What mattered were the five old spell-slingers, troublesome as trouble could be.

In that sense.

"...So all you managed was cutting off one arm?"

"Kh—!"

Having done nothing but sever one arm from a single old spell-slinger, the sight was thoroughly disappointing. It was Lee Han's rebuke, and Rak ground his teeth as if he could not bear it. As if it were a rebuke even he had no choice but to accept.

......Even though, from the mages' side, it was enough to drive a person mad.

The mages who heard their exchange only trembled, faces gone a bloodless blue. Like prey frozen stiff before its natural predator.