The Ivory Knight
Leon had obtained the cores from over a hundred scorpion golems. He had no idea how much time had passed during the process. After extracting every core, stowing all the wreckage inside the orb, and stepping back out, the passage lay clean once more.
Should I push on farther…?
Now that he could finally use magic properly, Leon had no intention of stopping here. The deep passage naturally came to an end.
“Stairs?”
A staircase leading farther down appeared within the cave. It looked like it descended into even deeper levels.
The ascending stairs were probably in the right-hand passage, then?
After a moment’s hesitation, Leon set his foot on the downward steps. The staircase spiraled continuously. The softly illuminated steps, lit by the light orbs, seemed carved from rough stone, yet each one maintained perfectly uniform height and width.
Whoever built this was incredibly meticulous.
Leon descended as cautiously as possible, one step at a time, until the sight on the floor below stole his breath.
A knight…?
A massive door stood imposingly at the bottom of the stairs. Before it, a knight clad in ivory armor blocked the way with its head bowed low. To be precise, it was a knight golem.
Did the ancient mage have a thing for oversized constructs?
The knight stood roughly half the height of the enormous door—about three times Leon’s own stature. It was even larger than the guardian golem he possessed. Beside the knight rested an equally ivory greatsword.
After watching warily for some time, Leon realized the knight golem wasn’t active.
The scorpion golems moved, so it can’t be completely inoperable. Which means…
It would probably activate the moment he tried to approach the door. Though convinced it was a golem, Leon finished every possible battle preparation in case of the unexpected. He slipped into the orb and completely refreshed all his memorized spells.
The reason for such thorough readiness—even though it was the same type of construct as the scorpions—was the sword lying next to the knight. He couldn’t be certain the wooden sword’s ability would work on that armor, either.
Using mana infusion to enhance himself, Leon carefully sent the wooden sword drifting toward the inside of the knight’s helmet. His plan was to disrupt it the same way he had the scorpions.
But the instant the wooden sword entered a certain range, the knight’s bowed head snapped up with a sharp motion. It seized the greatsword beside it and struck the wooden sword away in a blur.
Retrieving the deflected blade, Leon confirmed the knight was fully operational.
Just as I thought…!
The sword the knight wielded was an entirely separate weapon from its core. Touching it with the wooden sword wouldn’t deactivate anything. Within the dark confines of the ivory helmet, where the face was impossible to make out, a single glowing red eye fixed on Leon.
The moment their gazes met, the knight charged at him like a bolt of lightning. Its sweeping greatsword hurtled forward as if to erase the very spot where Leon stood. The speed exceeded his expectations, so he gripped the wooden sword and poured mana into a Blink scroll.
Blink was a lesser teleportation spell that let the user move a set distance to any location currently within sight. Appearing directly in front of the door, Leon spotted a lever behind the knight’s original position.
Still, the knight had to be dealt with first. He immediately summoned an earth-attribute creature using one of Arpina’s basic four-star spells. Of the four spells he had memorized, all except Pierce were Arpina’s foundational magics.
Using Swell to enlarge the sword and then firing it with Pierce would have been convenient, but at the basic level the two spells didn’t link particularly well. Casting one canceled the other.
The knight pivoted and advanced on Leon again.
Mages tended to scorn weapon-augmenting magic for two reasons. The power itself was often weak, and even when strong, its effective range remained limited. If the weapon was exceptional, that might not matter—but otherwise, any spell that relied entirely on a physical tool had clear limitations.
Magic that simply flung weapons around was already looked down upon; facing a knight who actually wielded a blade? For mages capable of enhancing their bodies with mana infusion, it wasn’t an especially difficult opponent.
Of course, when it’s this large and this fast… it does become rather troublesome.
On top of that, recalling the scorpion golem’s defenses, the fact that apprentice-level spells had no effect at all posed a serious problem.
Leon nimbly leaped sideways to avoid the knight’s downward strike. The blade slammed into the ground, shaking the earth. Sensing Leon’s proximity to the lever, the knight charged even faster.
To buy time for additional summons, Leon used another Blink scroll. Reappearing on the opposite side, he called forth Arpina’s three-star and two-star summons in quick succession.
Two Blink scrolls left…
He would have to use the remaining scrolls with extreme care. In a high-speed battle, retreating into the orb at a critical moment was risky. While it might save him immediately, emerging again without a clear grasp of the situation could prove fatal. Blink was the only ability capable of creating a major variable.
A wind spirit and a small bird wreathed in flames circled around Leon. He had summoned all three creatures at once to distract the knight, creating an opening to shoot the wooden sword through its helmet. Whether the other apprentice spells worked was irrelevant—as long as the wooden sword made contact.
Calling forth three summons at once caused his mana to drain away in heavy chunks. He spread the creatures out widely around the knight and raised his power. The knight immediately lifted its sword into a defensive stance.
Seeing that reaction, Leon became certain the construct had no way to measure an opponent’s level. He chanted the linking activation word.
“Trillapida.”
A brown-haired mole burst from the ground, and a mass of stone coalesced before it before hurtling toward the knight. The boulder—large enough to completely cover Leon’s body—didn’t stop at one strike. Three consecutive stones flew at the knight in rapid succession.
The knight blocked the spell with ease.
Undeterred, Leon pulled out a pile of F-rank and E-rank attack scrolls he hadn’t disposed of after the exchange event and hurled them at the knight. The very items he had kept hidden to conceal his strength now proved useful.
“Wind Cutter.”
Linking the spell through the wind summon, he unleashed dozens of offensive magics at once. Earth walls erupted around the knight, flames surged from the floor, a barrage of magic missiles, triple fireballs, and blades of wind all converged.
They weren’t powerful spells individually, but the sheer volume scattered the knight’s focus.
Now!
“Pierce!”
Leon launched the wooden sword straight into the gap in the knight’s helmet. Infused with nearly all his remaining mana, the blade shot forward like a bullet and lodged deep inside.
The spells the knight failed to block left not even a scratch on its armor, but that no longer mattered. The construct’s body began to creak and tilt sideways.
Thud.
Watching the knight collapse completely, Leon let out a sigh of relief and retrieved the wooden sword. He approached cautiously and examined it from every angle, discovering that inside the helmet there was no face—only a smooth, spherical core.
The red glow he had mistaken for an eye had simply been the core’s light. He then realized the armor itself was hollow.
So the armor was moving on its own…
In essence, it was an armor golem. He hadn’t needed to target the helmet specifically; touching any part of the armor would have deactivated it.
Success is success, but… the core is completely destroyed.
Unlike the scorpion golem whose circuits had simply been disrupted, this core—struck directly—had lost all light. In the end, he had defeated it through pure skill rather than relying on the wooden sword’s special property.
Without needing to extract the core, Leon stored the entire suit of armor inside the orb, then turned his attention to the fallen greatsword.
I should take the greatsword too…
It almost felt like he had become a mage only to collect swords, but he placed the greatsword inside the orb regardless.
Before opening the door, Leon returned to the orb once more to restore his mana and refresh his memorized spells.
I’ve used up a lot of orb time…
Most of the hours he had saved before reaching fourth class had been spent ascending to that rank. Upon reaching fourth class he had received four hundred hours, but attending the exchange event immediately afterward meant he couldn’t complete the associated quest and had continued burning through the reserve. Learning the Sword that Scatters Moonlight had consumed a particularly large amount. Only one hundred sixty-four hours remained.
I can’t keep pretending to be an ordinary person anymore…
He needed time to train freely without worrying about watchful eyes. Becoming a formal disciple had been partly to buy a year’s grace—after which he could claim moderate mana awakening and stop hiding. But seeing the remaining time, he decided there was no point in delaying further. He also had the perfect excuse of exploring the ancient mage’s lair.
…Do I even need to return to Widia?
The thought flickered through his mind, but Lia’s face immediately followed, along with Rowen’s.
I should at least let them know I’m alive.
With his mana fully restored, Leon returned to reality. He pulled the lever, and both doors scraped against the floor as they slowly swung open.
Rumble—
The cave trembled. A narrow gap appeared, but Leon waited until the full interior came into view before stepping through. When the doors stood completely open, the revealed space looked largely identical to the passage he had traversed before descending the stairs.
The sole difference was the presence of rooms spaced at regular intervals along both walls. The doors were not quite as large as the one the knight had guarded, but they were still imposing.
Keeping the wooden sword floating around him, Leon approached the nearest door and slowly pulled its lever.
Boom—
The space beyond was narrower than expected.
Now this finally feels like a mage’s workspace…
In the otherwise bare room stood a solitary table. On it lay an unexpectedly well-preserved scroll, spread open. Beside the scroll rested a red-covered book and a quill pen. The writing on the scroll remained remarkably clear, with almost no fading or discoloration.
Magically preserved, perhaps?
To my dear colleague Marcellus,
Are you still striving to draw closer to the Origin today? Once again, I imagine your beautiful dance of mana must be embracing the world.
I have no wish to disparage your passion, but would you listen to a friend’s sigh-laden confession?
…The world has become blinded by elemental magic and now scorns our noble arts. They call it mere technology, yet it too is part of the ‘Origin.’ Bewitched by dazzling flames and raging storms, they fail to see the wonders of life creation we have achieved. (Omitted)
I enclose a portion of my research findings. Should it interest you, I would be grateful for a reply. Your support and friendship have always been a great source of strength. Even if our path is lonely and arduous, I am thankful to have colleagues who watch over it.
Your eternal colleague,
— Megrippa von Wittgenstein
So the golems really were created by the ancient mage.
Megrippa-style Secrets of Creation (Basics)
It seems this letter was never sent… What happened?
Leon opened the red-covered book.
The complete fundamental theories required to create golems…
It began with the history of golem creation, followed by explanations of the necessary materials, golem structure, core manufacturing, and the basics of linking magic circuits. Leon had assumed it would be a simple magic-engineering manual, but it turned out to be genuine magic.
Golems could be made to operate according to fixed commands, but they could also be controlled directly through the caster’s will.
I wonder if there’s an advanced volume.
He searched the empty room thoroughly but found no advanced text. Let’s check the other rooms.
Leon left and moved to the room directly opposite. The space beyond this door was noticeably larger. In one corner he found a pile of ivory armor—remnants of the guardian knight’s suit, missing only the helmet.
So this was where they manufactured the golems.
He stored everything in the orb and examined the remaining rooms. Most were similar: piles of scorpion golem wreckage, and one chamber containing a gargoyle golem with a humanoid body and wings whose head had been cleanly severed. All ten rooms followed the same pattern.
This entire floor is dedicated to golem production… But why didn’t any gargoyles appear earlier?
With heightened caution, Leon opened the final remaining door. The room was similarly spacious and bare, yet one feature stood out sharply.
A training room…?
A large circular stone platform rose at the center, surrounded by magic circles engraved across the floor and walls—protective arrays. Leon had never seen one in person, but he had heard that high-ranking mages covered their training chambers with such circles to contain magical backlash.
Around the platform lay the scattered remains of numerous golems. All of them still contained cores, and the majority were gargoyles. Unlike the autonomous models, these showed no movement despite their cores. Perhaps they had been directly controlled.
It was said one could directly command hundreds of golems at once…
Of course, the basic volume of Secrets of Creation contained no such instructions. The traces of magic around the platform suggested either that the gargoyles themselves could cast spells, or that the lair’s owner possessed other magical abilities besides golem creation.
It feels too ominous to step inside.
Unable to confirm whether the circles were purely defensive, Leon hesitated. Let’s leave this one alone.
The moment he turned to leave, a brilliant flash erupted from the magic circle. The light reached even Leon where he stood outside the door. Reflexively, he raised the wooden sword to block it and shouted the activation word.
“Swell!”
The light flared. For an instant Leon’s vision went black, then returned to reveal a far darker, narrower space than before. And the wooden sword he had definitely enlarged with magic had vanished from sight.