Guardian
Roy immediately activated Rapid Arthema, pushing his dynamic vision to its absolute limit.
Even a seasoned knight's blade would have looked as slow as a worm crawling through dirt. But the flash of light was, quite literally, as fast as light itself. Pure mana bolts were supposedly slower than that in reality—yet that was how it felt.
And he had thought he could swat them aside with a sword. Even he had to admit he was out of his mind.
The first attempt failed, of course. The second failed as well. Only on the third try did he finally catch the timing and swing.
—Clang!
The blade that met the flash shuddered violently. The impact nearly shattered his wrist; Roy ground his teeth until they creaked.
Half a success. He had managed to deflect the mana bolt's path by a fraction—but repeating that would change nothing.
Damn it. The timing is impossibly hard to catch!
What had just worked was pure luck. He couldn't fight the thing by gambling on accidents.
But getting close enough… that might still be possible.
"Gandaaaaaa!"
He had the measure of it now. With his casting speed amplified by Rapid Arthema, a Haste spell snapped into place in an instant. Roy poured mana into his sword until it overflowed, thrust the blade ahead of him, and sprinted on a diagonal.
Even if another flash came, it would hit the sword first and glance off.
It's not like I'm going to die, right?
He had the amulets. They would hold for at least a few hits.
Roy charged in the direction Noah had given him—never in a straight line, always cutting diagonally, then reversing, weaving without pattern. A straight approach, or any regular rhythm, would have been an open invitation to fire.
After a brutal, exhausting scramble, he finally arrived. The creature stood right before him.
"Hah… hah… damn it…"
Roy gasped for breath and thought, grimly, that without the Dragon's Breath he had recently obtained from Count Bacon, he never could have managed even this. Nearly half his mana was already gone—just from closing the distance.
"What is that? A centaur?"
The form at last revealed itself: a monster with a horse's body and a human torso and face. But the shape was only surface. Its true nature was something else entirely.
"…A golem in that shape."
Shhhhhhhh—
Mana from the surroundings poured furiously into the crossbow clutched in its hands. Even with his Golden Eyes, the sight left Roy stunned.
"Damn it—what kind of magic was used to make this?"
Even he, for all his pride in his own skill, had no technique that could produce something like that. To condense ambient mana and fire it like an arrow—even here, in the heart of a mana vein—and for a mere golem to do it…
—BOOM!
Every nearby building had already been reduced to rubble, no doubt by the creature's attacks. Only one structure remained untouched by time: a vast domed building, half mansion and half palace, rising intact behind the golem. That had to be the core of the sprawling mana vein that blanketed this entire area.
"A golem built to guard that building?"
Its entire body was metal that reflected its surroundings like a mirror; not a single joint was visible. It looked as if it had been forged entirely of silver and polished every morning—so bright that even in the near-lightless underground, the glow of mana from its crossbow made Roy's eyes sting.
How did the thing even move?
Roy rolled and twisted, dodging the flashes it fired. The closer range actually made evasion easier; he could even time his movements by watching its arms.
"Hah!"
An Aura Blade glowing crimson bit deep into the golem's hind leg. The edge sank in with almost no resistance.
"…!?"
And then—nothing. The path his sword had cut sealed itself in an instant, as if nothing had ever happened. Not a scratch, not so much as a nick remained where the blade had passed.
He repeated the same attacks again and again. None of them left so much as a mark on the golem.
But I know your weakness.
It was a golem. Destroy the mana core that powered it, and it would stop. With his Golden Eyes, locating that core should have been trivial.
But my chances aren't unlimited.
Maintaining Rapid Arthema was devouring mana at a terrifying rate. He would not get many more opportunities.
He wrapped his whole body in mana and moved fast, constantly circling to the golem's rear.
Tch. That doesn't work either.
The creature was not stupid enough to blast its own rump with a flash of pure mana.
Whoever made this—however great a mage they were—this is astonishing.
Golems were normally dull. Even programming one to mimic a dog or a cat took years of painstaking work, and the more complex the behavior, the more mana it consumed. A golem of this caliber would have demanded a mage as brilliant as Roy himself pouring an entire lifetime into the project.
"Whoa—!"
When Roy kept sticking to its hindquarters, the golem finally lashed out with a kick. He nearly took it full force. The sheer variety of its responses only made it more impressive the longer he watched.
"Is the core in its eyes?"
The golem's whole body shone silver, but only its two eyes and the crossbow in its hands were a different color. Roy sensed fierce mana in both eyes. Like the crossbow, they were voraciously drinking in the surrounding mana.
Given how much mana has accumulated in this vein… it could basically run forever.
Somehow, destroying the golem in front of him felt like a waste. It held the distilled essence of ancient magic.
But I don't have a choice.
He had to kill it if he wanted to continue the experiments he was running. Only then could he create and consume more Dragon's Breath and grow stronger still. And if he failed to bring it down now, his own mana would run dry first—and he would become the prey.
Roy attacked without hesitation. He baited a flash, then used the few seconds the crossbow needed to recharge to leap onto the golem's head. It was not an enormous bulk; he meant to smash the crown of its skull—and the mana cores set in both eyes—right then and there.
—Slash!
A chilling cry of steel as the blade carved a long horizontal line. The edge split both eyes clean open. The resistance was almost nothing, like cutting water.
Is that it?
Then—
—Kiiiiing!
"…!?"
What followed left Roy speechless. He had cut both eyes dead center…
What the hell?
Just as when he had severed a hind leg or carved into the torso, the golem stood perfectly whole. The crimson orbs that had been set in the path of his blade still glowed with undiminished light.
Did I misread it?
His Golden Eyes still registered the same mana. Once more. Again. He struck several times more; nothing worked. He even changed stance and switched to magic, launching a colossal mass of ice that punched clean through the creature's head and tore it clean off—only for the golem to regenerate to its original form in the blink of an eye.
"This… can't be…"
In the end, Roy had no choice but to rely on Noah.
"Watch yourself! You'll get yourself killed!"
"Kh—"
—CRASH!
After the failed attack, a kick sent Roy flying into a heap of rubble. The amulet kept him unharmed, but his mana was nearly spent.
"What do you think you're doing?! You'll die like this!"
Noah had appeared of his own accord, shouting in alarm. He had not broken any command. Under the terms of their recently renewed contract, the moment his master fell into real danger he was free to show himself and help.
"This is no good. Run!"
The amulet had spared him injury, but with mana exhaustion closing in, Roy dragged himself free of the wreckage with difficulty. Without mana, there was nothing he could do. He had no choice but to follow Noah's order.
He wrung out what little mana remained and ran for his life, deliberately weaving between the ruined buildings so the flashes streaking after him would have something to hit. Noah raced ahead and drew the golem's fire onto himself. Thanks to that, Roy took no direct hits until he finally slipped beyond the creature's awareness.
Still, he could not deny the thoroughness of his defeat.
News of the reckless boy's safe return eased the strained faces of those who had been waiting in worry. The boy who actually appeared, however, looked as if he had been dunked in something foul.
Freddy hurried over.
"What's with that face? Did you fail to identify it?"
"No. I identified it."
"Then why do you look like that?"
"I lost."
"What? Don't tell me you charged it alone?"
"Yes…"
"……"
Freddy and everyone within earshot gaped and fell silent for a long moment.
"H-how did you even get close? No—what was it?"
Roy told them everything exactly as he had experienced it. Only then did they understand the expression on his face.
"So you can't think of a way to take it down."
"The world really has everything. Did someone make a golem out of slime or what?"
"How are you supposed to kill something that gathers ambient mana and fires it? And this whole area is the heart of a mana vein?"
"Let's just leave. Just hearing there's a monster like that nearby gives me the chills."
Roy's brow tightened. Their words grated on him. He had not given up—far from it. The urge to bring the thing down was so strong he could barely stay still. His sour expression had nothing to do with thinking the golem was unbeatable. He simply wanted to kill it now, and he had burned through all his mana, which meant he would have to wait until tomorrow to recover fully.
That mana core. And that crossbow. I have to get my hands on both.