Guardian (2)
Roy had found a clue to crafting Dragon's Breath from the creature.
The magic circle he was currently modifying had a problem.
It took far too long to gather the surrounding mana into a single point.
He had been applying every variation he could think of to speed that process up, and he had meant to put the results to the test this time.
But look at that golem.
Not only the two mana cores embedded in its eyes, but even the crossbow clenched in its hand was ferociously devouring the ambient mana.
If he could simply seize those and research them as they were, the bottleneck that had choked his work for so long would burst wide open — of that he was certain.
Which was precisely why Roy could not sit still.
He needed to cut the thing down at once and tear its secrets out into the open.
And yet he had been forced to burn every last scrap of mana just to escape. Nothing could have felt more stifling.
If it hadn't been for Noah… I might have died there.
To protect Roy, Noah had dragged out a massive store of the mana he had been greedily packing away for so long.
The three tails he had grown had shrunk back to two.
It must have been the only choice left to him.
That was the contract, after all.
Roy himself had already spent nearly all his mana; there had been nothing left to share with the little creature.
Now that he understood how desperately Noah longed to reclaim his lost memories of the past — how greedily he had been craving mana all this time — Roy fretted over how Noah must be feeling, and at the same time felt a deep, sharp guilt.
"Then there's nothing for it. We'll return to the surface at once!"
"You can't!"
Roy barked the words again at Freddy's decision.
Every gaze in the group snapped toward him at once.
"You can't. Starting now, I'll lay out a plan to bring that thing down quickly."
"Hadn't you given up?"
"Give up? I was only frustrated that I couldn't catch it right away. I've already got a few ideas. And I'm going to need the knights' help for them."
"…Hmm. Very well. A promise is a promise — so you can show us this plan of yours before the day is out, yes?"
"I will."
The expedition had been planning to stay another day here in any case.
They still needed time to recover the relics scattered through the area, so long as they kept clear of the monster's ground.
While Roy had gone in alone to learn the creature's nature, simple tents had already gone up all around them.
They must have been reluctant to head back empty-handed, too…
Roy finished his meal in a hurry and immediately set to drafting the operation.
It was the work of taking the handful of ideas in his head and hammering them into something precise and airtight.
First…
The first task was to take the shields the supply unit had brought and enchant them with magic.
He had so little mana left that he wondered how many he could even manage — but there was no time left to hesitate.
At least drinking the Soul Stem widened my mana vessel. Small mercies…
Reproaching himself for his earlier mistake, Roy wrung every last scrap of thought from his skull to make the plan as flawless as he could.
Just wait, golem. I'll take you apart and study every last inch of you soon enough.
Everyone agreed to the plan Roy proposed.
It was an operation they had no real choice but to accept from the start.
They swore that if so much as one of them was injured during its execution, they would halt the entire operation on the spot and run.
"I'll charge in first to within about ten meters of the thing."
"Understood. We're counting on you."
Roy led with his shield.
It was a metal kite shield he had frantically enchanted the night before.
On top of the defensive reinforcement magic, he deployed an Aura Shield as well.
Just as when he wrapped a sword, white light sheathed the shield, and over that the red glow of the enchantment bled through.
No attack would punch through this shield easily.
"Once I've entered and the thing starts targeting me, come in from a different angle."
"Understood!"
Roy ran.
Before long, the golem fired a flash of light.
Thud!
The flash that struck the shield dead-on rebounded to the side with tremendous force.
Much better than the sword.
Compared to a blade, where his wrist had to take every ounce of the impact, a shield braced by his whole arm and torso was far superior.
Layer on the defensive reinforcement magic, and the flashes no longer frightened him at all.
In an instant, Roy reached a position where he could see the golem.
Then the knights appeared from other directions as well.
Freddy, strongest in mana among them, and the knights of count bloodlines took their places opposite the creature with the same kind of shields as Roy.
"Now!"
"Got it!"
From here on, he needed to shift the creature's attention onto the knights.
It was not difficult.
The moment they ran Roy's plan, the golem's gaze snapped to Freddy.
Nothing to it.
The plan itself was simple: Freddy drew a dagger and hurled it hard at the building the golem was guarding in the background.
After that, the golem began obsessively targeting Freddy alone.
"Urgh! This impact is seriously insane!"
Freddy took a flash for the first time.
If he kept blocking them one after another, the mana he poured into the shield would run dry in no time.
When that happened, he would pass the baton to the knight beside him and fall back — that was the basic tactic for the day.
They made no particular effort to attack the creature.
This whole operation existed only to buy Roy time.
Hoo…
Once the golem's gaze locked onto the knights, Roy found himself free — if only for a little while.
He immediately found a stretch of flat ground and began drawing a magic circle.
It was a design reborn by blending the circle he had used when contracting with Noah and the one employed at the temple to transfer the holy sword's mana into other jet-black stones.
Having already run through several simulations, completing it was a simple matter.
A magic circle tailor-made for bringing down a golem that neither blade nor spell could touch.
"Noah!"
"Yeah!"
"When I give the signal, suck the mana out of this circle."
"Heh heh. That's an easy job for me."
"Don't mess around. If this fails, we both die."
"I know, I know. Don't worry."
He chanted the spell and activated the circle.
With every preparation complete, he shouted to the knights.
"It's finished! I'll draw its attention again — knights, get outside the mana vein as fast as you can!"
"Understood! Be careful, Roy!"
This time Roy threw a dagger at the building the golem was guarding.
Even an outstanding golem could not surpass the limits of human knowledge.
Its two red eyes flashed, then swung their gaze toward him.
"Over here, you bastard!"
The golem immediately began firing flashes at Roy with its crossbow.
Just as I thought. Stupid thing.
He needed to lure the creature onto the magic circle he had laid on the ground in advance.
Roy made no attempt to attack at all, pouring every scrap of focus into dodging.
Moving with calculated cunning, he shifted the creature's position step by step.
Got it!
Before he knew it, the creature had stepped onto the circle.
"Noah! Now!"
"Got it."
Shuuuuu—
Noah climbed onto the pre-drawn circle and began devouring every last thread of mana.
Meanwhile Roy kept the golem from leaving the circle, dodging its attacks with every ounce of attention he had left.
"Bleeaargh—"
"……"
Noah's filthy belch rolled through the air.
"Haa… Mana really is delicious."
While Noah muttered to himself, the golem once more tried to gather the surrounding mana through its crossbow to attack Roy.
"……"
It was useless.
No matter how hard it tried, the mana would not gather.
The reason was obvious: Noah had already swallowed every drop of ambient mana through the circle on the ground.
The entire area around the golem had become a temporary mana vacuum.
"Well done, Noah!"
"Hmph. Of course. By the way — unlike yesterday, you used that head of yours quite well this time. As expected of my master. I praise you."
The modified circle installed on the ground had been designed to suck up not only the mana vein's power but the golem's mana as well.
No matter how fiercely the golem tried to absorb the surrounding mana, that mana would be stolen by Noah at once — that was the design.
As if a centaur barely bigger than a horse could keep up with that monster cat's appetite… Right?
In the end, the creature simply stopped.
Roy immediately unfurled a massive tent he had prepared in advance, wrapped the golem in it, and activated the magic.
A mana-blocking barrier.
Until the giant magic stone he had found the day before yesterday — tied to one end of the cloth — was completely drained dry.
The golem would not be able to absorb so much as a single drop of surrounding mana.
Of course, he planned to drag the thing outside the mana vein long before then.
"Phew… Is it over now?"
With that, he had completely neutralized the creature.
As Roy finally caught his breath, Noah came toddling over on short legs, waving his stubby arms and tails.
"Master, is this all? It barely even registered in my stomach."
"Are you sure you're not a pig instead of a cat?"
"What!? How can you look at this beautiful me and say something so awful! You rotten master!"
Noah stuck out his lip and grumbled.
Seriously — what does that monster even have in his stomach?
His tails had not grown back from two, so of course he still felt unsatisfied.
It had not been a circle that pulled in the entire mana vein's power — only one that rapidly drew the nearby ambient mana.
"Well, the mana around here will fill back up soon enough. But as I said before, the experiment comes first this time, so wait."
"Mmm. Of course."
Perhaps remembering the contract, Noah soon sidled up to Roy and began fawning over him.
Roy ignored the transparent freeloader for the moment and headed straight for the building the golem had been guarding.
A massive dome-shaped structure — the only one still standing intact in the entire area.
That place is the center of the mana vein. And…
If Roy's hypothesis was correct, that building was almost certainly an ancient structure once used by the golem's master.
And not just any master.
A mage.
It had to be a building used by an ancient mage skilled enough to create a golem of that caliber.
He swallowed without meaning to.
What kind of treasures might be sleeping inside?
Crack— crackcrackcrack— bang!
"…!?"
The moment he drew near the building, a tremendous surge of electricity exploded outward and enveloped Roy's entire body.
One of the amulets he was wearing blazed with intense light and spent its power in an instant.
But the corner of Roy's mouth only climbed higher than it ever had before.
Ohh… even a barrier?
His heart began to pound at a furious pace.
Just what have they hidden in there?
What incredible thing were they trying to protect that they would set up a barrier this powerful — and this hard to detect — and even build a golem like that on top of it?
And the location was right at the heart of the mana vein.
Eyes clouded with greed began to glow gold.
He could sense at a glance the location of the device maintaining the barrier and the magic stones that powered it.
Roy entering that building was only a matter of time.