123. Cyclops
123. Cyclops
Lemnos was running as if the soles of his feet were on fire.
Running alone wasn't enough—they were sprinting like mad with Albion's physical enhancement buff magic layered on top.
"Damn it, damn it, damn it, damn it!!!!"
"What the hell is that thing..!!!"
"I'm not letting this go, this damn Academy—I'm going to expose every last detail to the elders!!!"
"Hey, hey, hey, hey, hey!!! Get out of the way!!!!"
-Kukwakwakwang!!!!
The ground they had been running across just moments before became a massive pit.
[Keuaaaaaah!!!]
The thing that had created the hole was a giant even bigger than the trees of the Black Forest.
An ogre that stood about 3 meters tall was already a tremendous giant, but this giant's face couldn't even be properly seen because the trees obscured it.
They hadn't just been running wildly from the start.
The four members of Lemnos's team were all confident in their offensive abilities, so each of them had poured in the strongest techniques they could muster, but they had only shaved off a bit of the giant's flesh without dealing any significant damage.
Even the chunks of flesh that had been torn off regenerated in an instant.
The tough flesh and thick fur had absorbed most of the force of their techniques.
"Uwaaahk?! Lemnos, what the hell is that now??"
"If you guys want to live, all of you take your rings off!!"
"O-oh, okay!!"
It hadn't been entirely a bad thing.
As they fled with the giant behind them, every team they ran into saw the spectacle, heard the thunderous crash of each footstep like cannonballs striking the earth, got scared, and gave up on the competition.
How long would they have to keep running like this? It was just as they were gritting their teeth, determined to keep sprinting.
"I wondered what all the commotion was about... well, it's the Five Pillars. What kind of situation is this?"
"You see it and you're asking?! Run if you don't want to die!!"
The man who spoke confidently, riding alongside them on a human-sized golem, was Heryeal, the vice head of the Department of Magical Engineering. His hair was streaked with white, and he wore thick glasses.
Behind him, three more students followed, mounted on the same type of golem.
It seemed the entire Department of Magical Engineering had planned to overcome the Hunting Festival using the power of their golems.
Watching the giant chasing from behind and the fleeing Lemnos team, he eyed them with a gaze full of academic curiosity and questioned Edgar.
"'If you don't want to die, run,' you say... but then you could simply take your rings off. The fact that you're only running must mean that giant is enjoying weeding out the other participants and magical beasts, isn't that right?"
"Is this the time to ask shit like that?! We'll take them off when we can't run anymore, so stop being so tactless and buzz off!"
"Eek... I've angered the elf. I apologize for that. I'm just curious about that giant—where and how you encountered it... could you briefly tell me about the characteristics you've observed so far?"
"Haa, haa... if only we weren't running...!!"
They were already exhausted to death from running from the giant, and with these jerks riding safely in their golems and chattering beside them, he wanted to smack them right then and there.
But if he did that now, his breathing would be disrupted for sure, so all he could do was grit his teeth and bear it.
"S-sorry, our vice head really has no tact..!!"
"Please don't hate us too much!!"
The other Magical Engineering department members following behind spoke in turn.
"Hahaha, is that so... when I see a giant-type magical beast like that, there was something I've been wanting to test. Leave this to me."
Whether he was listening or not, he adjusted his thick glasses and raised his arm high while looking at the natural disaster-like giant.
"You idiot, I told you to avoid it if you don't want to die!"
"No! The more a situation is like this, the more we must fight back! I'll show you the trump card I prepared, just in case!!"
In his hand was a small key-shaped artifact.
"Gagaraks! Colossal deity who inherited the power of immortality! Come forth and carve out a new history! Colossus Soldier Hyperion!!!!!"
A massive summoning magic circle formed beneath Heryeal's feet, and something enormous began to be summoned.
Materializing amid a cluster of magical light, it was a giant humanoid bipedal golem, similar in size to the giant.
Encased in thick ocher-colored armor, the golem looked at first glance like a clay doll shaped from earth.
"Alright... you all remember, right? Board!"
"Yes, Vice Head!!"
Heryeal and the other Magical Engineering students who had been riding the small golems leaped toward the colossus on cue.
Then the armor panels on the colossus soldier's back opened, light poured out, and the colossus received the signal from the small golems, caught them with telekinesis magic, and stowed them inside.
Once inside, a voice began to flow from the body of the colossus soldier Hyperion.
It appeared they had successfully completed the boarding.
At the absurd situation unfolding before their eyes, all of Lemnos's team members stood with their mouths agape.
The Cyclops also stared blankly, as if curious about the golem that had appeared before it.
"Humans make such exceptionally peculiar things."
"The size is similar, but can that thing resolve this?"
Everyone was bewildered by the appearance of the golem that had sprung up in the middle of the forest.
Had they been building something like that all this time?
They couldn't even begin to guess how much budget it must have devoured.
They knew the Department of Magical Engineering had attracted quite a few sponsors by developing new golems, but to have had the leeway to research something like that... they could only stare in disbelief.
<Wow, Vice Head, the moment to actually use this really came!>
When the colossus-type armed golem Hyperion took one step, the ground caved in, similar to how it did when the giant stepped.
Their mass seemed to be comparable.
<Now that we're up this high, I can finally see its face. One eye... so it's a Cyclops! A great magical beast worthy of decorating Hyperion's first sortie. I even based the design for Hyperion on the Cyclops.>
The moment Heryeal, who had risen to a high vantage point, saw the giant's face, he identified what it was.
The identity of the giant, whose head had been too high up to see, was the legendary one-eyed giant of ancient magical beasts—the Cyclops.
It was known to be an incredibly powerful magical beast, but Heryeal was not afraid.
He was confident.
<Now, take this..!! Hyperion's first armament!!>
Following his command, Hyperion's arm transformed.
The clenched fist retracted into the forearm, reinforcing the wrist joint, and the armor panels opened as thrusters rose up from within.
<Take this—the Battering Ram of Destruction!>
Hyperion's arm, now shaped like a hammer, shot toward the Cyclops.
Combining Hyperion's own power with the force of the thrusters, it was meant to display overwhelming destructive force capable of smashing through any castle gate in a single blow.
<It dodged that??>
But the Cyclops was not a castle gate standing still.
The Cyclops smoothly bent its waist, dodged Hyperion's attack, and swung its own arm in return.
[Keureureureureu!!]
-Kwajik!
<Uwaaahk?!!>
Hyperion's shoulder armor went flying.
With a single punch from the Cyclops, the golem's firmly attached armor was torn right off.
<This is strange?! I definitely built it based on the pre-existing Cyclops data, so why is it being pushed back?? We should be the ones with the advantage normally... Geuk?>
The giant Cyclops's attacks were unrelenting.
<Ah.. no!! At this rate!!>
Hyperion was being pushed back more and more.
It tried to resist somehow, but the Cyclops's movements were much faster.
Helplessly having its armor torn off and its joints bursting apart, Hyperion was being wrecked.
"I guess I was wrong after all..!"
"What are we going to do about that? Should we help?"
"How the hell are we supposed to help..."
Watching Hyperion get utterly wrecked, the fact that he could do nothing was an enormous source of stress for Edgar.
This feeling of powerlessness, of being able to do nothing, was almost hateful.
-Kung!!
At that moment, the sound of something huge falling rang out.
"Huh...?"
"The arm... fell off?"
"What, did a professor come or something..?"
<Wh-what??>
One of the Cyclops's arms lay severed on the ground.
An arm larger than a person had been cut off, blood pattering down from the sky, and even the half-wrecked Hyperion was stunned at the sight.
It didn't seem like something Hyperion had managed to cut off by a stroke of luck.
The one-armed giant thrashed around in all directions as if trying to drive something away, swinging its remaining arm.
[Kuoooooo!!!]
As the giant kicked at the ground here and there and swung its arm, broken branches rained down everywhere.
For the magical beasts living in the high places, it was like a bolt from the blue.
<Uwaahk?! Emergency escape!!>
And Hyperion was also caught in the flurry.
The Cyclops's wild swinging blows had crushed Hyperion's fuselage, leaving it too damaged to sustain any longer.
With Heryeal's final cry, Hyperion was reverse-summoned, and the Magical Engineering students, still mounted on their small golems, came spilling out from within.
The Cyclops was still swinging its one remaining arm.
-Seogeok!
From the air, the sound of something being cleanly and exhilaratingly cut echoed out.
And just like that, both knees of the colossal giant were severed.
[Kkeueoeoeoeo!!]
The giant's body, having lost its supports, collapsed powerlessly to the ground, and the impact of the enormous mass crashing into the earth sent black soil shooting high into the sky.
"What the hell is going on...."
"Is it... over?"
"Is that a professor? If so, please answer!"
Lemnos's team stood in a daze at the sight of the forest that had been reduced to scorched earth in just a few minutes.
The encounter with a magical beast you could rightfully call a natural disaster was a good shock therapy for grasping the scope of the situation.
Just then, someone's voice was heard from a distance.
[...This is a goddamn mess. Couldn't you have handled this quietly?]
"Be grateful you're not dead."
It was the voices of two people.
One was the voice of a man who seemed quite advanced in years, and the other was... a voice quite familiar to them.
"That voice... sounds familiar, sort of."
"...No way, it can't be."
"Right, that guy didn't participate."
They didn't know from which direction, but someone was walking out.
Everyone tensed at the sound of the footsteps and readied themselves for battle.
"You guys alive?"
"A...tlas?"
Looking exactly as he had when he'd worn a tuxedo inside Class 5, holding only a longsword, Atlas walked out.
He was wearing an expression that looked terribly displeased for some reason.