536 Cyclops and the Conductor

The incident involving Tatsuma-san’s assault has been resolved.

This time, both of the perpetrators—Tatsuno, who carried out the act, and Tatsuya, who accidentally caused the death of Tatsuma-san, then the Dragon Emperor, fifteen years ago—were stripped of their property and exiled from the country.

I did suggest that if they had nowhere else to go, they could come to Brunhilde, but they turned me down. Apparently, they have some acquaintances in the Holy Toriharan Empire and plan to start over from scratch there.

It wasn’t exactly a parting gift, but I opened a [Gate] to send them to Toriharan.

On the day of their departure, Tatsuma-san handed some money to Tatsuya and gently patted him on the shoulder.

“The two of you will be able to make it wherever you go. If anything ever troubles you, send me a letter. Even if you leave the country, we’re still brothers.”

“Aniue... Thank you so much.”

After bowing deeply to Tatsuma-san and His Majesty the Phoenix Emperor, the two took each other’s hands and set off for Toriharan.

Even though they were being exiled, their faces looked bright. Maybe they had finally cast off their shackles and found their freedom.

◇　◇　◇

“Huh, again?”

“Yes. This time it appeared in the northern region of the Demon Kingdom Zenoas. Apparently, it was a giant bull with wings.”

After seeing the two off on their journey to Toriharan and returning to Brunhilde, I was met with a report from Tsubaki-san that yet another extinct species had shown up.

According to Fam from the [Library], it’s a creature called a Zagan, which supposedly went extinct about two thousand years ago.

“So, what happened to it?”

“The first prince of the Demon Kingdom went to the scene himself and somehow managed to defeat it.”

“What!? An adventurer didn’t take it down?”

The first prince of the Demon Kingdom... that’s that guy, right? The muscle-brained prince Faron, who’s Sakura’s brother. He’s also technically my brother-in-law.

What the hell is he doing? Since the second son, Fales, had his right to succession stripped, there's no one else who can inherit the throne but him, and he goes and does a suicide charge? Is he trying to bring down Zenoas?

Well, demons are a long-lived race, so it’s not impossible for the Demon King to have another child... though he doesn’t even have a partner right now.

Worst case, Sakura’s daughter Yoshino might have to inherit the throne. He really needs to think more before acting.

Zenoas has very few adventurers. That’s partly because adventurers from other countries don’t like settling there, and partly because the demons who live in Zenoas are just strong to begin with.

Nobody posts subjugation requests for beasts they can handle themselves. That’s why there are so few requests. Even a young man from a village can take care of a blue-rank subjugation quest.

As for why adventurers from other countries don’t settle there, it’s mostly due to the food. Unless you’re really used to it, Zenoas cuisine can be tough on the average person.

Even so, things have been improving lately thanks to Rue’s cooking blog and such. Well, maybe not “improving”—since food culture is unique to each country, maybe “evolving” is a better word.

Still, food heavily influences people’s daily lives, so if it’s rough for someone, it’s really rough.

But the appearance of an extinct species again likely means another time distortion has occurred.

It seems the dimensional tremor that involved the children was caused by this distortion. Right now, the time spirits under Tokie-obaachan’s command are working hard to fix it.

Even so, some of them are slipping through, which means there might have originally been a much larger-scale time displacement. Maybe we should consider ourselves lucky it’s only been this bad.

But since past magical beasts are said to be stronger than modern ones, “lucky” might not be the right word.

“So, what about Prince Faron?”

“He got a bit injured, but it doesn’t seem life-threatening.”

So, he did get hurt. Well, we’ve sent a few potions from the [Alchemy Division] to Zenoas, so he should be fine.

“More than that, it seems the stampede caused by that magical beast did more damage. Apparently, an entire village got caught up in it…”

Right, that happened too...!

When a powerful magical beast suddenly appears from the past, the other beasts in the area flee in fear. Then the beasts that fled cause other beasts to run, leading to a chain reaction—thus creating a stampede.

I wonder if the increasing number of stampedes being reported everywhere lately are actually caused by magical beasts that traveled from the past and just haven’t been identified yet.

We need to issue more warnings to every country about the risk of mass stampedes.

Before a stampede starts, there are always signs.

Suddenly, animals vanish from the forest, or birds begin flying in massive flocks. If we can catch those signals, we might be able to evacuate or take preemptive action.

As I was thinking about countermeasures for the stampede problem, the smartphone in my pocket vibrated with an incoming call.

◇　◇　◇

“Oh. They’re bigger than the golem soldiers in Brunhilde.”

Indigo muttered his impression as he looked up at the massive golems standing in the hangar of the Ark.

The dark gold bodies reflected the light of the magilight stones in the hangar.

Gold-toned bodies with black lines running across them, and even the bodies themselves appeared to have some sort of inscribed magic.

They held no weapons, but gave off a heavy, grounded presence. They weren’t flashy, but their thorny design made Indigo assume it reflected the taste of the plague mask-wearing man standing nearby.

“Frustrating as it is, I can’t make them that compact. Well, I could, but it would cost too much output. That would defeat the whole point.”

With a tone that didn’t really sound frustrated, the plague-masked man, Scarlet, answered as he looked up at the golem before him.

The dark gold golem was bigger and sturdier than the standard frame gear "Heavy Knight Chevalier" used in Brunhilde.

Its overall design was like that of an armored frame gear, but its head featured a large single eye.

“Still, the performance isn’t bad. Should be at least comparable to Brunhilde’s.”

“Oh?”

Scarlet’s tone, laced with confidence, impressed Indigo. This man didn’t spout empty boasts. If he said so, then it must be true.

“Are you already in mass production?”

“To an extent. The materials taken from the underground dock of Gandiris can only make a few dozen units. Well, the rest we can just harvest from the seafloor.”

Scarlet spoke while clicking his tongue, and Indigo pressed a hand to his forehead.

Scarlet might talk like that, but Orchid wasn’t an idiot. He wasn’t stupid—just impulsive.

He acted more on instinct than thought. He hated bothersome things like preparation and strategy. He was a hedonist who believed that as long as it was fun, that was enough.

There was no way a man like that could quietly keep a toy like this to himself.

Without a doubt, he’d head to the surface and go on a rampage.

Indigo wasn’t going to tell him not to go, but it wasn’t a good time to stand out and raise suspicion. He thought he had to bring him back quickly.

“Still, just where did he go…?”

“If it’s Orchid, he’s headed toward the Kingdom of Rare.”

Indigo turned toward the voice from behind to see a woman wearing a domino mask with flamboyant feather ornaments standing there.

She was tall, with a slender figure. Her outfit, decorated head to toe in greenish-blue feathers, was flashy enough that Orchid’s nickname for her—‘Bird Woman’—felt justified.

In her hands were two battle chakrams in a striking metallic green that didn’t quite match her appearance.

“Peacock… You know where Orchid is?”

“My Viridian is a divine relic specialized for reconnaissance. Of course I can tell where a fellow Apostle is.”

The woman called Peacock giggled playfully. In the center hole of the chakram in her hand, several glowing dots could be seen.

Peacock used the direction and brightness of those lights to determine the location of her targets. And since she said it, there was likely no mistake.

“The Kingdom of Rare, huh… It can’t be helped. I’ll go bring him back. It’s still too soon for this thing to be seen by the public. Oh—have we decided on an official name yet?”

“Yeah. It’s Kyukuropusu.”

“Kyukuropusu? That sounds like Cyclops, doesn’t it?”

“That’s what they used to call it 5,000 years ago. Right, Golto?”

Scarlet called out to a small figure standing at the entrance of the hangar.

There stood a tiny, golden golem about three heads tall, its red eyes glowing ominously.

　　　　　　　　◇　◇　◇

“This is it! This is the thing that attacked the port of Kadan!”

The elf soldier captain shouted upon seeing the picture I had transcribed with【Drawing】based on the memory I received through【Recall】.

Though I had already healed him, the captain still wore a bandage on his head and a cast on his right arm. The other soldiers who were there at the time chimed in as well—“No doubt about it,” “This is the one.”

We were in the port town of Kadan, ruled by the Elf King of the Kingdom of Rare. Upon hearing that the town had been attacked by a giant golem resembling a Frame Gear, we came immediately.

Along the way, we brought the King of Rare, the green “Crown” Grün, and their escort.

Bringing the king and the others was also a move to clear our name of any suspicion, but we also agreed to cooperate in providing relief to the victims. We connected Kadan and the Kingdom’s capital—Green Capital Fahn—using【Gate】.

Rescue teams from Fahn were now spreading out into the port town, which was still smoldering from the attack.

The King of Rare took the illustrated image in hand and looked at it.

“So, you’re saying this is not one of your country’s Frame Gears?”

“Yes. It isn’t. Though proving that might be difficult…”

For now, our country is the only one known to possess Frame Gear-like machines… Proving it’s not ours won’t be easy. As I said that, several voices interrupted from the side.

“Come on, you can tell just by looking, can’t you? It’s nothing like my Frame Gear. Even the foundational design philosophy is different. What I see here is just a bunch of flashy gimmicks made with overconfidence.”

“Yeah, the way the parts fit together also screams Western Continent tech. It’s definitely lacking the level of precision Regina-chan would achieve.”

“It’s what you’d call a self-indulgent piece. I’ll give it that the creator had spirit, but it’s all about performance and pays no mind to the pilot’s needs…”

“Well, I suppose it’s interesting in its own way, but the design sense is rather poor. Please don’t lump this in with Frame Gears.”

The fake Frame Gear got absolutely trashed by Engineer Elka, Professor, and Kuon, who had come with me. To think they could criticize it that harshly just from a few pictures…

According to the townspeople, this thing had suddenly come out of the sea into the port.

It rampaged as if testing its movements, destroyed the town, trampled everything—and then, as if bored, suddenly returned to the sea.

That one detail—“came from the sea”—was enough for me to suspect this fake Frame Gear had been created by one of the Evil God’s Apostles.

The former Evil God had also created Frame Gear-like mutations called Fake Knights, but those were more like crystal lifeforms.

This, however, was clearly a magi-mecha construct. A proper magical machine, made using Golem and artifact technologies. Which meant—someone out there had access to that kind of knowledge.

“Could it be something that was left behind in the ‘Ark’ that was stolen by the Apostles of the Evil God?”

“I wonder about that. For something supposedly made by the engineers who built the ‘Crown’ series, it feels a bit rough. And it also bothers me that it seems to be using technology that’s too new for an ancient machine, a Legacy.”

“Could it be that an immobile ancient machine, a Legacy, was refurbished?”

“That’s not impossible, but...”

“If they went so far as to refurbish a Legacy to this extent, wouldn’t it be faster to build one from scratch? Assuming it was a Legacy in the first place...”

At the question I raised, our development team started to buzz noisily again. Ugh... I might have thrown in an unnecessary spark.

『No. Chrome Lanches did not manufacture the large golem. This is the work of someone else.』

Like it was trying to put out that spark, a voice came from the small green golem.

It was Gruun, the same creator as the ‘Ark’, who spoke. In that case, this one-eyed fake Frame Gear likely isn’t one of Chrome Lanches’s golems.

Which would mean that the Apostles of the Evil God have a skilled golem engineer on their side. No, it’s even possible the engineer himself is an Apostle of the Evil God. This is starting to get troublesome.

“Well, I believe you—the ones who gave us the Holy Tree—wouldn’t do something like this. This is merely a confirmation. However, if this fake were to appear in a country that has no ties with your nation, things could get complicated.”

That’s true. Just like the Elf King said—if this fake Frame Gear attacked a country that doesn’t have relations with us, they might blame us for it.

Could that have been the culprit’s goal? To damage Brunhild’s reputation?

No... Would the Apostles of the Evil God do something so indirect? Besides, if that were the case, they’d probably make it look exactly like one of our Frame Gears, not something shady like this one-eyed golem. Damn, I’m getting confused.

“Well, what’s clear for now is that the enemy has acquired power similar to our Frame Gears. I think we should notify our allied nations about this. Even if they don’t have diplomatic ties with Brunhilde, they’re probably connected with at least one of our allies unless they’re completely closed off.”

“You’re right.”

What the Doctor said made perfect sense. Our allies might vouch for our innocence.

But to prove this one-eyed golem isn’t one of our machines... do we have no choice but to capture it?

I tried searching with【Search】just in case, but couldn’t locate it. Maybe it has the same stealth function as the ‘Ark’.

“Hmm…”

“Is something wrong?”

Staring at the drawing of the one-eyed golem, Professor let out a groan.

“No, I just feel like I’ve seen the design of this fake Frame Gear before. Where was it, I wonder...”

“Huh? You too, Professor? I feel like I’ve seen it somewhere, too. Where could it have been...”

Engineer Elka also started groaning in sync with the Professor’s words.

“The design of the machine, huh... You guys can really tell that kind of thing?”

“Designs like these tend to reflect the quirks of their creators. Just like artwork, personality shows through.”

The Doctor replied with a slightly smug expression. I kinda got what he meant. When it comes to Frame Gears or Overgears, you can see Professor’s sense of style all over them. The ‘Crown’ series is clearly unified by Chrome Lanches’s taste too.

I guess it’s kind of like how a manga artist’s drawing style gives them away, even if they use a different pen name?

“If both of you have seen it before, then isn’t it the work of some famous golem engineer? Like that old geezer, the Magi-Tech King…”

“That’s it!”

“That’s right!”

Eh? It’s the work of that old geezer, the Magi-Tech King?

“No! It’s ‘Conductor Meister’! This golem looks just like the ones made by Conductor Meister!”

“Yes! I knew I’d seen it somewhere before—its design is just like the golems made by Conductor Meister!”

Conductor Meister, huh? That guy? One of the five great Meisters known on the Western Continent.

A golem engineer on the same level as Engineer Elka of ‘Restoration Queen’ and ‘Teaching Professor’ is siding with the Apostles of the Evil God?

What kind of person is he?

“Well, how should I put it, his skills are certainly top-notch, but he’s a rather high-strung man. He used to clash a lot with people around him.”

“He’s a difficult person to deal with. He even got into trouble with several countries.”

From what the two of them are saying, this Conductor Meister sounds like your classic self-important, my-way-or-the-highway type of engineer.

Kind of like that old geezer, the Magi-Tech King. Not my favorite type.

“No, the Magi-Tech King tries to use other people, but that guy—he just doesn’t care about anyone else. He looks down on everyone who isn’t himself. Even so, we were still treated like humans, relatively speaking.”

“But he laughed through his nose at my Fenrir. What a jerk.”

Engineer Elka scowled, clearly recalling an unpleasant memory. The wolf-type golem Fenrir isn’t especially strong for a golem. It just looks like a wolf and can talk. That alone is pretty amazing though...

Still, it’s troublesome to know that someone on the same level as these two is on the enemy’s side. Is he cooperating with the Apostles of the Evil God? Or is he one of them himself?

‘Ark of the Covenant’ is Chrome Lanches’ personal factory. Of course, there’s probably a facility there for mass-producing these one-eyed golems.

Maybe we should start lending out Frame Units to the newly allied countries and have them learn how to pilot Frame Gears.

“Either way, now that it’s come to this, we can’t sit around doing nothing. Let’s push forward that project.”

“That project? Ah, the Over Gear for Albus?”

“Exactly. Its name is ‘Vaal Albus’. It’s an Over Gear that even Conductor Meister can’t laugh at.”

The Doctor gave a sly, fearless grin.