Chapter 72: The Romance of a Giant Bipedal Golem (3)
The “Callierton Knights,” a royal order of knights directly under the Yustia royal family, were, needless to say, one of the finest knightly orders in the kingdom.
It was an order founded personally by Yustia’s founding king, the first Hero himself.
An order whose commander was the strongest Sword Master in the kingdom, known as the First Sword of the Kingdom.
It was also a place countless knights across the nation dreamed of joining.
“The problem is that lately, there are people doubting our abilities.
Quite a lot of them, at that.”
And the commander of that Callierton Knights—
Mateus, more often called by his title of First Sword of the Kingdom, stroked his short beard, troubled and baffled by a concern he could not resolve.
“Why in the world would they harbor such doubts?
There aren’t many places that select talent as thoroughly as we do and raise them so systematically.”
Even leaving himself aside, the Callierton Knights had two more Sword Masters.
And the average rank of their knights was around the fifth stage, placing them at the very top among all knightly orders in the kingdom.
Wasn’t it stranger for an order with members of such caliber to have its abilities doubted?
And yet why, lately, had he been hearing things like, “The royal knights’ skills are as inflated as beer foam!” or “The royal knights are pampered bookworms!”?
At Mateus’s question, the vice-commander walking beside him shrugged and answered.
“Well, isn’t it an unavoidable problem?
We rarely have reason to go out into actual combat ourselves.
People don’t easily believe what they haven’t seen with their own eyes, and they forget quickly, don’t they?”
“Hm. Is that why?”
Perhaps the vice-commander was right.
The royal knights did not deploy for ordinary matters.
In truth, wasn’t that only natural?
If the royal knights spent more time wandering outside instead of protecting the royal family, that would be the real problem.
Because of that, compared to other knightly orders that personally went out in large numbers to subjugate monsters, bandit gangs, and the occasional dangerous group of black mages—
They might seem somewhat lacking.
Regardless of what their actual ability was.
“And there was that recent incident as well, wasn’t there?”
“Ah, the matter with the Royal Guard?”
On top of that, the recent selection of a guard knight had also had an effect.
It was the incident where, breaking the unwritten rule of selecting only male knights until now, the first female knight had been chosen as a guard knight.
Speaking on his honor as knight commander, there had truly been no problem whatsoever with that selection process.
The female knight chosen as a guard knight had proven her ability by physically beating down every other candidate.
Were they supposed not to pick her after that?
However, in the eyes of some ignorant and narrow-minded people outside, it seemed the royal knights had become a nest of weaklings, so feeble they could even lose to a female knight.
“Hmph. The very men who would collapse from a single punch if they stood before her run their mouths as they please without knowing a thing.”
“It would probably only take one finger, not even a punch. Haha.”
The commander and vice-commander grumbled about the slanderers as they headed toward the knights’ training ground.
Fortunately, however, the royal family had not simply stood by and watched such defamatory public opinion spread.
They had launched a large-scale project to quell the slander and suspicion, and to raise the royal knights’ morale and prestige.
Clang, clang!
“Oh. It seems everyone is working hard.”
“Huh. So that thing really does move like that?
I had my doubts, but Author Wei has created something very interesting.”
The starting point of that project was the sparring match between armored knights unfolding before their eyes.
Though they were empty suits of armor with no one inside.
Unable to hide his interest, Mateus asked his subordinate knights, who were controlling those armored knights while wearing magic tools all over their bodies.
“How does it feel, now that you’ve tried it yourselves? Does that thing move the way you think?”
“Ah! Commander, Vice-Commander, you’re here!”
“Do you mean this [Iron Combat]?
It moves more than well! Look, doesn’t it follow my swordsmanship perfectly like this?”
And the subordinate knights, still excited and unable to cool down from the sparring match they had just had moments ago,
showered praise on the sparring game [Iron Combat] that Author Wei had provided.
The game moved exactly as they did, performed swordsmanship, and even sparred in their place.
It was so fascinating and fun that they hardly knew what to do with themselves.
After they first tried it, the entire order had been unable to stop marveling at Author Wei’s ideas and technical skill in creating such a game.
Of course, if that had been all, they would have regarded it as nothing more than an amusing game.
For ordinary people, perhaps it might have been different, but to them, who were trained knights, an experience of “becoming a knight” held little meaning.
However, the knights soon paid attention to something else.
“The greatest advantage of [Iron Combat] is that you can have proper real combat.”
“Quite literally, you can experience what feels like life-or-death combat as many times as you want, with no risk.”
“Oh? You mean it feels that realistic?”
It was the fact that they could undergo all-out combat training that was not easily possible—training where they truly went at each other with full strength, without holding back, as if their lives were on the line.
Sparring, by its nature, was not a place where it was easy to draw out all of one’s ability.
After all, it would be troublesome if one went all out in sparring rather than real combat and accidentally killed the opponent.
That was why sparring always came with many restrictions, and most of the time, it had to be instructional sparring between people of different levels.
Naturally, it was difficult to gain as much from it as from true real combat.
There was a reason people said that realm mattered, but real combat experience mattered just as much.
“But if we use [Iron Combat], the story changes.”
“Since it’s not an actual person anyway.
That means we can spar as much as we want like it’s real combat, going all out with the resolve to kill our opponent.”
To put it bluntly, using [Iron Combat], they could experience having their heads physically sent flying over and over, and learn how to respond with their bodies.
“This is... truly excellent.
To think such an item was made merely to enjoy as a game...
Author Wei is amazing in many ways.”
As the vice-commander said with a fuss, it was almost absurd that this astonishing item, which made bloody real-combat training possible without fear of losing one’s life,
had been created merely for the sake of enjoying a game.
“It might be even better that you can’t strengthen the weapons with mana.
Young people these days tend to rely too much on mana, so this will be perfect for focusing on and training their swordsmanship.”
On top of that, since they could not strengthen their weapons with mana like sword aura and had to compete purely with swordsmanship,
there were often scenes where someone who, in terms of realm, was below their opponent, defeated a higher-level practitioner through swordsmanship alone.
For the new knights, it provided precious real combat experience, while also encouraging confidence, ambition, and the will to work hard.
For veteran knights, it served splendidly to remind them once again of the importance of the foundational skill of swordsmanship.
“There are some issues with repairing the armor and maintaining the control magic tools, but...”
An additional budget had been allocated for that, and dedicated staff had been assigned to handle repairs and maintenance, so it was fully manageable.
“Does this alone not seem more than enough to build the knights’ practical combat ability and nerve?”
“It does.
Honestly, even without going as far as a grand project, I think simply showing sparring matches using [Iron Combat] would be enough to raise the prestige of the order.”
In Mateus and the vice-commander’s eyes, using [Iron Combat] would allow them to display the knights’ fierce matches and their skills without risking anyone’s life.
They thought that alone would be a decent way to dispel all the existing slander and baseless rumors, and to show off the order’s ability.
“Well, the royal family seems to be looking at something bigger.”
“They said what they’re making is a ‘giant bipedal golem,’ did they not?
They truly are looking at something bigger in the most literal sense.”
“After all, this [Iron Combat] we’ve been marveling over all this time is merely training equipment for that.”
The fact that even such an extraordinary item was only training equipment meant to help them become familiar with controlling the original plan, the “giant bipedal golem,” was surprising and, in a way, impressive.
“To think he made something like this and still only uses it for training—Author Wei really is extraordinary.
Well, I suppose that’s why he was capable of directly proposing a large-scale project before His Majesty the King.”
That boldness, even if he was not a fellow knight but an author, was worthy of respect.
And so, just as Mateus and the vice-commander, already satisfied with the effectiveness of [Iron Combat] alone,
were wondering whether they might somehow cover for Author Wei with this achievement even if the “giant bipedal golem” project failed—
“It’s out! It’s out! It’s finally out!”
The training ground suddenly began to grow noisy.
It was because one knight, about middle-ranked in terms of seniority, was noisily making a fuss while proudly raising up the bundle of books he had brought.
“What in the world came out for you to make such a fuss?
Did a special allowance for the entire order come out?”
“No. It’s far more important than that!
The reason we’re training so hard with [Iron Combat] right now!”
“Uh, then don’t tell me?”
“That’s right! Author Wei’s new work is out!
The comic about that ‘giant bipedal golem’ or whatever!”
“Gasp! It really came out?!”
“So we can finally find out what it is we’re going to be controlling?!”
And the moment that knight revealed what the books were,
every knight gathered in the training ground—including Commander Mateus and the vice-commander—began to stir.
A major project that had turned [Iron Combat], which everyone had marveled over, into nothing more than preliminary practice and training equipment for getting used to it.
It was the moment when the identity of the thing they only vaguely knew as a “giant bipedal golem” would finally be revealed.
“Hurry up and give me a copy!”
“Hey, you bastard! You’re covered in sweat from doing [Iron Combat] just now!
Are you planning to get Author Wei’s new work drenched in sweat? Go wash first!”
“Is now the time for that? If I go wash, you lot will start reading it first and make a huge fuss—how am I supposed to wash while hearing all that?
I’ll watch from beside you, so you turn the pages!”
“Ugh. What a pain.”
The knights, drenched in sweat from training with [Iron Combat], considered even the time spent washing too precious, and gathered in twos and threes beside the knights who were still presentable, preparing to read together.
Finally, with even Mateus and the vice-commander each picking up a copy,
as if by prior agreement, everyone opened Author Wei’s new work, [Magic Armor Machine God Gigant & Knight], at the same time.
“Huh?! This is really a golem? It’s completely different from what I imagined!”
“What in the world is Author Wei trying to create this time?”
“By the gods! We’re going to be controlling this?!”
And at the true nature of the “giant bipedal golem” revealed in the open book,
the training ground was filled with cries of shock and admiration.