Episode 75: The Romance of a Giant Bipedal Golem (6) Fin
To show off the Gigant’s abilities, it needed an opponent worthy of them.
In truth, it was obvious if you thought about it.
After going to all the trouble of making a steel giant over ten meters tall, you couldn’t exactly have it fight an ordinary monster.
If they did, people would have a hard time feeling the Gigant’s majesty, and they’d probably only complain that it had been built for nothing.
Far from raising the knights’ morale and prestige, it might even give the impression that they were playing around with a big toy.
But even so.
“Releasing a top-tier monster like a drake right out of the gate is a bit... much, isn’t it...?”
Isn’t starting off by letting loose a dangerous monster like a drake way too reckless?
After all, though drakes lacked intelligence, they were monsters belonging to the dragonkin.
And their sheer weight class was tremendous.
In game terms, it meant they were high-level monsters that only appeared in the latter half.
The sight of that thing facing off against the Gigant, both of them similarly massive in size, certainly had impact and a fierce sense of tension.
But if the aftermath of their fight reached the audience, it would be an absolute catastrophe, wouldn’t it?
If that happened, whether the Gigant demonstration succeeded or not would no longer be the issue. Public sentiment would go straight to hell.
“What are you going to do if the audience gets hurt?”
When I asked Sir Mateus, the knight commander, who was watching the demonstration grounds with me from the staff room, carrying that question in my voice,
Sir Mateus answered with a confident smile.
“Please don’t worry. I’m here, aren’t I?
I can handle it before anything happens.”
“Oh...”
Is this the confidence of the Kingdom’s Greatest Sword?
His way of thinking really is different from mine, a normal person’s.
Just look at that testosterone-fueled mindset of his—not worrying about a problem happening, but cutting off its head before it can happen.
“And with the help of the royal court’s chief mage, we’ve also set up protective barriers in front of the audience seats.
There won’t be any chance of the spectators being harmed.”
“Ah. In that case, I’m relieved.”
At Sir Mateus’s explanation that every safety measure had been prepared, I let out a sigh of relief and relaxed my posture a little.
“More importantly, it’ll be over in one strike.”
“One strike?”
“Yes. One strike.”
Out of nowhere, one strike?
What kind of count is that supposed to be?
Before I even had time to ask,
as though Sir Mateus’s cryptic words had served as the signal,
the Gigant Savior, piloted by Sir Karoi, and the drake began clashing in earnest.
Kwaaaak!!
Kuuung—!
The first to move was the drake.
Perhaps it was enraged after being captured by humans and turned into a spectacle.
The largest target it could see before its eyes.
In other words, it charged straight into the Gigant Savior with a body slam.
The collision between the drake and the Gigant, two enormous bodies each over ten meters tall, produced a thunderous roar so loud it was hard to believe it came from flesh striking metal.
For a moment, people flinched in fear at the impact that rang out all around them.
But once they confirmed that they had suffered no harm at all,
“Look over there! Even after taking a hit that hard, the Gigant didn’t budge!”
“Oooooh! As expected of Savior! To think it doesn’t lose in a contest of strength even against a drake!”
“Look at that drake’s expression. Doesn’t it look flustered because Savior is so perfectly fine? Kuhahaha!”
They began to shout in admiration and cheer at the sight of the Gigant standing firm even after the drake’s opening attack.
Because that was exactly what they wanted to see.
A Gigant. And not just any Gigant, but Savior, modeled after the protagonist’s machine, displaying overwhelming might.
To show them that a monster that was merely big and sturdy was no match for a knight of steel!
And Sir Karoi, today’s main star, clearly had some talent for showmanship in that regard.
He accurately grasped what the audience wanted and faithfully delivered.
“Oh. Is Savior counterattacking this time?”
“It still hasn’t drawn its sword.
Does that mean it doesn’t even need to use a blade? Haha!”
He deliberately left the sword undrawn and began fighting the drake with nothing but hand-to-hand combat.
Kwaang!
Keeeeeeek!
Of course, the Gigant’s steel fist was not truly an ordinary bare hand, so that alone was more than enough to harvest a few of the drake’s teeth.
In fact, the reason Sir Karoi was fighting barehanded like that likely included the intent to show off on purpose.
To let everyone directly experience the technology that, though a little slow, allowed it to move naturally like a human rather than stiffly like an ordinary golem,
and the tremendous power that came from that massive frame.
‘Honestly, even from my perspective, it’s incredibly intense and powerful.’
On top of the violent spectacle of knocking down, kicking, and throwing away a powerful monster with the Gigant’s steel fists,
the heavy metallic sounds and rough vibrations that rang out each time
made me feel as though I were watching a Hollywood movie from my previous life... no, something even beyond that, an overwhelming sense of power made real.
‘If you experience something like this in real time, there’s no way you won’t feel awe toward the Gigant, and by extension, toward the knights who created and control it.’
On top of that, Sir Karoi even showed off the magic built into the Gigant.
Since it wasn’t high-circle magic cast directly by a mage,
it was weaker than simply beating the enemy down with physical force, and there was also a limit to how many times it could be used.
“Kh! Magic on top of everything else! It truly deserves the name of magic-armored machine god!”
“It’s exactly like Hugo and Savior in the manhwa!
That’s right! A special machine is supposed to have special powers!”
Regardless of the magic’s actual power, people went wild over the mere fact that it could use magic and could hardly contain their excitement.
After all, one of the special abilities of Savior, the machine belonging to Hugo, the protagonist of the original work, was magic.
In other words, people were delighted that the original had been perfectly recreated.
‘In fact, we deliberately built magic into it to draw out exactly that reaction.’
How’s that? Some fiery fan service, wouldn’t you say?
Kraaaaaaoooo—!
Anyway.
After being beaten a few times like that, perhaps unable to endure the humiliation any longer,
the drake put some distance between them and began gathering mana in its mouth.
“It’s a breath! The drake is preparing a breath attack!”
It was preparing its breath.
Drakes had no intelligence, but as upper-tier dragonkin monsters, they could fire a degraded breath attack.
It had no particular attribute or special effect added to it, and of course, it could not even be compared to a true dragon’s breath.
Even so, it was still an attack that could be called the drake’s finishing move.
“Is this really okay? We don’t need to run, right?”
“If you want to run, go ahead.
If you’re confident you won’t regret it for the rest of your life after missing the conclusion of a battle that might go down in history, that is.”
“Damn it! How am I supposed to run when you put it like that!
Fine! Even if I die, I’ll watch this before I do!”
But not only Sir Karoi, who was piloting Savior, but even the spectators watching showed no fear at all and stayed in their seats.
Chak—
For the first time today, Gigant Savior raised its sword high.
The massive greatsword made exclusively for the Gigant rose so high that it was clearly visible even from outside the demonstration grounds.
Wuuung—
A thin layer of mana-forged sword energy enveloped it.
Kwaaaaa—!
Shwaaaak!
And in time with the drake firing its breath, the blade swung down as if to stab into the earth.
A completely insane, utterly fearless way of facing the breath head-on instead of dodging or blocking it!
Before the people even had time to be shocked by that head-on clash,
Tukwhaaaaang!
The moment the two attacks collided,
an enormous impact rang out, and an equally enormous cloud of sand and dust rose up, briefly blocking everyone’s vision.
Gulp—
While everyone in the audience swallowed hard, watching tensely to see what result this clash of the century had produced,
at last, when the dust cleared, what entered the people’s sight was
the Gigant, with only a few small scratches on it and no signs of melting at all, standing perfectly intact with its sword in hand,
and the drake, split cleanly into two equal halves as it collapsed.
Uh...
So, this is...
“It really was one strike...?”
“Wasn’t it? I told you so.”
Just as Knight Commander Sir Mateus had said at the beginning,
the violent result was that it had cut down a top-tier monster in a single blow, even breaking through that monster’s finishing move to do so.
It was a short demonstration that lasted only a few minutes.
Immediately afterward, the Gigant shut down from a lack of mana and overload, and Sir Karoi, the pilot, also fell into a half-exhausted state.
But to the people who did not know that fact,
only the tremendous result remained: the Gigant had sliced apart a powerful monster like a drake in a single blow.
And because of that, even that brief and incomplete demonstration was more than enough to drive people wild.
“Waaaaaaaah! That was insane! Insane!
It cut a drake down in one blow!”
“Eeeeh!? Is the royal knights’ Gigant invincible?
To think it took no damage at all from the drake’s breath?!
And it even split the breath apart and cut through the drake itself?!”
“It’s the best! The Gigant is the best!
And the royal knights who stand with it are the best too!
You’re number one!”
As I watched the people praise the Gigant and the royal knights in ecstatic frenzy, I thought,
‘His Majesty’s exclusive quest, cleared...!’
At this rate, the quest personally given by His Majesty the King had been perfectly cleared.