The crystal ball installed in the pilot’s seat—in other words, the cockpit—was something I had put there to serve as a radar.
It was a device I had attached partly to test how well the cockpit equipment would function with the force and mana generated when the engine’s horsepower output caused an explosion.
In short, it wasn’t something I had prepared in advance because I thought something would happen here.
‘Honestly, I’m not even sure how accurate this thing is right now….’
Even so, thanks to having at least that much, we were able to grasp the current abnormal situation immediately.
Noel, Mina, and I promptly put our heads together and checked the crystal ball.
“This size makes no sense….”
Noel spoke cautiously as she looked at the large red dot displayed on the crystal ball.
I watched the dot blinking ominously as it moved around inside the orb, then asked quietly.
“Reactions like this aren’t common in dungeons, right?”
“They are common, and they aren’t. Dungeons have dungeon bosses, after all. The crystal ball reacting strongly makes sense in itself, but….”
“For something like this to appear in a controlled environment, that’s definitely a problem.”
Following Mina’s cautious words, Noel spoke again, just as carefully.
“The biggest problem is that this reaction seems to be wandering. Bosses are supposed to stay holed up in the boss room. If it’s moving, then….”
Wandering-type boss monsters did exist.
There were a few such dungeons even in the Kingdom of Vespia, famous enough that knights and adventurers were still challenging them now.
The problem was that this place was meant for beginners.
It was a dungeon where, fundamentally, powerful monsters should not appear, and since noble heirs were scheduled to come here for experience and training, it was obvious that Professor Reina had selected it with great care and come in advance to clear it out.
The very fact that a monster capable of producing this kind of reaction was here was abnormal.
“Let’s retreat, Eisen.”
Mina said without hesitation.
When I immediately looked at her, Mina continued calmly.
“We were at the front anyway, and everyone else is probably struggling along behind us. In other words, if we retreat, they’ll realize something is suspicious and turn back as well. To prevent any further accidents, let’s report to the professors first that there are abnormal signs.”
“That would be best, Lord Eisen. Proceeding safely is the most important thing.”
The most basic rule in a dangerous dungeon was not to force an adventure.
If a situation like this, outside all expectations, had occurred, then immediate retreat was indeed the best option.
It wasn’t as if our objective was to conquer the dungeon, and I thought this was enough of an operational test, so I was just about to nod and consider reversing when—
The problem dot began moving at high speed on the crystal ball.
“Why is this thing so fast?”
“Uh, wait a moment. This crystal ball only displays direction, so there may have been some error….”
Noel tried to check the crystal ball, momentarily flustered, while Mina let out an extremely faint sigh.
At that moment, I felt the ground tremble ever so slightly, and unease began to sweep over me.
‘What is this?’
Questioning myself in that ominous feeling, I calmly set my mind to work.
We might be running a potato farm, but the magic of the Arclight family was earth magic.
True to the grandiose expression that we listened to the voice of the earth, it wasn’t strange for us to react first when the ground shook or twisted.
Perhaps thanks to that, I actually felt as though an electric current had suddenly run through me, and an intense sense of crisis kept welling up.
‘We can’t stay here.’
At this moment, I had to trust my intuition.
I moved quickly, just as that intuition screamed at me to do.
I swiftly manipulated the golem and made it pull back, and the sound of stones scattering around us rang out.
Noel and Mina’s bodies bumped against mine from the sudden maneuver, but I had no room to pay attention to that.
“E-Eisen?!”
“Lord Eisen, what are….”
By the time the two of them moved as if they were about to leap up in shock, the large red dot on the crystal ball had already come right up to us.
As if obstacles meant nothing to it.
And the reason it had come as though there were no obstacles was being explained by the vibrations around us.
“It’s been digging through the ground at high speed, that bastard…!”
A noise began to reach us.
I rotated the golem’s upper body to face backward and fled at full speed.
Unlike when we had entered cautiously, careful that the golem would not hit the ceiling due to the dungeon’s terrain, this time we ran at full speed.
—Rumble, rumble, rumble!!
As we ran, I turned the caterpillar tracks as well, advancing along the traces we had left while pushing through until now.
During that time, I heard the sound of the place we had just been in completely collapsing, and sensed something enormous moving.
I quickly checked the outside through the magic stones connected to the exterior, and through them, I caught sight of the creature that had been causing that ominous reaction since earlier.
“A S-Sandworm?!”
“Why is a monster that lives in deserts in a beginner dungeon…!”
What I could see through the field of vision was a long-looking body like a greatly enlarged earthworm, and a hard, sand-colored carapace.
And inside its wide-open circular mouth, large, sharp teeth were spinning rapidly.
—Kagagagagak!
Solid rock was sucked straight into its mouth, shattered, and vanished.
The unpleasant noise of stone being ground up came directly into the cockpit.
‘Dangerous.’
With that speed, size, and hardness, I couldn’t optimistically assume the Caterpillar Golem would definitely withstand it even after gaining a steel body.
On top of that, this place was narrow.
A head-on battle here was impossible.
Perhaps having thought something similar, Mina, who had until now been wearing the mask of a saintess in front of Noel, shouted in a fluster.
“Run! If you get caught on something, you die and I die! So save me!”
“So your true nature comes out when you’re in danger too, huh?!”
I answered without thinking, but most of my mind was already focused on escaping.
The one saving grace was that we could move quickly because we were going back along the path we had taken.
Amid that, I saw the figures of our classmates belatedly grasping the situation and fleeing.
And at the very front was….
“P-Prince Gilford?!”
“Why did he bring so many people with him?!”
A group of rough-looking people who, at a glance, practically screamed, I’m a hired mercenary, and a dazzling crowd clad in flashy equipment.
And at their head stood a blond man.
Looking among them, I could even see Mark, so it seemed that man had gathered several students too and formed a personal guard.
He must have taken that much care for the sake of safety, but….
‘Right now, they’re only in the way…!’
In short, there were too many people.
If we kept going like this, we would trample them.
And Mina spoke quietly, as if having made up her mind, but firmly.
“Run them over, Eisen. Our survival comes first.”
“I’ll do that even if you don’t tell me!!”
“Lord Eisen?! No! If you do something like that…!”
Noel shouted urgently, but I didn’t slow the caterpillar tracks.
The people were so startled that they couldn’t do anything.
Until collision, a few dozen seconds remained.
I moved the left arm and brought the bulldozer-cum-bucket forward.
Just like that, I ran while stacking the people into the bucket along with the dirt, one after another, somewhat roughly.
Mark had long since been scooped up, and with Prince Gilford also being collected on top of him covered in dirt, I shoved all the bastards blocking the way inside, then immediately lifted the bucket upward so they wouldn’t fall out.
Noel watched that and cheered.
“Lord Eisen, you had a plan…! I thought you were just going to run them over…!”
“Hey, even I care about human lives, you know?!”
I shouted in bewilderment, then my eyes met Mina’s beside me.
Mina looked at me in surprise and said,
“You… didn’t crush them?”
“What exactly do you think I am?”
I wanted to snap at her more, but I had no mental leeway for that right now.
If I, the one piloting the golem, slipped up even once, it would become a catastrophe.
For a moment, I considered turning the upper body and trying to bombard it with the cannon on the shoulder, but I immediately rejected the idea.
The loading still hadn’t been automated, so I could only fire two shells in total.
Whether they could produce enough power to pierce the Sandworm’s carapace and finish it off was also unknown.
“Ah, seriously! This is why you need lots of real combat! I can see a ton of things that need improvement!!!”
“You know improvement or whatever is only possible if we survive, right?!”
I was just about to say of course I knew, in response to Mina’s words.
Suddenly, an impact transmitted through the golem’s shoulder.
At the same time, I saw the passage ahead collapse.
“It’s collapsing because of the Sandworm’s vibrations!”
“When it rains, it pours!!”
Of all places, it was where the entrance was visible.
Just a little farther, and we would have reached the place where Professor Reina and Professor Iserina were, but our luck had run out.
I rapidly set my mind to work, took a deep breath, and steeled myself.
Then I soon projected my voice outside.
“Sorry, but I think this is as far as we go! Hold on tight!”
I purged the bulldozer bucket on the left arm.
Then, as if shoving it away, I threw it toward the entrance.
I saw stones falling onto the bucket and being flung off, but the bucket itself slid and flew beyond the collapsing entrance.
And soon, our escape route was cut off.
“…Eisen.”
“Sorry. This was the best I could do.”
I had done it thinking that even one more person had to survive.
I had no regrets.
But as the price, we were trapped.
—Grrrrrrrrrr
Together with the Sandworm, which was making a sound that might have been a roar or might have been the grinding of its teeth, and the two people left in the cockpit.
As if to block our retreat, the thing passed above us, and I saw it use its enormous body to seal off the collapsed passage.
“…They say that to subjugate a Sandworm with the minimum number of people, you need four skilled mages and at least two high-ranking knights with proper shields.”
“Its carapace is so thick that swords don’t work, and while the knights and two mages hold it down, the remaining two have to keep blasting it with bombardment until it dies…. And even then, they say eighty percent of attempts fail….”
In a world with magic, that much fighting power was an enormous expense.
So it was a giant monster that required skilled high-level fighters to battle it as a party.
“…The moment I take it down, my golem’s combat power will be proven, won’t it?”
The escape route had long since been blocked.
I had made up my mind.
“I never planned on dying in the first place.”
What I had been most wary of was not the Sandworm’s strength.
It was people getting caught in the aftermath of the fight between the Sandworm and the Caterpillar Golem.
Mina let out a sigh.
Then she grinned.
“Confident?”
“Of course.”
Noel looked at me.
Then she asked carefully,
“Will you win?”
“Naturally.”
At the words I spoke without hesitation, Mina and Noel looked at each other.
Then, as if resolved, they nodded and looked at me.
“It’s do or die, then.”
“If there’s anything I can help with, I’ll help too!”
Permission had been granted.
Our resolve was set.
All that remained was to burn.
“Eisen Arclight.”
The tracks began to move.
The Sandworm’s teeth began to spin inside its mouth again.
“Launching!!”
With that powerful shout, the golem’s body began to charge, and the opponent moved to match it.
The steel giant and the Sandworm began to crash toward one another.