At last, the day of the duel arrived.
Students filed one after another into the arena within the academy that had been reserved in advance, and while the professors cast displeased looks toward Gilford’s side, Gilford was inspecting the preparations he had made.
“First, the people. The noble children within the academy who expressed a willingness to participate. Three of them, then.”
“We will assist you with all our hearts, Your Highness!”
The young men and women from viscount and baron families, selected after repeated screening, bowed their heads in courtesy, and Gilford nodded.
“It is because I trust in your strength that I politely turned away those of higher rank. I look forward to your performance.”
Gilford was, after all, the prince of a kingdom.
There were countless people who sought to curry favor with him.
But given who the opponent was, Gilford had chosen those with actual combat experience.
‘The opponent has real combat experience as well, so we have to send out our elites too.’
The golem the opponent would ride had been able to fight and defeat a powerful monster, a sandworm, in single combat.
He could never go at it with half-baked people.
Still, there was one regret.
‘If only the Phoenix Count’s house had helped….’
Among the academy’s new students, she was unquestionably the strongest heroine.
Gilford had wanted to draw in the daughter of the margrave who guarded the border with the Argent Empire, but she had refused.
“I’m actually looking forward to that golem, you see! Hahaha!”
Faced with her attitude of boldly refusing even a courteous request from a prince, Gilford had no choice but to give up.
Needlessly provoking a margrave who held independent military authority would become a great source of instability in his future reign.
He had investigated in case Aizen’s side had done something, but since that was not the case either, he decided to let it pass.
Of course, there was a reason for his composure.
‘Neither the Nexia Duke’s house nor the Christa Baron’s house is officially supporting him.’
Was it because his opponent was a prince?
From Gilford’s perspective, the baron’s house was not even a position he needed to ask about, and the official opinion of the Nexia Duke’s house was that Noel helping Aizen was Noel’s independent decision.
To put it coldly, the forces actively supporting Aizen were not the Nexia Duke’s house itself, but merely one young lady from that house and the Saintess of the Saras Order, with whom there seemed to be some connection. In other words, only two people.
For some reason, the royal palace, especially the court mages, had obliquely suggested mediation, but since Gilford was the king’s child, in the end, they could not stop him either.
‘You truly have many enemies, Aizen.’
Smiling at the support of the forces backing him, Gilford looked at the next members of his party.
“I thank Sir Nar for coming from the knight order.”
“Think nothing of it. More should have come, but Professor Reina opposed it so strongly that we barely managed to compromise.”
Members of the discontented faction within the knight order who had felt a sense of crisis at this golem’s performance.
Among them, five knights chosen with great care.
The court mages, an important force of the kingdom, naturally could not be mobilized, so he had substituted students for them, but he had been able to bring knights.
‘Five is reassuring, but it feels a bit lacking….’
Gilford smacked his lips inwardly in regret.
Originally, he had wanted to bring more, but the academy, especially Professor Reina, had warned that she already did not want to recognize this as a party-unit duel, and if he tried to bring in a pile of outsiders, she herself would participate on Aizen’s side.
This, too, was a result he had barely pushed through by pressuring Reina from multiple directions, so he had to retreat to a reasonable extent.
It also meant that if Reina had not evaluated Aizen’s golem so highly, this would never have been approved in the first place.
‘There is no turning back now.’
He had pushed things considerably by using his status as a prince.
It was practically a situation where he would only break even if he absolutely won, but precisely because of that, Gilford could not stop, nor did he intend to.
Thus, over the course of several days, he had discussed operations and tactics with the knights and his subordinates, agonized over them together, and at the end, even brought in a joker of sorts.
“Mark Arclight. I expect you to do your utmost.”
“I-I am overwhelmed by Your Highness’s grace!”
Mark Arclight.
The eldest legitimate son of the Arclight territory.
A noble from a rural territory without a title, the sort of bottom rung that Gilford would normally never even have reason to speak with.
But this time, he was necessary.
“I do not expect you to be proper combat power, but it is enough if you can restrain that golem, so give it your all.”
Golem against golem.
Of course, ordinary golems were sluggish, so they could never catch up to Aizen’s golem.
However, with golem magic, its byproducts remained even after the magic disappeared. In other words….
“Your job is to create a golem and dispel it, using that to crush him.”
“I will do my best!”
At Mark’s shout, Gilford nodded.
“Let us review the plan. Listen.”
Ten people, including Gilford, gathered.
Among those who cried out to defeat Aizen, Gilford’s voice spread quietly.
“Once it begins, that strange golem of his will charge in. However, as we gave prior notice, this arena is filled with traps. Pits deeper than that golem of his are hidden here.”
“We’ll take away its most threatening mobility, then.”
At the knight’s words, Gilford nodded.
“Given the size of his golem, it cannot avoid the pits. Especially since it crawls along the ground. On top of that, we will have Mark Arclight create and dispel his golem, crushing it with the resulting masses of stone and blocking its arms and body.”
“And then the mages bombard it, while the knights wait in readiness and drag him out. Simple enough.”
At one noble’s words, the party laughed.
A countermeasure against Aizen’s caterpillar golem had already been prepared, so all they had to do was carry it out.
“By the way, where did you receive support for all of this?”
Mark asked cautiously.
The preparations were too systematic and too quick for Gilford to have done alone.
Regardless of ability, both the knights and nobles had been inwardly curious about how such agile preparations had been possible.
Hearing the question, Gilford—
“…Well, it is nothing special. Think of it as my virtue.”
—smiled and glossed over it.
At the same time, a voice came from outside.
“Duelists, enter the arena!!”
It was Reina’s voice, amplified by magic.
“Let us go. It is time to cut off his head.”
Since the moment of decisive battle had arrived, Gilford and his subordinates strode outside in high spirits.
As if mocking their opponent, who had yet to arrive, they took up their formation in advance and glared at the opposite entrance.
Thud, thuuud.
And then they heard a strange sound.
A sound completely different from what they knew.
A regular vibration.
The instant his intuition told him something was wrong—
Thuuud!
A giant of white and silver steel was walking before his eyes.
Its huge red single eye gleaming.
****
From inside the cockpit, I could see everything happening outside.
The magic tools installed throughout the body, serving as both cameras and sound collectors, transmitted all the conditions outside into the interior, and those were then displayed across the cockpit walls.
I carefully manipulated the control stick and moved the arm.
There was a slight time lag, but the golem’s fingers smoothly clenched and opened.
Posture control was also functioning without issue.
It was the moment the golem finally stood upon the earth.
“What the hell? Why did a giant suddenly appear?!”
“Didn’t they clearly say it had strange wheels instead of legs?”
“Is that even a golem? They didn’t put armor on a monster, did they? Is it really a golem? Its movements are too smooth!”
I closed my eyes and savored the voices coming from outside.
Thanks to its height, far greater than that of the caterpillar golem, I could see Noel and Mina looking brightly up at me, as well as a red-haired woman nearby with sparkling eyes, and the professors’ faces too.
“I definitely would never have finished it in time alone.”
Even now, I had not been able to paint it in the colors I wanted, so it had been roughly finished in white and silver.
That also meant we had only been short on time to that extent, though.
I had to thank Noel and Mina over and over again for mobilizing craftsmen despite hearing complaints from their families and companies, so since the two happened to be in my field of view, I waved at them.
Perhaps she understood the sign, because Noel waved back, and Mina smiled while drawing a finger across her throat.
She really was a patron with a lot of dissatisfaction toward society.
In any case, there was only one thing left now.
“With overwhelming power!”
I made the golem kick off the ground and run.
Even I was amazed by its speed and natural movement, which exceeded my expectations.
Together with the frame created through extensive research, the armor supporting its weight was functioning properly.
All the time I had spent devising and designing it without even sleeping felt rewarded by this single movement.
And the moment its foot came down, the ground collapsed and the golem pitched forward.
‘So it was a trap after all.’
Honestly, since the other side knew I would be using a golem, they would have prepared accordingly.
They absolutely would not have challenged me without a chance of winning.
If it had been the caterpillar, it would have fallen right in and never been able to climb back out.
But.
“It’s different from treads! Different from treads!”
Right now, this golem had steel arms and legs.
I planted its arms on the ground and powerfully kicked with its legs.
The backpack I had made for testing generated thrust with mana as fuel.
And with that, I succeeded in kicking off the ground and jumping with force.
“Mobility performance, clear!”
The golem easily overcame the obstacle and ran.
And then the opponent finally came to their senses and began to respond.
In the cockpit’s field of view, I could see Mark for some reason using magic from the enemy camp.
“Damn it, the plan failed! For now, use the golem to seal its movements, at least!”
“A-appear, guardian god of the earth…!”
Honestly, I felt like I could neutralize him immediately, but when I deliberately waited, a golem soon appeared on the opposing side.
What appeared was an eight-legged hound golem.
The nightmare that had made me start building golems.
“My uncle must have taught you, huh, Mark, you bastard!!”
I shouted with all my might because of the trauma.
Perhaps I overdid it, because the voice output outside through the magic tools installed in the cockpit boomed loudly enough to make the opponent flinch unintentionally.
“Aaagh…! My ears, my ears!!”
“It can even reproduce a monster’s roar…!”
While most of the opposing side covered their ears and cowered, the enemy golem moved.
But naturally, its movements were slow.
It was absurd to think a primitive golem barely able to support its own weight could move nimbly.
“Your reactions are at least six stages too slow.”
I immediately closed in, moved around behind it, and kicked one of its eight legs with my own.
The opponent was rock.
This side was an alloy made by mixing various metals around a mana metal frame.
The steel leg, aided by kinetic energy, smashed the rock at once, and the hound golem began to collapse.
I drove my shoulder into it as the finishing blow, and its massive body toppled over, slammed into the ground, and shattered.
“Durability clear, close combat performance clear!”
Immediately after, magical bombardments flew in, but I dodged while moving quickly.
Perhaps because they had seen this side’s mobility, the attack range was quite wide, so it was difficult to avoid them completely.
But attacking a wide area meant the power was lower by that much.
Even if I was hit, there was no way it would be fatal.
If they narrowed the range and concentrated the destructive power, then maybe there would be a possibility, but….
“If it doesn’t hit, it doesn’t mean anything!”
I maintained my speed and leapt while running.
Because of the vibrations, the opponent was disoriented and failing their casting, and the knights tried to do something with arrows and magic tools, but it was meaningless.
Since they were not properly bombarding me with magic, the knights’ portable weapons had no real significance.
When I landed on the ground, a huge explosion rang out, dust rose, and I could see the enemies falling over from the impact alone.
“D-damn it! How are we supposed to beat this?!”
“Don’t stop! If we can’t do anything about this thing, then knights will lose their very meaning!”
“So that’s why they were so proactive.”
I understood why the discontented faction within the knight order had been so eager to join hands with Gilford.
They must have thought that the day the golem I was riding was mass-produced would be the moment knights lost their livelihood.
“I think they’re being short-sighted, but….”
I had no particular intention of teaching them that they would not lose everything overnight.
They would learn once they experienced it firsthand.
I subdued the knights carrying swords and spears by flicking them with my fingers.
“Should I install some kind of anti-personnel firearm on this thing? Flicking them one by one is work too.”
I engraved the joy of discovering yet another point for improvement into the knights’ bodies.
Even if it was just a finger, to a bare human body, it was heavier than an iron club.
Still, they were wearing armor, so they should be fine.
After dealing with the knights, I picked up the students using magic and gently set them down.
Then I looked down at Mark and Gilford.
“Well then, you’re prepared, right?”
“W-wait! Sto—”
Gilford’s frightened voice came through the sound collector.
But there was no reason to back down here.
The other side had been trying to take almost everything from this side, and it wasn’t as if they hadn’t given him time to prepare…
“For starters, let’s have you take a hit.”
Just as he had done to the knights, he flicked his finger at the two of them.
Because he was looking down from above, the two looked like ants as the enormous finger snapped toward them.
—WHAM!
A sound far too dull and heavy to be called a mere finger flick rang out.
Gilford and Mark went flying together and rolled across the ground.
Controllability, clear.
****
It was overwhelming.
Faced with such utterly overwhelming power, Professor Raina was briefly at a loss for words.
“Raina, did you expect this?”
“To be honest, I thought he might even lose, Iserina.”
Even as several professors hurried down to check on Gilford’s safety, Raina kept her eyes fixed on the steel giant Aizen was riding.
“That thing will change the world.”
To put it coldly, the battlefield had been entirely centered around Gilford’s side.
The terrain, the fighting strength—everything.
The five knights of the Royal Knights were by no means a weak force.
Knights were a professional combat group.
Their combat power was absolutely not weak.
On top of that, though they were students, there were still four proper mages accompanying them.
With a party of that size, they had more than enough strength to take down any large monster that was not difficult to hunt for some unusual reason.
And Aizen’s golem had dismantled all of that strength with absurd ease.
‘Has the era of the sword ended?’
For now, it could still be used.
But in the end, it would be let go.
The knights groaning as they rolled across the ground were proving that fact.
‘If we don’t accept it, we’ll end up like that.’
Even as she acknowledged what had to be acknowledged, Raina quickly began thinking of ways to adapt.
Then, when Professor Rodelini, who had been examining Gilford, made a large circle sign to indicate that he was safe, she shouted at once.
“Winner, Aizen Arclight!!”
A duel had a victor.
It was a duel Gilford had forced through, but in the end, it had been carried out formally.
There would be discussions afterward, but that was no longer a matter for the academy to involve itself in.
Watching the golem raise its fist, perhaps as a victory performance, Raina suddenly remembered something and took up the loudspeaker again.
“Aizen Arclight. Does that golem have a name?”
The victor was Aizen, but that golem would adorn history.
It, too, ought to be recorded alongside him as the victor.
The golem paused for a moment.
She wondered if he hadn’t thought of one, but—
“A name, the unit name! Right, that’s important. I forgot!”
Aizen’s voice immediately poured out at tremendous speed.
“TobehonestIalreadyhaveanamepickedout.Yes.Thisgolemisstrictlytakenfromthatone.Theunitthatinheritedthesoulofthespaceprincipality.ItlooksdifferentbutIkeptthatspiritinmindwhilemakingit.Yes.ButIdon’tdaretousethatname…!”
Aizen’s words were faster than a waterfall.
Just as Raina regretted asking a needless question—
“I’ve decided!”
Aizen’s golem raised a finger.
“The name of this unit is.”
Raina took one step forward to hear the name that would go down in history.
“With respect, I name it Re—”
“Cyclops.”
Everyone’s eyes focused on Mina’s voice, which suddenly rang out through a loudspeaker from who knew where she had gotten it.
“Why. What.”
Amid even the golem’s gaze, its red single eye blinking as if from a slight error, focusing on her—
“I paid for all of it.”
The saintess proudly declared herself the money source.