Volume 9 - Chapter 40 – Beginning of the Battle (1/2)
09-40 Beginning of the Battle
Before dawn, on the western shore of Lake Azul.
The whole place was a wide, minimally inclined plateau surrounded by a vast wilderness.
A rocky mountain towered above its northwestern part, and on its slopes grew thick bushes.
The mountain was made out of granite and underground it possessed abundant resources.
A fort had been built to that place. It was a thing over 300 years old, but there were people who repaired and remodeled it.
The name of the organization that did it was the Unifiers.
“Ah, so we’ve finally arrived.”
The ‘hot flying ball’ came down from the skies, and from its basket three figures stepped down.
“I feel tired, Elena.”
An aging white-haired man with blue clothes said.
“Donald, you’re a human after all. I don’t feel that at all.”
A dazzlingly beautiful girl said. But she was surrounded by a cold atmosphere.
The remaining silhouette was obviously not a human. It was the golem number 457.
The three figures were surrounded by a crowd of other figures who came from somewhere.
“Thanks for the reception.”
Donald composedly said, and began walking out protected by the guard golems who approached them. Elena and golem number 457 also followed them.
A part of the wall of rock had been made into a door openable by only the superhuman strength of golems, beyond which there was a spacious room.
Traversing the large room, they were freely let to pass through a set of doors protected by golems. They climbed up stairs, and walked on through a long hallway.
Then at the end of the hallway Donald touched the door with his hand and the door opened automatically.
Inside there was a decorated room. On both the left and right side multicolored tapestries were hung, in front of which silver- and gold-colored golems were standing holding spears.
A scarlet carpet lay in the middle. Donald and Elena walked on it straight to the back of the room.
“Welcome back, Elena.”
A person sitting in the back of the room called out.
“I’ve returned, my lord.”
Elena replied to him.
“At last, it seems that the time for an all-out offensive has come, right?”
“Yes. The flying hot balls contacted and the countries are still in a state of disarray. If we now switch to the offensive, the Unifiers led by my lord will come to reign over this continent.”
Contrasting with her clear and beautiful voice, madness revealed itself through her words. But there was no one here who was suspicious of her.
It was because here at the throne of the headquarters of all Unifiers, the only two people were the top seat and the second seat.
In fact in the whole headquarters the number of people was less than 50. The rest were all golems.
“There are 500 old type combat golems. New type combat golems number 500. 200 all-purpose golems. The activation of a total of 1200 golems has been finished.”
“As expected of my lord, the preparations are ready. In that case have them sort–”
Just when Elena had spoken that far.
“Reporting. A gigantic figure is approaching from the skies.”
An urgent report from a guard golem came in.
“From the skies, you say?”
The man who appeared to be the top seat of the Unifiers operated the Magi Tool attached to the armrest of his chair for some reason. Then a picture was projected in front of them in the room. It seemed to be a variant of the Magic Screen.
He switched the picture between various Magic Eyes installed outside the headquarters and successfully found the figure in question.
A deep black silhouette flying with the daybreak as the backdrop. It was quite a curious object.
It had four rings arranged to a square, and something was dangling from the center of it. That something appeared to be the shape of a gigantic human.
“What? What’s that?”
No one could answer. However, Elena glared at the human shape with eyes that seemed to burn.
“That’s a….! Undoubtedly, it’s an extension of Adrianna’s designs. I see, so this means the appearance of that Mysterious Golem Master, Jin, or whatever. We must give him a good welcome.”
Elena grumbled and turned to face the top seat of the Unifilers,
“Joule, have all the golems sortie. And Gigantes too!”
She gave an order. Not one bit of the respect she had when calling him ‘my lord’ until now could be felt. However, no one raised an objection to that.
＊ ＊ ＊
“Father, we’ll soon be approaching Kashamnoor.”
Reiko who was sitting in the navigator’s seat of Pelican-1 said. Incidentally Jin was sitting in the main pilot’s seat, but he wasn’t doing anything essential. He left it all to the autopilot of the Air Force golem’s Control Core.