Chapter 454

Excavator

“Those Rank 5 adventurers are finally starting to get serious, huh?”

“Looks like it.”

The two have a cheerful chat while showering the chimera soldiers with bullets and fireballs.

The attacks from Spada began to intensify right after Lily and the others had successfully infiltrated the golem by opening the hatch on its back.

To be honest, I was quite interested in seeing what this gigantic robot-like ancient golem’s cockpit looked like, but I couldn’t help but leave my post and going by Lily’s side. Instead of focusing on our backs, I was naturally on the lookout for incoming surrounding attacks.

The sorcerers at the top of the castle walls started firing their flashy skills, such as Fortis Sagita and other Original Magic.

Above all of them, one energy ball that shone in five colors was considerably powerful. Though it was sadly not enough to bring down a golem on its own. Well, it did take all of three of us shooting to finally bring down a single golem after all. Even the most powerful sorcerers might find themselves exhausted by the sheer toughness of these ancient golems.

“‘Lightning Spada’!”

Feeling a considerably strong magical power, I reflexively looked at the top of the castle walls while thinking that I knew that voice from somewhere. I couldn’t see the caster from where I was standing, but I could witness the moment the sword-shaped red lightning magic was released.

It seemed to be a Force Edge that looked like the Gladius traditionally used by Spada soldiers, but it was undoubtedly made of pure offensive magic.

Leaving a trail of red lightning, the shining blade darted towards the single eye of a partially destroyed golem. Given the speed at which the attack was moving and the golem’s sluggishness, there was certainly no way it could be avoided.

The gigantic lightning bolt pierced through the ancient golem’s face without fail, resulting in a flash of red light and an ear-shattering thunder.

Soon after the flash of red light had faded away, we could see that the steel giant had slowly started falling to the ground, with countless sparks and black smoke bursting out of the golem’s whole body.

The ancient golem’s head was completely gone, making it look like a headless corpse. It finally fell forward on the snow just in front of the castle walls.

The Spada troops that witnessed everything from the castle walls get into a commotion due to the tremor caused by the massive steel giant’s fall.

“Did it short circuit or something?”

If they could be brought down just by destroying their heads, Fiona’s earlier ‘Golden Sun’ would have been enough. These ancient golems are durable enough that they can continue to march forward even after destroying their heads and even half of their torso. This one couldn’t just be defective, could it?

Still, that red thunderbolt magic, ’Lightning Spada’, was a lightning-based magical attack that fried the electrical circuits that controlled the golem’s ability to move. I didn’t know if these golems had the same structure as the electrical appliances found on Earth or if they are a result of a completely different magical technology, but judging by how that golem fell on the ground with sparks flying and smoke coming out of its whole body, there’s no doubt that the red lightning ran through it from head to toes.

From an adventurer’s perspective, one could say that golems are weak to Thunder-type attacks. But of course, half-hearted electrical attacks won’t do.

I wanted to try my ‘Plasma Breath’ one more time, but sadly it didn’t look like I would get the chance.

“Okay! We’re almost done with these golems!”

One by one, the ancient golems sank into the whitened ground due to the Spada army’s energetic counter-attack.

First, we destroyed one of those golems. Then the tower behind us shot an incredibly powerful beam of light and took four of them down. At that point, half of them were already down.

Then, the energy ball of five colors partially destroyed one, and the ‘Lightning Spada’ took another one down. And what’s more, I could see that two more golems had collapsed at the south walls.

Apparently, those last two were not defeated by magic, but by destroying their legs with martial skills. Their legs could no longer walk, but since their cockpits and engines were still unscathed, they were still operational. They were still using their massive arms to crawl towards the walls.

We could see quite a lot of adventurers gathering around the crawling golems, probably thinking it would be a good opportunity to finish them off. But even though they were crippled, they could still be quite dangerous due to their massive size.

“Some of these guys can’t fly… don’t do anything reckless!”

They couldn’t be that stupid to recklessly throw themselves down from the castle walls to jump right in front of the steel giant in order to be the first ones to get there, right?

“These golems are just hard and massive, that’s all. They’re slow and they can’t counterattack, so they’re not much of a threat if they can’t move.”

There was a reasoning behind Fiona’s words.

That one-eyed giant did notice us when we got on its shoulder, but even though we were like insects to it, it didn’t try to shake us off from its body. At most, its only defense was those chimera soldiers. It’s almost as if it had no will to counterattack. More than that, it may even not be cannot perform that kind of maneuvers.

In this situation, while it is true that they would struggle a lot to destroy the golem, their lives were not in danger.

“Could it be that they’re not as threatening as we had thought them to be?”

“That’s how siege weapons are.”

There’s a difference in functionality depending on whether they are specialized in killing people, or in destroying buildings such as castles, walls, and gates. Either way, leaving those crippled golems be could potentially put the castle walls at risk, so there was no choice but attacking them with all their might.

And thus it became apparent that we had finally succeeded in holding those golems back.

“Oh, looks like Lily did it.”

“Yes, she’s amazing, isn’t she?”

The golem we had gotten into before had stopped moving completely.

Almost as if it had ran out of battery, its march started to slow down until it finally stopped with a clang before it had walked three steps. Thankfully it hadn’t come to a full stop. It stopped so quietly that one would hardly notice it had stopped at all.

Lily, who was still inside the golem’s cockpit, must have been able to deal with its pilot.

And that’s how we, the ‘Elemental Masters’ managed to find a smart way to stop an ancient golem without damaging it. Ninety percent of the credit goes to Lily, though.

Still, we were able to stop two of those golems, so a that moment I thought that maybe we could expect to be rewarded handsomely for our feats, or maybe we could be offered to have the same reputation Rank 5 adventurers have, or something like that.

“Kurono! Fiona! I’ll be leaving the golem now!”

We could see no joy about having stopped a golem on Lily’s face as it emerged from the hatch saying that. Her face instead showed a stern look that indicated that there was no time to spare.

I decided that I’d ask her what happened later. For an adventurer, a second of hesitation could mean certain death. There is no time to ask questions now.

“Got it, let’s get back to the wall!”

As I answered, I ran some ‘Bind Arts’ along the golem’s back. Fiona ran next to me without saying a word.

Fortunately, they seem to have stopped defending the golem as soon as it stopped since we could not see any of those chimera soldiers coming after us. We were able to run up its back in a straight line without having to worry about our surroundings.

Then, as soon as I reached its shoulder, I jumped with all my strength towards the wall. The distance between the golem and the castle walls was much shorter at the moment, but still not enough to make it in a single jump. So I asked Hitsugi for help.