While I stood there thinking stupid things, one of the golems had picked up a great big boulder and launched it at us. Damn it, watch out! We all split up and dodged the incoming boulder. It crashed into the ground with great force, shattering to pieces and sending rubble in all directions.
“Come forth, Water! Ballistic Bubbles: [Bubble Bomb]!” Linze let loose a small cloud of bubbles and steered them in the golem’s direction. The moment the first one made contact, it started a chain of explosions that roared deafeningly throughout the area.
A mist-like smokescreen was the only evidence the attack had ever happened. The golem itself wasn’t so much as scratched.
“No effect whatsoever...?” Elemental compatibility probably had a lot to do with that. I vaguely remembered hearing that Earth-elementals had strong resistances against Water-type magic.
Yumina and Yae shot at the golem repeatedly. Each of the bullets exploded upon impact, but it still didn’t so much as put a dent in the golem’s defenses.
If we kept fighting like that, we had slim chances of victory. And so, I decided to put my plan into motion.
“I’ve got a plan. Everyone, fall back!” Nobody seemed to get what I was talking about at first, but they fell back like I asked all the same. The golem rushed straight for me. Perhaps because it was a Mithril Golem, it moved a lot faster than I’d normally have expected one to be able to. Still, light as it was for something of its size, it was still a huge lump of metal.
If this doesn’t work, I’ll just have to come up with something fast.
“[Accel]!” I activated my acceleration spell and dived straight beneath the beast’s lurched chest. As soon as I found myself within range, I slapped my palm against the ground and chanted the spell that formed the core of my plan.
“[Gate]!” Both golems, their onslaught now thwarted by the huge hole opened beneath their feet, sank through what used to be ground as though it had suddenly turned to water. My plan had worked.
“T-Touya, did you just...?”
“Yeah, I blasted them off with [Gate].” Yumina asked, and I confirmed her suspicions. Honestly, I was just glad it had all worked.
“So, where did you send them, then?” In response to Yae’s question, I grinned and pointed straight upward.
“Straight up. Ten thousand meters into the sky.”
“What?!” I left the girls to recover from their state of complete confusion, then confirmed the locations of both golems on my map. It didn’t display how high they were, but two pins did show up on the map, a little off from where we were standing. Considering air resistance and momentum and whatnot, it made sense that they wouldn’t just fall down in a straight line. In this case, though, I was glad for the distance between us, since the last thing we needed was a pair of Mithril Golems dropping straight down on our heads. There was a mining town to the south of where we were, but the golems weren’t falling in that direction, so that was fine.
I had returned to the Garden to ask Cesca to raise its altitude to ten-thousand meters for exactly this purpose. Though, looking back, that may have been fairly overkill.
I only remembered the existence of terminal velocity after I’d already dropped the golems. Because a falling object faces strong air resistance, it can only accelerate up to a certain speed and then maintain that. At that point, the fall distance stops mattering. Everything past that point is unnecessary... I’ll just brush this little blunder aside as me making doubly sure that it worked properly.
With a shrill metallic screech and a thunderous boom, the two hunks of metal came crashing to the ground slightly west of where we were. I was a little bit surprised by where they had landed. I hadn’t expected them to drop straight down in front of us, but they’d landed further away than I’d thought.
I activated [Accel] and rushed over to where they’d fallen. Everyone else also activated the [Accel] in their rings and kept up with my pace.
“Damn, they’re still moving?” Both golems, now covered in dents and cracks, forced themselves to their feet inside their small craters. That had dealt a lot less damage than I’d thought. Was mithril really such a light metal? The golems resumed their rushing assault on us.
“Come forth, Water! Ballistic Bubbles: [Bubble Bomb]” Linze cast a spell to halt their advance, and this time, the shockwave from the blasts sent chunks of metal flying off from the cracked body of the one in front. It was a lot more effective now. I caught sight of a dull silver ball hidden within the chest of the first golem. That was probably its core.
“[Accel Boost]!” Elze coupled her own physical strengthening magic with the acceleration spell in her ring and shot toward the golem like a speeding bullet. Her gauntlet let out a red flash as she crashed her fully-charged punch into the enemy.
The horrible sound of metal colliding with metal rang out as a chunk of the golem’s core was blasted off. The golem fell lifeless to the ground, the force of its huge frame crashing down sending small tremors through the ground.
Turning my attention to the other golem, I caught sight of Yae firing several explosive bullets at it with the New Model Army gun that I’d handed her. The sounds of gunfire and explosions rang out in rapid succession.
This other golem’s chest was also blasted apart from the force of the explosions, just like with the first one. In another similarity to the other, its core came into plain sight.
“Strike true, Lightning! Hundredspear Thunderclap: [Lightning Javelin]!” Seeing her chance, Yumina unleashed a number of lightning blasts straight at the golem’s exposed core. The core was split in half with a sharp shattering noise. Its power source destroyed, the second golem also fell limply onto its back.
Both golems had ceased moving, and the area had become littered with dust clouds and shattered chunks of mithril. Once the fight was over, I realized that I hadn’t done anything at all to help at the end there...
“A job well done.”
“All I really did was open up a [Gate], that’s all...” I couldn’t help but return Kohaku’s praise with a forced smile.
Elze took the shattered core from the first golem, and Yae retrieved the split core of the second. Each core was roughly the size of a volleyball, and they were a much duller silver than the rest of the golem’s body.
“We got the proof that we beat them, so that’s this quest taken care of.” Elze held up one of the cores with a bright smile. Right, we’d taken care of the quest. It was the cleanup I had been dreading. Putting their main bodies aside, it would take all day to go and pick up all the shattered chunks of mithril that had been sent flying all over the place... Unless I could use [Storage] to sift the mithril out from amongst all the regular rocks. It was worth a short.
“[Storage]: In ／ mithril.” A magic circle spread out beneath my feet, and the golem on the ground was perfectly absorbed by my storage spell. I investigated the ground around where it had collapsed, and not a pebble of mithril was left on the ground. Another lucky break.
I went over and stored the second golem’s body away, too. The capacity of [Storage] was largely influenced by the magic of the user, meaning that most people wouldn’t have been able to store a whole golem away like I was able to do.
“Alright, let’s head home for the day.” We can just report in to the guild tomorrow. We’ve already retrieved both golems, cores and all, so there’s no need to rush.
I opened up a [Gate] to the mansion’s back garden, and we were immediately greeted by the sight of Renne practicing on a bicycle and Cecile watching over her. Renne was wearing a shirt and trousers with suspenders instead of her usual maid outfit. She was sporting a more boyish look, and from all the dirt she was covered in, I could only assume she’d been practicing hard on that bike. Today was Renne’s day off, so Cecile must be watching over her in between her own work.
“Welcome baaack, sir.”
“Hey there, Cecile.” Renne heard Cecile call out to us, so she spun her bike around and shot straight at us. Then, she hit the breaks an
d skidded to a halt in front of us. Evidently, she had mastered the vehicle already. And faster than the duke had, at that. Seemed kids really were fast learners.
“Welcome back, bruv!”
“Looks like you’ve already mastered the bike, eh, Renne?”
“Aye!” She shot me such a beaming smile that I couldn’t resist patting her on the head. Times like that, seeing Renne having so much fun with that bike, made me really glad I’d decided to build one.
For now, we should go have a bath and wash off all this dust and dirt. Renne can go in with the other girls. I’ll just use the bath when they’re done.
“Huh?” We turned to walk into the mansion when Renne shot us a puzzled look. Was there something the matter?
“Where’s Cesca at?”
“... Whoops.” Five delayed reactions came to us in perfect harmony.
... Aww, crap. I completely forgot.
◇ ◇ ◇
“No, I do not mind it. Indeed, I do not care about being left behind, Master. Not at all. Truly — not one bit.”
Cesca’s smile is scaring me... Usually, she’s not one to show much emotion, so why the hell does she only smile at times like this...?
“Thanks to this experience, I’ve learned that you have a fetish for leaving girls by themselves. Sooner or later, this perversion of yours will have you forcing me to get naked and stay in the park all by myself at night. You will enjoy yourself as I quiver with fear at the idea of being seen or assaulted. Truly, your tastes are highly refined, Master.”
“None of that ever crossed my mind!”
She’s just mad about being left behind! Well, yeah, it’s our fault and all, but it’s become a habit of mine to open a [Gate] and go back whenever we’re done hunting.
“Just leave it at that. He clearly feels guilty about it, and if you push it too far, he might actually leave you, you know?” Leen was sitting in the garden, sipping at the black tea Cesca had prepared for her.
“Hmph. That would be quite troublesome. Therefore, Master, I will forgive you if you present me with a set of lewd underwear that suits your tastes.”
“Aren’t you asking for a bit too much?! I couldn’t do that even if the underwear wasn’t lewd!”
“It was a joke.” Cesca bowed her head and exited the terrace.
If only there was someone who could do something about that robot girl’s inner workings. Leen looked at Cesca as she continued walking away.
“I have to say, I’m impressed. By her mental abilities, I mean.”
“What the hell is so impressive about that perverted mind of hers?!”
“Oh, I’m not referring to her personality. It’s more about the way she expresses her irritation or the flexibility that allows her to crack jokes. She’s almost like a real human. I’m not sure if it’s possible to create something like her with [Program]...”
Hey, you shouldn’t say that. That little stuffed bear in the corner of the terrace is getting visibly upset. I’m actually pretty impressed by the way it’s kicking that pebble with its arms behind its back... It’s a worthy match to Cesca, really.
“So, what brought you here today?”
“Well, it was about the remaining Babylon teleportation circles... I haven’t located any concrete information so far.”
“Hm? You’re thinking of searching for them?”
“Hmm? You’re not, then?” We were both caught in surprise. Honestly, I wasn’t too enthusiastic about the idea. Cesca alone was too much to handle, and I had no idea how it would get if I got even more... The doctor herself said that she didn’t care whether I did or didn’t find them.
“I can’t really think of a reason to search for them...”
“Why?! Don’t you want to discover more ancient knowledge or lost technology?!”
Nope.
“Ghh, what a dreamless youngster you are!” Well, true, I was a youngster compared to her. But the doctor said that the power of Babylon wouldn’t be needed in this era.
That being said, we did have to consider the Phrase. If we wanted to be on the safe side, it might’ve been a good idea to take everything Babylon had to offer.
Even so, if we couldn’t find the teleportation circles, there was nothing for us to do.
“Let’s think of what to do when we get some new information. If you manage to locate a teleportation circle, I’ll be there to help you out.”
“...Make it a promise. If you don’t keep it, I’ll have you buy lewd underwear for me, too.”
“Please, anything but that!” I pushed my forehead against the table and begged. If I bought lewd underwear for someone as young-looking as her, my life would be over in an entirely different way. Hell, I didn’t even know if such underwear existed. Satisfied with my promise, Leen and Paula returned to the royal palace. I hope this doesn’t become too troublesome...
“Two Mithril Golems... Forgive us. There was an error in our investigation.” The guild’s receptionist bowed her head. There was no error in the fact that it was a golem hunting quest, but since the goal was to liberate the mines, it should’ve specified that we had to defeat two golems.
“In cases like this, you are paid for both of the monsters and, to make up for the failure on our part, we double the reward, meaning that you get ten platinum coins. The points on your guild card are doubled, too, of course.”
Well, isn’t that nice. Though, I guess it’s only fair to do this.
She placed ten platinum coins on the counter and pushed the stamp onto our cards.
“The points you just received have raised your Guild Rank. Congratulations.” We took our cards back. Yumina’s was blue, while the rest were red.
With this, we’re now first class adventurers. Oh? There’s something next to the dragon slayer symbol. It’s square and seems to display a silhouette reminiscent of a cracked golem’s head.
“Also, for completing this quest, the guild presents you with the proof that you defeated a golem — the title of Golem Buster.” I see. So it’s a new symbol, huh? The privilege granted by the Golem Buster title was a 20% off in all shops sponsored by the guild, but the Dragon Slayer title already gave us 30% off, so it didn’t mean much.
Once we left the guild, Linze and Yumina went to the magic shop, while Elze went to train with General Leon. I had Kohaku go with Linze and Yumina, while Sango and Kokuyou joined Elze. That setup allowed me to stay in touch with them in case something happened. A part of me expected the telepathy between me and my summons to stop working at greater distances, but apparently it didn’t really matter. There’s something wrong with using them as a replacement for phones, though.
Yae and I made plans to go to a blacksmith. I thought of using the mithril we got to forge Yae a new sword, but no normal smiths in the area could work with katanas. I guess the only place for katana-related business is Eashen.
I opened a [Gate] and walked out into Oedo. Normally, this would’ve been the time to go to Yae’s parents and ask for her hand, but since I only just met them last time I visited, I was a bit reluctant to go through with it It wasn’t like the marriage was happening anytime soon, so it was best to save it for later. Yae herself agreed, so I just left it at that.
Apparently, there was a really good katana smith in the western edge of Oedo, opposite to where Yae’s home was. As the two of us made our way there, I couldn’t help but notice how Yae would occasionally glance at me.
“Hm? Something wrong?”
“Uhh?! Ah, n-nothing, just that... Touya-dono and I are now arranged to be married... correct?”
“Huh? Y-Yeah. That’s right.” The way she said that made it seem like we were promised to each other by our parents, but the meaning was the same. Honestly, it made me a bit shy.
“I-If that is so, then... W-Well... m-m-may we h-hold hands as we walk, m-may we...?” Red to her ears, she spoke those words while slightly looking down.
What the hell?! That’s really damn cute! Is there a single guy in the world who could say n
o to that?! Nay, I say! And I’m no different!
I slowly extended my right hand and grabbed her left.
Ah... Her hand was as soft as it was back when I used [Recall].
She looked up to me, smiled in an oh-so-adorable manner, and gripped my hand tight. Actions like that always made my heart skip a beat.
I had no idea that walking hand-in-hand with a girl I liked was such bliss... I could totally understand why couples throughout all worlds just couldn’t stop flirting. Let it be known that there is no sin in this.
We approached the smithy at the western edge of Oedo, ended our short date, and walked into the very noisy shop.
“Hello? Is anyone here?”
“Yes. You need something?” A woman in her early twenties walked out to greet us. Her black hair was tied back behind her and she was wearing a pair of sandals... I think she’s an employee?
“I need someone to forge a katana. Is this the right place?”
“A katana? Yes, you’re right where you need to be. Wait just a moment. Sweetheart! You have a customer!” She called out to the forge, which was deeper inside the building. Oh, so she’s the missus.
A thirty-or-so year old man came out to see us. He was clad in monk-like work clothes and wearing a towel on his head like a bandana. He had a manly beard, but it did nothing to detract from the fact that he had a very gentle face. He looks like a friendly mountain man... Not a good comparison, but still.
“A katana, eh? For which one of ya?”
“Ah, for her. I’d like to have it made from this mithril...”
“Mithril?! Now ain’t that fancy! You the son of some lord or somethin’? The smith couldn’t hide his surprise. His wife was no different in that regard.
“Nah, we got it from a Mithril Golem we defeated. I decided to make good use of it and make her a weapon.”
“Ah, I see. To down a Mithril Golem... You two are stronger than you look, ain’t ya?” The smith sighed, but he looked decidedly impressed. He then asked to see Yae’s katana and short sword. After taking it in hand, examining and correcting it while squinting his eyes, he gave us a date.
In Another World With My Smartphone: Volume 3 Page 14