Chapter 526 – Cores and Spearmen

000

What flew towards Cleon was a blow from a girl holding twin swords.

Compared to the numerous attacks of Alvein that had been aiming at him until now, this one was much faster and more threatening.

After he leaned back to avoid the blow of the blond girl who was attacking him.

“The restraint spell, the second method!”

A chain of light appeared along with a voice that seemed to have completed a magic chant in her ears her, aiming for Cleon’s body her and rushing in.

“Cheet…!”

Then, Cleon felt that magic still remained in his body, strengthened her whole body her, and narrowly escaped her chains by doing a back tumble.

“Chi-it! Seeing magic and avoiding it…!”

After hearing the girl’s indignant voice her with her short sword her, Cleon quickly repositioned her and opened her mouth as she looked at the three men aiming her sword in front of him.

“Anyway… It looks like it’s looking right.”

“What are you talking about? This guy… More than that, he’s talking to me. I think he’s from another bunker.”

While the short-haired girl with the short sword talked like that and didn’t let her guard down, the boy with the big sword hesitated and talked to Cleon.

“T-Please surrender! Then, according to the Bunker Prisoner Law, your life will not be taken!”

“Yes, yes. Seeing you walking on the battlefield without any armament. Are you a deserter? I don’t know where you are from the bunker.”

When the girl with the twin swords sympathizes with the boy with the sword, Cleon calmly looks at the three of them.

‘Even if I knock him down and listen to his circumstances, I don’t think I’ll be able to get any information… Above all, I know very little about this world. Here, for now, it would be better to pretend to obey the three.’

Cleon made a quick decision in his head her and then raised his hands.

“Okay. I’m surrendering. Like you said, I’m unarmed.”

At Cleon’s words, the boy let out a relieved sigh and returned the great sword to his back as if he had let go of his guard her, and the girl with the short sword glared at the boy and scolded him.

“Wait Del. It could be a false surrender, so don’t let go of your guard until you properly restrain it.”

“Ah, that’s right. Me. I’m sorry…”

The boy called Del twitched and narrowed his shoulders, took out the greatsword he had tucked away, and aimed it at Cleon.

“Now, now. Mu. This man seems to have surrendered properly. I don’t feel any hostility. I think it’ll be fine.”

“Hmm… If Ram, who is good at mental communication, talks like that.”

As Ram, the girl with twin swords, approaches Cleon with handcuffs of an unusual shape in her hands her, the girl with short swords, Myu, unlike her her Del her, nods her head knowingly and holds her own weapon at her waist. Put into

“Come on, Mister. Hold out your hand… What’s your name?”

“I’m Cleon. And I’m not yet old enough to be called uncle.”

When Cleon replies to Ram, who is talking while shackling his hands, Ram tilts his head.

It was to ask Cleon a question with curiosity and doubt on his face her.

“Cleon? That’s an unusual name. What’s the number?”

“Number…?”

“Yes, the number. Like Cleon 13, Cleon 5 or something… Isn’t there a number like that?”

“…”

Cleon kept her mouth shut as if he did n’t understand the meaning of her question her, and she could n’t help but ponder what to answer.

“Ram. He’s not a ‘Highlander’ like us. He’s an original without a number in his name.”

“Ah~ I see. I’m sorry. I’m sorry.”

As he watched Ram and Mew converse in terms he was unfamiliar with, Cleon shook his head.

‘Highlander…Original? I don’t know what these guys are talking about… But holding a holy sword is a hero. Otherwise-‘

After feeling a clunk and her wrists tightly tied, Ram, the girl with twin swords, pats Cleon on the back her while talking.

“Well then, shall we walk a bit? If we walk about 20 minutes from here, we will come to the bunker where we live. I’ll listen to the details from there.”

“Ah. Please guide me.”

“A guide…”

At the words of Cleon, who walked away at Ram’s urging her, Myuu looked at him and shook her head in a puzzled way, but Del smiled awkwardly.

“He’s a bit of an odd person…”

001

What Cleon saw while walking with the three was not a very nice sight.

The mere fact that young children were wielding swords on the battlefield was not pleasant, but it was even more unpleasant to see their dead bodies lying on the way.

“Ah, the core of this sword is still alive. I’ll retrieve it.”

“Yes. Please, Dell.”

Then, while looking at the corpses of those comrades, looking at the swords they were holding in their hands rather than the corpses, I retrieved only the beads that seemed to be the core of the swords.

“…Aren’t they your colleagues?”

When Cleon asks a question to Myu, who is standing there as if watching him, she answers with a bored expression.

“Huh? Ah… That’s right. Highlanders from the same bunker. Why do you ask such an obvious thing?”

“…Doesn’t the body get recovered? Bury it…”

Hearing Cleon’s words, Myu looked at Cleon for a while as if he were a strange guy, then she shook her head.

“I don’t know if you’re the original, but why are we Highlanders? Even if left unattended, Highlanders whose life activities have stopped will be decomposed by microbes in three days. You must have come from a very unusual bunker.”

At Mew’s answer, Cleon shut her mouth.

It was as if, hearing her words that they were non-human beings, Cleon had several hypotheses about this world in his head her.

This is Caliburn’s image space.

If so, this was a landscape that would be difficult to create properly unless it was part of Caliburn’s memories of his.

Speaking of memories that Caliburn has, it is the memory after being sealed in the ruins of the lake and picked up by Alvein.

But, of course, Albain had never been to a place like this, so if that was the case, this scene.

‘Before being sealed in the ruins of the lake. In other words, the memory of the holy sword when it was used as a weapon of war in the primitive world.’

The three people who are leading them, and this battlefield in the wilderness.

This unfunny world where a human life is cheaper than a sword’s life-

Right before destruction. It is a scene just before the destruction of the primitive world, where humans fought each other with holy swords in a war between humans.

But if that’s the case, is Caliburn among the holy swords used by those three?

‘The twin swords have very different shapes. If so, that shortsword…? The size is slightly different, but for a holy sword, the size and shape are greatly affected by the user’s magical power.’

In fact, when Caliburn’s mana overflowed so much that her humanoid form she became an adult, the sword’s shape also grew.

The reason why the greatsword was excluded from the candidates was because the greatsword-type holy sword had a stronger aspect of a mass weapon, with almost no sign of powerful divine magical power like the Caliburn.

‘Either way, the place where Caliburn’s presence is strongly felt- probably, unless you go to the place called the bunker where the three are heading, you won’t know the details.’

While I was thinking that, when Cleon raised his head to the sky at the strong presence approaching us.

A flash of gold was flying across the sky in their direction.

“——Avoid!”

And, at about the same time, Cleon and Ram realized that it was not an ordinary attack.

“Dell!!”

When Ram raises his voice at the boy who was retrieving his core from his corpse —

“Uh?”

Bang! With a strong impact, a golden flash that fell like a comet from the sky landed on the place where Del had been standing until just now, shattering everything around it in one blow.

“Del!!!”

Del’s corpse, blown up by the explosion and rolling on the ground, lay strewn about, eyes wide open, with the right half of his body missing.

Still, he seemed oblivious to what had happened to him.

Ram, who raises her voice while looking at Grundel, tries to run towards him with her twin swords, her Mew, her strongly grabs her shoulder, her and stops her.

“Ugh…! Let go of this Mew!”

“Calm down Ram…! That’s an automata used on the front line…!”

As the light and dust rising from the center of the explosion disappeared, what appeared was a humanoid body clad in mechanical armor.

He has wings of light on his back, and a spinning halo can be seen on his head.

A huge shield in one hand and a lance with holy magic in the other.

The red light constantly moved up, down, left and right in the cross-shaped gap in the helmet, as if it was looking for dangers around it.

Height is about 3 m. The intense magical pressure radiating from his huge body his felt threatening even to Cleon.

“Automata!? That’s…!?”

When Cleon raises his voice her in amazement, Mew raises her voice her as if to tackle Cleon.

“Don’t be too loud! Provoking him will put us in danger!”

“But, Mew…! Del…!”

“Dell’s already wrong… His life response His is gone! Besides, look, that guy’s chest…!”

Mew says so, and the place you are pointing at is the magic restraint tool floating in the center of Otamata’s armor-close to the pit of the stomach her.

There, several objects that appeared to be the core of the Holy Sword were floating trapped.

“That guy is an individual who came to retrieve the core. He probably won’t attack this side unless he gets a preemptive strike. As you know… The two of us can’t defeat the frontline automata. If it’s not Highlander. I’m sorry… But I have no choice but to give up Dell’s core.”

Mew, too, quietly steps back while somehow dispelling her feelings of resentment.

In this situation, it would be foolish to run towards that automata to retrieve Dell’s core.

By saying that, you are killing your own feelings.

“Music…”
Ram also clenched his fists so that his hands would hurt while seeing Mu’s resentful expression on his.

“Let’s go. Ram. To the bunker. The fact that the automata that should be on the front line have come this far is proof that the front line is getting closer. We need to inform the bunker and take countermeasures.”

“…Yes.”

When they felt their powerlessness strongly and tried to move their feet.

[──Irregular reaction confirmed. Data collection required.]

The automata’s eyes, which had been moving rapidly up, down, left and right, stopped moving and stopped right in the center, looking straight at Cleon and Ram.

Then, while pulling back the large lance he was holding in his right hand, he jumped toward the three.

“What?!”

As if surprised by the reaction of the automata, Mew immediately pulled out the holy sword and tried to defend it by creating a magical barrier-

“Harm!”

Cleon pushes Mu with his shoulder her, and when the two of them fall to the ground together, the barrier is easily broken through by his lance his.

In the opposite direction, when Ram rolled on the ground, the place where the three people had been written until just now had an aftermath that caused the ground to be shattered by the magical pressure radiating from the entire body.

“I-is this strong…!?”

Mew looked at the automata with a despairing expression, bewildered by the output of the automata, which was much higher than she had imagined.

Ram also couldn’t get up properly with his hands on the ground with blood dripping from his mouth as if he hadn’t completely avoided the attack from earlier.

In the meantime, the automata moved its lance once again while slowly looking back at Cleon.

The speed itself wasn’t that fast if you combined the pre-action with one movement, but it was not difficult for Cleon to feel that the blow was a very dangerous opponent.

‘…This might be dangerous.’

Cleon looked at Mew and Ram, who were driven to the point of losing their fighting spirit, and she thought for a moment while keeping their mouth shut…

‘I tried to quietly follow you, but…’

The next moment, the lance of the automata stabs Mew and Cleon.

When Myu, who had resigned himself to the same fate as Del, awakens to a death that never comes.

I saw Cleon with his hands tied in handcuffs and a lance wrapped around one leg with black magic power wrapped around it.

“You you…!”

Mew was surprised to see Cleon’s movements of hers and couldn’t continue his speech of hers.

Cleon, ignoring Mew, changed the trajectory of the lance by kicking his leg her.

“How…? My magic barrier was pierced.”

“This guy’s lance has breakthrough power concentrated at the tip. So, if you attack from the side, the lance itself isn’t that much of a threat.”

Hearing Cleon’s words, Myu just looked at Cleon with an expression like ‘Is that possible…!?’

“Rather than that. I think you’d better take care of your colleague named Ram.”

“—Ram!”

After hearing his words her, Mew, who finally grasped Ram’s condition her, raised her voice her, and Ram was somehow healing herself by using recovery magic with divine magic.

“Mu… Uh…”

However, if he still couldn’t get up from the ground, perhaps because he was having a hard time moving, Cleon looked at Mew and talked.

“…Take Ram with you and stay away, because I’ll do something for this guy.”

“Somehow… You, you don’t even have a weapon-“

Cleon raises the corner of his mouth at Mew’s words and nods his head as if to tell him not to worry.

Then, Mew seems to be in conflict for a while, then gets up and runs towards Ram-

As if ignoring Mu, the automata looked at Cleon as it was and moved the lance once more.

‘I told that guy that he could aim for the side of the lance… But it’s going to be a bit difficult at this rate.’

Blocking or dodging an attack was possible even with the hands tied, but to defeat it, a weapon or a hand was needed.

Cleon thought so, but anyway, this body is a fake made of ‘magical power’.

I guess I thought it would work out somehow, but this time I looked at Lance from the front without thinking about avoiding it with my legs–

“Hey, wait! Why aren’t you avoiding it!”

“I’m watching!”

As soon as I heard Mew’s scream, I took my own handcuffs to the stabbing lance.

Then, Kagagak! The lance pierced his handcuffs with a clatter.

His skin peels and blood spurts from the aftermath on his wrists his, but Cleon raises his mouth nonetheless as he sees his handcuffs come off.

Of course, at the same time, he bent his body so that the lance would not touch other parts of his body.

“Handcuffs…!”

Seeing Cleon’s movements of her, Mew could n’t erase her astonished expression of her, as if she could n’t believe it.

With his hands free, Cleon leaned back, and with magic wrapped around his hand her, he lowered the joint of his right arm her holding the lance with his fist her.

Kwajik! If you hear it, it sounds like something is breaking at the joints.

Even so, the automata did not stop behaving and continued to attack Cleon.

“Cheet… Are you saying bare hands aren’t enough?”

No matter how magically strengthened it was, there was a limit to what could be done with bare hands.

Cleon distanced himself from the automata, which continued to move without being stopped by Cleon’s blow.

What caught Cleon’s eyes was the greatsword Dell was holding in his hand.

‘Hasn’t the core of the great sword been recovered yet?’

Perhaps, rather than recovering the core, they prioritized eliminating themselves before moving.

Fortunately, the automata seemed to be targeting Cleon before anyone else.

‘Irregular… Did you say that?’

Recalling the voice he had heard from the automata, Cleon quickly turned and ran towards the sword in Del’s hand her.

“Wait a minute!? Are you sure you’re running away!?”

Mew raised her voice at the sudden speed of Cleon, but after learning that it was Del’s sword at the end, Mew noticed Cleon’s purpose in her and opened his eyes wide.

“No way-“

And it was at the same time that Cleon reached out and touched the greatsword, and the automata lunged towards Cleon with a lance.

Next moment-

The greatsword-type holy sword that Cleon held was swung while leaving a trail like a golden crescent moon while scattering divine mana.

As if crossing the trail of such a great sword, the automata passed Cleon and rushed to his back.

“…Then…!”

The startled voice of Mew.

If you were watching from the side, it would have looked like Cleon’s attack had missed and had been pierced by the lance.

Cleon, who had been stopped for a moment as if time had stopped, swung his greatsword once and let go.

At the same time, looking back, the body of the automata that attacked him was split in half, splitting left and right in the center.

As Mew confirmed that Cleon was safe, he saw the automata explode and turn into a lump of scrap metal.

“…I can’t believe it. Such a strong automata… With someone else’s sword…!”

“Hey.”

As Cleon said, he took Dell’s sword in his hand and—

In her left hand her, she held the core of the sword that the automata had held in her chest until just now, and spoke while looking at Mew.

“…Are you okay? Both of you.”

While saying that, he approached Mew and checked Ram’s condition.

“…You, what the hell…”

Mu looked at her Cleon with an expression of still disbelief at her Cleon’s strength her, and Cleon spoke to her with a bitter smile on her face.

“…He’s a swordsman like you guys. …My partner is a bit of an odd guy.”

Saying so, she reached out her hand to her Mew and raised her up.