The mobile fortress that had charged into the royal palace of Central was half-destroyed.
However, since it had fulfilled its role, no one was feeling down about it. Even its creator, old Latata, leaned against a wall and murmured, "Well done."
Damian Bale—the puppeteer Damian—lifted his glasses slightly with his index finger to readjust them, then raised the staff held in his right hand.
When he stepped outside the mobile fortress, three armed Automatons had already surrounded the area, fortifying its defenses.
"Now then, let me get to work. They said they'd make me director of the national research institute if I pull this off."
Damian had his own reasons for joining the war. It was a reward entangled with Rael's scheme—to let him pursue his preferred research while controlling technological innovation. But for Damian, who harbored the ideal of creating his perfect woman with his own hands, Rael's proposal was the very ideal itself.
He would receive research funding without having to deal with any of the other bothersome matters.
"Shall we begin?"
When Damian murmured those words, a metal Automaton revealed itself from within the mobile fortress. It was not humanoid, however—it was a mobile shield. Once positioned to protect the fortress, it unfolded itself into a defensive wall.
In the blink of an eye, an allied encampment had formed around the mobile fortress.
Then, one after another, allied soldiers poured out from the mobile fortress. Beside Baldoa, Alette emerged looking teary-eyed, as though she had bumped her head, clad in her armor.
"Stop the enemies from breaching the palace! Into position!"
Following Baldoa's orders, soldiers armed with guns used the gaps between the mobile fortress and the shields to set up their firing positions.
Alette was leading a small elite force.
"If enemies try to breach, we'll handle them. Protect our allies!"
Following Alette's teary-eyed command, knights in full-body armor took their positions to shield the gun-wielding soldiers.
Then, the enemy's undead soldiers charged toward the palace.
Large Porters also lined up around the mobile fortress one after another, deploying defensive walls to reinforce the defenses in a double and triple layer.
From the large Porters, the Valkyries descended first and entered the palace. One-third remained at the mobile fortress to strengthen the defenses.
Damian watched their fluid movements.
"Attacking while defending—Laiel's basic tactics are pretty interesting. Would you call this kind of thing genius?"
Then, No. 1, Damian's Automaton, spoke.
"Master, I'm detecting rapid approach from above. It appears to be heading toward the palace."
Damian glanced up at the sky, then immediately looked away.
"If it's gone to protect its master, that's not our problem. Let's leave it to Laiel. Now, how about we get to work ourselves?"
With that, two massive Golems emerged from the cargo bed of the large Porter. Standing over six meters tall like knights, they each bore four arms, each pair gripping a shield and a great sword. These were Damian's Golems, deployed to deal with the swarming undead soldiers.
The pair charged outside the encampment, cutting down the approaching dead soldiers in sweeping arcs. However, they couldn't handle every single one.
But waiting for the undead soldiers who broke past the two Golems was—
"Fire!"
A volley from the squad under Baldoa's command. Others, apparently finished with their checks, also began shelling from the mobile fortress.
With the palace at their back, no large-scale magic could be unleashed. Damian slung his staff over his shoulder.
"Well, stalling for time shouldn't be a problem. Now we just need Laiel and the others to make it back safely."
He murmured that to himself—.
An invisible blade.
When he swung it, the knight before him was cleaved in two with ease. The sharpness wasn't bad either. And being able to freely adjust its length while keeping the blade invisible to opponents was extremely convenient.
When a knight swung an axe down at him, he shortened the blade and used his agility to dodge. Immediately after, he extended the blade toward the enemy knight's head, piercing through it and sending the body flying backward until it was pinned to the wall.
Quickly shortening the blade again, I surveyed the surroundings from the cargo bed of the Porter.
The enemies filling every direction were troublesome—among them were dead soldiers that had transformed into Monsters.
"I don't want to burn through too much energy here."
The bladeless sword — or whatever you'd call it — the silver weapon the Third Generation left behind was remarkably easy to wield. But being surrounded by enemies on all sides made for a truly dire situation.
And on top of that—
"This is the worst."
When I looked up, a girl had burst through the ceiling right before my eyes — humanoid in shape, with impossibly long black hair, her mouth slit open all the way to her cheeks. She'd crushed several dead soldiers on the way down, but that didn't seem to matter to her one bit.
She held her gaping maw wide open, drool dripping from it in thick strands.
"Doesn't look like she's going to be much for conversation. Guess May was right."
I was already considering taking on the black Kirin in front of me first when May and Marina climbed up onto the cargo bed.
May stretched up on her toes, looking at the girl who was the black Kirin.
"Marina and I will handle this one. A one-on-one fight would be rough, but with the two of us together, we should be able to manage even this rampaging kid."
I looked over at May and Marina, and both of them seemed ready to go. I'd wanted to hold them in reserve as fighting force for the battle against Ceres. But time was precious.
I turned to May.
"I'm counting on you. Come back safe."
"That's a promise. Well, I have to keep my promises, so I'll come back."
I shifted my gaze to Marina.
"Marina, please come back too."
"You're just lumping me in as an afterthought, huh? Ah well, that's fine too. She looks plenty strong — more than enough of an opponent. I've been getting goosebumps this whole time. Chills running down my spine. This one's strong, I can tell. Right now, I feel like I could push through all three stages at once."
The armor on her hands and feet had been reforged by Grandpa Ratarta. Apparently she could use her Skills to undergo a beast transformation, and the gear was made to withstand that without getting blown off.
May looked at the black Kirin.
"...Now then, the surroundings are getting in the way."
Sure enough, multiple contacts were closing in from behind. The Valkyries had smashed through the walls, weapons drawn, and were charging into the room where enemies packed every corner.
May watched it all unfold.
"Just what I needed. Now then... shall we?"
The next moment, May was wreathed in purple lightning. I raised my left hand to shield my face, and beside me, Marina was engulfed in flame.
Now grown into an adult form, May had blue scales covering both her hands and feet. She flexed her fingers, testing the feel of them.
Next to her, Marina had grown a size larger and now looked like something you'd call a beastkin. I'd heard about it before, but this was the first time I'd actually seen the two of them in their serious fighting forms.
The opponent seemed provoked in turn—it opened its massive jaws and bit into the surrounding undead. I thought it was attacking its own kind, but after devouring several corpses, the Kirin before us transformed into a form similar to May's. Black lightning crackled to life, and the shape that emerged was even more bestial than May. Its legs were those of a Kirin. Its hands were human, but abnormally large.
Sinister spikes jutted from its body. Its mouth opened even wider—less like a Kirin and more like some kind of sahuagin.
"How prickly."
When I said that, May crouched slightly.
"Looks painful, doesn't it? I should put it out of its misery soon—"
Right after, May kicked off the Porter's ceiling and launched herself at the black Kirin. Marina followed close behind.
"Ahahaha, now this is getting fun!!"
Thinking she was far too battle-crazy, I watched as the two of them collided with the black Kirin, smashed through the wall, and kept right on going outside.
All around, the Valkyries were dealing with the undead and the rest. When the Porter swung its massive arms, the undead were sent flying. It carved its own path forward as it advanced.
Then a knight leapt onto the Porter's cargo bed.
"Out of my way!"
I slashed upward at an angle, extending my blade to cut the opponent down. The knight's helm went flying, and I caught sight of the face beneath.
Orange hair—and something about it felt familiar. The young knight who had once fought alongside us to take down a Griffon stared back at me with hollow eyes. Slowly, he tumbled off the Porter's cargo bed.
"Marcus..."
Of House Cerclie. Miranda's younger sister. And he—the boyfriend of one of Shannon's older sisters—had become an undead.
Monica tossed aside the broken drill from her left arm.
She shifted the hammer in her right hand to a two-handed grip with her left and swung it down at her opponent.
"I'll beat that pretentious look right off your face!"
But Monica's opponent, the Automaton—a butler-type named Bart—dodged gracefully and flicked a knife from between his white-gloved fingertips at her.
Monica pulled a tray from her apron and used it as a shield, then swept the hammer in a horizontal arc.
Bart elegantly leaped to avoid it, spun once in midair, then drew two pistols from his inner pockets and aimed at Monica.
Monica dropped the hammer and sprang backward. Beams of light lanced from the pistols, and the floor melted from the heat.
"In the end, it's just a counterfeit that circulated among civilians. You're no match for me, the genuine article. After all, I was designed to handle the protection of important individuals."
Bart shook his red hair as he landed, guns trained on Monica as he pressed his attack. But Monica had words of her own.
"Counterfeit, counterfeit... I'm sick of hearing that. And sure, you may have imported the maids and butlers, but Automatons were our development first. If anyone's the counterfeit, it's you."
Monica predicted her opponent's attacks, dodged them, and traded words while fighting. Both were Automatons with no connection between them, so their exchange was entirely analog.
Bart aimed both pistols at Monica, who was hiding behind a pillar, and melted it. But she wasn't there.
"No elegance, no history. What would a mere product born from perverts who got excited over surface appearances know? I'm telling you—I am far more valuable than Automatons built for sexual services!"
When Bart looked up, Monica was lunging down at him with a broom-like weapon. He caught the blow, but his guns were destroyed. He didn't flinch, though.
Monica declared:
"What's wrong with a sexual gaze? I can fulfill your requests anytime, so what? Don't try to impose your values on us. Besides... you lot could handle sexual demands just as well!"
Monica kicked Bart away. He closed in with a knife in each hand, slashing at her. She blocked with her broom, but her clothes started to tear—he was faster.
"What you call maids aren't maids at all. They're whores in costume. They diminish our value. They are an abomination!"
"How irritating. That's just the culture. Before you keep complaining about other countries, why don't you take a look at your own? Stop blaming us for your own inadequacies."
Bart kicked Monica away. She flew backward, spinning vertically to keep her skirt from showing as she landed, and then glared at Bart.
The reason they harbored hostility toward each other wasn't solely because of the maid-versus-butler dynamic. The nations that had created them, along with the various circumstances surrounding them, had made them fundamentally incompatible.
And just as Bart and Monica were at each other's throats, the Valkyries arrived. It was Number One, Number Two, and Number Three who appeared—Number One sharing Monica's same face and hairstyle.
All three possessed specially ordered bodies. The binders on their backs had been refined into a design more befitting true wings.
"We've come to rescue you, klutz."
When Number One delivered that line, Monica didn't so much as shift her gaze away from Bart.
"...I'll gratefully accept that for the time being. However, his output is far too high. He's performing beyond what the data indicated. There's a strong possibility he's drawing a considerable amount of power from his master."
Monica drew a test tube from inside her coat, removed the cap, and drank the red liquid within. It was liquefied Magic Stone—she was replenishing her mana, her energy reserves.
(And here I am, trying my best not to put any more strain on Chicken than necessary.)
At that, Bart broke into a wide grin. He then flashed the inside of his jacket. There, sewn on in abundance, were precious gems known as magic ore crystals.
Bart plucked one of the gems free and crushed it in his fist. The fragments sparkled as they dissolved into the air, and the damage he had sustained from his fight with Monica was fully repaired.
"The royal family of Banseim told me to take as much as I wanted from their treasury. I serve a master I can't stand, and purely under duress at that... though I'd say I have more going for me than yours does."
Monica's brow twitched ever so slightly.
"I won't let that slide. The only person in this entire world who gets to badmouth Chicken is this Monica. And you serve your own master reluctantly? Have some shame. You have no right to speak of elegance or victory to me. And besides... there's a certain thrill in serving a master who's utterly useless. It proves you're not just phoning it in."
As Monica needled him, Bart's expression contorted. The exchange between them was one that was hard to imagine coming from two Automatons.
Then Number One, Number Two, and Number Three each spoke in turn.
"In the end, you're nothing more than this."
"A butler boasting about his master's gems, is it?"
"How pitiable. That a master is saddled with a butler like you."
The three of them piled on, and Bart's veins bulged on his temples. He had to wonder whether it was really necessary for Automatons to replicate that level of petty vitriol.
Bart pulled several more gems from his jacket's inner pockets and shattered them. In response, a pair of gatling guns materialized on both his arms.
"Shatter you to pieces, make it so there's no coming back. You obnoxious fake... Disappear!"
Monica and the others scattered to their positions, attacking Bart. The weapons they carried were all cutting-edge for this era. However, to Bart, they were nothing but outdated relics.
Monica thought.
(Here I am limited on energy, yet you go on a rampage like that. ...Whether I can buy enough time is starting to look uncertain. If the worst comes to the worst, I'll have to steel myself. Looks like I'll make that Chicken cry again.)
She was internally apologizing to Laiel――