Water Magician

Editor: Tseirp

Twenty-five hours later.

“All right, it’s done. Off you go!”

Neil said, and the last of the Republic Golems left the hangar.

“Well done, sir.”

Ryo said and handed him a glass of water.

In times like this, having a cup of water is the best.

“Oh, thank you.”

Neil took it and drank it down in one gulp.

“Yeah.”

Ryo was impressed.

And feeling that way from simply observing maintenance works was a first for him.

That’s how amazing Neil’s ‘maintenance’ was.

“To think the tool you brought with you was a portable maintenance-aid golem.”

Ryo said, looking at the golem about a meter and a half tall standing beside Neil.

“I figured I was going to be doing maintenance on the Republic Golems. Thanks to this guy, we got it done in time.”

Neil smiled happily as he said that.

“Sir Andersen, Duke Rondo. His Excellency, the Head of State has asked me to escort you both to the command center. From the command center, you can see the battlefield.”

A soldier approached them.

“I see, let’s go.”

Neil nodded, and so did Ryo.

“Sir Andersen, you really did make it in time. Thank you!”

As soon as they entered the command center, Head of State Columbano shook hands with them.

Supreme Advisor Lord Burley also bowed deeply.

Everyone else there bowed to Neil Andersen.

They all understood.

Without Neil Andersen, they would have stood no chance against the Holy Knights, the golems of the Theocracy.

As expected, Neil also chuckled.

“Well, they’re certainly stronger now, but whether or not they will emerge victorious is beyond me.”

Neil said and headed for the east window.

On the plain visible from there, a battle between golems was about to begin.

Incidentally, Ryo was already clinging to the window to watch.

“A real robot war…”

Ryo’s mutter wasn’t heard by anyone.

The ‘Holy Knights’, the golems of the Theocracy, and the ‘Civilians’, the golems of the Republic, were facing off against each other.

Both were three-meter class golems, designed and built to fight on the battlefield.

The ‘Holy Knights’ held small shields in their left hands and swords in their right hands and stood in eight rows, with ten in each row.

The sight of ten three-meter class golems standing side by side was quite impressive.

The ‘Civilians’, on the other hand, held a shield in their left hand that almost covered their bodies entirely, and a spear in their right hand. And they too, stood ten in each row, with five rows.

The front rows were likely to collide head-on….

Basically, the combat golems can act autonomously after given simple commands.

For example, if the golems are ordered to ‘Break through the gates’ they can think of the best action to take to accomplish that order on their own.

There’s no need to give them instructions such as ‘Run’, ‘Jump’, ‘Thrust with the sword in your right hand’, ‘Defend with your shield’…and so on.

To begin with, it’s not practical to give such orders to dozens of golems.

Since the battles unfold in real-time.

The golems were issued commands through a command control vehicle behind the golems.

It looked like a large box carriage, but it seemed to be loaded with various items.

It was apparently used when there are more than a dozen golems on the ‘battlefield’, as in this case, and there was one behind the Holy Knights and one behind the Civilians.

The personnel who presumably issued the commands could be seen around the command control vehicle. Several of them…

“So if we just take them out, it would be over…”

Ryo muttered to himself and shook his head hurriedly.

“That would be too tactless.”

It shall be resolved through a battle between golems.

Such is the beauty of the battlefield!

It seemed to have that aesthetic tinge, similar to a knight’s single combat… he interpreted it as such on his own.

In this battle, the order given to the ‘Holy Knights’ was to destroy the ‘Civilians’ in front of them.

The Holy Knights would then take the most appropriate action.

The Holy Knights were given the data on golems of various countries that had been collected by the Theocracy.

Among them, of course, was the data on the Republic’s ‘Civilian’.

Considering that the Republic was an assumed adversary, it could be said that the data was analyzed in the most detail.

Based on that data, the Holy Knights began to move.

Compared to the Civilians, the Holy Knights were superior in both offense and defense, and their durability was almost the same.

To put it bluntly, if they were to go head-to-head, they would not be defeated.

At 80 against 50, even if they destroyed all 50 of their opponents, there would still be at least 60 of them left standing.

The Holy Knights charged head-on.

The Civilians also charged head-on.

“Their speed has been tweaked up a notch, you know?”

Neil muttered with a grin, but only Ryo, who was standing next to him, could hear him.

The two sides clashed head-on.

But first of all, the difference between the two sides’ weapons of choice became evident.

Sword versus spear.

The Republic’s Civilians’ spears reached first.

Based on the accumulated data, the Holy Knights were supposed to be able to comfortably block the spear thrust of the Civilians with the small shield in their left hand…

However, the speed of the Civilians’ thrusts, which had been boosted thanks to Neil, was different from the previous data…

Piercing the throats of the ten units in the front row.

All ten of them were attacked in the throat at the same time, thrust up at the same time, and stopped moving at the same time.

In a sense, it was rather spectacular.

If it were a human, it would be grotesque, but a golem with a plain face, not so much…

Perhaps if it were a golem he had created himself, the feeling would have been different.

The Holy Knights from the second row onwards corrected the discrepancy between the accumulated data and the attack speed received by the Holy Knights in the front row.

As an autonomous golem, that was natural.

The paddy field management golems that Ryo created did not yet have that kind of function…

However, this trip to Western Countries improved Ryo’s knowledge and skills in alchemy.

He was beginning to feel confident that he could incorporate that kind of functionality, although it would not be easy….

Due to the inconsistency in the previous data, the Republic’s Civilians succeeded in launching a surprise attack, and decommissioned ten of their enemies, while remaining unharmed.

However, the Holy Knights had also modified their data, so an attack like the first strike would no longer work.

“Who says their pattern will be the same for the second row?”

Neil’s muttering was still heard only by Ryo next to him.

In the clash between the first rows, the spears of the first row Civilians were still stuck in the neck of the first row Holy Knights.

And the second-row Republic’s Civilians dashed toward them.

Then, with an ease unimaginable from their three-meter size, they put one foot on the back of the first-row Civilians and sprung up!

They jumped up and fell on the second row of Holy Knights, their enemies!

Raising the large shield in their left hand, and slamming it down as they landed.

A shield bash with all their weight on it.

The heads of the second row Holy Knights were crushed by a vertical leap that exceeded prior data.

“What a terrifying shield bash!”

Neil answered Ryo’s mutter with a faint smile.

“We’ve crushed twenty of them, but the Holy Knights still have the advantage in numbers.”

Currently, there were 60 Holy Knights of the Theocracy and 50 Civilians of the Republic.

“Although I enhanced the performance of the front two rows of Civilians units, the back three rows are different. I directed the enhanced power output to their weapons.”

“Weapons?”

Ryo tilted his head at Neil’s words.

Indeed, the front two rows exceeded the assumptions of their opponents by unleashing explosive power and other factors.

However, that assumption would soon be revised again.

Anticipating the opponent’s revised data on them, he used their weapons… no, wait, ‘enhanced power output’?

The tip of the spears held by the third row Civilians glowed red.

“Flame?”

Ryo muttered.

They thrust their spears clad in flames.

The Holy Knights blocked it with their small shield… but the shield melted immediately.

Then they thrust, thrust, and thrust in rapid succession!

The Holy Knights dodged, but they couldn’t dodge them all entirely.

Each time the spears struck, that part of the Holy Knights melted away.

Eventually, the third row of the Holy Knights fell after receiving fatal blows.

This time, however, they were not felled by a single blow, as were the previous two rows.

Naturally, the fourth row of the Holy Knights also joined the fray… as did the Civilian fourth row.

It became a brawl.

It was a brawl… but the Holy Knights from the fifth row onward did not participate in the brawl.

Why?

The reason was the weapon of the fifth row Civilians.

Their spear, too, had a shining tip, but it was white, not red.

A mass of white flame was shooting from the tip of the spears… held up in front of them.

“What’s that…”

Ryo muttered and exclaimed.

But he soon remembered.

The artificial golems of the Union that he once saw in Inbury Duchy generated plasma at the end of their arms.

Something similar to that was happening…

Perhaps?

More like, how in the world did he even manage that within that thirty-minute total disassembly?

That notion alone terrified the wits out of Ryo.

“If you can hold off the enemy with ranged attacks, then you’ll break their formation.”

Neil had customized them for combat deployment.

He was not just any alchemist… a frighteningly capable one.

To begin with, Ryo never heard of a golem being able to generate ranged offensive magic… yep, the plasma of the Union’s artificial golem wasn’t fired.

“So golems too can use ranged offensive magic.”

Ryo honestly said what he thought.

But Neil laughed and denied it.

“Actually, not quite, Lord Ryo. The spear itself is an alchemy tool that discharges those balls of fire. The golems hold magic stones inside their body. In other words, it is powered by magic power. When that magic power passes through the spear, the magic circle in the spear is activated, firing the fireball. It’s as simple as that.”

Yeah, the idea was nothing complicated.

But that also meant that… it would be possible to provide the golems with projectile weapons.

An alchemy tool in the form of a spear that when infused with magic power, would shoot out fireballs.

In itself, is not difficult to craft.

Ryo was witnessing the advancement of weapons in war….

As planned, the twenty Holy Knights embroiled in the brawl were annihilated.

However, the Civilians were not unscathed, and three units were wrecked and put out of action.

“Forty-seven vs. forty. We finally have the numbers. The rest is a battle of strength.”

Neil nodded broadly.

Things went as expected and they could finally see a chance.

His expression relaxed a little.

Ryo saw that and thought it was his chance to ask.

He had several questions, but since he was getting some short replies, why not?

“Sir Neil, the third row just now, the ones with the red flame on the tip of their spear, could that possibly be an enchantment?”

“Ohh-ho. So you know about enchantments, Lord Ryo? And here I thought it’s a magic that does not exist in the Central Countries…”

Neil was more surprised by Ryo’s question.

And Ryo’s prediction turned out to be correct.

Enchantment is a spell that temporarily grants magic attributes to a weapon or the user’s body, or increases its performance.

Magicians who practice that are called Enchanters.

And enchantment was not in the magic system of the Central Countries.

“Yeah. I met an Enchanter once.”

Among the Hero party that came to the Central Countries was the Enchanter, Ash Khan.

That’s how Ryo knew about enchantments.

“Yeah. An enchantment formula is inscribed on their bodies.”

“Say what?”

Ryo was taken aback by Neil’s answer.

And then began to get excited.

Seeing him like that, Neil laughed.

He knew very well why Ryo became like that.

It was only natural for an alchemist.

“Lord Ryo, would you like to see that magic formula?”

“By all means, please!”

Neil asked with a laugh, and Ryo answered clearly.

After that, Ryo’s mind was occupied with the enchantment formula rather than the battle between the golems.

In fact, the golem battle had shifted to a battle in which the Civilians were gradually decimating the Holy Knights while minimizing the damage to their forces.

It was only a matter of time before the battle came to a close.

An hour later.

The golem battle was brought to a close.

Eighty Holy Knights were annihilated.

On the Civilian side, six were heavily damaged. Fourteen were slightly damaged. Almost thirty of them were intact.

It was an overwhelming victory.

“The forty-four that can move on their own are to be moved to the hangar, and powered down. Once they are powered down, they won’t be able to move temporarily. So be sure to only shut them down once they’re in the hangar. Once they’re docked, as instructed, divert the magic power from the city walls and start recharging them back up.”

Neil gave stern instructions to the soldier messengers.

It probably had to do with the comment he made earlier, “There is no guarantee that you will be able to deploy them in the subsequent battle against the United Kingdom because their magic power will be completely emptied”.

Ryo estimated so, but he was more concerned about the enchantment formula…

“Let’s go take a look at the six that were wrecked, Lord Ryo. Since there’s no way they’re getting back to the front lines any time soon, we can take our time.”

“Okay!”

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