What crime had she committed to get wrapped up in such a horrifying event? Minle couldn't understand.
She was a humble housewife, living modestly in the Gakana Saltpan Township, with the only good fortune to her name being that she survived the age of the True Demon King. Cradling her one-year-old daughter to her chest, she prayed that the monster would not appear again.
The sea raged, and the rocky reef, towering high above her, was like a maze. If someone had told her the things she saw had come from the edges of the ocean to destroy her entire world, she would have believed it.
They were two strange aberrations. At the very least, neither were living creatures.
"I've found you."
A voice like a glacial bell echoed. One of the aberrations was floating above. Its appearance was exactly that of the angels seen in religious paintings. Still, she knew it couldn't possibly be one.
Real angels didn't sprout wings made from metal and gears. They didn't glow with a merciless and cruel light, nor would they chase a victim like her away.
"You have not taken action. However, I have found you."
From another direction, there came a roar that drowned out the angel's voice.
It was the sound of overlapping metallic creaking. The other aberration started to move.
"KRRRRRRRRREEEEEEEEEE!"
In its charge, it destroyed one of the boulders in its way. It was similar to the railway train she saw in the Central region. The body, with joints armored with thick metal, looked very similar to such a monstrous vehicle.
What was different was, this was a true monster, moving about of its own volition and not along set tracks, even despite its colossal body, whose frame alone was three times wider across than the average minia's.
So anxious to hide away, Minle trembled in the shadow of the boulder that only barely concealed her body.
She was in despair. Her docile daughter simply looked on in bewilderment at the loud noises, but she could cry at any moment, giving their location away to the mechanical devil.
What did she do wrong? Maybe it was coming to show her daughter the ocean scenery she herself had loved from a young age. Maybe it was the small detour they had taken to pick the flower her daughter had wanted from rocky crags.
What in her life merited such a terrifying and horrible punishment like this?
"Oh, please… Please, Word-Maker, I don't care about myself, but please, I beg you, give my daughter your divine protection. I…"
She was lying. Minle didn't want to die.
Even though she left no mark on the world, neither blessed with talent nor beauty, spending thirty-two years leading a rustic rural town life, she didn't want to die.
She may have been waiting for the happiness of raising her daughter to adulthood. Was even that sort of wish too much to ask for?
"I-I am willing to offer my life. But please pass my good fortune on to my child."
Finishing her desperate prayer, she raised her bowed head. The face of the mechanical angel was right beside her.
"This source of heat is obstructing my detection functionality. Should I dismantle it?"
The face, bereft of expression, cocked its head inquisitively while its cogwheels creaked shrilly.
"Fssh, fsheeeeek…"
As if answering the angel's words, the mechanical bug emitted a horrific sound. Minle couldn't even let out a scream. She was going to die.
Unable to resist, reason permanently unknown—the sort of illogical death that came in abundance in this land filled with mysteries and monstrosities.
The angelic machine's wings opened. Numerous brass-colored blades began to spill out from inside them before—
"Ha-ha, ha-ha-ha-ha-ha-ha-ha!"
—a monolithic chuckling figure sent them flying with a punch.
There was a shattering sound like broken glass, and the angel fell into the shadows of the reef rocks, as tiny shards streamed from its body.
The giant figure was not a person. "Aaah.…! Eep.…! Eeek!"
Escaping from the life-threatening danger, Minle let out delayed screams of terror. The figure standing in front of her inspired the exact same type of fear as the mechanical angel before it.
It was twice as tall as she was. A dark midnight blue, metal, minian- shaped being, its entire body covered in armor that seemed to have been enlarged to its very limits. It was entirely different from any living creature she had ever seen, yet it emitted Word Arts language.
"I-I am. Very…fast! Much, faster, a-and stronger, than…you!"
"Nn, nggaah."
Her daughter whined in her arms.
The mechanical giant rotated its head around and looked toward Minle. The structure that appeared to serve as its head was spherical, and the purple glow from its singular eye sharply stood out from it.
"Oh, living, living creatures! A b-bi-big, and a, sm-small, living creature!" "Eeek…p-please, don't kill her. I beg you. Spare my girl… please…!"
"I-It is. It is bad, if this one, d-dies?! Why is, that?!"
There was no question. It was a golem. Just like the other angel, and the train.
Mechanical monsters, used by self-proclaimed demon kings for the sole purpose of efficient butchery.
Weapons imbued with artificial souls, wholly incapable of empathy. "Nghh…please, I beg you…"
"Wh-why…is it worse, for small creature, to d-die?! Big one, can take, her place!"
The golem continued to question, sincerely unable to comprehend Minle's words.
Minle was able to give her answer. Behind the golem the train monster had climbed over the rock bed and was coming in for the attack. It's insectile maw opened wide, and the light from the cannon inside gleamed bright.
Bursting. Rending.
Minle and her daughter's ears might have been damaged by the series of roars from the cannon.
The rock bed was smashed apart, scattering into sand. "Ha-ha-ha-ha-ha-ha! Th-that, will not work!" However, Minle's body itself remained intact.
The giant machine's armor shielded her from the explosive flames that illuminated the coastline.
"B-because, I am, I am, the strongest of all!"
Paying these words no heed, the mechanical insect maintained charging speed, using the mass of its head to deliver a blow. The golem caught the downward swing of its sharp jaw with both of its arms.
Visions of her death flashed before her in an instant. She was protected from them all.
Minle could only manage a one-word response. "Eep… Monsters… Monsters…!"
"No, not, monsters! Th-this one, Nemerhelga. Earlier, the one, with wings… Respikt!"
The golem shouted as it squarely pinned down the giant mass, heavier than a house.
"And I am—Ha-ha-ha-ha! Mestelexil! M-Mama's, s-strongest, child!
Much st-st-stronger, than, these ones!" "'Mama…?'"
Golems were fighting each other. The train Nemerhelga, and the angel Respikt. This one, Mestelexil, was fighting against both of them.
Without knowing, Minle had stepped into their battleground. Into the middle of a storm of death that no one should have ever witnessed.
"I-If, small one, cannot die! Ha, ha-ha-ha-ha-ha! I-I-I will protect, it!
Because I, because I…am strong!"
The unpleasant grating sound of metal against metal continued, and the antagonistic Nemerhelga and Mestelexil sent each other flying. Mestelexil's strength forced back the insect large enough to rival a train.
"KRRRRRRRRREEEEEEEEEE!"
The giant mechanical insect zigzagged, smashing rocks as it moved, and sent the tip of its tail at Mestelexil.
He must have been trying to draw the insect's attention away from the mother and daughter. Without concealing himself at all, Mestelexil rushed
out into the open.
The insect's tail split open in an explosive flash. "Ha-ha-ha-ha-ha!"
Mestelexil's right arm was torn off from the shoulder. At the end of its path, metal stakes stabbed into the rock. There was only one conclusion Minle could come to—it was a weapon with unbelievable firing speed.
Without paying any heed to its damages, Mestelexil delivered a vicious kick to the mechanical tail.
The attack would have cleaved a minian person's torso in two. Nevertheless, it proved an ineffective blow against the inappropriately large figure.
"N-nemerhelga. I am, stronger. I am different, from you, b-because Mama, made me!"
He grabbed the end of its tail and attempted an even greater act of destruction.
Yet, without any warning, his spherical head was split vertically in two.
Mestelexil staggered.
Thermic rays rained down from the sky, rending Mestelexil's head section. The armoring melted and sent a deep thermal scar down his back. The angel was radiating thermal light.
"Respikt io halese. Oumortmorp. Byaro woro. Kuqure it nostam. Indersmostek." (From Respikt to Halesept's eyes. Bubbles floating in gold. End of waterway. Fill up the cavity. Burn.)
"Pfft, aha-ha-ha-ha-ha-ha!"
Mestelexil, his head partially destroyed, took the beam of light with his left arm. The armor blocked a majority of the heat, but its joint was burned through. Everything from the elbow down fell to the ground, and the continuous heat ray scorched his body even further.
"Th-this is noth-nothing! I am strongest! Ha-ha-ha! That is why, this does, not hurt! Not at all!"
"KRRRRRRRRREEEEEEEEEE!"
He needed to continue enduring the heat ray. It meant that this time, he was unable to stop the blow of Nemerhelga's weight coming down overhead. Its large head, slightly exceeding the size of its body, made a direct hit.
Going along with the accelerated momentum, Nemerhelga's jaws stabbed into the golem's body. Mestelexil laughed.
"Ha-ha-ha-ha-ha-ha-ha-ha-ha-ha." Nemerhelga's crushing jaws opened wide.
With vise-like strength, the golem's upper body was twisted off his lower half. The light of Thermal Arts, like fireworks, scattered from inside the golem's bottom. The mechanical insect, using its frightful machinery, rotated its jaws even further.
There was a large cracking sound. "Target destruction—"
His torso, shin, and ankles were scattered in all directions. A lukewarm fluid, unclear whether it was brain or amniotic fluid, scattered and drenched the shoreline.
The fragments were warped beyond all recognition and recycling its golem parts appeared to no longer be possible.
The brass angel robotically announced:
"—Complete. Father. Certification concluded." The tender child began to cry.
All Minle could do was stand there and continue to fear for her own life.
"Quite the competition, I'd say. Your golem has quite the intellect, but I'd say my creations are quite the specimens, too."
A clifftop looking down over the shoreline. Atop it was a round table and chairs unbefitting the scenery, with two elderly people sitting down opposite each other.
The placid elderly gentleman brought the orange tea on the table to his lips. He nodded, less in satisfaction, and more as though he was confirming a fact.
"Respikt's Thermal Arts make use of a magic tool I obtained in a deal with the Free City of Okahu. I believe the display just now gave you a clear picture of their power and sustainability."
On the other hand, sitting across from him was a small elderly woman, wrinkles deeply etched into her face.
She had an untidy appearance, completely unlike the gentleman's, and her irritated slam on the top betrayed her lack of composure. She appeared
wholeheartedly displeased as she uttered her reply.
"'Display just now,' my ass! I thought up that whole structure in the first place. My last child. Everyone's always underselling what I do for them…Feh!"
"Ho, ho, ho. How rude of me. However, would you agree my downsizing modifications are suitable and useful improvements?"
"It's got no power. Real piece of shit."
"…Really now. Be that as it may, it has enough power to destroy your creation, does it not?"
A close look at the round table and chairs the two sat in showed it was made out of the same material as the rock itself, and the elaborate engraving made it clear that it had been formed there on the spot through Craft Arts.
While the feat would be possible for specialized artisans very familiar with the region, much as the foreign atmosphere that enveloped them suggested, they were travelers from another land.
That was to say, such was the degree of skill both of these arts casters possessed.
"Nevertheless, I don't really consider this to be enough to declare my victory. There are other ways we self-proclaimed demon kings can battle against one another. Today made me feel like a child again for the first time in a long while, and I truly enjoyed our game."
"…Other ways? Other ways, huh?"
"That's right. Since today we've settled our golem-battling competition.
And?"
"Took a good look. Nothing's been settled at all. You makin' a fool of me, Miluzi the Coffin Edict?"
"Oh?"
The elder gentleman's placid expression remained unchanged, but his eyebrow did rise slightly.
"What exactly can you do from this position, though?"
Before, there were once individuals known as "self-proclaimed demon kings."
Individuals who possessed too much power, whether it was through Word Arts or organizational strength. Mutations that tried to establish a new
species. Visitors who brought heretical political concepts. Merely twenty-five years prior, these self-proclaimed demon kings were called demon kings themselves. Before the True Demon King appeared.
However—not all of those reduced to this self-proclaimed classification had fallen prey to the times and disappeared. If by any chance even the smallest handful were somewhere off in the world, waiting for their opportunity to strike…
"This battle's far from over. Take a look. That's Mestelexil."
On the reef down below the cliffside, Mestelexil's smashed body lay scattered about.
He was totally lifeless, and even if he was still alive, he hadn't the strength to match Miluzi's two golems. Even with all that being true…
"He's the invincible child of Kiyazuna the Axle, after all."
There was an individual who possessed Craft Arts talents far beyond the limits of other minia, and who in her opposition to the True Demon King, built the entirety of the Nagan Labyrinth City all by herself.
She was still waiting for her opportunity to strike. Self-proclaimed demon king, Kiyazuna the Axle.