07-18 Gigantes
“‘Gigantes’?”
Judging that the explanation would be long, Reiko once more got close to Ann for Magic Energy synchronization and began explaining instead of Ann.
It seems that at that time, people called it the anti-demon-race war.
“So, what kind of weapon is these Gigantes?”
“The Gigantes is a giant human-type weapons with overall height of ten meters.”
“Is it a golem?”
“Please describe its features in detail.”
“Gigantes’s shape is similar to a human’s but its shoudlers are wider, legs shorter, and arms thicker and longer. Its height is ten meters, and its weight about 30 tons.”
Reinhardt muttered, but Reiko –that is, Ann– denied it.
“Assembled out of rock fragments…”
“There was a something like that in there?”
“No, Gigantes’s [Core] was supposed to have been sealed.”
Jin thought he might have misheard. A Core was the core devil beasts had.
“An ‘artificial devil beast’?
“Yes. An artificial devil beast made to oppose the devil race.”
Jin crossed his arms and pondered.
Although despite that, it wasn’t possible to perfectly repair Ann here and now.
Elsa was at her wit’s end when she saw Jin’s expression, and stayed silent to not be on the way.
Her steel skeleton had rusted, several joints had stopped operating, and the leather of some unrecognizable devil beast used as her muscles was torn in countless places.
Jin judged that it had been nearly 350 years since she had been constructed. Even the Great Magic War had been 300 years ago, she was older than that.
Nonetheless, by just pasting together the cracked Magi Crystal with [Fusion], the vocal apparatus that was reaching the end of its life span would break completely in the near future.
Jin decided to try asking.
Her way of talking improved considerably, so she no longer needed Reiko’s help.
“Yes, secretary Automata like me and battle-type golems and such were built in the factory.”
“Heyy, Jin, this Ann has an amazing structure, I’ve learned some things!”
But there was a more pressing problem.
“Yes. Using the Magic Energy stored in its Core, Gigantes constructs its body from surrounding rock fragments. As long as Magic Energy remains in its Core it can reform endlessly.”
“Well then, was the Core of Gigantes in the room you were in, Ann?”
That was all the information, and Reinhardt put it all together into a guess.
That seemed to be the gist of things. The important thing right now was not to determine the root cause but the locations of Gigantes. They were also worried about Rucall.
Although it was too late now, they regretted they had foolishly left the ruins wide open. However there was nothing to do about their negligence any more.
“Hmm, you said it was faulty and didn’t listen to what its manufacturers said? How did it turn out?”
“Yes, it turned out that once activated, it didn’t made no distinction between friend and foe and attacked.”
“And because of that, its only way of use was throwing the Core right in the middle of enemies. ”
“Are there any principles or anything like that behind how it moves, or rampages, or maybe attacks?”
“Yes, for some reason it goes towards high places.”
“So that means that after crushing Rucall’s cabin, it climbed up the mountain.”
“The question is what are we going to do. Will we leave it be, or try to do something by ourselves? Or tell the proper authorities?”
Jin’s opinion was to exterminate it themselves. Well, with Reiko it probably wouldn’t be a big problem, and Reinhardt also agreed.
Then they began the talk about who would participate in chasing down Gigantes, and Elsa said she also wanted to come.
“No, it’s not a leisure trip, it’ll be dangerous.”
“Elsa, neither me or Reinhardt want to expose you to danger. So please just stay here. I beg you.”
“…Okay. Today is Jin-kun’s birthday, so I’ll listen to him.”
Finally Elsa agreed. Besides, currently Elsa was wearing a skirt. It wasn’t suited for mountain climbing.
They made the sticks from wood. That kind of handiwork was their strongest point.
“Now then, we’ll be going.”
“Reinhardt-sama, Jin-dono, be careful. You mustn’t overdo it.”
Ann was house-sitting with Elsa and Claude. It seemed like if Ann was about to do something like mountain climbing right now, she’d fall into pieces.
“*Gasp*…*Pant*”
Jin and Reinhardt were both bad at mountain climbing. Reiko jumped from rock to rock up the mountain as if it was the most natural thing, then came back down, advising them like,
Or,
After roughly 30 minutes of climbing there was a relatively flat terrace, and they decided to take a breather. They both drank the water they brought and breathed in deep.
“Yeah, in my home country I climbed a few mountains too, but this is my first time on a rocky mountain like this.”
When they encountered a crag that seemed impossible to climb, Reiko cut the rock to pieces with the Peach Blossom in her hand, making footholds. Thanks to that in an hour the summit was in sight.
At that moment, Reiko who had climbed up near the summit gave a signal.
“Father, there is a large footprint here. The target maybe nearby.”
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