The scarecrow said, “First, as a premise, it’s impossible for us to arrive ‘quietly’ at the Tower of Protection. There might be survivors from this battle that we haven’t noticed, and even if there are no survivors, a elite unit like this would certainly have established a regular communication network.”

The Tower of Control would quickly grasp the situation and undoubtedly send a pursuit team.

So we needed to shake things up before that, she said.

“Let’s spread information widely. It would be better if it’s in the form of a song. Since it’s difficult to convey overly detailed content and it could also damage the honor of the Friedel people, let’s make it as brief as possible while still stimulating people’s imagination.”

Ordinary people who didn’t know the circumstances would be curious about what this was all about and each would voice their own speculations, while the upper echelons of the tower who knew the situation would turn suspicious eyes towards the Tower of Control, wondering what on earth was going on.

Control would have to focus on suppressing the commotion and resolving the suspicions of other towers, and consequently, the resources devoted to pursuit would decrease.

“Of course, even doing this, it’s impossible to completely manipulate the opponent as we wish. It will depend on how capable the Tower of Control is, but the end will undoubtedly be a power struggle.”

The opponent was one of the four heads of the Magic State.

Expecting such beings to be simply led along by our plan would be underestimating the world too much.

The role of the strategist was to lay out the situation and set the stage.

Achieving success on that stage was the task of the remaining people.

“—I made as many as ordered, but don’t expect much in terms of quality. This isn’t really a necromancer’s specialty, after all.”

While the epitome of a necromancer was indeed creating undead using corpses, in reality, cases where undead retained their “exact” living form were rarer than one might think.

In fact, it couldn’t be helped, as it was difficult to find corpses buried in graves that were completely intact from head to toe.

Missing one limb would be considered lucky; in severe cases, it might be easier to find what was there than what was missing.

So what did one do with the missing parts? What else? One filled them with something else.

Head from Hans, torso from Toms, arms from Jones, legs from Max, and if that still wasn’t enough, fill in the blanks with mana.

Therefore, the ability to process and reassemble corpse forms was essential for necromancers, and Dorothea, as a skilled necromancer, had properly acquired this skill.

And now, the result was properly attached to the carriage.

A spine bone stretching long as if piercing through the center of the carriage. Arm bones extending from the floor like a tripod, as if supporting that spine.

At the front, a grooved conical spear tip—the Tin Knight called it a drill—made primarily of teeth, gathering the strongest parts from animal and human body parts.

At the rear, a propeller made of bones and membranes reminiscent of bat wings.

While it might look fine from a distance, up close it was a sight that would cause seizures and force people to either flee or charge with swords drawn, shouting, “You evil necromancer! You’ve finally shown your true colors!” but the Tin Knight was simply delighted.

[The ‘Tin Knight’ says this is enough!]

As he had done in the fight with the Witch of the West, the Tin Knight grasped a long rod with both hands.

In fact, connecting the drill and propeller on the same rotation axis wasn’t a particularly rational design.

If the drill and propeller were connected on the same rotation axis like this, the moment the drill slowed down upon hitting something, the rotation of the propeller responsible for propulsion would also weaken.

However, in this world, there was the power of mana that could overturn this inefficiency.

And the Tin Knight was more adept than anyone at skillfully handling that mana.

Grasp.

The mana extending from the Tin Knight’s hands permeated every corner of the drill propeller, reinforcing its lacking strength.

The mana, tightening the central axis like a vise inside his grip using an application of sword energy, began to rotate violently.

Whoosh!

With a fierce wind strong enough to create a sandstorm behind it, the carriage began to dash with terrifying momentum.

Creak, creak.

The carriage began to scream as if it were alive.

Even the high-grade carriage, far superior in durability to ordinary carriages, emitted ominous noises, unable to withstand the excessive driving.

However, the effect was certain.

The unique salty smell of the sea that couldn’t be felt at first now reached the nose, and the coastline that wasn’t visible before suddenly appeared in their eyes.

“Multiple enemies ahead! At least three hundred! And the number is increasing!” Adelaide, who was on top of the carriage roof tied with a rope made from Rapunzel’s hair, shouted in succession.

“Attacks are coming!!”

Fire, cold, wind.

Dozens of attack spells dyed the sky in various colors.

Due to the extremely fast movement, only a few attacks hit their mark, but even those few were enough to destroy the carriage.

If they hit, that was.

“──.”

Adelaide composed her breath.

Mana flowed between the roof and her two feet standing on it, stabilizing her body like an adhesive.

Towards the huge fireball with a 2m radius flying towards her, she swung her sword.

Whoosh!

Not the blade itself, but the wind pressure caused by the sword tore apart the flames.

Adelaide’s physical abilities, raised through repeated training, had already reached the realm of the arena champion.

Ice chunks exploded the moment they touched her sword tip, and wind blades were split by her two-handed sword strikes.

However, the enemies weren’t pushovers either.

Realizing that attacks directly targeting the carriage had poor accuracy and effect, the enemies immediately changed their tactics.

Thud thud thud thud!

Vibrations echoed from here and there, and walls rose up from the ground in various places.

Moreover, as if intending to prevent the destruction or circumvention of the walls, they gradually increased, blocking all routes for the carriage to reach the coast.

“How annoying,” Dorothea muttered as if disgusted.

While blocking a single maintained road was one thing, changing the entire terrain of a coastline was truly a miracle possible only for a tower.

Even such a force was just a part of the power possessed by the Tower of Control.

While once again realizing who she had turned into an enemy, Dorothea tightened her lower abdomen even more and shouted, “If the carriage stops and those guys get to attack leisurely, it’s over! Keep moving somehow!”

[The ‘Tin Knight’ claims that originally, drills can even pierce the heavens, so mere obstacles like walls are nothing!]

***

“What are those things?” Skoll muttered as if dumbfounded.

In the temporary command post, at the rear of the battlefield.

Setting aside everything else, it was already shocking that the guys who were thought to take at least 20 minutes to reach the coast appeared in just 5 minutes.

It was fortunate that Hati’s familiar had discovered them just in time; otherwise, they would have had to hastily form a defense line only after the enemies had approached right in front of them.

In that sense, it could be seen as heaven siding with the Skoll and Hati siblings, but the problem was that even so, there was no confidence in being able to stop the enemies’ charge.

Due to their insane speed, over 90% of the attack spells fired hit random places, and even the few attacks that seemed to hit were all cut down by some kid swordsman riding on top of the carriage.

Skoll ordered irritably, “Forget about attack spells that don’t hit, block the path with walls. Right now!”

“Yes!”

The order was transmitted instantly, and the surrounding area began to be plowed up.

Some gathered the surrounding earth to make it swell up, while others created walls out of pure mana.

It was a moment when the Tower of Control’s unique messy aspect of not distinguishing between schools was revealed, but Skoll didn’t care about such things.

Whether they try to detour to the side or make a U-turn to go back, the carriage’s speed will inevitably decrease. That’s when we need to smash them with concentrated fire.

Initially, she had thought of capturing them alive to question their purpose and about other comrades, but after seeing their abilities, her mind changed.

She felt a sense of crisis that if they dealt with them half-heartedly, they might let them escape.

Hati seemed to feel a similar sentiment.

“…It’s a shame the terrain around here is so hard. If it were soft ground, we could have used water magic to create a swamp and forcibly stop the carriage.”

“We have to give up what we need to give up. It’s better to strike them down than to let them escape.”

“You’re right.”

The two siblings simultaneously drew up their mana.

Ready to pour attacks the moment the carriage hesitated even for a moment.

The carriage and the wall got closer.

The carriage and the wall got closer.

The carriage and the wall—

Why aren’t they stopping?

Right after the siblings wondered this.

The rampaging carriage crushed the wall in front of it.

And then another.

“W-what is that, what is it!?”

Despite Skoll shouting in confusion, the carriage’s charge didn’t stop.

If they had faced a single large and thick wall, it might not have been broken through so helplessly, but the walls deployed by the mages were in the form of dozens stacked like barricades.

These were torn apart like paper before the Tin Knight’s drill. Moreover, the speed didn’t even decrease much.

“…This won’t do.”

After muttering that with a serious face, Hati’s body flew through the air carried by the wind.

Held by his familiar and rapidly approaching the carriage, he invoked magic consuming vast amounts of mana.

Boom!

Under the clear and fine sky, a hurricane suddenly appeared without any precursor.

As Skoll, who joined a beat late, added a new spell, blades made of ice mixed in and swirled together between the storm.

“Uh, uhhh!?”

“L-lady Skoll, help—gack!”

The mages caught in the range of the hurricane were sucked into its center and turned into a handful of bloody water.

It was unavoidable for the two of them, as if they had given their allies time to escape in advance, they would have let the carriage escape as well, but from the perspective of those affected, such reasoning didn’t matter.

Even the girl on the roof who had been blocking all sorts of attacks until now seemed to think this was unavoidable, as tension appeared in her expression.

The girl lowered her body for a moment, then disappeared into the carriage.

Skoll sneered at this futile action.

If it were an ordinary gust they were facing, hiding inside the carriage might avoid it, but the attack spell unleashed by two 4th rank mages working together had the power to pulverize that mere carriage along with its contents.

They didn’t know.

That the black witch inside the carriage had placed her hand on the Tin Knight’s back.

Immediately after, from the drill part at the front of the carriage, thread-like sword energy began to spew out wildly.

At first, the sword energy indiscriminately slashed the surroundings, but soon it began to rotate while enveloping the entire carriage.

If until now only the front part of the carriage was a drill, now it looked as if the entire carriage had turned into a drill.

Finally, the drill and the hurricane clashed.

And as if it were natural, the hurricane was pierced through.

The siblings’ faces contorted with anger and shock.

“Kuk!”

“What, this…!?”

The siblings drew up more mana to not lose, but even so, they couldn’t stop the carriage’s momentum.

They could only hold the carriage for barely 3 seconds, and right after that, they had to fall back while coughing blood due to the backlash of canceling the spell.

The remaining mages also tried to stop the carriage by pouring out their magic, but the carriage shook off the interference smoothly and reached the coast.

Skoll shouted without even thinking of wiping the flowing blood, “Stop them! No matter what, they can’t cross the sea with a carriage!”

Saying that whether they swam with bare bodies or borrowed the power of the rare flight magic, the group would have to get off the carriage first, so that would be their chance, she urged her subordinates.

However, that wish was not fulfilled.

The running carriage suddenly disappeared into thin air, as if maintaining its momentum.

Instead, a raft suddenly appeared on the sea, its origin unknown.

A knight in heavy metal armor landed in the center of the raft. In both hands, he held the drill and propeller that seemed to have just been detached from the carriage.

The golden-haired girl who had been swinging her sword on top of the carriage now landed next to the knight, holding two different women in her arms.

After placing the two women on the raft, the golden-haired girl detached the drill part from the bizarrely shaped spear held by the knight.

Grasping the cone larger than her own height, the girl turned her gaze to glare at the ground.

The silver hair of the Skoll and Hati siblings was clearly reflected in her violet eyes. 1

The giant drill flew through the air.

The familiars, sensing their masters’ crisis, tried to block that mass containing terrifying weight with their bodies, but it was a futile action.

Crunch.

The sound of bones and flesh being crushed.

At the horrific sight of the mages inheriting the noblest blood in the Tower of Control being crushed to death like small insects, all the other mages froze.

Even as the propeller in the knight’s hand began to rotate again, moving the raft forward, none of them could open their mouths or move.

Footnotes

1. 1. ED Note: The Names of the wolves who chase the sun and the moon in Norse Mythology. Them accomplishing this goal is one of the events taht proceeds the start of Ragnarok

***

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