There was a game called hide-and-seek.

People were divided into two teams, one hid and the other seeked to find those hiding.

It was extremely simple, but because of its simplicity, it was also a game that needed various restrictions.

Typical examples include limiting the area where one could hide, like, “You can’t go outside the house,” or placing conditions on movement, such as, “You can’t move from your hiding place once you’ve chosen it.”

If not?

While it varied somewhat depending on the skill difference between the seeker and those hiding, usually the seeker ended up in trouble.

And now, the people on the Tower of Control side were experiencing to their very bones just how terrible “hide-and-seek without restrictions” could be.

“Damn it, you still haven’t found him!! Isn’t detection magic meant for times like this!”

“T-that’s because it’s a magic doll, so we have to find it solely by mana response without any biological reaction, but due to the extremely chaotic mana flow in the castle from continuous battles and use of attack magic, it’s not working properly.”

The Tin Knight never fought the enemies head-on.

He kept moving around various parts of the castle, hiding his body between terrain and structures, and repeating surprise attacks and withdrawals.

A soldier stabbed to death by the Tin Knight on the opposite side right after opening a closed door.

A knight who lost his legs to a blade that suddenly burst through the ground while searching the second floor.

A mage whose head was split by the Tin Knight who suddenly jumped down from a high floor while activating detection magic in the castle courtyard.

There were no restrictions on hiding places or range, they couldn’t feel safe even in places they had already searched, and worst of all, in this hide-and-seek, the seeker wasn’t an invincible strong one but merely a target for slaughter.

Little by little.

The main forces gathered in the castle were being whittled down.

Bruha gritted his teeth and ordered, “Gather all personnel in the parade ground. Knights, mages, all useful forces, gather them all in one place!”

In Bruha’s thinking, the Tin Knight absolutely didn’t possess the power to overwhelm the entire castle alone.

If the Tin Knight’s power was 100, the power Bruha and his subordinates possessed was over 1000.

Yet the reason they were being so helplessly defeated was that “the force at the moment of confronting the Tin Knight” was always less than 100.

Then conversely, if they just gathered in one place instead of clumsily searching, the Tin Knight would no longer be able to rampage.

Putting aside specific numbers, Bruha’s judgment itself that they should gather in one place and resist rather than being sloppily scattered wasn’t wrong.

If it wasn’t for one thing, that was.

《Below! Right below here! The blood of the dirty old man is here!》

[The ‘Tin Knight’ shouts that he’s found the boss!]

That judgment came too late.

With a shing, the ceiling of the room where Bruha was staying was cut out in a square.

The ceiling that should have protected people’s heads turned into a press, crushing those below.

Bang!

The reason mages brought familiars was mostly to protect their bodies.

Bruha couldn’t react to the sudden surprise attack, but the spirit contracted to him faithfully protected its master.

The moment the lizard-shaped spirit’s eyes glowed, an egg-shaped flame enveloped Bruha and caused an explosion.

The explosion, which didn’t affect anything inside the egg while burning everything around it, instantly blew away the collapsed ceiling.

But all it could protect was Bruha’s own safety.

Bruha’s companions in the same place met their deaths swept up in the flames before being crushed by the ceiling.

“How dare you!”

Anger settled in Bruha’s eyes.

It wasn’t… grief for the dead subordinates, but rather anger at the realization that he himself might have lost his life if he had been careless.

Bruha quickly drew up mana from his entire body.

Whoosh!

And before he could even manifest his magic, his body flew sideways like a tennis ball.

“Gack!”

The reason Bruha didn’t die instantly was thanks to the egg-shaped barrier withstanding the Tin Knight’s slash.

Befitting the Rognir bloodline, which had mixed plenty of excellent mage blood into their lineage, his mana was vast, and accordingly, his familiar’s defensive performance was excellent.

Among what Bruha could handle were wide-range attack magic, sniping techniques that could accurately target specific objects with pinpoint accuracy, and various summoning techniques.

The title of 4th rank mage wasn’t just for show, and his role as a unit commander was possible not just because of his bloodline, but because he had sufficient skill.

[The ‘Tin Knight’ declares that he’ll end this before patterns appear since there’s not much time!]

However, no matter how many abilities and skills one had, it was meaningless if there was no opportunity to use them.

The moment the Tin Knight struck the egg-shaped flame with his shield, the three gems embedded in the shield instantly released their mana.

Boom!

Breaking through several walls inside the castle, Bruha’s body was violently pushed back.

The lizard spirit screamed in the face of the massive impact.

The moment Bruha’s body broke through the outer wall of the castle and bounced outside, the egg of flame enveloping him cracked and dissipated.

Bruha’s body fell on top of another unit that happened to be moving.

Thud.

A figure that looked like a mage was crushed under Bruha.

“Shit, which bastard—L-Lord Bruha!?”

Bruha’s eyes were half-glazed, and drool was leaking from his mouth.

Seeing this clearly abnormal state, the mage and his unit were flustered but quickly entered battle stance.

Several 3rd rank mages and knights. Meeting them, the most skilled among the various small units in the castle, was lucky for Bruha.

Also, it was unfortunate for themselves.

Whoosh!

The Tin Knight leapt out from between the walls Bruha had broken through with his body.

Crack.

The mana orb Gale had handed over collapsed its form and seeped into the Tin Knight.

Combining the originally remaining mana and the newly charged amount, the remaining quantity was about 70% of the maximum.

The Tin Knight drew out all but 20% of that.

No one except the Tin Knight, who unleashed the technique, could understand what happened next.

The knight who was about to swing his sword against the falling Tin Knight, the mage who deployed defensive magic, the familiars who revealed their powers to protect their masters.

Without exception, everyone was shattered into countless pieces.

It looked as if dozens of giant swords had slashed the ground simultaneously.

The elite unit that would have boasted numerous military achievements if deployed on the battlefield, and the 4th rank mage nurtured by Rognir, met a miserable end without even a chance to wield their skills.

The Tin Knight’s skull necklace sang.

《Gone! It’s gone now! The blood of the dirty old man isn’t here!》

[The ‘Tin Knight’ says he’ll withdraw now since it seems he’s reached four digits!]

Although there were still quite a few enemies left in the castle, the Tin Knight ignored them and set out on his return journey.

It took quite a long time for the remaining forces, who were in an uproar trying to find the Tin Knight who was no longer there after losing their command, to realize everything was over when they saw the silver hair buried in a huge pool of blood and flesh.

***

Originally, the relationship between Gale Elilaz and the Tower of Control wasn’t very good.

In fact, when the Tower of Control side first tried to recruit her, they immediately promised her a 4th rank position.

Considering that even those who had accumulated merits for decades in the same tower had to shed tears of blood to enter 4th rank, this was truly an enormous benefit.

Moreover, those mentioned as marriage partners at that time were all likely candidates for the next emperor of Control, such as Jeras, Valdeus, and Teur.

The gray old man had practically offered Gale the position of the next queen, and people thought she would “naturally” accept that offer.

But.

— What? I don’t want to?

The offer was miserably rejected, and Gale entered the Tower of Protection.

Moreover, the reason she gave was just one sentence, “I wanted to make the best magic doll.”

It was a major incident where the boasted royal bloodlines were pushed aside by a mere doll, and while Control seemed to outwardly pass over this generously, there were more than enough people who harbored resentment inwardly. It wasn’t for nothing that Jeras immediately threw an assassin at Gale as soon as he saw her face.

When the White Knight, who was practically Gale’s symbol, appeared before a unit under the Tower of Control, it was in a way natural that they burned with fighting spirit, saying they would smash him.

Especially since it wasn’t even multiple enemies, but just the White Knight alone who appeared.

“If we turn that magic doll into a pile of scrap metal and throw it at that damned girl’s feet, it would be perfect!”

In another castle about 30 minutes away from the castle where Bruha was, the unit commander guarding that place laughed heartily saying this and.

Boom!

One strike was enough to make that smile freeze.

“Block it! Block it somehow!”

“Shit, what, what kind of ridiculous output is this! How much money did they pour into this!!”

The White Knight didn’t just jump into the castle alone and play killing hide-and-seek like the Tin Knight. That was a perverse act only possible for the Tin Knight.

Instead, he executed his own version of hit-and-run tactics.

Charging quickly and strongly against the castle with his spear at the forefront, then bouncing away before the opponent could react.

Common sense would say this was nonsense.

The castle wasn’t made of paper, so what problem could arise from just charging with a spear, they thought.

Problems arose. A lot of them.

Crack.

Crackle.

Crackle crackle crackle!

At first, it was just shaking, then after a few repetitions cracks appeared, and after about ten repetitions, one side of the castle wall collapsed entirely.

The Tower of Control wasn’t stupid—they tried to deploy defensive magic or send out interception units, but the power was too high to be completely blocked by defensive magic, and the speed was too fast to be caught by interception units.

Considering that the mana the White Knight poured into each hit-and-run was more than the total mana of an average mage, it could be said to be a natural result in some sense.

This terrible guerrilla attack only stopped when the commander, unable to bear it anymore, tried to intercept personally and ended up skewered by the White Knight, and after taking down the Rognir bloodline like this, the White Knight returned to the ship flying far away in the sky as if there was nothing more to see.

The Tower of Control urgently ordered nearby units to pursue them, but the ship calmly escaped, cutting through the air at a terrifying speed.

And about an hour later.

A similar process was repeated with another unit.

Rest was unnecessary for dolls.

And the mana needed to move them was still overflowing.

***

https://ko-fi.com/genesisforsaken