Chapter 34
The lobby of Linea Hall was a complete mess.
The once-brilliant chandelier had been shattered and rolled across the marble floor.
Shards of broken glass rode the night air, scattering everywhere and catching at people's feet.
An acrid stink mixed with ash made me wrinkle my nose.
"Sob..."
"A-ah, what do we do!"
Between the broken tables and torn sofas, the sounds of students sobbing and groaning drifted out here and there.
"E-everyone, stay calm... Don't panic!"
The voice of Assistant Professor Elmsworth, who was on patrol duty tonight, echoed hollowly.
His terrified cry only served to heighten people's fear instead of calming them.
"Shouldn't we run away?"
"At a time like this, with all of the head maid and senior maids away from their posts..."
The younger maids with little experience were wringing their hands, while the students with little real combat experience huddled in a corner and sniffled.
Third- and fourth-year students were out of the academy for a practical test.
The dean, the professors, and skilled maids including Odette had all gone along to supervise the exam and provide support.
At the very moment when all the academy's elite had left, trouble broke out, making the damage even worse.
At the bottom of the stairs leading down to the basement, right in the middle of the horrific scene.
A blue mass of mana stood there, unmoving, in the center of the disaster it had caused.
An ancient magical golem.
A phantom of the old age, recorded only in history, had manifested here in an incomplete form.
Though the young magitech engineer girl who had restored the golem still lacked the skill to make it complete.
Even so, its current power was already enough to bring about a horrific disaster.
Just look at the imperial princess's escort knights, collapsed helplessly at the foot of the stairs.
Not only were their swords and armor corroding, but their bones and flesh were melting away as well.
"Ggh... Kgh...!"
The knights could only groan through the searing pain.
The fact that spears and swords would not work on it only made them feel more helpless.
If it had been made of minerals like an ordinary golem, they might at least have been able to scratch it.
But cutting through flowing mana was impossible, no matter how skilled a knight was.
As anxiety and fear pressed down on everyone's hearts, the students instinctively turned their eyes to one place.
The Empire's Third Princess, Celestina Belhart.
In a crisis, it was only natural to look for the leader first.
The princess's fingertips trembled.
The forced smile on her face was long gone.
She had no special talent to speak of, nor had she spent enough time at the academy to be seasoned.
If you stripped away her royal status, she was nothing more than a fresh first-year student who had only just begun to adapt to academy life.
And yet, because she was royal.
She had to somehow live up to everyone's hopes.
Princess Celestina steadied her voice as best she could and gathered her courage.
"What's the situation? What is the golem doing?"
"It has stopped moving for the moment."
The one who carefully stepped forward in response to the princess's question was Edwin Belka, the Magic Department's top first-year student.
His arrogant face was twisted with strain.
"The escort captain swung at the golem's core, and that strike seems to have temporarily disrupted the flow of mana."
Edwin said, rubbing around his eyes with a hand.
His eyes stung terribly after observing the very essence of pure mana for so long.
"But that won't last long. Once the twisted flow recovers and it starts moving again, the damage will spiral out of control."
"How long until it starts moving again?"
"Based on my observations, it shouldn't take ten minutes."
Princess Celestina's eyes began to shake.
Ten minutes.
Too little time to decide on a course of action.
"Can't we expect any support from outside?"
"Mana communication seems to have been cut off, Your Highness."
This time, the one who answered was Kaizel, the Magic Department's top second-year student.
"It seems to be the golem's influence. Relying on outside support... will be difficult."
Of course, people inside the academy rather than outside it could probably come to help quickly, but that didn't mean much.
At best, it would only be students staying in other dormitories or the faculty, and they wouldn't add much to the fight. If they came, they'd only create more victims.
The ones gathered in Linea Hall, the dormitory for the honor students, were the academy's strongest force.
Princess Celestina nervously chewed her lip.
Honestly, just waiting helplessly was meaningless.
Soon, the princess seemed to make up her mind and took a deep breath.
"...Then there's no choice but to stop it somehow with our own strength."
The sobs and groans that filled the lobby stopped all at once.
"We can't let that golem destroy Linea Hall, or the academy. We have to stop it here."
"...Pfft."
A mocking laugh rang out especially loudly.
"How exactly are you planning to stop it, Your Highness?"
Miriel Adrian.
The only person here who could openly challenge the princess.
Perhaps even more powerful than the princess herself, she stepped forward with a cold smile.
"Against that monster, which even Your Highness's loyal escorts couldn't stop, what do you think mere students like us can possibly do?"
"Senior Miriel...!"
"Or perhaps Your Highness has some other plan?"
Princess Celestina bit her lip hard.
It was hard to argue back. She herself hadn't come up with any other method.
But even so.
"Then are you saying we'll just run away like this? Running away won't solve anything. If that thing gets out, the damage will only get worse."
The ancient magical golem was at its weakest right now.
Because it absorbed the mana in the atmosphere to grow in size, the more time passed, the more mana it would swallow.
The princess's argument that they had to do something now before it was too late wasn't wrong.
But that didn't make it right either.
"At the very least, we have to hold out until someone comes..."
"And who's going to be the one holding it off?"
Miriel's voice grew louder and louder.
The polite pretense she had shown on the surface was gone without a trace.
"That's the same as driving the students to their deaths."
Miriel pointed toward the escort knights lying on the floor.
There was no way to know how many lives would be lost just to buy a few minutes, or at most a few hours.
"A broken building can be rebuilt, but a dead person's life can never be brought back."
Some of the students began nodding, frightened.
Royal authority was powerless before the fear of death.
"Do you think running away means you'll survive? Haven't you thought about how much worse the damage will be once the magical golem starts rampaging?"
"If you're going to use imperial authority to force us to sacrifice ourselves, I'll gladly obey. But in that case, Your Highness, you'd better be prepared to bear the lives of everyone here as well."
The air inside Linea Hall froze solid.
With the two of them locked in a tense standoff, the other students caught in the middle could only watch nervously, unable to side with either one.
In the savage atmosphere that felt like it might explode at any moment.
Suddenly, a huge fireball shot through the hole in the floor and slammed into the magical golem's body.
-KWAANG!!
Right after the explosion rang out, a girl leapt across the lobby and jumped down the stairs.
Everyone's gaze turned to her.
Her ash-gray hair fluttered in the wind, and a fireball rose above her head once again.
Soon, another explosion shook the space.
"L-Lunaris... huff, huff...! I'm coming too!!"
Before the ringing in everyone's ears had even faded, another brown-haired girl came running from far away.
"Hey, everyone here! Lunaris says not to come downstairs and wait here. She says if you come to help, you'll only get in the way!"
After relaying the ash-gray witch's message, the girl also headed downstairs.
Panting as she carefully descended the shattered stairs, she looked dangerously unsteady.
"Wait... what did the girl who just went down say?"
"Didn't she say Lunaris?"
"Lunaris... that first-year top student?"
"A senior mage! The one who was on par with the head of the Magic Department!"
While the murmurs spread, Lunaris, standing at the foot of the stairs before the golem, yawned and said.
"You're late, Claire."
Her languid voice was as relaxed as if she were on a picnic.
*
The basement of Linea Hall was in a truly wrecked state.
The stone decorations were rolling around like pebbles on a roadside, and the wooden walls were broken beyond even firewood's use.
"Haa..."
The first thing that came out was a sigh.
Somehow, things had blown up.
The enemy in front of her looked extremely familiar.
A golem whose huge form was built from layers of blue mana around a transparent core.
Right. It was identical to the ancient magical golem described in the original story.
It wasn't hard to figure out what had happened. The one who had definitely made this was Senior Estelle.
The first thought that came to mind was just how on earth this had ended up like this.
This thing going berserk, Senior Estelle causing trouble—that was something that should not have happened until at least a year from now.
So there had been no time to do anything about it.
If I'd known this would happen, I would have confiscated Senior Estelle's schematics or whatever ages ago.
Even the timing was terrible.
Of all times, it had to be right now, when all the key combat forces had gone out for off-campus examinations.
...No, wait.
Maybe this was actually a good thing?
According to the original story, this incident is what gets Senior Estelle expelled from Elterion Academy. Ending up buried under debt is just a bonus.
But if I can somehow wrap this up and clean it up here...
Maybe the punishment would be reduced a lot?
"Right, there are still so many magical tools Senior Doraestel has to make for me."
Even just finishing the Apple Phone requires my senior's help desperately.
"I can't let her be expelled like this."
How dare you try to leave the story all on your own and make your exit without me.