Rocket Punch!

We came to remove the debris after hearing that a mountain pass called Veronica Gorge had collapsed.

The highway connected by this pass is practically the Kingdom's lifeline; if it remains closed, the royal capital could run dry and the country could be thrown into decline.

When we arrived at the site, the pass was indeed blocked by a landslide stretching a hundred meters.

This was not going to be easy. Even dependable K○tsu-san was struggling with a job this big.

So I bought a new piece of heavy machinery: H○tachi-san, an orange wheel loader.

But not only was it my first time driving a wheel loader, if I made a mistake on this narrow road, I would plunge straight to the bottom of the gorge.

As the sun sank and I climbed down from the heavy machinery—I collapsed, utterly exhausted.

—The next day.

We ate breakfast: Primula's soup and Anemone's bread.

Then I bought bacon from Shangri-La and made bacon and eggs.

"What is this meat?! Its flavor is so concentrated!"

"It is meat that has been salted, soaked to remove the salt, and then smoked."

"What? Salted meat can become this delicious?"

"This is delicious."

Melissa seemed satisfied with the bacon too.

Salted meat existed in this world as preserved food, but apparently bacon did not.

"Woohoo! This is delicious! Boss, you were still hiding food this good from us?"

"Nyaa!"

Three female beastfolk were eating with us beside Nyamena and Myaree, who were sitting cross-legged.

One was a calico; another was small and white, but not a child, and had a large scar on her face. The last was large and black—not fat, but broad and powerfully built.

"Chomp, chomp, chomp!" "It's delicious!" "Tasty."

"Why are you three eating with us?!"

"Because you spread that weird scent around, the men are all worked up and we can't sleep nearby! Don't go wandering around outside when you're like that!"

"Uh—sorry about that. It's not like I can help it... It happened while we were traveling..."

The female beastfolk's scolding left Nyamena looking awkward.

"Besides, aren't women supposed to know when that time comes?"

"I thought it was still a while off too—but after I saw Boss take down a lesser dragon with one blow, I couldn't hold back..."

"What?! A lesser dragon?" "Seriously?" "Come to think of it, Boss did bring out a lesser dragon's corpse."

The eyes of the beastfolk eating their meals lit up, and they stared at me with drool hanging from their mouths. That's it—we're full up.

My body really couldn't take any more.

"Even so, since we used magic stones that could pass through the barrier, I assumed Kenichi had come to visit me at night, but..."

"If I did that to royalty, I'd lose my head, wouldn't I? Besides, with Primula, Melissa, and the maids there, how would I even do it?"

"You could have taken me outside alone, couldn't you?"

"I must decline."

"Can't you think of any other response?"

"I might just abandon this job and run away."

"..."

She probably wanted to toy with me, but we had no time for that.

After breakfast, I refueled the wheel loader with the biodiesel fuel we had produced.

I brought out a bathtub full of fuel from my Item Box and set it on the back of the heavy machinery.

Then I used a hose to transfer the fuel. Since the bathtub was higher than the fuel inlet, it flowed into the tank on its own.

Good, good. I had to keep the beastfolk producing fuel as fast as they could.

After all, the machine consumed two bathtubs' worth of fuel every day.

"Does it really consume that much oil?"

"Yes. About two of these bathtubs' worth every day..."

"Could you go bankrupt on the cost of the oil?"

"That is why I requested military funds."

"I see..."

I never had to run heavy machinery all day in my normal life. Most jobs were over in an hour or two.

However, this wheel loader would make civil engineering work go much faster, but if it broke down, I could not repair it. I would have to replace it.

Its cost performance did not seem very good. I could not even replace tires this enormous, could I?

Actually, if I used K○tsu-san to hoist the tires, maybe I could manage it?

Well, I would think about that when the time came.

I took a laser rangefinder from my Item Box and measured the wheel loader—it was eight meters long.

It was just barely small enough to fit in my Item Box.

Melissa's golem was standing by too, but it would be inefficient to use it to transport earth and rocks.

I had it wait until we encountered rocks too large for the heavy machinery to lift.

I sat in the driver's seat and started the engine. After a full day's practice yesterday, I had gotten fairly used to it.

I should be able to operate it reasonably well today.

"All right, let's go!"

After checking my surroundings, I pressed the accelerator and drove the bucket into the dirt and rubble.

Then I lifted the full bucket and dumped it below the cliff. Near the edge, it was faster just to push the earth over and let it fall.

"Wooooah!"

Cheers rose from the merchants.

Things were going extremely smoothly. At this rate, maybe we could clear the debris much sooner than expected. —Just as I thought that, I ran into an enormous rock about three meters across.

This one was too large to lift.

"Hey, Melissa! I need your help!"

I backed up the wheel loader to make room for the golem.

"It's finally my turn."

She took the golem core from my Item Box, and her magic activated the golem.

Then it lifted the huge rock and casually tossed it over the cliff.

"Wooooah!"

Cheers rose from the merchants again. As merchants, they too were on the brink of life and death.

I assumed they were counting on us. I would have liked to collect a fee from them as well, but this was public work commissioned by the king.

If anyone was going to pay, it would be His Majesty the King—in other words, the country.

I dismissed Melissa's golem and resumed carrying earth and rocks with the wheel loader.

Once the earth and rocks below were gone, I took K○tsu-san from my Item Box and broke up the debris from above.

This was completely a one-man civil engineering operation. After a while, an even larger rock emerged from the debris. It was about the same size as the golem.

There was no way heavy machinery could handle this. I climbed down from the driver's seat and tried to store it in my Item Box—but it did not work.

I thought it was under ten meters in size—but maybe being buried in the debris was the problem? I asked Melissa for help.

"Melissa, do you think the golem can handle this one too?"

"I'll try, but..."

Could the golem really move this enormous rock? She did not sound confident either.

Melissa began chanting.

'O great one connected to all things, grant this rubble a temporary life—'

The debris gathered around the core I had taken from my Item Box and formed the shape of a golem.

Then the giant began wrestling with a similarly sized rock. But it did not budge. Was it because more than half of it was still buried in the debris?

"This isn't working. We might have to dig it out."

"—Yes."

If we needed to dig it out, K○tsu-san was the one for the job.

With its enormous arm and steel claws, it dug around the rock and exposed it.

After the work was done, I stored K○tsu-san and went over to Melissa.

"How about now?"

"I'll try."

The enormous golem activated again and began struggling with the rock.

"Melissa, could you twist the rock like this and move it little by little?"

"Those complicated movements are difficult, you know?"

She grumbled, but it looked like she would try.

The golem tilted the rock slightly, rotated it, and then tilted it in the opposite direction. Repeating this should let us move it little by little.

She probably had never made it perform movements like these. Sweating, Melissa desperately controlled the golem.

Still, the rock definitely began to move, little by little, emerging from the debris.

"Melissa, let me try something."

I put the golem on standby and tried storing the rock in my Item Box.

"Store!"

The enormous rock vanished from before my eyes.

"Wooooah!"

The merchants cried out again. Now that the rock was in my Item Box, the rest was easy. I just had to take it out beyond the cliff.

The enormous rock emerged from my Item Box with a ground-shaking boom and rolled down the cliff.

Heavy thuds traveled through my body, and small stones came trickling down from above.

I had to keep an eye on above us too. Even a rock the size of a soccer ball could be fatal if it struck someone's head or body.

After that, the work proceeded without incident, and the day came to an end.

In the end, we advanced about ten meters. If we could clear ten meters a day, then a hundred-meter stretch would mean the highway would reopen in ten days.

By evening, the merchants had come back to eat Primula's cooking.

"At this rate, won't the road be passable in ten days?" "If the loss is only ten days, it won't be that great."

In a world where goods were transported by horse-drawn carriage and monsters and bandits appeared on the highways, was a delay of about ten days considered acceptable?

If only the young merchant who had thrown himself off the cliff had waited a little longer, things might have worked out for him...

But maybe we had just been lucky on the first day. There could be a huge rock buried ahead that would not fit in my Item Box, for instance.

If that happened—we would need explosives...

Since everyone said they were going to eat Primula's soup, I decided to have cup noodles.

Noodles were still unpopular, as expected. No one said they wanted any—except one person.

"Oh! Kenichi, is that some kind of elven insect dish?"

"Elves?"

According to the princess, elven cuisine included a dish made by boiling thin insects. Oh, so something like that really did exist. No wonder everyone called them insects.

"Lilith-sama, these are not insects. They are wheat flour stretched out into long, thin strands."

"All right, I will try some too."

"What?!"

Seriously? Was it really okay to feed cup noodles to a princess? This princess really would eat anything.

But if she wanted some, I had no choice. I took a cup of noodles from my Item Box, added hot water, and set it in front of the princess.

"Please wait a little while."

"How long?"

"Um... About as long as it takes to slowly count to 180."

"Hoh, I understand."

The princess stared at the cup noodles in front of her, muttering under her breath. She really seemed to be counting.

"It should be about time."

"What? Oh, all right."

I removed the lid from the cup noodles for her.

"Oh!"

She could not use chopsticks, so I bought a disposable plastic fork from Shangri-La.

"Please use this to eat them."

"Good heavens, it's so light!"

The princess seemed astonished by the plastic product. Then she scooped up the noodles with the fork and brought them to her mouth, only to be surprised again.

"Oh! This is delicious! What a strange food, but it is truly delicious."

"I think so too, but everyone at home absolutely hates them."

"Ha-ha-ha, they do look exactly like elven insect cuisine."

The princess was eating the noodles with little huffs and puffs, but she did not seem able to slurp them.

I had heard that eating noodles by slurping was a special skill of the Japanese, so it was hardly strange that a princess eating noodles for the first time could not slurp them.

"Kenichi! They're delicious, but there isn't enough!"

"What? Then how many more would you like me to prepare?"

"Three!"

"Two should be plenty."

"Three!"

As we repeated an exchange that sounded oddly familiar, I bought more cup noodles from Shangri-La.

I peeled off the packaging, opened the lids, and poured in the hot water. Since she ate so quickly, I might as well prepare them all at once.

"Kenichi, I want some too..."

Anemone made a request as well. The princess was eating them so eagerly that it had probably piqued her interest.

I took more cup noodles from my Item Box and added hot water.

"Oh, oh—as time passes, they swell and soften! But they're delicious this way too."

So the princess liked softened ramen too. Cup noodles were still edible when they got a little soggy, but I felt real ramen tasted bad once it went soft.

The princess was eating with obvious relish, but Melissa beside her and the maids standing behind her were all looking away.

They really did seem disgusted. If they kept making such revolted faces, I had a feeling the princess might make them eat some as a punishment...

"Well, Anemone?"

"Yes, it's really delicious!"

As I thought, they had just been judging it by its appearance. Once they tried it, they would understand how good it was.

After the meal, Anemone brought something over and set it on the table.

"A doll?"

It looked like a doll made of earth or mud.

"Hee-hee..."

Anemone smiled brightly. Then she chanted something, and the clump of earth began to totter along.

"Is that a golem?"

"Yep."

"Wow! That's amazing, Anemone! You can make golems already?"

When I patted her head, she looked delighted.

"What?! How can she do that? It took me several months just to control a basic golem!"

"I learned from a book."

"A book?!"

"Yesterday—no, the day before, maybe. I told you, didn't I? I read a book in the royal library."

"You learned it just from that? Don't lie to me!"

"But it's true. It's moving right in front of us, isn't it? Isn't that right, Anemone?"

"Yep!"

When I lifted Anemone into my arms and rubbed my cheek against hers, the golem collapsed.

"Besides, activating a magical creature without the country's permission is illegal!"

"I gave my permission."

"Your Highness..."

Melissa looked shocked by the princess's words, which did not support her.

"I, as a member of the royal family, gave permission for your golem's activation too. So what problem could there be with giving permission for Anemone's?"

"Once Anemone's golem can be used in actual work, it will help clear the debris too."

"Kenichi is right."

"A-as Your Highness wishes..."

Melissa bowed once and withdrew.

Well, that was why the princess had come all the way out to this remote place.

"We must use anything available and work to reopen the highway even one day sooner—that is the duty of royalty."

When I set Anemone down, she activated the golem again.

She seemed to like it. I suppose it was similar to a remote-controlled robot.

If possible, I wanted to try it too.

However, if she could move something like this, perhaps if I devised a mechanism that let it fly, she could make a flying golem—a remote-controlled airplane—as well.

Watching Anemone's golem totter along gave me an idea.

"Anemone, what if you spun the golem's arm around and detached just the arm at the right moment? Do you think you could make it fly?"

"What's that? It sounds fun!"

Anemone spun the golem's arm as I had suggested and detached it.

But perhaps her timing was late, because the arm missed the table and fell at her feet.

"You were a little late, weren't you?"

"Yeah."

She tried again, but this time her timing seemed too early. The arm flew off at a forty-five-degree angle and traced a parabola.

Still, it was clear that she could launch the arm. The missing arm could simply be replaced with fresh earth.

"All right! One more time! Here!"

At Anemone's shout, the golem's arm flew horizontally.

Seeing that, I bought white paper cups from Shangri-La and lined them up on the table.

"Anemone, try aiming at these and knocking them down. And your spell is 'Rocket Punch!'"

"What's Rocket Punch?"

"It's the spell you use when you launch the arm."

"All right! Spin, spin—Rocket Puuunch!"

Fired at just the right moment, the golem's Rocket Punch knocked the paper cup off the table with a "pop!"

"You did it! Nice shot, Anemone!"

"Hee-hee..."

When the arm launched from the golem knocked down another paper cup, the princess cried out.

"Th-this could be used as a weapon!"

"Well, I suppose it could."

Ah, how bloodthirsty. Perhaps it could not be helped in a world like this, but did everything have to be connected to war...?

Rocket Punch was a weapon, technically.

"I have seen attacks where golems throw rocks, but making one launch its own arm..."

"Heh-heh-heh—Melissa, this is a victory for imagination."

I covered my face with my right hand, striking a pose as I looked at the exasperated Melissa through my fingers.

However, the magic wore off the instant the arm was launched, so the earth lost the strength holding it together and spread like buckshot—its range was therefore short.

Making a doll perform a throwing motion like a human's would be far too complicated. But if it only had to spin its arm and detach it, the controls should not need to be so complex.

While Anemone was making the golem toddle around on the table, a black hand suddenly emerged from below and smacked the moving doll flat.

The golem collapsed and returned to earth, its remains spreading across the tabletop in a radial pattern.

"No!"

Anemone cried out, but Bell must have reacted to something moving right in front of her.

It was probably instinct, so even if we told her not to do it, she would likely do it anyway. Besides, she had nothing to do here.

We would have to do this somewhere Bell could not see.

But then I had an idea. Could I make a golem core myself?

Making one would be easy—I only had to shape it like a sea angel.

But if every movement in the process of making it had to be infused with magic, then it would be impossible.

"Anemone, do you need magic even when shaping a golem core?"

"No. Apparently a core made by someone else can be overwritten and used too."

Oh, so that was how it worked. Then Anemone could use a core I made myself.

I bought a scroll saw from Shangri-La. There were cheap ones made in certain foreign countries, but I wanted a reliable Japanese-made one—it cost 20,000 yen.

I connected the scroll saw to the generator I had taken from my Item Box, drew the shape of a core on a board I had brought out with it, and cut it out.

"Wow!"

The princess was astonished by the unfamiliar machine tool.

Once the cutting was finished, I had to round off the corners of the core.

Anemone had shaved hers down during the cutting, but I used a machine tool—a belt sander.

This one was Japanese-made too and cost 20,000 yen. The sandpaper belt spinning round and round quickly rounded off the core's corners.

"It's so noisy, nya." "Yeah..."

I handed some sweets and alcohol to the two beastfolk who were complaining.

I made the arms in the same way as the torso, cut concave notches into both pieces, and joined them together. Finally, I drilled holes and secured them with wood screws.

"All right, it's finished!"

What I had made was a core about ten centimeters long.

"What? You already made a core?"

"You were watching, weren't you?"

I stored the tools in my Item Box. Making things like this was fun, but cleaning up was a pain.

But putting everything in my Item Box cleaned it up in one shot.

I handed what I had made to Anemone.

"Try moving a golem with this."

"Okay."

Anemone chanted something. It seemed to be a ritual for initializing the core to its user.

It was shaped similarly, but would it really work? And would using metal wood screws to attach the arms affect it?

Then she chanted the activation spell, and the earth on the table gathered together. The golem began toddling around.

"It worked! I can control a golem with a core I made!"

"This is completely absurd... Making a golem core out of something like that..."

Absurd or not, making it was what mattered.

Apparently it did not matter whether I used tools to make the core or whether its materials included metal.

If metal or joining pieces were forbidden, for example, making a large core would require an even bigger log.

Learning that alone made the experiment worthwhile.

Before bed, the female beastfolk came over again, so I let them into the barrier.

So people really do get attacked... That sounds incredibly difficult. And in a world without police or courts, you have to protect yourself.

It was a harsh world for women.

------◇◇◇------

Over the next few days, the debris removal proceeded smoothly.

The enormous wheel loader pushed and carried the earth and rocks with its steel bucket, then dumped them over the cliff.

The cleared stretch of highway gradually lengthened. The merchants celebrated, looking as though they had already won the match.

Even though we had no idea what lay ahead.

"Don't celebrate until you've made it through the forest," right?

Primula was right; it was a Dalia proverb.

Perhaps someone had gone to the town at the entrance to the pass, because the merchants who had once gone back down the pass began climbing it again.

There had initially been about ten merchant carriages left here, but the number grew to fifteen, then about twenty.

Even while we worked, individual merchants were crossing over the collapsed debris to join us.

The work was going smoothly, but we were not neglecting our preparations.

We might encounter an enormous rock that would not fit in my Item Box.

We might need to blast it, so I decided to prepare some ANFO explosives using ammonium-nitrate fertilizer as well.

I had already used one pressure-cooker bomb at the castle, so perhaps I should make two more... Better safe than sorry.

The work appeared to be proceeding smoothly, but my bad premonition came true.

As I advanced while removing the debris, I came upon an enormous rock buried in it—one too large to fit in my Item Box.

What am I supposed to do with this?