Chapter 21
"Your valor in charging alone against a host of foes! The Lionheart King commends you!"
"I grant you the honor of beholding my countenance and the privilege of dueling the Lionheart King. I permit you to face me, warrior!"
There was no need to interpret his words. Jagd Spinner aimed its railgun at the cavalryman, who was waiting with foolish honesty.
The projectile aimed at Gil Taeseong shuddered as electromagnetic acceleration began.
「Railgun acceleration timing set. Output: 13%.」
It had no choice but to fire while conserving as much as possible of the limited energy in its reserve capacitor. But that was more than enough against a human-sized target.
No 'living thing' could survive a direct hit from this annihilating electromagnetic cannon. If anything could, it would have to be an otherworldly being or possess some alien power──
"Let's ride, my comrade."
────!!
Stallion gladly answered his call.
Its four legs struck the ground like a storm as it charged straight at the enemy.
It brought to mind a scene from history.
A knight on horseback, charging with his lance leveled.
The ancient chariot, humanity's greatest weapon for ages.
The sight of a knight of a bygone era, clad in honor and glory, valor and strength, charging into battle inspired awe in all who saw it.
But close-combat weapons were nothing more than relics of a bygone age.
Now that Hunters had surpassed the limits of living beings, what meaning could the mass generated by a mere horse possibly have?
What need was there to spell out the folly of a close-combat weapon challenging an armored machine armed with super-heavy armor and a high-velocity cannon?
-KWAANG!
The supersonic electromagnetic cannon accelerated beyond the speed of sight.
This was the difference between a mechanical weapon and a biological one: an overwhelming disparity in ranged firepower. Leon must have been fully aware of that.
"A knight does not fall to cowardly ranged weapons!"
Holy power flowed from Leon's entire body, forming a thin barrier before him.
-KWAANG!
The projectile collided with the barrier. Astonishingly, the railgun was stopped by a mere thin film. No... it was more than just stopped.
As if forced by some unseen power, the projectile bent and ricocheted away.
"......?!"
For an instant, even Jagd Spinner's high-performance AI stopped calculating.
Logic couldn't explain the phenomenon unfolding before it.
Jagd Spinner had hunted Hunters. It had witnessed mages. It had recorded as data their pitiful attempts to block its main cannon and autocannons with anomalous physical phenomena.
It understood that 'arts' which drew upon formless energy could have physical effects.
But this was different. This time was different.
The result hadn't emerged through a process of collision and interception leading to penetration or defense.
It had simply bounced away. The result had appeared without any process.
Divine Art: Blessing of Arrow Deflection.
Any 'ranged attack' is 'always' 'without fail' 'deflected' 'once'.
A divine art that any Grail Knight could deploy as naturally as breathing.
A miracle wielded by the Grail Knights, humanity's most powerful superhuman weapons.
A law that imposes its rules.
The knight who had casually deflected the railgun's attack charged forward at an unbelievable speed.
Fast.
The divine steed kicked up a storm and blazing heat as it closed the distance to Jagd Spinner in an instant.
-Beep!
The machine assessed the situation.
The weapon he carried was an antiquated cavalry lance. It was fast, but no matter how fast it went, the impact its mass could deliver had limits.
Unlike Hunters, who wielded weapons with superhuman movements and the unusual energy called 'mana,' the lance carried no energy at all.
He was truly attacking with nothing but pure physical force and momentum.
Threat Level 0.
A threat that didn't even warrant a response. At most, it would collide with one of its legs and stop. In that case──
The most rational response was calculated. Accept the lance charge with zero damage, stop the threat, then crush it with the autocannon.
The machine's rationality led it to an irreversible choice.
-Thump!
-Crack!!
The machine couldn't understand what had happened.
If Sensor 3 hadn't recorded the sound of a 'leg being pierced,'
If the auxiliary camera hadn't captured the heavy armor at the joint being pierced like pudding,
Jagd Spinner wouldn't even have hypothesized that the man's lance might have pierced its leg in an instant.
Impossible.
Impossible.
The AI rejected the hypothesis it had formed. After all, the sturdy armor around the joint couldn't be broken by a ridiculous, old-fashioned physical charge like a lance charge.
The bounds of 'common sense' established by science and the laws of physics were inescapable even for relics of an old civilization.
But proving it wasn't the machine's responsibility──
The reality bearing down on it was proof enough.
-KWAANG!
"......??!"
The joint struck by the holy spear creaked and buckled, making Jagd Spinner stagger.
"Sturdy."
Data revised. Reanalysis.
Logical analysis impossible. Physical phenomenon incomprehensible.
Enemy threat level forcibly raised.
Threat Level 5.
Only after forcibly classifying the threat as equivalent to a main battle tank did Jagd Spinner change its response to retreat.
Rather than ignore or crush the enemy as it normally would, Jagd Spinner leapt high, putting strain on its joints.
One leg was gone entirely, and another joint had been crushed, making its footing unstable. But after putting enough distance between them, Jagd Spinner's auxiliary joints moved.
-Swish!
The wire cutter lashed out like a whip. The murderous wire that had sliced countless Hunters in half swung toward Leon.
A supersonic wire whip that even Hunters with superhuman kinetic vision would struggle to perceive.
But Leon's kinetic vision was in a league beyond that of Hunters. Simply by raising his spear, he easily caught the wire around it.
Jagd Spinner pulled on the ensnared wire. A contest of strength naturally formed between them.
"A contest of strength with me? How amusing."
Leon pulled on the wire wrapped around his holy spear.
-Crrk!
The auxiliary joints, meant for moving minor obstacles or explosives, couldn't withstand Leon's grip strength.
-KWA-KWA-BOOM!
Having lost its railgun and wire cutter, Jagd Spinner unleashed a wild barrage from its autocannon.
Jagd Spinner landed on a rooftop and concentrated its entire autocannon barrage on Leon, while the divine beast Stallion escaped the field of fire in an instant with a marvelous series of running leaps.
-KWA-KWA-KWA-KWA-BOOM!!
Stallion's mobility carried it out of the entire field of fire, even though the suppressive shots weren't expected to hit.
At any rate, Jagd Spinner had put some distance between them. The autocannon fire was only meant to keep Leon away, so it had served its purpose. It would fire the railgun again...
────!!
The next instant, something tore through the air and came flying toward it. The camera sensor identified it as the spear Leon had been holding. 0.02 seconds.
The machine reacted too late. With penetration far beyond the railgun's, the spear pierced Jagd Spinner's left cerebral hemisphere and smashed its railgun to pieces.
-Krrk! Krrrik!
With half its sensors and its prized railgun destroyed, Jagd Spinner sagged, its joint movement calculations lagging. Even so, it continued firing to keep the enemy at bay.
In this crisis, its only hope of retreat was to prevent the enemy from approaching.
With an injury that would have been nearly fatal to a human, Jagd Spinner's crushed joints creaked like a roar filled with rage and pain.
-Krrk! Krrrik!
Leaving behind the grinding mechanical sounds of a killing machine from a cheap B-movie, Jagd Spinner vanished into the darkness of the sandstorm.
* * * *
Outside, the sandstorm still howled. Inside the Hunter camp, only silence prevailed.
Jagd Spinner's attack had caused a massive number of casualties.
The alarm raised by that sense of crisis had brought the individualistic Hunters together in one place.
"How many people are dead?"
"Seventeen that we could piece back together. I couldn't count the ones crushed under the building."
"So about thirty dead."
One-third of the Hunters at the camp had died in a single attack.
If Jagd Spinner hadn't retreated, the casualties would surely have been even worse.
"It's a blessing in disguise that the railgun was destroyed..."
The Hunters' gazes turned toward one man. Everyone there had witnessed the monster who had driven off Jagd Spinner single-handedly.
'......What the hell is he?'
'A Hunter who isn't even in the latest data.'
'That guy... didn't use mana or anything, did he? Did he really fight that monster with nothing but physical ability?'
They had plenty of theories, but nothing was certain, and none of them could answer their questions.
One thing was certain: this man was the only force capable of defeating Jagd Spinner on his own.
"You're much stronger than I thought."
After seeing Leon's martial prowess, Hwang Geumcheol was certain. This man was a survivor. An incredibly powerful one, too.
'Maybe he's an outlier like the Heavenly Demon or the Star Slayer.'
If so, he would have to cooperate with Leon wholeheartedly. As long as Leon settled in the Republic of Korea, the country's future would revolve around him.
"......"
The same went for Hwang Yeonha and Gil Taeseong. If not for Leon, Jagd Spinner would have inflicted far greater damage.
Gil Taeseong in particular grew impatient.
"If you don't mind, would you be interested in doing business with our Mage Tower? If you acquire the Orb of Wisdom, we'll provide you with our full support going forward──"
"Boring."
One word. With that single word, Leon shattered every possibility.
"I expected more from spellcasters and those with a bit of strength, but in the end, you're all just rabble. It seems I alone possess the qualifications of a true knight."
Not a trace of interest remained in his gaze or expression. His arrogance, however, remained unwavering as he looked down on the Hunters and the mages.
"At least make yourselves worthy before appearing before me. Earning the right to stand before me, the Knight King, isn't easy."
Maintaining his arrogant, haughty bearing to the very end, he walked away. Only the braided-haired swordswoman bowed and hurried after him.
"Ah~ What a bizarre survivor we've got here."
Hwang Geumcheol gave a wry smile, looking dumbfounded. Gil Taeseong's lips trembled with humiliation...
"Fuck... He's so damn cool."
Surprisingly, Hwang Yeonha gazed at him with childlike admiration.
* * * *
Jagd Spinner dragged its creaking joints into a repair shop.
「Protect the seal. Let no one approach.」
In all its long years of carrying out 'Top-Level Orders,' it had replaced parts as they wore down, but it had never been smashed and dented this badly.
Jagd Spinner methodically dismantled the bolts connecting its obstructive joints.
-Thud!
The joint fell. There were no spare parts.
Jagd Spinner diligently searched through the repair shop's remaining weapons and parts inventory.
Main weapon unusable. Five standard projectiles and thirty-six homemade projectiles tentatively written off.
Secondary weapon: 60 mm autocannon operational. 657 rounds remaining. Homemade ammunition required.
Wire cutter: resupply required. Auxiliary joint diagnostics: damaged. Severe imbalance in weapon use.
Auxiliary joints discarded.
Main weapon discarded.
Conclusion: Killing a Threat Level 5 target with the secondary weapon alone is impossible.
Threat Level 5. A classification intended for enemy main battle tanks, attack helicopters, or Type 1 biological weapons.
Jagd Spinner judged Leon to be something beyond a Type 1 biological weapon: a new unit belonging to a hostile force, the first of its kind in nearly a millennium.
How should it respond to a new unit that was more agile than itself and demonstrated unknown destructive power?
The AI independently compared combat capabilities, ran battle simulations to find an effective tactic, then chose and executed the option with the highest probability of victory.
Jagd Spinner attached the repair shop's modular robotic arms to itself. It operated them and began removing its own components one by one.
Thick armor capable of withstanding a main battle tank's cannon wasn't necessary. It removed it.
It didn't need legs capable of bearing its weight, either. It removed two more of its six remaining legs. It stripped the remaining legs of all but their minimal armor.
After removing the useless remains of the railgun barrel and the dedicated battery that supplied it with power, the multipurpose tank's weight fell from 100 tons to 46.
To make up for firearms whose ammunition was limited by chronic supply shortages, it assembled the urban debris it had routinely collected.
Jagd Spinner, now equipped with steel wires and additional maintenance robotic arms, looked nothing like the original model in the catalog.
It stripped armor from its legs until they could only withstand rifle rounds and explosives,
Its joints were reduced to a bare skeleton, but that was enough to support its reduced weight.
The spider had lost its firepower and defense, but gained horrifying mobility.
The machine's thorough rationality had stripped away everything unnecessary and prepared it to repel the enemy.
Even so──
「Yapi. Thank you for protecting the city.」
Deep within an old memory module, the voice that had never been erased was still playing.