Chapter 96
ㅡKWAAAAAANG!!!
“Hwaeeek!!!!!”
[ The Fragment of the Ruined Kingdom is complete. Heavy Infantry Commander ‘Galahad’ creation complete. ]
A new golem appears, born only to smash the Oseong Group’s ridiculously expensive mechanical weapon to pieces with a clatter the moment it’s born. It’s the sum total of all sorts of technology, made by pouring money into it like water, and the researchers here have all been eating and sleeping here every day just to look after that one thing..!!
On top of that, it trashed the super-precise rare-metal golem Sua unnie made with Oseong Group’s support all at once too. Honestly, for something that expensive, I want to ask why it wasn’t under control and why it suddenly ran off on its own!!
“U, uuuu….”
The researchers, now in a bad mood, are like, “No, we’re not signing the contract. Put back the 4 billion won golem creation cost. And report you for vandalism and whatever-whatever, then off to jail with you.”
‘I’m dead..!’
Just thinking that at this young age I’d already end up in prison, living with thieves, serial killers, drug dealers, lease fraudsters, mafia, gangsters, yakuza, Mr. Jang Geon, and so on makes my head spin.
Who on earth made this ridiculous thing..!
‘Hmm, I made it, didn’t I.’
My mouth hung open, my pupils spinning, and cold sweat poured down my back. After I shoved the status window aside, which I hadn’t even been able to check properly, and pushed the sunglasses that had slid down onto the bridge of my nose back up, I heard the new golem’s voice.
“Keh, did you underestimate me because I’m old?”
But the voice that came out was.
‘Grandpa..?’
It was a voice that sounded incredibly old—deep, boisterous, the kind you’d imagine from someone chugging beer in a shabby old tavern and then spending about three hours telling stories that start with ‘Back in my day-’.
ㅡCreeeeak….
Rising from the seat he’d been half-sitting in and looking around, the new golem’s gaze turned this way, and his left index finger pointed straight at me.
“Hmm? This face is…. No, the one next to you?”
Then he took a look at Ophelia standing beside me, and while scratching his head.
ㅡBeep-beep!!
The doggo I’d been holding in my arms suddenly started sprinting off, like a puppy that had been half-accidentally abandoned at a travel destination and then, years later, ran hundreds of kilometers to reunite with its owner.
“Oh-ho-ho..! This little one..!”
The new golem pressed his huge, broad back-of-hand against the floor to suit his nearly four-meter-tall body, then lifted the doggo that had run up to him onto his palm.
“What is this tiny little form! Hahaha!”
ㅡBeep-beeeeep!!!
On top of that, Minyum, who had been standing nearby, raised both hands and ran over, and Suri, who had been spinning in circles high up in the sky, somehow ended up plopping onto the new golem’s shoulder.
In the meantime, Ophelia helped me up from where I’d fallen on the floor, and the new golem, now plastered with the three golems, came thundering this way, shaking the ground with each step.
“Hwaeee….”
Just how huge was he? Looking up made my neck ache. With a creaking metallic sound, the new golem bent one knee in front of me, then looked at me and reached out with the hand not holding the doggo, using his index finger to stroke my head.
“Princess... you truly haven’t forgotten Bonno.”
“Sir Galahad. It’s a pleasure to meet you.”
“Hahaha! Ophelia too—this really is nostalgic.”
The way he spoke made it seem like he knew both me and Ophelia. I glanced at the status window I’d set aside for the moment and recited the information that had popped up in the notification.
“Heavy Infantry Commander Galahad….”
Just like with Ophelia, the status window told me his title and name. I slowly turned my head and looked at Galahad—or rather, Grandpa Galahad.
Honestly, from his appearance, I couldn’t really tell whether he was a grandpa or not, since he was a robot. But his voice and manner of speaking both sounded like one. He’d even referred to himself as an old man, so.
“H-hello..?”
A clumsy greeting, but one I’d definitely managed to get out. Galahad grandpa, who had been gently stroking my head with an index finger far more delicate than his size would suggest, withdrew it and nodded in return.
“From now on, we’ll have to find our peace.”
“Wooooah….”
It felt like warm sunlight somehow. A nostalgic sensation, like something I’d seen somewhere before.
Galahad grandpa stood up from his seat, quickly scanning the surroundings as he said,
“But... where is this?”
Beside us lay the wreckage of the two golem units that had been smashed to pieces, and around us were the Awakened who had collapsed one after another, along with the ones who were still standing and slightly wary of Galahad grandpa.
There was also Chaerin unnie, who had tried to protect me, and Sua unnie, whose eyes and mouth were open so wide as she stared at the remains of her own golem. And even Teacher Ahn, who just looked unbelievably excited.
“Sir Galahad, I’ll explain the broad strokes later. This is the laboratory of the organization that assisted in your creation.”
“Oh, I see. Where is the person in charge?”
“I-it’s me!”
Teacher Ahn, his eyes sparkling like a child’s, raised his hand high at Galahad grandpa’s words as he looked around for the person in charge.
“I see. Then what should we do about those over there? Do they need compensation?”
As Galahad grandpa pointed at the wreckage, Teacher Ahn scratched his cheek and said,
“Haha... I think it would be good if you could cooperate with us on a few things.”
“Hmm….”
After that, Galahad’s gaze turned to Ophelia, and Ophelia slowly nodded with her eyes closed.
“Good. Understood.”
* * * * *
Smaller cleaning robots swept the wreckage away with dustpans and brooms in a flurry, and the Hunters who had lost consciousness began waking up one by one, so the situation was more or less brought to a close.
Galahad grandpa was surrounded by countless researchers and strange mechanical devices, listening to exclamations of amazement all day long.
“No way, how..?”
“Huh, what is this.”
“This is unbelievable.”
“So fascinating, so fascinating.”
I was sitting a little farther away on the sofa with Ophelia and Chaerin unnie, watching the whole thing. At some point the golems had come over and sat with us too.
“Ophelia, was Grandpa Galahad someone I knew...?”
“Yes. Sir Galahad is a fine commander who led his soldiers from the front for a long time.”
“I see….”
It felt like that, somehow, but actually experiencing it left my heart all tangled up. With Ophelia, I suppose I was so busy I couldn’t really think about it deeply.
Of course, this time was just as hectic, but Grandpa Galahad definitely seemed to know me. Same with Doggo, Suri, and Minyum.
This was also the part the researchers at Oseong Group’s secret base were most curious about. How could a golem that had just been made immediately begin moving of its own will without any orders, coding, or programming?
Not only that, but its movements were showing responses far more delicate and human-like than Sua unnie’s golem, which had been stuffed with tens of thousands of lines of commands, or Oseong Group’s mechanical weapon, which had finished its coding perfectly after dozens of times that amount.
For a golem, coding that makes good use of its functions and output, and draws the right conclusion at the right moment, is just as important as the unit’s raw performance.
AI wasn’t bad either, but the speed just wasn’t there, so in many cases they had to manually cram in a ton of possible outcomes to make immediate reactions possible.
You couldn’t have a monster attacking and then have it respond with something like, ‘Thinking for 17s. That attack really catches you off guard.’
“And you, Doggo, you ditched me and ran off, didn’t you? Chew toy confiscated.”
ㅡBeep-beep?!!
“Minyum and Suri, I’m disappointed in you too.”
ㅡKiiit….
ㅡClack..?!
How could you not pay me any attention at all when I’d fallen over and just rush off to see Grandpa first? I’m the princess, you know?? Aren’t you supposed to protect me???
“Kwahahaha!!”
Over where the researchers were gathered, Grandpa was sitting in a huge iron chair, sticking various patch-like things onto himself and running tests, and if he heard something amusing, I could hear him laughing heartily while pounding his massive hand on his knee.
‘Is he really not human….’
Unlike Ophelia, whom I’d brushed past without much thought, looking back on it now was really amazing. There aren’t many people, but even on the Golemist Gallery they share tens of thousands of English lines of things like ‘essential prompts for combat golems,’ and depending on the golem’s size or the functions granted to it, you have to stuff in a ton of complex, systematized prompts.
“There definitely was something.”
“Huh? What was it?”
“Ah, Eve. That first blue mana wave—I felt like it carried some special power.”
When Grandpa Galahad appeared, a wave of mana rippled out and swept across the ground in a whoosh. The moment it touched them, the low-ranked Awakened collapsed one after another.
Those with a certain level of strength froze in place like statues, and Chaerin unnie resisted, but it seemed some kind of mental resistance was at work.
“….”
Ophelia hesitated for a moment, but she didn’t say anything. I hadn’t felt anything like that at all, though? Does my body really not even count as an Awakened or something?
The mechanical weapon and Sua unnie’s golem had also been swept up in the wave, and then their eyes lit up and they started spinning around with beep-beep noises. But suddenly charging in to fight because a huge surge of mana appeared is also kind of weird, isn’t it?
“Hmm, there really was something.”
* * * * *
The golem was finished, and before I knew it, the performance test had been completed too. The mechanical weapon built with Oseong Group’s technology and capital had been smashed to pieces by a single punch, so it was basically proven that a far stronger golem could be made for far less money.
The contract would go ahead, but the researchers’ faces were still full of questions. They knew the golem made by Eve had better performance, but now they needed to study it so that the contract would actually yield something useful for them too.
“How... why... is it like this..?”
“It truly is a mystery.”
Chief researcher Baek Sua and Teacher Ahn were practically in a panic too. Output naturally varies depending on a golemist’s mana and skill rank, even if you make it with the same coding and the same materials, so with Eve’s EX-rank skill, they figured they could just chalk it up to that for now.
The problem was how a golem could be made that, immediately after being created, could converse and move and judge things for itself as if a human soul had taken residence inside it.
“Hah! Look at this! I’m lifting the ground!”
Galahad, standing on his head and doing one-handed push-ups, Doggo happily shaking its butt, and Minyum doing the moonwalk beside him.
Suri was up on Galahad’s foot, and Oseong Group’s researchers were watching it all intently from a distance while clutching their heads.
“A mystery... a mystery.”
Oseong Group is one of the world’s top five companies when it comes to advanced mechanical industry. Their judgment had been that if they had the original machine and its owner was cooperative with the research, then they should naturally be able to get something out of it.
“Hehe, I don’t really know either, though.”
In the end, even the creator herself didn’t really know the principle behind it, so even if they cooperated, it wouldn’t help much—a miracle had happened. It hadn’t been intentional, but it was a contract in which we came out ahead.