Chapter 108-110 - Pursuit

What should I do? It is my fault.

While running through the Light Grand Church at full-throttle, I was tormented with self-deprecation.

Even though we had gotten along…

The earth hero, Gonbee Sasae-chan.

For the first time since she was born, she left her homeland, and in the strange land she had arrived and was on the peak of helplessness, she would meet the first people she could open her heart to.

Those people were supposed to be us, and yet, I was unable to accept what she had said, and rejected it all along with her very self.

With this, it feels as if I made her trust us just to betray her.

Right now, the meaning of what she said about that oracle doesn’t matter.

I have to catch up with Sasae-chan and apologize as soon as possible.

The chances of Sasae-chan still being inside the Grand Church is high.

It is big and easy to get lost in here after all.

There’s a chance that Mirack-chan or Celestis-chan, who separated to cover more ground, will find her sooner than me, but I have to make sure to be the first one to find her, and apologize properly to her.

“Uwa?!”

“Karen?!”

In the middle of it, I stumbled upon Mirack-chan at a turn.

“How was it?! Did you find Sasae-chan?!” (Karen)

“Not even a shadow! If we have met here, it must mean that she wasn’t in your search area either. In that case…!” (Mirack)

Is what we were thinking when…

*Zudon*, a sound strong enough to make the whole building tremble reverberated.

When I look out from the window that was close by, I could see a waterspout from afar. There’s no doubt that’s the work of Celestis-chan.

“That direction is…the outside plaza?!” (Karen)

“What is that woman doing?!” (Mirack)

At any rate, there’s no doubt that something happened.

This is no moment to be caring about manners. I jump from the window, and control the fall with my light divine power, and head at full speed towards the waterspout.

“?!! Hey, wait, Karen!” (Mirack)

Mirack-chan followed after.

This Light Grand Church is my base, that’s why I can tell. The place where the waterspout came from is the plaza. It is normally used as a training space for the people of the Aurora Knight Corps.

That’s why it is wide without any obstructions, so there’s no problems in having a waterspout as big as that being made, but…but why did Celestis-chan do that kind of technique in the first place?

* * *

…While I was thinking that, we arrived.

The first thing that entered my vision was the back of Celestis-chan.

“Aah, you are finally here. I was waiting!!”

It hasn’t been long since we split to search, and yet, Celestis-chan was talking as if we haven’t met for several years already.

“Celestis-chan! Did something happen?!” (Karen)

“Instead of explaining, it would be faster to just see it with your own eyes! Look at that!” (Celestis)

And then, being suggested by Celestis-chan, I look, and…

“?!! Monster.” (Karen)

That’s right. There’s a monster in the training grounds.

It is the first time I have seen this type, but there’s no doubt that this is a monster.

It is big and humanoid. From what I see, it is made up from what seems to be minerals.

The looks of monsters are normally uniform. If it’s fire element, it is a land beast type; if it’s water element, it would be a fish or a water lifeform; if it’s wind element, it would be an insect type.

But this is the first time I see this type of monster. It gives a different kind of atmosphere from the Dark Giant-san we met in the Great Sea Dragon battle. Just what in the world…

Since this is a training ground, there’s -as expected- many light knights that were here in the middle of training, and were now surprised by the sudden appearance of a monster and were agitated.

“To think a monster would appear in a place like this! And so, Celestis, what happened to Sasae?!” (Mirack)

Mirack-chan who had finally caught up, asks this from Celestis.

“…She is right there, you know.” (Celestis)

“Eh?”

“As I said, she is there! Look, over there!!” (Celestis)

In the place where Celestis-chan points at, at the aforementioned monster.

I was wondering what she was saying so I strain my eyes to see, and what I saw was…a girl standing at the back of the giant earth humanoid.

“Sasae-chan?!” (Karen)

Why is she at a place like that? She is close to the point that you could say she is clinging to the leg of the monster!

“Why is she at such a place?! That’s dangerous! Hurry and get away!” (Karen)

“Shut up-dasu!”

Words of denial that felt as if they pierced at me.

“Every one of you! All the city people be enemies-dasu! My only ally be this child-dasu! ‘Golem Boy’! Kick ‘em away, don’t let ‘em get close!!” (Sasae)

Saying this, the humanoid monster rushes at us as if it were following her desires.

“Uwa?!”

I fall back in order to evade.

And so, Sasae-chan stood alone at the place where the humanoid monster was before, and takes something out from the rucksack she had brought for her journey.

“What’s that? A brick?” (Karen)

“Crap! Again?!” (Celestis)

Seeing that brick, Celestis-chan gets agitated.

“That girl, is she thinking of making more of those?!” (Celestis)

“Making? More of those?” (Karen)

“I had found that girl and cornered her all the way here. After that, that girl took out a brick that looked similar to the one she has now, and wrote something on it. And when she did that, the earth and stones in the surroundings of the block began to gather, and what came out of it is the giant thing that you see now before your eyes!!” (Celestis)

Eh? Then—!

The two blocks that Sasae-chan is holding currently in her hands are—!!

“C’mere! ‘Golem Father’, ‘Golem Mother’!!” (Sasae)

• 109: Puppet Sumo

There’s a total of three.

Right in front of us, monsters we have never seen before had appeared.

The three shared the trait that they were all earth puppets.

“‘Golem Boy’!”

The first one to appear from the earth humanoids.

As of now, it is the smallest one of them, but even with that, it easily surpasses the height of a man at his prime.

“‘Golem Mother’!”

And there’s the one that slightly surpasses the small one, but is a slim figured earth humanoid.

“And ‘Golem Father’!!”

And finally, there’s the biggest one of all three, and even its physique was that of a heavyweight.

“‘Golem Family’!! Defeat dem scary city people-dasu!” (Sasae)

As if obeying the orders of Sasae-chan, the earth humanoids take a stance towards us.

Seeing this, I couldn’t help but be bewildered.

“Hey! Are we in a dream right now?!” (Mirack)

“Is a hero controlling monsters?! What’s that? It doesn’t make sense!” (Celestis)

Mirack-chan and Celestis-chan were both bewildered as well.

Heroes exist to defeat monsters.

They fight against the monsters that attack humans, defeat them, and protect them; it can even be called our raison d’etre.

And a hero is utilizing the monsters that are our natural enemies?

But we don’t have the leeway to space out right now.

Right now, those very monsters are about to attack us after all.

“Uwa?!”

“At any rate, return fire! The light knights in the surroundings!! This is too much for you guys to handle. Don’t get close, got it?!” (Mirack)

Since this is the training grounds of the Aurora Knight corps, many light knights were there.

Mirack-chan gave orders to them, and stopped any disorder before it happened.

There’s three earth humanoids attacking us.

There’s three heroes on our side.

The numbers are the same, but even with that, I can’t say that this is a favorable situation.

“Sasae-chan!!” (Karen)

It naturally turned into each one of us dealing with one earth humanoid.

The one I had to deal with was the middle-sized slim doll. While evading the chops it was swinging, I shout at Sasae-chan.

“What is this?! What’s going on?! Why is a hero using monsters?!” (Karen)

“What-suka? Yer a city folk, yet ya ain’t knowing Golems-dasu ka?” (Sasae)

Golems?!

“Golems be the blessing of Mother Earth God-sama-dasu! They help us in anything and are the friends of humans-dasu! They don’t lie to me like ye guys. They be trustworthy fellows-dasu!!” (Sasae)

“Ugh!”

Those words became a thorn that pierced right through my chest.

I want to apologize with all I have, but the situation is not allowing me to do that.

“Karen!!”

Mirack-chan, who was in the same battle conditions, overlapped her back with mine.

Being the one that proclaims herself to be the strongest, Mirack-chan has been charged to deal with the strongest looking one, the ‘Father’.

“This is bad, Karen! That Celestis is being pushed back!” (Mirack)

“Eh?!”

When I looked, Celestis-chan was fighting with the smallest one -’Boy’-, but even with that, her situation was unfavorable.

“[Water Wrath]!” (Celestis)

The water bullet that came out from Miki-Moses struck directly at the Golem, but there wasn’t any effect. It became a sad splash at the face of the Golem’s sturdy body and was swallowed by the earth.

“[Water Wrath]! [Water Wrath]! [Water Wrath]! Huuuh~, as expected, it has absolutely no effect~~!” (Celestis)

In terms of elemental affinity, earth is the worst possible opponent for water.

It looks like that law is definite here.

“I will provide support! Karen, please hold back the other two!” (Mirack)

“Got it!” (Karen)

Mirack-chan and I both revolve with our backs still sticking to each other, and then, at the gaze of Mirack-chan, there’s the small-sized Golem and Celestis-chan; at my gaze, there’s the two other Golems. A nice positioning was formed.

“[Holy Light Blade]!” (Karen)

“[Flame Knuckle]!” (Mirack)

The ‘Holy Light Blade’, that I held back when releasing, knocks down both of the Golems in front of me. Because of this, I was able to stop their movements just as planned.

On the other hand, the fire bullet that Mirack-chan released from the fire fist Barbarossa hit the small Golem, blew it away, and saved Celestis-chan from her predicament.

“Thanks! You saved me there!” (Celestis)

Because the Golem was blown away and she had gotten distance from it, Celestis-chan runs to where we are in order to strengthen the defense.

“You really are useless! Can’t you conquer something measly like affinities?!” (Mirack)

“Shad up! I’m throwing those words right back at you, you useless woman in the Great Sea Dragon battle!” (Celestis)

Mirack-chan probably said this with the intentions of getting back at Celestis-chan for before.

At that time, Celestis-chan said as much as she wanted at Mirack-chan after all.

“At any rate, we are talking about affinities here, so how about we just slap it with the element that is strong against it! What was the element that was strong against earth again?” (Mirack)

“The wind element! There’s none here!!” (Celestis)

The wind element that dries the earth, and disperses the sand, is the natural enemy of the earth hero and the earth monsters in general.

But the person that possesses this element is not within our group!

“Ah geez! Why is it that we are gathering at a decent pace, and yet, we can’t get the ones that are needed at the desired moments?! If that chibi had been in our fight with the Great Sea Dragon, it would have helped us out a lot!” (Celestis)

Is she talking about Sasae-chan who is currently antagonistic towards us?

“So noisy! If you were at the time we fought the fire cow Phalaris, you would have at least been useful!” (Mirack)

And Mirack-chan bites at it.

But that’s not it.

It is true that the current situation is bad, but there’s a reality we have to pay more attention to.

“Sasae-chan!” (Karen)

I call the girl that was at the other side of the Golems.

• 110: Missing each other

“Sasae-chan!” (Karen)

My shout made the small shoulders of the girl at the other side of the Golems tremble.

“Sorry for what I did before! Shouting at you…saying that you were a liar! I was just surprised by what you said. That’s why I unintentionally lost it there!” (Karen)

I really don’t know what to say to regain the trust of Sasae-chan.

But this is what’s necessary. Rather than pinning her down by force, I have to tell her how I feel by wringing out the words inside of me.

That’s why, even if I don’t know what to say yet, I let everything come out from my mouth.

“I am truly sorry for scaring you. Coming to an unknown land on your own, you were feeling lonely, and yet, I didn’t think about your feelings at all. But even if you rampage here, nothing will be resolved. Put back these Golems and let’s have a calm talk once again, okay?” (Karen)

“I am not going to fall fer yer lies again!” (Sasae)

But what came back at me was rejection.

“I can tell. Ye girls know Kuromiya Haine, right?” (Sasae)

“?!”

Being hit right in the mark, I was left speechless.

“That’s why ye got so panicked by it. Ya desperately tried to deny it. Mother Earth God-sama told us Kuromiya Haine be the personification of an evil God-da.” (Sasae)

“But that must be some sort of mistake!” (Karen)

“See?! Ya have showed yer true hide! The light hero be colluding with the evil God-da! If ya be denying the words of Mother Earth God-sama, that makes ye the enemy of Mother Earth God-sama. In other words, the enemy of the Earth Church; in other words, mah enemy! Golems, smash-da!!” (Sasae)

As if chains had been broken, the three Golems attack us at the command of Sasae-chan.

Mirack-chan, Celestis-chan, and I were parrying those attacks while jumping around.

“Ah geez! Country bumpkins are normally high in the clouds, and yet, they get sharp at the weirdest of timings! The moment she doubts us, she is incredibly thorough about it!” (Celestis)

“So once we doubt her God, she immediately deems them as enemies huh! This might be the correct reaction as a hero representing the church though!” (Mirack)

Celestis-chan and Mirack-chan, this is no time to be complaining.

As I thought, we really do have to do something about these Golems first or we won’t even be able to have a calm conversation.

There’s the risk that we might drag Sasae-chan into it, so we can’t use any big moves, but we can’t be leisure here.

I gather light divine power in my holy sword Saint-George, and instead of releasing it, I increase the sharpness of the sword itself.

“[Holy Light Edge]!” (Karen)

The swung blade easily cuts both slim arms of the Golem.

“Well done! As expected of the all-purpose Light element!” (Celestis)

“Against the earth element, not only is Celestis completely useless, my fire element is not working effectively either. So the light element that is slightly stronger than all the other elements truly does shine at this kind of times!” (Mirack)

The truly all-purpose one is Haine-san’s dark element though.

In the journey to the Underworld Country, my light element was completely useless, so it is good that I managed to regain some confidence now, but…

“At any rate, right now we have to defeat the Golems and calm down the situation!” (Karen)

As the light hero, I have the duty to calm down this disturbance that’s occurring in my base, Apollon City.

I can’t just neglect that duty of mine.

“I am sorry, Sasae-chan! I will get a bit rough!” (Karen)

“Don’t get ahead of yerself-dasu yo! Ye allies of  the evil God!!” (Sasae)

Sasae-chan is completely seeing us as an evil existence!

“I’ll be showing ya the true power of the earth hero now! ‘Golem Father’! We going with that formation-dasu!” (Sasae)

Sasae-chan lifts up that scythe, the earth scythe, Seeta, high up.

Now that I think about it, she also had that.

Because of that small body of hers, and the special fighting style of using Golems, I didn’t imagine it much but…could it be…Sasae-chan herself is going to be fighting as well?!

The moment I thought this, the biggest Golem that was called by Sasae-chan -also known as ‘Golem Father’- grabbed Sasae-chan.

“What?! What is going to happen now?!” (Mirack)

The earth scythe, Seeta, that was shouldered by Sasae-chan, was now being held by the Golem.

The scythe was relatively big, but in the hands of the Golem, it looked like a regular-sized scythe.

“This be just the beginning-dasu yo! ‘Golem Mother’ to ‘Vessel Transformation’!” (Sasae)

With those words, the slim Golem that I had severed both arms began to show a surprising change.

The originally slim body was getting slimmer, slimmed with no limits, to a point that it had already lost its humanoid shape and had turned into a different form.

“That looks like…a thread? No, a chain?!” (Celestis)

“I have heard about this before. The transformation ability brought by the Earth divine power. All the solid bodies that are under the rule of the Mother Earth God can be transformed by the earth divine power!” (Mirack)

The Golem that had now transformed into a chain was long and thick. Moreover, those chains were slithering like a dragon or a snake, and bite onto the lower part of the earth scythe.

“Last touch! ‘Golem Boy’!” (Sasae)

On top of that, the last small Golem is connected to the other end of the chain.

With this, the earth scythe Seeta is connected to the small Golem?!

“The formation is completed-dasu yo! ‘Golem Father’! Smash-dasu!” (Sasae)

Obeying the order, the biggest Golem grabs the chains of the scythe with the other hand that was not holding the scythe, and then, because of it, the small Golem was dragged along with the chains.

The small Golem was curled up…like a ball.

And with that…

*Bun Bun Bun Bun Bun BunBun BunBun BunBun BunBun BunBun!!*

The big Golem uses brute force to swing around the small-sized Golem that was connected to the chain.

Its mass was heavy from the very beginning, so seeing this spectacle from up close had quite the impact.

The wind that was being created by swinging around the chain was hitting our cheeks stubbornly.

“What’s this?! Isn’t this just like a sickle and chain?!” (Mirack)

“Sickle and chain?! What’s with that complicated terminology?!” (Celestis)

I had no leeway to retort to Celestis-chan. If we were to be hit by the giant rock that such a giant is swinging around, we wouldn’t just end up with all our bones broken.

“Ye see this-dasu ka?! By passing mah divine power via the earth scythe Seeta, I transformed the ‘Golem Family’, and strengthened ‘em-dasu! With this power, I will defeat Kuromiya Haine, and accomplish the mission of Mother Earth God-sama-dasu yo!” (Sasae)

Them missing each other has now turned into a big disaster that was threatening to crush us.