CH 88

Chapter 88 – Golem Suicide Attack

Klein, the mounted golem squad commander, maneuvered his clay golem through the trees, taking advantage of this Golem’s body, which was only twice the size of a human’s. The hatch was closed, and his squire, Zarpa, was pushed into the corner of the narrow maneuvering seat.

As they slanted to the south, the view suddenly opened up. Ahead of them, Armie’s six-legged ore golem was clearing an opening in the tree canopy, cleaving the trees, and securing an elevation angle for artillery fire.

Five clay golems, each kneeling and holding a cannon, prepared to send a curved shot into the Casemaian.

“Armie!”

“Captain, I am ready anytime!”

Four clay golems pass over Klein and his men. They are to assist in the raid that will take place immediately after the bombardment.

A quarter of a mile away in the southwestern position, the tree canopy is also shaking. There, too, the humanoid ore golems are similarly deployed, and the clay golems are lining up their artillery. The two ore golems to the south of the Casemaian should be preparing to fire as well by now.

“Zarpa, prepare to fire! Inter-cavalry magic comms, open the line!”

“Stand by!”

Klein gulped as he was about to give the order.

The Golem’s visual compensation revealed a glimpse of the plains of Casemaian through the trees.

There is a barrier there, like a sand wall. A fence is circled around it, perhaps to protect the cavalry. There is a strange pile with a stick sticking out of the ground and…

“The pile is turning…?”

Klein has a strange sense of urgency from there for a moment.

As soon as he involuntarily flinched in his seat because of the weak and faint sensation that he couldn’t even call it strange, he saw a light.

“All hands retreat! Get down!”

The left arm of the rider, who had jumped back down to the ground, was ripped off with a snap, and he flew backward.

Before realizing that it was caused by a flying object shot out by the enemy, he saw Armie’s Golem tipping over with a roaring sound.

“The ore golem, Armie, has been struck!”

A bluish-white light bursts out at the front of the huge body, shining faintly and scattering.

“The magic light was… no way, the magic barrier of the twin-powered core had been pulled out!”

Klein is astonished, but he reminds himself that there is no such respite. They were being ambushed. He realized that they had been the best from the beginning and that they, who were supposed to be the most elite unit of the Imperial Army… which was acknowledged by both themselves and others, had been on the back foot for the whole time.

“Ah, shit! All guns, fire! Fire! Fire!”

◇ ◇

“Armor-piercing bullet was deflected!”

“Next, anti-tank grenade! Reload quickly!”

The tank commander of T-55 tank #1, Heimann-jiisan, who is positioned facing east, curses.

He was on a tank on the bluff in front of the ramparts facing the plains.

The Golem, which was apparently still deep in the forest, could not be seen from here. But as I listened to Heimann-jiisan’s voice over the communicator, I was dismayed at the heavy armor of the Imperial Army’s ore golem.

Even though it was an out-of-form reserve force in my former world, could the Golem repel 100-millimeter tank shells, a completely supernatural technology in this world?

“Enemy large ore golem, tilt and stop functioning! The ricochet seems to have engulfed one of the clay golems!”

“Next round loaded!”

“Hold fire! Enemy fire is incoming!”

Oh, shit! The enemy commander is awesome; he’s even going to counterattack in that situation!

The black shadows in the sky above us are the bursting shells of the mortars developed by Rinko. Five shells were fired from the east, and seven from the south, at different times and at different angles ― or perhaps due to a failure to time their timing ― a total of 12 rounds arced and flew overhead.

The design of the shells means that they only explode at the same time as they land, which may or may not be a blessing.

I could have stowed the flying shells as I did with the arrows of the kingdom’s army, but it would be too dangerous and frightening to leave the shells (already ignited) in the storage after storing them because it would be hard to store all of them from a distance.

Oh, geez… whatever!

“Storage!!”

Perhaps as a result of my increased status, I managed to store 6 out of 12 shells by making full use of individual designation at the same time. Those are only the ones that flew relatively close to the center of the plain, as seen from the city walls. The remaining six rounds landed in the corner of the plain and raised an explosion flame.

It’s okay, no problem. It was a place that was not staffed, so it only ended up bouncing off the embankment and the wagons for shielding.

“Golem on the east side, out of sight! It’s deep in the woods and in shielding.”

“Damn, I must have missed killing that big fucker!”

Heimann-jiisan, tank #1, pointed east, still only has his first bullet.

Carretta-jiisan, the tank commander of tank #2, pointed south, is still waiting to fire, perhaps not seeing the enemy’s shadow in sight.

“Clay Golem, they’re assaulting! Four on the east side!”

“Enemy assault from the south as well, five clay golems, three tree golems!”

Reports from the winged tribe monitoring the sky above. Even from several kilometers away, these huge golems were visible even to me, who was standing in front of the city walls. They may know that our weapons are firearms, and each Golem runs at a distance from the others, not in a mass.

The distance was so great that even with my binoculars, I could not see the accompanying infantrymen who were supposed to be riding astride them.

Around the shoulders and waist of the tree golem, horizontal wings, or rather shelves, are deployed. It doesn’t look like a figure there, but… yeah, I don’t know.

“Yoshua, this one is ready.”

Myrril looked at me nervously. With binoculars in one hand and a communicator in the other, I nodded to the dwarf girl.

The bridge on the south side is now deployed and removed, and the plain is surrounded by a moat four meters wide and deep at its outer edge.

Hopefully, that will stop the Golem from rushing in, but don’t expect it to work that way.

“Carretta-jiisan, 20 degrees left in front of you.”

“What… alright, I can see it!”

I tell him the position of the ore golem, and Tank Captain No. 2 Carretta yells as he turns the turret. Unfortunately, tanks don’t have a lot of visibility when the hatches are closed…

I thought they might hesitate a little in front of the empty moat, but the Golem jumps over at full gallop, without even a pretense of slowing down by all the horses.

“Fire!”

Carretta-jiisan, the captain of the #2 tank, commands. Then, while all the golems are still in the air, T-55 No. 2 opens fire. It seems that Carretta-jiisan’s first bullet choice was an anti-tank grenade, and the ore golem, which had been rammed almost head-on, explodes into dust with a bluish-white glow.

Eh, that’s gruesome…

The characteristic feature of this weapon is that it pierces the armor of the tank, which is a mass of tough heavy metal and pours a scorching blast into the interior, but the hardness of the ore golem, which is not forged, is probably soft iron at best. It is extraordinary for an individual on the east side to be able to repel armor-piercing bullets with such a thing.

It happened so fast that I didn’t even know if there was a magic barrier or not.

“Next round loaded! One more round, anti-tank grenade!”

Fortunately or unfortunately, I didn’t have the leisurely battle strategy of aiming at the core. So how could we outmaneuver the enemy who was rushing in at a furious pace, and how could we defend ourselves? In-game terms, it was a perfect tower defense type of game.

“Loaded!”

“Oh, shit! Hold fire!”

The loader’s work was quite fast, but the remaining ore golem was out of the No. 2 tank’s firing range by then. The enemy was moving too fast.

The clay golem and the tree golem were in front, but it was not the tank’s role to deal with them.

“4-1, 4-3, 5-2, safety release!”

I shout to Myrril as I see the golems running with the momentum of their landing and enter the IED burial zone.

“4-1, 4-3, 5-2, ready!”

“Heimann and Caretta, prepare for impact!”

“”Roger that!””

“…Okay, ignite!”

“Ignite!”

Two clay golems and a tree golem whirl through the air, disintegrating and falling across the plain. The countless fine particles scattered about were probably the remnants of the accompanying infantry that had straddled the Golem.

Obviously, the Golem’s function had stopped, and no one had detected it. So regardless of the core, there was no way it could move again.

Currently, there is one ore golem, two tree golems, and three clay golems that have been allowed to enter from the south side.

Although they have not been seen yet, there should be two ore golems (one of them is a large six-legged type) and ten clay golems on the east side.

The battle has just begun, and the forces that have been cut down are minimal. In addition, most of them have already entered Casemaian territory. If they continue to reach the walls, it will be a dead end.

If they charge into us, we’ll have no choice but to work together as one and slaughter each other.

“What about the assault from the east?”

“Four clay golems have stopped at the dugout and are sending troops to the plains.”

“Tank 1, Heimann, no confirmation from here!”

“No matter, the tanks can just finish off the ore golems.”

“Enemy mortars are preparing to fire, five each on the east and south sides, each operated by a clay golem.”

It said the total number of clay golems was 20 or something like that. Only two of them were blown up. Three of them went into the plain, but there are still 15 others alive and well in the surrounding forest and moat.

“I knew their commander was good.”

I guess this is the difference between an amateur Demon King and a professional soldier. I muttered to myself unintentionally, and the staff member Myrril shook her head in dismay.

This is not the time to be impressed. …However, I agree with you. Unlike the fools in the kingdom, these soldiers are very experienced.”

Yes. The clay golem and the accompanying infantry, which we had taken lightly because of their low threat level, are being incorporated and effectively utilized as a force.

It is different from the windy kingdoms that only considered non-noble troops as “walls or decoys for the main force.”

“East side, no movement. There seems to be some problem with the large ore golem.”

Even though it was repelled, it was not unscathed by the tank shell, was it? If it was unscathed by that, there was nothing we could do.

Both the Golem that entered the plain and the Golem that remained hidden in the outer moat were attached to the shielding and preparing for our attack.

I did not see any artillery carriers among the golems that had entered, but each of them was equipped with some kind of stick at their waists. The material was iron or at least some kind of metal. The size of the weapons differed due to the difference in physique, but they were of the same shape, whether they were made of ore, wood, or clay.

“Hey, Myrril. What kind of weapon does the Golem have?”

“…Hmm, that’s a wheat-threshing pole. You know, that thing you use to remove the chaff after the harvest.”

I don’t know what it is because I’ve never seen it, but that’s how I understood it. It’s a weapon born from a farming tool for threshing, and in my world, it’s called a flail.

Wow. A flail as the main weapon of a giant humanoid weapon is not very romantic, but at least it is practical and solid.

The reach and power of the weapon are definitely impressive. A human being would be reduced to a piece of meat in an instant if reaped by such a weapon, and even a tank would not be unscathed if hit by a flail with all its might.

However, the danger would only increase if the situation became a stalemate with the tanks in their midst.

If the Casemaian walls were to come within range of the mortars as they were gradually being closed in, there would be considerable damage at that point. With no place to evacuate to and no effective defensive measures in place, we had to take the plunge.

“Kemich!”

“Okay, leave it to me. I’ll take care of everything in the end.”

With those words, I felt a little better. Myrril smiled bitterly and patted me on the back encouragingly.

“All right, then, you Beastman. Are you ready?”

“”””Aye!””””

I turn around and give a twisted smile.

It’s as if I’m a failed demon king.

“…Let’s go; it’s time to hunt.”