"Now, then. Let us proceed to the final mock battle."
With the score currently sitting at one win, one loss, and one draw, there was no doubt that this match literally carried the prestige of the Celuroa Kingdom on its shoulders.
"I have heard that the Lord of Kunlun’s automata, despite her appearance, is a warrior formidable enough to be ranked as a squire. In that case, our strongest unit, Wipper, shall be your opponent."
"No. If that is how it is to be, then why not have everyone still functional come at me at once?"
Reiko spoke in a chilling voice, her eyes flicking momentarily toward the Klein Golem that had been run through by a sword.
"...What did you say?"
Even King Richard was momentarily stunned, evidently blindsided by a suggestion he hadn’t even begun to consider.
"Ah... Reiko is angry."
There were several reasons for Reiko to grow angry, but nearly all of them were centered on Jin. This time, it was because a general-purpose golem Jin had created—a being Reiko viewed as something of a younger brother—had been destroyed.
Jin was in the Great Hall, while Reiko was outside. Even if he wanted to reign her in, Gloria was standing right beside him, and the dignitaries from other nations were constantly stealing glances his way. In such a public setting, he couldn’t use the manacam built into his bracelet.
"Well... I suppose it can't be helped."
Jin steeled himself to accept whatever the consequences might be.
"Do not regret this... Spayda, you go as well!"
It seemed the sword-wielding golem was named Spayda. This unit lunged toward Reiko. Its broken blade had been replaced with a fresh one, and it was operating at full capacity from the start.
Due to its incredible speed, Reiko appeared to be completely unable to react... or so it seemed.
"W-What?!"
Reiko had caught the sword Spayda swung down with her left hand alone, grabbing it as easily as if it were standing still.
"Ohh!"
The representatives watching the screen widened their eyes at the sight. Spayda seemed to be pouring every ounce of its power into moving the blade, but it remained as still as if it were clamped in a heavy-duty vise.
"Impossible! Despite such a massive weight difference?!"
Reiko was secretly utilizing her force generator to anchor her body in place. To move her now, one would likely need dozens of tons of force.
However, Reiko’s opponent was not just a single unit. Wipper lashed out with its whip, the weapon whistling through the air as it struck. Reiko snatched the end of the whip out of the air with her free right hand.
"Inconceivable! The movements of a whip are not something the eye can follow!"
Richard seemed to have grasped what Jin had told Gloria earlier, but he didn't know the full extent of Reiko's capabilities. Her dynamic visual acuity could track objects moving at supersonic speeds.
Wipper, however, was equipped with more than one whip. A second lash struck at Reiko. This whip, made of braided fine steel wire, carried enough force to cleave a bronze golem’s torso in two when swung at full power.
As the whip descended toward Reiko, most of the spectators imagined her being torn apart.
But the whip struck Spayda instead.
Reiko had lifted Spayda by its own sword and thrust the golem into the whip’s path. Steel armor met steel whip, resulting in a high-pitched metallic clang. To Spayda's credit, its armor held up against the impact.
"Inflicting friendly fire, I see."
Before anyone could track her movement, Reiko was standing three meters away, a thin, cold smile on her lips.
"U-Ugh...! Enough! Very well, Reiko was it? That is enough!"
Deciding that continuing would only further expose his nation to ridicule, King Richard declared Reiko the winner. A collective sigh of relief and awe escaped the representatives. They looked on with a mixture of respect and a growing sense of dread toward Reiko’s unfathomable potential and the engineering skill of the man who had built her.
Reiko gave an elegant, graceful bow toward the magic eye recording the scene.
"Ah... well, I suppose that worked out," Jin thought. He felt he should praise her for not actually destroying her opponents—but then it happened.
Wipper’s whip coiled tightly around Reiko’s body.
"Well done, Wipper! Keep her restrained just like that!"
"Had the match not ended?" Reiko’s quiet voice asked, echoing clearly.
"The second round has begun. My apologies—I forgot to mention it."
A transparently false response came back. Most of the attendees feared that Reiko was about to be dismantled, but a few sensed the exact opposite: they foresaw the impending destruction of the Celuroa Kingdom’s dignity.
"I see. In that case, I shall get a little serious as well."
"Boast all you like! Spayda, cut her down!"
Spayda raised its sword high, preparing to cleave the supposedly immobile Reiko in two.
"That will not be possible."
With a slight exertion of her strength, the steel wires of the whip coiled around Reiko snapped and flew apart. As Spayda’s sword descended, she caught the blade between her right index and middle fingers and flicked her wrist.
With that simple movement, Spayda’s sword snapped in half, the broken tip falling harmlessly away. Reiko then stepped inside the golem’s reach, seized its arm, and delivered a front kick to its abdomen. Spayda was sent spinning through the air.
As it flew, Reiko was left holding Spayda’s left arm. She had torn it clean off at the shoulder joint before anyone even registered the move.
Wipper stood directly in Spayda's flight path. The two golems collided with a thunderous roar. While Spayda’s momentum was dampened, both units were still sent tumbling back at high speed.
Reiko took the severed arm she was holding and hurled it at the two entangled golems. The projectile moved with terrifying velocity, and the moment of impact produced a deafening boom. When the dust settled, the spectators saw Spayda and Wipper crumpled into mangled heaps of scrap, no longer moving.
Just as it seemed the carnage was over, a massive hammer swept in from behind Reiko in a horizontal arc. Marteau, which had remained stationary until now, had chosen this moment to strike.
Reiko spun on her heel and unleashed a roundhouse kick. The leg and the hammer collided, producing a roar even louder than the previous impacts.
The dust cleared to reveal Reiko calmly holding down the hem of her fluttering long skirt, while Marteau stood with both its arm and its massive hammer completely pulverized.
"..."
The observers were speechless. The wire ropes forming the whip had a breaking strength of roughly five tons. They had been wrapped three times, yet Reiko had snapped them with ease. This meant her raw strength was at least fifteen tons—more than ten times that of a supreme-level combat golem. If one accounted for her small frame, the power-to-weight ratio was terrifying.
Witnessing her shrug off the destructive power of a heavy hammer only to destroy the weapon with a single kick, the slight dread the audience had felt earlier transformed into genuine terror.
"U-Ugh... Lyon 1, attack!"
Lyon 1 was apparently the name for the four-meter-tall giant. Richard had completely abandoned the pretense of a mock battle, issuing commands that bordered on the deranged.
"...How futile."
Reiko gave a small sigh and kicked off the ground to intercept the giant.
"This is going too far."
"Is King Richard even in his right mind?"
The attendees were finally starting to question the king's sanity. However, they had no way of knowing where the commands were coming from, leaving them powerless to intervene.
There was, however, one person who could reach the king.
"Father!"
It was the crown prince, Cesar.
Deep within the basement of the Guillaume Detached Palace lay a secret room. It was a chamber that could only be entered by those who carried the blood of the Guillaume line. At this moment, only King Richard and Crown Prince Cesar qualified.
The prince slammed both hands against the door. After a few seconds of authentication, the lock released with a heavy thud, and the door began to groan open. Cesar lunged into the room before it had even finished swinging wide.
There, with his hair disheveled and his face twisted in a half-frenzied state, sat Richard Valois de Celuroa, the King of Celuroa.