As the building shook violently, we hurried to escape from the underground passage. Once we burst out onto the surface, the soldiers who had been fighting the karakuri ninjas noticed the same disturbance and fled outside as well.
“The ground is steady out here… so the shaking was only inside the building.”
“W-what in the world is happening there!?”
Everyone stood frozen, watching in dread as the building began to collapse.
But it wasn’t falling apart merely because of the tremors. Something massive was trying to force its way up from beneath the earth. Its emergence caused the tearing of the structure to pieces.
Gogogogogogogo!!
The ground roared like a living beast, and the air itself seemed to shudder.
Soon, it appeared, pushing aside the buildings on the ground.
“H-huge!”
It was an incredibly gigantic Karakuri soldier.
It must have easily exceeded fifteen meters in length. Though humanoid, its body was proportioned to about five heads, and it held a wide sword in its right hand and a long-barreled firearm in its left.
“Kukuku… Hahahahahaha! Surprised, aren’t you!? Behold—my ultimate karakuri weapon! The Karakuri Giant!”
The booming laughter belonged to Ittosai.
Come to think of it, he’d vanished partway through the battle.
Now I saw him—seated proudly inside a control chamber built into the giant’s midsection. The area around him was sealed by a transparent wall, letting everyone witness the mastermind at the helm.
And then, from just below that compartment, another voice rang out.
“W-what is the meaning of this!? What have you done to me!?”
It was the female demon.
There, directly beneath the control chamber, another transparent barrier revealed her bound inside. Her entire body is restrained by the mechanical arms that had captured her moments ago.
“Kukuku… You are the power source for my ultimate weapon!”
“W–what!?”
“To move this colossal karakuri requires an enormous amount of energy. But as things stand, there’s no way to generate that much power at once! So I devised a solution. What if the vast magical energy possessed by demons could be converted into electricity!? Then the problem would be solved!”
The female demon stared in shock as Ittosai continued to boast proudly.
“When I modified your body, I secretly embedded a mechanism for that very purpose! You never even suspected, did you? How pitifully foolish you are, demon! Hahahaha!”
“T–that’s impossible…”
So in the end, the demon who believed she was using Ittosai had, in fact, been the one used all along.
『I can’t help but feel a little sorry for her…』
(Indeed. She might just be the most unfortunate demon we’ve ever encountered.)
Even Lindwurm and I found ourselves sympathizing with her a bit.
“Silence, you insolent humans! Don’t you dare look at me with those pitying eyes!”
The female demon shrieked, her voice was filled with rage.
But for now, our concern wasn’t the humiliated demon—it is the Karakuri Giant that Ittosai controlled.
“Ahahahaha! From up here, the proud warriors of Edo look like nothing but trash beneath my feet!” When my Karakuri engineering reaches perfection, all warfare will be waged by machines! The era of men straining their flesh in battle is finished!”
Ittosai’s laughter echoed from within the giant karakuri.
Well, back in my previous life, we had things called Magical Giant Soldier—machines quite similar to that one. The difference was that they were powered by magic, whereas this one… Ittosai managed to build one without using magic at all. That alone was astonishing.
“Hmph! Allow me to give you a little demonstration! Witness the overwhelming might of my Karakuri Giant!”
The enormous construct raised its massive sword high, then brought it down in a single, sweeping slash through empty air.
Goooooohhhhhh!!
A violent gust roared forth.
The sheer force of the wind lifted the elite Edo soldiers off their feet, hurling several of them backward through the air.
“Hahaha a! You think that was impressive? I’m not done yet!”
This time, the Karakuri Giant raised the firearm attached to its left arm. In the next instant, a glowing sphere of condensed energy burst forth. It struck the surface of the sea, detonating with a deafening roar.
BOOOOOOM!!
A towering column of water exploded skyward, and a rain of seawater came pouring down over us.
“H-how are we supposed to fight something like that…?”
“At this rate, perhaps he’s right… maybe there’s no place left for flesh-and-blood warriors anymore…”
The soldiers, armed only with blades and spears, could do nothing but stand frozen. They stared up in shock at the monstrous karakuri before them.
This is translated by Yume Neiji. Kindly read at yumeineijiworks.wordpress.com.
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