The soldiers were stealthily grasping for their swords, and as they were about to take them out of their scabbards and point them at Gloria…
“Ah~ A lot of humans came around~”
A new voice echoed through the mountain pass.
That had undoubtedly been the voice of a little girl. No matter how fairly had the years treated her, it was far from any voice that could have belonged to an adult woman.
A small figure appeared giggling from behind a large rock. She was about 120 centimeters tall and definitely looked like a girl not older than 7 or 8 years old.
Her jet-black hair stretched all the way to her lower back and her eyes were dark red. Her skin was morbidly white, and her arms and legs, which were peeking through the black sleeveless dress, looked thin and delicate.
The soldiers who were just about to attack Gloria stared at the girl, completely taken aback.
“I’m so lucky! I didn’t even have to wait an hour, and a lot of humans already appeared here~”
The inside of the cackling girl’s mouth was as red as blood.
“You… Who are you?”
Gloria glared at the girl while reaching for the short sword on her waist.
“Me~? I’m Alciel. Alciel the Puppeteer.”
The girl that called herself Alciel approached Gloria step by step. The grin on her face, far from appearing to be a friendly smile, was more of a smirk.
“Stop right there!”
Gloria shouted as a result of the indescribable chill she felt. A cold sweat was running down her spine.
“Whaat? Are you afraid of me? Look, I don’t have any weapons or anything like that~!”
Alciel halted on the spot, opened her arms wide, and started fluttering them like wings.
“I’ve heard your name before, Alciel. What are you doing here?”
“Hmm~? I was waiting for humans to show up.”
“And why were you waiting for humans here?”
“I want to make an experiment~”
“An experiment?”
“Yeah. Ah, look! These are my pets!”
Alciel raised her right hand and pointed it straight at the sky. Then, huge, long and narrow things came down from the top of the rock.
They looked a lot like earwigs, but they were well over 2 meters long. There were 4 of these in total.
“W-Waaaahh!”
“M-Monsters!”
The soldiers behind Gloria screamed and started to run away the moment they saw them.
“Idiots! Hold your ground!”
Six of them stopped immediately at Gloria’s command. The other three stopped and turned around, but once started to run away.
“Ahaha~ These cowardly humans! But do you think you can escape~?”
Alciel let out a high-pitched whistle. Then, the four giant earwigs appeared in front of the three soldiers that were trying to run away.
“Gyaaaah!”
The one runaway soldier that was ahead of the others was bounced off by a tail swing from one of the giant earwigs. The remaining two just barely managed to keep a safe distance from the monsters’ tails.
“Come back! Form a circle!”
Gloria shouts out another command. The remaining 8 soldiers obeyed, and stood in a circle.
The nine of them had formed a circle in the middle of the mountain pass. They wouldn’t be attacked from behind as long as they kept this formation.
“Draw your swords, everyone! Get ready!”
In response to Gloria’s command, all of the soldiers pulled out their short swords and pointed them ahead.
“Ahaha, do you really think that’s going to help you~? How silly. You can’t damage my boys’ hides with those puny little swords of yours~”
“We won’t know unless we try!”
Gloria repelled an oncoming tail swing with her blade. The giant scissors that were on its tip fell to the ground.”
“Huh?”
In her astonishment, Alciel’s eyes had opened wide.
“No way. You actually cut through it? What is that sword?”
The sword in Gloria’s hand was the one that Jin had reinforced with Adamantite. Its composition was a 0.1 millimeters thick, 25 millimeters wide and 60 centimeters long sheet of Adamantite sandwiched between the sword’s steel edge.
The Adamantite in the blade was harder than the giant earwigs’ exoskeleton.
“Thank you, Jin!”
Gloria offered her gratitude to Jin for having made that sword for her.
＊ ＊ ＊
That day, Jin and Elsa had finished working on Edgar’s equipment.
Though the giant centipede’s carapace was inferior to Adamantite, it surpassed it in terms of strength per weight. In other words, it was strong and light at the same time.
“We made a total of 10 knives. Let’s have him keep them inside his clothes.”
With Edgar’s new enhanced strength, he was now able to easily pierce through bronze armor. He could even tear down steel armor as well.
And his new gauntlets covered his forearms from the elbow all the way up to his fists. If used properly, he would be able to repel even magic with them.
“With this, Edgar should be much stronger now. He should be able to do a much better job at protecting you, Elsa.”
“Thank you, Brother Jin.”
At that moment, Laojun came in with an urgent report.
“My Lord, Miss Gloria is under attack. Her opponent is a little girl that seems to be a demon. She’s accompanied by eight giant earwigs, each of them being around 2 meters long.”
“What?”
Jin had feared that Gloria could be attacked at some point, but he had never imagined that she would be attacked by a demon.
“Send 10 Land Units under the name of Makina! We’ll also test our new equipment.”
“Understood.”
Using the Transfer Machine, Laojun sent out Lands 11 through 20. Since Deneb 4 was in charge of marking their position, there was almost no error in their destination’s coordinates.
“There seems to be one seriously injured person.”
“Okay, send Nurse Alpha there as well. …I should be making more of them, huh?”
After sending out Nurse Alpha, Jin started to mumble to himself.
＊ ＊ ＊
“Ahahaha, so you’re a worthy opponent for my giant earwigs~!”
Alciel was enjoying herself, seeing Gloria fight with her pets.
“So humans can really do this much. This is a good reference~!”
“Damn it, don’t underestimate us!”
Only Gloria’s sword could inflict any damage to the giant earwigs. The soldiers were no match for them, even in terms of ability.
The soldiers were standing in a circle, and managed to prevent attacks from behind by attacking as a group. Gloria was in charge of one part of the circle, protecting the soldiers from the giant earwigs while trying to damage the monsters, and repeating the process over and over again.
However, Gloria was the only one who could actually attack the monsters.
Naturally, the soldiers that were on the side without Gloria were under the biggest threat. In order to prevent such dangerous situations as much as possible, Gloria slowly rotated around the circle, moving from side to side at all times.
“Ahaha, you’re going to get tired soon, aren’t you?”
The soldiers were less trained than Gloria, and were still tired from their marching. Their legs would get tangled up, and their movements were slower than ever.
Their tiredness would eventually lead to a catastrophe.
A soldier standing right next to Gloria failed to keep up, and got his own leg mixed up with Gloria’s.
“Waah!”
The result was that both Gloria and the soldier tripped over and fell to the ground.
“Ahaha, that’s it~! That was so fun!”
A giant earwig rushed straight towards the fallen Gloria.
“Captain!”
Some of the soldiers shouted. Gloria closed her eyes and clenched her teeth in preparation for the coming shock and pain.
“…”
However, no matter how long she waited, there was no further sign of the giant earwig’s attack. Gloria opened her eyes…
“Wha-!”
…Then she saw a silver-brown golem wielding a brilliant sword as it slashed at the giant earwig.
“Who are you guys!? Who said you could show up out of nowhere!?”
Alciel shouted in a voice that sounded close to a shriek.