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Chapter 188 Part 1

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Translator: “Hakou”                             Editor: “Weasalopes”

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A B-class Knight galloping through the wasteland to the south of Awoke, raising a cloud of dust on its path.
It is the Old Lady, a Knight from the kingdom’s merchant guild, hovering with wind magic generated from its legs.

(A giant hole and a bunch of golems, eh?)

As I sat in the cockpit, I was thinking about today’s job.
I was instructed by Goblin jii-chan, the guild master, to hunt for stone golems.
He told me that there’s a massive cave-in in the ground to the south of Awoke. And it seems that there are many stone golems there.

(Certainly, we’re running low on mineral resources after all)

Stone golem is a humanoid demon beast that is as big as a Knight. Its power is so strong that it requires a B-class Knight to defeat it.
But at the same time, it is also a valuable lump of mineral resources.
And what comes to my mind is the image of Goblin jii-chan tugging my sleeve after giving the order.

「The kingdom and the knight order are still unaware of this. It’s a secret」

While looking at me who voiced my understanding, he continued.

「If they know about it, they’ll monopolize it and we won’t be able to get the resources」

Then he closed one eye and smiled mischievously.

(But still, how in the world does he get this kind of information?)

I thought about it as I smoothly dodged a big rock emerging from the ground with a parallel turn.
I knew his ears were sharp. But there are no people living in this wasteland, and there were no roads nearby.
It was hard to believe that the information had come from a merchant belonging to the guild.

(Could it be that he’s actually a real goblin?)

And a king class at that.
He orders his people around the world to report on various events. That’s why his information is faster and more accurate than anyone else’s.

(Nah, there’s no way)

That should be impossible, but for a moment, I almost seriously believed it.
I shook my head to get rid of my weird delusion.
I jumped over a few bumps and headed south while avoiding rocks in an S-shaped path.
Before long, I arrived at my destination.

「Hmmm…」

A wasteland that stretches across the south of Awoke.
An arid, barren land where not even grass grows, let alone trees.
It was supposed to be a landscape of gravel and sand piled up on the exposed bedrock. It was supposed to be that way, but now there was a giant hole in the ground.

「This is… quite an amazing sight」

Overwhelmed by the scenery below me, I let out a gasp.
I’m at the top of a rocky mountain overlooking the giant hole to the south. Old Lady is lying on her stomach in the shade of a rock to hide herself after climbing up.
And what literally filled my field of vision was a giant hole.
The diameter at the surface is about a thousand meters.
As you go down to the bottom, the shape of the hole narrows into a spiral. It was reminiscent of an open pit mine.
The depth of the hole was probably five hundred meters.

「Truly wonders of nature」

I nodded as I folded my arms, but my heart was sweating cold a little.

(If I remember correctly, this is where the Helldiver’s nest used to be, right?)

A bland, unchanging landscape. It’s hard to tell because it keeps going on as far as my eyes can see, but there’s no doubt about it.
This is the place where I wiped out the Helldivers that had built a nest in the ground, and the place where I experimented to activate C-rank magic.

(Is it my fault? Is this not a marvel of nature, but a destruction of nature by me personally?)

That time, the experiment failed.
The C rank magic that I activated. The amount of magic power was too much for the Old lady to bear, and she was on the verge of exploding.

(Ugh)

Fear began welling inside of me just by remembering the sensation of it.
My level of magic manipulation was so high that I could share my senses with the Knight. I felt what it felt like to be a frog on the verge of exploding to death.
To avoid being killed, I put all my magic power into my rifle. Then, I shot a light arrow right below me with all my strength.

(But it couldn’t have been this big of a hole)

As a result, a nest of ants was created in the ground with a diameter of two hundred meters or so.
It had a canopy, so it was not this kind of open ceiling.

(Could it be, it was those things’ fault?)

A gentle slope on the wall of the open-pit mine. Countless clay golems were wandering around the area.
What they were doing was punching the wall with their hands and putting the debris into their mouths.
This repeated action must have caused the space to expand.
The space had grown so large that it could not support the ceiling, causing the surface of the ground to cave in.

(Yep, it’s definitely their fault, not mine)

If there was one thing I did wrong, it was only because I had created a space that would become a nest for golems.
I decided to think of it that way and ran my eyes around the corner again.
A big space in the shape of a mortar spread out below me.
The clay golems are mostly in shallow areas, and the percentage of stone golems increases the lower it gets.

(No wonder why they want this)

A Kingdom lacking mineral resources. Exactly as the saying, putting your hand into their throat to grab it*.
I shake Old lady’s head and pay attention to the surroundings.
[*TL Note: “喉から手が出てつかみかかる”, a proverb, I think, meaning “to desperately wanting something”, apparently.]

「Well, it looks like there’s no one else but me around here, so let’s get started」

I tapped the armrest of my chair as if I were talking to the Old lady.
However, considering the specific procedure, this will be unexpectedly difficult.

(The number of golems is far greater than I had thought. Aside from defeating them, retrieving them is going to be tough)

It would be much easier if there weren’t so many of them.
I could just shoot them down with long-range attack magic and drag them to the forest in the direction of Awoke. If we leave them there, the recovery team that comes later will take them away.
All we had to do is to repeat this several times.
However, the stone golems are currently in the lower levels. Even if I destroy it by sniping, I can’t get close to it because the swarm of clay golems will get in my way.

(I can’t beat the clay golems in close combat)

I share pain with the Old Lady, so I can’t fight in close combat.
I don’t even want to fight with a lower-ranked wood golem.

(Should I just shoot from a distance and eliminate the clay golems? But the front side is a blind spot. I will have to change my position several times)

The best place, a place where I can attack one-sidedly and not be taken by surprise. Me and Old Lady look around for it.

(Hm?)

At that moment, I thought I saw something in the right corner of my vision.
The Old lady turned her face towards it and activated the optical correction magic circle. I raised the magnification and checked the visual image.

(Are those… Knights?)

I involuntarily suppress my voice.
The distance is far, but there is no doubt about it. Several Knights were walking toward us from the northwest.
Every time the horsemen moved up and down, a cloud of sand was blown sideways from their feet.

(Looking at the direction where they come from… is it the Empire?)

I lowered the Old lady’s posture as low as possible to avoid being spotted by the other party.
Then I waited for a while. It was three Knights that showed up.
There was one A-class Knight and two B-class Knights.

(…it’s the Grim reaper)

That slender, yet formidable and fiendish-looking shape.
He was an A-class Knight that I had seen many times in the 『Imperial Blacksmith Guild Knight’s Almanac』. There was no way I could have mistaken him.
It is ridden by a pilot with the same nickname as the Knight.
This combination is said to be one of the best in the Empire, and one of the most powerful in the Ost continent.

(Though he was defeated by Explosive onee-san and fall to masochism)

The Divine tournament held in the Holy City was a very exciting tournament that will even make you sweaty just by watching the match.
Thanks to this tournament, Explosive onee-sama exploded in popularity. Because of that, one might misunderstand that she became the champion, when in fact, she’s not.
She ended up with a draw in her next match against Lightning, and thus the champion’s seat ended up in Cool-san’s hands.

(But Cool-san’s matches didn’t leave much of an impression)

This was probably because she had won all of her matches without a hitch.
And that’s probably the reason why Explosive onee-sama was more famous.

(I feel bad for guild master, but I won’t be able to complete the task now that the Grim reaper is here)

I returned to reality from the preliminaries in the Holy city and began to think about my next action.
I think I should give up on securing the Stone Golem.
I have no intention of risking my life to obtain mineral resources. Besides, the Kingdom already signed a truce with the Empire.

(Let’s just see what he’s doing here and report the situation)

This was also the first time I saw the Grim reaper in the flesh.
It’s different from the illustrations in the『Imperial Blacksmith Guild Knight’s Almanac』. I really want to see it in action.
I kept looking through the telescope on the Old lady’s eyes and continued to follow Grim reaper’s movements.

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