Chapter 308: Cause

The eleven golems that headed toward the Kingdom delegation were defeated, but it seemed that the turmoil in the royal castle still hadn’t subsided.

Commander Hugh McGrath folded his arms and didn’t say a word.

They were in a foreign country, and to be honest, he couldn’t judge how far they should stick their heads in their affairs.

If they attacked, he would retaliate but other than that…

The B-rank and C-rank parties that remained on land were also gathering and talking.

Except for one person.

All immediate issues resolved, Ryo was sitting next to the eleventh golem he defeated, dismantling, disassembling, and reading something.

The six from Room 10 and 11 gathered there.

“Ryo is…”

“Probably alchemy…”

“This is probably all he wishes for.”

Etho muttered, Amon speculated, and Niels concluded.

The three people from Room 11 were silent as they watched.

They were correct.

Ryo had disassembled the eleventh golem and was analyzing its mechanism and magic formula.

Of course, magic formulas are ‘unique languages by each designer’, so it was not easy to decipher.

It was the same even for Ryo, who had acquired knowledge and experience in alchemy that was incomparable to what he had three years ago.

However, it was not completely incomprehensible.

Even if he didn’t understand the details, he knew the gist of it.

“This is amazing… I guess you could call it power saving or magic power saving at its peak… it’s powered by a single earth-attribute magic stone, which isn’t that big. To be able to power a golem… both the design and manufacturing are very refined.”

Ryo muttered with admiration.

He didn’t even notice the six people who approached him.

“It’s obvious that it’s autonomous … but it can do various things with simple instructions… It’s like artificial intelligence on Earth… It’s like that Fuzzy Logic model… Hn? Eh? It looks like the attack target was forcibly rewritten?”

In the process of deciphering the magic formula, Ryo seemed to have found something unexpected.

There, he finally realized that there were six people around him from Room 10 and 11.

“Ah, nice timing. Niels, please call Hugh. I have found what seems to be the cause of this commotion.”

“Ryo, what did you find?”

“Hugh, this mess was not caused by golems going haywire or anything like that. In the golem’s ‘Attack Target’ settings, it is clearly set as 1. Destruction of the delegation’s lodgings, 2. Attack the delegation at a specified time.”

“Oh damn …”

As expected, not only Hugh but also the six people from Room 10 and 11 were at a loss for words.

Of course, since they were so clearly attacked, they didn’t think it was just the golems going haywire, but they didn’t want to consider that the raid on the delegation was explicitly stated.

Well, considering that the first ten golems threw their spears at the ship, it could be said that their intentions were clear at that point…

“Ryo, you said that the attack was ordered at a specified time, but do you know when that order was issued?”

“I don’t know the exact time, but I know it was yesterday.”

He found the location that recorded change history.

It had yesterday’s date on it.

“It was early this morning when the river calmed down and we decided to set sail. That means that not only the Kingdom mission, but the entire mission was the target of the attack…”

Hugh spoke slowly to confirm.

However, unsolved mysteries remained.

Why did they attack the delegation?

“The castle is still in chaos. There is a high possibility that other golems are malfunctioning too… Scouting would be difficult too. I guess our option is to hold and wait for further developments.”

After Hugh muttered that, he raised his voice.

“Kingdom delegation, all members, standby until further notice!”

“Yes!”

The adventurers replied and nodded.

In addition to being the leader, Hugh was also the Grand Master of the Kingdom’s Adventurer’s Guild, in other words, the general manager of the adventurers.

His authority to take command of the adventurers was high.

After Hugh gave instructions, he turned around and looked at Ryo and said.

“Ryo, good job. When you started dismantling the golem, I was wondering what were you planning to do, but you were searching for the cause of this huh, well done.”

“Thank you!”

Hugh praised him and Ryo replied with a bright smile.

However, the three people from Room 10 knew better.

“Grand Master came to that conclusion but …”

“I think Ryo was absolutely just prioritizing his hobbies…”

“So he linked his hobby to results… Ryo, that’s amazing…”

Amon questioned the conclusion, Etho was spot on the truth, and Niels was impressed in a different way.

Of course, the evaluations from the three from Room 10 were much closer to the truth than Hugh McGrath’s.

That may be due to the length of their relationship with Ryo.

Nonetheless, there was no one to stop Ryo from disassembling the golem again.

Ryo, who had even obtained the leader’s permission, continued to tinker with the golem happily.

At that time, in the castle.

In the square, there were many corpses on the ground, especially those who were close to Duke Yuri X of the QC Duchy, such as his royal guards or the First Knights.

A young man watched the spectacle from a slightly distant tower.

“We’ve succeeded in considerably cutting down the strength of father’s retinue whom he trained from young. Moreover, the fact that he had attacked the delegation was also established. The Golem Corps attacked the delegation that His Holiness ordered to host… Father could even be banished by the Western Church. We’ve almost secured complete success for this conspiracy.”

An old man entered the young man’s room with a knock.

“Your Highness Crown Prince, eleven golems were destroyed by the Central Nations delegation. Furthermore, the four golems that attacked the castle have stopped due to their mana running out.”

“Destroyed, you say?”

The prince frowned and asked.

“Yes. It seems that all eleven were decapitated at a fairly early stage.”n/ô/vel/b//in dot c//om

The old man reported without a change in expression.

“… and the damage to the mission.”

“Zero deaths.”

“Impossible!”

The prince unconsciously raised his voice at the old man’s report.

However, he immediately lowered his tone and asked.

“It was eleven golems, mind you? Nobody died in that attack? No matter how elite the escorts are, how is that possible!”

A soft but sharp interrogative tone.

However, the old man answered without changing his expression at all.

“It’s the truth.”

“Kuh… I understand. Thank you for the report.”

When the prince said that with a bitter expression, the old man bowed and left the room.

At the same time.

Within the castle, in the audience room, the Duke of QC, Yuri X, was there.

He sat on the throne, hand on his forehead, frowning.

A few sighs had escaped from his mouth since earlier.

“Why is this happening…”

He repeated the words like crazy.

“The alchemists and mechanics are currently investigating the cause…”

The Minister of Home Affairs, who was responsible for public safety within the dukedom, answered while sweating profusely.

However, Yuri’s response was weak.

“His Holiness the Pope will not forgive me… The mission we were told to entertain was attacked by our country’s golems… Moreover, the deaths of many Royal Guards and First Knights…”

Having said that far, the garrison commander reported.

“Your Excellency, the head of the mission, Hugh McGrath, is requesting a visit.”

“I see… I can’t afford not to meet them, let them enter.”

“Commander McGrath, I’m sorry.”

From the offset, Duke Yuri X of QC apologized.

It was beyond Hugh’s expectations.

He thought he would apologize, but not from the very start.

“There’s no need… Fortunately, there was no damage to our mission.”

“Huh? Were there no deaths?”

Yuri asked Hugh dumbfoundedly.

Reports said that eleven golems attacked the mission.

In the end, it seemed that the movement of the four golems that had rampaged inside the castle stopped, but there were no reports of the casualties from the mission.

Rather than that, he prioritized investigating the cause of the golem’s malfunction.

“Yes. Several of our injured were healed by the healing magic of the priests. The golems… were heavily damaged, but there was no damage to the mission or the ship.”

Hugh answered with the eleventh golem disassembled by Ryo in mind.

It had been disassembled into quite small pieces, and it was in such a state that it was hard to believe that it could be reassembled.

“Oh… I see, I see… that’s good…”

Yuri said while shedding tears.

It was the slightest silver lining amid a terrible disaster.

The Minister of Home Affairs, who was in charge of investigating the cause, began to explain the current situation on behalf of Yuri.

“The cause of the malfunction is still not well understood.”

There, he paused before continuing.

“The four golems that attacked the castle eventually stopped moving due to their mana running out. We’re still investigating the cause…”

He frowned and reported that to Hugh.

Hugh nodded once.

“Regarding that, there is something I would like to report. Actually, someone on our side adept in alchemy has obtained information from the defeated golems… In the golem’s ‘Attack Target’ setting, he found that it was clearly set as 1. Destruction of the delegation’s lodgings, 2. Attack the delegation at a specified time.”

“What!?”

The Minister of Home Affairs raised a voice of surprise.

“However, since he is not familiar with the magic formulas of the duchy’s golems, I was told that it would be better to have an expert take a look at it… what do you think? Do want you to see the golems we defeated?”

“We would love to request that of you!”

After saying that, the Minister of Home Affairs looked at Yuri.

Yuri also nodded repeatedly.

At last, they could see a light that seemed to bring them closer to investigating the cause of this uproar.

Ryo told Hugh that an expert should take a look, but he had no intention of handing over the eleventh golem he dismantled.

In the first place, the remaining 10 golems were on the battlefield with their heads cut off by the Kingdom mission, so no one tried to forcefully confiscate the golem that Ryo had dismantled.

In fact, the golem, which had been disassembled by Ryo, barely resembled its original form and was in such a state that even the duchy’s proud alchemy team and mechanics did not believe that it could be reassembled.

Unlike the golems in the castle that stopped due to running out of mana, the ones with their heads cut off did not have their change history disappear.

In the first place, the security around the change history is high and cannot be easily corrected or deleted.

Only when the power of the magic stone that serves as the power source is exhausted will the change history disappear… it seemed that they could only engineer it to function that far.

Basically, it’s impossible for a normal human to defeat a battle golem and the only way to stop it is for it to run out of mana from the magic stone…

If so, there was no problem with the workmanship.

However, they were ‘defeated midway’ because of a certain water-attribute magician.

As a result, traces of forced writing were found in the attack target setting.

And as a result of detailed analysis, the authority used for the forced writing was…

“This can’t be… His Highness the Crown Prince’s order…”

Upon receiving the report, the Minister of Home Affairs was unable to continue.

However, the one who was more shocked than him was probably Yuri X, Duke of QC.

Hearing the report, he couldn’t utter a single word… his face turned pale.

But a minute later, his face was flushed.

His facial expression switched from stunned to that of rage.

However, his tone of command was rather calm.

“Apprehend the Crown Prince, no, Kirill.”

Even the Minister of Home Affairs, who had worked closely with him, had never heard that voice devoid of emotion.

He could imagine the depth of Yuri’s anger, even if he didn’t want to…

An hour later.

They confirmed that Crown Prince Kirill was not inside the palace.

They found that he had left the castle at about the same time as the alchemists and mechanics went to the golems that the mission had been defeated.

If the golem had run out of magic power, the information on the golems would have disappeared, but since they were defeated, the information on the change history would not disappear, and he may have realized that the truth would be revealed.

Immediately, an announcement was made that the Crown Prince would be deprived of his status.

But even after that, Kirill’s whereabouts were unknown…

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