Torn Asunder by War, A Sword Saint for Tomorrow X The Knight Wizards!! – Chapter 106

Chapter 106: Should This Grudge Not Be Avenged? By Revia
  Sometime after each of the nobles left the Senate assembly hall, the Count of Lindenbaum territory, who had brought his close aide knights and carriage to the Imperial Capital and had them surrounded by light infantry, sighed on his way back to his mansion.
  
  “Honestly, providing Heisel with four Gladius units as a farewell gift was the limit… A request for stationing troops is nothing but a nuisance.”
  
  “Since our territory is close to the border, we’ve had dealings with them since the reign of the previous King Strauss. Besides, the thought of fighting that muscle-brained idiot and that gloomy bastard makes my skin crawl.”
  
  The middle-aged knight who responded to his master’s grumbling shrugged his shoulders, recalling the jousting tournament at the Knight King Festival he had participated in during his younger days, specifically the quarter-finals.
  
  It seems that the memory of being struck in the left chest by the lance of a young Xenos Danberk, who had charged at him without any fear while laughing heartily, and being blown away spectacularly before fainting, was an unforgettable one.
  
  “If I recall correctly, you were nearly killed by that man, weren’t you?”
  
  “Yes, although it was a blunted assault lance, if the additional steel plate attached to my breastplate had been even 1 millimeter thinner, I wouldn’t be here today.”
  
  The knight, with a grimace on his face, smiled wryly and pressed on the old wound on his left chest, revealing the lingering fear that he couldn’t shake off even after more than a decade.
  
  It was a depressing thought to incur unnecessary resentment from the Rare Human King who led the traditionally strong Knight Kingdom, but the connections intertwined with old blood relations and interests were difficult to sever.
  
  It was also a fact that as long as Duke Prime Minister Cristophe held the young Emperor and the Imperial Capital Beril, the Imperial Faction’s dominance wouldn’t waver easily.
  
  “If I’m going to mobilize the Lindenbaum forces out of obligation to the faction, it’ll have to be at a snail’s pace… It would be best to delay things from the preparation stage in a way that’s not too obvious, and avoid conflict as much as possible.”
  
  “Why not secretly send a special envoy and put on a little act?”
  “That would also be reckless. Depending on how things go, we could be left with no place to stand.”
  
  Perhaps he thought that it wasn’t an action to be taken with half-hearted resolve without making up his mind, whether to abandon the Imperial Faction and join the Lady White Fox’s side, or to align with the neutral faction.
  
  The Count, shaking his head from side to side, decided that both sides should read between the lines and choose the best answer for themselves.
  
  Considering the state of the Knight Kingdom, which lacked its main knights due to the expedition and couldn’t deploy mobile forces to each city and village, the two battalions of the opposing side, which possessed giant knights gathered along the border with Aius, wouldn’t have any reinforcements either.
  
  “If we follow the battlefield tactics, there should be little incentive for a proactive interception. I want to believe they won’t attack rashly.”
  
  The Count, distracting himself with wishful thinking, got out of the carriage that had gradually slowed down and stopped, and spent the entire night working on instructions to be sent to the administrative officer left in charge of the mansion.
  
  
  One of the carrier pigeons entrusted with this message flew under the sunlight, recognizing a second-generation knight with its left arm replaced as a black dot in the distance, while flying over the northern edge of Zephyrus territory, which belonged to the south-central region of the Empire.
  
  Beside the knight’s body lying supine on the vast grasslands, a mage girl with red hair fluttering in the wind stood, gazing at her mount, which had been modified with the “Wired Burst Knuckle” along with her Rare Human partner.
  
  “Hmm, Bel-chan is still quite rugged, isn’t she?”
  “And the size of her left arm is still the same…”
  
  “The number of components has increased compared to the conventional telescopic arm, so I’d appreciate it if you praised my design for keeping it the same size as before.”
  
  According to Lady White Fox, who overheard the conversation, the burst mechanism for launching, the winding device, and the multi-barrel reel that efficiently stores the special mithril wire were all built-in, and it was quite a struggle to fit everything into the limited space.
  
  “Considering airtightness and appearance, I wanted to make it all-in-one, you know?”
  “I understand that, but… can I ask why it was shelved during the prototype stage?”
  
  “It lacked power. When launching, it uses multiple small burst mechanisms to shoot it out, so it’s instantaneous, but it took a long time to rewind, making it impractical.”
  
  Therefore, it seems that they increased the number of magically-powered small engines to improve the recovery speed of the launched forearm, but… due to structural problems, the gap that occurs afterward is unavoidable.
  
  Even though it had been improved in two ways, because the twin elf sisters transplanted the magic core of a “Mechanical Magi” into Belphegor without the developer’s permission, causing the output of the Magic Furnace to jump beyond specifications, it was necessary to get a feel for it.
  
  “I need to get used to the feedback from the knight…”
  “Ugh, the fist flying off is uncharted territory…”
  
  Lightly pushing Revia’s back as she hesitated for some reason, Claude walked to the ladder leaning against the chest armor and slipped into the cockpit, switching places with the twin sisters who were doing the final checks.
  
  As the sound of the Magic Furnace starting up echoed, he issued a warning through the external loudspeaker and confirmed that the maintenance soldiers had dispersed sufficiently before carefully raising the knight.
  
  『Umm, the target is the grounded Gladius, right?』
  『Yeah, let’s go outside.』
  
  Because part of the grasslands had been surrounded by a semicircular rock wall created with earth magic during the construction of the base using the shallow part of the forest, they moved through the gaps in the sparse trees.
  
  Finding several knight silhouettes in the open view, he selected a damaged knight that was conveniently stuck and moved his mount within effective firing range.
  
  『The Magic Furnace’s output has increased, it’s ready anytime.』
  『Then, let’s do a test firing.』
  
  After confirming through the knight’s pseudo eyeballs that Nina, the engineers from the maintenance crew, and the others who had followed them had stopped midway and secured a sufficient safety margin, he slowly raised the distorted left arm.
  
  Immediately after launching the Burst Knuckle by transmitting his will through the nerve nodes of the artificial muscles, he felt a vivid sensation of flying through the wind, likely due to the high-purity mithril wire, and then the impact of deeply denting the target’s chest armor was transmitted to him.
  
  Along with the sharp pain in his left fist, as if he had punched someone with all his might without regard for self-injury…
  
  『Ouch, that hurts like h*ll! Who should I complain to, Claude!?』
  『As I somewhat expected, it’s a double-edged weapon.』
  
  Ignoring Revia’s complaints as she turned into a raging small animal, he received the impact of the rewound left forearm reconnecting with a buffer, then approached the fallen Gladius to check the extent of the damage.
  
  After several trials… it was concluded that it was a practical weapon that could cover both close and medium ranges, but it still needed three to four seconds to rewind, and the slight damage to the handguard made it a difficult weapon to handle.