"You! Say! What!!!"
The lion's roar of a furious woman thundered down the main boulevard of the Clock Tower.
Clad in a stiff, crimson gown, the girl called Lorelei Barthomeloi screamed in outrage.
She had just taken her seat as head of the Barthomeloi family when word reached her that "Radiant Gold" Rhodes had been marked with a Seal Designation. Without pause, she'd rushed here, determined to personally "judge" Lord Rhodes.
But now, her plan had gone up in smoke.
Just minutes ago, Rhodes had piloted a Harrier jet straight through the Clock Tower's barrier lockdown. Worse yet, as he broke through, he'd rewritten the hidden formulas within the barrier itself—trapping the pursuing forces inside and leaving the Clock Tower's army unable to march.
"My apologies, Lady Lorelei," a magus from the Sophia-Ri family said softly. His voice was weak, yet carried a subtle undertone of if you think you can, then go ahead and try.
"Hmph!" Lorelei snorted and barked an order to the magi behind her. "Clone division—initiate joint chanting! Target: the Clock Tower's defensive barrier!"
The order was crisp, decisive. But the Clone division paled to a man. To destroy the outer defense barrier of the Clock Tower was to shatter its very dignity—tantamount to slapping the Twelve Lords across the face.
Yes, they were vassals of Barthomeloi, but even so, they couldn't just throw aside the consequences and indulge her recklessness.
"What? Still hesitating? Do you call yourselves Barthomeloi retainers? Are you really going to disgrace our family's honor with that cowardice?!"
Lorelei's voice cut through like a whip. The magi trembled, bitter smiles twisting their lips as they began to chant. Piece by piece, they shortened the cumbersome twelve-part grand ritual, compressing it into a city-scale assault spell.
A gale ripped up from the ground, in the blink of an eye whirling into a tornado several dozen meters tall. It didn't have the sheer destructive might of a Noble Phantasm, but it was nothing to scoff at.
The next instant, the storm slammed down. The barrier shattered with a deafening—
"BOOM!"
◇◇◇
Two hours later, at a military port on England's eastern coast—
Seven or eight luxury Lincolns screeched to a halt. Dozens of magi poured out in unison. The mortal guards stationed there, the so-called "lobster soldiers," didn't even register them; veiled by layers of suggestion magecraft, not one commoner could impede their way.
Led by Lorelei Barthomeloi, they stormed into the port.
And what greeted them was a sight that would forever burn into memory.
A ship of steel—no, a warship. Some among them even recognized it: Japan's model from the Second World War. But its hull was clad in modern, high-strength armor plating.
Twin-mounted 127mm fifty-caliber naval guns swiveled to meet them, each barrel shimmering with magical light. Spell formulas glowed across silver armor plating, exuding a suffocating sense of impregnable weight.
But this alone wasn't what struck them. A single retrofitted WWII warship, even augmented with magecraft, wasn't enough to frighten elite magi.
No—the true shock was that the massive silver vessel was rising. Slowly, steadily, the warship lifted itself from the sea. The waterline crept higher and higher as its keel left the waves behind. Magic surged in waves across the horizon. The destroyer—fully 1,600 tons—rose unwaveringly from the blue ocean. Spray cascaded from its hull, every droplet glittering in the sun, plain to the eyes of even the stunned magi.
Under the wide-eyed gaze of the Clone division, the warship ascended, finally hovering eighty to ninety meters above the surface. A relic of World War II had become a skyborne floating destroyer.
"This…" Even Lorelei, with her nose forever tilted toward the heavens, felt powerlessness creep into her chest.
It was a fusion of modern technology and classical magecraft—something the Barthomeloi family could never achieve. They could modify guns, perhaps, but to create a floating warship of this magnitude? Impossible.
"…Withdraw." The words were spat through clenched teeth, dripping with humiliation. Lorelei spun on her heel. Under the dazed stares of the gathered magi, she stalked away from the port.
Perhaps this was the first time Barthomeloi had ever bowed their head. In the face of undeniable power, even the loftiest arrogance could only be ground to dust.
◇◇◇
"Hmph. That's the fruit of several years' labor. Not bad, huh? How's the hull feel, Yuudachi?"
On the deck, Rhodes laughed lightly into the sea breeze. Beside him, Yuudachi wore the same stiff mask of indifference.
"Judgment… cannot… be made…" Her crystalline lips parted, voice mechanical, rigid.
Rhodes could only sigh with a wry smile. "No need to keep acting. I can see right through a girl's heart, you know."
"Eh?" Yuudachi blinked in dazed confusion, then suddenly blushed crimson. "No way! Master really is a hopeless pervert after all! Poi!"
"Tch… I won't tolerate slander like 'pervert.'" Rhodes chuckled bitterly, though guilt pricked at his heart.
He wasn't some scumbag who could read the hearts of women. It was simply that Yuudachi's core housed a recording formula. Every action, every flicker of thought could be accessed and read by him.
Yes, it was excessive. But it was also necessary. Even though he trusted them, Rhodes never minded tossing another weight onto the scale of loyalty.
"I…" Watching, RyuZU stiffened in shock. Fear of punishment warred with the dread of losing Rhodes' trust.
"It's fine. If I couldn't accept even that, why would I have designed you this way?" Rhodes' laugh was gentle as he soothed his anxious maid. "You're mine. Always have been, always will be. So it's okay to be a little selfish."
"…Mm." Her voice trembled, thick with unshed tears. RyuZU quickly wiped them away, and once more her face bloomed into a smile of joy. "As expected… of my Master."
Spinning lightly, she knelt gracefully before him, her tone reverent.
"Upon this warship stand eight Iron Golems, two Shadowsteel Golems, eighty-six maid-class Pleasure Golems, and dozens more constructs clad in modern armored shells…"
"In the Middle East, one hundred and twenty thousand Werewolf golems march for Romania, alongside dozens of veteran mercenary squads…"
"Here beneath our feet is the Shiratsuyu-class aerial destroyer Yuudachi Kai-II, with the Ship Girl Yuudachi installed aboard…"
"And of course, myself, the clockwork automaton RyuZU."
"All of us march together for Romania, to show the decaying aristocrats of the magi the brilliance of your revolution!"
"You shall seize the crown of the Holy Grail—and we shall stand with you."
"We will be the sword in your hand, never to retreat."
"Not until death!"