"Do you want to realize your own value?"
Silver walls surrounded them. Steel plates were engraved with countless runes, arcane light flowing through the inscriptions as low chants echoed from every corner.
Rhodes stood at the very heart of the workshop. Before him stood twelve motionless girls.
Each had snow-white hair. Their identical faces looked as if they had been pressed from the same mold, their clear eyes indistinguishable from one another.
Cold. Empty. Devoid of emotion. They lacked even the concept of a "self." They were nothing more than tools—devices for producing mana, or playthings for magi to vent their desires. Beyond that, they held no meaning.
Yet Rhodes was carefully prying open the selves sealed away by magecraft, reshaping those fragile spirits at will, corrupting minds that had once been pure.
Rhodes was a Golem craftsman. To him, Golems differed only in whether they were perfect or flawed. He allowed Golems and Automatons to possess individuality, but absolute loyalty was nonnegotiable.
Now, with the minds of these homunculus girls as blank as fresh parchment, Rhodes naturally intended to paint them in his own colors—thick, obscene white.
They did not respond. Their icy expressions did not change in the slightest.
"Tch." Rhodes clicked his tongue. He said nothing more, stepped forward, and casually yanked away the white cloth wrapped around one girl.
The cloth slipped free, revealing pale skin and an extremely underdeveloped body. As devices meant to generate mana, their lives were steadily consumed by that very process. The most obvious sign was their frail bodies, each one delicate to the point of fragility.
They were disposable consumables. Once this Holy Grail War ended, these homunculi would lose their value. Gordes would likely dispose of them in bulk.
Their existence itself was proof of a magus' distortion and malice. Looking at these twisted creations, pity and contempt surfaced together in Rhodes' eyes.
He pitied these girls, born not long ago and already marching toward death. At the same time, he despised the arrogant Gordes. As a creator, the man had thoroughly insulted the lives he had brought into being.
Stupidity. Decay. An unforgivable pride. Rhodes' killing intent toward him deepened.
"Let me ask you this." Rhodes gently pinched the girl's pale shoulder, as though handling fragile porcelain. His voice came out slightly dry. "Do you want a new life? Do you want to kill the trash that trampled you?"
Silence answered him.
The girl's eyes remained vacant, utterly devoid of emotion.
These homunculus girls were defective products. Aside from bodies capable of sustaining Magic Circuits, they were worthless in every other respect. Fully aware of this, Rhodes let out a quiet sigh.
"This is troublesome. Since you won't say anything, I'll take that as consent." He inclined his head toward RyuZU, who stood waiting behind him. "Begin. Convert these Homunculus girls into Automatons. Let those with Magic Circuits serve as pilots and mana cores for the frames."
"You really are stingy, squeezing out every last scrap of value." RyuZU covered her mouth as she laughed, approval glinting in her eyes.
"This isn't exploitation. It's salvation." Rhodes corrected her calmly. "I'm giving them a reason and a value to live."
Behind him, within the silver workshop, a colossal form stood in silence.
Six meters tall, it radiated overwhelming pressure. Even a Heroic Spirit would hesitate to face that steel body head-on.
This was not a golem of this world. It was a creation from another realm—a true Steel Golem, a master of sieges and conquest.
A massive six-meter frame. A body forged entirely from enchanted steel. Countless magic arrays drove its movements. A single punch could shatter stone. Multiple spell fields layered over its exterior as defenses. Even the highest-ranked Saber among the seven classes would struggle to breach its armor.
Its means of attack extended beyond the six-meter-long, half-meter-wide greatsword mounted on its back. Everything else was modern terror.
Aircraft cannons. Semi-automatic grenade launchers. Shoulder-fired missiles. Heavy sniper cannons. Even the magitech railgun Rhodes had recently developed.
Every weapon imaginable was mounted on these golems. Against ordinary magi, it would be slaughter. Even against true Heroic Spirits, a squad of twelve could fight them head-on.
In fact, a single golem unit would be enough to conquer Romania itself. A true anti-nation-class golem legion. The command unit's steel body even housed a low-yield tactical nuclear warhead Rhodes had acquired—enough to turn Trifas into a rising miniature sun.
That was why Rhodes dared to scheme against the Yggdmillennia family without fear of retaliation. From the very beginning, he held power sufficient to drag everyone down with him.
It was very Quranic. Very halal.
The mercenaries Rhodes had sent to the Middle East learned more than battlefield experience. They learned proper techniques for righteous self-destruction.
"Unfortunately, these golems consume too much mana. Ordinary mana cores can't sustain them. That's why I set my sights on these homunculi."
As he spoke, Rhodes lifted the fragile white-haired girl and laid her upon the examination table, inspecting her flawless body.
"Here, I grant you a new life."
"A life as my weapon. As my tool. But never as a disposable consumable."
"Awaken, my loyal warrior."
For the first time, driven by her own will, the homunculus girl opened her delicate eyes.
"…Sigh."
Whether it was regret or reflection, even Rhodes did not know. He studied her gentle features, guilt surfacing on his face.
He was no longer the cold-hearted Arcanist he once had been.
Somewhere along the way, he had become human.