The Knight King Who Returned with Gods : Chapter 21
Translators: Nyx and Ririi Rain
Episode 21 Hunting Spider (4)
"The gallantry of charging as a lone warrior against
a multitude of enemies! I, King Lionheart, commend you!"
"I hereby bestow upon you the honor of meeting this
Lionheart King, and the honor of dueling with him. I decree that you may
challenge this King, warrior!"
There was no need to decipher what the words meant. The
Yakt Spinner aimed its railgun at the horseman, who waited with stupid honesty.
The projectile intended for Gil Tae-sung crackled with
supersonic acceleration.
「Railgun acceleration
synchronization established. Output 13%.」
It have no choice but to conserve the limited energy in
its reserve tank for the shot. But it should be enough for a human-sized
opponent.
There is no 'living creature' that could survive being
struck head-on by this doomsday blaster. If there is, it must be an
otherworldly being, or one with the power of anomaly--
"Run, my friend."
────!!
The stallion responded readily.
Its four legs pounded the ground like a tempest, charging
toward the enemy up ahead.
It brought to mind a scene straight out of history.
A knight on horseback, charging, lance raised.
The ancient cavalry that had long served as mankind's
mightiest fighting force.
The sight of a knight of old, clad in honor, glory,
valor, and strength, galloping forth was a sight to behold.
But those ancient cavalry fighting force was nothing more
than relics of a bygone era.
What was the point of creating momentum with a horse when
hunters had already surpassed the limits of living creatures?
What was the point of a mounted soldier challenging a
super-heavily armored, super-fast artillery weapon? Do any words even need to
describe the absurdity of that?
-Bang!
A supersonic, hypervelocity blast ripped through the air
at unimaginable speed.
This was the difference between the weapon of mech and
biotics. An overwhelming difference in firepower at such a distance. This
difference... Leon must have been fully aware.
"A knight! Never one to be outmatched by some
cowardly ranged weapon!"
The holy power emanating from Leon's entire body formed a
thin film in front of him.
-Kwang!
The shot and the thin film collided. The supersonic shot
was surprisingly stopped by a thin membrane. No... it wasn't just stopped.
As if forced by something, the projectile curved and then
flung itself away.
"......?!"
For a moment, even the Yakt Spinner's superior AI stopped
processing.
Logic had failed to explain what was happening in front
of it.
The Yakt Spinner had hunted hunters. It had seen a mage,
and recorded the pitiful attempts to block its shots from the machine guns with
anomalous physics.
It understood that an intangible energy-raising 'magic'
had a physical effect.
But not this one. This time is different.
There was no process of collision, stopping, or breaking
through that resulted in penetration of defense.
It just flew away. There was no process, just a result.
The protection of the Sacred Arts Shield.
Any 'ranged attack' is 'unconditionally' 'repelled' at
least 'once'.
The Sacred Arts are something that every Holy Grail
Knight practiced as if they were breathing.
The miracles of the Holy Grail Knights, mankind's most
powerful superweapon.
The art of bending the rules.
Shrugging off the railgun shot, the knight charged
forward with incredible speed.
Fast.
In an instant, the steed was in front of the Yakt
Spinner, kicking up a storm and a cloud of heat.
-Beep!
The machine assessed:
His weapon is an archaic jousting lance, and while he's
fast, there's a limit to the impact power of mass, no matter how much speed he
gains.
Unlike the hunters, who use extraordinary movements and
special energies called 'magic' in their weapons, this lance contains no energy
at all.
It strikes with pure brute force and penetrating power.
Threat level 0.
A threat that doesn't even need to respond to. At most,
it will hit its leg and then be brought to a halt, and then──
Devise a reasonable countermeasure. Receive the
zero-damage lance charge and blast the stunned threat with machine gun blast.
The machine's logic has made the final, undoable choice.
-Whoosh!
-Bam!!!
The machine didn't understand the situation.
If the 'leg pierced' sound detected by sensor 3 was not
recorded,
If the auxiliary camera did not capture the way the heavy
armor of the joint part was penetrated like pudding,
Yacht spinner wouldn't even hypothesize that it might
have been that man's lance that pierced its leg in an instant.
Impossible.
Impossible.
The AI denied the established scenario. No wonder, as the
armor on its limbs was not meant to be broken by the ridiculous, archaic
physicality of a lance strike.
The framework of 'common sense' built by science and the
laws of physics was inescapable for the products of the old civilization.
But the proof was not up to the machine──
Reality is the proof.
-Bam!
"......??!"
Yakt Spinner wobbled, its joints creaking from the impact
of the swung holy lance.
"Sturdy."
Information refinement. Reanalyzing.
Unable to analyze logic. Unable to grasp physics.
Enemy threat level forcibly increased.
Threat Level 5.
The Yakt Spinner's actions were changed to retreat upon
the forced threat assessment of the opponent.
The Yakt Spinner took a huge leap, risking the strain on
its joints to run from an enemy it would normally ignore or crush.
One of its legs was blown off, and another limb was
crushed, so it wasn't stable, but it was far enough away too allow the Yakt
Spinner's to shift its auxiliary limb.
-Whoo!
A sharp wire swung like a whip. The deadly whip that had
cut countless hunters in half was swung at Leon.
A wire lashed at a speed that even hunters, with their
inhuman eyesight, would struggle to perceive.
However, Leon's eyesight was beyond that of the hunters,
and with the simple act of raising his lance, he coiled the wire around it.
The Yakt Spinner yanked the coiled wire. A battle of
strength automatically ensued between the two.
"A contest of strength with me. This is
entertaining."
Leon tugged on the wire wrapped around the lance.
-Creaak!
The auxiliary limb, originally designed to clear minor
obstacles and explosives, was no match for the force of Leon's pull.
-Bang bang bang!
Deprived of its railgun and cutting wire, the Yakt
Spinner starts unleashing a frenzied barrage of machine gun rounds.
After landing on the roof of a building, Yakt Spinner
focused all of the machine gun barrage on Leon, who immediately slipped out of
harm's way thanks to an astounding follow-through by the stallion.
-Bang, bang, bang!!!
Even though it was suppressive shots that weren't
expected to hit, the mobility to get out of the line of fire was simply
incredible.
In any case, their distance had widened. The machine gun
shots could only reach so far. The goal was to keep Leon away from itself, so
it worked. Once again, it pointed the railgun at.......
"────!!!"
The next moment, something tore through the air, and the
Yakt Spinner had 0.02 seconds before the camera sensors realized it was the
lance that Leon had been holding.
The machine's reaction was too late, and the penetrative
power of the lance pierced the Yakt Spinner's left skull and shattered the
railgun's entire structure.
-Thwack! Crack!
With half of its sensors and its railgun destroyed, the
Yakt Spinner staggered as its motion computation for its driving limbs was
delayed. Despite this, the suppression through the gunfire was continued.
At this point, its only hope for retreat is to keep the
enemy at bay.
In human terms, it suffer critical wounds that would have
been instantly fatal, and the creaking of its crushed limbs sounded like a roar
of rage or pain.
-Creak, creak, creak!
The Yakt Spinner disappeared into the darkness of the
sandstorm, leaving behind the creaking mechanical noises of a killing machine
from a cheesy B-movie1.
* * * *
With the sandstorm still raging outside, the hunter's
base camp was silent.
The Yakt Spinner's ambush had caused mass casualties.
It was the sense of urgency that brought the
individualistic hunters together.
"How many people are dead?"
"Seventeen that we were able to assemble. Not
counting the ones crushed by the buildings."
"That's roughly thirty dead."
A third of the hunters in the hunter encampment had been
killed in a single attack.
If the Yakt Spinner hadn't retreated, the damage would
surely have been worse.
"Is it pure luck that the railgun was
destroyed.......?"
The Hunters' eyes fell on a man. A man everyone in the
room could recognize. The man who had single-handedly repelled the Yakt
Spinner.
'......Who
is he?'
'A
hunter who isn't even recorded in the latest database.'
'That
guy... didn't he use magic or anything? Did he actually defeat that monster
using only his physical abilities?'
There were many speculations, but nothing was certain,
and no number of speculations could settle their curiosity.
What was certain was that this man was the only one with
the power to single-handedly defeat the Yakt Spinner.
"You are much stronger than I thought."
After watching Leon's display of power, Hwang Gum-cheol
was convinced. This man is a survivor, and an incredibly powerful one at that.
'Maybe
he's out of the norm, like Heavenly Demon or Killing Star.
If
he is, we need to be completely cooperative with him. Because once he's settled
in Korea, the future of this country will revolve around him.'
"......."
This was also true for Hwang Yeon-ha and Gil Tae-sung.
If it wasn't for him, the damage caused by the Yakt
Spinner would have been much greater.
Gil Tae-sung in particular was getting impatient.
"If you are interested, why don't you make a deal
with us? As long as you obtain the Jewel of Wisdom, we will give you our full
support in the future──"
"Not interested."
A simple phrase. With a single breath, Leon shattered all
chances.
"I expected you to be a master spellcaster and a
powerhouse, but in the end, you're just a poseur. If anyone is truly worthy of
the honor of knighthood, it is not you."
His gaze and expression were devoid of even a hint of
interest, but his arrogance remained unwavering as he glanced at the hunters
and the mage.
"At least you have the honor to know me. It's not
easy to earn the right to face the Knight King."
Maintaining his arrogant and dismissive demeanor to the
end, he walked away. Only the red-haired swordswoman hurriedly followed him,
her back bowed.
"Ah~ What a strange survivor."
Hwang Gum-cheol smiled bitterly in disbelief. Gil
Tae-sung's lips trembled with shame.......
"Shit... Fuck."
Unexpectedly, Hwang Yeon-ha stared at him with childlike
admiration.
* * * *
Yakt Spinner dragged its creaking limbs as it entered the
garage building.
「Secure the gate. Do
not let anyone approach.」
In all its years of fulfilling the Supreme Order, it had
never been so badly damaged and crushed, though it had replaced some parts as
they became worn with age.
Yakt Spinner slowly dissembled the bolts connecting the
disruptive limbs.
-Thud!
Broken parts. No spare parts.
The Yakt Spinner diligently searched through the
remaining armament and inventory in the garage.
Main weapon out of commission. Five manufactured rounds
and thirty-six crafted rounds expended.
Secondary weapon, 60mm machine gun, available. 657 rounds
of ammunition. Production of crafted ammunition required.
Replenish cutting wires. Auxiliary limb examined,
damaged. Results in severe imbalance in weaponry usage.
Dispose of auxiliary limb.
Main weapon removed.
Determine that it is not possible to kill a Threat Level
5 with only a secondary weapon.
Threat Level 5, originally reserved for enemies' main
battle units, attack aircrafts, or tier-1 bioweapons.
The Yakt Spinner judged Leon to be something beyond a
tier-1 bioweapon, a new entity from a hostile force that hasn't appeared in
nearly a millennium.
How to react to a new entity that was more agile than
itself and capable of unknown destructive power?
The AI compared their strength against each other, ran
battle simulations, analyzed possible tactics, and selected and practiced the
options with the highest probability of victory.
Equipping the modular robotic parts of the garage onto
itself. The Yakt Spinner began to operate, removing body parts piece by piece.
No need for thick armor that can withstand the firepower
of a main battle unit. Removed.
No need for load-bearing limbs. Remove two more of the
six remaining legs. The remainder of the legs were also dismantled, leaving
only minimal armor.
After removing the remnant of the railgun, which had
become obsolete as a weapon, as well as the separate battery for energy supply,
the 100 tons multipurpose machine was reduced to 46 tons.
Incorporated commonly collected urban remnants to fill in
the ammo of firearms due to lack of constant supply.
With additional metal wires and robotic limbs fitted for
modification, the Yakt Spinner looked very different from the original version.
The legs had been stripped of armor to the point where
they could only defend against rifle bullets and explosives,
The limbs were skeletal, but sufficient to withstand the
reduced weight.
In exchange for the loss of firepower and defense, the
giant spider gained terrifying mobility.
The machine's cold rationality had stripped it of
everything unnecessary, ensuring that it was ready to drive away its foes.
And yet──
「Yappy. Thank you for
protecting the city.」
In the old memory module, the undisturbed message was
still playing.
***
Notes:
1 B movie or B film is a low-budget commercial motion picture.↩
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