Fun Territory Defense Chapter 239 (Patreon)

Strongest Fighting Force

"...Here we go."

Immediately after Arte's small murmur, two woodblock dolls dressed in Mithril gear kicked off from the ground and took off. They jumped down from the ramparts as lightly as the wind and ran up the cliff with the same momentum.

"Oh, they look like ninjas!"

I couldn't help but say such a comment. Arte, who was concentrating, did not seem to hear me, but Camsin was looking at me with interest. Meanwhile, Panamera's eyes were glued to the puppet Arte was manipulating.

"Hey, what's that movement..."

She seemed to be doing her best to mutter that in a hushed voice. For some reason, that made me happier, and I told her how amazing Arte's magic was.

"I heard that two of Arte's puppets actually toyed with a group of several thousand knights. Unfortunately, I didn't get to see their heroic performance, but the adventurers who worked with them told me about their exploits."

"Oh, really? Come to think of it, I've seen Miss Arte's doll before, but I never saw her actually fight. I never thought she could move them like that..."

Panamera, unusually, was startled and dismayed by Arte's doll, and in the middle of that line, the doll climbed all the way to the top of the cliff and danced into the air like a rocket being ejected.

As everyone watched in amazement, it crossed paths with a wyvern that was trying to get back to the cliff. At that moment, those with good eyesight would have seen Arte's puppet swing a sword so tall that it exceeded its height.

As proof, the wyvern instantly lost its balance and spun around in midair as it passed Arte's doll. It turned its head to the ground.

It was inevitable. After all, the wyvern's wings had been sliced off with a single sword strike. It was a scene straight out of a heroic tale.

"What the...!"

Panamera and the knights shouted in astonishment. But Arte's puppet's exploits did not end there. While the wyvern was falling, another puppet was running across the ground, aiming for the next wyvern. Perhaps noticing this, the wyvern, which was nearing the cliff, tried to change the angle of its flight.

However, Arte's puppet did not give her opponent that leeway, and in the blink of an eye, it climbed halfway up the cliff, kicked the wall, and leapt into the sky. The leap was almost inhuman, but it was just a little short of altitude. As it passed below the wyvern, the doll brandished its sword almost as if in agony.

Stretching its arms to the limit, it simply stretched its body like a stick to shorten the distance between the sword and the wyvern. Anyone who used a sword would have dismissed it as a beginner's misstep, with no power and unsteady behavior. If I had to say something, I would say that the physical strength with which it wielded the sword, which was longer than its height, as if it were a stick, was remarkable. That much was all I could say.

However, the sword brandished by the doll snatched the wyvern's leg.

Fresh blood flew in the air. It seemed to be only a slight contact, but as a result, Wyvern lost one of his legs and lost its balance. The wyvern did not fall, but it did succeed in knocking off the puppet magician riding it.

The wyvern, which suddenly had no one to control it, flew through the air in a suspicious trajectory, collided with a cliff face, and then fell. Seeing this, Arte finally let out a relieved breath.

"I, I managed to reach it...!"

Probably feeling the pressure, Arte turned around with a flowery smile and wiped the sweat from her forehead.

"Yeah, it was perfect! Now they won't be coming to attack Centenna anytime soon, so let's go rescue the Knight Commander Targa and Marquis Jalpa as soon as possible, shall we?"

Arte nodded and tried to call the dolls back. But that was not enough for Panamera, as well as her Knight Commander, and the other members of the Centenna Knights.

"Wait a minute! What was that attack? I barely hit!"

"Maybe it hit the wyvern so hard that it cut off its leg...."

"I don't think a graze like that would be enough to hurt it! It's a wyvern, a wyvern! You can hit a wyvern properly, and it will not even get a scratch..."

Panamera finally looked up to the heavens with her hands on her head, perhaps unable to comprehend what was happening. Then, she looked at me with an aghast expression on her face.

"...I see. That's right. The sword held by that doll was made by the boy? You let the doll hold that sword with the unorthodox sharpness, didn't you?"

"Of course. Rather, I've equipped it with the best equipment to make the most of its high athletic ability. The Mithril full-body armor has been made as lightweight as possible. And a Mithril greatsword that boasts the sharpest cutting edge...it's perfect."

Of course, I responded in such a flippant manner, but Panamera narrowed her eyes and glared at me as if she were dumbfounded.

"...Normally, puppet magic can't do something like that. I've often heard of people manipulating their servants to assassinate people, but I've heard that it's not possible to give complicated orders. Besides, you also need to consider the limitations of distance and time..."

"I see."

I thought about Panamera's statement and sorted out the information.

Originally, no one with an aptitude for puppet magic would come forward. After all, it was used for assassinations and other crimes for a long time. There was little information about it, and not much research was done on it.

"Maybe it has something to do with the power of will? Humans have a high level of intelligence, so it may be difficult to control them... There were differences in the materials used, so it may not be that far-fetched, right? Hmmm, either way, I won't know until I do it myself."

Somehow, I muttered something like that and looked at Arte. And just then, the dolls had just returned to Arte's place.

"...Is it my imagination? I don't see any decent scratches on the dolls."

Panamera muttered again, sounding dumbfounded.

"Well, I, personally, consider it one of the strongest forces of our Seat Knights. She had plenty of time to spare to practice using them when I was making it, plenty of time. Hmmm."

Arte nodded her head in embarrassment as I answered that without hiding my boast.

"No, no, it's not like that..."

Arte's embarrassment was cute. Behind her were two dolls with great swords, but that was probably a trivial matter.

"...I thought Miss Arte had changed, but I didn't realize she had changed in this direction…"