Chapter 13 (continued)

I helped some of the guards and killed a few more stragglers. A few of them were really good; I figured they had to be experienced veteran fighters. Even I needed a few extra minutes to take them down, and one took longer to deal with than an entire squad. Worse, his blood nearly splattered onto my white shirt. Being invisible didn't mean I was made of air-blood could still get on me. I broke out in a cold sweat. Blood wasn't easy to wash out, so that had been a really close call. If it had gotten on me, I would have had to buy premium stain-removing detergent, and that stuff was definitely outside my budget. Although I could remove bloodstains with a Cleaning Spell, I always felt that washing without water would leave a bloody smell.

There weren't many cyborgs inside the prison, but the guards still seemed understaffed by comparison. I was just asking Mel whether the other guards were collecting paychecks without doing any work. How could the capital's prison have such weak defenses? Mel was puzzled too, but the facts soon showed us that we had misjudged the prison-

Because the attack was far larger than what we had seen!

An earth-shaking boom caught Mel's attention and mine. Without a word, we both flew toward places where we could see outside. We had ignored the exterior the whole time, assuming that only a few elite operatives had secretly infiltrated the prison at most... Mel was closer to the skybridge, so although I was still inside the building, I could see everything he saw through mind's eye vision-

"Large mechs?" Mel exclaimed. "Those things behind them... are those troop transports? Good heavens, what country is declaring war on the Federation?"

"So were those cyborgs who broke in earlier just the vanguard?"

I was too far from the skybridge, so I climbed all the way to the prison roof and teleported out through a vent. From there, I could see even more clearly than Mel-

Large numbers of military and police personnel were fighting the invaders. I could now clearly see the targets of the police helicopters as their guns rattled away: three medium-sized troop transports. Besides cyborgs, they carried a squad of mech warriors. One transport's engines were already on fire, and under the efforts of the Federation's military and police, it was steadily falling toward the ground. Besides the prison guards, the Federation's Magitech Corps was also on the scene, and I saw several members of the Shield of the New Star fighting as well. The captain who had escorted us was at the forefront, charging into battle with all his might.

"Intercept them! Everyone, intercept them!" the captain roared, charging straight toward a squad of mech warriors.

Speaking of mechs, we mages weren't all that unfamiliar with them. Although they were products of technology, the engineers who first invented them had been inspired by constructs, magical creations commonly found in mage towers. I had once scolded Moli for being unable to tell constructs from golems. Even engineers knew the difference, so if a mage told me she didn't, I wouldn't have been able to resist blasting her... I refused to believe that magic academies had all phased out constructs and switched to magitech robots. Speaking of household magitech robots, Moli could reel off the strengths and weaknesses of every brand: this model was waterproof, that one swept floors especially well, another made delicious food... I had almost suspected she had graduated from a mechanical engineering program instead of studying at a magic academy.

...Sigh, all right, all right, I admitted it. Magitech robots really were more popular and more widely used.

Constructs were standard mage creations, but they weren't traditional ones. Traditional golems were carved from crystals containing magic power. Because the large magic crystals suitable for making golems were rare and expensive, constructs were made mainly of metal, which was much cheaper. Although they weren't as durable as traditional golems, they were good value for the money. During the legendary era, most mage towers used constructs to sweep their floors. Their internal structures worked along similar lines to modern engineering, and they couldn't do without things like gears and bearings. The difference was that a mage had to infuse them with magic power to drive them.

I was one hundred percent certain that the robots and mechs produced by Magitech had been inspired by constructs. We mages generally accepted that as fact, but famous engineers and mech designers often argued otherwise. Early mech designers in particular had tried to prove that technology was superior to magic, so they insisted that mechs had nothing to do with constructs.

It took a public speech by Mr. Xiutela, an outstanding mech master from over five hundred years ago, to silence those stubborn "radical scientists." Hmm, he was one of the few scientists I truly admired. Whatever field of scholarship one pursued, one had to acknowledge the facts. If one didn't even dare face the facts, how could one possibly make progress?

Most mechs generally used electrical power and had to be controlled by a pilot inside. Many mages felt that the biggest difference between those things and constructs was simply that someone was stuffed inside. Well, I personally thought that was quite unfair. Mechs were highly sophisticated, and both their power sources and their methods of operation were completely different. At their core, they were already entirely different things from constructs.

Of course, one thing was certain: mechs were definitely bigger than constructs. They had to fit a person inside, after all.

That wasn't all. Next, I spotted a four-legged, beast-shaped mech clinging to the building's outer wall. Generally, only giant mechs were built in beast shapes for stability. Giant mechs... honestly, usually only armies maintained them. For personal use, lightweight, small humanoid mechs were naturally the most popular.

...Indeed, anyone bold enough to raid a prison in the Federation's capital probably wasn't just a small group of troublemakers acting on their own.

"Good heavens!" I was a little too loud, but it didn't matter. That giant mech had attracted every guard's attention.

Mel also said that a military company capable of maintaining large mechs had to be enormous, perhaps even publicly traded, with military strength surpassing that of some small countries. Anyone who could afford to hire a company like that was no petty thug. Not only did they have the potential to become a great demon king, they might already be at that level.

In the end, Mel couldn't help saying, "Is the Osland Federation really about to fall?"

I could tell he was joking, of course. The Federation certainly wouldn't fall because of a single mech. Though things were chaotic below, I could see that the attackers didn't have the upper hand. What Mel meant was that someone had actually dared to openly challenge the Osland Federation, one of the strongest nations on the Diana Continent. After the "Lightless Years," effective legal restrictions had also been placed on technological products, greatly reducing their unlawful use, and the Federation's capital was among the safest places of all... All right, enough of that for now. How had a mech that huge gotten into the capital under such strict controls?

"It's invisible! It's invisible!"

A series of shouts answered that question.

"Technology really does advance by leaps and bounds," I couldn't help marveling. A few years ago, magitech mechs had still been luxury goods, and now they had brought out an invisible mech. I had to admit that technology really did have more vitality than magic. The huge mech vanished right before my eyes, but because I had clearly seen that something was there, I could still locate it by sensing it with magic power.

"Huh? That doesn't seem to be an invisible mech. As far as I know, even the best mechanical masters haven't managed to develop one yet. If anyone had succeeded, the media would definitely have made a huge fuss about it, and the engineers' society couldn't possibly have kept so quiet." Mel frowned. "...No, that's not right. It's definitely not an invisible mech. Xipei, look at the building!"

The building was swaying slightly, but everyone was still busy fighting and wasn't worried about it at all. Yet I didn't think the Federation's elite warriors could be both deaf and blind, and the building shouldn't have swayed so easily. That could only mean-

"It's magic! That's a visual distortion caused by magic power. That large mech is using magic to turn invisible!"

No wonder the people on the ground hadn't noticed anything unusual. Only we mages' eyes could detect the magic power emitted by such a large-scale spell.

I sensed it for a moment and said, "But there are no mental power fluctuations from spellcasting."

"It's a magic scroll!" Mel said. "However expensive an Invisibility Spell scroll might be, a military company that can field large mechs could definitely afford it. But this Invisibility Spell is so powerful. Could an archmage really have thrown in their lot with them?"

I also drew a sharp breath, finding it unbelievable.

Generally, a mage with any reputation would never sell their own magical creations lightly. There were only a handful of archmages whose names were known today, and I hadn't heard that any of them loved money enough to lower themselves and casually sell their magical creations like grocers. As for those who openly livestreamed online to show off their skills, I didn't think they counted as archmages at all. Even if they had hordes of fans and glowing media reviews, that kind of scholarly attitude meant their magic was unlikely to improve any further.