Chapter 10: A Fierce Fight at Torah Church
Day 1
Cliff
“HEY, the Golems over there! Stop!”
There was an inspection station on Neck Bridge. One of the Rabbis was yelling from behind the checkpoint wall made of Golems. Gandolf and Boulder charged forward without stopping. Cliff pulled Erie close and took cover behind their solid allies.
“I told you to stop! Didn’t you hear me?!”
Cliff and Erie ignored him. The four Bronze Golems of the checkpoint wall quickly fell into a militant formation.
Erie glowered at them and shouted, “Go, Boulder!”
Boulder burst into an all-out run and plowed through the checkpoint.
“STO—AGHHHHHHH!”
Boulder scattered the Bronze Golems, and Gandolf rushed in after him. The Rabbis cursed at them as they jumped aside.
“It’s those damn street rats!”
“I never heard they had a Golem like that!”
“Call for reinforcements! HURRY!”
Gunshots cracked through the air, and something hot ricocheted off the ground at Cliff’s feet. It looked like a syringe in the shape of a tiny ball.
Somebody’s shooting at us with that tranquilizer gun! I ain’t hangin’ around for that crap!
“Break through their ranks, Gandolf!” Cliff shouted, running across the bridge just steps behind Gandolf as he bulldozed the enemy ranks.
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Kiriko
“THEY broke through the checkpoint!”
“What did you just say?!” The words flew out of Kiriko’s mouth the moment her subordinate entered the interrogation room with that report. “Erie Reyer broke through?!”
“Along with the boy from before!”
Kiriko scowled, recalling the Illegal Golem she fought in the underground station several days prior.
Lovel raised her voice in similar surprise, “Boy? What boy? You can’t mean Cliff?!”
“…It appears so.”
“That idiot! Why’d he come…?!”
Spinoza grinned broadly at her from his corner of the room. “The answer’s obvious. He came to rescue you.”
“R-Rescue me?”
“What else would he come here to do? The kid’s got nerves of steel, raiding the Church. Goes to show how much he cares about you.”
Lovel’s eyes widened. Kiriko quietly gnawed her cheek.
I assumed Erie Reyer would come, but…I didn’t account for the boy! That Golem called Gandolf possesses outlandish combat efficiency. Can the Church’s current Rabbis fend him off? I must act before it’s too late!
Kiriko motioned to Spinoza with her eyes, and he nodded. He turned to the subordinate who reported the breach. “Torah Officer Seagal, take care of things here.”
“Y-Yes, sir!” Seagal said.
Kiriko and Spinoza left him in charge and were on their way out of the interrogation room when Lovel called to Kiriko.
“Hey, Kiriko? You never did believe me in the end, did you?”
“I am neither foolish nor gullible enough to believe a child’s nonsense.”
“But there’s a boy who did believe my nonsense. To tell you the truth, I’m super happy he did.” A bashful smile lit up Lovel’s face. The expression rubbed Kiriko the wrong way.
“And why am I supposed to care?”
“You aren’t. But things might go better for you in all kinds of ways if you start being a little more honest with yourself, you know?”
Lovel’s remark unsettled Kiriko. She felt furious with herself for lacking a good comeback. “…The road I took to get to where I am today wasn’t pure or honest enough for that,” Kiriko said, sounding as if she had given up on everything.
She left the interrogation room with Spinoza.
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Erie
THEY successfully crossed Neck Bridge and spotted the Church’s main gate up ahead.
“What should we do, Erie? Want to enter through there?!” Cliff asked, running alongside her.
“Going through the main gate is practically inviting them to surround us! Boulder and Gandolf might be okay, but we won’t!”
A small army of Rabbis marched toward the gate from the inside of the Church premises. Erie racked her brain for a plan before calling out, “Boulder! Charge right through the gate and give them hell!”
Obeying her order, Boulder smashed through the main gate into the Church grounds. He hurtled toward the chapel, scattering the Rabbis’ formation along the way. They panicked over the possibility of the Church’s symbol being destroyed.
“S-Stop that Golem! Protect the chapel!” someone shouted in a hoarse voice.
Golems swarmed around Boulder from all directions. Boulder, despite being Erie’s second Tamed Golem, held his own in a frenzied rampage in the midst of their overwhelming numbers.
Erie’s control over him may have suffered from reduced accuracy, but the strength of Boulder’s Prime Body and the degree of perfection in his Engrave Incantations granted him immense power nonetheless.
“Going for a diversion?” Cliff whispered to Erie, watching Boulder chuck a Golem at another Golem.
“Yup. Let’s break into the church from another spot!” she suggested.
Erie, Cliff, and Gandolf sprinted on, while watching Boulder out of the corner of their eyes. They saw Boulder completely surrounded just before he left their view for good. Erie deeply regretted having to leave him behind.
I’m sorry, Boulder. She shook off the guilt and ran alongside the Church’s perimeter fence.
Gandolf rammed through the fence once they had circled to the back of the Church. Cracks webbed through the sturdy fence wall until the foundation crumbled away, forming a giant hole.
“We can enter through here!”
“Yes!”
Erie and Cliff nodded to each other and invaded the Church grounds through the hole. They left the fence behind and raced on until they saw the grand Torah Church complex. A multitude of complex passages crisscrossed through the massive stone church building. Heath and Lovel were located somewhere inside this maze.
“Cliff, do you know where Lovel is?”
“Nope. You, Erie?”
“I don’t know either… But I have a vague guess of where Heathy might be.” Golems and their Golem Tamer were linked mentally. They could ascertain each other’s location up to a certain distance. “He seems to be somewhere up high… The highest place on these grounds…”
If Erie could get closer to Heath and renew their Restrictor, he would reactivate and help turn the tide of battle for them. The Rabbis had to be hiding him somewhere difficult to prevent that from happening.
Did they have him stowed away in a secret room that couldn’t be entered from the outside? It wouldn’t matter, since Heath would reactivate once she came within five meters of him, regardless of any intervening walls and obstructions. They wouldn’t place him somewhere easy for her to access.
Where’s a high place that’s difficult to enter and capable of locking up a person or two…? Erie lifted her head as she thought through the possible locations. Her eyes fixed on a specific spot—the symbol of Torah Church, and the highest building on the island.
“He’s there! Heathy is in that bell tower!” Erie shouted as she looked up at the Great Bell Tower looming over them.
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Kiriko
THE uproar outside grew louder. Kiriko looked out from the third-story window and saw a Stone Golem rampaging near the chapel. The single Golem was throwing around the young Rabbis like ragdolls. She stared down at their pitiful display and sighed with disgust.
“How pathetic…”
“The youngsters get cocky with just a small taste of power and slack off instead of becoming truly powerful through continuous commitment to their training,” Spinoza scoffed.
“Shall I send Legion?” Kiriko asked.
“Don’t. You have to guard the prince, yeah?”
Kiriko’s objections lodged in her throat. Legion’s Restrictor was, “can’t move outside of the Tamer’s line of sight.” The confining Restrictor imbued the Golem with the highest efficiency levels, but it also confined Kiriko’s actions at times like this. Legion existed in the form of six separate bodies, but they could only fight in one location at a time, and it had to be within Kiriko’s viewing distance.
But no good would come of begrudging the Restrictor at this point.
“It shouldn’t pose any problems if I immediately return to my post. I’ll go. All right?”
“No, wait… I’ll go,” Spinoza said, stopping her. She heard something make a dry click.
A grotesque figure had appeared at the end of the hallway without her ever sensing it.
“Torah Lord…you are going to use that Golem?” she asked, shuddering slightly from seeing the creepy thing for the first time in years.
“Now’s not the time to bring up restrictions on his use. This guy can defeat that Golem with his hands tied behind his back,” Spinoza remarked with a grin. “Leave the chapel to me and head to the Great Bell Tower. Before the girl arrives.”
“Okay,” Kiriko agreed. Spinoza waved and headed off with the Golem.
A faint smile touched Kiriko’s lips. No matter how powerful the attackers were, they stood no chance against Spinoza. Not against the current most powerful Rabbi and his Golem.
Those kids will be trapped like rats if we set up another checkpoint on the bridge. The Church may have become weak, but we should be capable of ensnaring a few kids… She thought, shifting her eyes back to the window.
She spotted something running across the bridge from Chest Island at a monstrous speed. An amber beast barreled toward the Church.
“That…IDIOT!” Kiriko roared in rage at Ouka on Dram’s back.