Published: January 15, 2026
"...Here I go."
Just after Arte whispered softly, two wooden block puppets clad in Mithril armor pushed off the ground and took flight. They leapt lightly from the castle wall like the wind and dashed up the cliff with unstoppable momentum.
"Oh, like ninjas."
I couldn’t help but blurt out that impression. It seemed Arte, deeply focused, didn’t hear it, but Kamushin looked over with interest. Meanwhile, Panamera’s eyes were glued to the puppets controlled by Arte.
"W-what is that movement...?"
Panamera muttered in a hoarse voice, barely able to speak. For some reason, I felt happier and began to talk about the greatness of Arte’s magic.
"I’ve heard that Arte’s two puppets actually overwhelmed a knight order numbering in the thousands. Unfortunately, I didn’t get to witness their heroism firsthand, but the adventurers who acted alongside them told me about their exploits."
"I-is that so? Now that you mention it, I’ve seen Arte’s puppets before, but never in actual combat. To think they can move like that..."
Panamera, unusually surprised and flustered by Arte’s puppets, was interrupted mid-sentence as the puppets finished climbing the cliff and rocketed into the air like missiles.
Everyone’s eyes widened in shock as the puppets crossed paths with a wyvern returning to the cliff. Those with sharp eyesight probably saw Arte’s puppet swing a sword longer than its own height in that instant.
As proof, the wyvern that passed the puppet immediately lost its balance and spun in midair, its head tilting toward the ground.
It was no surprise. The wyvern’s wing had been sliced off with a single strike. It was a scene straight out of a heroic tale.
"W-what...!"
Panamera and the knights gasped in astonishment. But Arte’s puppets didn’t stop there. As the injured wyvern fell, the other puppet ran across the ground, targeting the next wyvern. Noticing this, the wyvern near the cliff tried to change its flight angle.
However, Arte’s puppet gave no room for such a move. It swiftly climbed halfway up the cliff, kicked off the wall, and soared into the sky.
The leap was superhuman, but just a bit short on height. It passed beneath the wyvern, swinging its sword in a desperate motion.
The puppet stretched out its arm to the limit, stiffening its body like a rod to extend the sword’s reach. Any sword wielder would recognize this as the clumsy, unstable flailing of a beginner—no power, no control.
If anything, the sheer strength needed to swing a greatsword longer than one’s height like a stick was impressive. That would be the only notable impression.
Yet, the sword grazed the wyvern’s leg. The blade’s tip touched it.
Bright blood splattered in the air. It seemed like just a graze, but the result was the wyvern losing a leg and staggering off balance. It didn’t fall immediately, but it did manage to shake the puppet magician off its back.
Suddenly without control, the wyvern flew in an erratic path, crashed into the cliff face, and then plummeted down. Seeing this, Arte finally exhaled in relief.
"I-it somehow worked...!"
She must have felt the pressure. Arte turned around with a blooming smile and wiped the sweat from her forehead.
"Yeah, that was perfect! Now Centena probably won’t attack anytime soon. Let’s hurry and rescue Knight Commander Talga and Marquis Jarpa."
After saying that, Arte nodded and tried to recall her puppets. But Panamera, the Panamera knight commander, and the Centena knight order were too stunned to care.
"W-wait a minute!? What was that strike just now!? It barely even seemed to hit!"
"Probably it did hit, considering the leg was cut..."
"A mere graze wouldn’t injure it! This is a wyvern, a wyvern! Sometimes even a solid hit doesn’t leave a scratch..."
Unable to grasp it, Panamera finally buried his head in his hands and stared upward. Then, suddenly, he looked over at me with a realization.
"...Right. That sword the puppet wields was made by the boy. So that puppet is wielding a blade with that extraordinary sharpness, isn’t it?"