"Target Locked. Commencing attack."
Penny was wielding a sniper rifle, shooting down the grimmfolk flying inside Blutgang one after the other. Every shot she made was a kill, bursting grimmfolk heads like watermelons and causing their pitiful corpses to pile up on the ground. She worked indifferently and accurately. Without a single ounce of emotion, the killer doll simply continued her mission of killing grimmfolk, as handed to her by her master.
In contrast to Penny's quiet style of cleaning up the town, Fiona was hopping around the city acrobatically. Fiona leaped into the air over and over, jumping off Blutgang's houses as she grabbed the grimmfolk in midair and incinerated them. She kept her momentum and never stopped jumping, eventually reaching the sky-ceiling of Blutgang itself and jumping off of it.
Fiona passed a small group of grimmfolk, finishing them off bare-handed as she went by before jumping into the air again as soon as she landed. She didn't care that the grimmfolk had already lost all will to fight and were turning around to run. Fiona grabbed onto the nearest grimmfolk and, after turning him into a fireball, tossed her victim into a group of his comrades. This caused the other grimmfolk to catch fire, too, and in a mere moment, they'd all turned to ashes. But those flames never touched the houses or surrounding buildings, since the fire itself went out as soon as Fiona snapped her fingers.
"Fiona, several of these mice have run to the other floors. We're going after them."
"Got it."
Penny and Fiona speedily moved up the stairs that led to the next floor.
It was almost unthinkable that they had both just been wreaking havoc in Gjallarhorn. If Hinata were to see how they treated Blutgang, she'd probably angrily shout, "If you could do that, why did Gjallarhorn turn out like this?!"
"Found them."
Penny's rifle spat fire as she shot down a faraway enemy.
If Penny used her right scale inside Blutgang, it would pierce right through the walls to the outside, so she couldn't use it. Likewise, Brachium was also sealed. With the buildings this packed together, there would always be some amount of collateral damage, no matter how accurate she tried to be. But Penny had a whole selection of stored weapons, outside of those she'd been automatically fitted with, to use in different situations. At the very least, she was able to kill grimmfolk with ease, no matter how many there were or how fast they ran.
"Hey, is it just me or did we get the easiest role this time?"
"No. Considering their numbers, Tayuya has the easiest job, since she only has to take care of one of these small-fries."
"Right."
Fiona took off again, ripping apart five grimmfolk who were in her trajectory. Then, she kicked the wall, turned around, and was back at Penny's side in an instant.
"By the way, Penny. This is just between us, but what do you think of Lady Naru as she is now? I get the feeling that she's gotten softer."
"I believe she has started taking more mercy on her enemies than before. But that doesn't change the fact that she is our master and deserves our respect and devotion."
Some grimmfolk charged them in desperation, only to be cut apart by Penny's blade of light or burned by Fiona's fists. On top of that, Penny's rifle immediately took down another several enemies who weren't even part of the charge. Penny didn't need to look through her scope; her eyes were better than any scope.
"I have only heard this from my creator, Jenny, but according to her, Master was not originally a cold and merciless person. You should be more knowledgeable about this than I am, but… from what I can gather, Master's cruelness and ruthlessness were things she gained later in life due to her situation. She was probably a calm, peaceful person originally. I never knew Master before she became coldhearted, but I believe that Master seems more natural as she is now."
"True… Lady Naru used to be strict, but she wasn't that merciless. If she were, I'd have been killed the moment we met."
Fiona and Penny continued to massacre the grimmfolk one by one as they talked. As soon as they cleared one floor, they moved on to the next. By repeating that process, the number of grimmfolk in Blutgang quickly lessened.
"But that's exactly why I'm starting to think… Would getting Lady Naru's memories back really be good for her? I can't help but wonder if not doing so would make Lady Naru happier."
"You don't want her memories to come back?"
"No, I do want them to come back. Even though they're just a part of her memories, I can't stand the fact that she doesn't remember the days we've spent together. But I also don't want Lady Naru to remember all her painful memories, either."
Penny gave chase and fired.
Fiona gave chase and crushed them.
They continued their conversation, but they never stopped killing grimmfolk. While faithfully carrying out the order given to them by their master, they finally managed to bring the number of grimmfolk in Blutgang down to single digits.
"At any rate, I'm sure the one who holds the key to all this is that woman… Haruka. Her actions have been far too unnatural."
"Huh? Really?"
"…You didn't notice? No, wait. This might be one of the effects of her mental interference ability," Penny said to Fiona as they destroyed the last enemy. Penny's statement was something only she could make as a golem that wasn't affected by mental control abilities. "I surmise that several of you—or at worst, all of you—have been affected by it. Haruka's memory manipulation or thought induction, I mean. You must never let your guard down around that woman."
***
Two of the mass-produced Pennys had their left arms changed into blades as they charged at Anko. Their speed was worthy of a level 700, and any normal enemy wouldn't have been able to deal with their onslaught. But Anko easily grabbed both blades with her bare hands, sneering as she did so. The mass-produced Pennys were stuck.
"Too easy, fools!"
Using sheer brawn, Anko threw the Pennys away by their swords.
The Pennys's joints creaked audibly, and it was clear that there was a crack in their shoulders. But the mass-produced Pennys managed to avoid the worst outcome by turning their blades off before they'd broken, and they quickly resumed their battle stances. The two other Pennys that had been waiting in the back fired their right scales directly afterwards.
But Anko didn't back down in front of the two beams of light. She simply dodged their fire while running forward. Anko returned fire, extending her tail out to attack. Her tail pierced the right arm of one of the mass-produced Pennys bombarding her, completely decimating that arm from the shoulder down.
"I get it now. I'm on to all of you. Not only do none of you have Brachium, but each of you only has one of Penny's scales equipped. Which means I've just made one of you useless, doesn't it?"
Next, Anko took aim at the other bombardment-type Penny that had been hounding her.
The mass-produced Penny noticed she had gotten Anko's attention. The bombardment-type suddenly deployed her steel wings and retreated into the sky. But Anko simply jumped into the air and easily caught up.
"Ha! Idiot! Did you really think I'd let you get away?!" Anko laughed derisively and swiped at the Penny with her nails.
That was all it took to take away the bombardment-type's right arm. Anko quickly followed up with her tail, piercing through the imitation golem's chest. The attack scattered whatever parts had been kept inside of her, and the mass-produced Penny started to tremble and shake, as if it had broken.
Well, it pretty much was broken at this point. The Penny emitted meaningless noise from its mouth; it was no longer in a state to even speak properly. But it was still weapon, a steel doll made to protect Blutgang. Its face betrayed no fear nor any other emotion. It existed with an ironclad will to fulfill its mission. The mass-produced Penny had lost its weapon and was heavily damaged. It understood that it no longer had anything to offer to the battle, and that if it stayed, it would only get in the way. So there was only one option for it to take.
The half-destroyed mass-produced Penny used its remaining arm to grab hold of the tail piercing it. Then, in a surprise move, it lurched forward, driving the tail deeper until Anko was close enough to kiss.
"Start… ing… self… destruct… sequence…"
"…?!"
The mass-produced Penny started to shine. Sparks of electricity flew off of it. The golem's glass-like eyes cracked, and a fissure widened on its face.
Anko knew what the Penny was trying to do.
This damn doll. She's trying to take me with her!
But Anko couldn't get free no matter how hard she tried. Her tail was stuck too far inside the Penny, not to mention the fact that the golem was grasping onto the tail as well. She would normally be able to get free of something like this in a matter of seconds, but she didn't even have that long until the golem blew up.
There was a flash. For a moment, the sky was lit up, shining brightly, and was accompanied by a loud, explosive sound. A pillar of fire rose high into the sky, high enough to disperse the clouds.
Even just the aftershocks of the explosions caused more casualties among the golem army, lowering their numbers even more. In Blutgang's control room, Admiral Realight was convinced of Anko's death, judging from the aftermath of the explosion.
Our losses this time were far too great, she thought.
They'd lost almost all their treasured high-level golems and even one of their prized mass-produced Pennys. The remaining three weren't exactly untouched, either. One of them had a hole in its stomach, and another had lost its weapon. Since they couldn't repair the Pennys on their own, it was basically as if they'd lost three of their mass-produced Pennys in this fight.
But somehow, they'd still managed to win. They might have paid an immense price, but Blutgang had finally managed to take down one of the Twelve Zodiac's Guardians.
…Well, not quite. If they had managed to do it, that would still have only offered some cold comfort.
"…Impossible…" The smoke had cleared, and what the admiral saw drew those words of despair out of her. The rest of the bridge crew probably felt similarly.
They looked down at the results of the Pennys's sacrifice with expressions saying that none of them could believe—no, that they didn't want to believe—what they were seeing.
"That was close… Even I panicked a bit there. You really need to warn a girl before you do that."
Anko didn't seem to have been affected at all by the blast. Well, she did show some signs of having taken it. Something black and scissor-like flickered over both her arms. It was most likely a weapon manifested by condensing mana, and there were several bits and pieces of mass-produced Penny sticking to it.
Having seen that, the admiral figured out what had happened. She'd… In that moment right before the explosion, she'd taken apart the Penny and made her escape!
"Well, that's over. I may have been surprised by that once, but it won't work again. Now, then. Out of those left, there's a half-broken one with a hole in it and a useless one with no weapon. Only one of you is in perfect shape, I see… Heehee, looks like it's my win?"
"…!"
Anko, convinced of her victory, kicked into the air and flew at the remaining Pennys.
The mass-produced Pennys were only barely able to give a good fight when all of them had been in perfect condition. They had no chance of winning now. None at all. The best they could aim for would be mutual destruction. Their only hope was to somehow catch Anko in another self- destruct blast. In other words, no matter what happened, Blutgang had lost their trump card.