The Mob Noble Who Got Reincarnated in a World Where Men Are Naturally Protected—So I Trained Like Crazy to Protect Girls Instead, But Their Love Got Way Too Heavy - Chapter 08: The Freak Mechanism

Chapter 08: The Freak Mechanism

After parting ways for a bit to get our gear together, Wiz and I left the downtown area and stood before the Orc Forest.

My equipment was simple—leather armor, a bow and arrows, and a blade. Practical weapons I’d brought from home, meant for real combat.

Wiz, on the other hand, wore a sturdy-looking cloak and carried only a short staff. Aside from the rose pinned at her chest, she was basically in her everyday clothes.

She was clearly the mage type in combat, but since my family always dressed in heavy gear, her light outfit surprised me.

As I was thinking that, Wiz spoke up.

“It’s thicker than I expected in here… Tect, are you sure about this? Isn’t it dangerous?”

“It’s still midday, so plenty bright. Come on, if you dawdle, I’ll leave you behind.”

“Eh!? W-Wait! That’s exactly why it’s dangerous—at least let me walk in front of you!”

“Hahaha!”

At first she had been so nervous, but now Wiz was talking casually, and it actually felt nice.

She hurried to catch up, pouting, then walked beside me with a soft, “Honestly…”

“So then, Tect. What exactly are you looking for? I used to do gathering work back at home, so if you tell me, I might be able to help.”

“Ah, what I’m after is high-purity magic stones.”

When I said that, Wiz’s face turned skeptical.

“…Why would you want something like that? Only strong monsters drop them. And those stones are usually used for weapons of war, aren’t they?”

“You sure know your stuff, Wiz.”

“Well, of course I do. I’m from the bloodline of the ‘Archmage Scholar.’”

Wiz spoke with just a hint of pride, and I couldn’t help but be impressed.

“Whoa, that’s pretty amazing.”

Bloodline—that was the mark of prestige among noblewomen.

For noble families, the male line carried on the house, while the female line carried on the bloodline.

And the most honored of all were the ones with a title attached. Those bloodlines had accomplished great deeds—so great that the Mother of the Nation herself had once bestowed them with a name.

Of course, a family’s noble rank and its bloodline history didn’t always match up. But a titled bloodline alone was proof of heritage and distinction.

With that in mind, I muttered, “The ‘Archmage Scholar,’ huh… If that’s your bloodline, then maybe you’ll understand what I’m trying to do.”

I pulled back my sleeve and revealed the weapon strapped to my arm.

A gauntlet—bulky and mechanical, but just slim enough to stay hidden under a sleeve.

Embedded in it was my pride and joy—a custom-built weapon, designed for one-hit kills.

A pile bunker.

Yes. By the time I left for the academy, the pile bunker was already almost complete.

Unfortunately, not a single member of my family understood its brilliance. But maybe—

I looked to Wiz. She stared long and hard at the weapon, then spoke.

“…What is this insane contraption?”

“Wooooahhh! You saw it! You actually saw through it at first glance!”

Not even my own family had recognized this thing as a weapon without me explaining it first!

As I was busy feeling moved, Wiz leaned closer, touching the pile bunker and peering at it with curiosity.

“Eh? W-Wait, seriously, what is this thing? The more I look, the less I understand…”

She tilted her head, studying it.

“The fire-magic circuit… it’s built to release energy inward? And all of that is redirected into the force that launches the stake? You’re trying to pack insane levels of firepower into just one projectile, aren’t you? W-What!?”

“Hehehe… Wiz, I knew it. Impressive. To figure that out at a glance!”

“Ah, well, it’s sort of my specialty… Oh, I get it. That’s why you wanted high-purity magic stones—your first fuel source, right? If you use poor-quality stones during the calibration phase, the parts wear down way faster.”

Without me saying a word, Wiz nailed the exact reason I needed the stones. I was starting to think—was she an actual full-blown expert?

“But still… this thing is ridiculously extreme in design. It even has a heat-venting system, so technically you could use it like a flamethrower if the stake misses, but… hmm?”

She peered even closer at the pile bunker, eyes narrowing.

“W-Wait. Looking carefully—this build is insanely solid, isn’t it? For the fire-magic combustion chamber, they even carved extra magic circuits into the back just for sealing. Why go this far?”

Her voice wavered with confusion, but her eyes were sparkling brighter and brighter.

“Tect! Who—who made this weapon!? I have to meet them and talk! Whoever it is, they’re such a brilliant freak of an engineer they could thrive even in my bloodline! The craftsmanship is incredible!”

“…”

Yeah… once the word freak slipped into the compliment, my embarrassment quickly outweighed my pride.

“The more I look at it, the clearer it is—this is insane! This freak of a mechanism is pure obsession turned real! Please, I’m begging you, tell me—who’s the creator!?”

Despite looking every bit the picture-perfect beauty, Wiz pressed in on me like a total engineering geek blinded by passion. My face burned as I awkwardly raised a hand.

“…It was me. I made it. This is mine…”

“――――”

The look on Wiz’s face in that moment… words couldn’t capture it.

It was like surprise was just the base, and then a whole storm of other emotions came crashing down on top of it.

“Tect… you’re the one who made this…?”

“Y-Yeah. Wiz, are you okay? Your face looks… kinda scary right now.”

“Ah, um, how do I even put this… I’m thrilled that you’re the creator, but at the same time, my pride is shredded into pieces because it’s a boy who made it, and… and there’s all sorts of other feelings too…”

Just finding out the creator was an independent developer had already rattled Wiz’s pride enough—but then learning it was a boy…? Her knees practically buckled.

Honestly, her words could sting a little as a guy. But I got it. If some spoiled brat like Narcis could casually produce the same results as all the training I’d done, yeah, that’d shake me too.

In my old world, it’d be like some extroverted popular girl suddenly dropping a gadget on par with what I’d spent my whole nerdy life tinkering on. Yeah, that’d crush my spirit.

With a wry smile, I tried to ease things over.

“Well, I mean, I only pulled this off because I was desperate to dodge the heavy taxes. I’ve spent years working on this.”

“…You… you poured years of passion into it…?”

Wiz’s eyes shimmered. Then, out of nowhere, she grabbed my hand.

“Tect… even if you had been a girl, I think I still would’ve wanted to be your best friend. Please—let’s stay close.”

“O-Oh. Y-Yeah, same here. Nice to meet you, officially.”

Her affection shot up so fast it caught me off guard, but then I noticed the way she kept staring at the pile bunker with sparkling eyes. It really hit me—she genuinely loved this stuff.

I see. The title of “Archmage Scholar” wasn’t just for show. She really was the real deal. And since I was into this kind of engineering too, maybe we’d get along even better than I thought.

And that’s when it happened.

“Wiz.”

“Hm? What’s—mmph!?”

I grabbed Wiz’s hand and quickly covered her mouth. She startled, then went still—blushing, she relaxed and didn’t struggle.

We slipped up to a tree and I strained my ears. All I heard was the wind and the whisper of leaves.

Under those sounds, a faint voice drifted through—so quiet I would’ve missed it without sharp hearing.

“Fuu, haha… look, they’ve got a weak male with them… And guarding them is a puny female… We’ll kill the female and take the male…”

Words full of hostility and murder. Mockery and cold certainty. My fighting instinct spiked.

Then the voice murmured, as if speaking to someone nearby.

“They spotted us first. By my scouting range, they shouldn’t have been loud enough to be noticed first.”

“Mmph? Mmm?” Wiz made a confused muffled sound. I whispered back.

“We’ve made contact. The enemy’s strong at information warfare—basically hide-and-seek. But now that we’ve spotted them, the intel game’s even. Actually, since they haven’t realized that we’ve realized, we’ve got the advantage.”

One worry nagged at me: they’d used human speech.

—Were bandits living in the Orc Forest? Is that why we were detected first…?

No time to hesitate. We had to strike first.

I loosened my grip on Wiz’s hand, careful not to break her silence, and quickly nocked an arrow to my bow.

Then I darted from the shade and loosed the arrow.

A beat later a high shriek rang out in the distance—thin and piercing. Goblin?

Not bandits, then. The enemy was monsters. Which meant—

“Attention all units! The ambush failed! They were already aware of us! Reform into a surround formation—hunt the humans!”

“What the—? Monsters with intelligence leading the pack!? I knew something felt off!”

I grabbed Wiz’s hand and bolted, my mind racing over that deep voice I’d just heard.

Goblins normally screeched in high-pitched tones. That voice had been low, commanding. Which meant the one leading them wasn’t a goblin—it had to be another monster. Most likely, an intelligent orc.

“Damn it, of all things, an intelligent monster!”

Intelligent monsters—magical beasts whose magic stones had developed to the point of granting them human-like intelligence.

When one appeared, a monster horde’s danger level skyrocketed. Their random chaos turned into coordinated, disciplined military tactics.

Normally, something like that would demand an actual army. Two students like us had no business going up against it.

Wiz understood that too, her face twisting in panic as we ran together.

“N-No way. An intelligent monster? We can’t possibly handle that…!”

“Yeah! But the situation isn’t hopeless! Because we struck first, they’re still fumbling to regroup!”

“I-I don’t get it! I still haven’t even seen a monster yet!”

Of course. Standard noble combat training was all about infantry tactics.

In a big army, there was no room for information warfare—hide-and-seek didn’t exist. Maneuver warfare—tag, basically—was treated as desertion and punished. So all their training focused purely on direct, head-on combat.

But in guerrilla warfare, that logic fell apart.

Small-unit skirmishes. Deep in a forest with countless places to hide. If you had the advantage in information warfare—hide-and-seek—you could launch ambush after ambush. That was the essence of guerrilla fighting.

For me, and for these monsters, this battlefield was perfect. But for Wiz, it was hopeless. She couldn’t fight what she couldn’t see—while I and the enemy could both see her just fine.

So I leaned close and whispered:

“Don’t worry. I’ll protect you, Wiz.”

“Eh…!”

Wiz’s face flushed red. Nailed it. Inside, I pumped a fist in victory.

Alright—this was it. The perfect chance to become the kind of man I wanted to be. The man who protects girls.

With that resolve burning inside me, I shouted, “Wiz! I’m picking you up!”

“Kyaa!” 

And I swept her into a princess carry, boosting my speed as I sprinted forward.