The two seem to have caught themselves just for fun. Al shook his feet floating in mid-air and sighed in frustration.

"...... I think the workshop of the Rider Gymnastics Department is currently repairing the broken Phantom Knights, so I'm going to visit them. 」

"That's right. Let's go to the workshop right away!"

"You two, it's okay to go, but it's almost time to put me down. 」

In this way, the four of them marched together towards the workshop of the Riding Gymnastics Department. Although they were first-year students in the middle school, they had already figured out the structure of the high school building, and it didn't take long for them to reach their destination.

They secretly probed to observe the inside of the workshop. The pounding of hammers, the pulleys of cranes lifting parts, the roar, and the sound of Phantasm Knights in motion. There is a lot of hustle and bustle inside. Al was eager to come and see, but the forger's intimidating look of concentration made them embarrassed to bother. So the group slowly moved to a place where no one was working.

So, naturally, they came to the "body that has been damaged too badly and has been delayed".

At the end of the workshop, on the huge chair of the Phantom Knight, sat a metal block that had been lifted from the ceiling by a crane and could only be described as wreckage. It's probably the Torso of the Phantom Knight. Due to the dent on the outside, the bones on the inside are also distorted. Not to mention Al and Baftson, the twins couldn't understand what it was for a moment. Luckily, there was a little red paint attached to it as a clue, and they thought of the original form of the machine.

"This is ...... uh, could it be the guy named Guyer driving by Al?"

Kidd asked as he observed Al looking up at the wreckage's face.

"Yes. I have an impression of this armor and the way it was damaged. It's so bad...... it's no wonder it's delayed repairs. 」

"It's amazing, what did you do to make it bad like this?"

Ignoring the dumbfounded Baftson, Artie stared at the decently broken wreckage, as if fascinated. The object in front of him didn't need words to explain how tragic the battle with the Tortoise was, even the twins who had never piloted a Phantom Knight could easily imagine.

When Al had been heard about it in the past, both Kidd and Artie thought they understood how much danger he was facing. However, when they actually saw the wreckage unfolding in front of them, they were speechless than they could have imagined. The massive mass of metal twisted like a dough kneader was too much to take shape. How powerful is the force that caused all this, and how dangerous it is to fight that force

Kidd clenched his fists until they turned white, and tears welled up in the corners of Artie's eyes. If one is not careful, Al will die on that battlefield if he can't do it, and the thought of this makes their backs chill for a moment. Even if they didn't know it, they didn't do anything when their best friends were in such great danger, and this anger at themselves completely broke them.

"...... beauty. 」

At this moment, the whispering sound of Al reached the ears of the two who were muffled. They floated from the ocean of regret and slowly turned to El.

"The broken body is also beautiful......

Al sighed, his side face enchanted as if enchanted. He didn't notice that the atmosphere around him suddenly cooled, and then said:

"That's right, there are things that crumble and disintegrate, and only the remains remain, which is called 'Quiet Elegance'. This shape full of loneliness and decay ...... really beautiful......

The twins' eyes met for only a split second, and the 132nd meeting of the Ota siblings came to a consensus that they had wordlessly decided to attack Al.

"It's so ...... so coaxing (it hurts), it's like it's like this!!"

Al, whose cheeks were pulled from either side, rarely shouted in protest with teary eyes, but the twins continued to pinch indifferently, showing no mercy.

"Well, it's no wonder they're there, El......

Baftson was the only one who calmly watched from the sidelines.

"Hey, where did the little ghost come from! It's noisy in a place like this!!"

The twins pinched for a while before they let go. Finally freed, Al was just stroking his cheeks in protest when a roar came from behind him—a voice so loud that it could still be heard in the workshop where the noise never stopped. They turned their heads, and what appeared in front of them was a bold young dwarven Boss David.

"What? Isn't this a silver boy? You really like it here, don't get in the way of my homework." 」

The Boss also knows Al, who usually soaks in the Riding Gymnastics Department as a matter of course. Look at him even running over for the holidays. It seems that even the boss can't hide his astonishment. Al looked past him, at the figure behind him.

The man with a pale face like a ghost, thick dark circles under his eyes, and a painstakingly combed blonde hair was none other than the Red Knight's horseman, Dietrich Kuniz. At that moment, Al couldn't match him with the Dietrich in his memory, and couldn't help but rub his eyes, but no matter how he looked at it, Dietrich in front of him looked like he was lost and depressed. Now he is not domineering, the arrogant self-confidence in the past does not exist at all, only oozing full of anxiety.

"Huh, uh...... Dietrich...... senior, right? What the hell happened?"

Al asked, a stiff smile of uncertainty on his face. Dietrich's face was so hard to see now that even Al felt troubled. Dietrich gave Al an ugly smile back. Hoarse said:

"......Ah, El Nestia. Heh, hehe...... a little ...... right, a little bit. I've been having nightmares lately...... demons in the infirmary have been chasing me...... I've been sleep-deprived lately. As soon as he relaxed, the guy ...... woo, that guy scratched his head with a terrifying voice, poof!"

As he spoke, he seemed to awaken the memories of nightmares again. Dietrich's eyes were out of focus, and he was about to drift to the other side, when the boss rewarded him with a knife and pulled it back. Dietrich fainted on the spot for a while, but perhaps it was the boss's blow that took effect, and he came to his senses for the time being.

"Uh-oh-oh-oh...... where am I going now...... Uh-oh! So, El Nesti will be here, that means you've been asked to explain it? 」

"Ahh

"What else, you want to know the reason why Guyère is broken, that's why you found that 'reason', isn't it?"

For a moment, the Boss took turns looking at Dietrich and Al's faces, and gradually understood the meaning of his words, and the wrinkles between his brows increased.

"Wait, Dee. It sounds like the boy is the reason for the breakdown of Guyère. 」

"Isn't that it...... you didn't know that you called someone?"

"No, I didn't look for him at all, he popped up on his own. 」

The conversation was a little bull's head on the horse's mouth, and the three of them invariably tilted their heads outside. In the intervening seconds, Dietrich noticed something and clapped his hands.

"Ah, did I accidentally slip my mouth?"

"I think that's what happened. 」

The boss habitually straightened his beard and cast a sharp gaze at the two of them.

"Well, it doesn't matter. At this time, please give it all up. 」

Seeing the boss with a sinister smile and bulging muscles, no one present had the courage to refute him.

At the time when El drove Gouyer to fight the tortoise, Dietrich watched him manipulating from behind, but he did not have a clear grasp of the manipulation. Al's skills are not the type that others can understand by looking at them, and the results can only be explained by himself. At first, it was fine, but they immediately ran into a whole bunch of problems.

"......I'm sorry, say it again. 」

"Yes. When I sat up, my hands and feet couldn't touch the joystick and pedals, so I translated the magic in the magic director's calculator and manipulated the magic knight by "doing my own calculations". 」

The boss, who usually has a serious face, opened his eyes in surprise. It's no wonder that it is precisely because he can't keep up with the magic calculations of the Phantom Knight on his own that there is such a device as the magic director's calculator. Relying on one's own calculations without a device is too out of common sense. Regardless of Dietrich, who had personally experienced the movements of Gouyer, no one could stop the boss's expression from turning suspicious. Dietrich's expression became sharper.

"...... take a hundred steps back, and you'll be telling the truth. And what's that to do with this guy breaking down on his own because of his magic?"

"I take the place of the magician to take the computer, which means that I can freely manipulate all kinds of functions. When I delivered the final blow to the Tortoise, I disarmed the security device and teleported all the remaining mana from the mech to the attack, and as a result, I accidentally used up all the mana that maintained the structural strengthening. 」

"Bastard, what do I have to do if it's like this!!That's a security measure to prevent the mana from running out!"

The boss's tone was stern, but he could only keep shaking his head at Al's nonsense. He exhaled, and the sigh containing the feeling of giving up the preaching was extremely heavy.

"That's true, but this kind of manipulation may be the only one I can do, so there's no need to rush to solve it, right?"

", how can you do that kind of thing if it's easy to do!!Forget it, and that--the crystalline muscles of the feet are tired and broken, does that have anything to do with you? No, you did it, right?"

"That's right...... but I'm still a little unhappy to be pointed out to my face like this. 」

"Hello, it's really your fault!!"

"That's the burden of direct control. It would take an extraordinary load from Gouyère to break it. It also caused us to be almost cornered. 」

"You...... from the day you get your whole body replaced, it usually works smoothly for more than a month. You broke it all at once......

The boss couldn't help but look up to the sky and tilt his forehead. At this point, it can only be described as helpless. It was a headache enough at this stage, but he noticed something worse.

"Hey, wait. Boy, if you were serious, wouldn't you be able to break it no matter which mech you were driving?"

"It's highly likely. The Knights' Gadatoya's crystalline muscles are of high quality, and may last a little longer. 」

It turned out to be a matter of load—Al muttered leisurely. The boss squinted at him, his expression bitter.

"If this doesn't improve, the blacksmith won't have the face. That being said, there's no way to fix that kind of thing right now. 」

Speaking of which, it is unheard of for a knight to mess around like this, and it is only natural that there is no solution. Moreover, this is not a problem that can be dealt with by emergency measures, and a fundamental solution needs to be proposed, which cannot be improved overnight.

This repair countermeasure will be put aside for the time being. I'll look at the solution later—the boss secretly formulates a specific policy. Unfortunately, there is an existence present that regards the unreality as commonplace.

"If that's the case, I've got a good idea, and there's no flaw in the idea - the most important thing right now is to increase the stamina of the crystal muscles, right?"

That man was Al. He happily raised his hand and said aloud something that made everyone's eyes widen in surprise.

"What? To increase the endurance of the crystalline muscles? It's easy to say, how much time do you think those alchemists spent studying for this? In fact, there has been little improvement in the past hundred years. 」

"Oh, no. I say to increase endurance, but not to alter the crystalline muscles themselves. After all, I also lack knowledge of alchemy, so I want to start with the "usage" of crystallized muscle. 」

Faced with the question mark in the "Usage" section in front of him, he took this opportunity to begin to explain:

"There's a story that says, 'One arrow breaks easily, but three arrows tied together don't break easily,' which means ......."

The method he proposed was to use several crystalline muscle fibers into a "rope". Fragile fibers are kneaded together to improve durability, and woven to retain a longer shrinkage distance than a straight line, which in turn increases power.

"...... named Rope Crystalline Muscle. How do you think it would be used?"

With a smile on his face, Al looks like a salesman finishing up an explanation, and then actually weaves the fibers of the crystallized muscles and makes a stretching "rope" on the spot for everyone to see.

The twins didn't seem to understand, and it looked like Al was what he said. Baftson and the blacksmiths in the room reacted violently.

The Boss picked up the rope-type crystallized muscle in an extremely slow motion and studied it. He shook his head at first, then lost his mind. Based on some past attempts to improve the Phantom Knight, she was about to speak, but she couldn't think of a clear description and gave up, and finally sighed and said:

"Bringing together the fibers of crystallized muscle...... this is a real blind spot. 」

Although he usually speaks very heavy and serious, that sentence is even more mixed.

"Yes, it's strange that no one has ever tried it. 」

"The boy is right. It's really incredible to hear you say that...... but ah, the improvement of Phantom Knight is generally based on the appearance of the skeleton and the method of muscle attachment, and then the material is improved. No one would have thought of changing the muscle composition. 」

Phantom Knight, a giant weapon that mimics a knight. Based on the idea of "expanding the power of human beings", the image of a giant is embodied. Although this has the advantage of being easy to manipulate and understand in terms of feeling, it also restricts innovative thinking that is detached from the structure of the human body and hinders development. The contradiction of being both purely mechanical and manipulating with a biologically similar concept has formed a deep-seated habit that has deprived those involved in the design of Phantasm Knight the idea of radical change.

Al was able to overcome this, and sure enough, he had the knowledge of robot culture that had been developed to the extreme in another world. Even though his expression was hidden under his beard, the boss was already smiling at this time, which was quite rare.

"Haha! That's a lot of fun!!, just put this thing in the guy you're repairing right now!!"

The elated appearance of the boss made the gathered students flinch a little, but his mind was full of the upcoming Phantom Knight improvement plan, and he didn't care at all, and was about to give instructions to the surroundings

"In that case, I'll give you another idea by the way. Why don't you try to change the appearance as well?"

- A demon's whisper came from my ear. He played with the meaning of his words over and over again, slowly turning his head. In front of him was Al with a big smile on his face.

"I'm thinking about adding arms 'on my back', boss. 」

The appearance of the boy was as lovely as that of a girl, and he whispered to him with a smile like a lovely flower, but the words he said were very shocking. This is no longer something that can be explained by "insufficient explanation", and it is almost stepping into the dimension of gibberish.

The Boss heard it clearly, but it took longer than it did to understand what it meant. Even the twins, who were accustomed to Al's words and deeds, hid their expressions that looked like they were surprised and dumbfounded. Perhaps the calmest person present was Baftson, who had heard a lot of his ridiculous ideas so far.

To the forgers who hadn't thought of transforming the Phantom Knight until now, Al's words were completely incomprehensible. It stands to reason that the so-called Phantom Knight should be a weapon with "human appearance", and in this world, the shape of a "human" is generally two hands and two feet. At the moment, it is only possible to have characters in fairy tales that are beyond human form, so no one can understand where the idea of adding a hand to the back of the Phantasm Knight came from, except for Al who spoke.