-- the time went back again, at the very moment when Luke and the other four had destroyed the floor and fled.

　Leila let out a shrill scream as she saw a huge wave of dolls pop up where Luke and the others had been a moment ago.

'Ahh......!'
'Don't worry, we're getting away downstairs in the nick of time. That's Lord Luke's signature move.

　Sakura calmly calmed Leila down while she continued to watch the crowd of dolls with her sword at the ready without caution.

　It's a good idea to be able to have a good idea of what you're looking for.

　The chase just now is a typical example of the latter.
　I'm not sure how many dolls are left, but I'm not sure how many of them are still intact, because I thought it would be fine if they were temporarily incapacitated in order to stop the flock of people who are ignoring us and rushing to Luke and the others.

'Let's get the rest of them out of here and go get Luke and the others. It's not always safer down there than it is here.

　Almost at the same time as Travis said that, a third wave of magical power ran through the great hall.

''It's coming!　Ready!

　The mutation that occurred immediately afterwards was an event that I couldn't believe my eyes.

　The dolls were being gathered and gathered to a specific point, as if they were being sucked in by an invisible force.

　Like a storm, swirling with tremendous force, all of the dolls, both operating and destroyed, accumulate into a huge mass, densely packed together, without distinction between operating dolls and the wreckage of destroyed dolls.

　It's not a hostile attack in itself - but the sucked-in wreckage didn't bother to avoid the humans, and the adventurers continued to be pursued by intercepting the scattered wreckage.

　Sakura and Nagi evade with light body language.
　Melissa building a wall with magical wind pressure.
The other adventurers were also defending themselves in their own ways.

　Then Travis stood in the form of protecting Leila and blew the wreckage to pieces with a barrage of magical fist pressure.

　-- Eventually all the wreckage condensed into one, and the tornado-like mess of debris came to an end.

''That was ...... what the hell was that ......?''

　Sakura couldn't hide her confusion and looked up at Sore.

　A nauseating deformity that floated in the air.
　A huge sphere formed by the assembly of all the dolls and wreckage.

　The surface of the thing that crookedly resembled a human body, with its torso and limbs knitted together in an irregularly intertwined fashion, could not help but incite a sense of physiological disgust just by looking up at it.

'Be on your guard!　You can't expect anything to happen!

　Travis raises his voice and confronts the monstrous sphere himself at the head of the adventurers.

　The surface of the sphere ripples eerily.
　Like a crumbling mud dumpling, the bottom half of the sphere cascaded down to the floor and stabilized again in the shape of a crushed cylinder.

　Then the left and right sides detached, leaving the top edge of the sphere, like an arm - like an arm.

No!

　With an explosive gusher, Travis leapt at the ever-morphing sphere.

　The deformed arm-like parts of the body formed a fist-like shape and charged head-on at the airborne Travis.

　Two clashing fists.

　The difference in size was too overwhelming, but it was the huge fist with the remains of the doll hardened in it that was defeated.

　However, although Travis smashed a fist the size of a large rock, it canceled out the momentum of his leap, and he was forced to land in the middle of the road, unable to reach the main body.

''Utterly in bad taste, that's a formidable shape!

　The sphere had completed its deformation completely, and its crushed fists were restored in the blink of an eye.

　If I were to describe its appearance in one word, it was as if the upper half of a giant doll was growing out of the floor.

　There were no clothes, no eyeballs, and a huge doll created by a collection of countless dolls.

　What looked like a long head of hair was spreading out from the head, but it was a rope that had been woven up by what appeared to be a surplus of dolls and their remnants.

　The volume appeared to be larger than the total volume of the doll, but perhaps part of the giant body was a hollow structure.

　If they were densely packed to the center without gaps, they would have been a size or two smaller than this.

...... Vestori's, a giant of the soil: ......

　Sakura remembered the enemy she had once engaged - as well as Luke, who had oddly escaped downstairs - and was suspicious of the similarity in traits between the two.

　The giant puppet swung its arms wide and cleaved away.

　In this enclosed space, there seemed to be no way to escape the blow, but Travis intercepted the blow with a shoulder thrust and stopped only to be pushed back a few steps.

　What kind of skill and body structure would allow him to mimic something like that?

　Sakura shuddered more at Travis than at the giant doll, and her expression was unconsciously tense (stiff).

　Normally, the impact of the collision would have crushed the internal organs, the internal organs, but Travis doesn't even show any pretense of being damaged.

'You're the one who says Luke fought!　It's that similar!
The materials are very different, but the size and shape are very similar!
'Right!　Then maybe they have a weakness in common!　How did Luke get that guy--

　The other arm crushes Travis from directly above.

　The flooring shattered and caved in, giving the illusion that the entire floor of the underground space was hollow and even distorted.

　But even his fist bounced back high, and the giant doll slumped wide open, slamming its arm into the ceiling.

''Where's the weakness!　At this rate, we're going to run out of power first!

　Travis's expression turned grim as he flapped the dust off his clothes with force.

'...... Is this an A-ranked ...... bromide or ......?'

　At the too frank muttering that Nagi let out, Sakura inwardly agreed wholeheartedly with him.

　Although they were opponents who didn't think alike in any way, for now, she had a feeling that they could understand each other wholeheartedly.

''Lu, Luke-dono used [Analysis] to detect the sorcerer who lurked inside ...... the location of Demon General Vestri!　On top of that, several people worked together to corner him in the head and blow his head off, taking away his escape route ......!

　As he briefly shouted out the means of defeating the Demon General Vestri's earth giant, Sakura realized once again that it was impossible to achieve this.

　It was only because the sorcerer was inside that time that he was able to defeat it.

　However, that giant doll was nothing more than a collection of countless dolls, and the surgeon, the weak point, was nowhere to be found.

　In the first place, even though they are dolls, they are still golems that can be considered autonomous weapons.

　The assembly and transformation, as well as its attacking actions as a giant doll, were not controlled by anyone, and may even be just automatic actions based on a pre-built pattern of behavior.

'He doesn't have a surgeon as a weak point!　Maybe it's just automatically working as a golem: ......!
You're right. Then it's a weakness.

　Travis smiled fiercely, as if the beast had bared its fangs.