Project GB is an official initiative by Re:Library.

“Now, now, leave the minor details to me, Lady Clara. There’s no need for you to trouble yourself with such trifles—please remain gracious and composed. The Church is already as good as under our control. At this rate, by tomorrow we’ll have the Holy Capital of Thera Maryth, in half a year the Eunice Theocracy, in three years the Livitium Imperial Kingdom, and eventually the entire continent brought under your banner!”
“Please don’t go pushing such grandiose ambitions onto me while ignoring my own wishes!”

*…Could it be that the reason Clara ends up with such mixed historical evaluations in the future is because of this!?* If I leave this unchecked, she’s seriously going to get me hoisted up as some divine figurehead and go rampaging for world domination.

“Let’s put that discussion off for later. For now, what’s more important is hearing the scouting report from the Rat-man.”
“…Ufufufu, don’t think you can get away with dodging the subject. We’ll have a proper conversation later, won’t we, Coppelia? For now, let’s finish this job—but once we do, I’ll be waiting behind the church.”
“L-L-Lady Clara, that super sweet smile is terrifying in a whole new way! Y-you’re mad, aren’t you?! You’re totally mad, right?!”
“I’m not mad at all, ufufufufufu~”
“OH… A-a-anyway, setting that aside, let’s hear the report already. So, which path is the right one, Rat-man?”

At this point, it’s basically official: Colin is being referred to as “Ratman” without even the pretense of respect. Realizing he couldn’t possibly win against such relentless pressure, he let out a long sigh and began to speak.

“…Haaah. You’re the only one I can trust, Algernon.”

Colin gently stroked the head of the white mouse peeking out of his breast pocket.

“Um, so—if you go down the right path, there are a bunch of quadruped wastebeasts wandering around. Then there’s a big chamber, and a giant snake-like wastebeast was coiled up inside it. Algernon couldn’t go any further. As for the left path, it branches off a lot and has small wastebeasts here and there, but no large ones. Instead, there were weathered bones lying all over the place.”

We were all unexpectedly impressed by the solid and detailed answer, and found ourselves staring intently at Colin and the white mouse peeking from his chest, Algernon.

“Wh-what is it, Lady Clara…?”
“It’s just… I’m honestly surprised. It really does seem like you’re communicating with Algernon.”

“Algernon is very smart, after all,” Colin replied, puffing his chest with pride.

It might not just be a case of simple taming. If he’s able to converse this precisely, then perhaps, even if he’s unaware of it himself, Colin may possess a kind of Beast-Tamer talent. But then, if that’s the case, it doesn’t quite explain why Maria Lou, the Talent Eater, would’ve ignored him…

“…Well, let’s set that aside for now. So the left path has no signs of life and only bones. In other words, it likely has traps set up everywhere that activate when something of a certain size passes through?”
“Yeah, that’s probably it.”

Cestlavie nodded in agreement as we shifted gears to seriously consider the choice of path.

“But,” Colin continued, “there was one corridor with nothing in it, and at the end of that, there was a big chamber too. In there, Algernon said there was a single huge statue that looked kind of like a person… and nothing else. That’s everything he saw, Lady Clara.”

A giant statue that resembled a human, but no other signs of life…

“A golem, perhaps?”
“Most likely a golem.”

Cestlavie agreed again, and we both nodded to each other.

“A golem, huh? So basically a puppet that just moves when it’s told what to do,” said Coppelia with a mocking shrug.

“In that case, it should be easy. Their abilities are limited and their weaknesses well-documented,” Regulus added, as if it were a trivial matter.

“Indeed. If I recall correctly, they’re made from a special kind of clay, and only begin to move once the word ‘Truth’ is written on their forehead, right?” And their weakness: by erasing the letter ‘E’ from ‘EMETH’ (truth), it becomes ‘METH’ (dead), causing them to stop functioning.

“Exactly. A blockhead with its vulnerability written out plain as day across its forehead,” Coppelia chimed in. She then used the head of her morning star to trace out the word “しんり” (shinri – ‘Truth’) in hiragana on the ground.

“And if you erase the ‘ん’,” she continued, “it becomes ‘しり’—which means butt. So the contradiction of having ‘butt’ written on its forehead is too much for the golem’s tiny brain, and it self-destructs. Because golems are idiots.”

She said it all with a cheerful smile. …But her version was just off enough from the golem legends I knew that I was seriously tempted to grab her by the shoulders and shake her while shouting, “Is that even true!?” I barely managed to hold myself back.

“…That lines up with the kind of golem I know, *for the most part*. In any case, the core point is still to deal with the ‘Truth’ written on its forehead. So compared to the right path, where some unknown wastebeast is lying in wait, the left might be the safer option.”
“Yeah, I agree. Golems are basically muscle-brained types built for close combat. But we’ve got plenty of long-range options, like your spells, my talismans, and Coppelia’s rule-breaking attacks, so heading left makes more sense.”

Cestlavie agreed, and of course, neither Coppelia nor Regulus had any objections to my reasoning. As for Colin, he didn’t have any choice but to follow us. With no disagreement, we simply proceeded down the left-hand path.

“That said, if the creator is *that* guy, then we should definitely assume *that kind* of weird functions are packed into it. Let’s be extra careful.”

Cestlavie, all too familiar with the sheer absurdity of creations made by Dr. Victor, nodded solemnly with a face full of grim resolve. Regulus, who didn’t quite get it, looked confused but still said, “Understood. I’ll be careful.”

“Lady Clara, tossing out vague instructions like ‘that’ or ‘that thing’ without a clear subject or object might be a bit too hard for the dim-witted masses. Not for me, though—we’re totally on the same wavelength.”
“You’re right. I’ll be more careful next time. …By the way, Coppelia, do *you* know what I meant?”
“But of course! You meant *that* thing. You know, *that* thing.”

…Yeah, she probably has no idea. This conversation’s turning into a textbook phone scam.

“…By the way, Coppelia, do you have ‘Truth’ written on your forehead?”
“As if! I’m a perfect artificial human, remember? Don’t lump me in with low-grade junk like golems.”

Coppelia swept her bangs aside and proudly showed off her unmarked forehead.

“Shame. If you had ‘しんり’ (shinri – truth) on there, I could’ve added a ‘J’ to make it ‘りんり’ (rinri – Ethics).”
“Hah hah hah! That’s a good one, Lady Clara!”

Coppelia burst out laughing in a very American-style response, as if she’d just heard the wittiest joke in the world. For my part, it had been *almost* entirely serious.

And so, we ended up encountering the golem, though more surprisingly, we found Maria Lou so much faster than we anticipated.