Welcome to the Golem Rampage (2)
The cold air, sharper than an autumn breeze, lingered at my fingertips. I am the one who brings winter. The monarch of frozen blizzards. The great Lalilula Master of Arendelle. For the next ten minutes, my name is Norde Menethil.
The mana coating of Beast Regression shimmered with a blue glow as I roared.
“The Ancients have unleashed golems on Sargadis!!!”
“Everyone, charge!!! Rip out their hearts—ahhhhhh!!!”
“Um… does he always do this when he fights?”
“You get used to it. It’s kind of cute after a while.”
The words flying in from behind felt like a smack to the back of my head, but whatever. I bounced right back. If I’m cute in Franc’s eyes, that’s all that matters.
“Ughhh.”
─Papapapat!!
As I dashed forward, tearing through the meadow’s weeds, the golems that had looked like nothing more than piles of stones began to stir and rise with sluggish movements. So damn slow. Even waking up takes them forever.
“Good morning!!”
─Crack!!
My freezing punch shattered a golem’s head. Of course, these bastards only had one real weak point—the core—so smashing the head didn’t mean much. Even if their skulls flew clean off, they could still see and stumble around just fine. But then what the hell is the head even for? Is it some kind of main camera or something?
“Badababa bam bam badababa! Good morning!! Badababa bam bam badababa!”
I shouted the national anthem of wake-up alarms while firing off punches. I did consider blowing a bugle, but that’s basically magic torture that would damage me too. No way was I going to take internal injuries against these trash mobs, so I held back.
─Thudthudthud!!
The barrage of ice punches froze the golems’ clay bodies, making them brittle and easy to shatter. I couldn’t output enough power for true rapid freezing, but the fact that the scattered dirt froze and became easier to brush off was already a blessing. Honestly, if I could freeze golems this big, shaking hands with a normal person would probably turn them into frozen meat in ten seconds flat. Freezing Hand wasn’t that powerful a spell.
“Descend from the heavens!! Four Wheel Ring!!!”
─Shuk!!
I ripped the core out of the torn-open chest. Naturally formed golems usually had their cores inside the chest. These things were basically mana-infused stones that never became proper metal, with limbs slapped on haphazardly, so the location was pretty much the same.
─Crash!
The golem tried to raise its fist but collapsed completely. If this were a person, it would be like having both heart and brain ripped out, so of course it went down. One down!
I charged toward the next target.
─Crack!!
Nearby, Franc was fighting with a hammer. A knife couldn’t pierce their mud-like skin, so she’d compromised with blunt force.
“Nice~! Slow targets are the best~♡!!”
At that moment, Larilura let out a bright laugh and tugged on her mana threads.
─Click!
Ring-Ring Number Three, with fingers shaped like a blade, took aim at a golem.
“I hate getting dirt in the joints~ So I’ll take care of this one for you☆?”
─Kiiiing!
Light gathered at the marionette pierrot’s fingertips. Mana was converging! I could already guess what was coming. The fantasy world’s version of an AK-47—a general-purpose attack spell!
“Magic Missile!!!”
“Why is Senior the one chanting the spell?”
─Dududududu!!
Despite Larilura’s exasperated tone, the incoming magic missiles blew off one golem’s limbs. The projectiles of Magic Missile were on the slow side. Still, they were more than enough for these golems that moved like exhausted soldiers after a three-hour march in full gear.
Larilura pulled the strings and released the marionette’s spell.
“Hey~ Franc unnie? Instead of getting covered in mud, how about we work together? I’m not very confident in pulling out cores myself~♡”
“Good idea. There’s way more flying dirt than I expected.”
─Swish swish!
Franc shook the dirt off her hand after pulling out a core and spoke. While I grabbed another golem and attempted vapor-freezing, I added my own suggestion.
“Let’s knock off the limbs first and pull the cores later. These bastards can’t run without legs.”
“Agreed♥!”
“I-I agree too…♥?”
What was that voice? It was insanely cute.
“Kiyooooooooo──!!!”
Franc’s adorable tone had awakened the tiger—no, the Vector Man Bear—inside me. I lifted the completely frozen golem high overhead.
“This thing’s pretty heavy!!!”
But to the Magic Kid who wields the power of an Earth hero, it was lighter than half a sack of rice—hah!!
“Ice Block── Partisan!!!”
─Boom!!
The golem I hurled with all my strength collided with another and exploded into a shower of dirt. Sayonara. Goodbye. Adios.
Thud…! Thud…!
Other mud golems began lumbering toward us. They seemed interested in the cores I’d pulled out. They’d ignore living kin, but they wanted the hearts of their dead. Typical behavior for creatures living in a dog-eat-dog world. Not that they probably had the intelligence to think about it.
I squeezed out more mana to lower the temperature of my hands even further and shouted.
“Chill Shot!!”
─Whoosh!!
I shattered the arm of a charging golem. Goddammit, Freezing Hand only affected my hands, so breaking legs was ridiculously hard. Maybe I should’ve properly learned enchantment magic before coming!
“Ice Seal Seven Strikes!!”
With my hand shaped like a blade, I sliced through legs and toppled the golem. The moment I crouched and stood back up, another one lunged at me!
“Cryogenic Beam! Freeze Bolt! Frozen World!”
─Thud! Thud! Crash!
I relentlessly beat and shattered every golem that came at me without pause.
“You sons of bitches!! I’m out of techniques!! Stop coming already!!”
Why the hell are all these bastards only targeting me?! This house’s aggro pull is insane!!
“Gaaaah!! Dirt got in my mouth!!”
“Maybe you shouldn’t open it then.”
Anyway, the chaotic battle continued like that. I, now evolved into the Quadruple Amputator, smashed apart golem limbs while Magic Missile painted the battlefield. Franc smashed golem legs with her hammer before switching to support.
“Begone, specters of the old covenant──!!!”
My final uppercut finished the job. All ten golems were wiped out. It was a messy fight, but a clean victory nonetheless. The visuals were so bad that if I uploaded it online I’d probably get called a Scott and banned in under a minute, but whatever. I could just wash it off.
“Hah… the golems… are taken care of…”
I shook my body like a wet dog that had stepped in a puddle, flinging off the clinging dirt.
─Thudthudthud!!
The frozen chunks of earth—including some that had turned into metal armor—fell off more easily than expected.
“I wonder if all the other golems are made of mud too. We should probably come up with some countermeasures.”
Franc said while wiping her hammer with a cleaning cloth. Since I’m the kind of creature that unconditionally follows my girlfriend’s words, I answered that I understood. Or rather—I was about to.
Shwaaaaaaaa─!
“Oh?”
Brown mana rose from the fallen golems! It was a sight I was no longer particularly shocked by. I spread my arms and accepted the mana flying toward me.
Fwaaa─!
Shuuuuuu….
The sensation of my mana vessel expanding! This was the third time I’d experienced mana succession.
“Senior? Is something wrong?”
“Yeah. Just wait a sec.”
Larilura stared at me strangely as I suddenly shut my mouth. I gave a vague reply and used Water Creation magic to cleanly wash the golem’s core. No matter how I looked at it, aside from being infused with mana, it was just an ordinary stone. There were no engravings or letters on its surface.
‘…Was it just my imagination?’
I rolled my eyes while staring at the stone. So far, mana succession had only happened when I defeated beings that could handle runes. That’s why I thought these golems might have been created with rune magic, but it seemed I was mistaken. There were no runes carved into the core, and I couldn’t feel even a trace of mana from the dirt piles. My guess that they were naturally formed golems was probably correct. Since the Mage Guild had done a full investigation, their conclusion was likely more reliable than some archaeology master’s random brain fart.
Therefore.
“Is this a burning event?”
I muttered to myself while gauging the increase in my mana vessel. It looked like I was going to be quite busy for the rest of this little incident.
There are many ways to increase mana. The most common is training. Whether a warrior tempers their body or a mage meditates, it’s all to expand the mana vessel and make the body more familiar with mana.
In that regard, the mana succession that occurs in my body acts like a cheat key. It lets me gain in a single day what others would need months of training to achieve.
But damn, even this attribute training method has a few problems.
‘I still don’t know the exact principle behind mana succession.’
So even if I find another hobgoblin shaman and go “Gotcha!!” I can’t say for sure that my mana vessel will grow. Eating wild ginseng all at once doesn’t multiply the buff and instantly cure diseases or make your body stronger, right? Even if I hunt the same monster, I have no idea how much more succession will trigger! That’s why this opportunity was one I couldn’t afford to miss.
‘The golem EXP efficiency is fucking insane.’
It was a chance to power-level like crazy. The mana I gained from ten golems was tiny, but if I took down around a hundred, I figured I could expect an increase similar to when I defeated Tabula. Even 0.1% adds up to 10% if you collect it a hundred times! My EXP bar calculation ability, trained since my elementary school days in the 2000s, was tingling with excitement!
This was both a burning event and a jumping event! Fuck yeah! Stats go up every time you kill a mob! Only an idiot would miss this! Just imagine my INT going up by 1 for every stone golem I kill! There’s no way I can pass up such a sweet event!
“So I concluded. Maybe golems are my mortal enemies?”
“I’m finally starting to get a feel for Senior’s character☆!”
Larilura said while eating a sandwich on the picnic mat. Even in disguise, she ate without any trouble. The skill of a seasoned performer. I’d heard historical drama actors struggle to eat because of their beards, but since she only had drawings on her cheeks, it probably didn’t bother her much.
“You really are a unique person. An archaeologist, an adventurer, a mage, a warrior… when I think you’re smart you act like an idiot, and when I think you’re strange you turn out to be perfectly normal.”
“Are you scared?”
“Not at all♡! Chaotic thinking is a clown’s talent☆!”
“I am Norde, the buffet man. A man who brings joy through ever-changing flavors that never get old.”
“Honestly, it is new every day.”
“Franc. That comment just stung a little.”
Anyway, after hearing the rough outline of my situation—since she’d already caught me acting as Arthur Wayne, I just told her everything—Larilura showed great interest in the ups and downs of my life.
“I see, I see. What a thrilling story♡! If it were an old tale, I’d want to tweak it a bit and turn it into performance material!”
“Don’t use other people’s secrets as material for your stage stories.”
Now I understood why you should never tell personal stories to YouTubers or manhwa artists. Shit, it’s kinda unsettling.
“Ahaha! Are you doubting how well I can keep a secret~☆?”
Larilura patted her chest as if to say “trust me.”
─Jiggle jiggle!
Her subtly large breasts, which made her self-proclaimed minor status completely unbelievable, bounced with the motion.
“Put such worries away! For a clown, skill with words is like the cornerstone of a building! It must be strong and outstanding, but if you don’t maintain it properly, the whole thing will come crashing down! The mouth of first-rate clown Larilura is heavier than stone♡!”
“I’ll trust you. Priscilla.”
“Don’t call me by my real name, Booko Senior.”
After finishing our lunch like that, we took a short break.
“If we’re going to run our mouths about fighting for Sargadis’s safety, it’d be better to join that guild alliance they mentioned, right?”
“Senior just casually said something incredibly trashy, but I agree with the general idea.”
“The compensation and treatment will definitely be different for people who actually fought in real battles versus those who just cleaned up stray golems.”
“OK. Looks like we need to head back to Sargadis if we want to reap the real benefits.”
Our conclusion was to collect the reward for the previous incident from the guards and return to Sargadis.
“Larilura. Are you going to Sargadis too and join the golem subjugation? You don’t have to force yourself to tag along out of loyalty.”
When I asked, Larilura tilted her head.
“Hmmm~. What about you two, Senior and unnie? Did I actually help in the fight earlier?”
“Yeah. More than enough.”
“That’s right. You were stronger than I expected.”
Franc and I answered without hesitation. The marionette’s offensive power was beyond my imagination. Even considering the jumping ability she showed when rescuing Erika, she seemed stronger than me in normal mode.
“But what was that Magic Missile? Did you cast it?”
“I supplied the mana, but the spell itself came from the magic circle engraved on Ring-Ring Number Three’s arm. It’s a low-level spell, so Mirdlen, the mage from our circus troupe, engraved it as a birthday present~♡.”
“Ah, so it’s enchantment magic.”
“Correct. If my mana runs out I won’t be able to control Ring-Ring Number Three anymore, so I don’t use it during long battles☆.”
In those cases, she probably switches to blow darts from the mouth or the marionette’s punches. The wide variety of functions is definitely one of the marionette’s strengths. There must be tons of hidden gimmicks still left.
Franc spoke seriously.
“It would be reassuring if Larilura stayed in the party. It’d be good if she could stop Norde from overdoing it alone again.”
“Hehe~♥! If you say it like that, I have no choice!”
─Pop!
Larilura laughed while striking a dramatic pose.
“Your feelings have reached me☆! This talented and lovable Larilura will be imposing on your party for the time being♡!”
“Yeah. Thanks.”
Imposing? That’s a fresh way to put it. When I expressed my gratitude, Franc raised a finger.
“We’ll split the rewards 1:1:1. Is that okay?”
“I’ll leave that to you! I trust you’re not the type to mess around with money!”
“Thanks for trusting me, but you should also learn how to secure your own share. So you don’t get scammed later in some shady place.”
“Yeees~♡!”
Larilura answered in a voice dripping with aegyo. I wasn’t sure if she actually understood or not. Well, she’ll be with us for a while, so it’s fine.
I picked up a fresh loaf of bread and said,
“Alright. Let’s rest a bit, clean up the golems around Heisvent until this evening, collect our reward, and head back to Sargadis.”
Since I didn’t know when we’d leave, I should say goodbye to Erika tomorrow too. The golem extermination operation in Sargadis would probably begin soon.