Defeated the Golem, So Hand Over the Reward
Ceryll, why is this girl so into skinship?
I could understand the chattiness. She’d been that way in the original novel, after all. But the constant touching? That was another matter entirely. Sure, Ceryll’s sense of personal space had always been a little off even in the source material—but that had been reserved exclusively for the original protagonist!
So why is she doing it to me, one of the heroines?
And because we were both girls, Ceryll didn’t spare the slightest thought for things like her chest pressing against me. Thanks to that, the moment anything soft brushed my back these days I flinched on pure reflex.
“I told you not to hug me out of nowhere.”
“Sorry. You’re just so cute, like a little animal. Looking at you makes me want to scoop you up.”
That felt like a roundabout way of calling me short.
“Anyway, don’t—ah, atchoo!”
A sneeze cut me off mid-sentence. Not that I could help it.
I’m freezing to death.
The closer we got to the boss chamber, the harder the wind howled out from deeper inside.
There was never any description like this in the novel.
I felt cheated. If I’d known, I would have prepared better.
I shot Ceryll a sidelong glance.
“Aren’t you cold, Ceryll?”
“This much is fine for me.”
She wasn’t lying. In the end, I was the only one freezing.
…Was Reina supposed to be weak against the cold?
I couldn’t quite remember. But the way my body was reacting made it seem pretty accurate.
Next time we come into a dungeon, I’m packing a sleeping bag, a folding chair, and a change of clothes for sure.
While I was thinking that—
“Gotcha!”
I was pulled into another embrace. Soft golden hair cascaded over the top of my head.
“Reina. When you’re cold, you’re supposed to share body heat. The best way is to press close like this.”
Ceryll spoke before I could get a word out.
“…You’re not just using that as an excuse to hug me?”
“Well, there’s a little of that too.”
Of course there was.
“But I really did want to warm you up. That part’s genuine.”
Her words weren’t a lie. The soft body pressed against my back and the heat seeping through our clothes were proof enough. Just being held like this made the cold far more bearable than before.
Ulterior motive or not, Ceryll had done it because she was worried about me.
“…Thanks.”
I barely moved my lips, the gratitude almost inaudible.
And roughly thirty minutes later, Ceryll and I reached the boss chamber.
When Ceryll stepped into the end of the cave, she froze in shock.
A monster…
The moment she looked straight ahead, a massive golem filled her vision. It was made of stone, yet it stood a full four meters tall. Size aside, a golem was not the kind of monster that belonged in a low-rank dungeon.
Don’t tell me…
Every now and then, a monster that absolutely should not appear would show up inside a dungeon. When that happened, the dungeon itself was said to warp and change form.
A dungeon break already happened here?
Only then did the gravity of the situation truly hit her. She hadn’t been especially tense even against the lower-rank threats, but a golem was a different story. It was a proper monster, nothing like goblins. One wrong move and you could die.
Creak… scrape…
The golem’s neck ground and turned until its gaze locked onto them. Then its eyes flared crimson.
A magic circle of overlapping symbols began to form in front of it.
Magic!
She didn’t know the details, but she could tell the golem was about to cast. Magic, once activated, packed devastating power—far beyond a simple sword swing. That was why every instructor taught the same rule for dealing with mages:
Strike the caster before the spell finishes!
Thud-thud-thud!
Ceryll sprinted forward, sword in hand. She felt the wind become one with her body as she closed the distance in a heartbeat.
“Yaaah!”
Without a shred of hesitation she slashed at the golem’s leg. Her form was perfect; she held nothing back.
Clang!
The blade simply bounced off the stone surface.
It didn’t cut!
She had swung with everything she had and still failed to leave a mark. That meant the right to attack now belonged to the golem.
No—
Ceryll’s eyes snapped toward where Reina stood. The golem’s gaze was fixed squarely on her. It intended to fire its magic at Reina.
“Dodge, Reina!”
She screamed until her throat tore. The cry had to have reached her. Which was exactly why the sight that followed left Ceryll stunned: Reina had chosen to fight instead of flee.
She’s… smiling?
The faint curve of Reina’s lips made Ceryll’s thoughts stutter for a second.
Cute… No, that’s not the point! Why are you smiling, Reina?
Reina drew a bow from her bag. The fletching kissed the string and the bowstring was drawn back in one savage pull. The motion flowed like water, yet Ceryll knew just how difficult it actually was.
An archer’s talent.
Right here, in this moment, Reina’s gift was unfolding perfectly. Even something as simple as drawing a bow looked transcendent—beautiful. But the eyes fixed on the target were sharp with an archer’s killing focus.
The bow creaked as if it might snap. In the same instant her fingers released.
Fwaaang—!
A sonic crack tore the air as the arrow sliced through empty space. Before anyone could blink, it had buried itself dead-center in the golem’s eye.
…But arrows shouldn’t work.
Even Ceryll’s sword hadn’t pierced the golem. A hit from an arrow shouldn’t have done any real damage. That was what she believed—until the wet crunch of shattering crystal forced a startled cry from her throat.
“Y-you broke it?”
How?
The answer came a second later. Fragments of the ruined eye clattered to the floor. They looked like glass. Unlike the golem’s armored body, its eyes had been made of something fragile.
That’s why it worked.
As expected of Reina. She had spotted a weakness Ceryll herself had missed, all in the space of a heartbeat, and exploited it perfectly.
Crack!
The half-formed magic circle shattered. When a spell is interrupted mid-cast, the backlash slams into the caster.
Boom!
The golem toppled backward. Ceryll darted clear of the impact zone just in time.
“Ceryll, you okay?”
I called out, keeping my eyes on her. I hated raising my voice, but communication left me no choice.
“Yeah, I’m fine. More importantly, Reina, that was so cute and so cool!”
Could “cute” and “cool” even coexist?
“Save the praise for later. We’re not done yet.”
Rumble… crash…
The golem heaved itself upright. The backlash from the broken circle had staggered it, but it was nowhere near enough to put it down for good.
Still, one of its legs is completely wrecked.
When it fell, the full weight of that massive body had smashed its right leg into rubble scattered across the floor.
[REACTIVATING]
Yet the golem spoke as if the injury were nothing of consequence.
Well, of course it would.
Mana streamed from its hip and connected to the scattered fragments of the leg. Given enough time, the severed piece would reattach itself. If the limb was just going to grow back anyway, why worry?
“We should finish it before the leg reconnects, right?”
Ceryll had clearly seen the same thing I had.
“Yeah.”
“But how? What if it just puts itself back together no matter how much we smash it?”
Her question was fair. In the original story Ceryll had smashed the golem over and over until her stamina gave out. If the original protagonist hadn’t stumbled across the core by pure luck, Ceryll would probably have been the one to fall first.
“Golems have a core somewhere inside them. Break that and it can’t regenerate anymore.”
Ceryll didn’t ask how I knew. She simply nodded.
“A weak point? That’s a relief.”
“You pulverize the golem for me. I’ll find the core and smash it.”
“Got it.”
The moment she answered, Ceryll drew in a deep breath and closed her eyes.
“Huuu…”
The second she exhaled—
Azure mana began to pour from every inch of her body.
Mana Reinforcement.
The high-level technique that coats and reinforces the physical body with mana, drastically increasing strength and speed. Power and speed both skyrocket; every strike becomes crushing. Anyone who can’t use it is completely outclassed by someone who can.
In the later stages of the story it becomes so common that it almost looks unremarkable, but the truth is anything but. You need both mana and the talent to manipulate it. Without both innate gifts, the technique is simply impossible. Even among those born with the potential, without a special trigger or rigorous training the ability never blooms. That’s why so few people in the entire kingdom can use it—and why I, who meet the conditions, still can’t.
Anyway, with Mana Reinforcement active, tearing the golem apart would be child’s play. The only problem was—
“Reina. I can’t hold this for long. So… destroy the core as fast as you can, okay?”
—that this was still the early part of the story. Ceryll wasn’t strong enough yet to maintain the reinforcement indefinitely. Still, the fact that she could use it at all was more than enough for me. Right now she was the only person in our entire class who could.
Just smash the golem for me.
That was why I’d teamed up with her in the first place.
“Leave it to me.”
The instant the words left my mouth Ceryll exploded into motion. She was as fast as the wind itself. Even with Reina’s excellent eyesight, all I saw were afterimages.
Honestly, I didn’t catch every detail of what happened. All I really knew was that Ceryll darted here and there, swinging her sword, and then lines of light appeared in the air. A heartbeat later those lines all split open at once—at least, that was how it looked to me.
KRA-KRA-KRASH!
The golem’s armor came apart along the glowing seams. I didn’t waste the opening.
I have to find it.
I didn’t know the exact location, so there was no room for carelessness. Even so, I believed I could do it.
After all, Reina— I—have good eyes.
Reina was the type who spotted traps and hidden mechanisms with ease. Someone like that would find a core in no time.
My eyes flicked left and right as I drew the bowstring. The explosive potion Jinny had given me was already lashed to the arrowhead with a rubber band.
Even a light impact will set it off.
It packed more than enough force to shatter a mana-protected core. All I had to do was put the arrow on target.
And then—
Found it.
I allowed myself a small smirk and released the string.
Fwoosh!
I watched the arrow shrink into the distance without a single flicker of doubt. My arrows simply didn’t miss.
We cleared the dungeon without any further trouble. That should have been the end of everything… except it wasn’t.
Now I get my reward.
When you pull off something difficult, a reward drops. In a novel world, that was only natural. In fact, collecting that reward was the entire reason I’d risked this in the first place.
Ceryll’s… out cold.
Probably from the Mana Reinforcement. She lay face-down on the floor, completely unconscious. Just sleeping, so no real problem.
Ceryll isn’t the important thing right now.
The moment that thought crossed my mind—
FLASH!
A light so intense it stabbed my eyes poured out from right in front of me. Keep them open any longer and I’d go blind.
Huh? That’s weird.
Had there been a description like this? I vaguely remembered something suddenly popping into existence out of the sky… so why did it feel like I had to shut my eyes or lose my sight?
“Ugh…”
I finally gave in and closed them. When I opened them again—
“Huh?”
A woman stood there whose sheer beauty—and, honestly, the size of her chest—snatched the breath from my lungs. Hair that was almost pure white with just a hint of gray. A pure-white dress that matched it perfectly. She was genuinely, ridiculously pretty.
But that wasn’t why I was shocked.
Why is the goddess Eru showing up now?
A character who wasn’t supposed to appear until much later was suddenly standing right in front of me. Of course I was thrown for a loop.