If You Can't Destroy It, Find a Way to Control It
“If you can't destroy it, find a way to control it.”
“You're not planning to tell me that method of control, are you?”
“The world isn't lenient enough for everyone to hand out solutions like that, my dear.”
“...You're a professor.”
Maness let Almond and Kyle's back-and-forth banter flow past his ears as he kept his eyes locked on the golem. A giant made of stone. The fact that it took on a human shape was burned into his mind.
—Vengeful spirits can only possess things in human form. Because we're human, we can only connect with human souls, and those souls can only inhabit structures similar to the bodies they had in life.
It should be possible. Of course, perfectly controlling that golem was out of the question, but he had no choice but to try.
Maness shook his head to clear the tangled thoughts, then pulled free from the support holding him up.
“Can you stand now?”
“Plenty. More importantly, you two—can you tie that thing down for me?”
The two students' gazes followed Maness's chin toward the golem.
“Not with rope, I hope. Just the feet?”
“Exactly. Got something to try.”
“Hmm...”
Kyle let out a low groan at the golem advancing threateningly. Asking them to bind the feet of a monster that had shrugged off a mana bullet unscathed was quite the demand.
“Think it'll work?”
“Whether it does or not, we have to try.”
Conien stretched his body with exaggerated motions, quashing Kyle's doubts. Resigned, Kyle swung his wooden sword through the air a few times to loosen up.
“This'll be a good chance to feel the true value of Snowrobe's healing magic.”
“Rely too much on spells, and your physical growth will stagnate.”
“...Not everyone's got your freakish body, Conien.”
Maness extended his hand again as he listened to their chatter. It had to succeed. Fail, and his body would be smashed to pieces—and he wouldn't get any satisfaction until he landed one on that professor.
Still, Maness trusted the mad professor. Even if he slipped into the boundary, she'd pull him out somehow.
As Maness drew in a sharp breath, Conien burst from his spot.
“How're we doing this?!”
“You take the left!”
Conien shot forward like an arrow in response to Kyle's shout, meeting the golem head-on. The golem reared back its right arm and swung at the tiny organic thing.
“Conien!”
Conien didn't dodge despite Kyle's cry—like a knight embracing death. As the stone mass hurtled toward him, he planted one foot back and braced.
Even Maness, focusing on entering the boundary in this new environment, broke a sweat watching. But he knew who he was dealing with, so he didn't waver.
“Haaah!”
A guttural roar tore from Conien's throat. His tightly clenched fist—pitifully small next to the golem's stone lump—shot forward.
To the eye, it was blatant suicide. Kyle, watching slack-jawed, felt excitement surging through his veins.
A beast. The pinnacle of the wild, beyond any mere animal.
Boom—
A thunderous crash like when the golem had slammed the ground. But this time, its arm buckled as if dislocated, shoved back by the impact.
“That crazy bastard...”
It didn't end there. As Conien leaped from the billowing dust, even mild-mannered Kyle couldn't hold back a curse.
An act far from the caution Kyle pursued. Clutching his wooden sword until his knuckles bled, Kyle burned with envy for that recklessness.
“Kyle.”
He turned at the voice calling him. Almond met his eyes and nodded toward the wooden sword in his grip.
“That sword's enchanted. Probably sharper and tougher than most real blades.”
Pushed from behind, Kyle let out a hollow laugh. The nomadic warrior ahead and the professor behind were both demanding recklessness from him.
But the sensation—like being backed to a cliff's edge—amplified the thrill bubbling from his depths.
“Say it like that, and I have to, don't I?”
Boom—
In sync with the roar from the beast that had vaulted off the golem's thrusting arm and smashed down, Kyle charged.
His target: the left arm. The stone mass surging at Conien in place of the right arm pinned to the ground.
Clang—
Like steel clashing, Maness—who had found the link to the boundary—poured his focus into focus. Eyes closed, he sensed the world blurring around him.
The original world fading, overlaid by a new one. Stepping beyond the gray-scented boundary, Maness opened his eyes to chill air.
A feast of vengeful spirits embroidered before him, and beyond, countless gazes. Forcing down the souls' piercing stares, Maness seized one spirit and wove his mana into it.
Failure wasn't an option. He'd asked the two outside to hold the golem—he had to make this flimsy plan work.
That was his role.
Maintaining the mana thread linked to the spirit, Maness dragged his awareness back out of the boundary. Agony like his mind tearing accompanied it, but he didn't let go of the rippling spirit beyond his fading senses.
Like wrestling a whale mid-ocean with a single fishing line. At the edge of his awareness reaching the living world, Maness poured everything into hauling the connected spirit up.
“Hah... hah...”
Gasping like he'd woken from a deep nightmare, he gripped his churning mind. No time to steady his swaying body—he focused on the mana still linked to the spirit.
Thus, Maness faced the soul now clear in his vision.
“Maness!”
Joy at success was fleeting; he turned toward the voice calling him. What felt like dozens of hours in the boundary was mere instants in reality.
The two students had pinned the golem's arms to the ground as requested and now sought their final piece.
Maness obliged, arm thrusting toward the golem. Feeling the spirit fully with his sixth sense, he hurled it.
The throw felt uncertain, but the spirit clearly flew toward the golem.
Grind—
“...Damn it.”
Kyle's face twisted as the golem wrenched its arm free soon after. Pinning the left arm had already drained him; Conien looked no better.
He'd clashed barehanded—normal was impossible.
“Can you do it one more time?”
“Hold on.”
Conien raised a hand to Kyle's desperate ask, knowing it was futile. The golem's arm, shedding dirt as it pulled free, halted abruptly.
Just like when it took Maness's mana bullet dead-on.
“Feels like it's turned to stone again. Well, it is stone, huh?”
“Not from the impact.”
Conien turned. Far off, Maness breathed steadily, eyes on the golem.
“Maness pulled it off.”
“...Guess so?”
The mountain-shaking booms faded, peace returning. How they'd stopped the menace didn't matter to the students. Only the hope that it was truly over let them slump in exhaustion.
Maness's situation was far from easy. The massive golem target meant mana drained in huge quantities in real time.
Success in inserting the spirit only let him hold it in place. No prior lesson, sight, or experience for the next step.
Even that simple act consumed mana like a hole in his Mana Well.
“That's enough.”
Almond, watching her disciple's invisible struggle, sliced her hand in front of him. The golem crumbled simultaneously; Maness felt the spirit link sever.
Mana leakage stopped. Tension gone, Maness collapsed flat on the ground.
“...Satisfied now?”
“Satisfied.”
Almond stared at the mana bullet crater amid the golem rubble.
“More than that, Maness.”
The disciple grinned unwittingly at words of acknowledgment from the professor who'd seemed incapable of them.
*
“Professor Almond, what the hell is this?!”
A scream-like shout echoed through the workshop in Herald Hall amid various magic tools.
“That's how it went.”
“'That's how it went'? You call that an explanation? This thing's worth rivals adamantine just in materials!”
Magitech assistant Jerol pointed at the stone lump used as a golem, likening it to the world's hardest mineral.
“How'd you even use it to make it this battered? I wouldn't have lent it if I'd known!”
“Used it for class. Bound to happen.”
“What kind of class leaves it like this? Did you call Professor Hiteri for a pure magic destruction demo?”
Even Hiteri, master of pure magic, wouldn't scratch it easily, Jerol argued.
“What're you saying? A student's work.”
“Ha...”
Jerol huffed incredulously at the professor's truth.
“Professor, even if you wanna dodge responsibility, don't throw a student under the bus.”
“For real.”
“The class you took this afternoon was first-years'.”
“And?”
Silence blanketed the workshop. Jerol wondered if this absurd mad professor even grasped her own words.
“You're joking?”
His carefully chosen words were simple. No reason to defend with nonsense otherwise.
“Not a joke—”
“Professor Almond!”
The door flew open, burying the futile excuse. Barton barged in calling for the problem professor, slapping her shoulder with a hearty laugh.
“Saw the footage from the crystal orb! Amazing!”
“Ow, Professor Barton.”
“I had my eye on those students, but not this level! Hell yeah, that reckless style's pure warrior spirit!”
“It hurts.”
Pain ignored by the hyped hothead, Almond used an accessory's magic to restrain the violent arm.
Barton withdrew with an “Oops.”
“Got carried away. Gotta repay you for setting this up.”
“No need.”
Dismissing the goodwill lightly, Almond eyed the stone. Magic-engineered to resist most impacts, it bore wounds from a first-year's spell—as Jerol said, pricey.
“I got something out of it too.”
“Something... You mean that student?”
“Maness Pictri.”
Snowrobe's rascal's name echoed faintly.
“Saw the footage myself. A first-year wrecking a stone golem like that? Impressive.”
“Not just any stone, Professor Barton.”
“...Not just any?”
After Almond's brief explanation of the stone, Barton reacted even more explosively than on entry.
“Wait, so Kyle and Conien held off that golem?”
“Surprised me too. Just testing endurance, but they suppressed it briefly.”
“How'd Maness control it? Special golem training...?”
Jerol watched them chatter incomprehensibly over the damaged expensive magitech, convinced.
Snowrobe had nothing but crazy professors.