Good Thing or Bad Thing?
The title of the post read: Think About What You've Been Thinking About Lately.
"Uh... I didn't mean to."
More than half of my body's mana had been sucked away, and a sacred light was flashing from the mass-produced golems. Did that mean every time they attacked a zombie, a holy explosion would go off?
When I flipped the switch back on, the mass-produced golems left the building again and began searching the nearby structures. I peeked down through the window.
The golems were still avoiding the zombies, but whenever an unavoidable collision happened, a pure white ripple shaped like concentric circles would burst from the exact spot where the golem struck the zombie. The rotten flesh hit by that wave would burn away as if being purified.
The raw firepower was probably still stronger with Unit 1's water pressure cannon. But thanks to the perfect matchup, the actual damage output felt about the same. Plus, this was an area-of-effect ability. If several zombies were clustered together, they'd all get hit at once.
If Unit 1 and Unit 2 used this instead of the mass-produced models, just how strong would it be?
"This is seriously giving me a headache..."
What if one day they suddenly went click and stopped working?
"......"
If white magic stopped working, I'd apparently need to cultivate my spirit or something. Unfortunately, I'd never once in my life considered becoming a priest or a monk. I wasn't even religious to begin with. Not to mention I'd spectacularly robbed a cathedral just recently.
I just hoped it would keep working like this. The mana consumption was brutal, sure, but once it was cast, it ran on its own for quite a while.
Hmm.
"Mana... Hoo. Again... Hoo. Just fill up..."
Still, mana would recover if I just kept breathing deeply. No need to worry. The real problem was that garbage multi-element magic that refused to output anything no matter how much mana I poured into it.
Being able to raise performance by dumping mana into it was, in itself, something to welcome.
As expected from the pretty girl gallery.
In the video, a blue-haired girl with a physique similar to my current body was stretching her arms out as far as they could go. It felt a little off-putting, but when I tried following along, it really did seem helpful.
"Uwaaah. Master, what are you doing?"
My disciple, who had come down with water and mana cores, was startled at the sight. But after hearing it was gymnastics that helped with mana recovery, she started copying me too.
"By the way, I want to make a golem too."
After our sudden stretching session, she hesitated for a moment before speaking to me.
"I want to use them for carrying heavy stuff, laundry, cleaning, things like that."
She was already managing an entire four-story building by herself on top of producing various materials through her daily quests. I'd actually been thinking that if she made a golem, we could use it for managing the building's interior. I'd already taught her the golem crafting magic anyway.
Unit 1 and Unit 2 would be back soon, so she could work on it until then.
"Could you watch over me? I understand most of it, but stabilizing the magic circle at the end seems difficult."
"I was planning to make a golem myself anyway."
That said, it was surprising how few of the spells I'd learned so far had good synergy with golem creation. What happened to my grand dream of making white magic golems?
At those words, I examined the types of golem crafting materials in my head. Surprisingly, there were a few things related to white magic.
Refine iron using white magic attack spells instead of a hammer?
No, that attack magic wouldn't even activate unless the target was a zombie. How was I supposed to use that? Pass. What else was there?
Oh. Right. A healing core.
If I used that instead of a mana core, wouldn't it become a healer golem?
The method to create a healing core wasn't particularly complicated. Put a mana core in water, gently burst it, then desperately pray while using Touch of Healing.
Please, just work already!
Every time the magic threatened to fizzle out, I'd drag in every god that existed or didn't exist and beg them. It made me wonder if this was really white magic, and I was hit with a sudden wave of self-awareness.
Just moments ago I'd thought it was the most overpowered magic in the world. Now I couldn't tell if it was good or bad.
The healing cores I created this way were all-purpose potion-like objects. Crush them and they became ointment, eat them and they became pills, dissolve them in water and they became liquid potions.
The downside is that they have a short shelf life and the effect is weaker than expected. It's also hard to make them.
Even considering that the original Touch of Healing was a low-grade spell, the performance was worse than I'd hoped, so it wasn't some miracle cure-all. Still, if I made a bunch and stockpiled them, I could probably throw out all the emergency medicine I'd gathered while scavenging.
"Do you have any religion?"
"No. Other than going to church with a friend when I was little to get some samgyeopsal..."
"Then what about philosophy or ideology or something..."
"I've been in the science experiment club since elementary school."
I'd thought about having her manufacture them like the other resources, but it seemed better if I did it myself.
After making the healing cores and experimenting with replacing a large portion of the mana cores used in golem production with them, I went a step further and mixed in things like holy oil that I'd obtained when I robbed the cathedral, using them as ingredients for mana dye.
"Ah, if that part isn't drawing well, just pour in a little more mana."
"Ah, thank you."
While simultaneously giving various advice to my disciple who was carving a magic circle beside me, time flew by in the blink of an eye.
So Protection of the Law lasts about an hour.
During that time, I periodically looked outside to check the buff's duration. Roughly one hour. It was a bit ambiguous, but considering how it turned the mass-produced golems into zombie blenders, I figured it was plenty.
"It's done!"
A little more time passed. The golem my disciple had been drawing while listening to my real-time commentary was completed first. Its appearance was...
A rabbit doll...?
It had a small body, a chubby three-head proportion like something out of a children's cartoon, an animal doll. Of course, since its main material was metal, it was much heavier than it looked.
"Huh? Aren't golems all supposed to look like people?"
"Not necessarily..."
I explained to her. According to the story about how a user's inner feelings influenced the result, and considering how she'd liked that lesser panda doll before, it seemed her taste actually ran toward cute characters.
"......Pervert."
The moment she heard that, she gave me a meaningful look. I had nothing to say.
"Should I name it Chunsik... or rather, Tosiki?"
And so a small golem with a bizarre name that strangely suited its appearance was completed. It was a household golem focused on efficiency and speed with runes for fuel economy in mind.
"Tosiki. Could you clean the second floor for me?"
Anyway, the moment it received her command, it grabbed a broom and went hopping away. It seemed to have been properly completed. Why was it so loud and clumsy, though?
"I should finish mine soon too."
In the meantime, my own golem, made with healing cores and mana-infused iron, was nearly complete. All that remained was carving the attribute runes into the auxiliary magic circle.
Since there's no particular white magic attribute, should I put in light? Or plant attribute? What about shadow?
The shadow attribute had a strange appeal since it might allow for stealth and healing at the same time, but plant seemed better overall. It had that life force image and all. Worst case, I could use it as a farmer.
But right as I made that decision and was about to carve the rune, Unit 1 opened the door with a serious expression. It had been out searching for survivors in the distance.
"What happened?"
Did something go wrong? Where was Unit 2?
"There are two pieces of news. Ah, before that. Unit 2 is currently in the first-floor lobby protecting the survivors. There is no need for concern."
"Survivors?"
I looked out the window. Since the lobby was inside the building, it wasn't visible from here.
"First, we discovered and brought back three survivors who were holding out inside a company office near the highway."
The golem explained quickly. Three survivors, bloodstains and corpses scattered near where they'd been found, and an unidentified pile of black spores discovered in the vicinity.
"Spores...?"
"It appears to be the ability of a yet-unknown special entity."
I wasn't sure exactly what it was, but apparently black spores were rapidly spreading along the roads from the north. That problem could be handled later, but...
"And there's one more issue. The condition of the survivors we rescued is extremely critical."
"How bad?"
"Bad enough that they might not make it through the night."
"Because of those spores?"
"It doesn't seem so. Most appear to be from simple trauma, though one of them may have a possible zombie infection and will need to be handled carefully."
There was one more urgent problem. All the new slaves... I mean, survivors we'd brought back were emergency patients.