Automated Farming (2)
When the light completely faded, what appeared was a small wooden doll about the size of a cat. A wooden doll with two arms, two legs, and a head, making it look vaguely human. I suppose you could say it looked like a voodoo doll scaled up several times.
"Smaller than I thought."
But despite its size, it was a Perfect Success. I felt like I could expect great things from its performance. The pure white core embedded in its chest—the golem's heart—radiated mana almost comparable to that of a whole zombie. My desperate efforts not to spill a single drop of mana had paid off.
Now, shall we do a performance test? Before that, I decided to check out the Video Recording System I had newly acquired as an achievement reward. It turned out to be a feature attached to the gallery—no, the Free Registry.
Just like the existing feature to attach photos, it allowed me to record videos from my point of view and attach them to my posts. It seemed like it would be useful in various situations, like when practicing complex magic or showing off. Since I had it, I might as well use it right away.
"Sit. Stand. Roll over."
After turning on the video recording, I started giving the golem various commands as if training a puppy. The little guy diligently moved its short wooden limbs to strike the poses I ordered.
It's cuter than I expected. Emboldened, I tried a few more actions.
"Down. Jump."
But when I pointed to the kitchen sink and gave the command, it crouched on its short legs and leaped with startling speed.
"Whoa, yikes!"
I instinctively took a step back.
Spin—thud. It did a mid-air flip to control its momentum and landed lightly inside the sink. Its movements were bafflingly agile.
And then.
"Fold and organize those clothes scattered over there by type."
Even when given complex and abstract commands, it was able to judge and execute them to some extent on its own. After a few tries, I did feel like it required excessively detailed and friendly explanations, almost like writing a prompt for an AI, but still. At this rate, it should be entirely possible for it to avoid zombies and farm supplies.
But I was anxious about sending it out just like this. Being a hard wooden doll, it made clacking footsteps whenever it moved. On a main street, the sound might get buried by the wind, but in a quiet alley, it could easily be heard by zombies.
I picked up a pair of socks from the pile of clothes tossed in the corner of my room and slipped them onto its feet. Then, I ruthlessly shredded an unwearable pair of jeans with scissors, turned them into rags, and draped them over the golem.
"...Something's missing."
If I was going to camouflage it as a pile of trash rags, I might as well do it right. I crushed a beer can I drank last night. I tore out pages from a college textbook I used to study for exams. Being careful not to make too much noise, I plastered the trash all over the rags with tape. Once I was done, my golem had degenerated from a cute wooden doll into an absolute heap of garbage.
It couldn't be helped if we wanted to survive. A golem is a machine that operates only when periodically fed a Mana Core like a battery.
I have to stay alive so I can keep feeding you mana cores. Maybe I can even upgrade or modify you later. I trusted that a golem would possess a golem's trademark loyalty.
"Hmm... Stop recording."
While uploading the recorded video, I immediately deployed the golem. The first target for the rag-camouflaged golem was the Convenience Store right across the street.
It might have already been looted by other survivors, but with zombies running amok like that in broad daylight, I doubted any brave soul would have had the leisure to clean out the convenience store completely. There had to be at least some scraps left.
I finished explaining the layout of the convenience store's shelves and storage room to the golem, along with the main items it should farm.
"Got it?"
The golem nodded its rag-covered head.
"Then, go."
I handed it an eco-bag and approached the front door. My plan was to wait for a moment when there were no zombies nearby, crack the door open, and slip the golem out.
But then, the golem suddenly nudged my room window open and grabbed the railing.
"Huh?"
While I stood there dumbfounded, the little guy crawled along the railing, grabbed the drainpipe on the building's outer wall, and slid straight down, vanishing from my bewildered sight.
"..."
I trudged over to the window and looked down. Having already reached the first floor, my golem began pattering around the street. *Groaaar—* Whenever zombies passed by, it would stop near a flowerbed and pretend to be trash. Once the surroundings quieted down again, it would scurry forward with silent, rapid steps.
Zombies are seriously terrifying up close... Compared to my tiny golem, the ordinary zombies looked like literal giants. Yet, they paid no attention to my golem.
Do they only react to loud noises or humans...? There were several puzzling aspects. Just a while ago, I was asleep and making no noise, so why did they try to break down my apartment door? I needed to understand zombie behavior better.
Is there some higher entity controlling them? The thought crossed my mind, but I had no concrete evidence yet. If I knew the zombies' behavioral patterns, I could avoid them, and avoiding them was key to gathering more supplies. Gathering information was essential.
...However, it wouldn't take very long for me to realize that, as a Magic Tower Master, I had absolutely no need to run away from mere ordinary zombies.
About an hour passed.
During that time, I alternated between staring at the Free Registry and looking out the window. Browsing the forum was quite effective at keeping depressing thoughts at bay.
As I passed the time that way, the golem eventually climbed back up the wall and crawled through the window.
"It's back!"
The eco-bag was stuffed to the brim with food: canned goods, energy bars, snacks, instant hot bars, triangle kimbap, and packs of instant ramen. The golem dumped the items onto the floor and tossed its rag camouflage aside.
"Food...!"
If I rationed this, I could easily last another week. Ah, wait. Since my body was so small now, wouldn't my daily caloric requirement be lower? In that case, maybe even ten days... And most importantly, sitting at the very bottom of the eco-bag was a 2-liter plastic bottle of mineral water.
I immediately tried to twist the cap off... Ah. Twist the cap... Wait, why won't it open?
Only after four desperate attempts did I finally manage to open the bottle and drink. Just how pathetic was this body? The conviction that I absolutely must not go outside grew stronger by the second.
"Is there still some left?" I asked the golem while drinking.
The golem nodded its tiny head.
No way...
"Is there a lot left?"
I asked again, and the golem nodded once more.
It hasn't been looted yet... That was both good news and bad news. It meant there were almost no living, active humans left in the vicinity.
Still, water was in short supply. The water infrastructure was completely wrecked, and there was a limit to how much I could farm from the convenience store. As expected, I would have to solve this with magic...?
To do that, I either had to strengthen the golem enough to fight zombies, safely lure and eliminate them, or find a way to produce water, food, and other supplies through magic. I had to do something. And for that, I needed stronger magic. To learn or upgrade magic, I needed more experience points.
"I guess luring and hunting zombies is the only way..."
Honestly, I was still terrified. Especially when looking at the collapsed buildings in the distance from some explosion. Still, maybe just one more time...? Wouldn't it be better to do as much as possible now, while no dangerous entities were in sight?
But when I opened my status window just in case...
"Status."
Huh? I should have spent all my experience points. Even though I had definitely used up all my experience points to learn Golem Creation earlier, there were still 6 experience points remaining.