Ice Golem
A Psycher... in other words, an Awakened one.
The people of this world understood full well that, in theory, an Awakened could learn any technique whatsoever. They also knew that each person's temperament lent itself to certain affinities — that everyone had a power that suited them best.
Which was why Alta's ability, which I'd watched in action over and over during our sparring sessions, had always filled me with genuine envy — though, unfortunately, its nature was a poor match for me.
Shaaaaak!
Papapapang!
Blades wreathed in a staggering volume of mana swept across the battlefield with no hand to guide them. Five swords, punching holes through whatever crossed their path with perfect impartiality. Alta's power was, classically enough, psychokinesis.
"Hahahaha!"
The moment battle was joined, Alta produced five swords from who-knew-where — some kind of inventory, perhaps. In truth they were less swords than giant needles, and with mana radiating off them alongside his fighting spirit, it was clear they were no ordinary weapons. Five blades aided by psychokinesis were devastating beyond measure.
Kwagagagak!
"Boring in deeper! Keep up!"
Alta shifted into an even higher gear on top of a speed that was already more than enough. At this point, simply following him was all I could manage. I hacked wildly through the monsters as I scrambled along in his wake.
Graaaand—!
Thwack!
One of the Wood Giants charged in without a clue, only to have its head deleted by Alta's missile-like flying sword. It toppled backward without so much as a death rattle, and its massive bulk crushed several smaller monsters flat beneath it.
'So this is Rank 5...'
I'd killed a Wood Giant myself just yesterday, but there had been a fair amount of luck involved. Threading its neck on the very first strike had earned me bonus points, sure — but even slicing from within, I'd had to push through considerable resistance. If I'd tried to take that thing's head head-on without Obsidian, it would have been an epic ordeal.
...
"Whew... hah... hah..."
For a while we kept up our hit-and-run routine, performing one dangerous stunt after another. Matching Alta's pace left my body throbbing from overusing my aura, but this battle was the only thing left to solve, so I gritted my teeth and bore it. The rest of our people on the ramparts whittled down the monsters' numbers with measured ranged attacks.
At this rate, nothing could go wrong... until the unexpected happened.
Kwajak!
"Huh!?"
A huge crack tore itself across the space directly in front of Alta. A transparent plane skewed like a shattered mirror, appearing without the slightest warning and reaching out to swallow him whole.
"Oh, you have got to be kidding me — that's a Dungeon! You'll be fine, so you—"
Wham!
Alta launched himself into the air and drove a thick hind leg into my chest. Thanks to that kick, I escaped the fractured space — but Alta, with no room to dodge, vanished into the crack before he could even finish his sentence.
The swords that had ruled the battlefield dropped lifelessly to the ground, their connection severed.
"Grrrrrrr...!"
"...Well, this is bad."
"Jun! We're coming down!"
With Alta — our unstoppable spearhead — suddenly gone, I found myself trapped in the middle of the monster horde. We'd thinned their numbers considerably, but a hundred or so of the things still remained. I could see Noah and Lovrick scrambling down from the palisade toward me, so holding out for a short while wouldn't be a problem.
But that thing...
"RUOOOOOAR—!"
The Ice Golem, which had been cautiously slinking around and avoiding Alta this whole time, sensed his disappearance with uncanny speed and charged at me with an agility that defied its bulk.
"You rotten, opportunistic bastard."
That said, I'd built up quite a tolerance for alarming situations by now. Dozens of bone-crushing sparring matches and several real battles had forced the ability to stay calm into me. Even in what looked like certain death, there is always a way through. What mattered wasn't an unbending heart... no — it was the cold clarity to seize a single fleeting opening.
Kuwagwang!
I slipped aside from the golem's fist — which, compared to Alta's strikes, moved about as fast as a crawling tortoise — and the ground it touched erupted as if a bomb had gone off. A spray of dirt billowed up and blotted out my view.
'There's my chance...!'
As long as there was no telling when Alta would return, I was the only one with enough firepower to put down something this armored. This thing dies here. I organized my thoughts in an instant and sprinted forward, using the still-falling dirt as cover. My target: its ankle.
'They said this thing's one of the most defensively solid Rank 6 monsters out there — no way a normal sword aura does anything! Which means...'
Tat!
Taking position behind the Ice Golem as it swiveled around searching for me, I reshaped the edge of my aura. I pushed mana in with a fierce act of will, and jagged teeth sprouted in a steady rhythm — a genuine chainsaw.
So far, so good... but could I make it to the next step?
Vrrrrrrroooom—!
Apparently I was the type who performed better in real combat. With an engine roar only I could hear, the blade began to spin. Unlike a machine, aura had no operating limits — its rotation speed depended solely on my aura reserves and my willpower. I endured pain bright enough to white out my vision and forced in every drop of aura I had, and the shimmering blade spun at an alarming rate.
"Haap!"
I accelerated further, the blade whirling so fast it vanished from sight — my sawtooth sword aura, howling like a beast. Into the golem's left ankle it went!
Gagagagagagak—!
"RUOOOOOH!"
'Ngh... it's like cutting through steel!'
I clamped down on the vibrating hilt, which felt ready to tear itself out of my grip at any moment. Even striking a virtually defenseless opponent, the recoil was monstrous. The calluses on my palms split under the shock, and warm blood seeped through. This was defense on a completely different level from the Wood Giant!
"Grrraaah!"
"Tch. One try wasn't enough, huh? But at this rate..."
I rolled sideways as the golem's right leg came down with a wall of crushing wind. I hadn't managed to sever it completely, but the left ankle where my sawtooth aura had landed was reduced to shredded ruin in a heartbeat. The golem let out an eerie moan and sank to one knee. It couldn't move on a half-severed ankle — I'd stripped it of its mobility.
"Ridiculously hard. A normal sword aura wouldn't even bite into this thing. Hngh!"
Just as I was swaying with dizziness from venting far too much aura, a mantis-like monster swung its arm at me. I tried to respond, but my limbs had gone completely slack. Its arm gleamed like a honed scythe — but it never touched me.
Shaaak—! Chang!
A plain dagger came whipping in and shattered the creature's arm to pieces.
"Are you all right?"
"Thanks to you."
Noah had covered the distance like lightning and struck down the mantis's arm. Twisting the neck of a monster flailing helplessly without its limb was a very easy task.
Soon Lovrick appeared behind her.
"Oof... it's old news by now, but you really are unbelievable. Reducing a famously armored Ice Golem to that."
"I do my best."
"...I couldn't say you're joking even as a joke. The Guild's going to be in an uproar over you before long."
Lovrick murmured quietly, watching the Ice Golem moan where it knelt.
...
A phenomenally durable body, titanic strength to match its size, and on top of that, the instinct to identify dangerous opponents. The Ice Golem was more than qualified for its Rank 6 classification. Under normal circumstances, an opponent like that was unbeatable for someone with my specs, no matter how many times I died and came back. But its fatal mistake was failing to catch on to my trait — the ability to spike my output in an instant.
Well, how could it have known?
"RUAAAARGH!"
"Who's fighting you? Idiot."
"No need to grapple with a feisty one, after all."
Me, Noah, and Lovrick kept our distance from the golem as it flailed its arms and lunged with clumsy, awkward movements. There was no reason to trade blows with something our desperate, improvised sawtooth aura barely scratched. If we got careless and it caught hold of us — those poison-soaked hands of its would turn us into human pulp in a second. Complacency was forbidden.
"Get some rest for a bit."
"He's right. You're drenched in sweat."
"Am I?"
I touched my forehead at Noah's words, and my hand came away soaked. Adrenaline had masked it, but my whole body was trembling slightly too — making that sawtooth aura had apparently taken a real toll on me.
"I'll take it easy."
Even so, I couldn't exactly lounge around in the middle of a battlefield. With the Ice Golem's mobility stolen, priority shifted from it to the rabble of lesser monsters. The strong ones had already been cleared out by Alta in advance, so mopping up the rest wasn't particularly difficult.
As the monsters' numbers dwindled, the people who'd stayed on the palisade came down to reinforce us, and between that, killing every monster except the golem took less than an hour.
"Grrrhh..."
The Ice Golem stood dumbly alone in a plain carpeted with monster corpses. We circled it in a wide ring like a pride of lions stalking prey, watching for any movement. For some reason, its eyes as they fixed on me looked almost pitiful.
"Its regeneration seems to be on the low side."
"If it were high there too, wouldn't it be Rank 5 instead of 6?"
The Ice Golem looked drained now. Not that I could blame it — a puddle of teal blood (?) was visibly spreading from the ankle wound I'd given it. Whether the thing even counted as a living creature remained dubious, but either way, as its fuel — or blood, or whatever — drained away, the signs of its vitality were unmistakably fading.
"Still, for all its pride as a monster, it's recovering little by little. Let's finish this."
"We'll help."
Eight Awakened — everyone but Ivan, who was thoroughly spent — slowly surrounded the cowering Ice Golem.
...
"Grrruuuaaahh..."
"Finally done. Stubborn to the very end."
"At this point I almost feel sorry for it."
I gazed at the Ice Golem — limbless now, twitching feebly — through exhausted eyes. Butchering a creature that had lost its minions, stood alone, and could barely move was nothing more than tedious, repetitive labor. But tedium aside, since normal sword aura simply refused to work on the thing, putting it down for good took a fair amount of time. Only after resting and chipping away at it with my sawtooth aura again and again did I manage to break through its defenses entirely.
"Just die already..."
Grrooonk!
At last, when I laboriously bored a slowly rotating sawtooth aura into the spot where a heart ought to be, the golem breathed its last. What a tenacious bastard, truly.
"Sorry I couldn't be more help. My blade wouldn't so much as chip the thing anyway."
"Not at all. Drawing its attention alone was a big help."
I climbed down from the golem's chest and waved off Lovrick, who was scratching his head awkwardly. He hadn't managed to land a direct hit, but keeping the monster focused on him had been a tremendous help to me.
"By the way, what was that aura of yours? Something was spinning around going vrrm vrrm... never seen anything like it."
"Something I've been practicing. Though it burns through mana like crazy. I want to collapse right where I'm standing..."
And rather than just say it, I found the cleanest patch of ground in reach and sat down on the spot. The sawtooth aura packed plenty of power, but its efficiency was terrible. Imagine spending twenty units of aura to get three units of damage. My body had hit its limits after barely a few uses... this needed work.
"Oh, right! Where did Alta disappear to, anyway?"
I was inspecting my sword — its edge chewed up unevenly by the ferocious fighting — when Alta's existence finally crossed my mind. He was the one person I never normally had to worry about, so had I just plain forgotten for a moment? He'd been sucked into some bizarre space out of nowhere. I hoped he was all right.
"Ah... that would be a Dungeon. A space connected to another world. It's a rare phenomenon, but... damn unlucky of him to have it open right in front of him with no time to dodge. Either way, you can escape by striking the dungeon's core, so he'll be out before long. Judging by the color, it wasn't a particularly dangerous one, either."
Crash—!
Before Lovrick even finished explaining, came the sound of shattering glass, and Alta tumbled out of thin air. Whatever had happened inside, he was covered head to toe in exhaustion. He jerked his head around, met our eyes, and let out a deep sigh.
"Good grief... a dungeon, out of nowhere. First time in my life for that one."
"Nothing went wrong?"
"I'm fine. The thing was pointlessly long, so it took some time. But — you killed the Ice Golem while I was gone. That your work?"
"Yes. It was a brutal fight, though."
"Good job. If it hadn't been for you, who knows what would've happened to the village..."
For once in his life, Alta offered a compliment with no edge to it whatsoever, then beckoned at the empty air and gathered up all the swords scattered across the ground.
"At this point there's hardly anything left to teach you... Hmm?"
"What is it?"
"You really are a lucky one, aren't you?"
Alta raised a hand and pointed at something. I followed his fingertip — and there lay the corpse of the Ice Golem I'd killed...
Its corpse was beginning to glow with a bright light!