In the Master Room
“Booyah! Saintess down!”
I pumped my fist into the air.
It’s great we defeated her. If that didn’t defeat her, we would’ve had to fall into a war of attrition with the fifty fire arm gargoyles we have stockpiled.
It would’ve been pretty unfortunate if we weren’t able to hide the gargoyles after coming this far.
There’s no reason for Rin to want to target the dungeon core, so it was going to be our total win so long as we could defeat the saintess.
“… So strong. Is that the gargoyle Kehma’s been researching?”
“Yeah, it’s a gargoyle specified test arm.” [1]
Water Cutter. That was the identity of the attack that cut through the saintess.
Magic formations that produce water were crammed inside the golem’s left arm, around a hundred of them. Making a small elongated cone shape inside of the arm, I inserted that amount of formations into the arm.
It was seriously dangerous when one of them exploded during testing. Man was I happy that I built a separate room alongside the laboratory.
I ultimately managed to make it by encasing it with three-layered black steel, engraving the magic formations with materials from plastic bottles—daily necessities—and filling it all with water from the start.
A single one of the magic formations can produce enough water to fill a cup of water in the blink of an eye. If a hundred of those trigger in such a small place—though the haniwa golem’s arm is pretty huge—the pressure gets crazy instantly. In order to increase its penetrating ability, I added a single ground-type magic formation that produces sand. I wanted to put in fine ruby powder at first, but the water pressure was so crazy that there’s no problems with its power even with sand. Adding on to that, it managed to penetrate through 3cm of black steel in one of the experiments.
Another experiment had a stopper blast away at ludicrous speeds… Yep, this Water Cutter is seriously powerful.
It costs around 2,000 DP for each one, the costs mainly coming from the black steel ingots and magic stones.
“However, it takes a considerably high quality magic stone (500 DP) to activate and it runs out in an instant… I don’t want to have to use it that recklessly.”
“Uwaaah… hey, wouldn’t it have been better to summon a strong monster to beat Rin into submission? We can’t because we’re sealed right now though.”
Considering the expensive research cost, that might have been better… w-well, we wouldn’t have known if it would’ve won though.
Rather, after making the two gargoyle-type iron haniwas and horse golems made of salt myself, I think it turned out pretty well this time. I wasted tons of time purging the armor from the iron horses. The salt horse golems that look so obviously like salt get their strength from their iron skeleton hidden by all of the salt cover.
Next would be the salt ceiling golem, it was their simply to harass Rin.
It worked~, it super worked. Now I can get some sleep.
“… Man, all things considered, that was risky.”
“Mm.”
“I only prepared [Now then, let’s do it] and [There’s more where that came from, have as much as you want] for the golem’s voice after all…”
I was in a hurry, so that was about about all I could rush and record for the golem.
I was planning on letting them recognize it as Euma by having it speak, then beat her with the second body by using a surprise attack, but as expected of the saintess, she prevented it.
“Eh, that’s all?”
“Yeah, that’s all. Even if they broke through, they’d just reach the stairway leading to the [New Riddle Area]. I was still making it though.”
… Hmm? It’s the boss room, but I never said something like the core room being just after it right?
Man, I’m glad it worked out.
The dungeon core was put in a different room than the one I was leading them to, obviously. I had already took the opportunity to expand the warehouse area when I mended it after Rin destroyed parts of it, so Rin probably wouldn’t even have recognized it.
“Umm, Goshujin-sama, how long do I chase it…?”
Meat spoke, still using the salt horse golems to chase after Rin. In a sense, her operation of precisely herding Rin around was amazing. Seriously.
“Oops. I’ll be heading out to talk with Rin with a messenger golem here in a bit, so just chase it a bit more and stop when I give the signal. Ah, Rokuko. Collect that salt that’s on the ground. It’ll be used for Rin’s training after all.”
“Understood.”
“Okay~”
Good replies.
I prepared a messenger golem and headed to the boss room that still have Rin being chased by the salt horse golems in it.
*
“Oi Rin, feel like stopping?”
[Wha—Kehma! Already, back to, normal!?]
When I spoke to Rin with the usual messenger golem, Rin looked at me in surprise—and ran straight into a salt horse golem due to looking away, tasting the salt with its whole body.
It was probably a huge blow to Rin, who doesn’t particularly need to eat with its mouth.
I collected the two haniwas when I arrived, so there’s just one [Kehma] left.
[Nuwa—!? S-s-stop, Kehma! You’re me, follower!]
“I’m alright stopping if Rin becomes my follower though?”
[Gunu! That’s, no good!]
It’s saying Kehma rather than Euma right now, so I guess we’re talking with wolf speech?
Thinking about it too hard’s troublesome. Either way’s fine I guess?
[Shit, I didn’t, want to, but, no choice… —Oh dark hole that devours creation—]
“Oi hold up, I get it! I’ll stop, so cut it out with that crackling!”
Rin started chanting and black lightning started to crackle around it, so I signaled to Meat in a panic to stop the salt horses. Seeing this, Rin stopped the incantation. How should I put it… ‘dark hole that devours creation’… a black hole? That magic is a thing? Dangerous stuff.
[Hmph, if you did that, from the start, it would be, good.]
“Haah… oi, Rin. Leave the dungeon if you won’t become my follower… is what I’d like to say, but I’ll leave you alone if you stay in the room.”
[Mm? Self important, huh, Kehma?]
“It was my win this time after all.”
[… Well, it’s alright.]
Rin looked dead tired.
“Well, I’ll feed you five golems a day, so don’t let intruders make it past that door, boss.”
[Un, while I’m here, I’ll defend. Leave it, to me.]
“Don’t bring anyone saying they’ll be your follower farther in either yeah? I’ll feed you salt horses if you do.”
“… Got it, alright.”
Rin nodded, appearing to really, really dislike like those salt horses.
Any more than this might backfire, so it should be fine as is? It might forget if I have it agree to too many things.
Besides, Rin gives a baseline of 950 DP a day, double that because it’s shut in a closed room. It’s a delicious existence just by it being here. It comes with risks like just now too, though.
In truth, given its distinguished service of repelling the saintess up until earlier, I’ll forgive it this time.
… I-it’s not like I forgave it because I can’t defeat it or anything.
“… Come to think of it, how long are you going to be staying?”
[Hmm? Right… At latest, when it’s spring, I’ll go. Kehma, will you come, too?]
“No. I don’t want to leave.”
[That so? I think, without Kehma, I’ll be troubled, for food, though.]
Can’t you eat anything?
I mean, you can eat golems, so can’t you just eat dirt?
Footnotes:
The word for ‘test’ here is immensely similar to ‘crammed in’. Possible word play by author, but might be coincidence.