Nervon charged at the Tar Golem and hit it with his shield, pushing it back.
The next moment, several explosive arrows hit the Tar Golem, destroying several of its tentacles.
When the others saw that Nervon and Lancel had arrived, they sighed in relief.
Samson had been the Shouter in Nervon’s place, but he was nowhere near as good at it as Nervon.
Kyle followed after Nervon.
He charged in with all of his power and swung his hammer.
BOOOM!
The Tar Golem rolled to the side, but since it was round, that barely did anything.
“Don’t mess up the formation!” Nervon shouted aggressively. “Only move it back and forth, not side to side! Otherwise, Lancel’s arrows will miss!”
“Sorry,” Kyle said as he jumped back.
Samson looked at Kyle with furrowed brows.
He didn’t think Kyle was ready yet.
This was a bit much for him.
“Just use the injector,” Theodor said with annoyance. “Inject it with a bit of Ether, and it will collapse.”
Kyle jumped back.
“I can’t show them the injector,” he whispered.
Kyle felt like Theodor rolled his eyes.
“Then, just throw some inorganic Ether at it,” he commented.
Kyle stopped his charge.
Inorganic Ether?
He remembered that he still had some Basic Magic Stone in his pocket.
He kept that for when he needed a little pick-me-up.
“Does that work?” Kyle asked.
“Yes,” Theodor answered with annoyance.
Kyle narrowed his eyes.
Then, he threw the small blue stone at the Tar Golem.
When the others saw the blue stone, their eyes widened in horror.
“What are you doing?!” Samson shouted aggressively.
Many golems grew more powerful by consuming ore!
The blue stone hit the black surface of the golem, and an instant later, it was sucked inside.
The others all jumped back.
They weren’t sure what would happen now.
The Tar Golem started to vibrate.
“It’s trying to form its Core,” Theodor commented calmly. “It does not have a Golem Core, but a golem needs a Core.”
“Despite its horrible construction, it is still made with the basics of Golemancy.”
The golem started to vibrate even more.
“Its instinctual and chaotic existence is searching for order and logic,” Theodor said. “It has received a material that can give it the power of order and logic.”
Waves appeared all over the golem.
“But it doesn’t have the necessary formations to create that logic.”
“All its Ether gathers in its center, trying to create a Core.”
“But it doesn’t have the means to create it.”
“Move back!” Samson shouted as he saw the golem vibrating more violently.
Everyone jumped away.
“The Ether tries harder and harder to form a Core,” Theodor commented. “It condenses more and more until…”
BOOOM!
The golem exploded, and the black sludge flew everywhere, covering the surrounding five meters.
“It loses control over its Ether, and it disperses,” Theodor finished.
“What trash,” he added. “A golem that can be destroyed by throwing a stone at it is not a golem.”
Everyone looked with shock at the sludge.
Usually, when the Tar Golem was broken into pieces, the pieces still tried to gather.
They still had some form of instinctive intelligence.
But now, the sludge was just there.
It was… dead.
Then, everyone turned to Kyle.
“What did you do?” Samson asked in shock and confusion.
“Well…” Kyle said, trailing off.
That was when Theodor fed more lines to him.
“I saw that it only eats trees and wildlife,” Kyle explained. “It’s kind of like an animal in a way, right?”
“So, then I thought, what if it ate a stone? If an animal eats a stone, that would be bad.”
“But it couldn’t just be any kind of stone. I mean, the thing feeds on Ether, right? So, what if we give it some stone Ether or something?”
Samson furrowed his brows. “But the animal wouldn’t eat a stone.”
Kyle just shrugged. “I dunno. I just threw the stone, and it worked. I didn’t really think too much about it.”
The others all looked at Kyle before turning to the lifeless sludge.
Kyle’s argument made some sense, but it still felt weird.
It was so… simple.
That was almost like how a monkey would think.
Enemy?
Throw stone!
Eat banana!
And yet, this simple solution worked wonders.
Kyle just threw a stone at the golem, and that completely decimated it.
“Don’t do that again,” Samson said. “You didn’t know what would happen. We are lucky that your guess turned out to be correct, but we can’t be sure that will happen the next time.”
“By blindly following your instincts, you put us in danger. We had the situation under control, and we would have managed to destroy the golem.”
“When you are part of a team, you must follow orders.”
Kyle nodded. “Yes, I’m sorry. I’m not going to do that again.”
Samson nodded back before turning to the sludge.
“Besides that, good job. You essentially killed the Tar Golem all on your own. That’s also worth something,” he said with a slight grin.
Samson turned to Tarren. “I guess we need to expand our kit with some basic ore.”
Tarren wordlessly nodded.
“What kind of stone did you throw?” Samson asked.
Kyle shrugged. “I dunno. I found it in that weird stronghold or whatever. It was light blue and easily turns into powder.”
“Sounds like Basic Mage Stone,” Samson said. “That’s relatively cheap. It’s still going to hurt the wallet, but a Tar Golem hurts the wallet more.”
“Samson,” Lancel said from the side, lifting a bit of the sludge. “The grass below the sludge is not dying.”
“Why would it?” Theodor commented with a snort in Kyle’s mind. “Its instincts are gone. The sludge will just disperse its remaining Ether slowly before turning into dirt.”
Samson walked over and looked at it.
“Should we leave it be?” Lancel asked.
“I don’t want to take any chances,” Samson answered. “Let’s burn it.”
“Sure thing.”
Everyone gathered some of the sludge and piled it up so that Fennek could burn it.
After some minutes, everyone just watched the pile burn.
“Hey, Boss,” Kyle whispered. “Can you find out who made that Tar Golem?”
“There’s no style in the golem,” Theodor answered. “There are countless dropouts. I can’t say who made this based on its composition. I only know that the Tinkerer who made this is atrocious at making golems.”
“But there are ways we can use to find them.”