The golems charged. Steam expelled from vents which closed perfectly. No seem and no trace that it had been a vent moments ago. It wouldn’t have been impressive if it was magic but it wasn’t.
“Azu! Stop admiring those things and evade!”
I snapped out of it, unfolded my fan and blocked the punch. Steam vented out of the arm and the force gradually increased.
“Mishelly! Blocking these things is a bad idea!” I dove to the side, letting the fi punch fly past me.
A loud bang and a shockwave sent me rolling over the hot rocky floor.
“I know! That’s why I told you to evade!”
The golem tried to pull it’s fist out of the ground. This is my chance!
I picked up my fan, ran at the golem and used a [Meteor Slap].
Fire burst out and something relatively light flew away.
“Thse things are big but light...what type of metal is light, strong and can take this heat...”
The golem had already left my field of vision. [Meteor Slap] is strong but it shouldn’t send a metallic golem flying like this.
Mishelly’s kicks seemed to have the same effect.
Making golems heavy was never taught in Golemancy. The assumption was that they would be heavy. Is this why? How could people smart enough to make these things miss this obvios flaw? They were way faster than conventional golems.
I would have had issues with this speed if I never visited this continent. The beasts and fairies are way faster than anything I ever had to fight on Kaledon. Besides that stupid light goddess.
I hopped on my fan and flew out of range of the strange golems. Firestreams and fireballs hit the bottom of my fan, dealing no damage.
My fan wobbled ans my flight got canceled.
“Ugh, an anti-flight zone? Really?”
A golem was right below me so might as well use this momentum. The fan flew back to my hand and mana gathered into it for another [Meteor Slap].
The rock beneath it cracked but the golem was unscathed.
“Mishelly, help! I think I made a mistake!”
A metal fist approached me. Something hot and hard collided with me and the word tumbled around me, followed by another impact that stopped the world from tumbling. It didn’t hurt as much because of my [Azure Aura] but it was still unpleasant.
I grasped for my fan as the golem rushed to me.
“Here take a one-way ticket to a land far, far away!”
Fire erupted from my folded fan as the [Meteor Slap] sent it flying.
I wiped the sweat off my forehead as the red glowing dot disappeared into the night.
The only method of defeating them seemed to be sending them flying and turning them into someone else’s problem.
“It doesn’t feel good to defeat them like this but we can’t investigate with these things around.” Mishelly said as she tried to stomp out the fire that was consuming her footwear.
I extracted the heat from the fire, putting out the flames and saving her footwear.
“Thank you.” She turned around for a kick but her leg stopped in midair in front of a floating shape.
“What’s the deal with these things? Don’t they normally flee? Is this one stupid?”
She gave it soft kicks and it just floated there.
This shape also had strange writings on it. It wasn’t a threat or moving so I could take a closer look at it.
It was made out of the same material as the golems but it was col to the touch. It sounded hollow but there were no seams or indications that it was possible to access the inside.
“Maybe, these things are defective or trash from that spire.” Mishelly kicked it toward the spire and it made a strange sound as it crashed into the wall.
Strange patterns rippled out from the impacted area.
“Ooh, maybe it’s like that dungeon!”
The memory of that strange dungeon flashed through my mind. Puzzles were required to solve it; this may be similar.
The shape had been launched into a hollowed-out section of the spire and seemed stuck. It seemed like a puzzle to fill the hollowed-out section with shapes.
“Mishelly, this is a puzzle. We need to use these floating shapes to fill this space.”
“So that floating junk has a purpose? Time to hunt them down!”
Mishelly ran off and all the shapes fled. “Come here, cowards!”
I just observed and no matter how fast Mishelly hopped or ran she couldn’t catch the shapes. There must be a trick to it. Even those ugly fairies managed to catch some.
“Cowards!”
Mishelly’s yelling attracted some fairies which got kicked aside as she kept chasing a particular shape. She seemed to have a grudge against it but I couldn’t work out why.
The shapes showed inconsistent behavior. Some fled. Some approached and only fled when Mishelly looked at her. Others only fled when she approached them. They all fled but had different conditions which caused them to flee.
Not much mana was coming off them so I wondered how these things were made. Their behavior seemed complex enough to suggest that relatively complicated mana circles were involved. Some shapes were taunting Mishelly. Others set traps.
There were countless times she almost fell into a lava pit. How mysterious. One thing was for sure. These shapes were making a fool out of Mishelly. It lined up with the puzzles in the dungeon that trapped that loser Zarrazax. The most simple puzzle gets turned into a pain in the ass by these ancients.
This novel's true home is a different platform. Support the author by finding it there.
Mishelly could never catch a floating shape as the floating shapes adapted the same velocity as her and then staying a fixed distance from her.
“Hey Mishelly! Maybe the goal isn’t to catch them but to drive them into the right spot. Let me try! I have experience driving alpaca’s around!”
“But these things aren’t alpacas...”
“True...they don’t eat cake...”
I circled around a shape and walked toward it, causing it to flee toward the puzzle area. Suddenly it flew off into a different direction as if it got repelled.
“Aaagh! So annoying!” I vented as I didn’t expect that failure. Did I make a mistake?
“I know right?!”
Mishelly displayed a near-infinite amount of energy as she continued to chase down the shapes as I went back to observation.
I egged her on to try different techniques but the shapes never failed to escape from her.
An important piece of information was missing. Only one piece had been kicked into the puzzle area. What were the conditions we met to get that there?
We were in combat, that’s for sure. Maybe the golems are a piece of the puzzle. Did we launch pieces of the puzzle away? That would suck...
Mishelly continued chasing the shapes while I circled around the spire to find more golems. The spire had multiple areas to complete the puzzle to my horror.
“Where are all the golems?”
I found 2 patrolling at the edge of the spire’s territory and I lured them to Mishelly. Flying was possible but only on low altitudes.
The golems were in hot pursuit while shooting fire streams. Mishelly had become hot headed and was insulting the ancestry of the shapes. The shapes ignored her fiery temperament and continued the game of tag.
“Mishelly! Use these to vent! Try to launch them into the spire!”
The agility of Mishelly was admirable, she made it to me in no time and kicked a golem into the spire. A nearby shape got drawn to us the moment the golem got kicked away.
The shape hovered and I had an easy time catching them.
“Mishelly, I think these golems have a mechanic that allows us to catch these shapes.”
The shape was light and cooperative. I carried it to the puzzle area but a golem was blocking it.
Would letting go of this shape be wise? What if it escapes? It’s not heavy but it’s too big to carry with one hand.
Mishelly hopped by and kicked the golem away and another shape got pulled toward us which she caught. “Ah, I see. Launching these golems into the distance might have been a mistake.”
“It certainly is, this isn’t the only puzzle area on the spire. We might need to fill all of them to get inside...”
Not all shapes were created equal. This puzzle required us to fill a cuboid hole with three-dimensional shapes. But some shapes were too big as no matter what orientation they were placed into the puzzle area, they stuck out.
Mishelly scouted the other puzzle areas and each hole had different depths, suggesting that the shapes had to be sorted by what depth of hole they could fit in.
“Aaagh! This puzzle is so frustrating!” Mishelly grabbed her hair and thrashed around after we’d been at it for hours.
“The ancients sure loved their obnoxious puzzles,” I said as I completed a puzzle area.
We had only completed 2 out of 8 and we were mentally exhausted.
“Do we return to the burrow? This will take forever and we ran out of golems...”
Mishelly slumped against a large rock and sat down. There was no trace of her usual energy.
“We might need some more rabbit power. Lets rest out of the spire’s territory and get some aid.
Light appeared in the distance as the sun was about to greet us. Neither of us was happy to see the sun though. It indicated how much time we had wasted.
Cool air met us as we entered the jugle.
No that’s false, it wasn’t cool air, it was cooler air. We had spent hours in the heat and were exhausted and dehydrated.
My dimensional pocket opened and flask filled with water appeared. It became only clear how thirsty I was the moment the first drop touched my lips.
Mishelly was greedily pouring the water down her throat just like I did.
Water spilled over us but it just helped us cool down. One flask wasn’t enough. We gulped down the water from another flask. The 3rd one was just for refreshment and to cool off.
“That felt great. Not quite a shower but refreshing nonetheless.”
Mishelly’s ears twitched and she sent out a wave of nature energy. “Oh, help has arrived!”
“Huh? How?”
“We always check on our scouts. We didn’t let anything hear of us nor did we return so they sent a group to find us.”
6 rabbits appeared out of nowhere.
“Thank goodness, you’re all right.”
“We had some issues.” Mishelly pointed at the spire and explained what we had been up to.
The rabbits nodded and went in and started kicking the remaining golems as if it were a game and collecting shapes to solve the puzzle.
“They will solve it for us. We will rest and take one of them inside while the rest will return and report to the burrow. The rabbit that joins us is adept at puzzles and problem-solving.”
She pointed at a rabbit who was directing the other rabbits and herded specific shapes to certain parts around the spire.
“Mishelly, all of you look like your mid or early 20’s why does he look like he’s in his 40’s?”
“Oh, Benjamin? He is probably the oldest rabbit on the continent. He is well over 7000 years old.”
“Wait what?! So he remembers events from before the Great Eraser...err Great Blank?”
Mishelly shook her head. “He did carry wisdom over. We don’t always understand what he means but my mom’s burrow is kept together by her and Benji. He thinks that the Great Blank as made him look older.”
“Aww, you call him Benji, is he your father?”
“No, he’s, my grandfather. He’s my mom’s father.”
“Oh, awkward...”
The puzzle was cleared in under an hour. It was silly but it hurt my pride that it took us so long to finish 2 puzzles and they solved 6 in under an hour.
The spire rumbled and the rabbits approached us.
A clear and deep voice caught our attention.
“The spire has opened. The entrance is on the other side. We will enter once you 2 have rested properly.”
Benji gave the other scouts some instructions before they let.
“You must be Azu, we may not have met. I am Benjamin but everyone calls me Benji.”
He extended his hand for a handshake.
I shook his hand and nature energy flowed into me.
“Hmm, 42 minutes. How about you Mishelly?”
“I’m fine!” Mishelly tried to escape but he grabbed her by her ears.
“Come give your grandfather a hug!”
“Noo! That’s embarrassing!”
“51 minutes. Let’s rest for an hour and then enter.”
Benji caused various plants to grow and picked their fruits which he handed to us.
“This ancient technology is unlike any other ancient buildings and artifacts found on this continent. It surprised me after looking at it up close.” Benji looked up at the fire spire.
“May I ask to hear your wisdom concerning this ancient technology?”
“Hahaha, no need to be so formal! I’m just a young rabbit in an old body!”
“You’re the only one who thinks you’re young grandpa! Everyone knows that you’re ancient”
“Oho? I think I had a giant purple carrot for you somewhere.”
Benji sprinkled seeds on the ground and had nature energy seeped into the ground. The top of a carrot grew out of the ground.
“Wait! Not the purple carrots! I’m sorry! I will behave!”
“Good! About your question. There is not much to say as nobody can enter the buildings haha! Most buildings need knowledge of an extinct language to enter. These spires seem different as solving puzzles is all that’s needed.”
“Obnoxious puzzles! Azu and I wasted too much time on them!” Mishelly pulled the purple carrot out of the ground and started stress eating.
“As far as I know, ancient technology is indestructible. They must hold immense trearures as the only artifacts we have managed to figure out were magic weapons.”
Benji twirled a peculiar dagger and returned it to a holster.
“Do...do you know the origins of magic weapons?” I pulled out my mairpin and handed it over to him.
“What is this? What an intricate magic weapon. I just know that they were made to fight of extreme threats. What those were or how they were made, I don’t know. I had this dagger from before the Great Blank so I might have been involved in it somehow but I don’t remember, sorry.”
He returned my hairpin.
“What do you know about witches? Or Misha as we call ourselves?”
“Not much, sorry. Most I know is from wat other rabbits told me about you. I’m sorry that I can’t be much of a help. Only memories deeply related to names have stuck with me.”
Names made it through the Great Blank? That’s the first time I heard about that, although it makes sense else he would have forgotten his name.
“May I know the name of that dagger? Maybe it will pop up somewhere. I’m quite interested in ancient magic weapons as they might be related to my race.”
“This dagger is incomplete...look here. The dagger apparently was part of a set. I don’t know where the other half is. This one here is named Zsuyu and the missing dagger is Nrana. I don’t know what those names mean, unfortunately”
None of those names sounded familiar.
“Mishelly, have you learned [Four Leaf Clover] yet?”
“Ugh, that skill is ancient grandpa! Nobody in our burrow can learn your stupidly difficult skills!”
“Ancient skills? Oh! Can i look? I studied magic! Can I see?!” I was brimming with excitement. The skill sounded something only the rabbits could use but I was still excited.
“Look, a Misha seems to be more excited for a skill that only we can use!”
Mishelly ignored him and he turned to me.
“Well then. Here you go.”
Benji showed me the magic circle and frankly, it shocked me.