Glenn heaved while wiping the sweat off his forehead. In a rare occurrence, he wasn't wearing the upper part of his clothes, leaving his chest entirely revealed. Some would have probably considered this indecent if it wasn't for the fact that the convoy was staying in what could be probably associated with a fucking cooking pot of hell. The sun was shining brightly in the blue sky above, melting its light the Maron's Company staying in the quarry. The white marble absorbing and reflecting the heat certainly wasn't helping, and the few places covered by the shade were practically being hunted for.
The young man leaned on a carved-out block of marble as he took out a leather bladder filled with water from his pouch. He took a few sips from it, before hesitating to pour it on his head. He winced and forced himself to push the bladder back into his dimensional pouch, resisting the temptation of wasting water.
"What a shitty idea...I swear, we get what we need and we fuck out of here..." Glenn spat, crossing his arms as he looked at the current state of the operations. After a surprisingly uneventful night, the convoy had begun the operation of excavating as much Blumar as possible. The difficulty was that the precious material could be hidden anywhere in the common white marble, hence making it quite hard to find. The best solution was to carve block after block, hoping to discover veins or anything that could be sold. Technically, the marble itself was already a precious building material, but the convoy wasn't equipped to carry large enough quantities of stone for it to be profitable. It was just much more efficient to concentrate the workers' efforts on finding the precious material. Quality before quantity.
As for the stone golems or the fuckers who attacked the convoy previously, the young man had yet to find any hints of their existence, to his dismay.
"Hah, now you're hoping to get attacked? When did you become so battle-crazed?" Diamanes exclaimed mockingly aloud, the grinning mouth flashing a smile from within Glenn's left palm. The latter shrugged, jumping on top of one of the carved-out marble blocks.
"Well, anything is better than slowly cooking in this place," he grumbled, rubbing the back of his head. Glenn looked at the camp and the zone where the workers were excavating marble, pondering. They were currently staying right next to the ramp they used to come down in the quarry, but there was still a huge zone that wasn't being exploited a bit further in the quarry. If he had to guess, be it the monsters, the necromancers, or even the fucking Blumar, all of it was in the deeper part of the quarry.
"...I swear that next time I'm reading every single line in this damned contract," He mumbled, before sighing. His current priority didn't change, it was still to get to the Bourgeoisie. But with the crushing debt, Maron had forced on both Sahro and him, as well as Josh and Javier, there was no way to get there without doing the odd jobs the merchant wanted them to do. The only thing Glenn could do was work as hard as he could to rapidly pay his debt and hope he wouldn't need to kill the merchant if the latter didn't want to let them go eventually. Even if the matter of Giselle's grandson didn't have a time limit, Glenn would rather take care of it as soon as possible.
"That's just an excuse you're giving yourself so that you can go and torture the fuck out of the Baron," Diamanes sneered, smacking his lips. Glenn's eyebrows twitched, but he didn't reply. He shook his head, before jumping down and joining Sahro standing guard. The Black Heir was wearing his desert clothes, every single part of his skin covered by the fabric but his green eyes. He seemed quite comfortable staying in the crushing heat.
"Glenn," Sahro nodded at his friend. Glenn nodded back, before pointing at the deeper parts of the quarry.
"I'm going to take a look there to try and find the stone golems Lefeivre told us about, or any traces of the bastards who attacked us," He quickly explained, before glancing at Javier standing guard from the shade of a carved marble block, his bow strung on his shoulder.
"...I'll be going alone," He said at the Pale Son's intention, Javier not giving much of a reaction. Sahro yawned, before waving dismissively.
"Sure, sure, go have fun without me. I'll tell the convoy to leave if you're not back before the night, so hurry the fuck up," The Black Heir grinned. Glenn chuckled, before heading for the quarry's deeper parts.
'I need to be especially careful about the ground and footprints in the dust. Heh, maybe I should have asked Javier to come with me, but it's safer to leave him with Sahro at the camp. It would be too bad if I just came back to find everyone dead and trying to eat me,' He thought ironically, turning one corner after the other. A stone rolled close to his position and he stopped still, Mana flashing around his right hand as a magic blade appeared in it. His breathing calmed as he turned his head, trying to find the source of the noise. Another stone rolled to his feet, a small piece of marble. Glenn slowly looked up, finding a red crystal shining dimly under the dust of one of the marble walls.
"Shit."
The wall exploded as a giant golem dislodged himself from it, a cloud of dust rising with its movements. The creature was the size of a house, and shaped with humanoid limbs, two arms, two legs, a waist, and a chest, as well as a bright red crystal shining on a thick head. Glenn jumped back, summoning a Magic Wall to block all of the rubble. The red crystal shone brightly before the golem punched down at Glenn, his giant car-sized fist piercing through the air. Glenn calmly sent a gust of Mana under his feet, sending his body flying upward above the stone fist. The ground crackled when the fist made contact with it, and a shockwave moved through the air, disturbing the young man's flight. Instead of landing on one of the nearby carved-out marble blocks, he found himself right on top of the golem's head.
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"Well, that works too!" The blade in his right hand morphed into a thick sledgehammer shining with a bright mystical blue light. Glenn drew a deep breath and slammed down with his hammer on the golem's head, carving it inward. The golem tried to defend himself by slapping himself on the head, but his slow movements were too noticeable and Glenn jumped down quite easily. The young man winced and summoned a magic platform under his feet, letting him stay at the same level as the bright red crystal. He grinned, and the sledgehammer disappeared, replaced by a familiar, spinning projectile.
"Never has one of my spells been so appropriate!" Glenn exclaimed as he lunged forward with the Arcane Auger, the spinning drill digging into the crystal and making it burst into shards of red light. The golem crumbled down without a scream of pain, the marble making up its body rolling down.
"It's kind of logical it didn't scream, it's just a moving stone. Where the hell would he get vocal chords?" Diamanes mocked, laughing in Glenn's mind. The young man landed on the ground, dismissing his Mana.
"Well, that was easy," Glenn dusted his hands off, mentally checking his Mana reserve. It was ninety percent full and was already well on its way back to full. The young man walked around the remains of the golem, knocking a few broken stones over. He rubbed his chin thoughtfully.
"...A little too easy. You just need to break the red crystal and they come crumbling down, so how could they get overwhelmed by these golems?" He muttered aloud, picking up one of the stones and wincing in surprise at its weight.
"Damn. This isn't a normal stone either, I get why they would struggle to break the legs to make the things fall. But why wouldn't they just break the crystal with a mage or maybe an archer? I'm pretty sure both Javier and Josh could easily deal with these golems..." Glenn sighed, before scratching the back of his head. He made the extreme piece of golem slip into his dimensional pouch and turned around to continue on his way. A pebble landed on his shoulder, making him stop once again. Glenn picked up the pebble, trying his best not to look flustered. A slightly bigger rock fell near him until the familiar rumble of a golem dislodging itself from the marble wall echoed around him. The young man turned his head to see not one, nor two, but three bright red crystals shining through the cloud of dust that had risen.
The corner of his lips curved upward as Mana twirled around his right hand again.
"...Heh, I suppose I'll be able to test a few more things, then."
The three crystals shone brighter as their holders dashed through the dust cloud, charging straight toward Glenn. The young man quickly decided to repeat his previous tactics, which was to jump over the creature and blast their crystals away. He flew through the air as Mana burst out under his feet, ready to shoot a few Arcana Auger at the golems when a stone fist pierced through the dust clouds and crashed against him.
"Wha–"
Blam!
The marble wall crumbled behind Glenn as he coughed out blood, his left arm bent unnaturally. He had managed to somehow block it with a Mana Wall and his arm, but he still received quite a hefty amount of damage.
"Aouch, not nice!" Diamanes complained as Glenn gasped for air. Sadly for him, the young man couldn't gather his strength as much as he would have wanted before another giant stone fist tried to crush him like a bug. Glenn hurriedly jumped down from the wall, rolling on the ground and dashing while holding his broken arm.
"...Shit! I thought these things were supposed to be slow!" Glenn gritted his teeth and held out his right hand, shooting an Implosion in the red crystals' direction. The explosion blew all of the dust away in a bright white flash, revealing a single, gigantic golem.
"...What?" Glenn gulped, as the massive golem seemed to recover from the knockback of the Implosion.
It was barely scratched. The golem was gigantic, much bigger than the one Glenn took down earlier, and its body was a mix of white marble and a dark material that seemed to absorb light itself. It had a very dark blue color to it, like the depths of the ocean.
"If I had to guess, that stuff is probably Blumar," Diamanes commented. But Glenn barely registered him, as he was too concentrated on the head of the golem, the three red crystals fused in the same skull in a strange stone patchwork. Glenn didn't have more time to observe his adversary as the golem ripped off a chunk of marble from the walls and threw it at him. The young man protected himself with another Mana Wall, preparing an Arcane Auger at the same time.
'I can't stay on the defensive!'
The Mana Wall shook but held on nonetheless as the rubbles shattered on it. Glenn dismissed it while preparing a spell when the shadow of a massive foot covered him. The young man's face paled as he hurriedly threw himself to the side, the golem's foot stomping next to him, the ground exploding under its weight. Glenn rolled a few times before rising back to his feet, Mana twirling around him.
'Did it just throw the stone to disturb my sight? This thing is much smarter than its smaller version!' Glenn's face darkened as he charged his legs in Mana. He jumped back hurriedly, quickly landing on top of one of the quarry's marble walls, trying to escape from the creature's assault. The walls shook as the golem punched the walls, trying to catch Glenn. Finally, the young man escaped from his pursuit, hiding above the golem from one of the marble walls. He looked down at the golem who was searching for him, the ground rumbling under the weight of its steps. The golem suddenly stopped and raised his head at Glenn's position. The young man hurriedly hid down, wincing as the pain in his left arm intensified.
He laid down on the marble warmed by the sun, waiting to see what the golem would do. After an excruciatingly long minute, the sound of the heavy steps rumbled once again, and the golem walked away, unharmed. Glenn sighed, peeking down to see the creature lodging himself back in the place it originally was staying in. Its red crystals dimmed and the marble walls moved like water as they completely fused with the golem, hiding it from the uninformed eye.
"...That was intense," Diamanes whistled while Glenn painfully pushed himself from the ground. The young man couldn't help but nod in agreement.
"Phew..." The young man laid back down, breathing heavily. It wasn't often that he was fleeing from threats, but with a broken arm, he didn't have much choice. Still, being forced back like this pained him even more than that broken limb. The young man winced as he shook his head.
"Let's go back to camp for now. At least, I figured something important," Glenn said, looking at his broken left arm. Had Diamanes been able to raise his eyebrows, he probably would have.
"What do you mean?"
Glenn smiled through the pain, and he gestured with his chin at the golem hiding in the wall.
"It's staying in the same place it originally was in, which means that thing is guarding something. I don't know what deserves such protection..." Glenn stopped, his smiling growing wickedly, "...But I want it."