So, I decided to accompany Seline and Emma to the capital, it wasn’t a hard decision, but I’m still anxious about moving. A whole new city awaits me! Seline said we’d have to travel by carriage for about 4 days, which is quite long. I’m lucky I can’t get a sore butt though…
Lunach is one of the biggest cities in the empire, so it isn’t far from the capital itself. Seline also told me a bit more about the capital and the country I reincarnated into, the capital city’s name is Vedunia, it’s about 2 to 2.5 times larger than Lunach and is built up into sections for beggars, commoners, high or low nobles, and finally royalty.
The country itself is called the Sytran Empire. It’s a longstanding and large empire in the middle of the continent. I can’t gauge size much just from her description, but if I had to guess I’d say it’s about as big as France, considering we take such a long time to get somewhere by carriage.
She also told me that there are a large number of churches in the capital, which made me realize that I’d probably met their god just a few hours ago. I asked Seline a bit more about religion and she told me that Yeshuism is the only religion prominent in Sytran.
The religion is quite logical in what it teaches, its teachings boil down to the fact that all intelligent humanoids with a class system are good and wild monsters without one are bad and need to be defended against. Probably fair that they’d look at monsters in a bad light, considering that they have to fight them to protect their cities.
Although it seems that some sects of it in seedier parts of the country disallow humanoids with part-monster appearances like demi-humans, Seline said that she doesn’t know anyone who is part of them. Honestly, I wouldn’t want to know anyone who’s part of them either…
After our discussion I prepare everything at home, putting everything I own in my small enchanted belt bag, which wasn’t much, to begin with. The next morning Seline, Emma, and I catch a carriage to the capital. When we get on, I get a few stares from the people already boarded as always.
There are 2 families with children on this carriage and a single soldier for protection duty. So with us, there are 12 people in total on the carriage. The carriage itself isn’t quite what you’d call “luxurious”, there are no windows and a simple tarp is hung over the entire carriage. There isn’t much more space to do anything but sit. Oh, thank you Atera for not making me feel this awful ride!
Emma and Seline begin making idle conversation with the two families that are on board, while I’m camped across from the guard on duty. I relent and finally ask, “Hey, what’s your name?” The guard shoots up in shock, looking for the person who asked him, when he sees me, he finally realizes that I asked him something, “O-Oh, you can talk! I didn’t know golems could talk!”
“They normally don’t, I’m a bit special. So, what’s your name?” I restate my question. “Oh, my name’s Martin. You?” “My name’s Andy, I was made by Seline over there.” I point over to Seline, who turns over to me and greets Martin with a small bow, only to turn back to her conversation.
I still need to level up some more so I say to Martin, “If we happen upon any monsters out there, do you mind if I kill them?” Martin looks at me a bit perplexed, then nods at me happily, “Sure, less work for me. It’s your job anyway, isn’t it?” “Yeah, to a point.” I get back to sitting back relaxingly.
But before long one of the children from the families hops over to me and asks me, “Umm, Mister Golem, are you strong?” I lightly pat the kid on the head and say confidently, “Probably stronger than almost anyone on this cart. I’ve never fought Seline though.” Seline looks back at me with a scoff, “You could probably destroy me in a second, while I’m a court mage, I’m a researcher first and mage second.”
As I pick the kid up onto my lap I say, “Good to know, I’ll keep everyone on this carriage safe.” With the little girl sitting on my lap, I fall into conversation with the two families, it seems they are going to the capital for some sort of event that’s happening around this year.
We keep talking, but the carriage suddenly comes to a halt. The driver pokes his head back into our compartment and yells at Martin to get out and defeat the monsters on the street. “Don’t worry, I’ll take care of them.” I hop out and rush in front of the carriage and see 15 goblins slowly surrounding the carriage.
This is the perfect time to test how to properly gauge how much energy to put into my [Skills]! I think about the [Power Punch] again, but this time I also think about only putting 3% of my battery’s power into it. Energy coalesces around my fist, but this time it’s only a dim light, nothing like the wreathing strings of energy that took up my entire arm last time.
One of the goblins charges up to me with a miniature spear in hand, his spear brushes against my metal leg and simply does nothing. I step up and punch him straight in his face with my full power. I expect his head to fly back into the group of goblins, but instead, it explodes into a mass of gore the second I make contact with it.
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Holy crap, it looks like someone shot a watermelon with a 12-gauge shotgun! The goblins behind the poor first victim are covered in a variety of blood, flesh, and gore, they look far less confident in their attack now. I sit back a bit and wait to see if I’ll pass out this time around, but nothing happens.
If 3% does that kind of damage, what the hell would my 100% hit from my Rank Evaluation have done to that goblin?! I continue attacking the goblins and get one into my [Crushing Grip], I hold him by his mouth, but when I press my hand together, the goblins head begins to warp between my fingers like a stress ball until it can’t hold the stress anymore and pops like a water balloon of horror.
You have defeated 15 Goblins: 105 XP received
You have reached Level 9, 1 Point awarded
You have reached Level 10, 1 Point awarded
When I’m done with all the goblins, I realize I’ve finally reached Level 10. I wipe myself clean from all the gore and try and get into the carriage, when I get back to the rear of it, I see everyone except Emma looking at me in shock.
Did I do something wrong again? I look at Seline and she murmurs back at me as I climb up, “I didn’t think you’d be so strong you could vaporize a goblin’s entire head. What the hell are you made of?!” Oh, so everyone’s just a tiny bit terrified of me, I kind of get it.
The carriage continues until the sun begins to set, and they stop at a resting place. When Seline gets off of the carriage, she urges me to come with her for a second, “Can I clean you off a bit? I feel like I can still smell some goblin on you.” “Oh, sure. What are you going to-“ just before I finish my sentence a giant downpour of water rains down on top of me.
I look at Seline and she has her staff out, “What the hell?! I thought you said you were a mage secondly!” Seline grins and simply says, “And I’m one of the greatest researchers in Nori, aren’t I? Now you can go into Nightwatch squeaky clean.” Damn, I got played with again!
So the evening goes by, I entertain the children from time to time, and talk with the couples or Martin, it seems that after my goblin murdering spree I’m more intimidating to the people who rode the carriage than friendly, but I’ll simply try and keep being friendly. Martin and I decided that he will take the Nightwatch with me, and so slowly everyone goes to sleep as Martin and I keep watch.
As the night goes on, Martin and I sit by the fire. Nothing out of the ordinary can be heard, but I still feel that something is off. It feels like there are too few monsters out and about. Normally I’d be hearing small critters sneaking their way around the forest and birds flying around, but this night I don’t hear anything.
“Stay here and scream if anything happens Martin, I feel like something is off. I’ll go investigate in the forest.” I tell Martin and stand up. He looks at me a bit confused, “What’s supposed to be wrong? I don’t feel anything.” I wave my hand dismissively at him, “Ah, don’t worry. Just scream for me if anything big happens here.”
I walk into the forest and look around for anything out of the ordinary. As I’m walking around, the forest sounds I know continue, but they’re too calculated. Like someone is moving around me with purpose. As I’m looking around again, I hear a light tink! reverberate off of my body, when looking where it came from, I don’t find anything except a tiny crude arrow lying on the floor.
Someone is trying to take me down sneakily, I see… I listen very closely, not even moving. Suddenly I hear something knock against some wood to my right. I immediately spring to where the sound came from and punch one of the trees with half my power.
The entire tree shakes and wobbles, then something small, cute, and hairy drops out of it. I pick it up by the scruff, it’s only about as big as a large cat. When I turn it around to have it face me, I see it, its head looks just that of a baby wolf, but it’s standing on two legs and has some crude scraps of cloth wrapped around it. Oh my god, this thing is so adorable I don’t even want to smash its face in!
It fights against my grip on its scruff while giving off small cries of “Yap! Yap!” in discontent, but I’m not letting go. Maybe I can try talking to it? I pet it a few times on the head and try and tell it, “I’m sorry for knocking you out of your tree big guy, but could you not attack me anymore? I don’t wanna have to kill all of you.” In response, the little thing just starts growling at me! Ungrateful!
I put it down on the ground and it jumps up and down while pumping its fists in the air and yelling at me in anger, it tries biting into my ankle only to concede when it realizes how hard my body is, simply returning to yelling at me.
Looking up near the tree I just hit and I realize they are all standing above me with cute tiny bows drawn. I draw back my fists and hit the 2 trees closest to me and more of the tiny critters fall out onto the ground, yapping at me with their fists up in the air. Honestly, it’s kind of endearing how mad these little dudes are.
I decided that these little guys aren’t much of a threat and simply let them go, returning to the carriage. The closer I get tough the more sounds I hear, a bit panicked I sprint to the spot where we parked the carriage. Only to find Martin struggling against a giant Wolfman in leather armor.
“Andy! Help me out here!” Matin presses his sword against the Wolfman’s sword but is slowly losing out and beginning to bend backward in defense. I go up to the Wolfman and punch him in the back of the head.
When he falls, I see the carnage going on, the two families are sitting in the back of the carriage terrified, while Emma and Seline are fighting more Wolfmen on the other side of the carriage. I look at the notification I just got.
You have defeated Kobold Warrior: 15 XP received
Martin looks at me, “We gotta get rid of all these Kobolds, please get those over there!” Oh god, this was all orchestrated, wasn’t it?!