I tuck my head back outside of the little huts curtain door and take a little moment to assess what I just saw. Umm, why is there a woman strung up against one of the walls in there? What did they do to her? Wait, I can guess that…Ugh, disgusting…For now, I guess I’ll save her.

I make my way fully inside the hut and look at the little room, there is a corner with an assortment of loot and various important looking things, like vials and herbs. I pick a small sickle used for gathering herbs from the goblin’s stash and cut the rope at some points, freeing the unconscious woman.

I pick her off the ground and carry her near the campfire, I wonder if I should stay here and try to work together with the woman. Maybe I can plead my case to her and she’ll listen and help me, wait can I even talk? I think about the features of the Motus Intrepid and while it has a built-in speaker, it only had some preprogrammed lines it could say.

I was not very talkative in my previous life, but I’d also hate to never talk again in my life. So I try and say a few words, “Uhh, Test, Test, One-Two-Three…W-What the hell is this voice…” My first time hearing my new voice doesn’t excite me as much as it should, because I sound like a bad Text-to-Speech Program!

How is anyone going to be taken seriously with this kind of stupid voice?! “Goddammit…” While I didn’t particularly like talking, my voice was acceptable. Now I’m going to be forced to talk in this stupid voice AND hate to talk?!

“Oh yeah, the campfire…”, I realize what I’ve been forgetting due to the grieving of my sultry sweet past-life voice. It seems like the goblins were in the progress of setting up a fire for the evening, a simple piece of flint is lying next to the campfire and some bundles of sticks and dried-out weeds are laid out on the campfire. The day was slowly ending, but it wasn’t even dark out yet, should I start the fire? Wait how do you even do this?

I strike the flint onto one of the stones lying next to it together until I start to see a few sparks, I let the sparks fall onto the weeds until I see smoke come off of it. Then I bundle up the weeds around the smoke and stuff them under some of the sticks.

Phew, all right, now I’ll just have to wait for her to wake up and then plead my case. Voice: Check, Body: Check, Face: Ch- wait, is my face turned on right now? How do I even check that, it’s just an LCD, it’s not like I can touch it to check if it works. With the dread of bad first impressions hanging over me I listen to the crackles and pops of the campfire in front of me.

_______Emma’s Side_______

As I awaken, I can feel the radiant heat, a warm blanket on top of myself, and the crackling of a fire. What has happened, have I been rescued? I slowly open my eyes, still reeling with exhaustion I have some problems with the simple task. I make out the tall and slender figure of a human, sitting across from me at the campfire, a wave of relief washes over me, but that relief instantly recedes as my eyes open fully.

“Oh, Thank God, you’re awake! How are you feeling? I was getting worried.”, the thing stands up and tries to approach me. “Eek, w-what are you?! Don’t hurt me!”, I give off a little squeak in fear and try and scurry away from the campfire I’ve been sitting nearby. The thing backs off, seeming to be unsure of how to proceed, “Woah, sorry, I know my looks are weird, but I don’t intend to hurt you, I mean, I saved you from those goblins for a reason.”

Momentarily stopping my escape, I realize the thing had point, It did? Are the goblins dead? The thing seems to understand what I’m thinking about and points to one side in the clearing where 5 goblin corpses lay. “I even managed to punch the head off of one. Oh wait, we should probably introduce ourselves. Maybe that will convince you that I’m not some monster, all right?”

I take a moment to inspect whatever my savior is. He has a dark blue body that seems to be made out of some sort of metal that moves with ease, he has a face, albeit a simple one that looks more like something a child would draw than an actual face, and his voice sounds rough and illogical like he is trying to imitate how humans would talk.

He sits down again and tells me “My name is Andy, I am a ro-uhh, umm, a golem...” I had some limited knowledge about golems, but I knew they had to serve a master since they were created, not born. He looked and acted a lot different from the golems I’ve heard about though.

“M-My name is Emma, I am an F-Rank adventurer for the town of Lunach, I received a request to collect some herbs in the Teip Mana Forest when I was suddenly attacked by goblins. You said you were a golem of some sort, so I presume your master is nearby, can I talk to him?” The golem’s simple face gives off a sadder expression, “U-Unfortunately my master passed away some time ago, I am now simply roaming the lands in search of people to help.”

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Is sit up a bit, my knowledge of golems was shallow but I knew a few pieces of information, “Wait, you said your master passed away some time ago? Aren’t golems supposed to dissipate once their masters command them to or they pass away?”

The golem sits up and fidgets a bit, “U-Uhm, I-I do not know why I didn’t, but I have heard my master mention before that he was a g-genius, s-so it might have something to do with an advanced technique of his…” The golem was glancing around and fidgeting in his seat he looked like he was being interrogated. If golems could sweat, there’d be a puddle under him, I don’t know what has made him so nervous.

His head shot up again, “A-Anyways, w-would you allow me to accompany you for a bit? I-I don’t have any belongings to pay you with, but I could offer you protection!” In a slight panic, he raises himself from his seat and jogs over to a nearby tree, “L-look I can even do this!” He reels back one of his fists and punches one of the trees, there is a big mark where he punched the tree and you can hear the tree slowly crack and succumb to gravity as the golem makes his way back over to me.

With my mouth agape, I stare at Andy. One question immediately shoots into my mind “W-Who was your master?! Felling a tree with a single punch is something that a C-Class Adventurer might be able to do!” I grab his hands and look him in the eyes. “H-his name was…uh…M-Motus! Yeah, Motus!” My shoulders droop in disappointment, “I’ve never heard of a Summoner named Motus…”

“W-Well he was a pretty big hermit…”, he says, moving a bit away from me, “A-Anyway, can I accompany you?” I look at him, a bit confused, “Well, absolutely! You have certainly proven your strength! Just make sure to protect me, I am an amateur when it comes to adventuring.”

_______Andy’s Side_______

“T-Thank you very much! I’ll protect you with my life!” Hoooly crap, she just ate all that up! I was stuttering and making stuff up on the spot and it still worked! What the Fuck! I was amazed by how gullible Emma was, considering she was an adventurer. She did say she was new though…

Since it was getting dark Emma decided to stay the night here, so I will be on watch duty considering I don’t even need to sleep. The goblins took her stuff back into their loot stash, and in the end, she didn’t lose anything. The night is uneventful and I don’t pick up anything that would be out of order, I do take some time to research the videogame aspects of this new world. When morning comes Emma gets up nice and early and we begin to make our way to Lunach. I am a bit perplexed by how much she trusts the notion that I am a golem though.

When we get going, she starts telling me a bit more about herself and why she is working as an adventurer. It seems that she comes from a well-off commoner family who largely ignored her pleas to become an adventurer, so she did so without their consent and fled from her home in rebellion. She also told me she was very lucky that I'd found her, because the goblin's hadn't done anything to her yet, thank God!

Ahh, to be young again and chase after one’s dream… I did so too, but who’d have thought it would’ve gotten me into a fantasy world, in a robot body! Although I would’ve stayed with my family, I understand Emma’s mindset and I hope I can help her reach some of her goals. She seems like someone I can trust!

As we walk through the forest, my protection duty certainly comes into play. We’ve been walking for 2 hours by now and I’ve already caved in the faces of multiple goblins, a wolf-dog hybrid, and to my surprise, some sort of small killer rabbit. I’ve already reached level 3 and gotten a notification to allocate another point!

It seems like I can either allocate the points into individual stats to give them a percentual boost or I can allocate them to [Skills], if I had any! I’ve made one revolutionary discovery last night though, you can buy [Skills] from a [Skill Shop] Menu! There was only one problem with my plan though, there were barely any [Skills] available to buy! When I asked Emma, she said that this is because you need to have a certain proficiency to earn [Skills] for free and a slightly lower one to more easily buy them from the [Shop] for a price.

So if you [Cook] a lot you might get the [Cooking] as a [Skill] over time, but you could also buy it earlier with Points if you want to. You might think that any non-combat related job would have it harder then, but that's not quite right! It seems like you can gain XP from any sort of large feat, so a cook making a substantial meal or a new dish might also level up.

As we neared the three-hour mark, we finally made it out of the forest, and in the distance, you could very clearly see the stone walls of a city, a surprisingly big one! There are two-story buildings and everything! I consult with Emma really quickly about what we’ll do about me and my special appearance.

“I could remove my face and act very stiff, look.” I turn off my face and act dull and less animated. “Yes, that could work! We will go with your plan and simply say that you are my golem.” When we get to the gates, there is a slight line, so we wait it out until it’s our turn. The guard on duty checks a badge Emma has in her clothing and signals her through. When he sees me, he looks a bit confused but when Emma tells him that it’s a golem prototype by a girl called Seline, he immediately brightens up and lets us in. Who is Seline?

When we get into the city properly, I get all kinds of stares from the people around us, some amazed, some confused but most give me a wide breadth in the street due to fear. Emma tells me that she’s going to the adventurer guild to deliver the herbs she collected, she found some on the way home luckily, I had to wait outside though.

By the time Emma is done with her business I have attracted a small crowd, like a group of car guys standing in front of an expensive parked sports car they stand at a distance and simply look at me, it creeps me a bit out. When Emma comes back out, I follow her and the crowd dissipates.

I get close to Emma and ask quietly “Where are we going next?”, Emma keeps walking and tells me “You’re going to meet Seline, she is a Magical Researcher whom I think is going to be quite interested in you.” She turns her head and grins at me. I’ve got a bad feeling about this…