All at once, every golem within a few blocks of the monster appeared close to the bird and grabbed it. Despite the multiple tons of extra weight and loss of a majority of its aerodynamics, it kept its flight. In fact, it accelerated before taking a physically impossibly sharp turn. After seeing that the golems hadn't been flung off by the G forces, it turned its head and opened its mouth, releasing a screech toward all the golems on its left wing.
A few golems were thrown off, taking a feather each, but they were immediately back through the use of their ability to enter Flash Space. Many of them grabbed their neighbors' arms and began pulling, constricting the monster. When it kept moving and sending screech after screech at the golems, sending more and more flying each time, they pulled tighter and tighter until eventually, they managed to lock one wing and the bird fell from the sky, crashing through a skyscraper.
A few golems appeared to keep the debris from damaging anyone as Degritone said, "Seems like they're a success. They haven't defeated it, but blah."
The bird monster flailed, creating gouge after gouge in the road near the now-rubble skyscraper as it tried to get the golems off it with its still functioning wing. Many golems gathered around the downed bird, pummeling it and occasionally getting sent flying. All the while, Degritone was scratching his head before saying, "I probably jinxed it somehow, but blah. They're literally invincible. Might not have the damage output for this, though."
Saying that, Degritone pulled up his golem control console before typing "Inside the right arm is a circular saw made of cloakium. When in combat where the other party is to be killed for more than 30 seconds, the golem will spread apart its hand and extend the saw blade, cutting into its opponent. This saw has infinite torque and the golem can spin up the saw for what it calculates to be optimal damage output" into the Description section.
After he saves and closes the console, many of the golems' right hand split open and circular saws extended from a cavity in their wrists, which they began using to cut into the bird. In retaliation, its feathers began to flow a mild green as winds picked up. Much of the nearby debris was picked up in a newly formed rubble tornado, centered around the bird. The high wind speeds also shattered some of the older nearby windows, adding even more debris to the tornado.
Many of the golems sawing at it were also picked up, but they simply Flashed back to the bird immediately. "You know what? While I'm thinking of it, I may as well make the golems walking wifi hotspots," Degritone commented, completely unphased by the tornado. He then did so as the golems finally drew blood. Soon after they did, the tornado picked up in intensity before immediately stopping, sending debris flying all over the city.
All of the golems not involved in the fight, and even many that were, intercepted the debris large enough to cause damage, gently setting it on the nearest flat surface. The bird began sucking in air and bloating up, if slowly. Degritone slightly squinted as he watched this play out. The saws of the golems sent blood flying as they cut deeper and deeper into the monster.
As the monster ballooned to twice its original size, Degritone realized it was probably a suicide explosion move of some sort. After sending a memory packet at Chuuni's part of his brain, a translucent dome appeared around the monster, only visible if you looked through a large amount of its material. The dome still gave it enough room to fly a few feet off the ground, if it ever got off the ground again.
22 seconds later, the monster popped, sending golems and gore flying into the dome. The gore rapidly disappeared as the dome disappeared, leaving the ground inside of what was the dome's area cracked. For the first time since the "phones" were given to the village leaders, he got a call. It was from the business lady.
With a memory packet sent to Chuuni, Degritone arrived inside the room she was in. "Yes?" He asked.
After a slight jump of being startled, she turned to face him. "We wish to kill our own village monster."
"Why? Have we been denying everyone else a reward without knowing it?"
"No. Two reasons, really. One, it would allow the common people see that they are capable of defeating one on their own; and two, it would show exactly how much of a powerhouse the other two of you are for being able to kill one without assistance."
Degritone took a few seconds to digest this information. "Well... I could see that being- being- being- BEING- MOUTH PLEASE!" Large breath. "Sorry, my mouth and brain have never been fully connected. I could see that being construed as both pro-us and anti-us. 'If we can kill one, can't we take on th- on tho- th- onth- AAAAA- those who killed one?' or 'Wow, that was extremely hard, and two of those three were capable to kill one without assistance, and one could even do so without taking damage?' for example.
"In reverse order. No idea why I did it that way. Anyway," He said before squinting and thinking for a bit longer. "Public opinion really doesn't matter. Well, beyond the fact that standard living accommodations will need to beeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeee-" As he dragged out the "e" of "be," Degritone leaned back and got a more and more pained look on his face. "Satisfactory," he finally finished that thought, going back to neutral. "Public opinion of us doesn't matter. So sure. We'll tell the police golems to not interfere in monster combat except to save someone's life."
Her eyebrows shot up just enough to be perceptible before her face returned to her business face. "Are you willing to stay a while and describe what our future entails for us, Degritone?"
"Sure. As long as you're willing to..." Long pause. He created a chair of Mana and sat in it while he tried to get his brain and mouth to connect. "Put up with my inability to properly speak."
She also sat down behind a desk. "So, what did you mean by 'standard living accommodations?'"
"A house that can be somewhat configured, we'll have to figure out the specifics of exactly what that entails, but that, basically infinite food, basically infinite water, and free internet with what will effectively be infinite speed and zero latency between any two locations or services. If there's any internet-level technology that gets created in the future, add that in, too.
"Cars and stuff will still be somewhat luxury items. Better food, a non-standard house, a device to actually access the internet with, basically all entertainment, and so on would all be luxury items. No one would starve or die of dehydration, at least unintentionally, and they can't if they reach 60 Endurance, anyway. For what would probably be the follow-up question involving the economy, we wouldn't touch it. Maybe an anti-monopoly thing, but meh."
"How do you know that 60 Endurance removes the need for food and water?"
He shrugged. "I have some off-world contacts. They told me and also I spent like... two months-ish without food and water, or sleep, afterward. Don't even need to be very high level to," long pause, "reach 60 Endurance. I'm sure many people already have."
"Are these off-world contacts how you became so powerful?"
He moved his eyes up and left while tilting his head to the right to think for a second. "Ehhhh... my Patron has definitely directly helped. The other one basically just answers my questions occasionally."
"And what is your Patron's aspect?"
"I don't see how," short pause, "these questions relate to your future under my rule, but Loyalty."
"Getting to know your boss is important. Is there anything else we common folk can expect?"
"Eh. Nothing more or less than an average American life, though without the need for health care because the system can literally regrow your head if it gets detached. Well, if I remember correctly, it actually regrew my body from my neck stump, but blah. I may be wrong. It's been subjective months."
She nodded. "So, what's with the little girl thing?"
He shrugged. "I love lolis. That probably auto-translated... anyway, I love lolis. If it weren't for the fact I have a standing order from one to not die, I'd kill myself if one told me to. There are some things I probably wouldn't do, like eat poo and stuff, but blah. There's also another reason I don't feel like explaining right now as to why," long pause, "I wouldn't even be able to kill myself. Well, I'm not sure if I have the damage output to kill myself now that I think of that.
"Anyway, lolis. I love them. A lot. If I could, which I can with Chuuni's power, I'd make a utopia for every loli on the planet. The first version is going to be a new USA-sized landmass in the pacific. It'll only be accessible by lolis and those who the lolis allow in. It'll include everything that any of the individual lolis want. It'll take a while for Chuuni to get strong enough for that 'everything' to be literal, but blah.
The genuine version of this novel can be found on another site. Support the author by reading it there.
"I can't put into words how much I love lolis. I love them. I can't- I am incapable of using any language to describe how just imagining a loli makes me feel, let alone a real one. I want to sit down and listen to every loli talk about whatever they want to talk about. I want to cuddle with every single loli. I want to pat their heads, play games with them, just do anything with them."
After a few seconds of looking longingly at nothing, he looked back in her general direction. "Anyway, any more questions?"
"How will you limit system usage?"
Degritone had a very confused look on his face for a second as he said, "What?" Before returning to normal and saying, "Not-not... Not at all...? Why would I? Why would any sane human? I guess terrorism is more easily achievable with the system, but the police golems would handle that. Unless someone powerful enough to literally rip you apart individual atom by individual atom appears, the golems will be able to handle it, and they'll be upgraded eventually, once Chuuni's strong enough to literally do anything he wants on a universal scale."
"How do the police golems power themselves?"
"Mana, mostly, though they also have backup BHB as a backup battery, of sorts. Use extra mana to spin up the BHB, then use the BHB to perform required actions if mana is ever sapped from them."
"And what is a BHB?"
"Black hole bomb. Rotating black hole with mirrors around it. Send in light headed in the correct direction and it gets more energetic. Not super efficient with small enough BHBs to fit inside a golem and not heavily modify the gravity around them, but blah. Better than a battery, a-" Degritone stopped talking as a spear appeared out the front of his chest.
He activated Guard at maximum power and healed himself, closing the wound around the spear and making it impossible for the assailant to pull it out of him. He got yanked back as the assailant tried to do exactly that, and his inertia sent them both tumbling to the ground. Degritone stood up with a foot on top of the maybe 15 year old boy's chest and tried to speak, but found his lungs incapable of sending air through his throat.
As the boy struggled to get out of under his effectively 2032.9 Strength, Degritone looked to shaft of the spear. Seeing that it was smooth, he grabbed the spear head, activated Empower, and yanked the spear out of his chest before healing himself once more. "OW! Why attack me, dude?"
"You're the evil dictator that's trying to take over the city," the kid stated like it explained anything.
"Uhhhhh... I guess technically, I could be classified as a dictator, and I am going to take over the world. Though, I wouldn't call myself evil. I don't think any sane person would," he responded. "Don't see how that has anything to do with anything."
"You're going to take my little sister and make her into your sex slave!" The kid cried.
Confused, Degritone said, "N-no...? What? Is this about Lolitropolis? At worst, she'll decide she doesn't want to live with you and not allow you to go with her. Though, if you're willing to attack someone who controls the police golems outside, I doubt you aren't close enough for her to want to take you with her." He took his foot off the kid as he reached down and pulled him to his feet.
The kid tried to punch Degritone, but his flesh didn't even deform. "Look, dude," he said as he returned his spear to him, "now that I've activated Guard, you literally can't hurt me. Very few things can. Just... go back and kill monsters or play with your sister or whatever. You have no logical reason to want me dead, at least assuming you knew all the facts, rather than rumors. Ask her when I'm done here. I don't feel like explaining again." He pointed his thumb over his shoulder at the business lady.
After another ineffective spear thrust, she said, "Justin! Leave us. I'll talk to everyone later."
Justin glared at her, but begrudgingly left. Without turning around once Justin was out of sight, Degritone asked, "Was that setup, or did he actually sneak in on his own?"
"Of course it wasn't setup!" She responded.
Degritone shrugged. "Meh, most people wouldn't say it was, even if it was." After a few seconds of staring at where Justin left, he turned to face her. "I don't care, honestly. People will try to kill me in the future, as well. Good luck getting through almost a hundred fifty thousand health and over a million flat damage reduction. Anyway, regardless of if it was setup or not, I feel like I'm done here. See you in a little under eleven and a half days."
With that, Degritone sent a memory packet to Chuuni and was teleported back to the skyscraper roof they're calling a temporary home. Degritone decided to spend the next few days trying to materialize the Immortal Troll as he did before the system was done with its tests. He created a new tab in his interface to effectively write the story of the Immortal Troll so he could stop thinking in circles.
After writing 5 different roughly 4000 word stories about his adventures, some of which were directly taken from the backstory of the troll in the D&D game he'd run, some of which were original, it was time for the final village monster of this city.
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With all the preamble of a sneeze, a man appeared in the middle of a street. He looked around, perplexed, before he saw a group of over 100 humans, looking battle ready. He grinned and walked toward them. One of them spotted him before shouting something to the group. They all turned toward the man, when the space between them lit up with mana and metal.
A translucent bubble appeared around the man. Bullets and mana constructs impacted the bubble, only to disappear without a sound. He continued walking toward the group, his grin widening and march unrelenting. His bubble popped and at the same moment, he leaped toward the group. A few bullets and Skills his him, but he appeared unphased as he slammed into the front of the group, knocking them down.
He reached down and grabbed one of the knocked down people by the throat and lifted them up. As he began to move to slam them into the ground, a spear erupted through his chest and he was quickly thrown to the side by said spear, the spear itself retracting from his chest. Throwing his would-be victim to the side, the man turned to look at the source of the spear, to find a teen boy meld back into the crowd.
With his health now thoroughly within the damageable zone, the bullets and magic impacting him occasionally sent small spurts of blood flying as someone with a damage reduction ignoring Skill hit him. He reached up to the hole in his chest as he looked at it. His blood began seeping from the wound, flying out into the space between his fingers and staying there, gathering into a ball.
All spurts of blood from his further wounds joined this ball and it quickly grew to the size of a ping pong ball. He flicked it at the crowd, sending blood flying everywhere. Everything it touched began to sizzle, including people. The two police golems on either side of the street did not react.
The man dashed at the mass of people once again, sending a punch straight through the head of one man. Another three punches got three other people out of the fight as the spear once a again found his back. This time, the man grabbed it and yanked it forward before the person behind it could further impact his will on the weapon. The teen hit the man's back and was punched straight through the gut and head at the same time, the man not even sparing a glance at him beyond the punches.
Golden chains appeared around the man, binding him in place. Struggle as he might, the man was unable to move. A red dot appeared on his forehead and not long after, he grew a very stubby horn. The impact shattered the chains keeping him in place and sent him flying back eleven feet. The man controlled all his blood currently outside his body into thin needles and sent them flying at the crowd.
The needles flew around, piercing person after person, with yet more needles coming into existence as he got beaned by something that could deal enough damage to overcome his ever decreasing bodily damage threshold. The man took a single step forward, only to be knocked back by a laser of mana as big around as his torso was tall, coming from a large ring next to a group of people on a nearby roof.
He commanded his blood needles to pierce the people firing the laser, and it stopped soon after, leaving his entire right side completely blackened. He commanded all his blood back to himself and his skin quickly returned to its correct color and his wounds began to close.
Suddenly, he was over 70 feet in the air. Confused, he looked down and saw a large woman with a sledgehammer ending a swing. As he watched, she blurred and became larger. He braced for impact and felt as his arms were transformed into chunks, sending him yet higher. A platform of mana appeared under the woman and she jumped off it, spinning and delivering a blow to the man's back, sending him to the ground, where he chattered the street, sending rubble and blood flying hundreds of feet.
Followed soon after was the woman, who impacted his chest with the hammer, turning it into a pulp. All the released blood surrounded the woman and crushed her. He stood and his torso folded in half where the woman's hammer had impacted. He used his arms to stabilize his body as he used some of the surrounding blood to heal himself just enough to not need his arms' assistance to not fold under his own weight.
He sent his blood into the group still firing on him, now numbering less than 20. They scattered and he split his blood to follow each person. The golden chains reappeared and another red dot appeared on his forehead as his blood pierced another 8 people. One final shot rang out as all the flying blood disappeared, his brain shot directly through.
As he fell, all the people around him disappeared. A few of them rapidly reappeared, having already heard about the Patron selection. The business lady reappeared in her office where Degritone, Chuuni, and Music were looking out the window down at where the fight had happened.
"Honestly went better than I expected, given how few people had gotten up to level 30 and how many collective levels your village had," Degritone said. "I'd expected," long pause, "the group to get wiped, honestly. Granted, no one died thanks to Chuuni teleporting them out microseconds before the killing blow was actually landed, but still. I'd expected the police golems to need to clean up.
"Anyway, goodbye. Will probably never see you again." Chuuni teleported them back to the skyscraper's roof and opened his mouth to say something.
Quest Recieved!
World War
A fist-sized section of Degritone's head above his left ear began to hurt worse than anything he's ever felt as Chuuni screamed, "MUSIC!" Chuuni's body then disappeared. Holding his head, Degritone looked into his mind space, where Chuuni and Music "lived" before they gained actual bodies, only to see the representation of Chuuni jump into a black void that encompassed an entire fifth of the mind space, centered on where Music used to sit.
The pain rapidly worsened and in a panic, he finished the Initiate of Loyalty Path.
"You're back earlier than expected," his Patron said. "I'd thought - are you ok?"
Degritone passed out before he could respond.