"TAAAAKE THIS!" he said.
He was the adventurer Cardin, right?
He swung his sword and smashed into a golem. But the golem's stone body didn't even suffer a chip, let alone get cut in two.
The golems, which couldn't feel any pain or fear, had nothing running through their heads but to keep punching whomever was in front of them. That was why their movements were so simple. They never flinched, cowered, or faltered. They simply and robotically attacked repeatedly, but depending on the situation, that could still be a threat.
Cardin quickly back stepped to avoid said simple attack. But still, his expression betrayed a sense of tension that couldn't be hidden.
"W-What a ridiculous punch! Taking one of those would be no joke!" Correction: it looked simple to me, but apparently, that wasn't the case for Cardin.
Two of the other adventurers jumped close to the golem as if they were switching places. They wielded twin swords and a lance. I guess they emphasized power and speed?
One of the adventurers cut at the golem several times, trying to wear it down with nicks. The other tried to strike a strong blow to the golem's arm with his lance.
Next, the man who stayed in the back took his bow and supported the three men in front as if to continue the combo.
It wasn't a bad setup in my opinion. But…
[ Cardin ]
[Level]: 38
[Race]: Human
[Class Level]
・Heavy Warrior: 38
[HP]: 2747
[STR (Strength)]: 152
[DEX (Dexterity)]: 90
[VIT (Vitality)]: 150
[INT (Intelligence)]: 70
[AGI (Agility)]: 85
[MND (Mind)]: 72
[LUK (Luck)]: 31
[ Dove ]
[Level]: 35
[Race]: Human
[Class Level]
・Warrior: 35
[HP]: 3090
[SP]: 130
[STR (Strength)]: 142
[DEX (Dexterity)]: 80
[VIT (Vitality)]: 150
[INT (Intelligence)]: 50
[AGI (Agility)]: 77
[MND (Mind)]: 42
[LUK (Luck)]: 44
[ Larks ]
[Level]: 35
[Race]: Human
[Class Level]
・Light Warrior: 35
[SP]: 145
[STR (Strength)]: 110
[DEX (Dexterity)]: 101
[VIT (Vitality)]: 90
[INT (Intelligence)]: 72
[AGI (Agility)]: 102
[MND (Mind)]: 50
[LUK (Luck)]: 62
[ Russell ]
[Level]: 36
[Race]: Human
[Class Level]
・Archer: 36
[SP]: 156
[STR (Strength)]: 120
[DEX (Dexterity)]: 115
[VIT (Vitality)]: 80
[INT (Intelligence)]: 82
[AGI (Agility)]: 70
[MND (Mind)]: 45
[LUK (Luck)]: 108
[ Mass Produced Golem ]
[Level]: 150
[Race]: Artificial Life Form
[Element]: Earth
[HP]: 9087/9100
[STR (Strength)]: 305
[DEX (Dexterity)]: 100
[VIT (Vitality)]: 355
[INT (Intelligence)]: 9
[AGI (Agility)]: 108
[MND (Mind)]: 15
[LUK (Luck)]: 70
…They're doomed.
If they had magic or something there'd still have been a possibility, but all of these guys were physical attackers. They wouldn't have been able to get past the golem's defense stat and shave away its HP like this.
It looked like they were attacking desperately, but they were most likely only doing 2 or 3 damage per attack to the golem at most. In fact, the golem had only taken 13 damage after all that fighting.
As it was, they'd get hit by one of the golem's punches and sent to the beyond before the golem even got close to falling.
Oh well… I felt kinda bad for rescuing them when they came to rescue me. It was like I was blowing up their spot, and it might've ruined their confidence. But it was better than watching them die. Right?
I let out a small sigh before giving Fiona a look. "Fiona, go save those people."
"Understood! Leave it to me!" Fiona responded happily to my order. She kicked off the ground right afterwards, closing the distance to the golem. She dexterously wove through the adventurers who were in the way and landed a blow. Fiona's fist, wrapped in flames, pulverized the golem's head and still had enough momentum to also send the body flying.
The golem's body slammed into a wall, causing it to crumble to pieces, never to move again.
Even though the enemy was weak, Fiona really did well. Being able to eat through 9100 HP in a single strike… How reliable.
"…"
The four adventurers—who, until just then, had been stuck in a hard fight to the death against the golem—had their mouths hanging wide-open in shock after seeing the golem that was their opponent so easily disposed of.
Ahh. As I thought. Did that wound their pride? I had a brief moment before Cardin shouted out, his voice filled with child-like excitement.
"SO… COOOOOOOOOLLLL! Awesome! Amazing! Wow! Hey, did you guys see that?! Wasn't that awesome?! Huh?! Hey, missy, what the hell was that just now?!"
"Huh? Huh?"
Whoops, didn't expect this reaction.
Fiona's eyes darted back and forth with surprise and confusion as she was surrounded by the adventurers, and she was unable to answer their questions.
I never expected them to react like this. I first separated Fiona from the men.
"Calm down, adventurers. We understand your excitement, but you're all troubling Fiona here."
"O-Oh, sorry…!"
This Cardin guy… He's really overenthusiastic. No, he's straight up noisy.
Right after that, one of his comrades—the light warrior—slapped him from behind.
"Shut up, Cardin. You're troubling them." Apparently, he was the quiet one who could see reason.
To be honest, I'm not really that fond of really energetic people. It's like, whenever they're around, my ears won't stop ringing and I just keep building up stress.
Well, that's probably just because all I did all day was play games, though.
"Y-Yeah. Sorry about that. Uhh, yeah… Looks like we got saved instead, even though we came to save you, huh? Thanks."
"Don't mind it. We thank you for your concern." I didn't put too much effort into those comforting words, though.
Cardin looked slightly sad.
Even though they lacked the ability, they still tried to save us. So I think it's fine to just value their sense of chivalry.
Cardin was probably a pretty simple guy, though. As soon as I comforted him, his expression was dyed in happiness.
"I-I see! Thanks for saying that. You're a good person, aren't you?"
Good, huh? I almost laughed reflexively, having that said about me.
It was true, though. Given who I am on the inside right now, I'm not a villain. At least, I don't think so. I'm a normal person who won't do crimes or anything… At least I should be.
But Lunaru Fenris was a straight-up villain who conquered the world one thousand years ago. In fact, it wasn't too much to say she was the villain among all villains. So the fact that I was now being thought of as a good person made me feel really itchy somehow.
The four of them introduced themselves.
"Oh, right. We haven't introduced ourselves yet, have we? I'm Cardin. I'm an adventurer, and my class is Heavy Warrior."
"I'm Dove, and I'm also a Warrior. Sorry our leader here caused you trouble."
"I'm Larks. Class: Light-Warrior. Nice to meet you."
"Russell the Archer."
Once again: What a terribly balanced party.
Like, what is up with three out of four people being warrior-type frontliners? No one uses magic at all. There's no healer, either. And without a ranger, aren't they just screwed?
Personally, I'd only leave Cardin as a warrior. I'd change Dove and Larks to a mage and an acolyte or something. And Russel should be a ranger rather than an archer. Archers weren't bad, but in tight spaces like this they couldn't really show off their full power. Putting it bluntly, magic was much better for rear fire support.
In fact, magic—even low level magic—was necessary for opponents exactly like the tough golem they had just been fighting.
"I am Naruko, a free merchant. My class is… Ranger."
I actually had a lot of different classes, but from today's standards that was probably too strange to admit. So I just told them the class that would be most useful in this situation.
Even without the Grappler class, I could still attack with my bare fists as a Ranger and only be considered a "weird Ranger." But if I were to use Ranger skills after I had said I was a Grappler, then that'd be clearly unnatural. Since that was the case, I decided to say I was a Ranger.
"I'm Haruka, also a free merchant. My class is Ranger."
Am I hearing right? I think someone who's never once used a ranger skill is spouting some shit.
Oh well. I never knew just how serious Haruka ever was. I'll let that pass. But I'd have liked it if you at least picked a different class from mine.
"I-I'm Fiona, also a free merchant. My class is… R-Ranger?" And last was Fiona.
You totally didn't understand what was going on and just kind of followed along, didn't you?
What are we supposed to do now? Now we're just some kind of weirdo team full of Rangers.
As I expected, Cardin had an exasperated look on his face. He spoke, completely ignoring the makeup of his own party.
"What a terribly balanced party… Are you all okay?"
The leader of a badly balanced party full of warriors just worried about the balance of our group.
What is this? This indescribable feeling of humiliation. You're wrong. I can clear a low level dungeon like this by myself. I swear.
Well, I'd need about another five friends if I wanted to go for a level 1000 dungeon like the Goddess's divine territory, though. Ah, but didn't Juvia, one of my five friends, get blasted to smithereens at the gate?
"No need for worry. Our levels are high."
"Powering through with levels, huh?… You look all dainty, but you're all real muscle-brains, aren't you?"
We were called muscle-brains by the leader of a muscle-brained party filled with warriors…
Oh no, now I really want to transmute a huge boomerang to stick into this guy's head. Like, you don't get to talk. Is this guy just here to get in my way and cause me stress?
"You probably don't have enough power as you are, right? All right, we owe you for yesterday, so we'll come with you as bodyguards!"
Wow, it's crazy how much we don't need that…
I mean, you guys were literally just dragging us down, you know? You couldn't even shave 100 HP off a golem, remember? How are you all confident enough to follow us like that?
"That isn't ne—"
Just as I was about to say no, Haruka covered my mouth and approved their presence on her own.
"Really? Nice! Then, please take care of us!"
I quickly removed Haruka's hand and gave her a condemning look. But Haruka didn't seem like she cared, and she continued talking with a smile.
"Isn't it okay, Big Sis? Let's just take it as easy as we can until we get to Penny. They're offering, and we need to use whomever we can."
"…You can be quite dark sometimes. You know that?"
I shivered after hearing Haruka casually say, "Let's use them as shields." Apparently the insides of my little sister were blacker than I thought. I suppose I'm just lucky that that blackness hasn't been aimed at me yet. Or maybe it already has, and I just haven't noticed?
"Fine. We suppose there is no choice but to support them as much as we can without it becoming obvious."
If we were to leave them alone they'd probably get killed by golems. On the other hand, if I were to sweep through the golems too easily, then I'd probably break the adventurers's spirits. So there was no other choice but for Fiona and I to defeat all of them while pretending like it was a joint effort.
In other words… Well, it'll end up with us following Haruka's advice and using them as shields while we defeat the golems in a way that won't stand out.
"Well, shit…" I heaved a sigh.
I shot Haruka a light glare to communicate that I blamed her selfish actions for this before moving forward. Seeing me do that, the four adventurers hurried to follow after me, and Fiona and Haruka did the same.
Now then, let's hurry up to the top floor where Penny is.
We continued through the uselessly huge grave. The only redeeming factor of this grave was the fact that it got smaller the higher up we went. Thanks to the pyramid shape, it got easier the higher up we climbed, which was great. I supposed the only problem was that the higher up we went, the higher the golems's levels became.
A golem stood in our way, generating sounds that echoed up and down the passageways. From what I could tell, its level was 300. Some pretty high-quality golems had started showing up.
More importantly, they'd kill the adventurers in one hit at this level, so this was pretty bad. We'd need to take care of them before they locked their sights on one of the adventurers.
"Jeaarrr!"
The golem let out a strange cry and charged toward the adventurers. But for some reason, the golem stopped the moment I inserted myself in between them.
Then, the golem tried to go for a different adventurer. But this time Fiona stepped in, and it stopped again.
What's going on here? The golem stopped moving, as if it didn't want to attack us. In fact, it was almost like it wanted us to step back.
With no other targets, it even weirdly went after Haruka in the end.
Wait, could it be… it sees Fiona and me as friends? It wasn't impossible. For golems of this level, even I'd upgrade their AI levels. In other words, this one was way smarter than the golems down below. Then it wasn't strange that it still saw Fiona and I as friends even though my country was no more.
Actually, if that wasn't the case, then we'd get attacked by Penny, too.
"…"
…Huh? Then why was it attacking Haruka?
"Wai-! W-W-W-WAIT A SECOOOND! Why meeee?! Save me, Big Siiiissssss!"
Seeing the golem chase Haruka around, somehow I felt an incredibly sad feeling well up in me. I looked over at Fiona, and judging from the faraway look in her eyes, she also empathized with Haruka.
Haruka, you…
…You were so forgettable even golems don't recognize you, huh…?