He awoke to see a brown mushroom in front of his face. One he did not remember sleeping next to.

It seemed that mushrooms were super speedy around these parts.

He reached out and plucked the mushroom from the ground. He proceeded to take a bite out of it.

He continued to eat until the mushroom was gone. He looked around for more but only saw white ones. He shrugged his shoulders and decided to give the white mushrooms a try.

“Eew.”

It tasted like a normal mushroom, which is disgusting. He threw it to the ground and stomped on it. He went to the stream to wash the sleep out of his eyes. When he arrived, he saw a deer a little way downstream. And another one of those brown mushrooms that tasted like heaven. The deer sniffed it, then took a bite, and fell over dead.

“Uhh. What the fuck?”

He grabbed the rapier out of the spatial bag and walked over to the deer.

Poke, poke.

No response.

He gave the deer a sniff. It smelled really good for some reason. He licked his eyeball...

He stuck his tongue out and, holy shit was it ever long.

“Wha tha fu!”

He reeled his tongue back in.

“What the fuck!?”

He looked at the dead deer, then turned and walked away, but not before his tongue whipped out to grab the mushroom.

He assumed it must be the Blight because he could think of no other reason this could have happened. But time moves forward, unless you happened to be a time wizard, then it might not. He bent down at the stream to wash the sleep out of his eyes, then returned to his camp, which consisted of only a firepit. He ate a bit of Boonce bread, but he was getting tired of the flavor, the mushrooms were way better.

He kept thinking about the deer until he finally resolved to go back. When he got there, the deer was still there, the other animals must have been scared away by how it had just died for seemingly no reason Not him though, in fact, he would say it smelt even better now. He stuffed it into his spatial bag then went back to camp.

When he arrived, he dug a hole for the ashes of the fire and buried them. He was still being pretty careful in case anyone was following him. Nothing he could do about the evidence of an explosion though. He began to head north. If anyone was following him, they will probably think he would continue to go east, so he’ll head north instead.

He began walking, which turned into a nice light jogging pace. This was a good time to think about what to do about the golem situation while he jogged.

He thought about this the whole way until evening.

He walked around for a bit looking for a stream or river where he could find clay easily. But did not find one.

“Fuuck.”

He went around to find a log to carve and found one. He set up a fire pit, lit a fire then got to work. He would probably be spending more time around here than usual, so he made sure to make the fire pit a bit bigger than the previous ones.

He first carved a rough figure about the same size as his previous failed attempts. It was looking good when he finally took a break. It was late in the night and he was only half done. He went to sleep and resolved to finish it tomorrow.

In the morning he stretched as he sat up. His eyes felt a bit dry-

He had just licked his eyes again.

He saw a mouse scurry out of sight a bit farther away. His tongue shot out and grabbed the mouse, then shot back into his mouth.

“Peh. Gross… Actually, not too bad. But still, a mouse?”

The mouse scurried away behind a tree, scared shitless.

It was like his tongue had a mind of its own. Also, the way it hooked that mouse was a bit eerie. His tongue wasn’t sticky like a chameleon but wrapped around the mouse to catch it. It was also fucking long, that mouse was at least three meters, nine feet, away, a new record.

His tongue lashed out to grab it and he munched on it as he sat up.

“Delicious as always chef Forest.”

He began work on his wooden statue again and finished it around noon. A meter, three feet, tall with nice slender limbs and a nose like Pinocchio.

“I christen thee, Pinogrande.”

He began work on his third attempt at the command circle. He carefully engraved it using his skill until the Blight cut the mana off. He assumed he could do magic for longer than most Blighted individuals due to his weird perpetual affinity that refuses to stop. If this was a normal affinity like fire trying to go against Blight, he assumed it would be shut down right away. He had acquired the golden combo.

He took a break to let his mana regenerate then went back to engraving the circle. It was late in the night when he collapsed from exhaustion.

Sleep took him after that thought.

He awoke to see another one of those maybe poisonous, definitely delicious, brown mushrooms. He clamped his teeth down and felt the impact of his tongue hitting his mouth.

It was tongue training time. He tried to purposefully, slowly move his tongue forwards to grab the mushroom. It was halfway there when it suddenly sped up, hooked the shroom, and bolted back inside his mouth.

“Mmh, delicious. I’d say that’s progress.”

He jumped up and took out his knife.

“It’s time to finish you off Pinogrande. Am I ever good at names or what.”

He shuffled over to continue his circle. After two more breaks, it was done.

“Booyah. Now rise my creation, RISE!”

The circle glowed and… Nothing happened.

“Fuck. I forgot the flex circle.”

The flex circle allowed the golem to move its limbs and body. Right now it was just a hunk of wood wanting to rise, but unable due to it being just that, a hunk of wood. He needed the flex circle to make that hunk of wood able to bend its knees and elbows.

He went for a walk to clear his head before he began the next circle. On his walk, he came across a half-eaten deer corpse.

He was about to go back to his camp to collect the statue when he smelled something really good. Following his nose lead straight to the decomposing corpse of the deer.

Going closer, making sure to keep his mouth closed, just in case his tongue got out.

Tentatively he opened his mouth and his tongue snaked out to lick the open festering wounds. He rushed forwards and took a bite out of it.

He continued on to gorge himself on the corpse.

“Burp. Oof, might have eaten too much.”

The half-eaten corpse was now three-quarters eaten.

“Well, nothing to see here. Cheerio good chap. Let’s have some tea and biscuit’s later then, yeah?”

He nodded to the deer, like a gentleman, and left.

When he was back at camp he grabbed the statue and tried to put it in his spatial bag. But it wouldn’t go in.

“Aww. Are golems not considered objects? Ridiculous.”

He picked it up and walked with it over his shoulder still going North.

Arriving at a good spot, he stopped and began to make another fire.

He was sick of making fires. But he convinced himself to continue making fires as, what was a camp without a fire?

“Time to get your flex on.”

...

He stayed there for three days as he completed the circle. It was similar to the command circle but without as many symbols, and the symbols were different. He did not have any more accidents during the engraving.

“Now, RISE PINOGRANDE!”

The wooden golem that was laying on the ground leaned forward and got up onto its legs.

“It’s working!”

The golem was moving and he was not feeling any strain on his mana. This golem was working off of his perpetual mana, without him providing any more mana. This was an infinite golem, it would continue to stay active forever.

He jumped for joy as the golem stood there awaiting orders. He was not happy for very long though.

---

Grrr.

A pantherlike creature with rabbit ears, five tails, and a skin flap between the legs looked down at Zelhaut dancing around. It crept forwards to the end of a branch and lept. It glided like a silent flying squirrel towards Zelhaut.

---

Zelhaut was dancing about when he thought he saw something out of the corner of his eye. He instantly rolled forwards, but not before getting a huge scratch across his back and a gouged calf.

“Fuck.”

He got up from the roll and ran as best he could with his injured leg.

“Get that thing.”

He yelled for the golem but it did not respond.

“I said attack it.”

The golem stood there not moving.

“Fuck you.”

He tried to find a solution as he looked back to identify the beast.

Flynther

“Attack the Flynther!”

Finally, the golem reacted. It charged towards the beast and rammed itself into it. The Flynther got pushed back a bit. It yowled at the golem and swiped at it. It was thrown back but got up and charged the beast again. This time the Flynther dodged the blow and bit into the golem’s arm. After a good shake of its head, Pinogrande went flying, now missing an arm.

“You useless piece of shit, punch it then hold it down.”

The golem came racing back as the Flynther was busy chewing on its arm. It punched the beast in the face then grabbed it to try and hold it down. Zelhaut took the rapier out of the bag and charged. As the tip was getting close to stabbing the beast, it lifted an arm and swat it away. The rapier flew out of his hands. He quickly pulled another weapon from the spatial bag, a morning star.

“Swiper no swiping.”

He swung it down as hard as he could and the beast tried to swipe it away again. It did manage to swipe it away, but the spikes damaged its paw, leaving it hanging uselessly. He quickly pulled a shortsword and stabbed forwards with it.

“Nice.”

He felt it sink into the flesh on the beast’s shoulder.

The beast yowled and with a burst of strength it managed to swipe at the golem, leaving a big gash in the wood and throwing it back a bit. The beast turned to run but it felt held back once more. The golem had grabbed it again. Not able to feel pain, it only knew to follow orders.

Zelhaut swung the sword at the Flynthers neck, opening a bleeding gash.

“Fall back.”

The golem let go and stepped backward.

The Flynther took a few wobbly steps before it collapsed from blood loss.

Zelhaut waited for a bit then heard the notification.

You have killed Flynther. Level up!

He felt his calf and back.

“Worth it.”