A few hours later.

This is getting ridiculous! Would you believe that it took me nearly an hour to find “materials” to create a new “body”? what did I do to find it? Oh, nothing big, just falling to the bloody water! I was near a river and I fell inside, no idea how in the hell the current was able to move my big arse body enough to lead me to a rocky area, I suppose I was really weak, or at least my body, but the best part… I bloody fell from a cascade! Yeah! that’s right! right now I’m literally at the bottom of a freaking cascade surrounded by rocks, most of them are kind of little, but luckily there are also a few big ones, with this amount of rocks that I got I hope this is useful enough to make what I need, especially since is already night time.

- “…?”.

Now the question is… what the hell am I supposed to do? My stupid skill told me to look for “materials” but I don’t know what to do from this point on.

Notification.

- You have found “Rocks”.

- “Rocks” can be used as materials to create weapons or projectiles if they are of the right size.

- To maximize efficiency is recommended to turn “Rocks” into other objects.

Don’t you tell me! I had no idea that rocks would be more useful turned into other things… can you tell me something actually useful like how to use them to create a new body or something?

.

has detected the material “Rocks”.

can use the material “Rocks” to either repair the current user's body or create a new one.

requires either “Monster Core: Slime” or “Monster Core: Golem” to work with the material “Rocks”.

… Are you kidding me!!? since I’ve been trying to find rocks big enough to repair my body I didn’t even fight against anything, not to mention that most of the time I spent it on water and the current dragged me to the cascade. The only bloody monster cores I have are the ones I got from the dire wolves, and you’re telling me that they won’t help me with this? Damn it!!!

- “...”.

… Fuuu… there’s nothing else to do anyway, I suppose I'll just go try to find a stupid slime.

- “...”.

It’s pretty dark now, the sky is full of stars but I only can see around this area because of the cascade and how far away the trees are from here, well, not that far but far enough to have a good view at least a few meters away from me, but I bet that the moment I walk through those trees I won’t be able to see much…

- “...”.

… yep! I barely can see anything. Damn it! Last time I moved when it was this dark I couldn’t find any monster, which was kind of great so I wasn’t killed, but now that I need it it’s really frustrating.

- “I’m scared!”.

- “shhh! If you need to talk then whisper, we don’t need to get the attention of any night predator or another kind of monster”.

- “guys… you should continue without me, I’m dead weight by this point, and it’s too late for...”.

- “shut up! We won’t leave you, we are not like that coward who left us for death, we escaped that dire wolf level 10 and lost the other wolves as well... if the 3 of us don’t survive after all that, how could we call ourselves adventurers?”.

- “is not… is not like we are a big deal, we are only amateurs adventurers”.

Those are… the humans from before! What are they still doing around here?… what the hell? The guy they are carrying doesn’t have one of his arms! Did he lose it after the wolf bite him? Hmm… in these moments I’m thankful that I’m a Golem, even if I lost one of my hands since it was made of rocks I hopefully will be able to get it back as well as my armor.

- “…?”.

- “shit! Who is there?”.

- “eh? Is not that… a Golem?”.

Huh? they saw me, damn it! I wanted to keep my distance… fuuu… well, they have one man down and by their looks, I doubt they can even fight me even if I’m still crumbling piece by piece. I suppose for now I'll just say hi.

- “how unlucky to find an enemy just now?”.

- “…!”.

- “Eh? Did the Golem… wave is hand at us?”.

Just when the girl said that, the guy that was preparing his sword to attack me stopped and looked at me again.

- “hey! Is not that… the Golem that helped us escape the dire wolf?”.

The guy without an arm seemed to recognize me.

- “no way! This one is smaller, and also… this one is stronger...”.

Huh? how could he tell that I’m stronger than before, it’s a little bothersome that he doesn’t recognize me as his friend but for the way he looks at me with that troubled face I kind of feel-good, the wary way he looks at me is almost like he fears me… how strong did I actually become? I have no idea, but he looks at me just like he looked at that fucking dog from hell.

- “what do we do? Do we fight or do we escape?”.

- “you are in no position to do neither of those, even though I healed you, losing your arm weakened you, plus all the blood loss and all the running…”.

Fuuu… I seriously don’t want to fight, I just want to find a freaking slime to get is core and repair my body, ugh! I’m tired, I’ll just sit down.

- “eh? The Golem sat down?”.

Is it not so impressive, you know? Everyone needs a rest every once in a while, and I surely could use one now.

- “Hey guys, doesn’t this Golem look a little… strange? His body seems a little… broken”.

it’s because I’m broken, look at my hand.

- “…!”.

- “… hey! Look, the Golem doesn’t have his left hand… now I see it, it’s body seems to be crumbling”.

- “Oh? Does that mean that… it is dying?”.

Yes! I am. Ugh! Hey guys, why don’t you go away and leave me alone? unless you have a slime monster core I would be really grateful if you can go so I can keep looking.

- “… is that thing waving his arm for us to go?… I do what I want you stupid child toy!”.

Did that little shit just call me a child's toy? I’m going to teach you a lesson you little brat! I’ll teach you to respect your superiors. I stood up and walked close to the guy with the sword, both looking at each other in defiance

- “oh, great! If we didn’t have to fight before now we surely will”.

Said the girl with an irritated tone, well, too bad, she can only blame it on his shitty friend.

- “hey! You Golem! was it you the one who helps us escape the wolf?”.

Huh? weird question for him to ask. I only nodded my head since that’s basically all I can do, not like I can speak to them or anything.

- “eh? Are you serious? This rock head can understand us?”.

I give a slight hit in the head of this guy, he irritates me! He took his head in his hands and now he’s looking at me with fire in his eyes, probably wants a fight, and I would gladly accept one.

- “it seems like it does and doesn’t like how you talk”.

- “leaving the child play behind, Golem! Your body is a mess, what happened to you after we separate? did the wolves find you?”.

- “it’s a Golem, it can’t talk, it’s just a low-level monster… ouch!”.

I hit the guy in the head again, just a little harder this time, then I look at his friend without the arm and nod my head to him. He seems to be a smart guy, and very calm, no wonder he told his friends to leave him alone so he wouldn’t bother them and they keep staying by his side so loyally, he seems to be a good kid, and they seem to be good friends, that’s good. The guy smiled at me after I nodded my head, while the girl is taking the other guy so he won’t lift his sword against me… a weird situation if you ask me.

- “hahaha, it seems like we both got hurt by those damn wolves, sadly we couldn’t kill many of them, and the big one escaped”.

The guys are still smiling but his eyes seem sad, I saw him and his team beat 5 wolves, well, not exactly see them since I was distracted, but it was kind of obvious that they did kill some wolves, but I guess that with the one who ran away and the loss of his arm, not to mention the state of exhaustion that all of them seem to be, that’s weighing on him. I suppose that I can lift a little of their spirits if I show them how many wolves I killed since I suppose they will have an especial kind of dislike for those dire wolves. I take my eight monster cores in my right hand and then show it to them.

- “… what? Is that...?”.

- “no way! That many monster cores!!?”.

- “and all of them are from dire wolves… just how many dire wolves did this Golem killed?”.

- “…?”

… What? You are seeing 8 monster cores, so obviously I killed 8 dire wolves… no, wait, if I have this many monster cores then there’s a chance that I killed more, which means their question is legitimate, now I think it was obvious… but… why do they look so impressed? Hmm… maybe it is because they were 4 of them to kill the wolves, and as far as they know, I killed this many wolves on my own… oh well, not important.

- “Those things are so expensive, and the Golem has 8 of them… should we take them?”.

- “don’t be ridiculous, if this thing killed so many dire wolves alone, there’s no way we can against it in a fight”.

- “but the Golem is weak, look at it, it’s literally falling apart”.

- “and we barely can stay up”.

- “not to mention that this friend over here helped us to escape the dire wolf, it wouldn’t be fair to take what he earned by risking its life, that would make us no different from criminals”.

This guy… is not this guy a little too mature and honest? He trusts me just because I helped them once, and he acknowledge me and my efforts to get these cores, others on his position would try anything to get them… Hmm... they seem tired.

- “…!”.

- “eh? What is going on?”.

Don’t ask stupid questions, just follow me, Come here!

- “I think the Golem wants us to follow it”.

- “Tch… no way, I won’t fall for that trick”.

- “hey! don’t worry, if it wanted us dead it would have killed us already”.

- “what? What are you talking about?”.

- “can’t you feel it… the… energy… the aura that thing is releasing… is pretty close to that of the dire wolf we faced before, there’s no doubt that even though it’s falling apart, in our current state we would have no chance”.

- “then why…?”.

- “because we have no other choice, isn’t it?”.

- “exactly...”.

Hmm… I could hear everything and I seriously think they are overthinking it, however, my… energy? Aura? Seems to be close to the one of that monstrous wolf? I killed several dire wolves but I didn’t feel the same than when I fought against that wolf alone, and it was only level 10, that makes me feel a little afraid of that thing, but knowing that I’m not far from its strength makes me feel a little better.

- “…”.

We walked back to the cascade, the guys only followed me, we weren’t far, to be honest, but they are tired and one of them is being carried by the others, not to mention they are way smaller than me, which only means it takes them longer to walk the same distance that I do.

- “I can hear running water… how did I not hear that before?”.

- “We were pretty preoccupied about what could ambush us, that’s why we didn’t notice”.

- “that and the distance...”.

- “…!”.

- “...? a cascade? Wow! it’s beautiful”.

- “and it’s an open area, which gives us more view of what possible dangers there’s out in the forest or when they are coming to us”.

I just left them to talk and appreciate the view. I honestly don’t want to listen to them but at the same time, I can’t bring myself to let them alone in the dark and dangerous forest, they need to rest and here is probably the best place to, especially if him here to keep an eye around, I don’t need to sleep anyway.

- “look! There are a lot of rocks in there...”.

- “who took the time to move all those giant rocks?”.

- “isn’t it obvious? It was the Golem”.

- “why would it do it? what’s the point?”.

- “rocks are useful for a lot of things, a long time ago, our ancestors used to fight monsters using weapons made with stone and wood”.

- “Yeah, right, but now we have steel, iron, silver, copper, and even stronger kind of magic metals and magic rocks, apart from that we can enchant weapons or reforge them with monster cores”.

- “true, but stones filled with magic can be as strong and useful to kill monsters as any of those, even if it’s way weaker than other kinds of rocks or metals it’s still useful”.

- “ugh!… just let it go! Why don’t we try to find a place to rest and make some fire, I’m freezing”.

Ugh!!! these guys talk too much. I walked and took 2 trees and then got back and put them down for them to use… stop staring at the trees and me! Start preparing some fire and go to sleep already!

- “…!”.

- “I think it wants us to use the trees to prepare something to rest”.

- “… okay! Here I go!”.

A few minutes later.

… The irritating guy is pretty good with a sword, it took him only a few minutes to cut the trees and make themselves some kind of wood beds and to get fire done.

- “We should use wolf fur to keep warm as well”.

- “they are in my backpack!”.

- “…?”.

I just now realize that they are moving around with backpacks, they are not that big and they are not carrying too much anyway, but I still didn’t notice it before.

- “This is the little we gain from killing wolves, we got to the forest in the morning to level up and get some materials, we only became adventurers really recently but we were doing just fine in the last few days, today we were able to get a few materials of monsters like the wolf fur, and we even got a few monster cores”.

The most mature of the trio explained that to me with a smile, but… I don’t get it? I don’t get why he keeps talking to me with that expression, I mean, it's not like I can actually answer him, besides, he’s been too trusting to me, or that’s what I think… the other thing I don’t get is why he talks about monster cores like they are so hard to get, he said that he has been here since morning but only could get a few materials and a few monster cores… was the hunting that bad?

- “you know the Golem won’t answer you, right?”.

- “I know, but I also know that he can understand what I’m saying… or at least that’s what it seems”.

- “fuuu… you are such a weird guy… hey! What about those furs?”.

- “if you have any problem why don’t you look for them yourself?… damn it! I got them but the other things in my back just got out as well, help me put them back!”.

Notification.

has detected a “Monster Core: Slime” near “Golem”.

- To begin the process of repairing the body is necessary to get in contact with the monster core.

...huh? A monster core nearby, where is it?… there it is! I see... it's one of the monster cores of the group. I can’t believe my luck, just what I needed. I see the little monster core in the ground and I pick it up, the guys are organizing their things but still notice me taking the core.

- “hey! that’s ours, even if slimes are weak it’s still not easy to get those, you know?”.

The only thing I know is that I need this specific monster core… mm… I have 8 wolf cores that they seemed to like so much, hopefully, one less won’t hurt me… yes! I will exchange it for it. Take this core for the slime one.

- “eh? That is a dire wolf monster core?… do you… want an exchange?”.