Kyrion saw four metal golems, each with a distinct theme and color scheme, enter the chamber he was in.

One had the lower body of a horse and the torso resembling a horribly proportioned human with large misshapen muscles that were impractical. In its metal hand was a lance three time’s its usual size, but in the golem’s hand, it fit perfectly. It was painted a bright orange color with fire motifs decorating its body.

The second golem held a sword and a shield. It had two legs and the same wrong proportions as the previous golem. The color scheme was blue with a water motif that seemed to bring a sense of calmness and tranquility.

The third resembled an old fertility statue that he saw in one of the books Nicole made him read all those years ago. It was painted a bright pink and was covered in those weird heart symbols that seemed to be a popular design choice. Of course, Kyrion knew what a human heart looked like, and that wasn’t it. In its hands was a pink staff with a heart at the end of it.

The fourth golem was a thin yellow and almost ape-like thing. Its metal prehensile tail and hands, where its feet should be, fit the motif. It was bare-handed and seemed to hop from foot to foot while letting out weird noises.

“Where is the red one?” Kyrion asked aloud as he leaned on his staff. His bangles jingled mischievously.

“Such varily impudence show you knave!” The green one stated.

“Huh? Dems fighting words horsey.” Kyrion put up a mock pugilist stance and punched at the air, his bangles jingling more.

“It attacketh!” The orange one charged forwards, its lance leveled at Kyrion’s head.

Kyrion didn’t bother dodging in any sort of flashy motion. He just walked through the golem’s legs and watched as it continued to run and run. Passing into the next corridor and slipping on the absurd amount of ice. A series of crashes echoed throughout the room, followed by an explosion. Finally, falling rocks could be heard as the corridor caved in.

“He killed Orange!” Yellow charged at Kyrion, hopping from side to side, aiming to make its prey confused.

Blue charged forward to attack head-on and engage Kyrion with its sword and shield.

Pink let out a masculine roar as it began to charge up a very big spell.

Kyrion didn’t move until Blue brought its sword down on Kyrion’s head.

It just so happened that Yellow was attempting to grab the boy at the same time.

Kyrion grabbed Yellow’s arm and pulled it in the way of Blue’s crashing sword. The metal limb was cleaved perfectly and fell to the ground in seconds.

“You cut off Yellow’s hand! I’ll.” Blue yelled before a sweeping kick to the golem’s legs knocked it off of its feet onto its back.

The kick did not come from Kyrion as he was too busy watching the uncoordinated batch of golems destroy themselves for him.

“Love Ball!” The pink one yelled with a deep base.

A pink ball of light shot into the back of blues back, leading to an explosion that sent both golems flying in opposite directions while Kyrion stood there quite happy that his entertainment couldn’t aim.

“How dare you destroy Yellow and Blue! I’ll kill you! Love Love.” Pink began charging up another attack without giving their weapon a chance to cool down, and Kyrion noticed the signs of something about to explode from too much mana. He had helped Cecil for too long not to know the signs of mana overload.

Pink exploded, leaving behind a small metal container and nothing else. It popped open as it clattered to the ground and a long-eared green creature with odd malformed features. The creature was quite small, and its nails oddly uneven. The thing smelled worse than it looked and was hideous.

“They beat themselves for me.”

“That is a goblin, master Kyrion.” Karl informed the boy.

“I thought you said there was no sentient life here.”

“It’s debatable. Some say goblins are sentient. Others say they aren’t. They are born from dungeon spawners and return there when they die like gremlins. Most goblins are idiots to the point of being nearly self-destructive and don’t work well in an organized group. That is at least before a goblin lord uses its abilities to unify them. Then they are almost dangerous. They are also paranoid creatures capable of using secret pathways while trapping the most direct way in but….”

“But this can’t be right. I hardly did anything to them. They defeated themselves. I just indirectly killed people.”

“You didn’t kill anyone here. I imagine that they are already up and at it.”

“How do you know?”

“This dungeon has been around for a long time. It’s probably bored if it hasn’t gone senile.” Karl seemed angry.

“I get the feeling you don’t like goblins.”

“Pssh… No I love those incompetent buggers. Put ’em in a catapult and you have nearly unending ammunition.” Karl said with a thick layer of detest.

“That doesn’t help your case.”

“Making gremlins harms no one. They are wild mana that takes on a humanoid form and set loose. They are baby elementals, in a way. Goblins are gnomes that have been captured, tortured, and modified to be servants to a certain faction of dungeons. Through millennia of augmentation, they no longer resemble their ancestors and have diminished faculties. I don’t hate goblins. I hate the monsters that created them.” Karl seemed to actually have emotion in his tone as he spoke of goblin history.

“Why care about Gnomes in the first place?”

“That’s something I’ll tell you in a safer place.”

A rolling sound came from the hall, marking the arrival of a red metal golem with a cannon as its left hand and a sword as its right. It was much bigger than the previous golems and even stronger.

“Me likey. Me want. Me take.” Kyrion drooled as he eyed the red golem that probably contained a goblin.

“Kyrion don’t you do it!” Karl began to panic as the boy prepared to charge forward.

Sadly Kyrion was well beyond reason and was already charging with reckless abandon.

“You monster! For killing all my teammates I’ll force you to pay up in blood. Wait, no let go! What are you doing?” A familiar female voice came from the metal golem.

Kyrion was currently climbing across the golem like a squirrel on a tree. Ritualistically tapping on the metal carapace, looking for a hollow spot.

“Oi! Let go!” The golem began hitting itself in a futile attempt to catch the boy.

Kyrion heard a voice from inside the metal golem and knew that was where he had to strike there. Plunging his hand through the golem’s stomach was relatively straightforward with his space affinity.

Pain shot through his hand as some of his fingers were removed by sharp blades.

“Ahhh!” Kyrion took back his hand and looked at the stumps. Then back at the cockpit.

The pain didn’t stop him, but his mind was stunned. “You bit me. What kind of teeth do you goblins have.”

“Ah, spicy. Blood burns.” A spitting sound could be heard from inside.

Kyrion gripped the golem with his legs and began punching the cockpit with his good hand. Within moments, quite a few dents had appeared when the golem fired its cannon backward. Using the momentum to slam Kyrion into the ground, squashing him like an insect.

Various thoughts about his situation passed through his mind. Kyrion knew if he let himself get crushed this way and die. Then he’d be remembered for the tale of such a death. Crushed by a giant...

“Nope.” Kyrion sunk into the earth and traveled, reappearing on the other side. Entirely of his bones had been broken, and he was quite mangled. He hoped his fingers were still whole, regenerating limbs took a lot of calories, and he was currently rationing his food. Maybe Tim had some snacks on him…

Kyrion looked at his unconscious ally before remembering something important. “Tim wouldn’t have any snacks on him. He was in a cell wearing rags.”

The golem had gotten back to its feet, leveling its sword at Kyrion’s body. The golem moved forward, attempting to skewer the red-haired boy.

Kyrion pivoted on his left foot and barely spun out of the way. Then, bringing out his gem-embedded staff, he slammed it into the ground. A wave of force knocked the golem off its feet as green plants began to spread rapidly, consuming the ambient mana and entangling the collapsed construct.

While this happened, Kyrion grabbed Tim and hopped towards a wall using mana to defy gravity as he planted himself feet first on the wall and stood straight, looking down at the chaos.

“Cross, Buster!” An X of fire shot from the golem’s chest and burned the plants, which seemed to result in a popping sound as seeds began to appear and spread even faster due to the supposedly destructive attack.

Kyrion looked down at the vast field of vampire moss spliced with the pyrophyte trait. The plants would spread where there was mana absorbing everything, and fire would cause them to disperse their seeds in hopes of regrowth. Creating a cycle. This was his secret weapon in case Nicole did something strange like try to kidnap him. Or give him poison, or in the most likely case, the headmaster made him fight her. Nicole wasn’t unique in that regard. Kyrion had been trained in paranoia and had learned the best way to defeat all of his friends. Without killing them, of course.

Kyrion watched from his perch as the plants made their way in, his signal to act.

“Nooo!” Kyrion hated tipping his hand but regrowing his fingers would be a pain.

He took off his eye patch and sent out a wave of mana that passed through everything in the area and gave him a good idea of where he could break in. But, of course, he didn’t like what he saw. There was a woman in there, although that wasn’t the worse part. She held his fingers in her hands like a macabre trophy. Her mouth was stained with his blood.

“Oh Abyss no.” Tim was slid on the wall and left hanging as Kyrion jumped into the golem’s center. A quick jab to the woman’s neck knocked her out.

Kyrion got a good look at the white-haired woman that seemed to have deep red irises. Aside from that, she looked exactly like Nicole save for some pointed ears and paler skin. A number was tattooed on her shoulder, 84653.

“What the hell.”

“Alir’mondri…One from another moon.” Karl said bluntly.

“Why does she look so familiar?” Kyrion held his head, feeling a memory belonging to psycho get repressed.

“She’s probably one of the other seven shards that make up Nicole,” Karl said, bewildered before realizing what he had said.

“What?”

“Nothing you should worry about. You should probably kill her. You’d gain a lot of power for doing so.” Karl said in a monotone.

“I won’t kill an unconscious person that looks just like one of my friends.”

“And that is why you have so many friends.” Karl rolled his nonexistent eyes

Kyrion tore his fingers from the unconscious woman who wasn’t Nicole’s claws and reconnected them. Unfortunately, some of its mass was lost, so some of his stamina was exhausted to make up the difference leaving a need to eat in Kyrion’s stomach.

“Mine. Bad not Nicole. No biting people.” Kyrion said, forgetting the urgency he had moments prior as he kicked the exit open and stepped out onto the moss, the girl in his arms.

“What was that phrase again. Gotta catch them all? No. A fisherman gets no fish from caves and a minor finds no gems in a lake? That’s not it either. Ah!” Kyrion dropped Not Nicole and turned towards the golem.

“To the victor go the spoils!” Kyrion yelled as he stole the metal machine.

Kyrion sensed Psycho and Issac’s disapproval.

“Oooo. I always wondered how one of these worked. Sadly it’s a little too complex. Let Cecil look over it. This seems more up his ally.” Karl stated.

“Really? Looks a bit too bland for him and it isn’t blue.”

“Just pick up chunks of the blue one.”

“Ah right. All these golems are belong to us.” Kyrion felt blood pool from his nose, another aneurysm.

Kyrion stumbled forwards, his fingers fully reattached, but his head felt like someone drove an ice pick through his nose popping out his eye and into his brain.

The stumble turned into a fall as his consciousness was ripped from him. His body landed next to the figure that resembled Nicole.

An hour later, a pair of black metal golems entered and picked up the unconscious duo before dragging them deeper into the dungeon.

Tim lay hanging from a wall, hunched over to reveal a blade embedded in the wall as the reason for his pinning.