Day 21
Alright. Now that things have settled down and there aren't any bandits,
let's think about what to do next. The main thing on my mind is that {Create
Golem} spell I saw earlier. Magic that can make golems... Yep, that sounds
perfect. Things will be easier for me if I can make golems do all the work for
me.
"Eeeh?! But all that magic can do is make golems. You should just use
that DP to summon golems as monsters instead. They cost 100 DP each, and
they're strong enough."
"So basically, this spell will pay for itself after I use it to create one
hundred golems. Every golem after the one hundredth is basically free."
"Wow, what?! That's amazing!"
Yeaaah, but to be honest, there's way too many unknown factors to
actually know that for sure. How strong will the golems I make be? Can I
really summon them for free? Will I even be able to summon 100 of them?
The spell may not end up paying for itself, it's impossible to tell right now. To
tell the truth, I halfway want it just because I want to try making some
golems. I mean, it sounds really fun, right? ...Let's not tell her about all this.
"Alrighty then. I'll have one {Create Golem} scroll, please. Aaand...
Sweet, there it is." I used 10,000 DP to buy a [{Create Golem} Scroll] and
soon enough a string-tied scroll made of animal skin appeared. I tried not to
think about how we had just lost two-thirds of our DP in a single purchase.
Let's try to use this thing. I undid the string and unrolled the scroll. It had
{Create Golem} written along the top of it with a magic circle in the middle.
"...How do you use scrolls like this?"
"Just pour your mana into the magic circle." I followed Rokuko's advice
and tried pouring my mana into the magic circle. It felt a lot like using the
Survival Magic spell {Purification}, somehow. All I had to do was put my
hand on the magic circle and clench it into a fist before I started feeling mana
flowing out of my body. It was just a little tiring.
My mana flowed into the magic circle and started running along its lines.
Huh... So this is what it's like to let mana flow into something. How long
should I do this, anyway? I guess I should just keep pumping out mana until
it works. My mana flowed progressively faster into the magic circle. Once it
reached its limit or something, the magic circle suddenly stopped resisting the
flow of my mana, causing it all to burst and rain back onto me. It felt as if the
composition of the magic circle was being ingrained within me as my body
was showered with mana. Actually, it probably was being ingrained within
me. Once it finished, I bet I could use {Create Golem}. As for the scroll...
The magic circle on it was scorched black, and after all my mana left it, the
whole scroll caught fire and turned to ash.
"...Wow, I've never seen someone actually use a scroll before. That was
really cool."
"Oh yeah, you mentioned that you've never used a scroll before. I'm
impressed you still knew what to do with one."
"Eheh, it's just common knowledge. Though, um... Number 89 is the one
who taught me how to do that."
I decided to go ahead and try out {Create Golem} immediately. Two
things were necessary to use it: mana, and material to make the golem's body
with. Somehow, I just knew that. Knowing instinctively how to use a spell
must be one side effect of using a scroll.
It seemed that using the ground itself to make Clay Golems was the most
simple thing to do. The golem could have its shape changed by mana. I stood
up to leave the Master Room and go dig out some clay, but before I left, I
noticed Niku sitting in the corner of the room with her arms around her legs.
She had woken up at some point without me noticing. That was where
Gobsuke always used to sit. Mmm. Nostalgic.
Right, right. I don't have to go outside myself. If I have a tool available to
me, I better use it.
"...Hey, Niku. Go outside and mine some clay for me. Not a lot, just about
this much."
"O-Okay. Understood, Master."
I ordered Niku to go outside and bring back about a soccer ball's worth of
clay. She tried to go outside just like that, but I stopped her and gave her a
[Shovel (5 DP)] first. It felt like she looked a little surprised when I did that.
Man, she really does look dead inside... I've never seen an expression that
blank in my life.
After a while, Niku came back with the shovel and clay. The way she was
holding up the clump of clay with her tiny body made it look really heavy.
Actually, I bet it actually was heavy for a child like her. Oh yeah. It's kinda
late to say this, but Niku can go in and out of the Master Room on her own
without any issues. Maybe because Rokuko thinks it's normal for that to be
possible or something?
"Sweet, good job. You can rest now."
"Ah, auuu..." I patted her head and praised her. While I was at it, I cast
{Purification} on her since her hands had gotten dirty with clay. She let out a
cute "hyafuuu!" cry for some reason. Does it tickle when I cast {Purification}
or something? I should have Rokuko cast it on her later as an experiment.
Depending on Niku's reaction, I might just learn something.
"Alright, no point waiting around... {Create Golem}!" I sent my mana
flowing into the clump of clay. The mana formed circuits within it and
morphed the clay into the shape of a person. Perhaps thanks to the scroll, the
image of a perfect golem arose in my mind... Well, it's actually a lot smaller
than I expected, but that's fine. Probably. Definitely. Maybe. This is fine.
Everything will be okay.
Obeying the instructions that were filling my mind, I kneaded the clay
with my hands while pouring more mana into it. It didn't take long until the
clay turned into a (somewhat small) human-shaped golem. I had based its
design on the things I had played with at school before being summoned. In
other words, it looked like a thirty-centimeters-tall robot. Instead of a
servomotor moving its joints, though, there was magic. Its body was made of
clay instead of plastic and aluminum. Its movements were controlled by an
embedded magic circle instead of a CPU. It had a magic stone powering it
instead of a battery... Wait, we didn't have any magic stones. Oh well. We
can just power it externally... The magic power floating around inside the
dungeon's air should be good enough. After spending about ten more
minutes sending mana into it, the thirty-centimeters-tall (mini) Clay Golem
was complete.
"Wow! What's that...? A golem...?"
"What's with all the question marks?"
"Well, golems are usually way bigger than an adult human! I'm prettysure we would need to make a lot more than a hundred of these for the scroll
to pay for itself."
"I mean, I don't know what's normal or not, so... Either way, we'll just
have to make ten thousand of'm then." I decided to just order the golem
around and see what happened. First, I made it start working on expanding
the cave. That would help us save more DP. After bringing up the map and
ordering the golem to go to the goblin room and start mining inwards through
the mountain, the freshly made (mini) Clay Golem left the Master Room
without even grabbing the shovel.
"Golems sure are dumb, aren't they? That shovel would make his job so
much easier."
"Nope. You don't know what you're talking about, Rokuko. I'm basically
stunned here, shocked by the vast potential golems have."
Rokuko must have been thinking something like "Golems can't do
anything complicated!", but that was way too narrow of a mindset. If you
think about it, "dig into the mountain" is a pretty complicated order on its
own. To make a robot in modern Japan do something like that, you'd need to
first teach it how to mine a wall in the first place from the ground up. Not
only that, but telling them "go here" wouldn't work. You'd have to tell them
exactly how many steps to take, and even how to move their legs. They
wouldn't stand up on their own if they fell over, and if they hit a wall on the
way there, they'd keep walking into the wall forever. But with magic, all I
had to do was say "Go here and mine into the wall." Golems were amazing.
I'm seriously moved right now. But using magic was pretty tiring... I think
I'll just go to sleep now. Oh, right. I'll try using Niku as a dakimakura. That's
why I saved her, anyway. Kind of. Come heeeere, little girl. Er... Don't
worry, I won't do anything perverted to you. Yep! I won't make you wear
knee socks or anything yet! That can come after we know each other better.
Day 21
Let's just make one thing clear.
Humans. Are not. Good. Dakimakuras.
I tried using Niku as one, but... Oh, don't worry. I didn't take her clothes
off or anything—I seriously just used her as a dakimakura. Anyway, it was
nice at first. Her skin was nice and smooth, plus her hair smelled nice. But it
didn't take long for a problem to arise.
Her body heated up fast.
She got so, so hot.
Yeah, I'm not gonna be able to handle this outside of winter. I finally
understand why people huddle together to stay warm in survival movies and
stuff. Though I have heard that kids have especially high body temperatures...
And I've also heard that dogs are hotter than humans. In which case, it
makes complete sense that a dog-eared little girl would be extremely hot.
Plus, it wasn't until I noticed how heavily she was breathing that I
realized she was running out of air beneath the covers. That was pretty dumb
of me. Obviously, she would struggle to breathe without access to fresh air. I
hurriedly pulled her head out of the covers.
...Which ended up with us lying in bed together, face to face. Her cheeks
had flushed from the heat and her mouth was hanging weakly open, which
made her lips look really sexy f—Wait, no! I'm not a lolicon! Seriously, I'm
not a lolicon!
Her breath was tickling me, so I made her turn and face the other way. I
didn't do that because she was making my heart beat too fast to sleep. Her
breath was ticklish. That was all. But... after turning around, her hair started
to tickle me instead. Aaaah! Why does this have to be so bad?!
Having no other choice, I lowered her back down such that our heads
were a reasonable distance apart. I pulled the blanket down to about my
stomach so she wouldn't start suffocating again. That helped with the heat a
little too.
With that, I was finally comfortable enough to sleep. But then another
problem arose. A pretty big problem, too.
You see, Niku couldn't move while I was using her as a dakimakura.
She'd have to push me off her if she wanted to get up, but as a slave, she
couldn't do that. Can you imagine what happened because of that?
SHE! PEED! HERSELF!
Okay, okay. I knew it was my fault. I felt something wet when I woke up
and then panicked like crazy after seeing Niku crying in my arms. I stood us
up and cast {Purification} on me, her, and the futon while patting her head
and telling her that everything would be okay. Yeah, it was my fault. I'mTo show how sorry I am, you can eat as much food as you want today. Ask
for anything, it's yours. Okay? Here, have a hamburger! They taste super
good! So stop crying! I'm sorry, it was my fault!
＊ ＊ ＊
Niku finally calmed down after she finished eating the hamburger.
"Ummm, okay. I would like to begin our first meeting on what to do with
Keima, the pervert who loves to make his slave girl pee on him."
"Hey, hold up. That's a pretty biased way of framing things, Madame
Judge. It was an accident, Your Honor, I swear." I used my position as
Dungeon Master to make Rokuko shut up about how I had accidentally made
Niku pee herself. She immediately fell silent, so I decided to start making
more golems.
"Niku, bring me some more clay. Just as much as you did yesterday."
"Okay." Niku picked up the shovel from yesterday and left the Master
Room, which made me remember something. The (mini) Clay Golem I made
yesterday had been working all night.
...Yeah, I should check out how he's doing first.
"Leeet's see here..." I brought up the dungeon monitor from the menu and
checked up on the golem I had ordered to dig into the mountain. The (mini)
Clay Golem was steadily scratching away at the wall. His spirit was
admirable, but he hadn't made any progress at all. The bare rock wall was
just too strong for his clay hands to wear down.
That was my mistake. I should have given him a pickaxe or something.
"Mmm, see? He'll just keep on doing what you told him to, no matter
what."
"How long can he stay active? I think it has something to do with the
magic stone inside of it."
"Eh? Well, obviously, he'll stay active until he runs out of mana. I mean,
he's a golem. But dungeons are filled with mana, so he basically should never
stop as long as he's inside of one."
Wow, that's crazy. He basically doesn't need any energy to keep moving.
I was losing my mind over how far golems had surpassed my
expectations. It was looking like I would be able to just leave everything to
the golems and sleep as much as I wanted.
"No way, Keima, no way. You can't count on golems to do anything
right. Just look. See what happened because you told that golem to dig into
the wall?"
"Huh?" I looked at where Rokuko was pointing on the monitor.
Yep. There's the (mini) Clay Golem, digging away at... the... wait, what?
Upon closer inspection, I noticed something odd. The (mini) Clay Golem was
indeed scratching away at the wall. But his hands were getting worn down,
and despite how broken apart they had already become, he just kept
mindlessly pushing them against the wall to keep digging.
"Oh man..."
"See? Golems are just dumb. They only ever do what you tell them to,
nothing else. That's why they'll keep trying to dig a hole into something even
if nothing's happening."
Yeah, this is something. This is definitely something.
But I wasn't thinking the same thing that Rokuko was. Not at all. I could
barely keep myself from grinning ear to ear.
I ordered the (mini) Clay Golem to come back to the Master Room and
wait for a bit. It needed repairs, after all.
"I-I'm back... o-oof."
"Welcome back, Niku. Good job. I'm proud of you. Nooow... Let's start
experimenting."
After taking the large clump of clay from Niku, I cast {Purification} on
her while patting her head. It wasn't much, but there was something I really
wanted to try out as soon as possible. If I was right about it, {Create Golem}
might just be the greatest spell I ever could have asked for.
Brimming with hope, I started to pour mana into the clump of clay while
kneading it with my hands.
＊ ＊ ＊
"...And that should do it."
"What... is that...?"
I had made three golem arms, each about as small as a finger. I had then
made a tub-shaped golem about the size of my palm with a little rod in the
middle of it. After combining the golem with the needle-shaped arms, I had
finished making a golem with three tiny arms.
https://mp4direct"Seriously, what? That's not a golem, no way. Like, golems just don't
look like that."
"It's a [Clock]."
Yup. It was a [Golem Clock]. I had given each of the golem arms
different instructions. I told the first arm to rotate completely every sixty
seconds, the second arm every sixty minutes, and the last one every twelve
hours. In other words, the individual arms became the seconds, minutes, and
hours hands of a clock. Together they formed a clock that would keep
working as long as it had mana.
...Making sure it stayed accurate would be pretty annoying, though.
By the way, I had realized halfway through that I didn't need to make the
golem arms look like actual arms, which is why they ended up being needleshaped, like the arms of a real clock would be. Everything was made from
clay, but I doubted anyone would realize the clock was actually a golem.
"Y-You really made a golem shaped like that...? Wooow, Keima. You
don't have any common sense, do you?"
"Seriously? You're the one who summoned me from another world. How
would I know what's common sense here?"
Either way, it was way easier to make a customized golem than I had
thought it would be. Plus, because the arms didn't have any joints to move or
anything, it didn't take much mana at all to work. How simple my orders
were probably helped too. It seemed to take about one-tenth of the mana that
the (mini) Clay Golem took.
"So, what are you going to do with that anyway? You can just look at the
Menu if you want to know what time it is, so..."
Oh yeah. The time of day and such was displayed on the Dungeon Master
Menu that I could use.
"...I'll give it to Niku. I only made this an experiment, so yeah. Now I
know more about what I can do with golems. This wasn't a waste of time at
all." And so, I gave Niku the watch as a present.
...At which point I realized that Niku was still wearing torn-up rags as
clothes. Holy crap. I immediately bought some [Cheap Clothes (Dress: 8
DP)], [Cheap Shoes (Child-sized: 10 DP)], and [Knee Socks (White: 70 DP)].
While watching Niku change clothes, I realized that she was 'missing
something' and quickly bought a set of [Female Child's Underwear (20 DP)].
That was close. All that cost a fair amount of DP, but she could keep
wearing all that pretty much forever thanks to {Purification}. It even worked
on her underwear no problem, thankfully.
The clothes looked nice enough, but I wanted to dress her up in a much
cuter outfit once we could spare the DP. Same for Rokuko. Her DP-saving
form is pretty cute itself, but her other form was pretty much my exact type.
She looked super cute and her feet were the definition of pretty. They were
truly spectacular. Seriously. I couldn't stop fantasizing about making her
wear all sorts of socks.
...But y'know, I feel like it's kinda arbitrary that the knee socks were so
expensive. Like, 70 DP? That's three and a half goblins right there, c'mon.
Does it just cost more because it's a luxury item?
I attached a [Leather String (2 DP)] to the [Golem Clock] and hung it off
Niku's neck. She stared at it for a long time without saying anything after I
said it was hers. I thought that was because she really liked it, but then I
realized she probably just didn't understand what it was. Right, right, she's a
slave. There's probably a lot she doesn't know about the world. Starting
tomorrow, I'll teach her everything she needs to know. By proxy, through
Rokuko. Do your best, Rokuko.
I mean, seriously, what's Rokuko been doing anyway? She's basically
done nothing for the past month. She needs to work a little harder. I'll have
her do my work for me... No, wait. No no no. The only future I see with
Rokuko as leader is one where our dungeon turns into a goblin paradise and
then collapses immediately.
＊ ＊ ＊
I repaired the hands of the (mini) Clay Golem, taking the opportunity to
turn them into stone shovels. It was actually pretty simple to do that. The
stone became pliable like clay after I poured enough mana into it, making it
very easy to morph into a shovel-esque shape.
...And here we have the new and improved (mini) Clay Golem, Shovel
Edition!
It felt like it took less mana to mold clay than it took to mold stone. In
which case, it would probably be better if I made my first human-sized golem
out of clay and just gave it a pickaxe. That could come after I spent some
more time experimenting with this (mini) Clay Golem, though. Finding what
works best with this guy and then making big versions of him would be the
most efficient route. But it was getting pretty tiring calling him "(mini) Clay
Golem" every time I talked about him, and I was already mixing in materials
other than clay now, so really that whole title wasn't working anymore.
And so, I decided to give him a name. One that fit his status as an
experimental golem would work best.
"Alright. You will now be known as Testle. Your name is Testle. Got it?"
The (mini) Clay Golem, now known as Testle, nodded as if saying "got
it." I then changed his order, making him instead go outside of the cave and
gather clay for me. He would probably come back each time he gathered
about a soccer ball's worth of clay. If I went to sleep right now, there'd
probably be a ton of clay waiting for me when I woke up.
...I knew it wouldn't ever stop moving inside the dungeon, but how long
would it last outside of the dungeon? I decided to test that and watched as
Testle moved around for about one solid hour before stopping. I needed to be
careful about that. Stopped golems would resume moving if you poured mana
into them. It depended on the magic stone inside of them, but normally they
could last one hour. I knew that thanks to knowledge from the {Create
Golem} scroll.
...But wait, what the heck is a magic stone anyway? I know it functions
like a battery, but that's all I know. Seriously? You'll give me knowledge that
involves magic stones, but won't tell me what they are?
"Hey, Rokuko. What're magic stones?"
"Eh? Magics stones are just, ummm... Stones filled with mana. You can
usually take them from monsters... Oh, right. Golems usually have magic
stones inside of them. Don't yours?" Nooope. They don't.
I went ahead and had Niku go get the frozen Testle for me. He started
moving once he returned to the dungeon area, but he just turned around to get
more clay and thus immediately froze again. I had to order him to come back
with Niku. Ultimately, I learned that I could order golems from a long
distance using the Menu, and that any orders I gave would preserve even
after they ran out of mana. All good things to know. Thanks, Testle.
"So, in order to have golems mine clay and stone for me from now on...
I'll need some magic stones to experiment with."
"Magic stones? Why don't you try buying some with DP?" Rokuko
casually said that to my offhanded remark.
It was like wool being pulled from my eyes. Holy crap. Is it just me or is
DP way too useful?
"...Dang, I didn't even think about doing that. I can't believe I needed you
to remind me about the DP Catalog... Am I just an idiot? I'm disappointed
with myself..."
"What's that supposed to mean?!"
I took a look at the DP Catalog. Magic stones were in the treasure section,
in the same category as jewels. There were varying grades of magic stones
with the cheapest kind being 10 DP each and the most expensive being
several tens of thousands of DP. But for now, I settled with buying just the
cheapest ones to experiment with.
"Oh yeah. Hey, Niku. Can you read and write?"
"...No, I can't. I'm sorry, Master..." Niku lowered her head sadly.
H-Hey, you know I'm not mad, right? You're making me feel bad,
somehow.
"That's okay. Rokuko, teach Niku how to read. I'll let you eat a lot of
melon rolls if she learns well. Same for you, Niku. You can eat as many
hamburgers as you want if you do well. Study hard."
"Eh?! I can eat as many melon rolls as I want?! Okay!"
"C-Can... Can I really?"
Good, good. Hamburgers always made Niku's eyes light up. Thinking
about it, Niku had gotten a lot more lively than she was in the past. The dead
eyes she had when I saved her were completely gone.
Perfect. No kid should ever have to look like that. But you know, dog girls
really do love meat, huh? She'd probably die of happiness if I gave her a beef
steak. I should check the DP Catalog to see if it has those. She might thank
me by letting me rub her feet.
I would need Niku to do work for me outside of the cave before long, so
the sooner she learned to read and write, the better.
Suddenly, it hit me that I had never thought about whether Niku was okay
with being my slave... Though she might've needed to be a slave to go in and
out of the Master Room, so there was no reason for me to go about rocking
that boat. Plus, slaves were probably restrained by some kind of magic in this
world. I doubted it would be easy to just snap my fingers and free her. She
does have a collar around her neck, so... Eh. I'll think about this more later.
I got back to work making Golems while Rokuko taught Niku how to read
and write. Normally it'd be about time for me to go to bed, but there was one
thing I prioritized over sleep: preparations for sleeping really well. I was
prepared to cut down on my sleeping time for the sake of sleeping better!
Yeah, basically, sleep was still the most important thing to me.
I used DP to buy a bunch of magic stones and pickaxes. We still had
3,500 DP left, but that would turn to zero in no time if we wasted too much of
it.
I took one of the magic stones and embedded it within Testle. How longwould he last outside of the dungeon with one of those? To find that out, I
had Testle go outside the dungeon again and start tilling a field. Naturally, I
had turned his arms into hoes beforehand to help him out. There shouldn't be
any problem with leaving him out there on his own. No adventurers would be
coming anytime soon.
With that out of the way, I started to make a human-sized golem. It would
be smart to try making at least one of the normal golems that {Create Golem}
was designed to make.
...
......
Ah. I didn't have enough clay. But that wouldn't be a problem if I just
removed some clay from his core and made him lighter overall. That would
use less resources and make a better golem. Two birds with one stone.
And finishing the new golem was a 10 DP magic stone, the cheapest one
available. With all that done... I had made a golem that could actually move
pretty speedily. His movements were a lot smoother than Testle's. Maybe
because I had used less clay overall? Rokuko looked really surprised after
seeing how smoothly the golem was moving, but I ignored her and had him
start mining into the mountain with a pickaxe. All I had to say was "Use this
to mine deeper into the cave." Easy.
Aaah, I want to use the stone he mines to make a one hundred percent
Stone Golem. I should've withdrawn all the stone those bandits mined instead
of turning it into DP.