I returned to Master’s side after a few days surveying the forest.
I’d seen it from a distance, but I hadn’t trusted my eyes—not until I was right overhead. I still didn’t entirely believe what I was seeing: Anferfurmi—the Sentinels of the Underworld, who dragged many a living creature into their foul pits.
First the Chuearenie and now their sworn enemies? Master is truly a mysterious being, to willingly bring together two hostile creatures like this. Well, I suppose the Fenrir and I could be considered just as combative... And more golems again? Master is extremely powerful, but even then, this is beginning to frighten me.
There were more golems awaiting me inside the house too. There were now fifteen of the woodworking golems, and five who made cloth. The horned golems, who processed hides, had grown in number too—there were six of them now, by my count. All in all, there were ten or so new golems inside, in addition to the thirty currently tending to a new field.
Master’s golems could think and move for themselves. They worked without orders, and I’d even witnessed them consult with one another. Golems were said to lack free will—they are tools given life by magic, after all—but Master’s powers, as usual, seemed to operate beyond the fundamental rules of this world. I’d grown used to it over time. Perhaps that familiarity was itself a dangerous mistake.
Golems have always primarily been a tool of war. Curious to inspect the combat potential of Master’s golems, I’d once asked them for a demonstration. Each golem I asked could crush stone to dust as easily as squashing a bug—and not just any stone, for the stone around this cave is some of the sturdiest known to exist.
I suppose Master can also manipulate this stone as though it were mere clay—that’s how he shaped the golems, after all. In many ways, their power is his.
Some of the woodworking golems had joined those outside. The farming golems appeared to be teaching them how to use magic. It shouldn’t have surprised me. The golems brimmed with vivid, overwhelming mana—a gift from Master when he’d crafted them. Anything in possession of so much mana would naturally be able to cast magic—even, apparently, a golem. Still, it shook me—and once again, I found myself thankful the golems were on our side.
The newest batch of golems each featured a magestone atop their forehead. Not a normal magestone either, but an augmented one. When magestones were filled with an excess of pure mana, they transformed and became even more powerful. The more transparent a magestone was, the higher its potency—and Master’s magestones were the most powerful I’d ever seen. It’s said it takes over ten human mages to produce a high-quality magestone, and yet Master had given them to golems. It bewildered me. Some of the golems even possessed clear, all-purpose magestones—treasures among already-rare treasures. I assumed these golems must be intended for guarding the house, for why else would Master grant them such valuable gifts?
I inspected Master. He was currently pacing before the mountain, pouring mana into another magestone as he did so, as though the act did not exhaust him in the slightest. Likely enough, it didn’t. The magestone rippled and transformed into a pearly white—a healing magestone, containing the power to save even those on the brink of death.
Master strode over to me and handed me the magestone, saying I was free to do what I pleased with it. Just like that, an augmented magestone was mine.
I’ll treasure it, Master.
I followed Master and the Fenrir when they went hunting. I lost sight of them for a brief moment, until the wyvern shot past me. I rushed to follow it, to protect Master—which was when the wyvern’s head disconnected from its body.
It was terrifying.
Wyverns protected themselves with layer upon layer of magical wards. To wound a wyvern means first neutralizing all of those barriers, usually a long and strenuous process—usually. Master simply shattered the wards and decapitated the wyvern with a single spell.
Master is a powerful being indeed—far more powerful than I’d dared to imagine.