“Sorry for the commotion, everybody!” I called with a wave.
“Mayor Luke?!”
I could hear one of the older residents muttering, “It’s just the mayor. He does things like this all the time. You’ll get used to it.”
Was I really that weird?
Dona and I ended up doing a full lap of the village, and by the end of it...
“Bleecchhh!”
We both violently threw up the moment we got off. She’d been flush with excitement just a few moments ago, but now she was pale as a ghost. I probably didn’t look much better.
The intense shaking and swaying inside the golem had made us both horribly motion sick. We’d only done one loop, but it was way too much to handle.
“Yeah, this thing is definitely not meant to be ridden,” I said.
“Yeah...” Dona nodded.
“Maybe the ancient weapon on the tablet was different?”
It must’ve been, because if someone was meant to operate the golem from within, the interior had to be way more ergonomic.
“Definitely.”
“That’s incredible, then. It’s hard to believe the dwarves once made something like that...”
“I’ll build it someday,” Dona said, her eyes sparkling with enthusiasm.
If she received the Weaponsmith Gift next year, she just might pull it off. But what would happen if she succeeded? Weapons were tools of war. If something like that were created, it would probably be used to kill a lot of people. The ancient dwarves had once tried to conquer the world with such weapons, after all.
“Why do you want to build something like that, Dona?” I asked.
She didn’t answer right away. “My people are weak. That’s why we’ve stayed hidden in the caves. But even then, we lost our home. Maybe we could’ve fought that monster off if we had a strong weapon.”
Her words hit me hard. After all, she had a point. Sometimes, you needed strength to protect what mattered most. If this village had been weak too, bandits or the orc horde would’ve wiped us out long ago.
No matter how much you wished for peace, sometimes things just didn’t work out that way. And someday, someone might come to destroy everything we’d built here.
“I think you’re right, Dona. We do need strength. Not to invade or conquer, but to protect this village and everyone in it,” I said.
“Seren? Now that spring’s here, there’s something I want you to do,” I said.
“What kind of something?” she asked.
“There’s a rocky area west of the village. It’s not big, but something about it seems off.”
“What do you mean?”
“Well, it’s the only spot that isn’t counted as part of the village.”
The village’s territory automatically expanded as its level increased. By the time we’d hit level six, it covered most of the surrounding wilderness—except for that rocky area I’d mentioned to Seren.
I’d noticed it during winter but hadn’t wanted to send someone to investigate it with all the snow, so I’d held off until spring. That day, I was in the watchtower and spotted it in the distance. It was barely visible from the top of the tower.
“As a favor, I wanted to ask you to check it out in person,” I said.
“All right, understood.”
“And I’d like to come with—”
“No,” Seren cut me off.
“But why not? I’d be going with the hunting party, so it’s not like it’d be dangerous,” I protested.
“The answer’s still no. This village can’t function without you. What would happen to everyone if you got hurt or even worse?” she argued.
“Sheesh, talk about overprotective...” I muttered.
It was a ten-kilometer round trip, give or take. Compared to everything we’d dealt with so far, like that horde of orcs, that didn’t seem like much of a risk.
I’d even crossed through the Forsaken Forest and returned when I went to the elven village.
“Let us scout it first, at least. There may be dangerous monsters lurking there,” Seren said.
“So I can go after you confirm it’s safe?”
“If it’s safe, then yes.”
✦ ✦ ✦
Seren led the hunting party to its destination. Since the party’s last expedition, its numbers had grown to include a few elven warriors—but Seren only took fifteen along for this scouting mission.
Eventually, the party’s destination came into view.
“So that’s the rocky area Luke mentioned...” Seren said.
“It looks like a normal rock formation at a glance, but if Lord Luke says something’s off, there must be more than meets the eye,” Philia said.
Twice Gifted, Philia’s Archery and Green Magic made her one of the core members of the hunting party.
The other usual members had come along too, including Barlatt with his Sword Proficiency, Noel with his Shield Mastery, and Gordy with his Giant’s Strength. So long as nothing outrageous happened, this squad had more than enough power to deal with anything they’d come across.
Eventually, they reached the rock formation. This kind of landform wasn’t exactly unusual out in the frontier.
“Just so you know, I don’t smell any monsters,” said the party member with Beast’s Nose. As its name suggested, the Gift gave him a wild animal’s acute sense of smell, crucial for detecting approaching monsters long before they were visible.
“There’s definitely something off about the big rock in the center,” the party member with Danger Detection said in a tense voice.
“Doesn’t smell like monsters, though.”
“Maybe something else, then.”
“I can’t say for sure, but there’s definitely something there.”
“Then we should proceed carefully,” Seren said with a nod.
And with that, the group moved toward the massive rock formation. Once they were close enough, they all noticed it at the same time.
“Wait, what the heck is that?”
“A cave?”
A gaping hole, three meters high and two meters wide, stared at them from the base of the boulder. It was large enough for a grown man to pass through without ducking. Peering inside, they realized it sloped gently downward, continuing so far into the darkness they couldn’t see the end.
“This place gives me the creeps. It reeks of danger.”
“Now that we’re this close, I’m catching a faint whiff of monsters. It’s coming from deeper inside.”
Seren and Philia exchanged glances. They were thinking the same thing.
“Yep, I’m sure of it now.”
“Same here. It’s a dungeon.”