NotEvenMyFinalForm
patreon
Goblin Chapter 165: Moving Core
🕑 Added 2025-08-15 17:07:08 +0000 UTC“Bang!” “Bang!” “Bang!”
Three blasts erupted almost at once.
When the Magic Missiles struck the mud golem’s body, they released a force of energy.
Its mass was blown open in three pits almost immediately.
“Mmm!!!”
The golem bellowed.
Gauss couldn’t tell whether it actually felt pain or was simply enraged at being hit.
He narrowed his eyes.
He sensed that the effect of Magic Missile seemed blunted by some kind of energy.
Its earthen body was laced with a special force, giving what would normally be fragile soil notable toughness and strength.
So that’s it…
If it were just a scaled-up humanoid gray ooze, it wouldn’t be rated an elite monster. This golem’s substance was more like a non-Newtonian fluid he’d known in his past life: when it needed to throw something, the mud and stones could peel off easily; but when taking a hit, it showed a viscous, shock-absorbing property that soaked up impacts.
So his earlier conclusion might need revising—attacking the body could wear it down; it would just take time.
Thinking as he moved, he darted aside from another thrown shot.
He kept roughly twenty meters between them.
Closing to melee with a multi-ton brute was unwise; but if he backed off too far, he might lose aggro and let it target his teammate. Plus Magic Missile had a range limit; twenty-odd meters was about right.
Its body was also too big—if the core could shift inside, finding it wouldn’t be easy.
Did he have to grind it out and wear it down?
That might work. He had Energy Glands, plenty of supplies—he could fight, fall back, and snack as needed.
Once the core’s energy ran dry, it likely wouldn’t be able to keep reinforcing its body to resist attacks. Gauss was sketching out the plan when—
“Caw!”
Overhead—while the golem’s attention was on Gauss—the raven Echo played bomber, dropping seeds onto the golem.
Each seed glowed with green life as it struck that massive body.
Farther off, the gray wolf Ulfen halted; Alia had finished her casting prep.
She slammed her oak staff to the ground!
Thoom!
Pale green light raced out from the staff across the earth.
That ripple of life rolled across the ground, reached the soil under the golem’s feet, then flowed rapidly up both of its stubby legs and over its whole body.
Ssss…
The green glow spread with almost no resistance.
The seeds Echo had delivered, already infused with natural power, took root and sprouted at once.
Vines exploded into growth like a storm, their roots driving deep into the golem’s mass and drinking its nutrients.
Whip-whip-whip!
Serpentine vines spread over the golem’s surface, crawling and coiling. Soon the dark-brown golem was wrapped in a writhing, vibrant green “coat.”
Surprise flickered in Gauss’s eyes.
Of course—the golem’s mass was mostly soil, a perfect medium for Alia’s vines.
What’s more, the roots have grown into its body; yanking them out would take pieces of it with them.
Watching it stop attacking to yank at the vines, he could tell how hard Entangle countered it.
Every time the vines absorbed nutrients and were torn away, they regrew quickly.
It was effectively being tugged and bound by a portable control spell.
Gauss glanced toward Alia.
He hadn’t expected her to be the key piece against this golem.
“Gauss! With my natural power feeding Entangle, I can kind of sense its core,” Alia called as she rode the wolf over.
“Tell me where,” Gauss replied via Message.
“Right now—straight ahead of us, above the left thigh, around the waist.”
“Got it. If it moves, call it out again.”
With that intel,
Gauss could roughly lock onto the core’s position.
With a bearing to aim for, he wasn’t groping in the dark anymore.
While the golem struggled, harried and impatient under Alia’s vines, Gauss gathered three more Magic Missiles.
He sighted on the spot Alia had called out—
“Boom, boom, boom!”
Three missiles ripped the air and slammed into its waist.
The hulking body shuddered hard; its aura visibly sagged.
Must’ve hit.
Through one of the craters, Gauss seemed to glimpse a different color beneath the wound.
“Gauss, the core shifted—now it’s just below the neck.”
He nodded. With Alia spotting, he gave the golem no time to recover.
Another trio of missiles roared out!
The golem clearly hadn’t expected Gauss to nail the core once—and then immediately pinpoint it again.
Bang!
A second heavy hit to the core.
This time the effect was worse: chunks of “flab” sloughed off its surface, raining to the ground.
Damage to the core seemed to be disrupting its control over the surrounding soil.
“It moved again…”
Alia kept calling the marks.
“No—wait! It’s trying to run!”
She spoke up and pushed more natural power into Entangle.
The vines and branches around it speared into the ground, dragging at its legs and slowing it.
Gauss, of course, wasn’t letting it go.
Maintaining his standoff distance, he paced it, hands never still.
Following Alia’s corrections, the missiles kept hammering near the new locations.
Finally…
After another clean hit, the mud golem let out a resentful wail; its core was pierced through. The massive body collapsed at once—crumbling into a low, loamy mound that reeked of wet earth.
It probably died without ever figuring out how that human kept finding its core so precisely.
“Mud Golem Slain ×1.”
With the kill, the third elite-monster entry lit up.
[Elite Path, Stage 2: Slay 5 distinct types of elite monsters (3/5). Reward: Randomly draw one elite-monster racial trait.]
[New Title Earned: ‘Mud Golem Hunter.’ This title upgrades with kill count.]
[Current Effect: Lingering Strikes – Against mud golems, your attacks inflict ongoing follow-up damage; if it’s a spell attack, residual mana remains, revealing the internal state of that mana-marked area for a short time.]
Text flashed before Gauss.
He exhaled.
Third elite-monster hunt—done at last!
And the title effect looked decent.
Spell hits would leave “residual vision” inside the golem’s body.
Not as clear as Alia’s nature-sense paired with Entangle, but with enough blasts you’d map its core well enough—just a bit more work.
The two regrouped and walked over to the heap that was losing animation and settling back into ordinary dirt.
“Didn’t expect it to be this easy,” Alia said, smiling.
“We just happened to counter it,” Gauss nodded.
“But… do mud golems drop anything worth taking?”
“The core?” Alia shook her head—she wasn’t familiar with mud golems either, so Entangle working that well had surprised her. “Either way, it’s probably not edible, right?”
As she spoke, she shot Gauss a wary look.
“Ahem—don’t worry, I’m not eating this,” Gauss said seriously, catching her suspicious glance.
It’s mud and soil—maybe mixed with who-knows-what organic sludge. What, did she think he had some weird dirt-eating kink? He only ate normal monster meats, thank you very much.
Although… would elite monster meat taste better than common monsters?
Her comment had reminded him.
If it were, say, an elite bird-type or a crocodilian, he wouldn’t mind a try. The “book” even noted a few elite avians as delicious, enough to merit special mention.
He swallowed unconsciously at the thought.
Watching him, Alia broke into a sweat and halted, reflexively.
No… he’s not actually going to eat dirt, is he?
Please no. And if he insists, am I allowed to refuse…?
Comments
SquiddlyWinks
Dungeon meshi! Ah, Dungeon Meshi.
