Chương 22: Crusade 1

Kadam was on his hands and knees, pressing his forehead against the dirty stone floor with his eyes shut. It was a posture he assumed quite often, although this wasn't because he was praying, nor was it due to him having to grovel a lot. It was just that, as the Dowser of his group, this particular stoneborn was responsible for scouting out the surroundings through the Vibrolocation Skill.

This Stonesinger ability allowed the user to identify and track potential threats by using sounds and vibrations carried through the rock and soil like a sort of ground-based sonar. In the past its most common application was pinpointing troublesome monster nests, valuable materials or precious gems, but these days it was mainly used for more militaristic endeavors. Then again, pretty much everything had become like that ever since the Nemesis arrived.

Having concluded his latest scan, the Dowser rose up to his feet while using an old cloth to dust his hands, knees and face. He paid a bit of extra attention to wiping down the three diamond-like skull-buds poking out of the skin on his forehead, as keeping those clean was a matter of stoneborn pride.

"How's it look, Kaddie?" A female stoneborn with a honey-smooth voice called out to him from the side. Her shoulder-length bright gray hair was done up in a messy bun, though its coloration wasn't due to old age. All stoneborn had the same eye and hair color as the skull-buds they were born with - it was just a quirk of their race. And since both she and Kadam were born with diamonds, their features were all borderline white.

"Stop calling me that, Kragiel," said the male Dowser with a groan.

"Would you rather I go back to 'baby brother' then?" she asked with a smirk.

"… Nevermind."

"Yeah, that's what I thought. So what did you find out?"

"There's about a dozen stray bugs moving around the place," he reported.

"There should be twice as many sleeping or being idle. Hard to tell since they're mostly standing still."

"Mmm, nothing we can't handle, then. What about enemy movement?"

"What I can say for certain is that there are no clankers within six hundred meters of us, though I did pick up some odd tremors coming from about a kilometer out in that direction," he added while pointing over his shoulder with his thumb.

"Odd tremors? Like what?"

"I'm not completely sure," said Kadam while cupping his chin.

"It sounded a lot like a really pissed off borewyrm, but it wasn't quite the same. It was all over the place, too, so I couldn't get a read on where it was headed." Vibrolocation was a Skill that was only reliable up to a distance of about three hundred meters or so once it was fully trained. Katya's armored transports were especially noisy and had a unique sound to them, so it was possible to hear them coming from twice as far away.

Therefore, Kadam getting information about a potential confrontation with a borewyrm that was a kilometer away was downright impressive, to say the least. Though it was rather ominous at the same time, because it meant that someone or something had riled it up to the point that it was raising an abnormal amount of noise.

"Hmm… I guess that's a bit unusual, but we probably don't need to worry about it," declared Kragiel with a shrug.

"We'll continue as planned."

"Are you sure that's wise? I mean I know you're the Fang of this outfit, but…"

'Fang' was the designation given to the leader of a clandestine operation that emphasized stealth, such as the one both siblings were currently on. As the one in charge, it was Kragiel's job to make sure the mission was completed as quickly and quietly as possible. Therefore, if she deemed that her brother's worries were unwarranted, then that would be it. Strictly speaking, it wasn't his place to question her judgement, especially not when they were in the field.

The only reason he allowed himself to speak out of turn was because they were related.

"We'll deal with it somehow or another if it shows up, Kaddie. Besides, fighting off a borewyrm is ten times better than having to deal with clankers." The lack of weaponized dolls was the most important part of the Dowser's findings. Squaring off against the Nemesis and her forces was not why this group of thirteen stoneborn were in these ruins.

They were on a salvaging mission with the goal of reclaiming a collection of lost magic items, weapons and other relics that were left behind when this stoneborn city fell about fifteen years ago. Ideally, they wouldn't have to fight anything at all, but Katya's mechanized patrols were far from the only threat in these depths. Which was precisely why the stoneborn dispatched here wore armor.

Even if their protective gear meant very little in the face of the 'clankers' and their otherworldly weaponry, fighting monsters demanded a completely different set of tactics and preparations. Hence the need for protective equipment that was custom made for such expeditions. The full-body armor in question was fashioned out of tanned kraken hides as its base, which had a dark blue color. The shoulders, elbows, shins, thighs and torso were protected by shaped shardling shells.

The orange crystals were surprisingly light, highly resistant to impacts and all but impervious to corrosive acid, so they were an especially useful defensive material. Admittedly they were hardly the stealthiest of accessories, but stoneborn were more or less the only creatures around that relied on sight to find their way. Therefore, the slightly gaudy and flashy nature of their uniforms wouldn't affect their attempts at sneaking around in the slightest.

Having finished conferring with her brother, Kragiel led him out of the basement they were in and into the ruined building's ground floor. It seemed to have been a three-story house at one point, but the enemy's invasion all those years ago had reduced it to half a floor at most. The rest of the unit had established something of a perimeter while the Dowser scouted the area out. And now that the task was done, Kragiel rounded them up and led them deeper into the former city of Cavewater.

Much like the name would imply, the settlement was built in a massive cavern next to a large lake. Fish, algae and aquatic monster parts used to be its main exports while it was still around. It was also a popular tourist destination, as the stalk-like fluorescent fungi the stoneborn called 'jester grass' was especially prevalent in the area. The multi-colored light coming off of the ones growing on the ceiling far above was a thing of beauty.

Unfortunately for Kragiel's unit, they were too busy making their way between piles of scorched rubble of varying sizes to appreciate it. The thirteen stoneborn advanced through the collapsed stone structures and torn up roads at a decent pace. They came across a few groups of ant shardligns digging through the rubble, which were dispatched without much difficulty. Since they only expected to face monsters on this expedition, their Job composition was relatively more balanced.

Though most of them were still Stonesingers, only Kadam had it as his only occupation, while the rest had developed either the Shaman, Wizard, Rogue, Warrior or Ranger Jobs alongside it. Kragiel was something of an exception since she was a pure Armsmaster, though her prowess with all manner of martial weaponry was why she was in charge of the operation to begin with. One needed to be quite flexible and versatile when exploring monster-infested ruins, after all.

"This is the place, Fang," spoke up one of the men, a grizzled stoneborn with sapphire skull-buds. The spot in question looked like just another ruined stone building, but beneath it lied a secret vault that once belonged to one of the biggest adventurer guild before the war. Many of their members fell when the Nemesis laid siege to Cavewater, so the exact location of this item repository had been lost ever since the city fell.

At least until someone suddenly stepped forward with a document pinpointing its position a week ago, at which point Kragiel's team was sent out.

"Damn, no wonder we never found it before," spoke up the woman behind him.

"This is the opposite side of the city their headquarters was supposed to be."

"Yeah, tell me about it," replied the one from before.

"Good thing they found that map, eh?"

"Yeah, 'found,'" scoffed a third.

"More like the greedy bastards that didn't want to share their goodies suddenly became antsy when You-Know-Who started making moves again."

"Shut your traps before I shut them for you!" snapped Kragiel, causing everyone to immediately clam up. Even though her relatively casual command helped make her closer to her subordinates, she could've done without the drop in discipline.

"Kaddie, isn't it about time for another scout?" The Dowser nodded in response. It had been almost 10 minutes since his last long-distance Vibrolocation, so he was just about due for another.

"Alright, you get to it. The rest of you - form a perimeter." The troops did as they were ordered and spread out to cover all angles where an enemy might approach from, then stood perfectly still. As one might expect, having a dozen or so fully armed stoneborn walking around did not help with attempting to pick up on and make sense of vibrations coming in from hundreds of meters away. That was why it was important that all of Kadam's comrades held their position while he did his thing.

And since the process itself took about a minute and a half, they only did it once every ten minutes or so in order to maximize the amount of ground they covered. However, no sooner did the Dowser place his hand on the ground than he felt something particularly troublesome headed their way.

"Borewyrm!" he shouted, putting everyone on high alert.

"It's… sixty meters below us and coming up fast!" The ground began to shake and rumble ever so slightly just moments after he said that.

"Is it the same one as before?" asked his sister.

"Has to be. It's the only one that could've gotten this close to us in so little time."

"Alright. All of you - get ready for combat! Standard takedown formation!" The stoneborn tactic for taking down a borewyrm was to spread out and surround it on all sides. Whoever had its attention would fall back and string it along while the others pelted it with ranged attacks until it either died or, what was more often the case, retreated by burrowing through the ground. And since everyone in this unit was a seasoned monster hunter, they all knew their role and were confident they could defeat it.

They even had a skilled Dowser with them who would be able to predict where the borewyrm would pop out of, allowing them to engage it the instant it showed its ugly head. Which was precisely what Kadam did as he directed his teammates to their optimal positions. However, his sister couldn't help but notice his face was turning pale at the same rapid pace that the barely audible rumbling grew louder.

"What's wrong, Dowser?" she shouted at him.

"It's… a big one," he responded.

"Like, really big!"

"What?! Please don't tell me it's a-" Her words were then rudely interrupted when the rubble-covered ground suddenly erupted with a deafening crash. A three-sided pyramidal jaw that was about two meters wide emerged from it with a loud roar. A segmented wriggling body wrapped in grime-covered purple scales with dozens of insectoid legs sticking out of it followed suit as the creature pulled itself out of the hole.

The stoneborn that were supposed to encircle it to keep it from running amok found themselves suddenly unwilling to confront it when they realized it had a length of over fifteen meters.

"Queen!" shouted Kragiel, finishing her earlier sentence. This was really bad. Queen borewyrms were in a completely different league from their lesser counterparts, not only in size, but also ability. They had petrifying breath that could turn their victims to stone, either killing them on the spot or slowing them down long enough to be eaten and/or crushed. Not to mention that they typically had one or two of their consorts escorting them, which would complicate things immensely.

In other words, this was not an opponent they could take down without suffering heavy casualties. And that was being optimistic.

"Everyone fall back and regroup at point four!" she commanded.

"Sod the magic items - we're getting out of here!" Even though she gave those orders, however, the stoneborn found themselves hesitant to vacate the area as they couldn't help but wonder at the queen's actions. They had expected it to lunge at one of them, but it had instead used its many legs to dash through their perimeter. It was moving with the half-centipede-half-worm equivalent of a sprint as it headed in a straight line going the opposite way from the direction Kadam said it came from.

They then noticed the terrible condition of its body, particularly the plethora of strange, circular wounds. The fact that its entourage was nowhere to be seen was just as baffling. No matter how they looked at it, the stoneborn unit couldn't help but feel that the queen borewyrm was running away from something.

"You're not getting away that easy, meatbag!" A piercing, metallic voice rose out of the hole. A glowing red humanoid figure wrapped in brilliant blue sparks with green light flickering in both eyes leapt out of it and landed on the ground with a massive crash. The new and improved Fizzy dashed out of the dust cloud she had just kicked up in hot pursuit of her quarry, turning the rubble beneath her feet to a fine dust in the process.

The queen borewyrm cried pathetically as it tried to get away, but the dynamo golem had caught up to it in but a few seconds. She lunged at the thing, grabbing onto its relatively thin rear end with both arms and slammed her feet into the ground. Her heels dug out a pair of long trenches as she was dragged along like an anchor. It looked ridiculous and broke all sorts of common logic, but the 130 centimeter tall golem was thus able to stop the 15 meter long worm dead in its tracks.

The creature roared once again as it wriggled its body, but could not break out of Fizzy's grip no matter how much it struggled. Its tail end had been, for all intents and purposes, pinned to the ground by a mithril clamp. The only thing its continued efforts would accomplish at that point was tear off its own appendage, but Fizzy wasn't about to let that happen. Enjoying the story? Show your support by reading it on the official site.

"RRRRAAAAAARGH!" The golem let out a loud scream of her own as she cranked her Static Field generator as high up as it would go. The powerful electric current traveled up the length of the worm's body, causing its legs to curl up and spasm as it thrashed around in agony. You have electrocuted your target. Target HP -1, 140. Proficiency level increased. Static Field is now Level 3. INT +4. WIS +2. The dynamo golem let go of its tail a few seconds later.

The borewyrm stopped convulsing for the most part, although its body and limbs still twitched from the residual charge. She then climbed atop the temporarily paralyzed creature and started running along its squishy flesh. Her right wrist suddenly flipped open like a pair of double doors, making her entire right hand to swing aside as if it were a door knocker. A series of flaps opened up on both the underside and rear end of the cylindrical forearm.

A metal barrel with a series of spiral grooves etched into it then extended out of it and was pointed downwards at the borewyrm carpet she was treading on and. After a moment of charging itself, the barrel shot out a bolt of pure, concentrated mana while jets of azure flame flashed through the various open flaps. You have burned through your target. Target HP -935. The mass of bright blue energy didn't have far to travel before it slammed into the monster.

It melted clean through its scales and penetrated deep into its body, instantly cauterizing the wound. Fizzy shot the overgrown yet helpless insect a few more times as she traversed its length, taking care not to hit her own legs. While she was curious whether this superbly dangerous thing on her hand could melt through mithril, she wasn't keen to find out right there and then. Especially not by using herself as a target. As for the weapon's origins, it was the physical component of her first War Golem Skill.

Magitech Cannon Description: The war golem gains the ability to attack from range by funneling the immense power of its core through a built-in energy weapon. Requirements: Level 5 War Golem, INT 150, DEX 100 Type: Active Activation Time: 0. 5 seconds Cost: 200 MP Range: 40 Meters Effects: Fires a bolt of concentrated magical energy, dealing fire damage to the first target struck. Increases the base damage of this Skill by 2% for every 5 INT.

Reduces the MP cost of this Skill by 15 MP for every 2 Levels of this Skill. Reduces the cooldown period of this Skill by 0. 5 seconds for every 5 Levels of this Skill. This Skill may not be activated more than once every 2 seconds. Fizzy practically leapt at the chance to get a reusable ranged attack when she was offered this ability. The MP consumption, the charge-up time and the short gap between shots made it a bit tricky to use all the time, but all of those aspects would improve gradually as it gained Levels.

And that wasn't going to be a problem, as it had already become one of her favorite means of attack. Not only was it as devastating as one might expect of a 200 MP Skill, but it was also extremely flashy. This was the main reason why she had a goofy grin on her face as she mercilessly pummeled the thing beneath her feet to death. The other was that she had been chasing it around for almost an hour now, and was looking forward to finally putting it out of its misery.

It gave her quite a bit of a run around as it burrowed through the ground at random, as she couldn't keep up with it very well. Especially not when it moved straight upwards. However, now that it was on relatively flat land, she would finally get to bash its brains out. Or, well, the closest thing that a borewyrm had to a brain, anyway.

"Minus! Wrench, please!" she said while folding her cannon back into her arm.

"Aw, man! I wanted to kill it!" complained her other self.

"Fine, just don't miss!"

"Hah! As if!" Now that Minus had been given the go-ahead, the impractically large wrench that had been floating through the air behind the golem the entire time suddenly darted ahead of her. It spun around its handle wildly as if being held by an invisible hand and slammed into the side of the borewyrm's head hard enough to demolish its scales. The massive hit caused a wave of flesh to expand outwards from the point of impact, traveling about four meters down the monster's flabby body before dissipating.

You have inflicted heavy blunt trauma. Target HP -573. The blow to the head had served as something of a wake up call to the creature, making it rear up in a massive roar, throwing Fizzy off in the process. The golem landed on one foot and one knee, and was hit with a blast of petrifying breath before she could dodge. Not that she had a need to dodge it in the first place.

"Cleanse!" Having started the chant somewhat preemptively, Plus was able to fight off the effects of the worm's breath before it even had a chance to take hold. She also threw in a Holy Light, then voiced her complaints that the Engine of Destruction was getting 'a wee bit out of control.' Even if Fizzy's new frame could withstand much higher temperatures than before, there were limits to how far she could push it before she started outright melting.

Meaning it was time for another Heat Exchange, and she knew just where to do it.

"Come on, you pathetic maggot!" she roared while thumping her chest.

"You can do better than that!" The queen borewyrm naturally had no idea what she was saying, but it nevertheless responded to the tone of her voice. In a fit of desperate resistance, it reared back and took another deep breath, then unleashed another petrifying squall at Fizzy. The golem leaped towards its mouth at the same time, diving right into its busted up jaws.

She then activated Heat Exchange, causing streams of actual flames to pour out of the numerous vents covering her as her superheated body rapidly cooled itself off. The borewyrm's front end was then engulfed in flames from the inside out, which dug through the last shreds of its HP. You have seared your target. Target HP -1, 684. Proficiency level increased. Heat Exchange is now Level 4. END +4. INT +2. Level up! Congratulations, you are now a Level 8 War Golem! STR +4. END +4. FTH +2.

"Aw, man! All that work for only one Level?!" complained Minus as the now-white golem climbed out of the overcooked mass of worm meat.

"This sucks!"

"I think getting a whole Level at once is pretty good in and of itself." Fizzy was inclined to agree with Plus's argument since the XP required for the War Golem Job to increase in Level was rather ludicrous. It had taken a solid nine days of hunting borewyrms to get to this point, and getting the next Skill seemed like it would take yet more work still. Rather than raising a Job from Level 1 to Level 10, this amount of effort felt a lot closer to the gap between Levels 50 and 60.

Which made a good deal of sense to Fizzy once she considered the fact that the only way a war golem could exist was by Ranking Up from a metal one. It was unthinkable that one would just pop up out of nowhere, as such a construct would be effectively crippled without the foundation of a Metal Golem Job with a very specific set of Skills. As for her Paladin Job, that had already maxed out at 50 a few days earlier. There would be no further developments on that front until she found an appropriate Mentor.

Though all things considered, she would probably max out all the related Skills and achieve a Breakthrough well before that happened. At least her War Golem Job was steadily growing in Level, so it wasn't all bad, but her Arclight Artificer was still a neglected as ever.

"Parallel Zero." Having fulfilled her immediate objective, Fizzy reclaimed full control over her body and took in her surroundings. She had been completely focused on her target until moments before, so it took her a little while to realize where she was.

"Huh. Ruins of some sort… An old city, perhaps?"

"Well, this is promising!" exclaimed Plus.

"In what way?" asked her counterpart.

"It's the first sign of civilization since our Rank Up!"

"Oh yeah. I'm sure those piles of smashed up bricks will be more than happy to give us directions."

"… Since when did you learn to use sarcasm?"

"What can I say? It's a gift."

"Plus is right though," butted in Fizzy.

"I do believe our days of wandering around totally lost are over now that we've found this place."

"Oh? How do you figure?" asked Minus. The dynamo golem stretched her right hand out, causing the Iron Teeth that had been left lying on the ground to leap into her open palm. She grabbed it by the handle, gave it a spin to pick up speed and then slammed it against her shield. This produced a loud gong and caused a few streaks of crackling lightning to arc between the two objects, accompanied by a deluge of sparks.

She then lowered her posture into a fighting stance as she narrowed her focus onto the stoneborn lurking in the shadows around her.

"We've just found ourselves some guides!" General Information Attributes Job Information Name Fizzy Rustblood Name Value Name Value Name Level Progress Species Dynamo Golem (Mithril) STR 576 PER 159 Arclight Artificer 59 93% Sex Female DEX 203 FTH 253 Paladin 50 MAX Age 22 years AGI 215 LCK 95 Metal Golem 50 MAX Guild Hammers of Horkensaft END 492 War Golem 8 24% HP 3036/3036 (+4. 9/sec) INT 307 MP 1535/1535 (+3. 8/sec) WIS 243 Skill List Name Level Proficiency Name Level Proficiency Name Level Proficiency Clockwork Expertise 10 MAX Divine Wrath 9 43% Magitech Cannon 3 52% Explosives Handling 8 55% Bonecrusher War Art 7 32% Metallopathy 9 64% Deconstruction 7 94% Parallel Plot 7 87% Lightning Affinity 2 89% Optics Expertise 5 8% Pure Skill 4 31% Static Field 3 7% Physics 7 34% Beacon of Faith 2 11% Mentor 3 94% Component Forging 10 MAX Heavy Metal 10 MAX Meditation 6 33% Tick Counter 7 78% Armored Charge 10 MAX Dagger Mastery 4 6% Upgrade 5 45% Advanced Joints 10 MAX Shield Mastery 12 53% Electrical Expertise 4 25% Magnetize 9 52% Holy Mastery 15 MAX Champion of Chaos 10 MAX Engine of Destruction 7 23% Mace Mastery 15 MAX Toughness 10 MAX Shock Absorption 5 14% Brawling Mastery 5 81% Strength of Faith 10 MAX Heat Exchange 4 4% Holy Scripture 10 MAX Geomagnetic Grip 2 31% Spell List Martial Arts List Holy Other Bonecrusher War Art Holy Light Parallel Zero Grand Slam Consecrate Parallel One Shield Wall Cleanse Parallel Two Heavy Gong Judgement Rebound Holy Infusion Love Tap Gag Order Nail Strike