Chapter 86 – Golem

Roland looked back to the door that shut behind him. His eyes glowed in a purple light as he scanned the surroundings. There didn’t seem to be any runes on this side of the passage, it looked like there was no way of going back.

He grimaced under his helmet before turning around and moving forward. The shield that Roland made had a boss in the center that was protruding slightly. A boss or a umbo was a round, convex or conical piece of material at the center of a shield. This shield had all of the mana stones on the inside as to not let them be crushed during combat.

The shield was held out toward the empty corridor while he looked around. Thanks to his skills he was able to detect magical traps but that didn’t help against the normal ones. Roland moved forward slowly, he had no idea of knowing if he would even come out in the boss’s chamber or if it was the way to an entirely new location. It could be a hidden treasure trove or another secret passage to a lower or an upper level.

There was also the possibility of this passageway being swarmed with monsters. He was slightly regretting his decision but there was also the adventurer part in him that told him to move forward. This was a new part of him that had been slowly awakening through the constant monster battles, now he was even starting to enjoy this adrenaline rush.

This wasn’t the first time that he ventured into a secret chamber either, so this wasn’t all that new. Most of the time there wasn’t really anything dangerous in these rooms. The most important point was to go in slowly and assess the situation with a clear mind.

After treading forward some more he came up to a wall. This one was also locked behind a runic lock. At first, he was surprised that other adventurers weren’t able to discover these hidden chambers. But the only reason he was able to do this is due to his debugging skill and rune affinity. A regular mage wouldn’t be able to do anything and other Runesmiths didn’t really venture down into dungeons.

‘That should do it…’

With some fiddling, the passage was opened and the wall started to shift. A big slab of rock started sliding up to reveal some light, when he looked inside he discovered a larger chamber.

The first thing that he could feel was the increase in temperature. The boss chamber was surrounded by lava from all sides. This was something that he already knew as he had bought up all the information from the guild that he could.

When someone entered this room they would be greeted by a narrow bridge going toward a large platform in the middle. The adventurers needed to move to this platform and then the bridge behind them would shift back into the lava. Only then would the boss of this place appear. After the monster was dead another bridge going forward would show itself. The path to go back would also open up and now other people could travel through this room.

Where Roland came out, he found himself above this chamber. He was walking forward but with the lack of light, it was a bit confusing. He didn’t notice that he was going upwards slightly and now the boss room was almost right below him.

‘Damn… are they all dead?’

He could see some dead bodies, crushed into paste and some caved in heads. There was quite the large monster moving slowly in the middle of it. He recognized the type that it was instantly and this would be quite the troublesome foe. After glancing at it with his analyze skill he had some more information.

It was a rare variant of a Golem that appeared in the lower levels. Normally it would be a golem made from stone and magma called the ‘Volcanic Golem’. That one was already hard to kill due to being made from molten rock.

Sharp bladed weapons were almost useless against heavy monsters like this. A massive amount of strength and energy would be required from a person to slice through something like this with a blade. The easier tactic would be to apply heavy hammers or maces to crack the rock bit by bit.

“Fuck…”

Roland said while looking at his brand new deep steel sword. Even though it had some protective enchantments it didn’t really possess the weight to do much damage to this thing. This Ruby Golem wasn’t fully made from rubies, it was similar to a Volcanic Golem that was made from hard volcanic rock.

There was even fire and magma coming out from some cracks in that rocky hide along from its small head that was similar to a human skull. Besides that there were rubies plastered all over its body, these rubies formed spikes. Those spikes were on its tree trunk sized arms and legs. They were used to puncture through its opponents in various ways.

Before moving forward Roland decided to abandon his blade, what he would use for now was his old mace that went through some reforging. It wasn’t really on the level of his blade but it would have to do for now. The rune that increased its weight during a fight was something that he needed for this bout.

He could see that not everyone was dead yet. The monster was also somewhat damaged as it didn’t just decimate the adventurer party. What the monster was moving towards was a person that was wearing a large backpack. He looked familiar but also didn’t look like he was an actual adventurer. It was probably someone hired to carry the monster remains and distribute healing potions during the battles.

‘No good… he is going to die…’

The Ruby Golem was in the middle of rising up one of its giant arms. Where the hand was supposed to be was a spike made from ruby crystals. It was clearly winding up to deliver a killing blow against its defenseless enemy. If he didn’t act the person down there would surely be dead.

To save up on some runic charges he went towards one of his backup items. Thanks to maxing out his basic rune condensation skill and now it even leveling up further, he was finally able to scribe card-sized runes. Roland had some side pouches strapped to his belt for that reason.

After pulling out one he held it between his thumb and index finger. The card-sized scroll glowed in blue light before changing colors to brown. An arrow made of densely packed rock shot out almost instantly. It whizzed through the air and collided with that raised ruby hand. The collision caused a small explosion to occur while also causing some of the rubies to shatter.

This was enough for the monster to turn its hulking body around. At this moment Roland was still standing above the boss stage. He wouldn’t just give away his high ground advantage. There were multiple attack scrolls that he possessed so he decided to use this safe spot to pelt the Ruby Golem with his spells.

The ruby parts that the golem was composed of started cracking slightly but they were quite hard to damage. Rubies were one of the hardest gemstones not being much below diamonds on the hardness scale. There were harder minerals in this world but that didn’t make this any easier.

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For a moment Roland thought that he would be able to just take care of this boss from afar. He had the advantage of being above the monster’s reach but this didn’t last for long. After a moment he heard a strange sound behind him. He quickly turned around to see a darkish red glow. Hot magma started flooding into this small corridor of his, the only way out was jumping down to the platform below.

There was also quite a large chunk of spiked rubies flying his way from the other side. Somehow the golem had thrown its entire fist that was composed of rubies at him. The collision caused a resounding boom to flow through the room. The whole place shook around while Roland landed on his own two feet. He had made quite the landing as spider web-like cracks formed in the spot that he descended into.

Now he was able to see the monster from closer up. It was quite big, at least five meters tall and wide as a small house. It was missing its right hand but somehow the creature was regenerating itself. He could see the rubies manifesting themselves and slowly growing to form new sharp spikes.

Before the monster could get near him, he activated more of his attacking scroll spells. Various colorful magical arrows and bolts collided with the giant monster that was pushed back slightly. After the smoke had cleared he could see some cracks and fissures here and there but it didn’t look like it would be going down this easily.

‘The golems always have a core inside their body…I need to destroy it…’

Golems were one of the toughest monsters to go against. Their bodies were resistant to both physical and magical attacks. They had one weakness though, they were similar to slimes in that regard as they also possessed a monster core. If destroyed or even shifted from its original spot the monster would cease its functions.

Most of these golems had partially exposed cores which allowed for a somewhat bearable fight. The fight mostly consisted of slowly aiming for the exposed core till it gave out. This golem was a bit different due to being a rare variant and Roland had an idea why.