BANG!
The ground in front of Kyle exploded as a humongous axe split the earth.
"Chill out! I'm just here to talk!" Kyle shouted.
Another axe barely missed Kyle's head.
"Leave!" a dark voice shouted from inside the cave in front of Kyle.
"What's your problem?" Kyle asked, avoiding another strike meant to kill him. "Also, can you pull your golem back? You know exactly that I can just destroy it!"
The five-meter-tall golem in front of Kyle attacked him again with its axe.
"Then, destroy it!" the dark voice reverberated.
Michael and Falk watched nervously as the golem attacked Kyle again.
Kyle had told them that he would be introducing them to a new teammate today.
Sure, he had warned them that they were a bit… eccentric… but they hadn't expected that the person would immediately try to kill Kyle.
This was supposed to be their teammate?
'Just give them a chance,' Falk thought.
"Why are you even this angry?" Kyle asked, evading the golem's strike again. "Are you on your period?"
"How dare you!" the dark voice thundered out of the cave before another two identical golems rushed out.
Falk took a deep breath and prepared for battle.
The golem in front of Kyle was already pretty strong, and he seemed to be barely holding on.
He couldn't possibly deal with three of them at once.
"Left, left, right. Left, right. Back. Forth. Left," Theodor said in Kyle's mind.
Kyle seemingly jumped around in completely random patterns.
Yet, somehow, all the golems missed him by wide margins.
At some point, one of the golems even crashed into the other, toppling both of them over.
"I will not stand for this disrespect towards my creations!" the dark voice shouted as three more golems ran out.
"Lily, calm the fuck down!" Kyle shouted. "You know what happens when you send more!"
The dark voice just laughed maliciously.
"You fool! Witness my growth!" the dark voice shouted.
"Growth? What, you got cancer now, and you want to show me?" Kyle asked as he avoided more attacks.
"Imbecile! These are not crustaceans!" the voice shouted.
The next moment, all the golems spread apart and surrounded Kyle.
Then, they lifted their weapons.
There was no way to dodge.
"Snap your fingers and keep standing there," Theodor said.
Kyle did just that.
All the golems attacked…
And they all missed.
"Oh, you discovered the windmill pattern," Kyle said, repeating what Theodor had just explained to him.
"Windmill pattern? Fool! I created this myself!" the voice shouted.
"No, that's the windmill pattern," Kyle said while the golems stopped moving. "That's like the fifth time you reinvented the wheel."
"I did not reinvent the wheel! Stop saying that!" the dark voice said while cracking a bit.
Kyle rolled his eyes. "Fine, if you don't want to talk, we are going to leave."
"You will not leave alive after this insult!" the dark voice shouted in rage as the golems attacked again.
Kyle just followed Theodor's orders and easily avoided the golems' attacks.
When it came to creating golems, the hardest part was the programming of their intelligence.
Battles were fluid, and golems needed to adapt to the enemy's movements.
However, golems were not inherently intelligent.
They worked by following a program.
The reason why Theodor had been the best Golemancer was not because he made the most powerful golems.
It was because he made the most intelligent golems.
An Artificer didn't fight with their own body, which was why it was so hard for them to program a golem to fight an intelligent being and win.
It needed a lot of trial and error.
Sulfur, for example, was as skilled in fighting as a Mid Grandmaster.
Granite was even stronger. His Spellcasting abilities were at the level of a Late Grand Sorcerer.
Granite, on his own, couldn't win against a Peak Grand Sorcerer, but he didn't need to.
Theodor had been a Golemancer.
All of his golems were part of his strength.
As long as Theodor also sent his weird dragon dog and Sulfur into the fight, the Peak Grand Sorcerer would be in huge trouble.
The person in the cave was an Early Artificer, and an Early Artificer couldn't program golems that would surprise Theodor.
"Anyway, bye," Kyle said as he motioned for his two teammates to leave with him.
"No, you will stay!" the dark voice shouted angrily.
Kyle just kept walking.
Surprisingly, the golems didn't follow them.
"Please," everyone suddenly heard a quiet and girly voice.
Kyle stopped, and everyone turned around.
Falk and Michael looked with shock at the person who had come out of the cave.
It was a small woman riding a stony cat.
She wore a raven-black dress and had grey hair.
Most surprising of all was that there were tears in her eyes.
"Finally ready to talk?" Kyle asked.
The woman sniffled. "The book you gave me is too hard," she said. "I can't understand it."
"I told you it's beyond your level," Kyle said. "You said, and I quote…"
Kyle coughed. "There is no such thing as beyond my level!"
Naturally, the book she was referring to had been written by Kyle under Theodor's direction.
Lily paid a lot of money for it.
"You mock me?!" she shouted in anger as all her tears vanished.
Falk and Michael took deep breaths.
This mood shift was too sudden!
This woman was crazy!
"You're the one mocking yourself," Kyle said with a chuckle.
Lily glared at Kyle."I want my money back!"
"No refunds!" Kyle shouted back. "I told you it's very advanced!"
"That's extortion!" she shouted.
"I warned you, and you still bought it! You accepted the trade willingly!" Kyle said. "Maybe, next time, you should listen to my advice."
Lily glared at Kyle.
"I don't have the money to buy something else," she said.
"Well, aren't you in luck then?" Kyle asked with a salesman smirk. "I have just the right thing for you!"
Lily grimaced in disgust.
"We are searching for new members!" Kyle said. "This is Falk. He is a Fighter. This is Michael. He's a Sorcerer."
"And right now, we are asking you to join us!"
Lily looked at the two people beside Kyle.
"Ew."
"Weaklings."
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