Chapter 592: Material Gathering [III]
Golems are susceptible to magic, but they are also quite capable of resisting it as well. They have hunted Golems before, and to efficiently hunt Golems, one has to be the bait and the physical attacker against the Golem so that the magician can fight in the distance and stop the trigger of having the Golems actively use their resisting abilities against magic.
For a team, dealing with Golems would be easy, but doing it solo is something else. Unless one has the power to quickly dispose of them, no matter if they have high physical resistance or they have high magic resistance, solo is considered hard or even outright suicidal.
And yet, Adelaide is actually doing this solo, refusing to have the others know her task of obtaining a golem core.
"I knew this would be hard, but I didn’t think it would be THIS hard..." Adelaide grumbled as she dodged again as the golems tried to flatten her with their arms.
She is currently alternating between melee attacks and Magic skills to keep the Golems busy. The problem is, she is dealing with three Golems at once. Despite trying to deal with one at a time, the three are quick to rush to her, making the battle hard as she transitions to melee attacks.
"Don’t panic, Adelaide. Just keep up the pace, and you will be alright." Adelaide continued to pep talk herself as she exchanged blows with the Golems.
Golems are easy to deal with due to their cores. Once a core is broken, the Golem will instantly crumble to pieces, causing the Golem to "die". This is because the core is the one that powers the Golem and its movements as well. It acts as both the heart and brain of the Golem. And it would be easy for Adelaide to deal with them if not for the fact that she needed the cores intact.
Sand of the Golem Core, the ingredient that Adelaide needed to get, can only be obtained by breaking and grounding the intact core to fine powder. It cannot be obtained when the core is broken while it is still attached to the Golem, since the moment the core breaks while still attached to the Golem, it will automatically break and turn to dust, stopping anyone from gathering any usable pieces that can be used. It is also quite expensive when sold, and when she knew this, they tried it and turned to be a true thing. Selling them to the market to an alchemist yields them a hefty amount of money, which is why Adelaide and Arthur never asked Elaina for money even once.
And so, to safely extract a Golem’s core, Adelaide has to do the hard and roundabout way of dealing with them.
"Water Blast!" Adelaide points her daggers to the leg of her target Golem, soaking one of the legs and eroding a few parts of its body. But that isn’t enough to fully damage it.
Once the leg is fully soaked, Adelaide alternates her magic from Water Element to Ice Element.
"Frigid Ice!"
Before the water dried up, Adelaide used it as a way to freeze up the leg of the Golem Core.
She continued to do it on the same Golem for a while now, and while the previous attempt did not fully work as intended and just allowed the Golem to continue moving around, this time, the part she continued targeting for quite some time had finally lost its foundation.
CRACK!
BANG!
The ice that formed on the Golem’s leg exploded on its own, breaking apart, including the Golem’s leg, causing it to lose balance and tumble over.
Considering Golems are just chunks of moving debris of either stone, metal, or sand, the moment one of its foundations is broken, the Golem’s core seems to have experienced a short circuit, stopping it from moving. It is still alive, but the core will continue to command the Golem to move the missing leg, and considering that Golems don’t have the regenerative powers to restore parts of its body once missing, the Golem’s core is perpetually loading that command, which would end up stopping the Golem completely.
"One down, two to go."
One Golem Core is enough to provide the necessary amount, but Adelaide is not going to feel completely satisfied with just one. What if they messed up during the creation? Then she would have to gather more? It would be annoying and consume too much time. Besides, even if they succeed immediately, having extra cores is a luxury that they can just use and sell, or maybe keep in the future.
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...
It took at least 3 hours for all of the Golems to fully die but thankfully, with the time anomaly inside the mines, it didn’t really matter how long she managed to deal with it. It was hard, but it was, at the very least, worth it. The three Golems continued to remain alive, and yet they were no longer fighting as their consciousness seemed to have ended up focused on moving a lost limb.
Adelaide carefully carved out each Golem core and put them in a sack. She didn’t have the dimensional storage bag since Raye currently has it in his possession, and it wouldn’t be right for Adelaide to have them and take them. Besides, that bag is meant for the group to contain the items they have looted, and considering how much stuff they loot every day, the dimensional storage bag is more necessary for them to keep than for her.
With the core secured, the next thing that Adelaide needed to get was the "Branch of the Corrupted Treant," and just by the name itself, the ingredient could be taken from a Corrupted Treant.
Adelaide has no idea that the Branches of those tree monsters are actually useful, since the only thing they seem to be useful for is to make kindling and charcoal due to how highly flammable they get to be and how the charcoal made from those monsters takes a long time to burn. She usually blasted it with flames and called it a day. Never expected she would need to search one again to gather a piece of its body without it burning.
"This better be worth it, God of Farming."
Lugging the three cores with her, Adelaide returned to the elevator.
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By the time she got out of the mines, that’s when the others who were currently outside the mines, discussing things, met Adelaide face to face as she got out of the mines, looking a bit haggard due to the battle she had fought against the golems and currently carrying a large sack on her back.
"Ade?!" Raye was surprised to see Adelaide go out of the mines before they even got inside.
"Ade, why did you come out of the mines? Did you actually go and explore the depths by yourself?" Mier asked, concerned about Adelaide.
"Eh? I thought that you would ask us to accompany you next time you go to the mines, Ade. Why go alone?" Layla was confused by Adelaide’s recent actions.
Raye glanced at Adelaide’s sack that she was carrying on her shoulders. If one looked at her right now, Adelaide looked like a beggar carrying her things.
"Ade, didn’t we talk before that you are always free to talk with us and help out on your task to awaken Mother? I may be adopted by Mother, but that doesn’t mean I am not concerned. We might not be helpful when it comes to the farm, but fighting monsters is something we pride ourselves on. Why not ask us for help at all?" Raye felt a bit disappointed by Adelaide’s actions.
"Sir Raye, it seemed like Miss Adelaide just didn’t want you and everyone else to feel burdened in doing this. Based on her aura, it seemed like she didn’t do this because she didn’t want anyone to help out, but because she just needed it," Arlo read Adelaide’s aura, allowing him to interpret Adelaide’s intentions without her actually talking.
Adelaide sighed and looked at Raye with a pained expression. "I don’t want to burden everyone into thinking that they needed to comply with my wishes and impede the group’s progress in descending the mines. True, I do need ample help, but that doesn’t mean it is necessary to change plans just because I need it. With both Arthur and I focusing on the farm and restoring Mother’s consciousness, we transferred the responsibility and leadership to you, Raye."
"But then...you will suffer more than necessary!" Raye felt conflicted.
"Thanks for worrying, Raye. But I can’t just keep relying on everyone. I have to do something as well, without anyone helping me out. I have to do this with my own hands."
Adelaide walked away from the group, dragging the sack.
"Keep up the work, Raye. Don’t worry about me and focus on our task to reach the depths. After all, you are the most suitable to be the leader, instead of us twins."
Before Raye can continue his protest about this, Adelaide has already walked far enough that he is left staring at her leaving.
"Ade..."