“Golems don’t feel very in line with desire,” I said breathily as another rock golem fell to pieces at my feet.
Terra seemed to have taken this as a personal challenge, as she was fighting the golems head-on. Compared to her, these things were basically just mindless drones, but she had a look on her face like she wouldn’t lose to them. As a result, she smashed into them aggressively, even if it caused damage to herself. Of course, I made sure to keep healing her.
Raissa shook her head. “Dungeons that have golems get stronger golems the farther down they go. These may only be rock golems, but if you make it to level 9, there are iron golems. With them is a chance of finding copper golems. The farther down you go, the harder the metals.”
“So, people mine in this way as well?”
“Without large storage rings, it’s rarely profitable, Raissa sighed, “But I imagine that’s why they tried to use a mine and come in the side.”
“So, the orichalcum was found in the dungeon, and so they created the mine to steal it from the side, miscalculated, and caused this issue? What is this issue, anyway?”
“I’ve never seen an issue ,” Raissa responded helplessly. “My only guess is that the whole in the 5th floor allows the boss to leave the dungeon, but not reenter. Every time a boss leaves the floor it’s supposed to be on, the dungeon counts it as destroyed. Thus, there could be hundreds of minibosses between here and the fifth level.”
Although a fifth level miniboss wasn’t something we couldn’t handle, these bosses have an extremely high defense and there are just too many of them. They kept marching forward in a long line, and even though we had already taken down five of them, they were still pushing us back more and more. We were only about a hundred meters from the ladder leading back up. At that point, we’d really have our backs in a corner.
“Any chance we can see the end of the line of them?” I asked.”
“I’m not sure, Master!” Lydia said as she slashed one on the knees, but failed to cause it to crash down.
I rearranged my jobs temporarily and then used sense life on the map. I let out a breath, but it was short-lived. The good news was that the line ended. The bad news was that the line ended after nearly a hundred of these guys. It would take us the entire day to beat them, and there was no way to fight safely once we hit that wall. Simply put, they’d crush us. We could stand on the top of the hole and fire down, hoping we’re hitting them, but that would just as likely cause the cave to collapse.
At that moment, an idea got into my head.
“Let run back to the ladder!” I ordered, bringing the girls with me and buying us just a bit of space. “Now, Terra, can you collapse the cave?”
“The next few hundred meters. Knock them out!”
“I can weaken the structure, Master, but I can’t collapse it on my own. I need a strong blow!” Terra declared.
“Celeste?” I turned to her.
The two girls immediately got to work. Terra weakened the stone structure above the golem’s heads. Meanwhile, Celeste prepared a powerful wind spell. While they were doing that, I had the other girls climb up the ladder to safety. By the time they were ready, the golems had about 50 meters to go.
“Terra, come up with me. Celeste, as soon as you cast it, shrink and fly up!”
I went up to the top of the ladder, feeling just slightly anxious leaving Celeste at the bottom.
“I don’t understand,” Raissa said. “You’ll take care of the rock golems, but the path will be sealed. We won’t be able to get into the dungeon.”
“It’s fine!” I reassured her and then pointed down. “Fire!”
There was a sudden rush of air, and then a small glittery form shot up the ladder just as a massive explosion rang out. The ground rumbled and dust exploded out of the hole, causing everyone to cough. We waved our hands in front of our mouths until Celeste used a wind spell and quickly cleared the air.
I used Sense Life and checked the map again. The collapse still missed a few dozen golems. It didn’t matter though. They were still trying to march forward, finding themselves blocked by the avalanche. Fortunately, my fireball from earlier had let me see far enough down that there was still a good fifty meters behind the golems.
“Portal!” A portal opened directly behind the golems.
Raissa made a noise of shock, but I ushered her and the other girls inside.
A few moments later, we were back in the underground corridor, but this time, we were behind the golems.