As Seto dove toward the Necro Golem destroying the building, with Rei on his back, the creature apparently noticed them. It thrust its right hand toward them—
"Seto!"
"Gruu!"
The moment Rei spoke—no, even before that—Seto had already sensed the danger. He flapped his wings and shifted away from their position.
An instant later, a tentacle shot out from the Necro Golem's right hand, tearing through the space where Rei and Seto had been just a moment before.
The speed of the tentacle's extension was such that Seto could dodge it without much difficulty.
However, that was strictly because it was Seto. For anyone else, failing to evade would have been entirely plausible.
It was an attack that sharp, yet Rei found it puzzling.
Rei had fought Dolan Workshop golems several times before, both in the Slum District and on the Workshop's own grounds.
Those golems, being made from human materials, had higher performance than standard ones. Even so, they had never been opponents that gave Rei or Seto much trouble.
But the attack just now had been fast enough to surprise even Rei. It was certain that only Seto could have dodged it.
(Why does this Necro Golem possess such overwhelming power? Well, considering the Dolan Workshop was using necromancy, maybe it isn't so strange?)
If Rei was being honest, he had let his guard down slightly, assuming it was just another Dolan Workshop golem.
That was precisely why the Necro Golem's attack had rattled him all the more.
"Seto, those tentacles are trouble. We'll attack from a distance! Forget about the damage to the building the Necro Golem's in!"
"Gruu!"
At Rei's words, Seto let out a fierce cry.
Close combat with his front legs was Seto's specialty, but he was by no means weak at long-range attacks using skills.
The same held true for Rei.
"Flying Slash!"
To start things off, Rei drew Death Scythe and the Twilight Spear from his Misty Ring and unleashed Flying Slash.
Seto likewise activated the Ice Arrow skill, and fifty ice arrows materialized in the air around him before launching toward the Necro Golem.
The Necro Golem, created from Dailas absorbing corpses, had no skin—its muscles were fully exposed—and it stood nearly ten meters tall.
At that size, the figure of the Necro Golem rampaging through the city was likely visible from many points across Egginis.
Its head, too, was little more than a mass of flesh, with no discernible eyes, nose, or mouth.
One could recognize it as a head based on its position, but to someone with no prior knowledge, "mass of flesh" or "tumor" would be a far more fitting description.
How it perceived its surroundings with such a head was beyond Rei's understanding.
Still, the fact that it was clearly directing its attacks at him meant that Dailas—or whatever remained of Dailas's consciousness—was checking the outside situation through some means. Whether Dailas's ego still lingered, Rei couldn't say, but the creature was definitely aware of its environment.
As if to prove the point, the Necro Golem raised its arm as a shield and blocked both Rei's Flying Slash and Seto's Ice Arrows.
"Whoa..."
The Flying Slash had carved a gash so deep in the arm that severing it wouldn't have been surprising, and the Ice Arrows had buried themselves in the limb by the dozen. At first glance, it looked like they had dealt real damage.
It looked that way—until, instead of blood, a foul-smelling liquid oozed from the wound. A liquid that could only be described as rot fluid.
If that had been the extent of it, Rei would have only needed to worry about Seto's sense of smell.
The real problem was the green smoke rising from the spots on the ground where the rot fluid had landed.
Judging by its color, this was no ordinary smoke from a fire. It clearly contained some kind of poison.
"Wait, that's not even the half of it."
Rei had already suspected the green smoke was dangerous, but on closer inspection, the ground where the rot fluid had fallen was actively melting—and that was what was producing the green smoke.
The toxicity of the smoke was bad enough, but more alarmingly, the rot fluid itself was unmistakably a strong acid.
"Seto, pull back. We can't attack carelessly like this!"
"Grurururu!"
At Rei's command, Seto let out a sharp cry and veered away.
The Necro Golem watched Rei and Seto go but, for whatever reason, made no attempt to pursue. Instead, it resumed demolishing the building.
Judging by that behavior, it seemed to Rei that the Necro Golem—or perhaps Dailas, who had become its core—harbored a kind of hatred toward the building where the Holy Four Assembly was held.
(Dailas always prioritized Egginis's development, didn't he? So why destroy that building? Why do something like that? ...Well, it's still better than letting something with a body that dangerous roam the streets.)
The Necro Golem's body was extremely hazardous.
Based on the effects of Flying Slash and Ice Arrows, its defensive power wasn't particularly high.
But in exchange, it possessed the troublesome trait of spraying rot fluid from any wound it sustained.
That was exactly why attacking it carelessly was such a severe constraint.
If they weren't in the middle of the city, they could attack without worrying about the rot fluid at all.
Unfortunately, the Necro Golem was currently dead center in Egginis.
The surrounding area was packed with buildings, and many people lived there.
Under the current circumstances, it was highly likely that the residents of nearby buildings had already evacuated—but it wasn't a certainty.
What's more, while the rot fluid itself was a liquid, the poison it generated was gaseous, meaning it spread easily through the air.
"This... 'troublesome' doesn't even begin to cover it."
Defeating the Necro Golem under these conditions could easily result in unprecedented devastation across Egginis.
Rei didn't know the specific effects of the poison produced by the rot fluid.
If it was only strong enough to cause paralysis, that would be manageable. But given that it was rot fluid's poison, the possibility that those who inhaled it would rot from the inside out couldn't be dismissed.
With that in mind, attacking the Necro Golem recklessly here was simply not an option.
"If only there were a way to freeze it solid instead of inflicting wounds."
If he used fire to burn it, the rot fluid would overflow in enormous quantities as toxic smoke.
Compared to Rei's fire magic, freezing the creature would immobilize the Necro Golem entirely.
And the rot fluid would freeze along with it, preventing poison from drifting through the area.
Magical attacks using Death Scythe or the Twilight Spear were out of the question, since they'd just open wounds that leaked rot fluid.
In that sense, the Necro Golem currently demolishing the building was close to Rei's natural enemy.
Of course, that was only in the context of fighting without causing collateral damage. If he encountered it outside the city instead, defeating it wouldn't be difficult at all.
(Could this Necro Golem be a weapon the Dolan Workshop built specifically to counter me...? That's a possibility, isn't it? Troubling in its own way, if so.)
The opponent was simply that hard for him to deal with, which was why the thought crossed his mind at all.
Whether that was actually the case, Rei didn't know. He didn't know—but given the current situation, he couldn't deny the possibility seemed high.
"Grururu?"
What's the plan? Seto purred, directing the question at Rei on his back.
Reading Seto's intent, Rei scanned the area while weighing his options... and at a distance from the building where the Necro Golem rampaged, he spotted Robel, Orban, and Dwanda, along with a handful of others who appeared to be surviving guards.
"Let's go ask Robel and the others. With any luck, they might have a decent idea. Seto, can you see them? Land over there."
"Grururu."
At Rei's instruction, Seto angled into a descent toward the ground.
Naturally, Robel and the others had been watching the Necro Golem in the distance, so they had already recognized Rei and Seto fighting it—and noticed them approaching.
Seto touched down beside the group.
(That's a lot fewer people. ...Did the Necro Golem get them?)
Looking at the people gathered around Robel and the others, Rei furrowed his brow at the scale of the casualties.
A fair number had been killed by Dailas, but a considerable number had survived as well.
Yet the head count here was just over ten—less than half the group that had been present when Rei left for the Dolan Workshop.
Not everyone had been killed and absorbed by the Necro Golem. Some had likely judged the situation hopeless and slipped away on their own. Even so, it was an undeniable fact that a significant number had been lost.
With those thoughts turning over in his mind, Rei spoke up.
"I never expected Dailas to end up like that. Just to confirm—I had him pinned at every joint with the iron rods I prepared. He couldn't move, right?"
"Yeah, of course. I still don't know what method he used, but before we knew it, he was absorbing corpses and growing massive. He blew the iron rods off... and after that, there was no stopping him. He absorbed every corpse in the vicinity, and even the people who tried to attack him to put a halt to it got absorbed themselves. And in the end..."
Orban didn't finish the sentence, but what lay beyond his words was obvious.
"And that's the result. Putting that aside—did you see me fight the Necro Golem?"
"Necro Golem? Ah, so that's what you're calling it. Necro Golem... a fitting name. Suits it well. I'll use that from now on. As for the fight—of course I saw it."
"Then you saw how, from the spot where Seto and I hit it, a rotten liquid poured out instead of blood? And where that rot fluid hit the ground, green smoke rose—poison, most likely?"
"I couldn't see that far, but I confirmed it happening while fighting Dailas—the Necro Golem—once it grew past a certain size. You're right. That green smoke is poison. A potent one, too—inhale even a little and you start vomiting blood."
At Orban's words, Robel and Dwanda, along with the surviving guards, all nodded in agreement.
Fear, sorrow, and despair were written across every face.
(Well, that's natural. If you've lived your whole life in Egginis, you'd never have had occasion to encounter something like that.)
In that regard, Rei—who operated in the frontier and had been swept up in all manner of trouble—was used to facing down monstrous threats.
From Rei's perspective, the Necro Golem was troublesome in that it leaked rot fluid from its wounds, which then turned into poison. But ultimately, that was the only troublesome part.
If the Necro Golem were anywhere other than the city, putting it down wouldn't be all that difficult.
And because Rei saw it that way, he still had a reasonable amount of composure.
"So it is poison. ...I'll be straight with you. I can defeat that Necro Golem."
At Rei's declaration, most of those who heard him broke into cheers.
The three—Robel, Orban, and Dwanda—along with a few of the guards, however, did not celebrate so easily.
As if to underscore why, Rei continued.
"Defeating it isn't in doubt. But the moment I take it down, rot fluid will scatter in every direction from its body and become poison. And if I attack with magic instead of physical strikes, the rot fluid will evaporate—flooding the surrounding area with a massive cloud of toxic smoke."
"I-in that case... how much damage would the surrounding area suffer?"
While those who had been cheering fell silent, Robel spoke up to ask, his voice as hesitant as ever. Still, the fact that he'd pressed the question immediately spoke to a certain resolve.
Faced with Robel's inquiry, Rei hesitated briefly before answering.
"Let's see. Honestly, I won't know until I actually fight it... but worst case—truly the absolute worst—poison could be scattered not just across this area but across all of Egginis."
Rei didn't know exactly how potent the green smoke's poison was.
Given that those who inhaled it immediately vomited blood, it was unquestionably powerful.
But when pressed on exactly how powerful, he couldn't give a confident, specific answer.
And at those words—born from that very uncertainty—Robel and the others listening stiffened, their faces going rigid.