"Spira, do you mind handling the Magic House deployment?"
"You got it!"
Setting up the Magic House required a small amount of mana. Since Spira had the largest mana capacity in the party, the task usually fell to her, though it wasn't exactly a heavy burden for the rest of us.
Meanwhile, I had a project of my own to attend to.
"[Create Golem]."
Golems were my trump card for camping. One of the items dropped by the Golden Slime had been a [Create Golem] magic scroll. Much like [Shadow Leap], it was a rare find that you'd never see at a Mage Guild.
Rare scrolls weren't the kind of thing you stumbled upon often, so even if you were lucky enough to find one, successfully learning the magic was another hurdle entirely. In my case, however, I had never once failed to learn a spell. Given that track record, the party had agreed that I would be the one to use any new scrolls we acquired.
That was how I'd gained the [Create Golem] spell, though I’d initially thought it was a bit mediocre. Golems used soil as their base material. Perhaps because of that, the spell required a certain level of Earth Magic proficiency, even though it was technically categorized as Non-Elemental Magic. Unfortunately, I hadn't learned Earth Magic yet. Consequently, the best I could manage was a golem that barely reached my waist. To make matters worse, its movements were incredibly sluggish.
While I’d hoped for a golem that could serve as a tank, my current version was more of a literal wall. If I used it to guard our backline, an attacker could easily just walk around it. It was simply too slow to react to an enemy's movements.
Since the spell was difficult to use as-is, I decided to tweak the output. I shrank the golems down to palm-size and made their interiors hollow. In exchange, I reinforced the outer shells until they were rock-hard. They ended up looking like little clay figurines—Haniwa, if you will—though I made sure to give them legs.
These adjustments meant their durability was lower than a standard golem's, but they gained a significant boost in agility. Being palm-sized meant their travel speed was still nothing to brag about, but they were significantly faster than the full-sized version. Their small stature also made them difficult for enemies to spot. Since they weren't going to be much help in a fight anyway, I specialized them entirely for sentry duty.
"Alright, you're Petit No. 1, right?"
When I called its name, the tiny golem gave a sharp nod.
The golems created by this spell lasted about half a day before their mana ran out and they crumbled into dust. I had to recreate them every time we needed them, but they didn't seem to be entirely different individuals each time. It felt as though they possessed a shared consciousness tied to the order in which they were summoned.
I cast the spell three more times, summoning Petit No. 2, Petit No. 3, and Petit No. 4. To be honest, I regretted giving them such lazy names. I hadn't expected them to have distinct personalities. Worse yet, they seemed quite attached to their designations; whenever I tried to suggest a different name, they would shake their heads in stubborn refusal. I have no idea why they're so insistent.
Names aside, the fact that their minds were persistent even if their bodies were disposable meant they were gradually accumulating experience. Their movements were smoother now than they had been the first time, and they had begun to understand more complex orders. They were becoming quite reliable.
"Okay, you four have the watch!"
The four tiny golems nodded in unison. Well, almost in unison. Petit No. 4 seemed to be a bit of a slowpoke and was always a beat behind the others. It was actually kind of cute.
With the Petit Golems on guard, we could finally rest easy. Initially, we’d planned to take turns staying awake in the entrance hall of the Magic House, but once we saw how diligently the golems worked, we decided to leave the night shift entirely to them. I’d instructed them to ring the Alarm Magic Tool placed just inside the entrance if anything went wrong.
With the security settled, we sat down for a relaxed meal. I could have just served pre-made dishes from my Storage Ring, but since we had the time, I decided to cook. We’d gathered plenty of ingredients on our way to this floor, so I had everything I needed to whip up some medicinal cuisine designed to boost mana recovery.
Between the kitchen, the bathroom, and the toilet, we went through a fair amount of water. Since there was no such thing as plumbing in a dungeon, [Create Water] was an absolute necessity for life inside the Magic House. We had a storage tank, so I didn't have to cast it for every little thing, but it was still vital. The drainage system was the real mystery; the water flowed into the drains and simply vanished. I suppose if magic could create water out of thin air, it wasn't that strange for magic to make it disappear, too.
Once we’d finished dinner and washed up in the bath, there was nothing left to do but sleep. Even though we were moving at a leisurely pace, the constant trekking through the forest was exhausting. I wasn't used to this kind of terrain, and this floor in particular was taking its toll. It made me truly grateful for the Magic House.
"Good night, everyone."
I should have slept straight through until morning, but—
"...Hah! The alarm!"
"What’s going on?! Is it a monster?!"
A sharp, rhythmic blaring echoed through the Magic House, jolting me awake. The bedroom was pitch black. Unless we left the lights on, the interior of the house matched the brightness of the outside world—which meant it was still the middle of the night.
I considered casting a night vision spell but decided to just light a lantern instead. When I hurried out to the entrance hall, Lowell was already there, looking alert.
"Is it a monster?" I asked.
"No, it doesn't seem to be..." Lowell replied, his voice trailing off uncertainly.
I looked over at the sentry who had come to fetch us—Petit No. 4. The little golem was slowly shaking its head. So, not a monster.
Just what on earth had happened out there?