Even though we had been tasked with hunting down the special individuals, we couldn't just rush out and start the mission. These creatures—which were effectively traps set by Garnalava—possessed a trait that nullified any attacks from me, Halfa, or Shiroru. To make matters worse, they prioritized us as targets, treating us like the nuisances we were. I supposed it made sense; we were, after all, the Apostle and Kin of the Destiny God they opposed.
At any rate, having more than half the party unable to land a blow made for terrible efficiency. I was currently weighing my options to see if there was any way to counter this. One idea was to use golems. My Petit Golems acted autonomously once given simple instructions, so I suspected their attacks might not be registered as coming from me. Of course, with their current strength, they would struggle to deal even a scratch to anything but the weakest monsters.
That was why I was spending today on the First Floor conducting golem experiments. Thanks to the 【Creativity】 trait I had acquired, the range of what I could accomplish had likely expanded. I needed to confirm exactly what was possible now.
"The water’s all ready!" Halfa called out.
"Thanks," I replied.
I had Halfa fill a large tub using Create Water. My first experiment was to see if I could fashion a golem from the liquid itself. Since I had managed to create one out of glass, I figured other materials were worth a try. My Water Magic level had increased recently as well, and I suspected that a water-based golem would be far more nimble than an earth-based one, provided I could actually bring it to life.
"Well then, let’s give it a shot."
I held my hand over the tub and chanted Create Golem. For the sake of comparison, I didn't add any special modifications this time beyond changing the material. The moment the spell activated, the surface of the water distorted with a viscous squish, gradually molding itself into a humanoid shape. It appeared to be a success.
"You're Petit No. 1, right?" I asked.
The Water Golem gave a small, jerky nod. With the movement, a part of its head wobbled with a soft splash. It didn't lose its shape, exactly, but the sight felt somewhat precarious.
"Try moving around a bit."
Following my command, Petit No. 1 began to walk. It was significantly faster than the first golem I had ever made, but it still didn't quite live up to my expectations.
"I still wouldn't call that useful for combat," Lowell remarked.
"Yeah, you're probably right."
It was just as he said. It could probably handle something like a Slime, but it would be overwhelmingly faster for me to just kill the thing myself.
It seemed that my Water Magic level didn't have a massive impact on the golem's agility, though it did seem to influence its size and the speed of its creation. While I couldn't make this one very large due to the limited amount of water in the tub, I felt that with enough resources, I could potentially create a golem larger than a person.
As for movement, that was likely tied to my Non-Elemental Magic. I really wanted to raise that level by using it more proactively. I considered stopping by the Mage Guild to pick up some new spells—ideally something I could keep active and maintain indefinitely. I recalled that things like Body Enhancement fell under the Non-Elemental category, which seemed like it would be a perfect fit.
"Next experiment."
I recast Create Golem directly on Petit No. 1. There wasn't a major physical change, as I was testing whether I could imbue it with a specific function.
"Alright, Petit No. 1. Try to speak."
"Glub... glub-glub-glub!"
At my command, a bubbling sound erupted from around the golem's neck. It was clearly trying to communicate, but the result was entirely indecipherable.
『...What exactly were you trying to do?』
"I wanted to see if I could make him talk."
I didn't know much about the actual biological mechanisms humans used to produce sound, so I had simply visualized a hollow space stretching from the mouth to the neck and focused on the concept of "speaking" while casting. It seemed that wasn't enough. This probably wasn't a failure of my Creativity so much as a limitation of my magic level. Output and precision were heavily dictated by level; even if I could innovate with my traits, there were still hard limits to what the magic could do.
I moved on to testing other materials. A golem made with Wind Magic was completely invisible, which seemed perfect for stealth missions. The only problem was that even I couldn't perceive it. I could feel it if I reached out and touched it, but since I couldn't see it, gesture-based communication was impossible. Even if the golem tried to tell me something, I would have no way of knowing.
Dark Magic provided a surprise. While I hadn't been able to produce a Light Golem, I successfully made a Dark Golem. By casting Create Golem on my own shadow, I produced a figure that looked exactly like the generic silhouette of a culprit from a mystery manga. The Dark Golem lacked substance; my hand passed right through it, and it seemed unable to physically interfere with the world. If an arrow were fired at it, the projectile would simply phase through. It was useless as a shield.
However, it had one fascinating interaction: I could target the Dark Golem with Shadow Leap. Normally, that skill only allowed me to teleport to shadows within my line of sight, but the Dark Golem acted as a valid anchor even when I couldn't see it. I thought I might be able to set up a point-to-point warp system by leaving golems in two different locations, but that failed. It turned out the Dark Golem couldn't maintain its existence if it moved too far away from me. Since Earth Golems didn't have that restriction, it was clearly a specific quirk of the shadow variant.
Finally, though I hadn't tested it yet, the material I was most interested in was iron. An Iron Golem felt like a proper step up from the earth-based variety. Since I had managed to use glass, iron should be possible as well. However, since it would likely be categorized under Earth Magic, I realized I would need to start training that element more seriously as well.