Between Parca the Harpy circling above and the massive, mythic golem before us, I certainly had my hands full.
It was a troublesome situation, made worse by the fact that I had to fight while protecting the Little Witch and Kiri the fairy... wait, who was that?
I noticed a snake extending from the Little Witch’s arm, coiled tightly around a very familiar maid.
She had demon-like horns, wings, and a tail peeking out from beneath her skirt. It was the Demon Maid—the very same one who had called me a "pot" back at the Demon King's Castle. I never expected to reunite with her in a place like this. I was genuinely surprised.
Still, what was a maid from the Demon King’s Castle doing all the way out here? For now, I decided a polite greeting was in order.
"Good... day to you."
"Wh-Why is there another Alraune!?" she shrieked.
Apparently, the Demon Maid had mistaken my Child Alraune for the real me. I wondered if they’d been having a conversation, but I didn't have time to dwell on it. I had to deal with the giant standing right in front of me.
I turned my attention back to the frost golem. Its foot, as massive as a castle tower, was already descending. It intended to quite literally crush me out of existence.
From high above, Parca looked down with cold, calculating eyes.
"I have been observing the Crimson Flower Princess for some time. As an Alraune, your attack patterns fall into three broad categories: first, plant-based strikes using briars and seeds; second, parasitic attacks that take root in a host; and third, poisonous pollen."
She had analyzed me thoroughly. However, that didn't change the fact that I refused to be trampled without a fight. I started by opening fire with my Teppou-uri Machine Gun.
Spopopopopon!
The thorn seeds I launched didn't leave so much as a scratch on the golem's frozen hide. They failed to pierce the surface and tumbled uselessly onto the icy ground.
Since long-range attacks were failing, I tried growing a massive tree to intercept the stomp. It was no use; the tree couldn't support the golem's sheer weight and snapped like a twig. Even my poison pollen seemed to have no effect.
"It is futile," Parca declared. "The Frost Golem nullifies every one of your attacks. Its ice armor is as hard as tempered steel, impenetrable to mere thorns. Furthermore, it is not a biological entity. Whether you attempt to parasitize it or blanket it in poison, it will feel nothing."
She was right. The ice was so dense that neither the Teppou-uri Machine Gun nor my briars could find purchase. Even if I used my Dodder to parasitize it, the golem was an inorganic mass; eroding it from the inside wouldn't do much damage. And without a metabolism to subvert, poison was a non-starter.
To think my tried-and-true winning patterns were all being countered... in a way, this was my most difficult opponent yet.
And besides that... the golem didn't look like it would taste very good.
Here I was, a plant that hated moving, working my vines to the bone in the freezing cold, and there wasn't even a reward at the end of it? It was a tragedy. I was whipping my body into motion without even getting any photosynthesis done.
I couldn't help but wonder: was there any chance this was actually an edible golem? I would be so happy if the inside of that icy shell turned out to be meat. If it were, I would take full responsibility for digesting every last bit of it.
While I was lost in thought, the golem’s foot finally slammed down.
The impact was deafening. The sheer force of the titan's stomp reshaped the surrounding terrain.
"Even the great Crimson Flower Princess is finished once she has been flattened," Parca remarked.
"Who... is finished...?"
I bloomed a new body in a different spot and looked up at the golem. My previous form had indeed been crushed into a pancake, but that was merely a disposable extension of myself. As long as my main body was safe and sound back in the Alraune's Forest, I could sprout anew as many times as I liked.
"I see the regenerative power of plants is not to be underestimated," Parca mused. "If crushing you will not suffice, then Frost Golem—freeze the Crimson Flower Princess down to her very roots."
The golem responded by firing a beam of concentrated frost. Realizing physical force wouldn't end me, it had switched to elemental attacks.
I had no intention of becoming a pressed flower or an ice sculpture. To shield myself from the direct hit, I constructed a Yukitsuri around my body—just like the apple Yukitsuri I had used in the forest to survive the snow.
The ropes and supports acted as a barrier against the freezing beam. As long as I wasn't encased in solid ice, my body could handle the chill thanks to the Christmas Rose Rufe had given me back when she was still a little white bird. I estimated I could withstand temperatures as low as minus fifteen degrees.
Besides, even if I did start to freeze, I figured I could just use the self-heating properties of the Skunk Cabbage to melt my way out.
—Or so I thought, until the cold actually hit.
What was this!? It was freezing! I didn't know the exact temperature of that ice beam, but it was far beyond anything I’d expected.
The air grew so cold that ice crystals began to dance in the wind. Tiny shards of light drifted on the breeze like frozen fireflies. It was diamond dust. It was my first time seeing it, and it was undeniably beautiful against the white landscape.
However, diamond dust only formed in extreme cold. This was no place for a flowering plant to be standing. I wanted to go home to my forest. I felt like I was about to lose consciousness from the chill.
Since it was so unbearably cold, I decided to start a campfire.
I sprouted Eucalyptus—the so-called "Gasoline Tree"—around myself and used the ignition ability of the Rockrose, that psychopath of the plant kingdom, to spark a flame.
The warmth was blissful. Fire had always been a hateful thing to me, something that tried to burn and kill me, but today it was my best friend. I wanted us to be together forever.
"She blocked the blizzard with... fire?" Parca stuttered, her composure breaking. "A plant that produces flames? This makes no sense."
My life up until now had been one long survival trial. It seemed I had grown into a plant capable of enduring even the most absurd conditions. I really have worked hard, haven't I?
In any case, I couldn't just sit here shriveling up in the cold. It was time for a counterattack.
The Frost Golem's armor was deflecting everything I threw at it. What I lacked was sheer offensive power.
Generally speaking, plant-type monsters—including my big sister Dryades—specialized in status ailments and tricky special attacks rather than raw damage. Usually, you’d use poison to bypass a high-defense enemy, but that didn't work on a golem.
This golem was truly a wall. In a sense, it was harder to take down than any of the Four Heavenly Kings I’d encountered. But that didn't mean I was out of options. If its defense was too high for my attacks, I just had to increase my power until I could punch through it.
Using Plant Generation, I produced a Common Stork's-bill, a plant I had integrated into my repertoire after eroding the Dryades' Forest. It was a lovely plant with reddish-purple flowers, but its seeds were the real highlight.
Common Stork's-bill grew in harsh, dry land. To ensure its survival, it had evolved seeds that rotated like drills to bury themselves deep in the hard ground. These screw-like seeds could penetrate even the toughest earth.
The secret to their rotation was moisture; the seeds would spin when they got wet from rain or dew. Since I had just used fire to melt the ice around me, my body was damp but not yet frozen. It was the perfect condition.
I hybridized the thorn seeds of my Teppou-uri Machine Gun with the drill-like seeds of the Common Stork's-bill. Then, I unleashed my Newborn Teppou-uri Machine Gun.
Spopopopopopopon!!
The seeds spun like rifle rounds as they flew, shattering the Frost Golem’s icy epidermis and burrowing deep into its core. The impact was even greater than I’d imagined. My seeds had evolved from mere arrows into armor-piercing bullets.
And I wasn't finished. As the seeds drilled deeper into the golem with a mechanical whir, they carved out a path for what came next.
"To think she could actually pierce the Frost Golem's ice...!" Parca stood there, aghast.
But it was far too early to be surprised. I kept the seeds connected to my body via vines, allowing me to strike the titan from the inside.
From those embedded seeds, I sprouted Dodder—the Yellow Vampire—and spread its roots through the golem's internal structure. Then, combining the self-heating of the Skunk Cabbage with the Rockrose’s ignition, I cranked up the golem’s internal temperature.
While its outer shell was thick, the interior wasn't nearly as resilient. It began to melt much faster than I expected.
Slowly but surely, the golem changed. The bone-chilling ice turned into a slushy, crunchy sorbet.
I felt like an ice cream shop owner. I would shave away the golem's body and mix it with my own fruits to create a custom frozen treat. This section could be apple-flavored; that one could be coconut.
Wait, did I really have so few fruit varieties? How embarrassing. I supposed I’d have to embrace being a "niche" shop. I’d have to win customers over with experimental flavors like onion or chili pepper ice cream. I could already see the Little Witch’s happy face as she dug in.
As I was busy daydreaming about my internal ice cream shop, something strange happened.
The roots I had sent deep into the golem suddenly felt a surge of vitality. It was the same feeling as basking in the midday sun, performing photosynthesis during a warm nap.
The source was at the very center of the golem—a round, core-like object. When my roots touched it, power erupted from the tips and raced through my vascular bundles.
I knew this feeling. I recognized the energy serving as the golem's heart. In fact, I had tasted it once before.
When I had consumed the Holy Relic created by the Goddess, my body had been filled with this exact same light. It was identical to the power hidden within the Hero's Helmet that my big sister Dryades had possessed.
The object acting as the golem's core was a concentrated mass of light magic.
Despite witnessing the Goddess's divine power once again, my heart—as a former Saint—felt no particular reverence. Instead, I felt something far more primal. My plant self desired this from the very core of my being.
Gulp.
What delicious-looking light.
Oh, how I wanted to photosynthesize right now.
Common Stork's-bill: An annual plant in the Geraniaceae family. Originally native to the Mediterranean, it is now a naturalized species found in Japan.
Next time: Alraune of the Ice Flower.