Crazy Redhead, Crumbling Behemoth

I am but a cloud, floating from place to place.

And there is a mountain walking through a forest.

Two legs made of stone slowly glided across the ground, dirt clinging to its feet. The nearby trees were easily uprooted before being split and crushed. Any beasts were pulverized in an instant. Looking behind, a wide line through the lush greenery was flattened into a mangled plain. Anything off to the side was buried under the rubble falling off its body.

This slab of rock was gargantuan; its head poked into the clouds above. Even the tallest trees only reached as high as its waist. Oddly, it seemed to be in the shape of a person, or at least a rough outline of one. Three divots in its face indicated where the eyes and mouth should be.

I remember seeing something like this a long time ago. What was it called again… a gobbo? Nah, that’s not right… a god! No, that’s something else entirely… a gollywog? Nope. What the heck is a gollywog anyway?

…ah! I remember!

It’s a golem!

Golems were, in a nutshell, puppets made from inanimate objects. People controlled them using a thread of mana usually attached by their heads. There was no defined shape a golem could be, but most mana users made them look like a person. It seemed like it was easier to control its movements if the caster could imagine moving it as if it were their own body.

…but wait, aren’t golems much smaller than this?

I had seen plenty of golems throughout the years in a variety of shapes and sizes, though it had been a while since the last one. Still, the tallest I remembered barely reached as high as this one’s knees. Even at a distance, I could clearly recognize what this thing was. Compared to normal ones, if I wasn’t looking closely enough, it would be easy to mistake them for a regular rock or another person.

So, that begs the question, how in the world did I miss such a giant thing walking towards me?!? And isn’t it strangely silent??? I can’t even hear its footsteps, much less anything…oh. Right…

I forgot that I ‘disconnected’ my ‘ears’, so of course I wouldn’t hear it. Luckily, the golem only dispersed me for a moment, but it could’ve been much worse. If it was something like that chair man, I would’ve been dead before I noticed anything amiss.

I guess I need to keep my hearing or some sort of sensor active at all times. Can’t be putting myself into compromising positions.

Well, let’s get my hearing back!

I reconnected the mana and…

“HAHAAHAAHAHAAHAHHAA–——————”

…okay, maybe there was something wrong with my hearing. Let me try that again.

“–––––HAHAAHAAHAHAAHAHHAA!”

…so there is someone laughing hysterically. I thought I was imagining it, but apparently not. I searched around for the source of the voice. It seemed like it was coming from a tiny speck on the golem’s shoulder. Of course, it wasn’t actually a speck. They were simply too far away to see. I could’ve enhanced my vision, but after a bit of hesitation, I decided to take a closer look. Whoever could make and control this behemoth had to be somewhat interesting.

Its features quickly came into view. As expected, the speck was a person – a woman somewhere in her prime, to be exact. Her long, fiery red hair was tousled all over the place, making her maniacal laughter all the more crazed. She only wore a lab coat for some reason – her features proudly on display. Her footing on the golem’s shoulder looked a bit unstable, but she didn’t seem to care whatsoever. She probably has some sort of contingency in place.

Ding! Ding! Ding! Ding!

I could hear a bell off in the distance. There appeared to be a town directly in the golem’s path. The guards were clearly panicking, unsure of what to do. I doubted they had the ability to stop such a monstrosity, not that it mattered to me. I only wanted the golem as a test subject. The town was of little consequence.

Hmm, I wonder what will happen when–huh? Everything is quiet again. Did I disconnect my hearing somehow? No, it has to be…

I directed my attention back towards the golem, only to find that it had frozen in place. It left me completely dumbfounded. Did it plan to remain a set distance from the town? Was it testing some long range attack? I waited for a while, expecting something to happen, but the golem made no further movements.

I turned towards the redhead, trying to discern what she was thinking; however, I wasn’t able to find her. Focusing on the golem’s shoulder, it seemed to have broken apart a bit more. Several smaller chunks of rock were picked up by the wind and blown off its shoulder, tumbling towards the ground. The rubble continued to shrink in size as it made contact with any protruding parts on its body. It was no more than a light powder when it reached the bottom, dirtying the skin of a dead…person? Wait, that’s the redhead!

The redhead laid lifeless near the foot of the golem. At least, I was pretty sure she was dead. Most people couldn’t survive with a neck bent like that. It seemed that in addition to being a lunatic, she was also rather unsound.

…well, that actually works out well for me. Since the redhead no longer controlled the golem, I could take it for myself. That wasn’t to say I couldn’t do it before – I had more mana at my disposal. It would’ve been simple. However, mana had an effect on other mana. That was literally how spells worked. How could I get an accurate sense of what the mana rain would do if it was influenced by something else? Infinite possibilities left a lot of room for variation. With the redhead out of the picture though, I wouldn’t have to worry about that.

I flew just above the golem’s head, angling myself perfectly so that most of the mana rain would hit the golem. Then, with a bit of wind magic, the slight breeze stilled. All that was left was to rain.

Let’s do it!

My mana rain fell upon the golem.

And then, the world turned black.