Stella stopped walking and turned to Candy.

  “Sorry for not telling you this sooner, but I really need to complete this quest.”

  “Why? What even is the quest? You haven’t given me a proper look since you picked it up.”

  “Oh, right. Here.”

  Stella handed over the quest paper. Once Candy took it, a system note popped up.

  [Adventurer’s Quest: Hunt Crystal Golems

  Reward: 80 silver]

  “Crystal golems?”

  “Yep, they’ve recently started multiplying so our job is to cut down their numbers so they don’t get closer to the city.”

  ‘Crystal golems are big, but they topple easily and can be quickly killed with bludgeoning attacks or magic.’

  “I’ll help, but why did you choose this quest. Our weapons aren’t really going to do much against the golems, even if we can knock them over.”

  “Don’t worry, I have a plan.”

  The two walked deeper into the forest and soon felt the rumblings of the golems.

  They crouched among the underbrush and waited. Soon, a group of crystal golems began walking towards them.

  The golems were extremely large, but their body was disproportionate, with their head and shoulders being much larger than the rest of their body. Each was semi-transparent and tinted in different colors.

  Despite their size and proportions, the golems moved quickly and soon passed the spot where Candy and Stella hid.

  “Alright, here’s the plan. The golems use vibrations to sense and track their targets. My plan is to lure them all to one location and then get rid of them all at once.”

  “What’re we using to destroy them?”

  Stella opened her bag and inside were several fist sized cloth pouches.

  “I bought these mana bombs for the quest. We’ll place them at the location we lure the golems to and then detonate them when they’re all there.”

  “Sounds good. Are you sure those are strong enough?”

  “Don’t worry, they’ll do the trick. I’m going to head about 100 meters to the east. Can you lure the golems towards me? I’ll have the trap set up and ready.”

  “I can do that, I just need to get their attention and run away.”

  “Great. Thank you for helping me Candy.”

  “No problem, we’re friends right?”

  “Yep!”

  Stella quickly ran off with light steps.

  ‘Okay, I’ll wait a bit and then get their attention.’

  Candy silently followed the group of golems from earlier.

  ‘Now’s a good time to try out Dangersense.’

  She activated the skill and her vision became filled with arrows of different colors. The most prominent were a large group of orange arrows, indicating where the crystal golems were.

  ‘Looks like the radius is around 20 meters.’

  She looked over the brush and spotted the crystal golems.

  ‘And now we wait.’

  After waiting for around 5 minutes, Candy decided it was time to act.

  ‘Hmm. How should I get their attention. Me running probably wouldn’t attract all of them, so I’ll need something bigger.’

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  ‘Cannon Dolls? That might work.’

  Candy took one of the dolls out of her inventory and aimed it at the base of a tree east of where the golems stood.

  The doll flew threw the air and hit the trunk, immediately blasting it to bits and causing the tree to fall over.

  With the tremendous crash of the tree falling, the golems were alerted and began moving towards the collapsed tree.

  ‘Alright! I did it and…they are moving a lot faster than I thought.’

  While running to keep up with the golems, Candy took out another doll. With the system’s aid, she successfully toppled another tree in front of them and the golems kept moving forward. She continued this pattern until they reached the clearing where the bombs were.

  As the golems ran into the clearing, a hiss sounded, followed by a massive explosion.

  As she took cover, fragments of crystals rained down. When the smoke cleared, a pile of rubble and fallen trees was all that was left.

  Candy entered the clearing and saw Stella do the same from the other side.

  Stella excitedly ran up to Candy.

  “It worked! I didn’t think it would work that well, but it did!”

  “Congratulations!...What do you mean you didn’t think it would work?”

  Stella glanced to the side and cleared her throat.

  “Ahem, I kinda got these mana bombs from a discount seller, so I didn’t actually know if they were going to work.”

  Candy cast a sidelong glance at her.

  “Well, at least it all worked out right?”

  “Yeah, you’re right! Quest Complete!”

  [Level increase: 3 (+4)]

  ‘I leveled up a lot, that’s good.’

  “Okay, should we head back now?”

  “Yep. Oh, let me grab some of the crystals as proof we completed the quest.”

  As Stella went over to put some of the crystals in her bag, Candy looked around.

  ‘I’ve had this strange feeling for a while now. That seemed way too easy.’

  As she scanned the surroundings, a red arrow popped up at the corner of her vision.

  ‘Oh no.’

  The two had forgotten a crucial piece of information when blowing up the crystal golems: it produced a ton of ground vibrations.

  ‘The arrow is red, so it’s much stronger than the regular golems. At 20 meters, there’s no way to outrun it.’

  “Stella! Get ready, something big is coming!”

  “Huh?”

  As Stella turned around, a massive shining blue golem entered the clearing.

  “He-hey Candy, what’s that?”

  “That would be the alpha.”

  Crystal golems were separated into tiers based on their strength, which could be determined with how bright their color was. Given the bright sapphire blue of the golem in front of them, it had to be the strongest in the group.

  “We killed all of the others. This is really bad.”

  “Run!”

  The two quickly separated and began running away.

  However, the sapphire golem wouldn’t let them get away so easily. It began hurling the remains of its brethren at the two with terrifying power and accuracy. Whenever they would try to break through, it would cut of their path with more crushed golem.

  They were stuck in the clearing with the giant angry golem.

  “Well, this is bad.”

  As they both worked to dodge the golem’s attacks, Candy began thinking of a way out.

  ‘The only weapons we have are a sword, a bow and arrows, a dagger, and the cannon dolls. Everything but the dolls is useless and given how hard that thing looks, I don’t even know if the dolls are enough to break through.’

  As a test, Candy threw a doll at the sapphire golem. The doll hit it squarely on the chest, but only a small crack was left.

  ‘At least it does something, but I can’t rely on chip damage to take this thing down.’

  “Stella! Do you have any more mana bombs?”

  “No! Since I didn’t know how strong they were, I used them all in the trap!”

  “Damn.”

  Jumping to avoid the golem’s swinging arms, Candy began to think again.

  ‘What we need is more firepower. The dolls aren’t enough on their own, but maybe I can give them some help.

  Quickly going through her system menu while the golem was focused on Stella, Candy put all the skill points she gained from leveling into strength

  [Stats:

  Strength: 10 (+20)

  Agility: 5

  Constitution: 4

  Magic: null

  SP: 0

  Note: skill points can be used to raise player stats or to increase skill level.]

  ‘Okay, 30 strength should definitely be enough.’

  “Stella! I have a plan, keep distracting it but make sure you stay a good distance away!”

  “I’ll try!”

  As Stella took over the golem’s focus, Candy quickly got behind it. Taking two dolls out of her inventory, she aimed for the golem’s head and upper torso.

  “Out of the way!”

  She threw the dolls in quick succession and they hit the golem’s head and torso. The moment they impacted, a loud ‘BOOM’ sounded and the golem toppled over.

  Candy quickly climbed on top of the fallen golem and delivered another doll to its face.

  The golem’s head and upper torso crumbled under the force.

  Panting hard, Candy watched as the red arrow over its head faded away.

  “Alright, it’s safe now.”

  Stella came over in shock.

  “What did you throw at it? How’d it go down like that? I didn’t know you were that strong!”

  “Ah, it was mostly these.”

  Candy pointed to the remains of the 4 cannon dolls she threw.

  Stella picked one up and examined it.

  “This just looks like a piece of cloth and cotton, what do you mean it did that.”

  “Oh, right. Thes are cannon dolls, at least, that’s what I call them. They’ve got some weird power in them, that makes them super destructive when thrown. Here.”

  Candy handed a new doll to Stella.

  “Hm? It’s kinda cute you know.”

  “What?”

  ‘Why does everyone think these creepy things are cute?’

  “You can have that one if you want, it’s a lifesaver in situations like this.”

  “Alright, I’ll keep it with me. Still though, you’re strength is crazy.”

  “Haha, is it?”

  ‘I guess a strength stat above 15 is rare for my level. That’s only because my other stats are still single digits though.’

  “Okay, enough about me, we should start heading back, the sun will set soon.”

  “Let’s head back then. But you are not getting away with the whole strength thing, okay? What are you? Did you do special training or something? Can I feel your muscles? You don’t look any more muscular than me, so how are you so strong…”

  As she listened to Stella talk, Candy smiled.

  ‘I really, really love this game.’