“Oh no…! The magic core isn’t in the exact center of the head, but somewhere around it.
Fjodra sighed in a tone of defeat, making a wrong guess.
If I left her alone, she’d keep shooting arrows at the boss golem’s head, drilling holes into it, only to realize the core wasn’t there.
Or, thanks to the original author’s meddling, she might never catch on and end up ordering the original protagonist to blast the golem’s head clean off through those holes.
“That’s not it.”
Fortunately, I could refute Fjodra’s assumption with a confident voice.
The reason was simple.
“Did you forget that Reysir’s attack hit the top of its head earlier? If the magic core were in its head, that blow would have shattered it.”
“Then that defensive move it made just now was a bluff?!”
Once again, Fjodra was mistaken.
But at least the message got through: the magic core wasn’t in the golem’s head right now, so I let it slide.
For now, it was enough to avoid wasting energy attacking a head that was just a lump of stone.
After all, once we saw the golem protect a specific area, gather stones around it into a sphere, and then revert to its original form a few times…
‘They’ll realize that action is repositioning the power engine!’
There was no need to painstakingly piece together evidence to make them understand what only I knew.
No, there was no time for that.
The golem’s massive fist came flying toward us.
When I said the fist flew, I wasn’t using a metaphor.
Instead of bending down to swing at us far below, the boss monster stood upright and launched its fist.
‘A golem, not a robot, using a rocket punch?!’
There wasn’t an actual propulsion device attached to the fist, so calling it a “rocket” was a bit off.
But that was the feel of the attack.
Hailga and Pret were already separated from us, so I’ll leave them out.
The first to dodge were, naturally, Fjodra and Lausa, who could leap through space.
I was standing behind the others.
I kicked off the ground and threw myself backward, escaping the attack range.
Yor quickly followed me to avoid danger.
Reysir, true to his role as the original protagonist, looked after others even in the midst of crisis.
He shoved Liolikin and Vigdis out of the attack range, grabbed Svein by the wrist, and threw himself sideways with him.
In that brief moment, he saved three people.
CRASH!
The golem’s fist, a boulder roughly two meters in diameter, slammed into the ground.
The deafening roar, the shaking ground, the deep crater, and the sudden blast of wind pressure made its destructive power all too clear.
‘Thank goodness the boss golem shrunk in size!’
As the boulder dropped right in front of me, close enough to touch, a wave of dizziness washed over me.
If it had been any bigger, I might not have dodged completely and at least one leg would have been crushed.
‘But this situation feels familiar…?’
For a moment, I tried to shake off the memory that popped into my head.
But it was too late once I realized I shouldn’t dig into that sense of familiarity.
I had definitely experienced this before.
Something huge rushing toward me at high speed, filling my vision.
The headlight that had once turned my world white flashed in my mind, blinding my consciousness.
Pressure clamped down on my throat.
“NYAAANG!!!”
A sharp cry rang in my ears, accompanied by the clear jingle of bells.
I reflexively gasped for air, restarting my breath.
My hazy mind cleared a bit.
The golem hadn’t retrieved its fist yet, so my panic must have lasted only a moment.
But I had sweated so much that my back felt damp.
‘C-calm down… This isn’t a metal thing like a truck; it’s just a rock. And it stopped in front of me…’
Just as I thought that, the boulder in front of me started to shake, and I almost collapsed from weak legs.
But fortunately, instead of charging at me, it floated up and reattached to the golem’s arm.
Only then could I breathe heavily in relief.
“Karbaldr! Are you okay?!”
Reysir, who had rolled on the ground with Svein, scrambled up and asked about my well-being.
I must have looked really bad.
“…Don’t worry about me.”
“I figured you’d dodge it fine on your own, so I focused on the others…”
With an anxious face, he offered that excuse, as if he thought I was upset with him.
Not at all.
As he said, I dodged the enemy’s attack fine on my own.
If Reysir hadn’t looked after the others, they’d all be seriously injured.
“I just got startled a little. That’s all. No need to worry.”
I explained calmly to correct his misunderstanding.
This wasn’t the time for a long conversation.
I wanted Reysir to stop focusing on me and concentrate on the fight.
“Huh…?”
He looked puzzled, but I wasn’t the only one frozen by the boss golem’s rocket punch.
At least I managed to dodge the attack.
Liolikin, Vigdis, and Svein were so surprised by the unexpected attack that they couldn’t even react in time.
‘He’ll just brush it off, right?’
I hoped so.
Honestly, even I was quite embarrassed by my state earlier.
So much so that I forgot to thank Yor for snapping me out of it.
‘If this happens every time a similar situation comes up, I’m in trouble…’
Worse, I could die again.
After all, I only survived because the monster had been targeting someone else.
Thinking about it,
‘Realizing I have this problem now might actually be lucky…?’
The boss golem fired its fists again.
This time, two of them.
One aimed at Reysir, the other at Fjodra.
It was targeting those who had dealt threatening attacks first.
‘Even if this monster is literally a rock brain with no thoughts, it wouldn’t put its weak point—the power engine—into its fists and throw them away.’
That was clear from how Reysir and Fjodra dodged, and the stones returned to their original positions.
The power engine must be what pulls the stones together to form the body.
I mentally noted this obvious fact, trying to erase the past memories and focus on the present.
My concentration returned, perhaps because of this effort.
Besides…
‘Maybe it’s because I never directly attacked the boss monster? It doesn’t seem to care about me at all!’
The excessive tension that had bound me slowly eased.
I even had the leisure to think calmly.
By carefully observing the boss monster and the people around me, and pondering them, I succeeded in activating the 【Character Analysis】 skill again.
At last, my unsettled heart quieted down,
And my brain, which had been stuttering like a jammed machine, began to spin again.
‘Even when Yor and Lausa launch attacks too weak to break the rock, or when Svein throws a water blob with almost no attack power—if the power engine’s location is targeted, the golem always defends and rebuilds its body?’
The rock surface would only get chipped or wet; it could just ignore the attacks.
But revealing the power engine’s exact location to us and repositioning it each time only disrupts the fight, putting it at a disadvantage.
‘It seems like there’s no thinking involved; it just reacts and moves according to a pre-programmed algorithm.’
In the pre-remake original, Reysir fought this boss monster several years later.
At that time, he had just lost a companion, so he was alone.
He didn’t deliberately set out to conquer the demonic realm alone; he just stopped by a village to replenish supplies when the demonic realm suddenly appeared.
That’s why he only learned today that the golem protects its power engine even against weak attacks.
Back then, Reysir in the original story was much stronger than he is now.
Even a light basic attack could shatter rock, so it was only natural that the golem always defended its power engine.
‘Maybe Author Senna added this setting anew?’
After all, with supporting characters as companions, you can’t just leave them standing around like decorations.
She needed to give them something to do.
And since the boss golem’s appearance timing was moved up, balance adjustments were necessary.
“—It seems to keep moving the magic core’s location! That’s why it keeps switching which part it protects and balling up its body!”
I paused the 【Character Analysis】 skill upon hearing a human voice, and Fjodra was talking.
Her voice was highly excited, as if she had realized something great.
Finally, the original author allowed her characters to know this information.
Before the boss monster raid began, they had fought several normal monsters on the way here, so everyone must be a bit tired.
No one looked like they were about to drop dead, though.
But that wasn’t a good thing.
It meant the real hardship the original author had prepared was just beginning.
“Oh dear, this is troublesome. If I find the magic core’s location and then target it, it’ll be too late. Should I just bet on luck and go all out every time…?”
Given what Fjodra said,
The original author must want us to struggle, roll around, and repeat futile efforts.
Then, when someone gets badly hurt or everyone collapses from exhaustion,
And when despair fills our minds with the word “give up,”
She probably intends to have her protagonist gather all remaining strength in a final blow that shatters the magic core and defeats the boss monster.
‘Just when we think we’ve barely overcome the crisis and let our guard down, a villain suddenly pops up and kills a supporting character—that happened several times in the pre-remake original.’
And now there’s the confession villain, a clear danger.
I can’t obediently dance to the original author’s tune.