Golly opened his eyes. It was still night.

As usual, his day began very early in the morning. He only needed a few hours to recover the magic he had lost the day before. Only after particularly intense battles did he require a full night, an entire day at most, if he had lost a part of his body.

Fortunately, that wasn’t the case today.

He looked outside. A steady rain was falling from a dark, menacing sky. He liked seeing the stars and the sun piercing through the canopy of this dense forest. His former master, shortly after being exiled here for forbidden experiments, had chosen to settle in the clearing, saying it was the only place with a bit of light.

But he also liked the rain. Rain was good for his tubers. Alice often complained about such days, saying she didn’t like the cold and damp, and usually stayed holed up inside the hut reading the magician’s old books. But he didn’t feel the cold or the moisture. His clay, bound to the stones of his body by magic, was impermeable to the elements.

He stood up slowly so as not to wake the girl, who was probably still asleep, and stepped outside silently.

It was time for his routine.

He first made his way to the edges of the clearing to inspect the condition of the magical barrier that repelled monsters. It was a complicated magic his former master had taught him when he got tired of maintaining it himself.

Golly remembered those days. He recalled that his master was always angry. Likely because he had been banished after conducting strange experiments on children. Back then, the man was convinced he was on the verge of uncovering the secrets to eternal life. How ironic, thought Golly, that he died so shortly after, by slipping into a crevasse.

The golem, on the other hand, could remain animated indefinitely. His master may not have been a good person, but he was gifted. In his pursuit of eternal life, he had developed a magic circle that functioned as a mana absorber. Combined with his magical core, the golem simply needed to wait to recharge. In a way, the master had succeeded in his quest, but not for humans.

Golly hadn’t been sad when he died. But he had felt lost, that much was certain.

He had stood still for a time. Just a few years. Then, when the hut began to deteriorate, he resumed his maintenance tasks, having nothing better to do. He could have detonated his magical core, effectively ending his existence, but his programming only allowed for that in defense of his master from a threat.

So he repaired, maintained, built a little bench and a garden. All in the hope of his master’s return, a master who would never come back. Two hundred years passed this way. He couldn’t feel loneliness, but each passing day a little voice whispered to him to tear the gem from his chest.

And then, one day, he met her.

A small, wounded, unconscious being. At first, he had thought her a dying monster. That little inner voice, which now never left him, screamed at him to save her.

He headed to the final gem of the barrier.

What had most surprised the golem when the little one awoke was her maturity, her intelligence, and her aura. She was very different from the other children he had encountered during his travels with his master. It was probably explained by what she had said, about coming from another world. He hadn’t understood what she meant at first. But after years spent with her and long explanations, he thought he understood: she was an adult from a world not his own, now trapped in the body of a child.

A cruel fate, he thought, as he ensured the last gem was still active. He then headed to his garden to gather some edible plants to make a salad for lunch, just as Alice had taught him.

The incident at the temple, and the appearance of the voice, convinced him it truly was a goddess who had brought her here. But he hadn’t told the girl. He knew that, sooner or later, she would have to leave to fulfill her destiny. Still, he wanted to keep her by his side, just a little longer, for reasons he himself couldn’t fully understand.

After all, she wasn’t his master, and nothing in his programming required him to take care of her. Yet he did. And now she had brought home a new companion, Hati. That promised lively days ahead.

The rain had intensified. He bent down to dig around a small edible flower when suddenly a whole crown of damp, dried flowers fell into the muddy soil.

— Her little game again. She never gets tired of it.

He was about to pick it up and set it aside when his hand froze. The little voice had awakened, pounding against his magical core and shouting for him to check the hut. He rushed toward it, stood in the doorway, and looked toward the bed.

Empty. She was gone. And the pup too.

— Maybe she went out early to train? But she hates going out in the rain… And this early?

He remembered their conversation from the night before. Her last words. She had told him she loved him like family. Something to which he hadn’t known how to respond, while his inner voice rejoiced with glee. No, she hadn’t gone to train. She had gone to fulfill her destiny. She had left to fight the Guardian of the Mists. But she had no chance at her level, he had told her so many times. The golem had once seen the monster from afar. He had felt an immense power radiating from it.

She would die.

And he would be alone again.

He sat down on his little bench, the rain running down his face like tears he could never shed. Was he going to wait once more for years, unmoving on this bench, before resuming his routine?

[…]

The raindrops sliding down his body began to evaporate the moment they touched. Not because the storm had passed. No, a second storm now raged, this one within.

At first, the water evaporated faster than it could soak him, like a pan too hot onto which water is poured.

Then came a crackling noise. Smoke began to rise from his clay. His body turned red-hot, streaked with glowing veins, like lava running through the cracks of an awakening volcano.

[Extreme Mode Activation]

He rose. Taller. More agile. More powerful than ever before.

She had been gone for about three hours. Knowing her running speed, she’d soon reach the sanctuary. His Extreme Mode would allow him to catch up within an hour, but it would drain his mana reserves.

No matter. He knew how to defeat the Guardian.

He gently placed the crown of dried flowers back on his head and, in a single leap, left the clearing.

For the first time in his existence, he understood his inner voice. He and it were finally in agreement.

— Hang on, little Alice. I’m coming.