Epilogue

Epilogue

AFTER MASTER SPERIA said his goodbyes, he headed off to the north. Gol and I stayed behind to rest a bit more. My partner hadn’t fully recovered.

Still, what a lonely, empty place. There was nothing in this expansive wasteland other than the deteriorating skeleton of the Earth Dragon at my back. The wind whistled as it passed.

I let out a deep and lonely sigh. I-I wasn’t feeling l-lonely or anything now that Master Speria had left on his own journey! After my sigh, I slowly sat down. Then I leaned back on the giant bones of the Earth Dragon. My tolerance for skeletons in this other world was practically at max level. The bones of the ancient Earth Dragon were nothing more than a backrest.

Gol also sat next to me, naturally. She bent her slender legs to the side in a feminine position, the dragon’s white bones at her back. Her figure was mesmerizing, and breathtakingly picturesque.

“Still, partner…for some reason, you’re looking super calm.”

Since Master Speria left, Gol seemed almost relieved. With our group returned to just the two of us, she plopped down by me and unreservedly rubbed her shoulder against mine. Even though we were still kind of in a crisis, she was extremely relaxed.

“Aren’t you feeling lonely now that my teacher isn’t here?” I asked.

Since I had suddenly lost my conversation partner, I was tormented by this deep sense of solitude. Yet Gol looked content, as if a hindrance had been vanquished.

Why did we feel so differently?

Sitting shoulder to shoulder with the spirited Gol reminded me of my pet dog back in my original world. Come to think of it, he would also animatedly wag his tail regardless of whether I was happy or not. Golems really were like dogs…

Lost in these thoughts, I relaxed and reclined further back. Immediately after, a portion of the Earth Dragon’s bones disintegrated under my weight. “Wha—?!”

Damn it! These bones really were hollow! The base of the bones had crumbled into sand. Without back support, I lost my balance and fell backward. In that instant, Gol, who had been leaning against me, maneuvered behind me and braced herself between me and the ground.

Gol, are you my airbag…?!

“Th-thanks for your help,” I said. “Really sorry about that, Gol.” As I thanked my partner, I tried to get up. At that moment, my right hand bumped into something hard. “Hm, what’s this?”

A brown egg… No, that’s not it. It looked like an egg, but it felt like a stone. It was bigger than a chicken egg but smaller than an ostrich egg. Although it had a half-baked size, this strange sphere gave off a mysterious presence as I rolled it around in my hand.

From what I could tell, it was different from a sorcery core. That core was rougher and crystalline. Besides, Master Speria had already recovered it. Then, what exactly was this?

I highly doubted that this was the ancient Earth Dragon’s egg. In the first place, its size fit more in the realm of “stone” than “egg.” And I was sure that the egg of a creature that extremely huge would be larger than me.

Besides, could you even imagine an egg remaining this smooth and shiny even though the mother’s bones, which were made of the same calcium, were on the verge of crumbling into dust? Hmph, impossible.

You may have noticed, but I’d been recovering my former level of common sense now that the threat of the unrealistic Earth Dragon had disappeared. Even so, what exactly was this round stone that had come from inside this corpse?

After pondering for a while, I realized it. A gastrolith!

A subsection of animals kept such stones in their stomachs. These stones would grind their food and aid in digestion. In short, they worked as a substitute for teeth. Right, this was a gastrolith. Definitely that.

If I remembered correctly, sauropods were extremely large herbivorous dinosaurs who carried such stones in their guts. The ancient Earth Dragon with its large horns did slightly resemble a triceratops. What’s more, the strict definition of dinosaur was actually hotly debated in the scientific world.

I see, so that means…the ancient Earth Dragon was a dinosaur! And an herbivore to boot! Hey, hey, you serious? That was a dinosaur?!

But in that case, although they were admittedly large, was the evil king almost annihilated by a dinosaur and a bunch of monkeys…? I couldn’t help wondering, was the Sorcerer King really just a small fry?

“Well, this stone looks like it’ll sell for a lot.” I held the mysterious round stone in my fingers before throwing it into my black shoulder bag. I suspected that the ancient Earth Dragon’s gastrolith would go for a very large sum indeed.

Remember, a whale’s gallstone can sell for a stupidly huge amount of money.

When I stuck my hand inside the bag, I suddenly remembered something. “I should transfer all the stuff inside the kit bag into this new one.”

The shoulder bag I received from Master Speria looked more expensive and sturdier than my kit bag. If I was going to put my valuables somewhere, the new bag was clearly more suitable.

I readjusted my sitting position and took the items out of my kit. Gol watched intently from the side. I extracted the pouch with coins and the bundle of bills; the leather bag filled with the monkeys’ sorcery cores; the green, metal knife sheathed in a fine scabbard; and some glorious cranberry-apples. I carefully packed everything else inside the shoulder bag.

Looking over the collection, I considered that this was literally everything I owned.

“Oh. Can’t forget this guy.” I pulled out my pajama set from the bottom of the kit bag. Those same lame pajamas I was wearing when I came to this world. On this blue cloth, a yellow cat…no, were they hamsters? Really, what deformed faces they had… But there was still some charm to them, so they weren’t completely hopeless. I addressed the face of this strange yellow animal with a sigh. “Somehow you’ve even become my name. You’ve made it big.”

Although “Nemaki Dasai” was a strange name that I chose on the spur of the moment, I’d keep using it in front of others as long as the denizens of this world weren’t suspicious of it. I still didn’t have any more appropriate names to offer.

As I stared at the ugly, yellow cat while thinking these thoughts, Gol stretched out her hand from the side and retrieved the pajamas from my hands. What was she doing now? Confused, I watched. She placed the pajamas on top of her knees and began to fold them with meticulous care. The delicate movements of her slender fingers treated my pajamas as if there were no more-treasured item in existence.

Partner, I don’t think you need to treat my cheap pajamas with such reverence…

After Gol finished neatly folding my pajamas and placed her precious cargo in the bag, I took the last item out of the kit bag: the map.

I opened it up. “According to Master Speria, if I continue on this road westward, it should take at most four days to get out of the miasma…”

The west wind always seemed to be blowing in this land. If the ancient Earth Dragon was the origin of the Earth miasma, then the damage spread from it would follow the wind and inevitably harm the east. Therefore, there shouldn’t be as much damage to the west. Or so I believed.

I checked the locations of upcoming settlements on the map. There seemed to be a small settlement not too far from here. I could borrow an empty house there to spend the night. There were several more settlements after that. Among those, I was interested in one in particular. “This one looks quite large. Since it doesn’t seem like a farming village, it might be an actual city… Um, what is its name?” I read the label out loud. “Hmmm. ‘Tibar’…?”

Gol popped her head over my shoulder to peek at the map. Her long elf ears touched my cheek and tickled.

“I hope there are people in this city.” When I said that, Gol’s eyes slightly wavered and she looked away. What a strange reaction. “Hm? That face. Do you perhaps not want to go?”

Ever since Gol became a Greek statue, it had been much easier to read these changes in her emotions. I had been bitter and heartbroken when Gol turned into a bishoujo figurine, but it had also allowed us to better understand each other, so ultimately it wasn’t that bad.

“I think my partner’s social anxiety might be a problem,” I said.

This happened with dogs as well. If a puppy was raised only knowing their owner, they’d continue to be bad at interacting with strangers even as an adult. I was sure it was the same with golems. This might turn unfortunate. I needed to socialize Gol as soon as I could.

“People, huh…?” I wanted to reach a human settlement as soon as possible not only for Gol’s sake but, of course, for mine as well. Besides, from what I’d seen of Master Speria, the people of this world probably weren’t evil. I had high expectations.

Honestly, though… All the living creatures Gol and I had met in this world so far were some monkeys, an old man, and a dinosaur… What was with this lineup? Not enough variety. Definitely not enough…charisma? Our journey was very much lacking a certain kind of charm.

As I stared at the map, these words slipped out: “I hope I get to meet a pretty girl in this other world…”

Whoosh!

The map fell out of my hands and onto the floor. Gol had suddenly smacked it. But since she was extremely cautious of my fingers holding the map, her movement was actually pretty gentle. In fact, we didn’t even touch, so I wasn’t hurt or anything. However, the hand holding the map was pulled down by the force of her hit.

“Hey, Gol. What are you doing?”

The map isn’t a toy, you know. No playing with it!

I sighed in exasperation and picked up the map, brushing off the dust. “Listen, partner. This is an important guide that will lead the two of us to a date with a lovely lady. It’ll be inconvenient if it gets dirty and I can’t read—”

Whoosh.

Gol once again slapped the map, dropping it to the ground.

Hey!

“Like I said. Stop playing with the map, Gol.”

Jeez, what a troublesome girl. I quickly folded up the map and put it back into the bag so she couldn’t play with it anymore.

“All right, now.”

Despite the unexpected disturbance from my partner, packing was done. Our break would be over soon, so it was time to depart.

It seemed Gol was able to move without problem. Seeing how she folded my pajamas, made such a facial expression, and slapped the map, the stiffness in her body must have completely disappeared.

While I was still somewhat fatigued, I’d recovered enough to walk. I didn’t think I would ever grow accustomed to the strange exhaustion that overcame me when I tapped my mana. It was like all the strength left my body. Granted, I had slowly recovered after a few hours’ rest, but I was sure my mana had been completely depleted right after the fight.

“Then again, this time…it wasn’t nearly as debilitating as the time I created you, Gol.”

Even though I was completely wasted after that reckless battle, I had remained conscious and mobile. And in a relatively short amount of time, I’d recovered enough to feel I could walk a long distance.

Now that I thought about it, I might have put myself in a really dangerous situation when I created Gol. My condition then had been truly terrible. I couldn’t move my body at all and had to spend over two days totally bedridden before I recovered. Not to mention, I might actually have spent more time unconscious than I believed.

That was…really dangerous. To think that creating a golem could be such a life-threatening action. And the introductory book didn’t provide a single cautionary word…

“I won’t cast Create Golem again for the rest of my life,” I said.

When I swore that pledge out loud, Gol suddenly leaned her body against mine. She stuck so close to me that I thought she was glued on. From so near, I could see her eyes sparkling like a starry sky. A strong heat emitted from her soft body. She pressed her delicate shoulders into my chest and her long ears fluttered cheerfully.

“What’s up all of a sudden…? You’re in good spirits.”

She seemed to be really enjoying life.

Please share some of your mysterious energy with exhausted old me!

After I stroked the snuggling Gol’s head, I slowly stood up. Then, after a long stretch, I turned to her.

“Let’s go, partner,” I said with a smile and held out my right hand.

She extended her left hand in response. Her fingers slowly made their way to mine with what seemed like hesitation and timidity. I tightly gripped her hand, pulled her up, and lifted her. She hardly resisted. As such, I pulled much harder than necessary, and the two of us spun around.

It looked like we were dancing. I found this hilarious and unintentionally laughed.

Our faces suddenly drew close and our gazes locked. At this close distance, her beautiful ruby eyes shone as if filled with the light and warmth of the sun. Our shadows on the red earth overlapped each other and became one.

Come, this was just the beginning. With our hands and gazes locked, this was the story of our journey.