The Golem Adventurer

Chapter 3 - Fully Operational

We continued down the hallway for what seemed like hours. Every now and again a [Sentry Golem] would appear and attack. Kleid easily swept them away with his martial skills. For someone who looks fresh out of High School, his physical prowess was admirable. Tessa told me when they went through before, there were much more monsters on the prowl. If that was the case, where were the corpses? Asking that, she told me the dungeon "absorbed" them. Some sort of recycling process since places like these were training grounds. Dead bodies go in, fresh combatants go out. I make a mental note to ask more at a later time. Such a strange place.

After traversing a few more floors, we finally reached the outside. A verdant green forest spread out around me as we left the sunken entrance of the dungeon. It was something out of a fairy tale. A dirt road leading from the mouth of the entrance extended outside to what I would assume would be the main road. 

"We'll keep going down this dirt path until we reach the highway. Afterwards we'll make camp for the day. Haldin is a half a days walk and we're already short on sunlight for this one."

Hina walked up to me after she spoke to the party.

"We'll talk a bit more at camp. It'll be a good idea to discuss your future plans before we head into town."

She had a soothing smile on her face but I could hear a tinge of worry coming from her voice. I was the giant mechanical elephant in the room right now and what I do next will definitely be critical. For all it's worth, even I don't know. I might was well be stuck in a foreign country. At the very least, I could understand their speech.

The strange thing is, they're not speaking a language I'm familiar with. But it's like I can understand their... intent? Like information is being received and put into words I can understand as though there's a translator in my head. It might well be an effect of being a golem. 

Adjusting to this new body was unwieldy at first but slowly I've been getting a hang of it. My sense of touch is gone so I don't know whether, for example, I'm gripping something too hard. Luckily I don't have to consume liquids so cups will be spared my crushing wrath. The strange thing is I can still breathe. I'm pretty sure I don't need oxygen and, for better or worse, I don't seem to smell anything either. Maybe it's some sort of air cooling? Do I have heat sinks in my chest? Giving my chest a light knock, I definitely feel something large clunking around in there. My sight is the third most notable change. It wasn't like seeing while I was alive. It's like I'm wearing a headset over my eyes but what I see looks like some store CCTV footage on a CRT screen. How vintage this is. I remember an old 80's film about an assassin robot from the future who had sight like this. Don't think catchy one liners are going to be in my future though. Not to mention my speech sounded like it was coming out of a speaker. At the very least it sounded like me, even if it did sound grainy and lo-fi. I wonder how they could understand me though? Is what I'm saying translated as well?

The sun had started to set by the time we reached the highway. If you could call it that. It was just a bigger dirt road. The same size you'd find in any farming town back home. We all walked off it and away from the main road. A small hill gave us cover from any walking onlookers and a stream at the other side for water. While they set up camp, I took the time to peek out from the top of the grassy mound, careful not to give myself away. It was quite busy for a road so rustic. Every other minute or two a group of people or a horse drawn carriage would pass by. No cars? Did I step back into the 1800's? Everyone sure is dressed that way. Every once in a while I'd spot a strange figure or two walking along in the groups. They looked like short humans in heavy armor like Kleid or on their carriages hauling what looks like cargo. Even more suspicious were the ones with long ears. Elves? Dwarves? This really seemed like some magical fantasy land. But those elves weren't dressed like "Elves". Not like in those old fantasy books I read as a kid. The way the females dressed made me wish I had a zoom feature on my sight.