"Hey, human boy."
Omerta barged in like she owned the place. We became neighbors last week, but I still couldn't get used to it. The embassy the beastfolk constructed was quite impressive though. They recently finished the bathhouse as well, the tribe shaped up at a crazy speed.
"What do you want, witch?" I asked similarly. I found her scary, like basically everyone in this village... And the first friend I made was long gone. Bastion was a gentle giant, but it took me all my courage to make a deal with him. I did not regret it, and while nobody reached his size in the tribe, plenty of strange people lived here.
"Teach me how to make golems." The orc witch demanded. Her brother was the most terrifying of all. Nearly the size of the ogre, but he wore woman's clothing... Yet was more ripped than all the men in Nateaser. And it didn't help that his little sister was a former member of the Twelve Champions. She was competitive, always going on about some rivalry, but she was surprisingly friendly.
"What? Golems? Why?" I was confused, only waking up recently. Some furniture was still missing, but my room was on par with my chambers back in the main temple. "We have thirty golems in this tribe already, and the Goddess keeps making more of them."
"Yeah, well, this is the thing. She doesn't." She claimed, leaning against my doorframe. She was much shorter than her brother. Well, since that guy was huge, but for an orc girl, she didn't look nearly as brutish as the rest. She didn't wear those rough, leather clothes either. She preferred all-black, typical wizard clothing with flowing robes and amulets, only a pointy hat was missing.
"What do you mean, she doesn't?" I asked, yawning. "She even made a homunculus to organize them... The first one I've seen in my life."
"Tooth is part of the problem." She noted, pushing herself off the doorframe. She walked in casually and hopped on my bed. Her smile exposed her small tusks, the dark green skin lots smoother than I expected, glistening from sweat. She must have been busy, already this early in the morning. "That homunculus is a slavedriver... He works the poor golems until they break down. We only have fifteen left."
"What? That's impossible..." I shook my head. "I've seen those guys... The Goddess filled them with so much mana that I half expected them to burst. And they were masterfully crafted too. The one I made barely resembles a human, hers are completely lifelike, it's scary."
"Yeah, well, they work on the houses, cut up the trees, mine stone, haul them across the forest, then build the roads... I'm already tired just from listing that all." She explained, and she got a point. "Half of them broke down, and she stopped making more since her body double started building some kind of laundry... That catgirl is obsessed with slimes."
"Oh, right, they sent that kid to ask me about it," I remembered from yesterday. "I was a bit surprised because she always hangs out with Nati, and I feel like she avoids me for some reason."
"Nati does? Unbelievable." Omerta put on a fake shocked expression for me. "I wonder why that would be? It's not like you tried to banish her in the middle of the village or something. I'm already surprised she would send her little henchmen to ask you. So what did Mabel want?"
"I keep apologizing for that," I claimed, but I guess she was right. I sure wouldn't go near anyone who tried to harm me. I felt terrible about it too. She was a stunning beauty, owing her body to a literal Goddess and I tried my best to make up for my mistake. Cooking her the best meals, offered my help whenever I had spare time, but she wouldn't have it. If anything, she even ate less lately. "So she's Mabel? She asked if I could make healing potions from slimes but asked the shaman too."
"And can you?" The witch asked. The longer she sat next to me, the more I noticed the interesting aroma emanating from her. Was it some sort of perfume, or her sweat? I couldn't tell.
"Uhm... I guess. The Church used a different method, but the principle should be the same." I explained, getting a little embarrassed. I tried to keep my distance, but I was alone in my room with a girl after all. Orc or not, she was a bit too close. "I, uh... I usually healed the soldiers of the Church directly. Someone else managed the healing potions, but I made a few."
"Oh, I'll have you teach me that as well." She grinned. There was no point in protesting, she usually got what she wanted, but since it included learning new things most of the time, I didn't mind. "But first, golems. How do you make them? I want one specifically for transportation duties because it seems that's where most of them break down."
"It could be because they move a lot with heavy loads." I pondered. Since she kept following me as I pulled away, I ran out of space on my bed to retreat to. But this was a good opportunity. "With the materials ready, it would be easier to explain."
"That's the spirit. Yes, so how do you make them?" She repeated the question as we headed out. "And do they have to be made of clay, or is there something that would make them last longer?"
"Clay is the ideal material," I told her, aiming for the swamp, where my golem was born. Now it worked in the rice paddy, planting without rest. "All you need to do is to make it your desired shape, dry it, then add joints and a command core with your magic. Eyes and other sensory functions are optional."
"Yeah but... Aren't they breaking down, because the clay can't take the stress?" She asked curiously. "Like, they get dry and brittle, and all..."
"The joints, so where it counts are magically manipulated anyway. And they use the mana that was originally implanted in them." I said, but it also made me think. "So technically yes, if they have to use those joints a lot, under heavy load, it could make them run out of mana sooner."
"See? What if I made it from iron then? Would it last longer?" She pitched her idea. Stopping suddenly, she dragged me back by my sleeve, nodding towards the smithy. "Would an iron golem work?"
"I mean, sure. But shaping iron is a lot more difficult than shaping clay." I considered the option. "Plus it is much heavier. You'd need to make it hollow, or it might sink into the softer ground. But if you shape the joints to work without magic, move the limbs with an actual internal structure. They could last longer... And be more durable in general."
"I have no issues shaping iron... I can even manipulate their carbon content to perfection." Omerta bragged with a wide smile. "They still would not finish the crossbow prototype without me."
"Th-that is true... Yeah, in a sense, it would be easier to make one out of iron than clay... But do we have enough ore?" I asked, knowing how much of a resource shortage the village faced. The rapid expansion took a lot to fuel both with workers and materials. That was the main reason we employed so many golems, to begin with.
"Well, considering how much I helped the blacksmith, if I ask him, I doubt he'd say no." The witch claimed, dragging me towards the smithy. "Let's go. It can't hurt to try. I can even use the raw ore, don't need to smelt or hammer or anything."
To my surprise, the blacksmith did offer us a reasonable amount, we didn't have to haggle, and his reasons were simple.
"The import ore I received is much better quality than the one I've been using. If it speeds up the future deliveries, you can take it all." He explained, leaving us with nearly a ton of iron.
"Okay, transportation. We got a few carriages from the beastfolk so we could use that. They brought about fifty chickens, seven oxen, and tents in exchange for the crossbows we sold them." She pondered, once we got the materials. "I need something that can easily load and unload everything to the cart, and use an ox to pull it."
"How about a centaur though?" I had this crazy idea. "If you make the iron shell hollow, we have more than enough to build a life-size beast. They could pull the cart and load it too. Would be better than an ox."
"Ooh, a centaur, huh? Half horse, half a man... I didn't even consider it." She squeezed my hand, getting excited. "Yes, that could work. It's not written anywhere that a golem has to be a certain shape after all."
From that point onwards, she extracted the iron from the ore. She shaped an actual statue without ever touching anything. Her ability to handle any material was more impressive than I thought. If I had to guess, she wasn't even aware of it herself. She made it look so easy to work with raw iron, as I couldn't do even with wet clay. The centaur took shape in less than an hour and looked even closer to lifelike than the orc golems made by the actual Goddess.
She also made the joints work without magic, placing massive rods inside the hollow body. I only needed to explain to her how to set up the core itself, and in another hour, the creature was ready to come to life. She channeled all her mana into it to tie things up, running out of breath by the end, but her golem turned out magnificent.
It was certainly amazing for someone who did it for the first time. Its movements were sluggish, but considering what a complicated inner system had to be built from such a hard material, it was nothing surprising. Plus, it had six limbs to handle, instead of four, and she was adamant about including sight and hearing at the very least.
"Phew, I'm beaten." She announced once everything was done. "I want to test this out, but I can barely move anymore."
"Well, you can just ride it to the quarry, have it load up some stone, then see if it can drive to the construction site." I offered. The creature did not need any extra input. Thanks to its added senses, a simple command was enough, and it guided itself. "With the amount of magicules you put into it, it could travel across the entire continent in one go. All the while drawing three tons of stone."
"I sure hope so... I used all my strength for this one." She claimed, looking tired but happy. "It was so much work, if it turned out that it's not the best draft animal in existence, I'd be very disappointed."