"Give me back my pendant!"

Her hands glowed golden and the pendant flew off my neck into her hands. She didn't look happy after noticing the condition of the pendant.

"You! I can't believe you used up the protection charm! It will take a entire year to charge!"

She glared at me.

"You should glad I'm not beating you up right now!"

The girl left in a huff, stomping her feet, but the action didn't make much noise because of how hard the ground was. Great. Pretty girl, very bad impression. The usual.

Looking at the bats stuck in the ground then at the cluster of shrubs, I realised that the group of plants probably made up the nest of the bats. That explained the odd way the branches were entwined and why the bats had attacked me.

I wanted to continue consuming the leftover berries but I realised the bats were stirring. Even the bat I beat up with my hoe had the wounds on it's head healing up, probably about to wake up in a while. These monster were terrifying! They were so powerful and even regenerated at such a speed.

Having no choice, I ran in the direction where the mana was strong. It wasn't a good idea to hang around a comfortable zone only to be torn up by bats afterwards. Ranking up to rank 2 helped as well, making the mana affect me less.

All of a sudden, I heard a loud bang after running shortly. I turned my head to see a golem, with two pits beside it. It looked very familiar, like the golem guide from earlier, having the same boulder with arms, core in front look except that the rock it was made of was the same as what the ground was made of. The golden core of the golem was covered in scratches but the same size as the guide golem's core but the rocks that made it up were very crude. It only had it's right arm attached to it as well.

The noise was made when the golem slammed it's fist into the ground. It grabbed a large chunk of the shattered rock and the rock begun to morph before my eyes. The rock quickly moulded into a arm like shape and the golem attached it the arm to it's left side. And now it was a complete golem.

It turned towards me and made a odd noise as it's core flashed white.

"Ulurgh?"

It sounded vaguely surprised to me.

"Guide? Is that you?"

I knew the golem was not going to understand me but I talked instinctively. The golem pointed to me with it's left hand and then to itself with it's right hand. It then touched both of it's hands together.

It repeated the motion a few times and I could guessed that it was telling me we have met. I didn't think it understood me though. It was more likely to be a coincidence where the golem expressed what I wanted to confirm.

The golem and I futilely tried to converse for a few minutes and I decided to walk on, the golem deciding to follow. The bats did give chase a while later as I hadn't got far but the golem sent one of the bats flying off into the distance with a single punch. The bats soon left after realising I had a powerful ally on my side. I did feel slightly guilty as the golem was friendly to me despite me being the cause of it's problems.

Soon, me and the golem came to a forest of sorts. There were many bizarre plants and trees of odd shapes and they similarly lacked leaves like the berry bushes I had found.

The golem poked one of the trees out of curiosity and one of the branches of the plant whipped at it. Sentient plants, absolutely fantastic.

The golem retreated and left the tree alone. We continued to navigate the forest without aim, careful not to provoke any of the plants. There were tiny grasslike plants covering the ground, solely comprised out of stems but they did not respond as we stepped on them.

The journey through the forest went pretty smoothly. There were odd animals that looked at us curiously but we didn't get attacked. A rumble suddenly shook the ground but nothing much happened after it stabilised.

Me and the golem reached a village of sorts. There were many buildings that were made out of metals and rock around around over the place. I think I really needed to give the golem a nickname. I'm tired of calling it "the golem". Lets call it "Rocky" for now.

Rocky almost seemed to salivate and headed towards the door of one of the houses. I tried to stop it but there wasn't much I could do to stop a determined living rock. It touched it's core to the door of one of the houses and the metallic door was promptly swallowed.

Someone shrieked in the house. A girl ran out of the house, took a look at my lantern and screamed again. She covered her eyes with her hands and shouted in a language I could not understand. She attempted to open her eyes but quickly closed them again, but opened long enough to let me get a brief look at them.

Her eyes were huge, looking almost unnatural and the pupils of her eyes were extremely large as well. The lantern's light had also reflected off her eyes the brief moment she opened them, causing the pupils of her eyes to shine. Her skin was extremely pale as well, probably from the lack of sunlight.

I put the lantern under my clothes to make the glow more bearable and it seemed to do the trick. She was still very aversive to the light but she could look straight at me and the golem now.

She pointed to the golem and shouted something in her language. The golem didn't understand a word but seemed to get that it did something wrong destroying the door. It slammed it's fist into the ground, scaring the girl and making her run back into the house screaming, and a huge crater was created on the ground.

It fused the chunks of rocks from the ground into a door like shape and pasted it onto the hollow frame of the door, then fused the stone with frame, essentially turning the doorway into a wall.

The girl realised the golem had sealed the only exit of her house and started banging the stone with her fists and yelling.

Poor Rocky was just trying to help!

The commotion attracted a lot of the underground people as they begun shouting at us as well, especially at the confused golem. Rocky got so embarrassed it literally dug a hole for itself in the ground.

I myself wasn't sure what to do.