The golem, a giant with a long beard braided onto its chest, stood chiseled as if wearing a full breastplate, helm, and armored legs. Its left arm was broken, a mere stump.
"Great, just great!" I muttered, my sword still horizontal above my head. "Okay, Kiko, let's figure out this one-handed golem." My mind, still buzzing from the Memory Core download, was oddly clear, cataloging everything.
Heightened Awareness pinged: Mechanized Stone Golem: Weapons: Robotic-like right arm Attacks: Swing, stomp, punch and whatever a giant moving statue can do to squash you. Distance: 5-6 meters.
"Hey, look who's back," I muttered, addressing the reclusive skill. "I wondered when you were going to show up."
A red line extended from the golem, widening fast. The golem raised its arm.
Heightened Awareness: Incoming attack: Giant mech arm slam. Time before impact: 1-1.5 seconds.
I stumbled backward, kicking up clouds of pulverized stone. The giant's arm crashed down, cratering the floor where I'd stood a heartbeat ago, splintering marble into a shotgun spray of sharp pebbles. Before I could even gasp, the golem's metallic hand shot out, reaching for me with unnerving speed. In a split-second flicker, my muscles remembered the grace of that impossible somersault. I executed not just one, but two desperate back tumbles, a flailing blur of arms and legs, hitting the ground and sliding backward, barely out of its immense, grasping reach. The big bully didn't miss a beat, immediately charging, the ground rumbling, and swung another thunderous whack. I ducked, rolling under the sweep of its arm, thrusting my knife up into its leg. My blade screamed against stone, a metallic shriek that sent a jolt all the way to my teeth. It immediately craned its head down, its bulk shifting with a predatory twist, locking onto me again.
Heightened Awareness: Attack: Incoming kick
It kicked without warning. One second, solid ground; the next, a blunt force trauma that knocked the air from my lungs. My kitchen knife became a futile shield, the impact jolting me back. It felt like a head-on collision, though I'd never been in one. But every crash test dummy, every poor, rag-doll simulated victim, now had my full, empathetic understanding. My soul was being wrenched from my chest, that specific gut-dropping terror I knew intimately from the dizzying, stomach-churning ascent of the SM roller coaster's first drop. I saw the giant closing in, a rumbling, inevitable doom. 'Oh no you don't!' I gritted out, a desperate challenge. I pictured the backflip—a move born from cartoon logic—forced my protesting limbs into it, and miraculously, impossibly, landed upright, but the sheer kinetic energy sent me skidding across the polished floor. The golem offered no pause, no mercy; its massive foot descended like a guillotine blade, aiming for my last known location. I twisted into a frantic roll, scrambling backward for precious meters, my mind burning with a singular, impossible question: How do I stop this?
Mid-thought, the giant's arm transformed into a cannon—Transformers style, but without the themed transformation sound. Instead, it was all clanks, tugs, and twitching, like an old, struggling electric fan.
My Heightened Awareness turned red: Attack: Unknown cannon attack Suggestion: Get ready.
Small particles of light began to flock to the cannon. When enough light accumulated, it pointed at my direction.
I gasped and ducked like a marathoner waiting for the gunfire. Then, it shot three orbs. It stumbled back from the recoil, and with a taunting motion, it growled. I didn't know how it created such noises, being made of stone, but I needed to move.
Heightened Awareness: calculating... Generating probable red zones for impact. Accuracy of prediction: around 60% Impact zone: size of red zone is just to show impact not actual size of explosion. Time before impact: 1-2 seconds or faster.
Red zones lit up – right behind me, then to my left. Sixty percent accuracy. Not great, not terrible. The orbs were blurs, too damn fast for even my Heightened Awareness. I dove right, a desperate, last-ditch effort, but the blast slammed into me mid-jump. It was... an explosion. Not the pretty kind you see in games, but a guttural, physical punch that compressed my insides. It was like a tidal wave of pure force, picking me up, tumbling me end over end, then grinding me into the cold, hard floor. My vision fractured, replaced by a kaleidoscope of stars and pain. I gasping, tried to stand, but my legs screamed in fiery protest, every muscle locking up. I sagged onto one knee, using my sword as a shaky prop. Then the warm, slick reality hit me: blood. Gushing from my nose, welling in my mouth. My last strength drained, and I collapsed onto my back.
I saw the golem begin walking towards me, taking its time, and I swear it was dancing jollily, doing waves with its steps.
I crawled back, dragging my sword with me. "No," I began to say, "no, no." I felt my impending doom drawing near. I could feel the waves of its footsteps. Extreme fear was taking over me for the first time in years.
Heightened Awareness: Suggestive action: Get back to your feet. Now! You can do it!
"Thanks, buddy, but I don't think I can do it," I muttered, feeling bitter because my skill was cheering for me to stand up, but panic was building for the first time in years as my life hung in the balance. "This is it, Kiko," I told myself, mentally patting myself for surviving this long. I began to accept my eventual demise.
Heightened Awareness: Mechanical stone golem Distance: 15-20 meters and closing in.
From the distance, I heard a gasping squeal that made the golem look back and stop in its tracks.
Then a Boapede came crawling out of nowhere, three times bigger than the juvenile I'd met in the shack where I'd taken shelter earlier in this Isekai world. It headed towards me with amazing speed. "Great, another monster that wanted me dead," I thought.