Romulo and Coffee Coffee sat beside each other on an especially large branch. Both were rather tall, with Coffee at 7 feet and Romulo closer to 10, but the wood showed no signs of snapping. That much wasn’t much of a surprise, seeing as Coffee was a skeleton weighing no more than 30 pounds, but Romulo was still rather impressed at how sturdy these Freshwater Oaky Mangrove trees were.

  Both he and Coffee were gazing into the fog, the air between them quite serene, sipping the coffee that Coffee had made for them, which Romulo had been amazed to find had an unexpected benefit.

  “Proper Coffee: Grants all the benefits of coffee without any of the downsides.”

  He still remembered the Voice announcing what it was, but it wasn’t until Coffee had started explaining the implications that the true extent the special-grade beverage’s effect became clear to him.

  Since there were no downsides, none whatsoever, to drinking gallons and gallons of the stuff, that was exactly what Romulo had been trying to do. The goal, as Coffee put it, was to reach ‘maximum saturation’—the point at which the possible benefits to be gained from drinking coffee were maxed out.

  Toward this end, Romulo had already downed more than 20 cups.

  Owing to his size, Coffee estimated that he would need close to fifty before he reached that point, so the two were just sitting there on the branch. Coffee, as a golem with no internal organs, was unable to derive any benefits from drinking his coffee, so he focused on making it, while Romulo drank.

  With every cup, he grew a little more alert, his focus improving ever so slightly, and the flavor was pretty good too. It didn’t make much sense to him that Coffee, a golem created by the chairwoman of Elvanera Group for nonviolent purposes, had been sent to assassinate a powerhouse like Jenjo.

  “It still doesn't track,” Romulo finally said, breaking the comfortable silence they’d settled into. He set the empty mug down, and Coffee immediately refilled it from the seemingly inexhaustible carafe. “Jenjo is not a simple person to deal with. From my understanding, he’s successfully developed more than one Opus. That’s not normal. Most people are unable to develop their first Opus before reaching level 30.”

  Coffee tilted his skeletal head. “His combat prowess is formidable, yes.”

  “And you, meanwhile, are weak.” Romulo paused. “It begs the question: Why were you, of all the options, sent here to kill him? Wouldn’t it make more sense to have Siempre or someone else at that tier do it instead? Or, hell, why not just have Weathermaker fry him with lightning and be done with it?”

  Coffee Coffee tilted his skull, the empty sockets seeming to consider Romulo’s words. “It is quite perplexing, is it not?” The golem’s voice remained cheerful, almost jarringly so given the topic. “One might even suspect the Chairwoman has other motives! Or perhaps,” Coffee tapped a bony finger against his temple, “perhaps she simply has great faith in me? This is what I prefer to believe.”

  Romulo grunted, taking another deep gulp of coffee. He was starting to feel it more now. Not just alertness, but a strange vibrancy, like the edges of his vision were sharper, the sounds of the rain clearer, his thoughts moving faster. Twenty-something cups in, and the effects were becoming less subtle. “Faith doesn’t stop a Phantom Slice from taking your head off before you know what’s happening. Jenjo’s killed people from twenty feet away. He’s ex-military and a duelist. Strong.”

  “Precisely!” Coffee clapped his skeletal hands together softly. “Which is why a direct confrontation would be inadvisable! As the lovely Head Guard Mulberry suggested, stealth and opportunity are key! Perhaps poison? A well-placed trap? There are many paths to victory that do not involve clashing steel!” Coffee gazed off, looking vaguely into the fog. “Besides, the Chairwoman’s commands are absolute. If she decrees that I, Coffee Coffee, am to eliminate Jenjo, then eliminate Jenjo I shall attempt to do!”

  Romulo studied the golem, who was still looking off into the fog. At once, he reached his conclusion.

  The Chairwoman probably didn’t care if Coffee succeeded or failed, as long as the attempt was made.

  Maybe Coffee was just a distraction for someone else? Or maybe the Chairwoman truly was that whimsical. Or perhaps the golem was a pawn in some kind of scheme—one in which Jenjo’s death was of little to no actual concern. Jenjo was powerful relative to Romulo and Coffee, yes, but if the higher-ups really wanted him dead, they no doubt could have made that happen by now.

  Whatever the truth was, it was of no concern to Romulo.

  For the time being, entering this partnership was a simple decision.

  Coffee could provide him with an unlimited source of safe, power-boosting hydration. Additionally, without any flesh to corrupt, Coffee was probably immune to the Undead Rain. That, combined with the fact that the golem didn’t need to eat, meant that keeping him around was unlikely to cause problems.

  This text was taken from Royal Road. Help the author by reading the original version there.

  Another thought, a dishonorable one Romulo felt guilty that had entered his head, was that, if things looked like they were going south, he could always just abandon or even betray Coffee. He had no interest in throwing his life away trying to fight someone more than 10 levels stronger than him.

  That said, there was a carrot attached to Coffee’s proverbial stick, and it did indeed entice Romulo.

  “And this… transformation you mentioned,” Romulo said, his voice low. “Turning me into a Knight. I didn’t know such a thing was possible. Tell me, friend: How does Siempre Elvanera fit into that?”

  “Ah, the reward! Yes! Siempre is instrumental! He possesses the Mutagen ability, you see—one of only three individuals known to the Chairwoman capable of initiating such transformations! While his methods… perhaps carry certain risks,” Coffee waved a hand dismissively, “the potential is undeniable! Imagine it, Romulo! The power, the resilience, the stature! Why, your strength would grow tenfold!”

  Romulo felt a surge of desire. Strength. Power. It was what he craved above all else. The downsides of Siempre’s methods were well-known—monstrous forms, loss of self—but the gamble might be worth it.

  “You know, if I received that transformation now, killing Jenjo would be a lot more feasible, no?”

  “Yes, that would be the ideal sequence of events. I believe that you are sufficiently honorable to fulfill your end of the bargain should you undergo the metamorphosis and have things proceed well.”

  “So that’s the plan then? Find Siempre, try our luck with the transformation, and go from there?”

  “Tentatively, yes. I believe that will maximize our odds of success.”

  Romulo smiled. “Works for me. And how do we find Siempre?”

  The skeleton went silent for a moment.

  “I do not know,” he finally said.

  Romulo shook his head and chuckled. “I kind of figured.”

  With one smooth motion, the giant rose to his feet, such that he stood balanced atop the branch.

  “Well,” said Romulo, “We’d better start looking then.”

  ?

  Midday stared at the tadpole. It had died more than thirty times now and, at this point, he was starting to think that it was straight up invincible—or, rather, invincible to death by blunt force.

  It was just a big mass of calloused skin now, its actual body nearly impossible to find amid the folds. In this state, the creature was immobile to the point where it was more like a rock than a living creature.

  The thought of using the tadpole’s motionless body as a heated pillow popped into Midday’s head: The rain was warm to the touch, but constant exposure nonetheless left him shivering, so the warmth from the skin-blob tadpole would have been nice. The thought of creating several such tadpoles and using them to guarantee his warmth while sleeping occurred to him for some reason, but he was not yet so far gone as to seriously consider it. Just a few months prior, after all, he’d still been a typical villager.

  Plus, Jugrim was already somewhat warm to the touch. If he slept with his back flush to the elephant’s skin, he’d accomplish nearly the same effect as his skin-tadpole approach would likely achieve.

  The tadpole’s form had more-or-less stabilized after the tenth death, with the changes from that point onwards becoming increasingly smaller until it became impossible to notice them without close inspection. As such, Midday thought now might be a good time to call it quits with the tadpole.

  Surely there were better things he could be doing.

  If Jenjo didn’t have any work for him, then he could at the very least spend some time collecting useful plants and adding them to his garden. Right now, all he had was the Devil Peppercorn, but the old growth was a treasure trove of unique flora, and Midday wanted to see what he could find.

  The giant lotus in the center of the pond stood out to him as one possible avenue for that.

  Before any of that though, waste disposal: He picked up the tadpole, which couldn’t even struggle against him at this point, and took it to the edge of Jugrim, where he dumped it into the swamp below.

  From there, Midday started walking toward the spot where the others were building their shelter.

  After a short trudge through the mud, he arrived to find that the shelter was taking shape.

  Ablute, Braulia, and the Carpentry Sisters worked with surprising efficiency.

  The group was more than halfway done laying the foundation: A circle of rammed earth about 15 feet across. The platform was elevated above the surroundings—just enough to prevent water from seeping into the structure that would soon be built on top of it. Crude wooden spokes that the Carpentry Sisters had gathered and driven deep into the mud helped ensure that the mud foundation stayed cohesive.

  The Carpentry Sisters mainly busied themselves shoveling loose mud and piling it up to form the foundation. They performed this work barehanded, but that didn’t seem to slow them down much.

  Ablute and Braulia, on the other hand, were tasked with solidifying the mud.

  Ablute’s water manipulation ability allowed him to squeeze most of the water out of the mud.

  From there, Braulia would blast the mostly dried dirt with intense heat, cooking it until it became solid.

  “Need a hand?” Midday asked, stepping closer.

  One of the Carpentry Sisters, the one who usually did the talking, looked up. “Finished your task?”

  “More or less,” Midday replied. “Learned some things. Big one is that the changes zombies undergo between deaths are determined by the way they died. There’s also an upper limit to mutations somewhere around the 10th death. Unsure what to do with that knowledge though.”

  “As we learn more, our course of action in dealing with the zombies will become clearer.”

  Midday nodded. “So, do you need anything here?”

  “Of course,” the lead Carpentry Sister, the one who always seemed to be doing the talking for the trio, made a sweeping gesture before pointing near the edge of the foundation circle. “Grab some mud and pack it between the spokes. I don’t see a point in sleeping before we have a roof over our heads, so expect to work nonstop until then. I’m guessing it’ll be 12 hours or so. Hurry up and get moving.”

  “Got it.”

  Midday wasted no time getting to work. Working in the fields had squeezed out all the laziness that otherwise might have been present in his temperament. He bent down and set about his work.