Faust scratched his head. Does being bound to the eyes come with the golem? He decided to just test it for now.

"Um... activate, turn on."

That didn’t work. Then he tried to imagine what he wanted it to do.

The stone spider started scuttling over his bed erratically. Faust clapped loudly. It works. It lives!

It was hard to control.

The spider didn’t perform delicate actions well unless he guided it closely by closing his eyes and imagining the movement.

And unfortunately, you couldn’t close your eyes on an active battlefield.

There was also the way its eight legs move. Only two legs pulled it forward while the others dragged.

Let’s try something.

He disconnected four of the legs and only left four placed strategically around its body. Then he changed how he imagined the Golem moving.

This was weird, but he imagined himself crawling around on four legs.

And creepy as it looked, it worked perfectly. The Golem moved quickly and with great finesse. It climbed walls, dodged obstacles and circled the room in a blur.

Faust soon found himself laughing. This was kind of like a toy car, except mind-controlled and a way more fun.

But he had another problem. The eye was working.

"That’ll be a problem for later."

He made three more golem, finished the stream (the Player defended their village with massive losses), and finally laid down to get some sleep.

"Finally."

◇◇◇

Not even an hour later, Faust was rudely awakened. There was a scream beside his house. He jumped awake and called his dagger into his hand. Then after snapping around the dark room for a minute he calmed down.

The second wave is over. Why is someone screaming?

He walked over to his window and drew the blue wool blinds apart. It opened to an alley between his house and the next, revealing nothing. But he heard whimpers and cries for mercy beside the house.

"Please, we’re sorry," a girl pleaded. "I’ll enchant the weapon. We’ll make the robes. We’ll do anything."

A rougher, male voice chuckled. "Anything? You were so tough when the Village shield was up. Did you think we would always be unable to hurt you."

"They said anything right?" another rogue said, laughing. "Well there is something I want from Amelia.... Ranna, you’re kinda flat, but I wouldn’t mind something from you too."

Faust pushed open his window and looked out into the alley. There three men cornered two girls with daggers in their hands. They all turned to stare at him.

"Can you stop?" Faust asked with a groan.

The leader of the group was a man with stringy black hair and a cigarette in his mouth. "Mind your business lad, you’ll live longer."

Faust didn’t particularly think of himself as a hero, but ignoring something happening right in front of you when you can help was something his dad would hate.

"Did they cheat you out of anything," Faust asked first. "Were they supposed to enchant the robes or weapons or whatever and didn’t do it?"

He’d liked to have context before he intervened. After all, the girls might have cheated them and these three were upstanding members of society.

"I’m going to come over there and cut your tongue out," one of the men threatened. "Close the damn window."

I don’t hear many upstanding members of society say that...

"We didn’t take any payments or promises!" One of the girls shouted. "They tried to kidnap us when they heard about Amelia’s Schema and—"

One of the men moved on her, raising a dagger, but Faust’s Slime tether was faster. As it stuck to the man’s back, he pulled him back gently. But his greater strength ripped the man off his feet.

The sound of his back hitting the ground roused his allies.

"let go of him!"

"We’re warning you dumbass! We fought in the first wave!"

But Faust was focused on the second girl, Amelia, it seemed. Her auburn hair was tousled and her face was bruised.

She has a Schema?

Amelia snorted. "You mean you exploited the wall tactic. You didn’t fight shit."

"Back to talking big, Amelia?" the man Faust had tethered groaned. "Once I’m done killing this fool, I will train that out of you."

Those words made Faust retch. "What is wrong with you people? I’m trying to be diplomatic here. If they wronged you they should help you. But all that other stuff.... Yeah, just don’t do that. "

"I don’t owe them jackshit!" Amelia cried. "They’re just trying to force us to work because they feel like a little gang. You can tell Two to go fuck himself. In fact, don’t. I’m gonna go out and get to level three, then i’m going to fuck him with my sword until he has sword babies."

What the fuck wrong with her?

"Please, let’s be cordial," Faust said with a wrinkled nose.

The lead thug slashed at his tether, but his dagger barely left a mark.

"Let go of him and fuck off. Last warning. You’ve been hiding this whole time. We’re level 2."

Faust sighed and vaulted over his window still casually. He sighed and walked towards them, wearing only his bloody dusty trousers. They all stepped back looking from the blood on him to his muscular upper body.

"Whenever someone says ’Last warning,’ it just makes me want to do what they said I shouldn’t. It’s not a very strong statement. If you weren’t afraid of a fight you wouldn’t give a ’Last warning’."

He redrew his tether and waved them off. "I think I’ve given you enough grace. Leave."

The guy he threw on the ground was the first to act. He launched himself forward, while cackling madly. "You’re dead!"

In human terms, he was fast. In a hundred metre dash at the Olympics, Faust could bet he would dominate and break world records.

But to Faust, his attack looked embarrassing. Like why are you moving so slow. It looked like his limbs were made of stone.

Maybe his Strength is better.

So Faust took the punch to his face, not bothering to even move.