So, humans. They were powerful.
Not only had the realm been their sandbox, not only had they survived the mana drought, not only! Would one come back to this deprived land with ungodly amounts of magic in them, but their very understanding of reality defied all wisdom.
And that woman, barely out of the summoning circle, was proof of it.
She rushed me: "Where is the cheat skill? Do I get a cheat skill? What's wrong with your head? Ah! I'm sorry for saying something so rude!"
Her head turned away. She had already taken the whole ship's lower deck, the wooden walls with gilded reliefs, the candle lamps and now her attention was fixed on the ladder leading up.
"There is a system!" She almost pushed me. "I totally have a system! I am..."
The human went silent, poked the air with wide eyes then giggled.
"What even is that! Ah this is hilarious! I am going to have a blast with this!"
I coughed.
I didn't really cough, being a clay golem and all, but why cared.
"Oh yeah!" She turned back to me. "I'm sorry, I completely forgot you were there! My name is Yuitsu, I'll be in your care!"
And she bowed briefly.
"And I'm Kaele, nice to meet you. Your life is in danger, the realm..."
"Ah, this is an escape scene! I thought I had been summoned for a second."
"I, no, nobody summons a human. Listen..."
"I mean this looks like the start of an evil lord adventure but what, this is a cellar? My family is getting butchered upstairs?"
I looked at her through my badger mask. She looked at me and realized the words she had uttered. The moment it sinked in I resumed.
"You are in a dying realm filled with monsters. A mana drain is killing everything and you have a month to live if we don't act."
Her smile lingered another second or two. Then she stepped back. Glanced at her system. Eyes back on me. Fear had finally sparked in her tired eyes.
"Okay!" She breathed. "Okay, I can, I can work with that! I've been through worse!"
I had no time to even speculate on what that possibly implied.
"Yes." I approached the ladder to go open the hatch. "You are a human, you used to rule the realm. You have the power to save us all."
The hatch opened. The stupid monster on the other side stopped scratching on it and let me walk up on the deck.
All around, what had been a dead, petrified forest had turned into a meadow dotted with small groves all along generous hills. The ship itself lay at the base of a slope, the starboard hull higher than the port one, but the gravity glyph was keeping us straight.
Trees, ponds and bushes, but also flowers. Fields of flowers so vivid and bright in a light, lazy day, with a slight wind carrying their petals.
And then, critters. Mice, squirrels, rabbits, deers, all kinds of animals running around in panic.
I turned around before catching the first glimpse of monsters.
"Also, don't trust your system. It is a relic of the past that ignores the mana drain."
My silver plated hand helped the human walk out in turn and discover this landscape. All fear evaporated, replaced by an irresistible excitement.
"This is gorgeous! I am calm, I am calm but goodness! Look at the little bunnies!"
Those bunnies were dashing for their life. The whole wildlife was fleeing the closest wood.
That shelled hump lumbering above the highest branches, that was a wilhorn. When it emerged I could count eight tusks, all icy.
Wilhorns. Because why till the fields with oxes and horses when you could use a mammoth? Humans even used them to carry a house; the biggest ones could hold a small hamlet. There could be whole caravans of them.
The drought had left only the smallest of their kind. Weakened, without spells to defend themselves, they had shielded their flanks and endured the constant hunt.
These days they needed a lot of magic to survive, every hour, and so this one followed its instinct.
It waved its head to blast ice trails all the way to the ship. The Parao shook; its protection runes had faded; the wooden hull was exposed. But of course I was there.
Barrier!
The human watched me form the magic square before those ice spikes reached us. They shattered, leaving a field of sharp crystals behind.
Paralysis!
My wrist turned to cast that one. Two magic squares caged the beast before it could even charge, then flared. The wilhorn lifted out of the ground as the thin veil petrified its limbs.
I jumped off the ship, stretched my arm and let the ground come to me, to form a diamond warhammer.
Two lessons from the past!
The first was the futility of trying to be sparing when mana was so abundant. Go all out! Attacks, big and small, use roughly the same negligible amount in such an environment.
The second was the necessity to quickly mark your territory. The sooner monsters understood how helpless they were against a human, the more time gained for other tasks.
So I would finish this in one blow and use the wilhorn's head as a dread totem for the rest.
Dash! I crossed the distance in instants, swinged my weapon only to be thrown to the side and crash on the soft ground. That wasn't the angry elephant!
That one was a sky lynx!
No time to reminisce on what or why, it was mauling my arm and too bad for it, while the silver peeled, the iron under it would not even feel its fangs!
The beast quickly realized it but could not let go, lest it wanted my hammer in its face! It tried to shock me instead. Lightning! No dice. The iron extinguished those arcs of crackling light before they could spread.
My turn.
Not even a spell. I just slammed the beast on the ground with my arm to make it release me. I was a clay golem, yes, with a weak frame and a not built to fight. But my armor corrected that and now I kept punching the helpless creature.
Ah, the wilhorn was getting free of paralysis. No matter, my warhammer went flying to its head and made the whole monster fall. Holy spears! Three magic circles appeared around me to...
"Stop!"
The circles disintegrated. I had let go of the sky lynx that took the occasion to dash away. My attention was on the human standing at the edge of the ship, yelling at me.
"Don't hurt them!" She shouted herself hoarse.
I stopped the sky lynx's new attack with a barrier, sent it flying back in a shockwave and asked: "Would you prefer a shield? Concealment?"
"No, no! I got this!" She answered, then clumsily climbed down the nets on the ship's side.
The legged rapt onboard was whining for her to be careful.
I knew better than to question human wisdom. Also, I knew better than to trust human wisdom. She probably had not noticed the greyhounds coming for the vessel.
Gravity!
That one was a mass spell. I had to use earthworks to trace it on the ground fast enough and precisely enough to affect only her enemies. The wilhorn collapsed again, as did the rocky crocodiles in their charge.
Only the sky lynx escaped it, leapt on me after a feint and met my hand. I held it captive, not feeling its claws tearing down the silver coat, while approaching the human.
That woman had fallen straight on her back, understood her own strength and was no busy rubbing her pajama from the dirt and grass.
"This ship needs a ramp!" She complained.
"More monsters are on their way."
I could feel their vibrations from kilometers away. Pretty much as far as the meadow stretched.
"I told you, I got this!" She took offense. "Okay, let's see if it works!"
She raised her hand toward the sky lynx.
"Pacify!"
Whatever power she unleashed forced me to let go of the beast. I fell back, a bit blinded, and when it receded the sky lynx was... gone.
Replaced by... a sky lynx?
Not the feral, power-hungry monster whose maw stretched all the way to its neck, no. The sick dotted patterns had been replaced with a generous fur of grey and white, its claws like talons reduced to round paws.
The four black scars that had been its eyes replaced with big, confused blue eyes.
"What... was I doing?" The beast uttered.
"Yes!" The woman rejoiced, approached to hug the monster that retreated.
"Stay away, you witch! What have you done!?"
Yes, what did she do!?
She looked confused, turned to her invisible system and then, with a smile, crouched to offer a hand to what remained of the sky lynx.
"It's okay, I am a friend! I am... Yuitsu, just Yuitsu, that makes things easier right?"
"What did you done to my tail?!" The monster was freaking out. "My beautiful tail!"
And it started to chase it in a circle.
The wilhorn had started its charge. It didn't really matter how doomed it was: the mana expended to attack us had been sunken cost and it desperately needed a prey. I was preparing a barrier just in case the human would not react in time.
She got up with a smile, turned to the massive beast and raised her hand.
"Pacify!"
Once more, I was blinded an instant, unable to fully catch the elephant's body morph and tumble, the creature crash mere meters from us.
This wasn't real. What was struggling to straighten itself had no more shell, just a voluminous brown fur in which to lose oneself. A living carpet, a cascade covering even its face. The trunk was touching itself in confusion.
"I am... calm..." It wondered. "I feel better..."
"Is this what you did?!" The sky lynx rushed to see that result, touched the mammoth with its paws. "What kind of sorcery is this!?"
"The power of friendship!" The human rejoiced. "Or something like that."
And she turned her hand on the greyhounds still affected by my gravity spell.
"Pacify! Pacify! Pacify! And! Pacify!"
Four glimmering lizards were now looking at each other in utter loss.
"Yes!" The woman triumphed. "This system is the best! And I get rewarded for doing this! This is the best dream slash death" yes she said slash in there "ever!"
I was about to protest but, why not? As long as mana was abundant, this looked like an efficient way of gathering workers. It could indirectly help solve the mana drain.
Very. Indirectly.
"Turn us back into our glorious selves right this instant!" The sky lynx complained.
"Mh, I am going to call you... Sora!" Was the human's only answer.
The beast, no, well, what was a beast froze, taken aback. It blinked, then cocked its head.
"Sora? I... you are giving me a name?" And it cracked a smile. "I have a name..."
"Eh, uh, Kaele was it?" She turned to me. "I haven't slept in a long time, no, I don't even remember when I got to sleep so, is there an inn nearby?"
"The ship has all the accommodations."
She bowed again, turned around and ran to the nets. You can jump! But no, she struggled with the nets, encouraged by the legged rapt onboard that helped her at the very end.
I was left with the menagerie the human had created.
"All of you, protect this ship."
"You're not my boss!" The sky lynx shot back. "But, since she gave me a name, I guess I can stay around for a while."
"Shouldn't ships be in the water?" Quipped one of the greyhound lizards.
It was rubbing its head. The metal skull had turned into a fluffy motif that only faded for its shimmering scales.
"This is good." The mammoth answered. The wilhorn, if it could be called that.
"Good?" The lizard genuinely asked. "That the ship is stranded?"
"Good, that the realm is at peace."
And it lied there, closing its gentle little eyes under the mass of fur. It... enjoyed this? A monster enjoyed this. This peace.
A human pacification.