Chapter 243: Chapter 243 – Peaceful dungeon exploration.

<<Ariva.... Wow... It had been already several hours after the talk... But I still can’t.... I just can’t.>>

<<That easy?>>

<<She can solve the problem I’ve had been struggling with.>>

<<The problem that was straight up devouring my mind!>>

<<It....>>

<<...>>

<<It took me few hours before I could organize my thoughts.>>

<<And as for Ariava and that vampire named Porai... Well, they kind of spend their time in the core room.>>

<<I didn’t really had any room for them ready, since last time Ariava was here, she just took all the stuff she used to decorate her own space.>>

<<But still, she had something like... Bag?>>

<<She took out a pink and blue bag like objects, which were somewhat fluffy in nature.>>

<<The vampire... Well, she just fell on top of it and didn’t moved for some time, while Ariava just sit on her own and began writing something in the book she took out.>>

<<As for me?>>

<<Well... I.... I really don’t know what to do???>>

<<I mean, I freaking was aiming to make my golems stronger for a single reason.>>

<<For survival.>>

<<But now.... It is just going to.... End? Like, I won’t be in the war anymore???>>

<<I.... Oh boy.>>

<<I really needed to rest... Mentally.>>

[Sometime later.]

"Okay. Are you all ready this time?" – asked energetic Ariava.

"Somewhat.... But still tired." – said Porai with tired expression.

(I couldn’t really get any sleep.... But at least I came to a logical conclusion.) – thought Porai.

(She won’t kill me.)

(But at the same time, she may not really let me go.)

(I will have to play along her plans either I like this or not.... Well. I don’t really think I had decision in that department either way, since she can just "break" me and turn me into her slave.)

"..."

(Not only that.... That being Thauma.) – thought Porai as she looked towards Thauma.

(Fuck me! I really want to find out everything about it.)

(Not only that, those golems we had fought were very good quality!)

(If Thauma really reached the point where it can produce those kind of golems, then this is beyond interesting!)

(SINCE FROM WHAT I’M UNDERSTANDING, IT REACHED THIS POINT ALL ON ITS OWN!)

(Not only that... I know I maybe fucked.... But I’m way too fucking interested in those Forged Skills.)

{"I’m good to go as well."} – written Thauma.

{"My head is still bit messy, but I think I can work at least now."}

"Nice!" – said cheerful Ariava.

"Then, how about you tell me what exactly is here and then we pick places to visit one by one?"

{"Understood."}

{"This section of the dungeon, my private section is divided into several parts."}

{"The workshop experiment room."}

{"The combat room."}

{"Storage room."}

{"Library room."}

{"Prison room."}

{"Beast room."]

{"Meat workshop."]

{"The golem experiment room."}

"Huh. Interesting. There is a nice variety." – said Ariava.

"..."

"Excuse me.... But can I say something?" – said Porai.

"What is up with the Prion room?"

{"I sometimes manage to capture the people from outside world and I’m using them to extract information in order to understand what is going on outside."}

"..."

"Can I ask what sort of prisoners you are holding right now?" – asked Porai.

{"Several members of the Crow Watchers that attacked me recently, as well as some adventurers I’ve managed to capture recently before my dungeon was re-discovered."}

"..."

"What? Interested in visiting them?" – asked Ariava.

"...No." – replied Porai.

"If anything, I don’t want to have to meet them face to face."

"...Fine. If I were to visit them, I won’t speak about you." – said Ariava.

"By the way, my question now."

"What is the meat workshop?"

[Few moments later.]

"Oh.... Heh... Fuck." – said Ariava as the trio arrived at the room that just straight up screamed murder.

Preserved human parts, animals’ parts.

Notes laying out in the open, documenting different parts of the living bodies.

It was a straight up butcher workshop... But not exactly.

It was something far more wicked in nature.

"...You tore apart people here? Why?" – asked Ariava as she with a simple glace at the paper and equipment laying around could easily tell the nature of the room was.

{"Understanding."}

{"Living bodies, special in nature."}

{"Golems can imitate beasts."}

{"Golems can imitate humans."}

{"But, if I want to get better at imitating them."}

{"If I want to obtain information about them, I needed to rip them apart."}

{"Experiment on bones."}

{"Experiment on flesh."}

{"I also used this room to sometimes torture information out of prisoners or conducts tests on them."}

"..."

(Fuck me.) – thought Porai.

(I thought this guy was somewhat innocent upon meeting him.)

(But this room is beyond fucked up.) – thought Porai as she approached the extremely clean table which had several papers on it.

"...Hey... Can I look through these?" – asked Porai as the golem replied by nodding with its head.

Upon receiving permission, Porai began reading through several papers and notes, each contains in details the experiments that Thauma did on both the "living" flesh and "unliving" flesh.

(Fuck me... This is way too detailed.)

(I mean, he definitely wanted as much details as possible... But still.)

(He really and I mean REALLY did a lot of fucked up stuff, if everything here is real.)

(But still, it doesn’t look like his aim was really suffering... No.)

(He only wanted data.)

(Weakness.)

(Benefits.)

(Data.)

(It maybe a cruel and inhuman research... But it is well damn effective.)

[Next room: The workshop experiment room]

*Phew*

"It is... Quiet massive." – said Ariava as the trio arrived at their next destination and found themselves in the space that was filled with countless shelves, which contained many things, ranging from materials, to different creations like weapons or golems parts, as well as several potions.

As the trio headed deeper into the room, they found that the room split into several zones.

The blacksmith zone.

The alchemy zone.

The magic zone.

The magic alchemy zone.

The magic blacksmith zone.

The magic alchemy blacksmith zone.

The golem zone.

"This is quiet nice workshop mate." – said Ariava as she alongside Porai began exploring each of the workshop zones.

(Alchemy, blacksmithing, magic and all combined together... He really can do it all?) – thought Ariava as she approached the blacksmith zone and picked one of the hammers, noticing how beaten up and used up the tool was.

And it wasn’t just the hammer.

Each tool in the workshop had sights of being used very often, which both Ariava and Porai noticed.

"Question. Are you spending most of your time in here?" – asked Ariava.

{"Yes."}

{"I normally conduct most of my experiments and projects in here, while also producing new golems as well as equipment."}

{"When I’m here, I also use this body. A body that I’m currently using is specially designed to handle all and each work in this workshop."}

{"I also keep several spare parts for this body nearby, as well as some other special parts for specific experiments."} – written Thauma as it pointed at the several body parts just hanging on the wall or hooks, and this includes not only unique looking body parts, but also damaged parts.

"Hey, Did you get hit with explosion right in the face or something?" – asked Porai as she recognized the type of damage that the golem parts sustained.

{"Yes. Sometimes I conduct bit riskier experiments. I do take a countermeasures like increased defenses in case of possible explosions.... But sometimes it ends up being far more riskier than I’ve thought."}

"Huh... Interesting." – said Porai as she looked towards each of the zones inside of the room, and realized that there was more than enough safe distance between each zone.

(He isn’t dumb... No. If anything, it seems he thought of everything.) – thought Porai as she continues inspecting the spare golem body parts.

"Hey." – said Ariava.

"Quick question."

"The Forget Skills... Are they born here?"

{"Yes."}

{"Do you want me to show it works?"}

"Hm... How about we save it for the last?" – replied Ariva with a smile.

(Not only that.... This is a gun, isn’t it?) – thought Ariava as she saw in the corner of her eye, several different looking guns laying on the table.

(Is Thauma currently making guns? But I didn’t saw any of his golems really using any when they attacked us.) – thought interested Ariava.

"For now, let’s continue our little exploration." – said Ariava.

"Okay?"

<<As Ariava suggested, we continued the exploration of the private section of the dungeon.>>

<<Some exploration, like the main workshop took sometime to finish, while the others were pretty much quickly done over.>>

<<For example, my room which I store my beasts was pretty much empty, since I didn’t had any new creatures either born or captures... So that room kind of was left abandoned for sometime now.>>

<<The library room is pretty much the room where I store all the documents, maps and research notes that I’ve had written.>>

<<Ariava and Porai did spent sometime in that room, reading through some stuff I did recorded myself.>>

<<The same was for the next room.>>

<<The storage room.>>

<<In that room I pretty much stored countless objects of interested, be it weapons or materials.>>

<<I also store a lot of weapons which I had made for my own use or for the experimental use.>>

<<The room after was the golem experimental room, and this is pretty much the room that caused some interesting reactions to the two.>>

<<Inside of that room, I stored countless different golems.>>

<<Prototypes.>>

<<Experiments.>>

<<Some of the golems stored here were failures, while some others are models that I’m continuously testing, changing or sometimes completely making new model from ground up.>>

<<Ariava... Well, she only looked bit at them while walking around smiling... But Porai went and took more closer at the golems... And she looked somewhat excited upon inspecting some of them, while also muttering something to her.>>

<<And after the golem room, there was only one room left.>>

<<The combat room.>>

"So, what exactly are doing here? Fighting?" – asked Ariava as the group arrived at the massive area.

{"I use this room for several things."}

{"Sometimes for my experiments I use my golems and have them fight each other, in order to find their weakness from the real combat as well as determine which one is superior."}

{"Or I’m using this room to fight against my own golems to death."}

"?"

"To death?" – said interested Porai.

"Does that mean you are training?"

{"Yes."}

{"If my golems are exterminated, that means I’m the only one left that can possible defend the dungeon."}

{"I need to be strong enough to exterminate any invaders that would reach the end of the dungeon."}

{"I’m using this room to raise my own skills as well as obtain the combat experience needed to improve myself."}

"Interesting... Very interesting." – said Ariava.

"So, you are not just holed up, only focused on your experiment."

"You are prepared for the worst possible outcome."

"Nice... Nice....Very nice."

"..."

"So... Thauma. Quick question."

"Are you regular making sure to train?"

"Are you making sure to strengthen yourself as often as possible?"

{"Yes."}

{"As said before, there is always possibly of the enemy making their way all the way to the core."}

{"I always aim to not only improve my own combat ability, but also evolve it. Strategy, tactics, reactions."}

{"Evolve. Not just with body, but also with mind and abilities."}

"Hm... This is indeed nice to hear." – said Ariava as she walked ahead.

"BUT!"

"Can you really fight?"

"That is what I’m wondering about?"

"Are you truly strong enough to defend your dungeon?"

"So... How about you show me?"

"Porai."

"Would you mind fighting Thauma for me?"