Lord Of Puppets-Chapter 156 – Towards the breakthrough.

(You got to be fucking kidding me.) – thought Thauma as it gazed at the map.

(If the war really would broke out between these two kingdoms, I would be directly right between those two kingdoms!)

(And if that were to happened.... Dammit!)

(I still don’t have confirmation about any of this, but if this theory is correct, then I will be straight up right between two kingdoms!) – thought Thauma as it then quickly used its vision helmet to share a vision with a golem.

"Talk." – said the beastman.

"Tch! Fuck off d-"

The elf tried talking back, but the wolf beastman punched the man right in guts.

"Do you really think you are though shit? After all the bullshit you did and the innocent lives you have ruined?" – asked pissed off wolf beastman.

"You elves are all talk, but in reality, you are just greedy fools who only want to take easy way out." – said the beastman as he took out a knife and put right next to the man ear.

"W-wait! W-"

Before the elf could even finish speaking, the beastman cut off the elf ear, causing the man to scream in agony.

"Really!? IS THAT FUCKING ENOUGH TO MAKE YOU SCREAM AND CRY?!" – shouted pissed off wolf beastman as he kicked the elf right in the guts once again, causing the elf to roll over and puke a bit from his mouth.

"Here is how we will be doing this." – said the beastman as he held up the elven leader by his hair as the other captured elves just watched.

"I’m going to rip out your nails one by one until you fucking tell me what I want to know."

"After nails, hair and after it? Your tooths."

"So you better speak up, since we can do it for a long fucking time."

"..."

(They are not killing them.... No. They are torturing them.) – thought Thauma.

(Are they trying to extract information?)

"..."

(Is this my chance?)

(I lack information about the outside world.... And right now, they are distracted!)

(I’ve made some new golems in the spare time. Not dungeon monsters but handmade golems.)

(I could sent golems their way and capture.....No.)

(Far too risky!)

(If they think that the dungeon has already reached the ’break’ state, they may sent people here!)

(I may need only capture one person, but all they need to do is to have one person escape!)

"..."

(I really need some special golems that specializes in manhunting.)

The beastman beaten up and interrogated the elves for some time, before then suddenly drawing their weapons and murdering the tied up elves.

"Should we leave their corpse here?" – asked a cat beastman.

"Nah. We can’t." – said wolf beastman.

"The dungeon is still working, right? Throw them inside and these horses as well."

"We need to get rid of the evidence. Also do something about the blood here. Bit of water or some dirt to wash it off and hide it."

"Yes sir." – replied the cat beastman before moments later the group of beastmen started moving the corpse of the killed elves as well as captured horses, dragging them all the way to the dungeon before then throwing them inside as well as killing the mounts they were using.

After throwing all the corpse into the dungeon, the beastmen gathered up their things and quickly left the forest, heading towards the direction of the elven kingdom.

"..."

However unbeknown to them, the dungeon didn’t outright devoured the corpse of the elves and their horses.

Instead, Thauma sent its own personal golems to go and fetch the corpse and drag them all the way to the core room where Thauma then began inspecting the elves.

"..."

(Nothing.) – however, even upon securing the corpse, Thauma was unable to find anything on the elves which could give them any form of hint about who these elves were and what they goal were.

(God dammit! Why there is nothing on them!? Did by any chance beastmen looted anything valuable they had on them!?)

"..."

(Still... Interrogation and then killing them off.... Fallowed up with them throwing all the corpse into the dungeon.)

(They were trying to get rid of the evidence, weren’t they?)

(This isn’t normal.... Just what are they planning?)

<<Situation turned... Problematic to said the least.>>

<<If my assumptions are correct, there is another war right around the corner that could erupt at any moment if not has already stared.>>

<<And there was only one thing I could do.>>

<<Proceed with the research.>>

<<The next few days were somewhat.... Quiet to say the least.>>

<<Nobody approached the forest or anything like that.>>

<<I did saw few figures moving in the distance, but I couldn’t tell what or who they were.>>

<<But even with that unknown chaos becoming reality soon, I was making progress with my research.>>

<<The practice experiments with new tools and parts I was making were taking a LOT of time, since I’m starting to enter areas of research that I’ve never archived/touched before.>>

<<Still, I’ve archived one of the stages of the project.>>

<<The Elemental Mana And Magic Converter has reached the stage where I can properly use it.>>

<<It still does requires a lot of work and it is definitely not perfect, but it is a stepping stone.>>

<<However, the next step would be problematic.>>

<<Special form of magical enchantment that fuses the golem core and earth into one.>>

<<This part wasn’t really that hard.>>

<<My experience in the earth magic is already quiet high and I’ve already experimented on it in many different forms.>>

<<Forging and earth magic – Create weapon of earth or unleashed weapon based attack, for example my [Earthly Forged Blade].>>

<<Golemancy and earth magic – Create golems on the spot or a limb I can control.>>

<<Enchantment magic and earth magic – Allows me to turn earth extremely hard or I can use it to form a glove around my arm with earth, creating a makeshift armor that can also act like weapon.>>

<<I once even combined all 3 of these combinations into this thing.>>

[Earth Magic X Golemancy X Enchantment: Earth Golem Glove]

<<This spell allows me to create a powerful gauntlet that can deal massive amount of damage while also acting like a shield.... However, that thing was draining too much mana.>>

<<Honestly, when I was facing these B-rank adventurers, I was aiming to use that spell of mine, but they were moving too fast and I can’t really use this spell on the spot, it requires bit of charge up time.... So, against B-rank adventurers this spell was completely useless.>>

<<My strongest spell yet I was never able to use it even once.>>

<<Still, the research I’ve had obtained from developing this spell was useful in my current experiment.>>

<<However, the spell isn’t exactly what I want.>>

<<A function.>>

<<I want to give the core a special function, a item skill that will cause the golem to obtain a special ability.>>

<<The research started finally gaining shape as I’ve conducted different form of experiments, ranging from creating parts and functioning items, to spells.>>

<<However.... Things weren’t looking good.>>

<<What happened?>>

<<Well.... I’ve seen large group of people coming from the direction of the elven kingdom, heading towards the Garmfon kingdom....>>

<<I couldn’t tell if they were soldiers or not since they were too far away... But there was enough of them for my golems to see them even from far away.>>

<<However, that large number could mean one thing.... Soldiers.>>

<<The war may have started or may had began sometime ago.... Again. Lack of information.>>

<<Still, nobody was attacking the dungeon nor the battles seems to be taking place anywhere near the forest, so I still have some peace... The question is for how long?>>

<<....>>

<<Huh.... What if they are just avoiding the forest?>>

<<Thinking logically about it in their shoes, avoiding the dungeon right now would be a wise call.>>

<<I know they have means of destroying me, but if one side would attack me, wouldn’t the other side get opening to strike them?>>

<<Not only that, if people were to start dying in the forest, the dungeon would get fed and it would grow, meaning danger for both sides...>>

<<This does sounds logical from my point of view.... However, there were already elves and beastmen fighting here.>>

<<But now that I think about it, these beastmen were WAITING for them.>>

<<They knew the elves would come here.>>

<<So does that mean this place has already been targeted by the ’war’?>>

<<...>>

<<Still.... Fuck... This isn’t the first time it had happened.>>

<<I’m focused on my experiments and developing of the dungeon, while not knowing what is going on in the outside world.>>

<<Honestly, because of how often this was happening, I should had gotten used to it.... But I never did.>>

<<It was just that ’dreadful’.... And after what I’ve had experienced countless times? Each time my worries were spot on.>>

<<Adventures raiding my dungeon and almost enslaving me if it wasn’t for Ariava intervention.>>

<<Garmfon kingdom finding out about me and also partially enslaving me.>>

<<And then another attack made by the Garmfon kingdom, which aimed at ’taming’ me.>>

<<I’ve almost got dealt with if it wasn’t for my bomb traps.>>

<<And now the adventurers almost killing me.>>

<<Each time my worry was justified and the worst thing I’ve though did came my way.>>

<<It could be called "paranoia" thing.... But unfortunately, I really was screwed over each time.>>

<<I’ve prepared and made my dungeon stronger, but each time trouble that came my way was nothing like the last.>>

<<I’ve barely survived the last attack.... And now I’m feeling this feeling of ’paranoia’ and ’dread’ once again...>>

<<...>>

<<Is this normal?>>

<<I mean, for the dungeon to experience that kind of thing over and over again? I mean this happened way too many times.>>

<<I get from the books that the dungeons are seen as extremely dangerous if not dealt with.... But what about the dungeons that aren’t originally born anywhere near any form of settlement?>>

<<Did I just get "unlucky"? Like way too many times?>>

<<....Still, at the same time I did get somewhat "lucky" thanks to the war buying me few moments of peace.... But there is also a chance I may find myself in the middle of that war against my will.>>

<<....So I guess I was "unlucky" in the end....Shit.>>

<<...The question is, will it end the same way as before?>>

<<I’ve gotten stronger, but strong enough foe came and destroy all my efforts with ease.>>

<<Well, I mean technically the last time at least partially worked? I mean it did let me survive and it did killed a lot of adventurers.... So I guess maybe it won’t happened again?>>

<<...Ah, screw it.>>

<<There is no point thinking about it and letting fear stop me from working.>>

<<It would be just plain stupid and I’ve already understood that long ago.>>

<<Work and try.>>

<<Never stop.>>

<<And so I didn’t.>>

<<For days I’ve continued my research.>>

<<I’ve failed and succeeded over and over again.>>

<<I’ve seen some people moving around... But I didn’t cared.>>

<<I didn’t reacted or tried doing anything to them.>>

<<I did however once saw a caravan moving near the forest.... One with wounded elven soldiers.>>

<<I was.... Bit tempted to do something about them.>>

<<I could have my golems try and attack them for some spoils.... But I decided to not get greedy and just let them go by.>>

<<Still, it did gave me warnings.... That this place may soon become battlefield once again.>>

<<However, my research was making noticeable development.>>

<<The research was already going on for over 2 months.>>

<<And the chaos I have been spotting around me was increasing more and more with each passing rate.>>

<<And it was getting closer to me as well... I even saw group of beastmen using my forest once again to ambush some elves, killing them.>>

<<They did that few times before then running off.>>

<<I wasn’t large scale battles or anything, just simple ambushes.... However, they are using MY forest as their battlefield and that was worrying.>>

<<Obviously some elves did came by to check things out, but by then the beastmen were already gone, as if they knew that the elves would come here.>>

<<This entire territory is started slowly being swallowed up by the war more and more....>>

<<But fortunately, I’ve made some breakthroughs.>>

<<I was able to create the Earth Attribute Golem Core.>>

<<And not only that, I was able to archive it.>>

<<The enchantment on the golem.>>

<<It worked! The golem ability increased slightly and it wasn’t because of the body, but all thanks to the core!>>

<<This wasn’t really a "ability", more like a pure "enchantment" like with my magic... Not the thing I was looking for and honestly this enchantment wasn’t that great... Like at all.>>

<<It would be better to just give the body parts special form item skills or empowerments.>>

<<In other words, this enchantment was complete "useless garbage that wasn’t worth the trouble".... But at the same time, it gave me the proof I’ve desperately been searching for!>>

<<It has proven that not only I can create golem core that can posses earth affinity and use earth elemental mana.>>

<<But it has also proven that main theories were CORRECT!>>

<<I can bloody give the golem ABILITIES!>>

<<Obviously this is limit on how I do things.>>

<<Do I just give them ability to the core or add a special magic tool into their bodies, just how I did with artificial mana organs?>>

<<Not only that, the sheer amount of data I’ve had obtained from this experiment alone I can use in all sort of research I’ve been doing so far!>>

<<This is beyond perfect!>>

<<And now? I have more than enough pieces to try and finalize the project.>>

<<It will obviously take time... Maybe one month, two months or even more.... Can’t really tell since combining all of these pieces together only sound easy on paper... Just combining one of these pieces and making them be still able to work with others will be challenging enough.>>

<<However the fact remains.>>

<<The breakthrough is within my grasp.>>

<<And soon it will be mine.>>