Lord Of Puppets-Chapter 174 – Rediscovering the truth – Part 2.
"What the hell do you mean we are retreating?!" – asked extremely pissed off wolf beastman as many of the adventurers gathered instantly started complaining.
"I agree on this one with brat. Why do you want us to do a full retreat?" – asked the dwarven adventurer.
"Based on these guys report, the forest is straight up infested with golems."
"A army."
"Can we really just leave it alone?"
"..."
"..."
"It depends how the golems behave." – said the leader of the Silver Talons.
"Golems are not living beings."
"However, somebody is definitely controlling them."
"This has already been proven by their behavior."
"However at the same time, the enemy is ’attacking’ us."
"They are waiting for us to come...."
"..."
"The enemy is somehow observing us and is waiting for our move."
"Or these golems are just aiming to defend the forest."
"..."
"True... it does not make sense." – said the guild master.
"I’ve asked the mayor of the town and the acting lord as well as the guard captain."
"I’ve asked every bastard I’ve could, but all of them said the same thing."
"Nobody went missing."
"Road, village, anything! Nobody is gone! The people that went missing were the adventurers, who we suspected ventured into the forest, but a people that traveled right next to the forest were completely unharmed."
"That means that they are not attacking people on the road.... But why?"
"..."
"You." – said the leader of the Silver Talons as he approached the blond-haired leader.
"M-me?" – said bit nervous blond-haired leader.
"When you fought the golems last time, how was it?"
"Did the golems attacked you the moment you got near the forest? Or did you only started fighting once you go inside the forest?"
"..."
"Inside." – replied the leader.
"The golems did not attacked us when we set up our camp, but they did chased us after we started running away.... However, at one point they gave up."
"....Then this solidifies even further the theory regarding the defense." – said the leader of the Silver Talons.
"Is this reason why you wanted to retreat guild master?"
"..."
"No." – replied the guild master.
"What I’m worried about is that we don’t know what we are truly facing here."
"Let’s say that these monsters here are far stronger than goblins? Then what? We organized this group to deal with goblins."
"AND the enemy is straight up telling us to ’come and try us’."
"There is also question of these ’bombs’."
"Honestly, we may end up getting wiped out if we try being idiots."
"For now, I suggest we temporarily retreat back to the Maw city and watch the situation."
"If we try to leave our camp here, we could end up maybe provoking the monsters... And again, we don’t know how strong they are."
"I rather avoid fighting head on in the current situation."
"True. Fighting head on right now is beyond risky." – said the leader of the Silver Talons.
"We need to retreat, gather information and then make necessary arrangement."
"So what?! Are we just going to run away after we came all this way?!" – asked pissed off wolf beastman as he and his party members were visible annoyed and angry with decision.
"Yes." – said the party leader as he instantly appeared right in front of beastman.
"!?"
(H-how did he?!) – thought scared wolf beastman.
"If you want to seek glory and die like idiot, go ahead. Do it." – said the leader in the beastman’s face.
"But nobody will be there to collect your rotting corpse."
"!"
"Why you cocky little!" – the wolf beastman without hesitation swung his fist at the masked man... Who in response easily caught the beastman arm and twisted it as well as the whole beastman’s body, instantly throwing him on the ground, while having his arm held behind his back by the leader of the Silver Talons.
"If you are keep going to act like a child, then I’m going to discipline you like you." – said the leader of the Silver Talons.
"!"
"SCRE-"
The beastman tried raising a complain, but before he could, a knife suddenly went right in front of his face and stabbing the ground.
"Or if you like." – said the leader.
"I can just turn you into the corpse right now, so we all would not have to deal with your bullshit."
"ENOUGH!" – shouted the guild leader as the adventurers started getting active.
"Decision stands. We retreat."
"We run and survive."
"We gather information and then we try doing something."
"I’m not risking everybody’s lives to just try and fight unknown war." – said the guild master as the leader of the Silver Hawks let go of the wolf beastman.
"This is the final decision."
"Let’s go."
"Before we really end up going to the war."
Obviously, many of the adventurers were still against going back, after being dragged all the way here.... But many people also understood the reality.
That this wasn’t something they were prepared to do.
The adventurers were prepared for the goblins and their ambushes, as well as intelligent goblin leading all of them.
However, the presence of the golem... And possible still active dungeon has completely changed the situation.
The danger became UNKNOWN.
They didn’t know what they were facing nor they knew if they can take these new enemies on.
And so, the best course of action was just retreat, leaving behind the army of the monsters on the loose.
True. This was indeed stupid decision.
Leaving behind army of monsters behind, completely unattended.
Even worse, just leaving behind possible dungeon AND one that is currently in the "break" state was straight up beyond unresponsible.
...
But at the same time, if the adventurers were to die a "stupid" death, who would then protect the citizens?
And this is something the guild master Amelia Smith understood quiet well.
So, without even attempting to fight the dungeon, the adventurers packed up their camp they just deployed and then headed back to the Maw city, in order to set up their preparations as well as possible prepare the entire territory for the possible stampede of golems monsters.
...
And like that, several days went by.
[Current location: Territory Lord’s Mansion]
"Still nothing?" – asked the guild master in visible tired state.
"No. Nothing." – said the city guard.
"The guards and the adventurers are doing regular patrols as you have instructed, but they still have not encountered any real trouble."
"However, the mayor as well as the lord wants the situation-"
"-To be dealt with as soon as possible." – said the guild master, finishing up the city guard’s sentence.
"They are telling me that bloody each day."
"..."
(Several days went by.... Yet nothing?) – thought the guild master.
(We even used a bait tactic with caravans, trying to see if the golems were to take the bait... Yet nothing?)
(They didn’t fallen for the bait... No.)
(They did NOT even attempted to attack anybody.)
(Be it scouts or the bait caravans.)
"For fuck’s sake, when in the bloody hell these documents will get here?!" – said the annoyed woman.
*Knock* *Knock*
"..."
*Sigh*
(Is that this fucking major again today? For crying out loud.) – thought already extremely annoyed woman.
"Yes?" – replied the woman as moments later an adventurer entered the room, which both surprised and alarmed her.
"I’m guild branch official staff member, Michel." – said the human adventurer in light armor.
"And I was told to deliver these things to you." – said the guild staff as he brough out a bunch of documents and handed them over to the female guild master.
"!"
"Shit! Right on time!" – said excited guild master as she realized that the documents she was holding were nothing else that the report filled up by the ex-guild master of the elven kingdom, Wamr Wiowio.
"?"
"Excuse me, but I need to ask." – said the city guard.
"What are these?"
"Document regarding this dungeon... Something that is critical in conquering that place." – said the guild master.
"With those, we can finally start making some progress."
"Hey. Michel, correct?"
"What about that golem expert?"
"Are they coming or not?"
"The request has already been sent, but it may take significantly more time for one to get here." – said Michel. 𝘧𝑟𝑒𝑒𝘸𝘦𝘣𝑛𝑜𝘷𝑒𝓁.𝘤𝘰𝓂
"I see." – said the guild master.
"Guard. As soon as the golem expert does arrive, please inform me immediately."
"He will be needed in order to defeat this golem dungeon."
(And as for now?) – thought the guild master as she held the documents in her hand.
(Let’s see what do we have here.)
The guild master began reading through the documents, trying to gain as much as possible information about the forest and the golems.
She learned about each and every monster type that the dungeon has produced as well as their tactics.
These documents were truly crucial to understand the enemy that they were facing right now.
...
However, as she read more and more.... She reached "that" part of the report.
"..."
"..."
"Shit." – said the guild master with terrified expression.
"What in the actual bloody hell is this?"
(According to these reports, the things went like this.)
[First raid on the forest – Failure – Reason: Ambush.]
[Second raid on the forest – Success – Reason: After not managing to get ambushed by the golems, we had realized that the golems only "scary" and had annoying gimmicks, but after finding out their weaknesses and doings, we were able to easily deal with the army of the golems, to the point we could easily deal with them, even without having to rely on the trio of B-rank adventurers.]
[Raid on the dungeon]
[Results]
[Failure]
[The dungeon raid party consisted of 77 people. Mostly being the C-rank adventures as well as the trio of B-rank adventurers.]
[The raid party were given exactly instructions.]
[-Exterminate all the monsters inside of the dungeon, including the dungeon master, but do not destroy the golem core – Clients orders.]
[-If the 1/3 or 1/4 of the raid party is exterminated, retreat immediately back to the surface to regroup.]
[-If you encounter the pathway or confirmed the existence of the 4th floor, retreat immediately.]
[According to our findings, the raid party was able to easily destroy both the first floor of the dungeon as well as the second floor of the dungeon, without leaving even a single corpse of the adventurer behind, which meant that the raid party was able to suffer no casualties and were more than good enough state to launch attack on the third floor.]
[But after the time limit was up, the raid party never returned.]
[Based on the information in possession, it is concluded that the entire raid party was annihilated on the third floor, without having even a chance to escape.]
[And the main culprit is consider to be the dungeon master of the golem dungeon.]
[The exact details and theories that were came up with regarding the whole forest and dungeon raid will be recorded on the separated document.]
"..."
"Fuck." – said the woman as she finished reading.
(Wait, wait, wait, wait.)
(Hold the fuck up.)
(According to these notes, they had only trouble at first when they were ambushed.)
(And after they attacked second time, this time making sure to not fall in the ambush, they were able to easily destroy the entire golem army and barely suffer any casualties.)
(However, they all got annihilated by the dungeon master? All 77 people!?)
(But this doesn’t make sense!)
(These reports all are saying that they had destroyed the entire army of golems and managed to conquer both the first and second floor WITHOUT suffering a single casualty?!)
"..."
"If so... What kind of monster is the dungeon master of that dungeon?"
"..."
"No... This isn’t the main problem."
"The date of the raid.... It was more than year ago... Specifically around the time when the war between Garmfon and Mowiorano kingdom."
"There is no additional reports... Probably because the elves betrayed the adventurer guild in order to stole their money and maps in order to use feral monsters as weapons of war."
"..."
"Wait.... Wait, wait, wait."
(If the dungeon raid failed and there are no additional reports about the dungeon.... But that doesn’t make sense!)
(There would had been incidents....)
"..."
"Then again... These golems only protect the forest..."
"..."
"Shit."
"There is a chance that it is true."
(There is a chance that the dungeon has been under the break state for more than a year!?)
"..."
"Ah..."
"Are we fucked?"
