Chapter 15: Dwarf City
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[Meanwhile in Ash Kingdom...]

There were currently four figures sitting at a rectangle table. This table, which was usually used for displaying a wide array of food during a feast, now had a solemn atmosphere around it. Finally, one of the figure cleared his throat before speaking: {Look, I know things didn't go as well as planned, but looking on the bright side, at least we are still alive.}

The person at the head of the table stared at him with annoyance: {My citizens are in a state of unrest, fearmongers are claiming that the country is no longer safe, and you are telling me to look on the bright side?!}

The first figure slunked backwards into his chair: {I'm just saying it could have been a lot worse.}

Just then, a man with swirly mustache entered the room. He quickly knelt down in front of the figure at the head of the table and waited. The figure took one glance at the newcomer and speaked: {Ah... Prime Minister, you may rise. How is the task I have given you?}

Prime Minister: {My King, I have the report you asked for.}

Indeed, the figure currently seated at the head of the table was the King of the Ash Kingdom, Dominic Ashburne. The other figures seated at the table were the Hero, the Archmage and the Wyvern Knight.

The Prime Minster quickly stood up and pulled out a scroll from his coat pocket: {From what our intelligence officers have gathered, there seems to be rumours spreading around that the attack was the work of terrorists. Also, while escaping, the perpetrator was constantly leaking a golden liquid which causes anyone who touch the liquid to become unconscious. We have already sent those who are unconscious to the hospital. As for the liquid on the streets, it seems to have evaporated on its own.}

The man stopped to take a breath before continuing: {We also found a body of an elderly woman in the middle of the streets. The body was highly disfigured from bloating up and was also glowing slightly. An examination on the body revealed that it was full of mana. After questioning some witnesses, they claimed that they saw her run up to the golden liquid and taking a big gulp of it. Other than that, we have no other casualties. Do you have any orders, my King?}

The King stroked his beard thoughtfully: {Why would she do that? Whatever, burn the corpse before it turns into an undead. And also, keep a close observation on those who are unconcious.}

Prime Minister: {At once my King. Oh, and by the way, I have something to pass to you.}

The Prime Minister pulled out a vial from his pocket and placed it in front of the King. The vial was the size of a pinky finger, contained in it was the Golden Liquid which caused so much trouble.

Prime Minister: {The Chief Alchemist managed to obtain a small amount of the liquid before it evaporated. The Alchemists are currently trying to figure out the identity of the liquid.} 

King: {Alright, you may leave.}

The Prime Minister bowed to the King before briskly walking out of the room. Ignoring the curious looks from the other figures, the King tentatively picked up the vial between his fingers and examined it from all directions. The liquid was slightly viscous and uniformly golden. Finally, he began speaking: {Archmage, what do you think of thi-}

Without waiting for the King to finish his question, the Archmage replied excitedly: {It's full of mana, sir! I have never seen so much mana concentrated into such small space before! I dare say that there is more mana contained in that small vial than the average mage!}

The King frowned slightly after being interrupted, but his face soon expressed surprise upon hearing the Archmage's words. He eyed the vial with interest as the corner of his mouth curled up into a smile, his brain already working on the ways he could use it.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

Me: {We are finally here!}

After two days of flying with only short breaks in between, the Dwarf Kingdom, Valexia, was finally within sight. 

Carl: {Let's not get too excited, we still have to change our Ash Kingdom's currency to Valexia's currency.}

Carl said that with an air of superiority, but his foot that was tapping non-stop on the floorboard revealed that he was excited too.

Me: {Have you ever travelled to outside the Kingdom before?}

Carl looked slightly embarrassed: {I did once while I was still in the academy. We travelled to the Holy Kingdom, Raviel. We even visited the Holy Temple, the place where saints are summoned.}

Oh, there are saints in this world? I was about to ask Carl, but he wasn't done talking.

Carl: {My God! And the library, how could I forget about the library. You can find anything you want there! Throughout the entire trip, I spent most of my time in the library reading, and I bet I barely scratched the surface of the knowledge stored in there.}

Me: {Cough, nerd, cough.}

Carl: {Wow, you are capable of coughing? I never knew that golems have lungs!}

The rest of the flight was filled with turbulence, but that is part and parcel of flying and was by no means me being salty. When I finally landed in front of the city's gate, Carl climbed out of the cockpit without any hesitation and hugged the ground. Wow, he got off immediately, maybe I should do this more often.

{BLEECCCCHHHHHHH!}

Okay, maybe not.

I took a look at my surroundings and my "eyes" were immediately drawn to the statues of varying shapes and sizes positioned erratically among the queue to the front gate of the city, some of which were even larger than me. Most of them were made out of a combination of wood and stone, while a few of them had metal parts integrated into their body. Regardless of the materials they were made out of, all of them looked way too heavy for humans to transport efficiently. But for some reason, there wasn't a single cart nearby for transporting the statues. Were they meant to be decorations?

Just then, as the queue moved forward, so did a stone statue. It lumbered forward a few steps in a clumsy manner before stopping.

Me: {What?!}

Carl, who has recovered from the turbulence, took one look at the statues and broke into a laugh: {Do you not recognize your own kind?}

It took a while for me to process what he said before I exclaimed: {Those are golems?!}

Carl: {Yeah, golems are one of Valexia's speciality.}

I took another look at the "statues". Some of them were on all fours which reminds one of a beast, while others walked in an upright position. However, all of them had one thing in common.

Me: {I am better than them.}

The ones walking on all four legs were slow, while the ones walking upright looked unstable and give people the feeling that they could fall over at any moment. I was clearly superior to them in all aspects. 

Carl: {Well, you are certainly more humble than them.}

Me: {Without a doubt, and I am more agile than them too.}

I ignored Carl's stare and took another look at them. Humans could be seen giving orders to them each time before they start moving. I wondered how they would perform in combat. They did look pretty strong and sturdy after all. But in the end, they are just made of rocks and cheap metal, and I can easily destroy rocks and cheap metal.

We queued up and waited for around two hours before finally reaching the front gates, which was even larger than the one in the Ash Kingdom to accomodate the size of Golems. There were two guards inside the check point, a human and a dwarf. The dwarf began asking Carl a series of questions as the human took out a feather pen.

Dwarven Guard: {Name?}

Carl: {Carl Rose.}

Dwarven Guard: {Purpose of entry?}

Carl: {Visiting.}

Dwarven Guard: {Duration of stay?}

Carl: {4 weeks.}

Dwarven Guard: {And you are from?}

Carl thought about it for awhile before passing him his identification card and answering: {Ash Kingdom.}

The Dwarven Guard inspected the card before returning it to Carl: {Anything to declare?}

Carl: {Nope.}

The human guard stamped on a piece of paper: {That will be 100 Valexian credit or 20 Ash Kingdom copper.}

After Carl paid up, the human Guard passed him the piece of paper before the Dwarven guard yelled: {Next!}

I'm right here pal, don't need to yell. I was about to call out to the guards when he suddenly sticked his head out of the booth and yelled: {Sir, you left your golem in here!}

What golem? Oh, he means me.

Carl turned back and said: {Oh, he isn't my golem.}

Me: {Yeah, I'm just some random... golem.}

I really have to work on my introduction, don't I?

Dwarven Guard: {An autonomous golem?}

Me: {I suppose you could say that.}

The human guard's expression immediately turned sour, his voice clearly expressing unhappiness: {Oh.}

Wait, why?

The Dwarven guard elbowed the human guard before opening a drawer, pulling out an iron plate and giving it to me. Engraved on the plate were the words: Autonomous Golem Type B. 

Me: {What does type B mean?}

Dwarven Guard: {Type A comprises of Golems with the intelligence equal to a beast while Type B comprises of Golems that have intelligence equal to humans.}

I could feel a slight amount of magic radiating from the iron plate, so I decided to use 《Appraisal》 on it.

(Appraisal.)

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

Iron Plate

Quality: Decent

Enchantment: Tracking II

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

Dwarven Guard: {Please keep the iron plate on you at all times.}

Me: {What's with all the security measures?}

Dwarven Guard: {Oh, I guess you don't know what happened here. Around 3 years ago, there was a rebellion staged by an automonous golem. It, along with several other automonous golems, took control of some manually controlled golems and caused chaos in the streets. There were some casualties so the relationship between automonous golems and the other races became pretty dicey. However, some of the automonous golems did side with the Dwarfs, so our relationship isn't completely shattered. Thus, the King has decided to make the automonous golems wear the iron plates for the time being so that our citizens can feel safer. Hopefully, time will allow us forget about this incident and citizens will feel safe around automonous golems again.}

Me: {You seem to have a pretty good opinion about automonous golems.}

The Dwarven Guard shrugged before saying: {Well, I'm close friends with a Type A automonous golem. It also helps that no one close to me died in the war. Besides, how can I hate an entire race because of the actions of a single golem?}

The human Guard looked at the queue behind me and interrupted: {Well, let's hurry it up, shall we? Name?}

I answered all of his questions and moved on.

Carl was waiting for me just outside the booth. He tapped his foot impatiently.

Carl: {What took you so long?}

Me: {Just gathering some information, shall we go change our money?}

Carl: {Sure.}

Together, we headed off to a money changer. Nothing much happened on the way, although I did receive less stares from the humans and dwarves than normal. Carl then proceeded to leave me in the middle of the city.

Carl: {Alright, I'm heading to the library, do you want to come?}

I stared at him with disgust: {We just got here, we haven't even explored any of the city yet, and you want to go to the library?!}

Carl: {Well, you can learn a lot about the city by visiting their library. I'm heading off then.}

I watched Carl's back shrinking as he left. I was now all alone in a brand new city, and to be honest, I felt nervous. It's funny how I can commit mass genocide against an entire species and still feel anxiety from being in a new place. Woe is me.

I decided to go around the city to get familiarised with the layout. Hopefully, I can find an inn for Carl before sunset, but I had a strange gut feeling that he is crazy enough to sleep in the library.

After travelling alone for a while, I felt that something was amissed. I did not realise it in the beginning since I was already used to it, but I was receiving a lot more stares than before. I felt a sense of dread set in as everyone who was passing by stare at me. Unlike the curious stare I usually receive, their stares felt a lot less friendly. Was it because I am now alone and it has became a lot more obvious that I am automonous? I felt uncomfortable and was thinking about entering stealth when I heard someone call out to me from an alley way.

???: {Psstttt! Want to earn some quick cash?}

 

 

 

 

 

 

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