The golems inside stood as close to the walls as possible to make space for them to go through.

  "Are you sure they won't hurt us, Amara?" The golem with a trumpet asked.

  "They won't," The paladin assured

  "You're back, Amara! And Pinky too!" A feminine humanoid golem with only one eye exclaimed as she hugged the golem Amara brought back with her. The pink golem hugged back and let out a sound that resembled a sigh of relief.

  "Woah. Are those dragons, Amara? The ones you mentioned in your stories?" A skinny and tall golem with multiple eyes examined Green, which made the dragon uncomfortable.

  "Yes, they are. Don't touch them though, Slinky." She continued to talk to all the golems who greeted her as she passed them by.

  Ryder was surprised that the golems were acting like... humans. Granted, he rarely saw any golems considering they're an expensive piece of equipment, but he was told that the golems are essentially emotionless robots.

  The cave became wider the deeper they went. It eventually led into a large circular space with an assortment of boxes and items tidily stacked up against the wall.

  "This used to be the village's old storage cave, but it's mostly empty now. What you see here is junk they didn't bother to clear out." Amara dragged two empty crates and sat on one of them. Ryder sat on the other one while his dragons rested around him. The golems all tried to squeeze in to listen to the conversation, though some of them were too large to make it in.

  "I came here about a month ago." Amara crossed her fingers. "It was supposed to be a quick stop, but I was fascinated by their colorful personalities. Since I needed to take some time off to recover my wounds from my last Domain suppression, I decided to stay. I gradually became friends with most of them, but there was only one in particular who I've developed a close bond with. His name is Guard, the strongest golem in the village. Even though he never left the village, he was fun to talk to." A smirk appeared on her face.

  "Then, one day, Guard noticed a few golems had disappeared. He came to me for help, and I obliged. We snooped around and tried to look for clues, but we were stopped pretty quickly, because I was an outsider and Guard wasn't doing his job. Five days ago, one of the servant golems notified us that there was a secret meeting between the chiefs. Guard was too big, so I had to sneak in by myself. It was there I overheard that they're going to reset all the golems' cores, essentially wiping their memories and consciousness away." The paladin furrowed her eyebrows and tapped her forehead. "Bezalel said something about the cores he made had caused the golems to become a liability."

  Purple snorted. "I knew it."

  "What?" Ryder glanced at him.

  The dragon rolled his eyes. "Is the graveyard not obvious enough? The mortal didn't invent a new technique to create golems. He clearly used the oldest method to create them by taking soul fragments from the bodies buried there to create their core. It's why these golems here have such colorful personalities." He uttered the last two words with disdain. "I believe that's the reason why the mortals erased all mentions of the technique after I was sealed. The golems born from this technique will eventually become too difficult for their masters to control and will start talking about things such as 'freedom' and 'love'. It is a perverted sight to see puppets made from souls of the dead mimicking the behaviors of living mortals. I-"

  Ryder cleared his throat loudly to cut Purple off. The dragon already noticed the animosity the golems were directing toward him the more he spoke, but he didn't give a damn. However, since his rider had 'spoken up', he decided to zip his mouth.

  "Does he just say whatever is on his mind?" Amara frowned slightly.

  "Yes." The dragon rider sighed. "Yes, he does. Please ignore him and continue."

  "As I was saying, the chiefs were planning to round all the golems up and reset their cores. When I told Guard about it, he wanted to smash Bezalel into pieces immediately. It was quite difficult to calm him down since I was angry at the chiefs too, but I know there's gotta be something else that prompted them to make the decision so suddenly. So, after the both of us calmed down, we came up with a plan to gather as many golems as we could before marching toward the chiefs' office on the next day. Some villagers were concerned, but there were also some that joined our march despite not knowing our full intentions. Moments before we confronted the chiefs, someone dropped down on the roof near where we were standing and summoned a Moros Domain. It was hard to believe that neither Guard nor I noticed them until it was already too late."

  "Did you see what they look like?" Ryder leaned forward. "Any notable physical characteristics?"

  "I only caught a glimpse of them before the golems started causing chaos from the miasma infection, so all I saw was that they were dressed in black."

  He tilted backward and furrowed his eyebrows. "I see..."

  "It was very strange that the miasma infected only the golems instead of the villagers. I've never encountered a Domain that doesn't affect living beings before."

  "I thought the same thing when the chiefs told me about it. Hey, you know what?" The dragon rider snapped his finger. "With the both of us here, I can protect you while you purify the core instead of destroying it to get rid of the Domain. We may be able to find some clues about this anomaly and the person who planted the core."

  "That's an interesting idea we can talk more about later, but I would like to finish my story first, if you don't mind." Amara's tone and expression remained neutral.

  "Yes, yes, of course. I'm sorry for interrupting." He could feel his cheeks burning.

  "I saved as many villagers as I could while the uncorrupted golems used the shields I attached to them to block the corrupted ones. All the villagers made it out alive, but my shields didn't last long enough for any of the golems to escape. As a last resort, I cast a large barrier around the village to prevent any golems or miasma from escaping. After I settled the villagers down, I told the chiefs I was going to save the golems next. You can probably guess what their reactions were. They're also the reason why the help request they sent to the Guild had been unsuccessful."

  "...You stopped the request because the people the Guild would send will destroy the golems without hesitation."

  "It wasn't a risk I was willing to take. I know I'm making the villagers suffer longer as a consequence, but I can't stand by and let this group of... people be destroyed solely because they were made instead of being born. I've watched enough injustices back in our world, and now that I have the power to stop it," She tightened her fist. "I will."

  Ryder nodded. "So you've been saving the golems one by one?"

  "Yes, by luring them out and purifying them. Some of the villagers knew what I was doing and wanted to help, but I told them to stay put because it was too dangerous. It would've taken me another week to purify all of them if you hadn't stopped by."

  "I see. So, what's our strategy? My dragons are capable of keeping the golems company if we want to rush in and deal with the core directly."

  "Is that how you've been clearing out Domains?" Amara raised her eyebrow.

  "It worked out most of the time for us." The dragon rider shrugged.

  "If only it's that easy for me." She sighed. "No, we aren't going to rush in blindly. However, you did give me an idea. Okay, so here's the plan..."