"It would appear that none of the golems were destroyed." Bezalel chewed on the last word with stifled disdain.

  The villagers that Ryder brought back were standing to the left of the gate led by the two chiefs. On the opposite side, Amara and Guard were standing in front of all the golems.

  "You would've preferred that they were, don't you, Bezalel?" Amara narrowed her eyes.

  "What is she talking about, chief?" A random villager standing behind the chiefs asked.

  "It's nothing-"

  "The chiefs wanted to destroy all the golems! I marched with the golems to the chiefs' office during the day the miasma appeared because we wanted to protest against their decision!" The paladin exclaimed.

  A blazing commotion was immediately lit among the villagers before they started asking a bunch of questions to the chiefs.

  Bezalel shouted with a tinge of anxiety, "Not necessarily destroy, but reset! I've found a fatal flaw in their design and it can only be fixed by resetting their cores!"

  "Resetting our cores means all our memories and personalities will be wiped away." Guard chimed in to inform the villagers who weren't aware of the fact.

  "Which would be no different from killing them!" Amara barked.

  "It's something well within our rights to do because they are our property." Aviana objected.

  "In the past, perhaps, but not anymore! They have developed a consciousness, which means they possess the same rights as any sapient beings! Whatever 'flaws' you found in them don't give you the right to kill them!"

  "Yeah, Amara is right! The golems are my friends, and I won't let them get killed!"

  "Please, the golems aren't alive. They're merely mimicking our behaviors. They may be intelligent, but that doesn't mean they have a consciousness!"

  The villagers broke into two factions that followed one of those two sentiments, though there were more people on the pro-golem side.

  Bezalel stared at Aviana exasperatedly for a solution, but all she gave him was a solemn nod. He bit his lips and pointed at the golem with hammers for hands.

  "About two weeks ago, I was notified that Demol destroyed a building at the edge of the village, in the middle of the night, unprompted. There was a family living inside, and if it wasn't for a group of passerby, they would've died in their sleep! I asked everyone involved to stay quiet because Aviana didn't want the village to panic as we thought about how we should deal with the matter!" He turned back to face the villagers. "I understand these golems are very precious to a lot of you, but I can't take the risk that they'll go berserk!"

  A handful of villagers who were pro-golems closed their lower set of eyes with disappointment as they realized the craftsman really was telling the truth.

  "The risk that you should've been aware of when you use soul fragments to create these puppets?" Purple snorted.

  Horror and fury flashed past the chief's face as he glared at the dragon. That revelation ignited another wave of commotion amongst the villagers, ironically uniting some villagers from both factions to direct their anger at the chiefs for hiding the truth about the golems.

  Amara and Guard turned around to face Demol, who was still repeating "Destruction" over and over again.

  "Is what Bezalel said true, Demol?" She questioned.

  "Mhm-mhm! It looks building I usually destroy, so I destroy! Demol did it no order because Demol is in-de-pen-dent! Destruction fun!" The golem in question chirped. "Demol going to destroy more, but stopped. Then stay in dark room until A-ma-ra saves earlier!"

  The paladin's face darkened as the craftsman smiled smugly with a tinge of bitterness.

  "Do you see why Aviana and I have come to the decision to reset their cores now? Regardless of intention, golems pose an unpredictable danger to our village if they aren't periodically reset! You have to remember that, while they learn and mimic our behaviors, it doesn't mean they understand the intentions behind it. We don't hurt people for reasons more than physical pain while they can lose all their limbs and still be fine if their core is intact. There's no telling if they'll interpret the things we do and say the same way as us!"

  Guard tried to retort, "Demol simply made a mistake because he's still young. Also, his actions don't represent all of us. Since you've never proposed resetting our cores for decades until now, doesn't that show you it's an incredibly rare occurrence?"

  "Put some restrictions on the golems' core and be done with it." Purple scowled as his tail swished impatiently.

  "No. We refuse to have our free will restricted-"

  "So you can threaten us with your force if we don't do as you say?" Aviana rebutted.

  "No, that's no..."

  The argument between two sides continued on with repeated points as the sun disappeared into the horizon completely. Ryder, who had been standing at the sideline, suddenly came up with an idea. However, he wasn't sure how he should propose it, since he felt like he was an outsider to the matter. Purple noticed his rider's hesitation and rolled his eyes before shooting a glance at Brown. She lazily nodded and nudged the human's leg with hers.

  "On my mark." Her voice rang in his mind.

  "What-"

  As the argument reached its boiling point, a stone wall abruptly protruded from the ground, effectively shutting everyone up in an instant. When it returned to the ground, Purple gently kicked Ryder and forced him to stand in front of the two groups. Everyone, as expected, turned their attention to the tense teenager.

  "Uhm, if the golems want to be treated as people, then why not impose the village's laws on them? You know, punish them if they do bad things instead of resetting all their cores?"

  "That's not going to work." Amara commented. "The golems and the villagers are still fundamentally different, so the laws will be discriminatory."

  "The level of consciousness varies amongst us as well. Those with simpler cores won't have the same processing power as those with more complicated ones. Like Amara said, it won't work." Guard added.

  "Then the chiefs merely need to draft up new laws with the golems. I mean, you can't really expect to be treated like a member of society without abiding by the societal rules everyone else does. The villagers are all different from each other too, like the golems, but they still follow the law. If one of you did something bad, intentional or not, then they need to be tried and sentenced. It goes both ways."

  Silence ensued as everyone deliberated over Ryder's suggestion.

  A teenager in the crowd raised her hand. "I support the Dragon Rider's idea! It was really scary when Demol smashed my home, but that doesn't mean I want all of them to die. Lots of people still love the golems, including me, but I also think they should be punished individually if one of them did something wrong."

  "Same here! They've helped this village since before I was born, and it's totally unfair to wipe away their consciousness because of one bad thing!"

  "But what about the risks? Even if we have laws, they can still go crazy and do dangerous things-"

  "Oh shut up, Debby. The same thing can be said for all of us as well! Have you forgotten Guard saved you from a gang of thieves in the village before?"

  "That's..."

  While there were some dissenters, many of the villagers agreed with Ryder's idea.

  Bezalel sighed and looked at Aviana. She pinched her eyebrows, but ultimately nodded.

  "Fine." The craftsman turned to his golems. "We'll make up laws together, but you have to make sure none of the golems cause any more trouble while we do, Guard."

  Amara's frown turned upside down as she smiled at Guard, who was equally gleeful that things were resolved without violence.

  "Yay, everyone's happy. Can I have my damn feast now?" Purple barked.

  "Yes, of course. Thank you for saving our village with Amara." Aviana made a weird gesture with all four of her hands and lowered her head in front of the dragon rider gang.

  "Cook!" Guard turned around and called out, "Prepare our saviors a feast they'll never forget!"

  "You got it, boss!" A humanoid golem with eight hands winked.

  "As for the rest of you, help the villagers settle back into their homes!"

  All the golems agreed loudly in unison before walking back into the village with its settlers. Some were still wary of the golems, but most were chatting happily with their rocky friends.