Lord Of Puppets

<<Weaker dungeon doesn't posses much value. They are mostly used as something akin to training grounds for the newbie adventurers.>>

<<But low-mid ranks and above dungeons? They provide a solid way of leveling up.>>

<<And there is also one more thing they provide.>>

<<Dungeon drops.>>

<<Items that can be generated by the dungeon and could be sold for "money".>>

<<From what I understand, everybody wants "money", the more "money" they have, the easier their lives become. But at the same time, they are spending money each and every day to survive.>>

<<They can use money to buy food, houses, weapons, pretty much everything can be bought with money.>>

<<Ariava told me once that the main reason why my dungeon wasn't destroyed in the past was because this place became a source of income for the town.>>

<<I was making them money.>>

<<If my way of thinking is correct, they are still planning on taming me.>>

<<But right now I'm not "profitable" enough.>>

<<These new people in "charge of me" are more "greedy".>>

<<They want to obtain better dungeon drops so they can in turn earn more money.>>

<<But if that is the case, then my attempts at becoming stronger and upgrading the dungeon would be…. Just playing right into their hands.>>

<<Does that also means that once I do become stronger, they will try and "tame" me?!>>

<<I cannot allow that!>>

<<But currently I'M playing right into their hands.>>

<<So what? Do I need to just stay weak!? But what would be point then!?>>

<<It would be no better than being tamed and….. Wait.>>

<<…. Do I need to be weak for them to not lay their hands on me?>>

<<I need to be weak so they wouldn't even touch me…. But what if they were not aware of me becoming stronger?>>

<<What if I do the exactly same thing as before as well? By pretending to be tamed?>>

<<Back then it worked and it gave me enough time to horde enough DP to create my own army.>>

<<….>>

<<No…. This wouldn't work.>>

<<They expect me to grow. They are sometimes even going inside the dungeon…. I see, they are checking if the dungeon has changed…..So by halting the growth they will realized something is not right….. >>

<<No wait. I just to "slowly" grow my dungeon!>>

<<Yes…. YES!>>

<<I can just pretend that my dungeon is growing at slow rate, while in reality its growth speed is much more higher!>>

<<I'm the one in control here! Not them!>>

<<….But for how long?>>

<<Even if I pretend to be growing at much slower pace than they are expecting, there will come the point where I will end up reaching their "goal".>>

<<Not only that, but the moment I've reach it, they may try to do a full clean up of the dungeon, which in turn would end up revealing the truth.>>

<<If they find out that the dungeon is much stronger than they planned, would they be left with no other choice but to exterminate me?>>

<<So it is not like I have infinity amount of time…. Nor do I know when I would reach their "goal".>>

<<By now, I should probably make some smaller changes to the golems, to make a proof that the dungeon is "growing".>>

<<I already have some golem designs in mind, so I think I will use them.>>

<<This should throw them off for the time being.>>

<<Not only that, but I have finally obtained means of dealing with my main problem that is still holding me back.>>

<<Mana.>>

<<Once I understand, analyzes, adapat and improve the Artificial Mana Organ, I will be able to speed up even more my training!>>

<<Not only that, but this research may end up revealing or showing me something that may allow me to further enchant my own body.>>

<<And so, the days of pure research resumed once again.>>

<<Obviously what I could research was very limited, since I didn't knew when I would reach the enemy "goal".>>

<<Then again, I do know what I need to try and research to turn this situation around.>>

[Few days later: Bearmight family manor.]

"…"

"So… You are telling me, that the dungeon is producing brand new golems. A bit more armored golems with slightly better weapons….. But only a bit?" – asked the beastman bear general Oranox Bearmight as he read the report.

"Yes sir. This is all we have to report." – said the beastman knight.

"The dungeon is keep manifesting new monster and we are hunting down every single one of them."

"But the rate which they are produced at isn't…. Well, it isn't as fast as we had thought."

"We inspected even insides of the dungeon, but by the looks of things monsters are being made properly, but not in great numbers."

"…"

"Weird." – said the beastman general.

(According to these reports, the amount of golems that are being produced by the dungeon isn't as big as we had thought… But honestly speaking? There should be fare more golems being made.)

(Dungeon is producing monsters and there are some new variants of golems showing up….. But this is nowhere near enough.)

(…. By any chance…. Was the dungeon extremely weak in the first place?)

(No, no, no…. That dungeon is indeed strong.)

(Then again, why is the production of monster so low?)

"…"

(Is it related to that?)

(Honestly, when I was review the past reports about that dungeon, it was pointed at bandits.)

(The dungeon was completely dormant state…. But why was that dungeon in the dormant state in the first place?)

(…)

(Let's look at the different way.)

(If the dungeon was low rank dungeon, then why there was…. No wait.)

(There were no dungeon breaks going on before, so maybe all dungeon monsters that were manifested were just stored inside the dungeon?)

(But how would that….. Wait, maybe it has something to do with golems way of operating?)

"Hey. Bring me anything you can about golems and have Victor as well as his men check on these documents or question anybody you bring." – said the beastman general.

[2 weeks later.]

"Nothing?!"

"Nope. Sorry mate." – said the human named Victor.

"We looked it up and we even had one guy who once made golems Marok as cheap labor, but nothing really came up."

"Not only that, we looked in the old records located in the adventure guild, but found nothing so far."

"The golem dungeons by the looks of things are extremely rare, so finding informations about them would take time."

"As for the golems odd behavior? Well, according to that golem craftsman golem does not need to eat, sleep or anything."

"He had already seen the golem design that is being produced by the dungeon and here the detailed report about them." – said Victor as he handed a report to the beastman.

[-Golems looks crafted. No weird mutation what so ever, they look like they were all crafted by hand.]

[-Golems are not operating on crystalized mana, monster cores or mana gems. They are operating on mana crystals. These golems can seemingly move around nonstop, but taking actions for far too long may deplete their mana, resulting in them being forced in to charge up mode, if they have built one or if they fight nonstop, not carrying one bit about their energy reserves.]

[-There is no additional hidden magic tools hidden within golems bodies.]

"…"

"This pretty much tells me nothing." – said the beastman with annoyed look.

"We knew all of this stuff already. So why the hell are you handing me this thing?"

"That is the problem. Even person that specializes in golem crafting does not know anything." – said Victor.

"From what he had told me, the golems must had been engraved with special orders."

"And if he were to give one, this would be it."

"Defend the dungeon."

"…"

"!"

"Wait, so the golems just waited inside the dungeon, protecting it?" – asked the beastman as he started putting pieces together.

"And once the bandits went inside the dungeon, it caused a additional command to be activated." – said Victor.

"Kill everything in the forest."

"And this is where it points towards obvious."

"Whenever dungeon monsters ends up manifesting, it usually leads to the dungeons experiencing a sudden growth."

"But what would happened if dungeon doesn't have any space to create any more golems inside of it?"

"No new monster, which in turns means no dungeon growth."

"…. So…. You are saying that dungeon just entered the dormant state because nobody was attacking it and this in turn caused its entire growth to halt?" – asked general.

"This is the theory we came up with." – replied victor.

"Hm…."

"Welp, this bloody sucks." – said annoyed general.

"If that is the case, then no wonder than dungeon monster production was so slow. This dungeon didn't grew at all!"

"Ah, this may take much more longer before that thing would become profitable at all."

"…"

"What about the noble faction?"

"There were some movements, but I don't think they would really do anything to the golem dungeon." – replied Victor.

"Nah." - said general with annoyed expression.

"They will definitely move."

"Even a lot of them are idiots, there are some smart ones amongst them."

"And they will realize the true value of the golem dungeon."

"These greedy fuckers will definitely try and steal that dungeon."

"Even if bloody means picking a fight with me."

"Ah... Yeb, this idiots will definitely pull out something idiotic."