Lord Of Puppets

[Current location: Manor ???]

"Thank you all for gathering here for short notice, my friends." – said the slightly obese human noble.

"Don't worry about this sir!" – said the cat beast-human noble.

"Yea! Honestly, we are more worried about the reason why you had called us sir." – said the dog beastman noble.

"There must have been a reason for quick and secret meeting like this."

"Would you mind telling us? Duke Ash?"

[One of the dukes Garmfon kingdom – Ash Waranai]

"Unfortunately, it is quiet important matter." – said the slightly obese noble.

"Let me cut down to the chase."

"Did you heard news about a dungeon that was recently discovered?"

"?"

"Dungeon?" – asked human noble with mustache.

"Oh, I think I've heard something. Is it about that insect dungeon?" – asked cat beastman.

"No. Not this one. Honestly, I didn't even knew there was new insect dungeon." – replied duke Ash.

"What I'm referring to is a dungeon that had taken a direct interest from the 'War Bear'."

"The golem dungeon."

"?"

"Golem dungeon? Never heard of that kind of monster." – said the young human nobleman.

"Yes, and for right reasons." – said duke Ash as he snapped his fingers, before moments later a group of servants brough in the loot from the golem dungeon.

"?"

"What are those?" – asked the young noble.

"A dungeon drop from the dungeon." – said duke Ash.

"Weapons, iron and mana crystals."

"Those are all the items you could obtain from the dungeon."

"And there is no trash in between!"

"Now, now. I can tell instantly that you all have confusion expressions on your faces."

"So before any of you ask any questions or wonder what is going on."

"I'm going to say this."

"National dungeon."

"?!"

"What?" – in instance, the entire room was filled with whispers and questions.

"?"

"What is national dungeon?" – asked confused beastman noble.

"A dungeon that could be consider as main one of main sources of income for the kingdom….. It is pretty big deal…. And to think one would paper." – said the beast-human noble.

"Excuse me." – said the young human noble that raised his hand.

"But from what I can see from these mana crystals, they are not worth a fortune." – said the nobleman as he started inspecting the crystal.

"So, does that mean that the main source of income would be iron, yes?"

"But would that really made that into a nation? From what I can see right now, the benefit from that place would be around as same if not maybe possible lower than that of a single iron mine?"

"Sir, I don't mean to offend you, but what makes you think that the dungeon of that kind of level would provide income high enough to be consider as one of the main sources of the income for the whole kingdom?"

"Not me." – replied duke Ask with a smile.

"The king and the 'war bear' are both planning on turning that dungeon into national dungeon."

"By the looks of things they plan on allowing the dungeon grow enough, until it becomes profitable."

"Hm….. It would then make some sense." – said the young human noble.

"Yea, it would." – said duke Ash.

"And we can't have them that!"

"We managed to provoke the war as planned, but the war did not lasted long enough for our faction to start taking control away from royal faction."

"Not only that, but they were also making sure to keep us in check. They are already seeing us as their enemies and may think about getting rid of us."

"Meaning that we need to fight in order to survive."

"So, we need to fight!"

"This kingdom does not have a future with the current king in power."

"And our current new problem is that dungeon."

"If they succeed in making that dungeon into a national dungeon, then royal faction will gain a huge advantage against us."

"So, do we try and destroy the dungeon in question?" – asked beastman nobleman.

"Bad idea." – said beast-human noble.

"If that place really has potential of becoming a national dungeon, then wouldn't destroying it would instead result in all us suffering?"

"Yea, this is the problem that we cannot ignore." – said duke Ash.

"So, we have to somehow take over the rights and control over the dungeon, away from the general."

"If not, we will need considering eliminating the dungeon in order to weaken the royal faction."

"We cannot allow them to gain any more power."

"…"

"Sir…. But wouldn't that makes us go on full out war with the royal faction?" – asked human nobleman with moustache.

"I get obtaining the rights to the dungeon for our faction, but if we were to destroy it, then it could end up catastrophically."

"Yes, I know. That is why we need to move carefully for the time being." – said duke Ash.

"The dungeon isn't matured enough, so we have some time."

"But if worse comes to worst, you do know that what we will have to do in order to survive."

[Meanwhile: Dungeon]

(Hm…..This is problematic.) – thought Thauma as it stared down at the broken down golem.

(I guess this time I've made too much power?)

(I screwed up big time as well. Magic gems got completely shattered from the explosion just now.)

(I guess I will need to make brand new ones and also completely change the design of this artificial mana organ.)

(Still, it wasn't exactly a failure.)

(The golem was able to move.)

(And its speed did end up increasing.)

(But the body wasn't made for such rabbit movements nor it was able to handle golem new level of strength. Honestly, this was a solid warning as well.)

(I got lucky.)

(I don't think my body is good either for such fast movements either.)

(Would I collapse…. No, it may end up much worse with my core.)

(I think I may have discovered a fatal flaw about my current body without even realizing I had that kind of problem in the first place.)

(Well, I should note this down when I will be remolding my whole new body.) – thought Thauma as it used 4 of its arms to carry the remains of the destroyed golem while it used its other two hands to write down a note.

"…"

(Honestly, this new skill is pretty weird.)

([Multitask].)

(In the "Skills Encyclopedia" that I've gotten from Ariava, the [Multitask] is a skill that allows user to be slightly better at doing multiple tasks at the same time…. But I'm not feeling difference one bit.)

(I mean, I was doing multiple things for quiet sometime now, even without this skill, so I can tell that there is no difference what so ever when it comes to doing multiple things at once.)

(Maybe this is one of those "useless" skills? The ones that at their first form are completely worthless or they do nothing until you level them up enough?)

(Hm… Still, I'm bit slower when it comes to multy tasking, then when it comes on focusing on one thing. Maybe I should focus on level up this skill?)

(But that can be done in between.)

(For now, the organ.)

(From what I understand, it works.)

(I just need to lower a bit the power output and change up parts of the bodies here and there so they can handle more powerful movement.)

(In the end, it could work.)

(With the correct adjustment, I will be finally able to unlock new limits to my golem craft.)

"…"

(But I'm quiet annoyed with those explosions.)

(Is this normal? Or is it just me?)

(Why are the explosions happening so often? Is dealing with magic related items really that dangerous when making them?)

(Maybe I'm just rushing way too fast? Should I slow down? I did lose quiet amount of materials already because of those stupid explosions.)

(The most annoying explosions are the ones that destroy everything. Honestly, if it wasn't that, I would keep…..)

"…"

"…"

(Destroy everything?)

"…"

"…"

(If I remember….. Yes, she did said something about….)

(Bombs.)

"Oh what the fuck!?" – Thauma remembers conversation it once had with Ariava.

"Are you alright!?"

"I THINK" – replied Thauma.

"!?"

"You are not! You are missing a entire arm!" – said Ariava.

"For crying out loud. You just made a bloody bomb."

"?"

"BOMB" – asked Thauma.

"Hm? Ah, yes. I haven't explained to you. Well, there was no need to explain it, until now." – said Ariava.

"Anyway, think of it as weapon of sorts."

"?"

"A WEAPON" – Thauma asked.

"CAN I USE IT"

"Well, yes, you can, but better if you don't mess around with it." – replied Ariava.

"The explosives are usually…. Well, they are quiet deadly."

"They are mostly made using stuff called 'gun powder',"

"The shockwaves of these things can pretty much rip your body apart or it could sent some random stuff your way that would shred people."

"Some magic spells use 'explosion' as their basic, for example {Fire Explosions} spells blows up."

"Or if you don't know magic but want to use magic explosives, you could instead make yourself a bomb that uses magic as basics. For example, shove a magic catalyst into a bomb instead of gun powder and overload it, causing it to blow up."

"There are also chemical bombs, like for example the false salamander monster. It creates special liquid that it spit outs and ignite, causing an explosion to occur."

"Honestly, there are a LOT of ways you could make something blow up, but there is also the problem with control."

"Sometimes you use explosions yourself, but sometimes they may happened during very random incident, which would then turn into disaster."

"Sometimes explosions just happened randomly when you unleash a powerful attack, like an energy going berserk or for example when two mages spells clash with each other, causing mutual destruction that in turn would end up creating explosions."

"Explosions can happened at any time and by anything."

"Some are weak, some are strong and some are deadly."

"As for why people? They often use them."

"Sometimes in work."

"Or sometimes in wars."

"It can be one of the deadliest weapons out there."

"So yea, don't even try making anything that goes 'BOOM' for now, since it could easily kill you."

"You got lucky just now."

"If that explosions was much stronger, it could had just killed you right there on the spot."

"And that would be the end of your story."

(This is what she said.)

(Explosives.)

(Something deadly and often uncontrollable.)

(But at the same time, something about this one of deadliest weapons out there.)

(True. It does end up destroying the materials used, meaning it would be a consumable…. But this power…. What if I were to increase it more?)

(What if used it as my own weapon?)

(Could I possible kill that beastman with it?)