Stray Soul

Waiting for a few moments more, I got out of the pile made of my old body, metal plates, and Xavier’s shield.

And as I did so, I got a system message.

*ding*

Congratulations! You have defeated Dungeon Boss Golem (E) Level 160!

As Boss Golem (E) Level 160 was 2 ranks above you, you will get increased exp!

The exp gained will be distributed between everyone that has contributed to the defeat of the Dungeon Boss Golem (E) according to their contribution.

4.800 > 6.000 > 1.000 exp gained!

Congratulations! You have levelled up 3 times and become level 57!

“...Seriously? Only 3 levels for helping defeat that thing?

“...I can already tell, levelling up is going to get really annoying... well, that is if I don’t go dungeon delving again, which I’ll... probably do.” I muttered to myself before turning my gaze towards the remains of the golem which were... surprisingly intact.

Well, the endoskeleton was pretty intact, and was only snapped from the spine. But the outer layer of stone that protected the golem’s insides was scattered all about.

“Are those inscriptions I see on the endoskeleton?” I muttered as I saw a lot of indentations on the skeleton.

Getting a bit closer to the endoskeleton, I saw countless miniature inscriptions all over the endoskeleton of the boss golem. Though, I couldn’t tell what they were as I was still quite magically inept.

But I was still in awe of the amount of work that went into making this thing... which the dungeon was able to now replicate near perfectly...

I mean... with every new iteration, the inscriptions on the golem’s endoskeleton would deteriorate, and after a few dozen or hundred iterations these inscriptions would be all but useless.

But I still lamented the fact that I was going to have to kill this thing again in the future.

But by then, I’ll probably have quite a few spells and a body that was constructed over months or years.

So, no need to worry a lot.

“...I wonder though, what makes this thing work? I can’t control metal in anyway, shape, or form. But this golem seems to be able to do so without any problems...

“Does this mean I too can control metal if I just find which inscriptions allow a golem to walk?” I muttered, and out of curiosity, put a claw on the golems endoskeleton and pushed some of my mana cloud into it, and unlike any other inorganic matter I tried this trick with, it worked.

But in most places over the endoskeleton, the metal simply wouldn’t budge, but I could move the golem’s arms, legs, and neck without much of a problem.

And as I moved my mana cloud through the metallic endoskeleton, I realised something. It was full of mana that... didn’t affect my mana cloud for some reason.

It felt as if the mana had bonded with the metal itself, changing what it was fundamentally.

“Is this due to some magical smelting method, or does metal and mana bond over time naturally?” I asked my self, and dragged out my weapon from under my old carcass, and tried to push my mana cloud into it and... yup, I could push in for a few millimetres, but not anymore than that.

But doing this didn’t allow me to bend the metal the weapons were made out of, but I was able to use mana strengthening in the parts of my mana cloud that was inside of the metal without any problems... seemingly.

“...Yeah, I need to make armour for all of my future bodies out of these... mana metal or whatever, especially if mana strengthening works normally for these things.

“Though... maybe only for my main body that contains the biggest part of my soul as I won’t be able to use most of my skills in most of my lesser souls as they simply won’t have a lot of intelligence. But still, this is going to be useful...” Then I went over to the torso of the endoskeleton and attempted to leave a lesser soul in it.

Problem, the golem’s body doesn’t have any way of absorbing mana without its core, so bringing the whole torso with me will eat up too much mana... and I am not even sure if I can bring the whole thing back as I don’t know where the key for the elevators in the middle of the dungeon are.

“...Eh, I am just going to cut off the arms and bring them to the surface.” I said to myself, and started hacking away at the golem’s shoulders with my weapon, slowly trying to separate the arms from the torso.

And as I was hacking away at the golem, the others slowly emerged from where they were, and Heinrich was with them now too!

“The whole group’s back together, and safe then?” I asked to no one in particular.

“Yes, we are zafe, thanks to your... erm, zacrifice? But... what exactly are you trying to do Lord Eternal?”

“Trying to remove the golem’s arms. I am bringing them up with me. I would bring the whole thing up, but I don’t have a key for the elevators, and I assume you don’t either, right?” I asked, and Heinrich nodded.

He seemed to want to say something else, but decided not to.

“...I assume you won’t be going deeper into the dungeon and instead will go back to the previous floors and inspect them further?” I asked Heinrich after a few moments of silence.

“Yes, we will. Will you continue accompanying us or will you leave the dungeon again?”

“Hmm... yes, I’ll be going outside again, and I’ll just make a few of my less—erm... I’ll just send a few of my undead to follow you around and while you are in the dungeon, and inform me if you ever try going to this floor again, or further down the dungeon.

“Though I am not sure if I’ll bother again with trying to save you again if you decide to come to this floor again, or go to the lower one as... at that point it’s natural selection really.” I said, and with a final attack on the golem’s shoulder, detached its arm, moved a clow onto it, and pushed a lesser soul and a few hundred mana points into it.

And as my lesser soul expanded through out the golem’s arm, I was confused as to how to shape my lesser soul for the golem, but just ended up using the design I was using for my normal arms, which consisted of central shaft that had branches coming off of it, almost imitating blood vessels.

Though I immediately became sure that, that was not a good design to use on metal, but I didn’t want to make a new design right now, so I was going to use this inefficient design until I had time above the surface.

*clank clank clank clank~*

The metal arm came to life once more and stood on its hand, moving around the corridor with seemingly no problem.

Then I handed my weapon to the arm, and made it start hacking away at the other arm.

“Anyways, I’ve been meaning to ask this but, have you been able to glen insight into who built this place, or do you have an inkling about?” I asked Heinrich, but as I turned towards him and the others, they seemed to be focusing on the arm of the golem that had suddenly came alive more than me.

“Erm... no, I’ve yet to find any conclusive evidence that would let me connect this place to a faction I am aware of, though I do have 2 factions in mind, but I can’t be zure about which one of them built this place without the help of a proper research group... have you been always able to...” He asked, pointing towards the arm that was moving by itself.

“I’ll admit, I came up with my titles The Eternal One and The Lord Of Souls on the spot, but they are anything but untrue.

“I am eternal, as in I cannot be killed by mortal means and will live forever, and I am also the lord of souls, and if there exists something that can be breathed life upon, then that means I can grant it life... though the life I grant is similar to being an undead.

“I haven’t yet figured out how to make life that is... alive yet. But when I figure it out, I am going to be one of the strongest deities alive.” I said, kind of exaggerating my immortality and my control over souls as I wanted them to at least assume that I was more powerful than I seemed, and was, in case they ever managed to break the magical contract they signed.

“If you can breathe life upon anything, then why not just make the whole golem come alive?” Lazarus asked from the sides, and instead of responding to him, I just put a lesser soul into the legs and the torso of the golem with a few hundred mana points each, and waited for a few seconds until they came alive.

*Clank Clank~*

“As you can see, I can just make them come alive too, but the spine of the golem has been broken, and I cannot easily attach it together here. And even if I could, this whole golem wouldn’t fit into the stairways, and I don’t have the key for the elevators, so I can’t use them either.” I said, as the golem’s body parts came to alive and got up.

“...Well then... it seems you are the real deal, huh?”

“I am sad that you thought I wasn’t a real deity, but I can’t blame you either. Afterall, I’ve never played my full set of hands while I was in the village, or in this dungeon.” I said, and then made the golem’s torso extend its remaining arm and touch the legs, and move my soul along it, and then with a touch to the legs, I pulled away my souls and mana from the remaining parts of the golem.

*CLANK CLANK*

Then the golem’s remaining parts fell to the ground, and the arm I had detached from the torso myself continued to hack away at the shoulder of the other arm, trying to detach it.

*Clank~*

And with a final attack, the other arm came loose, and I pushed another piece of my soul into it with some mana.

“Well then, I am done here. Do you guys have anything else you want to say to me before I escort you to my undead in the dungeon?” I asked to everyone, and Heinrich stepped forwards to ask something.

“Lord Eternal, I just wanted to clarify again but, you will let me bring in another group of researchers here, right?”

“Yes, I will let the B rank you will report to after returning to wherever you came from bring a group of researchers or whatever, and do another expedition into the dungeon. However, you will have to pay for that right the next time around.

“And the reason I am not letting you choose the researchers is... well, I simply think a B ranker would be more careful with choosing tight-lipped people, after understanding the gravity of the situation with dealing with me, a literal deity, and all.”

“And what would the price for being allowed to do another expedition be?”

“Information and valuables. Specifically, information about what’s this whole dungeon is about and all, and valuables which can range from magical artefacts to simply rare materials.

“And yes, you will be signing another magical contract when it comes to revealing your findings, though you can reveal everything you know about the dungeon right now too! Then I’ll even actively help you next time you are here.”

“Zure, want to move to a place further away from the others?”

“...Sure?” I said, not really expecting Heinrich to tell me about what this dungeon was all about right now, but I was more than willing to complete my quest that was going to give me a few hundred exp right now.

“Rifu-san, can you remotely cast some sort of magic that will make the room we enter silent?” I asked Rifu-san through the sceptre of the forest.

“Why are you worried about the others listening to what the half-elf says to you?”

“I am not, but Heinrich seems to be, so it’d be better if we had another layer of security other than just being far away, you know?”

“...Seems pointless, but I’ll humour you this time.” Rifu-san said, and we moved into a room a few blocks away, and as we entered the room, I took out the sceptre of the forest and waited for a few moments until Rifu-san casted her spell.

And then for a moment the small semi-divine core on the top of the sceptre glowed with soft green light that quickly spread through out the room, and covered the walls with a weird sparkling green aura that persisted even after the sceptre stopped glowing.

“Heinrich, this spell my ally casted should disable the others from listening to us through magical, and normal means.

“Now, tell me, why did you want to be faraway from them? What’s got you so worried other than all the human-experimentation that’s been going on in this research station?”

“Okay... do you want me to tell everything I know or only the most important thing?”

“Everything about the people who ran this place, and what they were doing here, please. And yes, my ally is listening to us too if you are wondering, so you are talking to 2 deities right now.”

“Okay, I’ll start then...” He said, and with a sigh started talking.

“This place was run by a research group called Division 0, from what I understand there are total of 10 different research divisions that was run by whatever faction ran Division 0, and this place was one of the 3 research labs Division 0 ran, because they were vastly under funded which... I can kind of understand as they were only given the job researching into things people already though were stupid ideas.

“But all of their experimentations and researches in this research station and the other 2, that often wandered into unethical not because of necessity but as a cost saving measure, all of them were done to simply gain more funds for their magnum opus project Mana Hearth, which they were sure would increase their standing, and allow them to open up more labs and get more mages under their ranks.”

“Mana Hearth? Was this some kind of project to make... artificial mana?”

“No. Creating mana is hard, but it has already been done before, and there is even a wing in The Central Academy—wait, you don’t know what that is...

“What I mean to say is, creating mana is being done in certain magical academies already, and is becoming easier and easier to do with time.

“No, project Mana Hearth is something else, something that most of the world though impossible.

“It’s about creating an artificial dungeon core. And I am sure you can tell if they succeeded or not from where we are.”

Congratulations! You have completed the quest What Lays Beyond? (C)!

200 exp gained!

Congratulations! You have levelled up and have become level 58!