Lord Of Puppets-Chapter 184 – No reaction?

The adventurers’ strategy was simple, attack and run away.

Attack and run away.

Repeat the process several times in the row in order to have the damage stack up and allow the adventurer to win the fight.

Only earth golems possessed any form of recovery, while all the other golems lacked such ability.

This meant that the adventurer could just deal set amount of damage to the golems that can’t recover, before then running back to their camp and recovering on their own, before then repeating the process several more times until the enemy grows weak enough to be easily taken down by the full-frontal assault.

The idea was good.

...

But they still lacked way too information about their foes.

The first real attack against the golems commenced, but the results were obviously not very good.

Upon their return, a lot of adventurers came back not only heavily exhausted, but some were also covered in some heavy injures.

"We underestimated the golems." – said the very tall man, who was no longer wearing his massive armor, revealing himself to be an adult human male with greyish beard and no hair, as his scar covered body was getting threated by the medics.

"Was it really that bad?" – asked the guild master.

"Yeah..." – replied the tall man.

"We did learned few things about the enemy here and there.... But if I’m being honest? This will be much more problematic."

"I second that." – said the adult human female adventurer with long black ponytail.

"We fought these knights before, but mostly crossbowmen."

"But the rest? Well, after having now a proper fight, I can definitely say this."

"All of them are dangerous like hell."

"..."

"What about you?" – asked the guild master as she turned towards tall man who appeared at first to be human.

But upon closer inspection, anybody could clearly see his lizard-like scales covering his hands and legs as well as some scales that were visible around the man’s neck.

The man’s face looked human like, but he also had a green lizard like tail sticking out from his rear.

[Leader of the first group]

[C-rank adventurer: Borjih – Race: Chhipakalee]

"..."

"Not good if I’m honest." – said Borjih as he filled with his short sword.

"I’ve tried attacking their joints, but damn bastards are tough like hell."

"And there are also these earth golems.... The small ones can be stopped, but the big ones? Oh boy. They are really problematic."

"I think we should try to set up traps here and there in order to slow them down."

"We can’t." – replied guild master.

"I’ve already told you; we are not dealing with some brainless idiots."

"The dungeon master is controlling these monsters and probably even watching us somehow."

"..."

"Are we sure about this?" – asked the chhipakaleeias.

"If they had some means of watching us, then how the hell did the trap worked?"

"Or how about the ambush?"

"Hm?"

"..."

"That is good point...." – said the female adventurer with long black hair.

"Then again, they apparently knew we were coming and moved away."

"That is if those Silver Talons told the truth."

"..."

"Actually, I have a question." – said the guild master as she took out a sketch of the scout golem from her bag.

"Did anybody seen this kind of golem? Or something that resembles them?"

"..."

"Nope. Never seen it." – said the black-haired woman as she handed around the sketch of the scout golem to the different adventurers.... Yet not even a single adventurer confirmed the existence of the mysterious golems.

"..."

(Is this not it?) – thought worried guild master.

(Silver Talons did not reported anything either.)

(...If.... No.)

"These bastards posses some means of detection."

"And we need to figure what it is."

"..."

"Say, mages can sometimes use their familiars to see things, right? Then maybe it is the case here?" – asked the black-haired woman.

"Nope, it is not." – replied Arthur Wirmur as he approached the group while several soldiers that came with him began taking the gathered golem parts.

"I’ve checked these golems bodies and I did not found anything that would had anything like a communication or vision sharing magic tool."

"But there was nothing like that."

"..."

"So what the hell is it?" – asked the tall scar covered man.

"I mean, how do we know that they are not watching us right now?"

(Well, they are watching us.) – thought Arthur.

(These monkey golems. They had been spotted.)

(There is good chance that they are the golems behind the information gathering.)

(However, there is no telling that there are not some golems in the mix that also acts the same role.)

(....Still, the same attack yet the same results?)

(Is the dungeon master unable to change the golems’ tactics?)

"..."

(Or maybe.... He is planning something?)

(Either way, we cannot take actions in that regard.)

(I NEED to see what that thing has to offer.)

For the rest of the day, the adventurers did not dared to attack the forest, and instead focused on recovering.

Next day, the adventurers kept on recovery and staying in their camp, awaiting any form of reaction or attack... But yet again, like before, nothing.

And then came the day after.

The second attack.

The adventurers ventured into the forest yet again and launched their attack... In the exact same way as before, which ended up repeating the whole story of the first attack.

The adventures taken down several golems, before then running away.

And like before, the golems did not dared to give a chase.

"..."

"Okay, honest opinion." – said the guild master as she had a private meeting with Arthur Wirmur.

"This was our third attack and second real attack on the forest."

"Yet they are not reactions?!"

"..."

"Truth to be told, I’m just as puzzled as you." – said Arthur.

"By any chance the dungeon master is really just giving preordered instructions?" - asked the guild master.

"Nah. If the past reports are correct and based on how they acted on the start... There is good chance that the dungeon master’s posses some means of connecting itself to its golems and possibly giving them brand new orders."

(The adventurers went with the same tactic, third time in a row, this time trying to bait the enemy into falling into their trap... Yet the golems didn’t went for it.) – thought Arthur.

(Does that means that the dungeon master can’t control all the time its golems?)

(Maybe they are too far away for it to control?)

"..."

(If that is the case, then does that mean the dungeon is extremely deep?)

(But pieces are not aligning together....)

(Are we really-)

"Hey! Are you listening?!" – asked guild master as she was snapping her fingers in front of the man, which snapped the man out of his state.

"S-sorry. Was lost bit in thoughts." – said Arthur.

"..."

"As I’ve said, do you think we should keep on using the same tactic? Or should we change it up?" – asked the guild master.

"..."

"Change it." – said Arthur with a moment of pause.

"I don’t like the current situation."

"There is clearly something off going on right now."

(And I need to see how is the control over these golems is being used.) – thought Arthur.

"Okay.... But just in case, we will do the full day of rest as well here and next day, just like we did before." – said the guild master.

"With each fucking day this place gets more and more creepy."

"And honestly? I wouldn’t be surprised if by any point we would end up getting attacked."

[Several hours later – Night time.]

"..."

"Okay. This is just getting stupid." – said the human soldier who stood behind a wooden barricade.

"It has been like what? Weeks?" 𝐟𝚛𝕖𝚎𝕨𝗲𝐛𝚗𝐨𝐯𝐞𝕝.𝐜𝗼𝗺

"Oh, shut the fuck up already." – said sleepy human soldier as he yawned.

*Sigh*

"What is your problem now?" – asked the older human soldier.

"The whole freaking forest." – said annoyed soldier.

"I’m no fucking idiot, but if they are really having some trouble with that place, why don’t they contact more people to come!?"

"Because we already contact all people we could. Additional reinforcement may take weeks for them to come.... Besides, everything is going fine, isn’t it?" – replied the older soldier.

"Well, you ain’t wrong." – said the dwarven knight who was smoking a pipe.

"So far, everything is going great.... Still, I do wish they would already be over with this shit."

"I’ve promised my daughter to take her the festival alongside my wife."

"Oh, the Divra festival, right?" – asked the older soldier.

"Yeah mate. It is coming soon.... Honestly, I couldn’t attend the last one, since I was made part of the unit to deal with rampaging monsters.... My daughter straight up was giving me death glares after I came back.... So, I did promised her to come back to attend this year Divra festival."

"If I don’t... Welp, I may be de-"

*CAW* *CAW* *CAW* *CAW*

"!"

"Crows?" – asked the older guard as he looked past the barricade and saw a hooded figure running at top speed towards the camp as the sound of crow crying could be heard coming from the hooded figure.

"..."

"No..." – said the dwarven knight as he stood up.

"EVERYBODY!"

"TO THE BATTLE STATION IMMEDIATELY!"

"I REPEAT!"

"TO THE BATTLE STATIONS!"

"RAISE THE ALARM!"

"WAKE EVERYBODY UP!"

"THE FUCKING MONSTERS ARE COMING OUR WAY!"