Who Are You Going to Kill?

Who do I kill?

The Bio-Golem.

What set a Bio-Golem apart from the ordinary kind was the core. A typical golem ran on a mana stone. This one ran on living organs — which made it both a lot harder to put down and a lot more dangerous. The really well-made ones were even said to keep their sense of self. Luckily, the specimen standing in front of us didn't look like it was operating at that level.

After the second of the Four Heavenly Kings went down, the Demon King's army started cooking up serious weapons to deal with a Hero who was getting a little too threatening. The Bio-Golem was one of them. From what I knew, they'd built the things out of captured Alliance soldiers. The one bright spot: the materials were so hard to come by that they'd never managed to mass-produce them.

There were two ways to kill this thing. The first was to shatter all three of its cores at the same time. Two of those cores were made from a living heart and a living brain; the third received the control signal. That was two more cores than a regular golem carried. Fail to destroy all three simultaneously, and the broken ones would simply start regenerating. Even if the timing wasn't perfectly synchronized, you still had to pinpoint every core's location and smash them all in rapid succession.

That method wasn't going to work in our current situation. We'd have to go with the other option. But first, I needed to pull these despairing adventurers back together.

"Everybody, snap out of it! Hold the formation!"

"But smashing that golem's core doesn't even do anything!"

"So you're just going to give up? If we're going to die, we die after we've thrown everything we've got at it!"

"Right. Yeah. We can't give up... What the hell was I thinking?"

Fortunately, they snapped out of it quickly. Experienced adventurers, through and through — their mental fortitude was the real deal.

"Young Master, do you happen to know anything about that golem?"

Faran asked, a hint of expectation in her expression. I'd claimed to know everything, so she clearly assumed that extended to this golem as well.

"Yeah, I do. I read about them in a book once."

"You know about them?"

The adventurers were stunned. As far as they were concerned, I was nothing more than the wastrel of House Gilbert — a good-for-nothing who spent his days loafing around. The idea that I knew something even they, who practically lived on the battlefield, had never heard of left them genuinely astonished.

"There's nothing the Gilbert family library doesn't have."

"Ah. The Gilbert family, of course."

The Gilbert name carried more weight than I'd realized. They swallowed that without a second thought. Even a degenerate like me, they figured, could reasonably know something like this if I'd been educated by House Gilbert. And hadn't it been House Gilbert that discovered this dungeon in the first place?

"So if you just follow my lead, I'll figure something out."

A massive fist came crashing toward us. The golem, it turned out, had no interest in waiting politely while we talked strategy. The adventurers had already spent themselves in the previous fight. Everyone was exhausted. They were on my payroll, sure — but if the method I was about to propose didn't work, we were looking at a total party wipe.

"Hmm..."

An emergency in a dungeon they'd written off as a casual stroll. They were clearly wondering whether I could actually pull off something they themselves had failed to do.

Not like you've got another option. There's no other way out of this.

"Fine. We're on your payroll anyway. We'll trust you."

"Good. I'll make sure the pay is generous once we're back."

"Hahaha, now that's what I like to hear."

Mentioning money sent their morale soaring.

The plan was simple. Operating a Bio-Golem required a separate control device. Ordinary golems moved according to a one-dimensional, pre-applied system. A Bio-Golem, with an actual brain in the mix, was capable of far more — it could use the skills its source creature had possessed in life, and its behavior could be directed according to the situation. But that required a device to control the golem and assist with its processing. Even though this one had been built inside a dungeon, the same condition applied as long as it was a Bio-Golem.

That hole that had been bothering me — the one revealed when the golem stood up. Just as we'd suspected, it looked like a passage leading somewhere. There was bound to be a control device for the golem inside that hole. And the material used in that device was the item I wanted.

The Stone of Domination.

It was the key component needed to force a living brain into obedience. With this stone, I could control a single living being however I wished — or more precisely, make them follow me on a subconscious level. My own NPCs already grew loyal as their Relation Levels rose, of course. But with this stone, I could make even someone I hadn't created follow me — just once. It was as broken as it was rare. If the Demon King's army had possessed these stones in any quantity, they would have been mass-producing Bio-Golems.

"Lure the golem away from that hole."

No matter how aggressively it attacked us, the golem never strayed beyond a certain distance from that opening. It was deliberately guarding the hole.

"Understood."

The tank adventurer and Dana stepped forward and began using their skills. The moment they activated, a flash of red light burst from Dana and the adventurer, and the golem was yanked toward them. A Taunt skill, from the look of it. The other adventurers kept hammering at the nape of the golem's neck — where the cores sat — trying to provoke it further.

"GRAAAAH!"

The golem roared for the first time. No real damage had gotten through, but it was more than enough to set the thing off. Relentlessly beating on a single sore spot was proving remarkably effective. Enraged, the golem charged at us with a ferocity it hadn't shown before, hauling its massive body forward like a bull in full stampede. It was an impressive sight.

Dana and the tank adventurer, still channeling their Taunt, collided with the golem head-on. The vanguard held — for a moment. But the golem's strength was overwhelming, and they started getting pushed back. At this rate, the adventurers would be wiped out before I even reached the hole.

The golem wasn't done. It started swinging its fists. Just holding back that weight was already too much — and now it was throwing punches. Dana caught a fist on her shield. The surrounding adventurers kept attacking, but the golem seemed determined to deal with the two in front of it first.

Dana, unable to hold the blow, took the fist clean. She went flying, blood trailing behind her.

"Dana!"

But she was on her feet again in an instant.

"Heheheh."

And she was smiling. A strange, unsettling little smile. Her trait had activated.

Dana launched herself at the golem.

"What kind of strength is that?"

The adventurer who'd been holding the line stared in shock. The moment Dana rejoined him, the golem started getting pushed back, inch by inch. We were good.

"Faran, I'm counting on you."

"Yes."

Faran would be coming into the hole with me. There was no telling what kind of traps might be waiting inside.

The moment we stepped through, a pitch-black room swallowed us — not a sliver of light reached this place.

"Can't see a thing."

Faran immediately lit a magical lantern, and the glow revealed a control device sitting in the center of the room. She checked for traps first.

"Fortunately, there don't appear to be any traps."

"Perfect."

The control device sat atop a waist-high pillar, a rounded housing wrapped around the Stone of Domination. Smash the device, pull out the stone, and the golem outside would stop.

I swung my sword at the control device. It shattered. Through the broken casing, I could see the Stone of Domination I'd come for. I snatched it up and tucked it into my coat.

"That should do it."

Thanks to Dana, this had gone a lot more smoothly than I'd expected. Without her, someone probably would have had to die for us to pull this off.

We climbed back out of the hole and returned to the chamber where the adventurers were waiting. The Bio-Golem was on its knees, head bowed. It had shut down.

"You actually took that golem down..."

The adventurers stared at me, dumbfounded. They'd gone along with me reluctantly, but they clearly hadn't believed I'd actually pull it off.

"Thank you. We owe you our lives. You're our savior."

‍‍‌‌⁠​​⁠‌​​‍​​‍​‌​⁠‍‌‍⁠⁠‌⁠‌‍‌‍‌‌‌‍⁠​‌​‌​‌‍‌‌‌⁠‍​​‌‍⁠‌‌⁠⁠

"Wow, I really thought we were done for. If it weren't for Young Master Gilbert, we'd be dead."

The adventurers who'd been sitting on the floor, tension draining out of them, got to their feet and came to greet me. They kept heaping praise on me until I was actually starting to get embarrassed. At this rate they were going to talk me up so much I'd start believing it myself. Time to shut this down.

"Alright, alright. I know you're all exhausted, but let's go collect this dungeon's treasure."

The moment the golem fell, a ‍‍‌‌⁠​​⁠‌​​‍​​‍​‌​⁠‍‌‍⁠⁠‌⁠‌‍‌‍‌‌‌‍⁠​‌​‌​‌‍‌‌‌⁠‍​​‌‍⁠‌‌⁠⁠door we'd never seen before appeared. The treasure vault, most likely. The adventurers and I passed through it into a new chamber — and there it was. Money and items, piled high.

"Whoa! Jackpot!"

The adventurers gawked at the heaps of coin, and I could tell they were already calculating their share. Under the original contract, every last bit of the dungeon's loot belonged to me. In exchange, I'd agreed to pay them a performance bonus based on the value of the haul. I didn't care about the money — I only wanted the items — but a contract was a contract, and I intended to honor it properly.

"Then let's gather it up. Don't worry about your cut — I'll make sure you're well compensated."

At that, the adventurers started collecting the loot without a word ‍‍‌‌⁠​​⁠‌​​‍​​‍​‌​⁠‍‌‍⁠⁠‌⁠‌‍‌‍‌‌‌‍⁠​‌​‌​‌‍‌‌‌⁠‍​​‌‍⁠‌‌⁠⁠of complaint. Once everything was packed up, we headed back to the capital.

Back in the capital, I settled up with the adventurers on the spot and headed home.

"Nothing beats home."

"You've worked hard, Young Master."

They weren't kidding when they said leaving the house is nothing but misery.

"Why's it so chaotic around here?"

Coming home after so long, I spotted faces I'd never seen before.

"I believe the guests who've come to the capital for the upcoming Hero summoning ritual have arrived."

"Ah, right. That was happening."

Agnes Magic Kingdom had decided to throw a festival to coincide with the Hero summoning ritual. On top of that, they were recruiting companions for the Hero, so people from all across the Alliance had poured into the capital.

"It appears the Rupert Ducal House — the Madam's family — has just arrived."

My mother, Vivian Gilbert, originally hailed from the Rupert Ducal House of the Orville Empire.

"Huh?"

"Is something the matter, Young Master?"

I'd been heading to my father's study to let him know I was home when I ran into the people from House Rupert. My eyes met those of a girl among them. Her gaze was so ice-cold that I found myself using Psychology Check before I even realized it.

Her inner thoughts surfaced.

Who are you going to kill?