Death, Devotion, Dissonance

[Morton Golem, Type 10.

After five years of non-stop work, I can finally say that I was successful in creating a war golem worthy of fear and adoration. Even a single Type 10 would be an absolute nightmare to damage for normal soldiers thanks to its reinforced armor. But thanks to the Qanatohm Runes that reduce its weight, it can showcase speed that's logically impossible for a being of such mass.

Hail the Empress and her world full of bullshit!

But the biggest addition to this new version is the pulsator that we attached to the mana-core that constantly emits wave around itself that disrupts objects made with magic. I want to compare its effectiveness to ketricite, but unlike the grey stone that evaporates anything magical that it comes into contact with, the pulsator takes a bit of time.

The largest problem the team met during the development was that the rat in control wasn't able to properly show the performance expected from the machine that we've created for it.

Lately I've been falling in love with rats, as their intelligence exceeded my expectations way too many times for the past few years. Not to mention how easy it is to breed them and keep the satisfied. The other animals like dogs and cats which are arguably smarter than the rats… they have too many emotions to be of any use. They even get depressed like the slaves if we treat them too harshly. Such a waste of time and money to keep them happy and willing to cooperate.

I'm getting off topic. Long story short, the pulsator turned out to be useless because the rats couldn't use them. But this issue was quickly solved when the team decided to breed a tier-3 rat and use its brain and mana-core as the centerpiece of the golem. As you know, peak tier-3 mana-beasts already possess the ability to disrupt a mage's spells by surrounding their bodies with the seemingly endless mana that reside in their cores, so it was relatively easy for the new control unit to get used to the golem.

Thanks to all these features, the Type 10 can easily rival the strength of a fresh graduate from one of the kingdom's less prominent academies. Even some mages that don't have any hard-hitting methods would find it troublesome to deal with this golem… though they could always use a Talisman, I suppose. How boring would that be, though?

Regardless, the golem's current weaknesses are its inability to attack from range, and inability to work inside ketricite. This means that the Type 10 won't be as useful in the Southern war as His Majesty desires, but it could still be useful in dealing with minor border disputes and maybe some recon missions.

I do hope you're excited for the Type 11, which will be designed to use magic. I already have a few ideas and I can't wait to try them out.

-Professor Heim Morton.]

This note was by far the longest report Evin read so far. The more Evin read the man's writing, the more he was reminded of the Voice. He even began to wonder if the Voice was a reincarnation of the professor that appeared in his mind after a while.

This thought made it easier for him to accept that Morton was approached by the late king, the logic being that the Voice usually had good intentions, despite its questionable methods. Like the Voice itself said, Heim Morton never committed atrocities just because he wanted to. He did it to push the boundaries of human anatomy.

But this little thought wasn't what Evin was most interested in.

Seeing all the features of the Type 10, Evin couldn't help but feel a little proud in his achievements. Didn't this mean that he was basically stronger than the Academy graduates?

'What am I even doing inside the Academy in that case?' Evin thought arrogantly for a second, but he immediately pushed the thought down. Knowledge didn't necessarily translate into power, which meant that Evin would definitely learn a lot of things in the future; and the Academy was the easiest place he could obtain World Shards.

'Let's focus on the report's content. If I'm guessing correctly, Morton should've succeeded in having the Type 11 cast magic. The Type 14 I've fought was based on 11, so maybe it takes on the shape of a human now?'

Evin thought it was very likely. Perhaps there was some need for the golem to take on the shape of a human so it could cast magic. This was a far-fetched thought, so Evin wasn't going to bet anything on it, but it felt reasonable to him. Besides, he would learn why when he would meet with it, anyway, so he wasn't that worried about this matter.

<I'm starting to become worried about what kind of abilities the Type 12 and 13 would have…>

<We'll learn eventually. Let me read through the research papers and we'll continue afterwards.>

It took Evin an hour to return to his peak state, and the Voice was also finished with sifting through the research. Evin's attention was on the papers for the first few minutes, but he quickly grew bored of them. He only had to flip the pages when the Voice asked him to, while pretending to read.

Then the two got up and continued their exploration. At this point, there weren't any hidden rooms they could enter, so they just continued down the main corridor that connected all the golem rooms.

But when they entered an unexplored room, expecting to meet an enemy, they were met with a fancy-looking folded document in an otherwise empty room. Wary of traps, Evin picked the document up, and read.

[Congratulations to everyone who made it this far.

First of all, let me introduce myself: I am king Seth Arcwall of the Western Kingdom, an eternal servant to our glorious country and its people.]

The document's first two sentences absolutely blew Evin's mind.

'A letter from the king?' he thought in disbelief, before he resumed reading.

[Once again, my sincerest compliments for being able to best the Morton Type 10, which was originally intended by the late king Roland to train the rookie mages in the army. To think that there are students among the 1st years that can achieve the same… It eases my heart to see such talent in the kingdom's future.

Though I do hope that no one in your party got hurt, and even if they did, I hope the order inside the golem's control to spare the students didn't malfunction.

But I can guess that you have many questions on your mind… such as why would the late king be working with a despicable criminal like Heim Morton? Wasn't he the one who condemned the scientist to death?

I shall do my best to explain the circumstances of the story.]