Chapter 136

Chapter 136

Dorothy had the appearance of a lovely young girl, and her actions and words were just like those of someone begging for their life. Damian had seen this many times on the battlefield.

That’s why he could recognize how human-like Dorothy’s behavior was.

But Casey was different.

He walked past the visibly shaken Damian, ran towards Dorothy, and kicked her in the chest, knocking her down.

“Argh!” Dorothy screamed and fell backward.

Casey looked back at Damian and said sharply, “This is an act. Don’t listen to her.”

Then, he pulled out the military knife from Damian’s waist and, without hesitation, slashed Dorothy’s chest.

“Aaargh! No! It hurts! Stop it! It hurts!”

As Dorothy struggled and resisted, Damian, finally snapping out of it, grabbed her arms to restrain her. Casey, who was now on top of Dorothy, moved without hesitation.

He rummaged inside Dorothy’s chest, found something, grabbed it, and pulled it out.

Then, Dorothy suddenly went limp like a marionette with its strings cut. In Casey’s hand was a faintly glowing magic stone.

Heat emanated from Casey’s hand, and flames engulfed the magic stone. The flames blazed along with his hand until the magic stone turned to black ash, and then they subsided. Casey carelessly brushed off the ashes.

Damian, finally relieved of his tension, let out a deep sigh and looked around. He could sense people gathering and loitering nearby, drawn by the gunshots, the sounds of fighting, and the screams.

He fired a shot into the air. Some of the onlookers screamed. Damian deliberately spoke to them in a harsh voice.

“Done watching? Get lost.”

At his harsh words, the people scattered. Casey whistled lightly.

“Damian, you’re good at this. I’m always busy running away. But what if those people report it to the police?”

Damian scoffed coldly at his concern.

“Don’t worry. In a place like this, a girl’s death is nothing. Even if the police come, there’s nothing they can do.”

Despite saying so, he felt disgusted.

“And we’re going to get rid of the evidence now. Can you burn it now? Since she’s… dead.”

Damian pointed at Dorothy’s body, and Casey nodded. As Dorothy’s body went up in flames, Damian asked, “This is also a golem… right?”

“That’s right.”

“What’s a Dorothy type?”

“A golem that looks like this.”

Damian tilted his head.

“Are there other golems that look exactly like her?”

“Yes. The golems Seidel creates come in various forms, not just crows, but other animals, and even humans. That’s what he’s good at. But the Dorothy type golem is special among them.”

Casey, after confirming that Dorothy had completely turned to ashes, dusted himself off and stood up.

“He created it to counter me. A girl with silver curly hair and red eyes. He imbued her entire body with fire resistance using magic, and the magic stone can’t be destroyed by external impact. You have to cut open her chest and take it out directly. She specializes in long-range fire attacks, so it’s quite troublesome for me, as I’m weak in close combat.”

“Why Dorothy?”

“I don’t know that. She just calls herself Dorothy.”

“Hmm… I see. Let’s get out of here once we’ve cleaned up the traces.”

Damian and Casey walked through the alleyways before the commotion could escalate. On their way back home, Casey continued his explanation.

“Among the golems that attacked us in Edenfallen, there were ten Dorothys. We were completely overwhelmed. It’s fortunate there was only one today.”

Damian tilted his head and asked, “But if they want to capture you or cause us trouble, they can just make more golems, right? Why was there only one Dorothy here?”

“Oh, it’s not that easy to make and control golems,” Casey said, waving his hand dismissively.

“Even Seidel has a limit to how many golems he can operate at once. Golems move with the magic power of the wizard who controls them, right? That means to control multiple golems, he needs a lot of magic power to distribute. Since a wizard’s magic power isn’t infinite, the number of golems a single human can control isn’t that many.”

“Then how many can he control at once?”

“I don’t know that either. When they attacked us in Edenfallen, there were ten Dorothy types, and then there were the wolf types… how many were there? I don’t remember exactly, but it wasn’t that many. Considering that they’ve never appeared in numbers greater than that, I guess that’s the maximum. And golems with multiple layers of magic like the Dorothy type consume more magic power than other golems. So the Dorothy type doesn’t appear that often.”

Damian breathed a sigh of relief at his words.

“Even if they’re like that, it seems manageable to deal with ten of them if we’re well prepared. Honestly, I was a bit worried at first.”

“About what?”

“If he could create an infinite number of golems, that would mean he could create an infinite army. An army that doesn’t eat, drink, get tired, and absolutely obeys orders.”

Damian shook his head.

“Just imagining it is terrifying.”

“Anyway, Seidel isn’t invincible. If Damian does his job well, we can defeat him.”

“…I’ll do my best.”

Though he hadn’t meant to, Damian felt pressured by Casey’s words and gave a hollow laugh.

“And don’t be fooled by golems,” Casey said in a stern voice, wagging his index finger.

“You were fooled earlier, Damian. Dorothy’s crying, begging, and acting pitiful were all an act. It’s nothing more than a behavioral pattern engraved in her magic formula. Golems don’t have hearts. They’re just dolls. Dolls that move according to the wizard’s will.”

Earlier, when Dorothy was screaming and begging, Damian felt suffocated. The horrible scenes he had witnessed on the battlefield overlapped, and his resolve wavered unconsciously.

Casey had a stern expression on his face.

“Don’t pity objects.”

“Okay.”

Damian nodded with difficulty. But despite hearing Casey’s words, Dorothy’s screams wouldn’t leave his mind.

She was a lovely, fragile-looking girl, and her appearance and actions were exactly like those of a real person. Even if she was a golem, the thought of killing something like that made him nauseous.

“Anyway, it wasn’t entirely fruitless. We rendered one of Seidel’s workshops useless and killed a Dorothy. I hope this will hinder his golem production for a while…”

Although it was a shame they couldn’t capture Seidel, Casey seemed satisfied with this much. Damian also hadn’t expected to capture Seidel, so he agreed with Casey’s words.

“Ah, that was tiring. Let’s go home and have a late-night snack. A snack.”

Casey, who was dirty from rolling around on the ground and getting into a fight, said with a bright smile. Damian chuckled at his cheerful demeanor.

***

When Damian and Casey returned home, Lilliana, who seemed to have been waiting for them without sleeping, jumped up from the sofa.

“Brother! Damian! Are you okay?”

“Yes, I’m fine,” Damian nodded, but his appearance was quite disheveled. It was thanks to rolling around with Dorothy on the dirty ground.

Lilliana looked at him with a distrustful expression.

“This is… I just fell down a bit.”

“Liar.”

Lilliana approached Casey and Damian and patted them down, checking for any other injuries.

“So we’re fine…” Casey grumbled, but Lilliana carefully examined them and only moved away after confirming that there were no serious injuries. She pointed towards the stairs with a stern expression.

“Go wash up, and then tell me everything that happened at the place Soliel told you about, from beginning to end.”

“Lilliana.”

“Why? If you’re going to say it’s a secret again, I’ll be angry.”

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