The group retreated back to the portal that had remained after their journey to the power room of the System. After they returned to the dormitory, they spent a few hours checking the area and making sure that no spider monsters had crept into the area during the time they were away. This was something that Ethan insisted on, to make sure that monsters didn’t ruin all of their hard work - and Alice was inclined to agree that it was a good idea. While the more combat-ready members of the group secured the area again, Alice worked on creating her own map of the System. The one present within the portal enchantment was too unfriendly to users. She hadn’t seen very much of the System yet, but it felt more easier to understand where they were in relation to the rest of the System once she had a basic map framework to reference.
After the combat ready group members finished clearing out a few stray monsters that had moved back into the area, Alice changed the teleportation coordinates to target one of the other important-seeming areas of the map. After she set the teleportation coordinates, they opened the portal again and hopped through it.
Much like the first targeted area that Alice had chosen, the rooms the group passed by along the way were filled with ruined traps and dismantled safety features. However, that started to change as the group got closer to their destination.
Instead of empty corridors and half-eaten traps, Alice started to see large quantities of monster carcasses. Most surprisingly of all, some of the monster carcasses were fresh - which Alice certainly hadn’t expected. Monster corpses hadn’t been very common in the rest of the System - likely because monsters were either burnt to a crisp, meaning their remains were rather small, or because other monsters may have eaten their corpses, since monster corpses had plenty of mana in them. Alice hadn’t thought this area would be any different - after all, there was no reason why monsters would stop gnawing on the carcasses of their fallen brethren.
In other words, these monsters had died recently enough that nearby monsters hadn’t stumbled across them yet. That alerted Alice more than any other oddity. Something was unusual here. She felt a strange mixture of surprise and expectation as they continued through the corridors, where they encountered increasing numbers of carcasses.
On one hand, this wasn’t a good thing. It meant that the group might once again encounter an impenetrable wall of spider monsters, which was a terrifying prospect. It meant that they might have no real chance to fight for control over the room, or they might be in serious danger. That was concerning - Alice needed an opportunity to hit Immortality, and if every important destination was too hard for them to retake, she would need to take a slower route by grinding experience points in weaker areas of the System. That was far from ideal, when every minute cost lives for the humans of this world. A wall of monsters would be one of the greatest disasters the group could encounter right now.
On the other hand, Alice felt that encountering monster carcasses wasn’t entirely a bad thing. After all, if there were a lot of monsters still active in this area, it also meant that the room they were heading towards might not be ruined yet. The less damage there was to the room they were heading towards, the less effort it would take to fix it up after clearing out the monsters.
It also meant that there would be more materials laying around. Doll hadn’t finished gathering all of the materials she needed to replicate the System’s base material yet - they were still short eight materials and a few processing methods. If the room they were heading towards was mostly intact, it might not require much outside material at all to fix. That would give Doll some time to replace more materials while Alice fixed the room - which would be the most effective use of all available research manpower.
As Alice’s thoughts and plans swirled around her skull, the group finally reached the end of the corridor. Allira used her shadows to scout around the corner of the hallway leading to their destination, before she frowned.
“The room ahead is filled with monsters, but they’re busy. We can probably poke our heads around the corner safely - even though the number of monsters is quite high, this might be one of the safest rooms in the System.”
Alice had no idea what to make of Allira’s statements, so she poked her head around the corner and took a look at the room she wanted to investigate.
The room clearly wasn’t a power source for the System, or anything even remotely similar to a power source. Instead, upon glancing at the room, Alice resisted the urge to start cackling madly.
This room looked kind of like a sci-fi drone factory. Alice could see dozens of half-assembled golems laying about the room, like the production facility for some futuristic society.
What was far more surprising was the fact that plenty of golems weren’t half-assembled. They were clearly fully assembled, and they were moving around the room with the agility and coordination of humans. Even more surprisingly, a few of the golems were equipped with weapons, and they were fighting back against the horde of monsters rampaging through the production facility.
Most of the armed golems that Alice could see were shaped like metal insects - they had plenty of legs, and then their mandibles were replaced with equipment that looked like mining picks and collection bags. Some of them were also spraying various kinds of liquid at the monstrous spiders, to varying effects. A few of the golem-insects were spraying acid at the spiders, which didn’t seem to do much, while others sprayed some kind of liquid at the monster spiders that frozen seconds after leaving the nozzles of the golems. It only took Alice a few seconds to realize why the System had weapon-wielding golems.
The System was constantly mining this area for more resources, it was inevitable that some materials were blocked off by monster nests. Even though the System obviously preferred to sneak by these monsters, take the materials, and then retreat, it also clearly had a backup plan for if there was a monster nest that couldn’t be evicted. That was likely the purpose of the weapon-wielding golems - to clear out monsters when stealth failed.
Unfortunately, the weapon-wielding golems made up about half of the total golems moving in the room. The other half were basically running in circles, trying to distract or avoid the monsters without any way to fight back against them. Even so, the swarm of golems in the room made it easy to see why Allira thought the room was safe - even though the monster density in the room was high, the density of monster carcasses was even higher.
Of course, the room had still suffered severe damage from the monster attack. Spiders were constantly besieging the assembly lines within the room, and every time the spiders managed to push through the horde of golems, they ripped a few more pieces of the assembly line apart. The weaponless golems repaired the damaged assembly lines whenever they could, but they were fighting a losing battle. The spiders were much more numerous than the golems, and despite the mechanical efficiency of the golems, they were slowly being pushed back. Even so, Alice was glad to see an example of semi-successful System resistance. This was the first time they had encountered a room where there were still fully-intact parts of the System. Even if nearly two thirds of the room had been ripped to pieces, the remaining third of the room was almost fully intact. The golems here weren’t winning their fight against the monsters, but they had held on surprisingly well.
Did you know this story is from Royal Road? Read the official version for free and support the author.
A moment later, Alice noticed something else surprising about the battle between the spider monsters and the golems. Many of the spider monsters didn’t seem to be aware of the golem monsters at all. The golems were enveloped in some kind of knockoff Perk that amplified their stealth abilities. As a result, most of the spider monsters overlooked golems until the golems attacked them - meaning the golems always had the advantage of surprise attacks. This was probably the sole reason the golems were holding out, despite the overwhelming number of monsters.
A moment later, Alice finished analyzing the situation, and then sighed. Despite the resistance of the golems, they would lose sooner or later. The monsters swarming the area seemed to be constantly reinforced by sacs of eggs that were hatching at absurd speeds in the corners of the room. Alice had no idea how fast the incubation of these spider monsters was, but she suspected it was a question of hours between when a group of spider eggs was laid and the moment it hatched more combatants. It was no wonder that the System had fallen - with such a ridiculous reproduction rate, it must have been a nightmare for the System to try to fight off this endless tide of hungry teeth and legs.
Moreover, just like other places in the System, the spider horde had unusually powerful monsters. There were a few third evolution monsters, but nothing stronger than that, thankfully - the golems must have done a good job of thinning out the stronger spiders before they could evolve into true terrors that could overturn the battlefield. Even so, the number of second evolution monsters was unusually high, especially spiders with Perks. The stronger spiders often survived the initial strikes of golems, only to attack the stealthy golems instead. Alice suspected that if the group had arrived two days later, this pocket of System resistance would have been stamped out, and they would have encountered a half-gnawed mess of ruined machinery and enchantments instead.
Alice glanced around the chaotic battle inside of the room again, before she turned towards the Immortals in the group. They were the strongest combat power they had, after all.
“I think we could win if we attack this group, right?” asked Alice. “The monsters are distracted, and while there are a good number of second evolution monsters, there aren’t many third evolution monsters. I do see a high number of Perk-wielding second evolution monsters, but the golems here should make this an easy battle.”
Ethan grinned. “I agree. This should be one of the easiest battles we’ve found so far in the System.”
Doll looked thoughtful. “The reward for winning this battle is excellent, too. I know quite a bit about golems, as you’ve probably already noticed. If we win, I can repurpose the golems in the room. Instead of us trying to repair rooms one at a time, we could figure out how the golems know the schematics for the System, then send them to repair the broken parts of the System.” She looked at the golems that were battling the monsters in the room,before Doll grinned. “You know, in addition to construction, we could also use them to help storm the power supply. An army of golems won’t totally make up for the power difference between our group and the horde of monsters in the power supply room, but it would certainly make things easier.”
Alice thought about Doll’s words, and then cackled.
“What if you set up all of the golems with copies of your light-cannon, and then I supercharge all of the light beams with strings of belief mana?” Said Alice.
Doll grinned. “I like that idea a lot.”
“These are all good ideas, but we should figure out how to actually secure this room before we figure out what to do with it,” Ethan said. “Getting overconfident before the battle starts is one of the easiest ways to walk into a disaster, even if this battle should be very manageable.”. Alice winced. She hadn’t even realized what she was doing until Ethan pointed it out, but he was right. The group had yet to secure the room - it would be silly to get overconfident and then die in a battle that should be very manageable. Just the knowledge of how useful this room could be was already enough information for now. “Allira, how many powerful monsters can you spot in this room?”
Allira started humming, and the shadows in the area squirmed and then began making their way around the room. A few moments later, Allira grinned.
“It's way less bad than I was fearing. There are only three third-evolution monsters here. The golems did a great job at thinning them out before they could evolve. If we attack them by surprise while they’re fighting the golems, I think we can wipe them out in one or two seconds before they can even respond. Most of them already look a bit injured.”
Ethan frowned. “Well, don’t forget - the last time we fought one third-evolution monster, my mother had to sacrifice her extra life for the week to deal with it. I know that isn’t really representative of overall combat power, since the extra life is a resource and it’s not very useful in most fights - but it still shows the fact that one monster can be a significant threat to us. Three of them is far more than three times as dangerous - my father could give an entire lecture on why a group of twenty enemies is several times more dangerous than a group of ten enemies.”
Alice actually found herself mildly curious about the military theory Ethan had mentioned, but shut the thought down.
“Doll and I will use her light blast to hit the three third evolution monsters, to try to kill them off before the monsters notice us. Can you three mop up the room afterwards?” Alice asked.
“Sounds like a plan,” said Ethan.
“Doll, active the light switch when Ethan, Myra, and Allira are ready,” Alice finally said.
The group confirmed their final preparations for the battle, and then Doll hit the switch.
Just like the last time Doll had used her special laser-pointer esque cannon, Alice used her belief mana manipulation to amplify the light as much as possible. A stomach-churningly bright blast of light lit up the entire room like the first wave of a nuclear bomb.
Just like Alice had hoped for, one of the dangerous shadow spiders immediately screeched in severe pain after the room was blasted with light. It looked like it had been thrown into a vat of high-strength acid - parts of its flesh and bones had melted like wax under the light.
The second spider reacted much faster. Somehow, the creature seemed to shift out of the way before Alice even amplified the light, and ducked under a nearby conveyer belt. The third spider used a Perk to dance out of the way entirely - it looked like it had used some kind of Perk similar to Alice’s {Adrenaline Rush}. At speeds none of the other spiders had ever managed to reach, the spider nearly teleported into the group before Ethan managed to hit it with a blast of lightning magic. A moment later, Doll tried to fry it with her light cannon, but the spider danced into the shadows, before fading out of sight.
Alice grimaced.
One of the three biggest threats in the room had been killed, but the other two were still alive and well. And now, the rest of the spiders in the room had noticed them.
Scheduling Notice for the rest of the year: Those of you who have been around for a while probably already know this, but I take the last week of each year and the first week of each new year off as vacation time. Basically, the week of Christmas and the week of New Year’s. This year I intend to do the same thing as usual. I will also be taking the day of Thanksgiving off, since I live in the US and I’d like to spend some time with my family and eat some turkey. As a result:
On November 27th, there will be no Markets chapter, for those of you reading my other story. Expect two chapters for that week, not three. For those of you who only read Budding Scientist, expect little change that week.
Then, from December 19th to January 5th, I will be on vacation for the year. First Budding Scientist chapter for next year will probably be up on January 9th, unless I see a reason to make some kind of scheduling change to what days of the week I release chapters. I currently tend to release chapters on Friday, but I might swap this date if I feel a need to do so. I don’t think I will, but just as a forewarning - I do sometimes make changes to how I schedule things or arrange my schedule during my vacation. Vacation is a good time to look at my schedule, my plotlines for each story, and spend some time thinking about what I need and what my stories need without the time pressure of ‘gotta release another chapter soon.’ I have no idea whether I’ll actually implement any changes, just noting that some might happen. Anyway, you get the general idea.
Join my ! (I’m at least sometimes active there, while I admit that I don’t generally check the comments section. I’m not very active anywhere, though - writers are antisocial people, okay!)
Shameless plug - you can read up to 3 chapters ahead on Patreon for $3!
