Chapter 220
Annabelle had porcelain white skin and pink hair, making her look very pure. As she sat on the rocking chair with her eyes closed, she looked like a precious kind of beauty and not one that made one lusty.
Annabelle’s appearance was just unbelievable; it really was accentuating the skills of a master craftsman. The person who had crafted her exterior was none other than Elder Golgouda. Dwarves were known to be very detail-oriented after the fairies, so it was unsurprising that he had crafted Annabelle with such intricate details.
Annabelle looked like an adult woman upon first glance. She was truly beautiful, but she was slightly different from humans.
“Sir Davey, why did you craft Rinne’s subordinate as an elf?” Rinne asked.
“It has to be an elf since it’s a golem that will go against the great elf,” Davey replied.
‘This appearance will be better for her to dig deeper.’
After hearing Davey’s explanation, Rinne silently nodded as if she now understood the situation.
Annabelle looked completely normal on the outside, but Davey did face an unexpected obstacle with her construction.
“Alright, let’s check the activation.”
Whoosh…
With a faint vibration, Annabelle slowly opened her blue eyes. Her eyes flashed pink for a second, but she quickly closed her eyes again. Then, she wrote something on a piece of paper that she had pulled out from her pocket and showed it to Davey.
[Activated. No malfunctions.]
“I’ll reform the speaking part in a little bit, so sit tight.”
[Very satisfied with the communication method. Appreciates this.]
‘I’ve heard this before…’
“Alright. Then, let’s have a simple conversation. What is your name?”
Rustle.
Annabelle wrote something down on the notepad.
[Annabelle.]
Even if she was made with extremely advanced technology, Annabelle was still a golem. Rinne had been made by technology that was not logically possible, and she also had the Deus Ex Machina (the developing mechanical heart); unlike Rinne, who developed her own mind from having that OP piece of equipment, no such thing existed for Annabelle. Even if Davey had planned her creation from months of brainstorming, he couldn’t do anything about the limits of artificial intelligence. This meant that Annabelle was only capable of passive and superficial conversations; in the end, these guys still had to leave the thinking to Rinne’s calculation abilities.
The Decepticon Fleet, which also had the major problem about artificial intelligence, improved quite a bit after connecting to Rinne’s brain and relying on her intelligence.
“Alright. Your height?”
[One hundred and sixty two centimeters.]
“Okay. Weight?”
[A woman’s weight is secret. Annabelle does not appreciate this.]
“Rinne.”
When Davey shot her a dirty look, Rinne avoided his gaze and pretended to do something else. He did use some of Rinne’s data to increase the capacity of Annabelle’s artificial intelligence, but he didn’t expect her to have transferred such useless things as well.
“R-Rinne, making an excuse that it is for my subordinate’s freedom of expression.”
“...Fine, do whatever you want. Next question. What do you like?”
Annabelle, who had a straight face while standing naked, slowly reached out her hand. She laid it on Davey’s cheek and gave a textbook smile. After stroking Davey’s cheek, she began to scribble something down on her notepad. Then, she showed Davey quietly.
There was a lot written on the paper; as Davey read the things being listed, he wondered how there were so many things on her list. Then, upon seeing something, he stopped reading and froze.
“Sir Davey?” Rinne was puzzled by Davey’s reaction.
She frowned slightly when Davey handed over that piece of paper.
[Rocking chair. Tag. Sir Davey, Sir Davey, Sir Davey, Sir Davey, Sir Davey, Sir Davey, Sir Davey… Sir Davey…]
Unexpected things had been written on the piece of paper.
“Rinne, what did you do with the artificial intelligence?”
“R-Rinne, making it clear that she did not do it! Rinne does not appreciate this! This formation of mind completely goes beyond Rinne’s expectations!” Rinne shouted with a wavering gaze.
Rinne wasn’t lying, but Davey had to wonder how Annabelle had come up with such a thing.
Perserque had been silently staring at Annabelle this entire time. She cautiously approached Davey, then spoke with a surprised tone.
-Davey, you…put a dark magic stone inside Annabelle right? One that you made by circulating your devil mana?
“No way…”
Davey denied doing that, but he did think that such a thing could have happened.
Like the regular golems in the Decepticon Fleet, about seven magic stones had been placed inside Annabelle’s body. Two of them were spirit magic stones that used spirit energy for circulation, and one was a dark magic stone that would be responsible for Annabelle’s power or intelligence so that she could use devil magic or dark magic.
This was the problem. Davey did not expect the qualities of each type of mana to be on the level of a mage in Assimilation level. The characteristics of his devil mana were quite stable and unchanging. And from what he could remember, it was safe to say that its personality was far from normal.
“...This is an unexpected finding.”
Something completely new had appeared as Rinne’s way of processing, the stone circuit plate concentrated with ancient technology, the magic stones with unique powers, and finally, Rinne’s intelligence influenced it to some extent.
‘They say there is only a slight difference between scientists and alchemists.’
-From what I see… The characteristic of the large amount of devil mana you’ve infused in her has been absorbed into her magic stone.
“Hm…”
Unlike the Decepticon Fleet, which absorbed natural mana, Davey had put in his mana to activate Annabelle so that she would be able to use a special type of mana. Even he did not expect that slight difference to yield such results.
“The combat characteristic won’t go wild, right?”
Annabelle’s output of power was at the level of around 5th or 6th Circle. That was good enough to cause a catastrophe, so Davey really hoped that she would not go crazy.
“We’re going to test your combat ability right now. Do you need anything?” Davey asked Annabelle the unnecessary question in order to activate her artificial intelligence even further.
He was puzzled by what Annabelle proceeded to ask of him.
“Why do you need this?”
* * *
There was a large forest located pretty far away from the Heins Territory. It was originally the elves’ territory, but there were now dangerous beasts camping out right in front as the perimeter of the Elves’ Forest fell short of the barrier.
The beasts could be found even just a few steps into the forest. After all, there were too many of them to take out one by one.
That day, the air felt cooler than usual.
-Kyekk!!!
[Gurk Gurk], the goblin that was part of the small village in the great forest, smiled horrendously. He stared at the carcass of the long-eared animal in his hand. This was food to feed his babies.
‘How dare this beast make the village’s best warrior work so hard?’
[Gurk Gurk] had worked hard for days and nights to catch this little creature!
[Gurk Gurk]’s babies would be waiting for him if he returned to the village right now; his babies were born from the human females he had captured from the town that he had attacked before coming to this forest.
Thinking about his babies, who would devour the entire creature, [Gurk Gurk] quickly headed back to the village with light footsteps.
[Gurk Gurk]’s village was a small one with about a hundred goblins. His village was really nothing, considering that a large village would have about two to three hundred goblins.
However, things were alright. They had settled here, a place that was considered hell by the brave and prominent leader goblins who were protecting the others and the courageous warriors. They had survived for a few weeks without any problems.
Were they truly weak to have settled and survived in a forest that other goblins, especially the leaders of large villages, feared? Absolutely not; they were beings with potential. Although they were a small village right now, they would grow bigger with time, and [Gurk Gurk] did not doubt for a second that they would become a village that the goblins would not be able to overlook.
‘We will hunt more and raid more! Then, we will crush the humans who made this forest into hell!’
With that thought in mind, [Gurk Gurk], who returned to his village with brisk footsteps, couldn’t help but feel like the cave his village was in was a little quiet.
-Kek? Kyek!
[Gurk Gurk] thought that he was one of the smart ones among the goblins; as such, he believed that he could sense the incongruity right now.
Puzzled by the cave’s strange atmosphere, [Gurk Gurk] looked around with its ugly yellow eyes and slowed down. He tightened his grip on the long-eared corpse. He soon realized that there was a strange odor that overwhelmed the normal smell of urine that came from the village. Then, he swatted the twigs that blocked his view and walked into the cave.
[Gurk Gurk] froze.
-Kyeh!!!!!!
[Gurk Gurk] was greeted by the sight of true hell. His babies, who should be squeaking and waiting for him to return, his other fellow brave goblins, and the strong leader goblin were all silent. He could also smell the odor that injured and dead goblins would give off.
Although he instinctively sensed danger, [Gurk Gurk] was blinded by anger. He was furious that someone had killed his young babies.
Splosh!! Splosh!!
[Gurk Gurk], who had frantically run into the cave, got a feeling that the cave was brighter than normal.
Creak… Creak…
Then, he heard the strange creaking of wood with his sensitive hearing. There, he saw the illuminating stones that his brave fellow goblins had gathered lying all over the floor. They had planted these in the walls of the cave, but they were now scattered all over the floor for some reason. And between the shining stones were the familiar bodies of his fellow goblins; it was a horrendous sight.
[Gurk Gurk] growled, then threateningly swung the wooden bat in his hand. He found the demon who had made his village into this disaster standing among the bodies. The culprit was definitely a human woman with long hair. She had long ears, but [Gurk Gurk] did not care. To him, the only thing that had that skin and physique were humans!
[Gurk Gurk] knew that this damn female human had killed all of his fellow goblins.
‘I am going to kill you. I will kill you and then violate you! I will make screams come out of that mouth of yours!’
As a terrifying killing aura flowed out, [Gurk Gurk], who was called the best warrior of his village, released his battle aura.
Creak…
However, the woman sitting on the rocking chair just rocked back and forth. She kept looking at the empty wall like she did not even care to look at [Gurk Gurk].
Then, something bloody fell in front of [Gurk Gurk].
-Keh… Kyeh! Kyek!!
[Gurk Gurk] picked up the piece of paper with an aggravated roar and frowned even more at the strange picture drawn on it. He didn’t know what this was, but this female human had killed his village.
‘I will kill you!’
With that in mind, [Gurk Gurk] charged at the human woman with a roar.
Crack!!
Something dark quickly flew towards [Gurk Gurk], who soon realized that he had been captured. However, he wondered…
‘Have I always been this tall?’
Then, he found a huge black figure in the cave. It was larger than the scary yellow Ogres of the forest, but its smoke-like body was very odd. The black figure had him in one hand, and his head was far from his body and dangling from something.
Only then did [Gurk Gurk] see the woman slowly approaching him with a smile. Her expression was terrifying and strange, no longer looking like the humans that he knew of.
[Gurk Gurk] hadn’t been able to read the earlier note before dying. On the note was a simple sentence that had…
[Let’s…play. Tag. I’m it.]
This message.