CHAPTER 11
THE DUNGEON PLAN
Hans answered with well-formed words and left his friends, except for dragging Vanir along with him. Dumbfounded, Vanir asked, “So, am I in your money plan, senior—”
“Of course, you are my minion,” said Hans.
“That doesn’t sound good…but okay.” Vanir paused, and after a brief moment, he asked, “So what are we going to do…500,000 G is heck a lot of money.”
“I know, too, Vanir. But it’s what we need it to entice people.” Hans answered.
“What are we selling then?” Vanir questioned.
“Hope.” Hans stressed. “We are going to scam others blind, and they will happily get robbed.”
“Aren’t you little too young to run a gambling den?”
“Gambling den? Why didn’t I think of that?” Hans said puzzled, and then corrected Vanir’s far off thinking, “I’ll explain later, but first we need to rent a lot of Golem creation books from the Task hall.”
However, there was a major flaw in his plan, and he was starting to realize it now. He wasn’t allowed in that area as a second-year student. But since everyone knew who he was, he did not shy away from using Rudolf.
“Grandpa, just for a month. I need these for a month.” He pleaded to refusing Rudolf, “I have the money, just bring it to me—”
“Not before you tell me where the money is from.” Rudolf shook his head, continuing, “Arat said he didn’t give you any. So where is it from? Don’t tell me you manipulated Aredhel’s daughter—”
“Gramps, she is not someone I can manipulate.”
“That’s true. Then who gave it to you?”
“Just trust me on this. I didn’t do any shady thing to acquire this and I’m going to return it back so just bring those books for me. Please.”
Rudolf glanced at Vanir, and intimidated him, but Hans’s minion replied like a loyal subordinate. “I’m not snitching.”
If Rudolf wanted, he could easily find the source, but he thought, even if Hans causes trouble, it was not his damn business from now on. “Fine, it’s Arat’s mess to solve anyway.” He mumbled and asked, “Give me that damn list and the money.”
Rudolf quickly delivered the stack of books to Hans’s quarters in Prophets Castle. Hans and Vanir were eagerly waiting for him. “You have a month, so take your time and do whatever you need to do within that time. If you don’t want to make any recurring payments, stick to the deadline.”
Vanir didn’t questioned much and did whatever Hans pointed. His job was to figure out how to turn the entire land into a giant Golem and design a power source so it can sustain on its own. It was a task only doable by several high ranking mages, but Hans knew it fell well on Vanir’s capabilities. His minion was a genius and he planned to use him thoroughly.
Whereas he dwelled deep in his book of Power. The previous spells of Limitless was still present in them with some additional text.
Quickly skimming to the WoodGolem page, he found out that if he replicated the seed of Day to some extent and used as the core for his wood Golems. He could create an entity similar to Treants. And the best part? These golems could handle complex commands, unlike the ones he made during Xandor’s attack on Grimgar.
With Vanir’s creativity in tweaking spells and magic formula, on top of Hans’s recreation ability. They came up with an undying army capable of sustaining by themselves. Since half of the Grimgar could recognise these green heroes who saved them from undead. Vanir devised a way of mixing various elements like ground and fire to mutate the woodGolems so none can say these were Hans’s iconic creations.
“You are really something, junior.” Hans praised Vanir for his extra modifications, not knowing that Vanir was declining the apprenticeship invitations from several units of Concordia, and even from Clandor royalty so he could stick to Hans.
You could be reading stolen content. Head to the original site for the genuine story.
“Senior, you better not discard me. EVER.” He stressed as he finished the modification of Space connectors.
“Of course. As long as you don’t backstab me. EVER.” Hans responded imitating him.
“That’s not going to happen. We’ll be together for a very very long time.”
“Quit yapping and lets construct this.” Hans pointed to the several space generation artefacts.
“But senior, you do have the permission to conduct this experiment here. Don’t you? If things went wrong. We might end up opening a space hole here and this whole man-eating forest… no whole Agrilands would be sent to god knows where.”
“Have your modifications failed, ever, junior—”
“No, but.” Vanir interrupted.
“Then have faith in yourself.” Hans said, imitating a tone of a confident leader.
Vanir sighed; he was confident, but the stakes were very high. He turned to look at the other person beside them. “Then who is he? He is just staring at us for a while. He won’t report us, is he?”
“Oh! That’s the chairman of Concordia. He is just here because he was curious.”
“Holy shit!” Vanir fell to his bottoms and flustered. He grumbled, “Not even directors know him. Just how high is your reach?” Vanir started speaking nonsense as he always did when he couldn’t grasp the situation.
“Let’s not tell him we are related. Or else his mumbling won’t stop.” Hans laughed inside and smacked Vanir’s head, “Get your mouth together, junior.”
“But why is he here?” Vanir whispered, stealing glances at Dietrich. A young and lean man with fluttering black hair, he didn’t give the feeling of a chairman. “Didn’t someone dupe you?”
“Shut up, Vanir.” Hans smacked his head again, “He is the real deal.”
“Then why is he here?” Vanir continued whispering.
Sighing Hans pointed at the space creation equipment, “The manual says, not for children and what we are?”
“Children!” Vanir answered promptly.
“So who do you think brought this here.” Hans pointed at Dietrich.
“Chairman…” Vanir answered, puzzled.
“See, you understand everything.” Hans smiled.
“But why?” Vanir whined.
“Cause I had no adult around who would support this madness.” Hans said covering Vanir’s mouth and continued, “Just show him that it works so he can declare this area as forbidden region.”
Vanir had a lot of questions, but he followed Hans’s words and set up the artefact. “Coordinate senior?” He asked for input and Hans filled the numbers. “Cross your fingers, senior—”
“Heck, just press it you coward.” Hans pushed him ahead and confidently said, “You won’t fail anyways and he is here to take care if anything went wrong.”
“Here we go then.” Vanir connected the power source and flipped the switch. “Tak! Tak! Tak!” The metallic ring, which was lay horizontal before, began to rise by the side hinges and stabilised itself vertically. Soon it began to power up and the smokey lights started to shine inside.
“It looks stable.” Vanir rejoiced and asked, “The area is locked of space…no for any type of trespassing….woah. The lock runes are no joke, senior. It would take me…hmm… at least a month to crack. Or two —”
“How sure are you?” Instead of Hans, the lean man from behind asked Vanir. He was curious as to how a brat wet behind his ears are going to break his lock. But Vanir came to several theories that could break his runes with chain reactions. He just needed time to optimise it.
Surprised by Vanir, Dietrich whispered to Hans, “He is one heck of a treasure. Keep him well.”
“I know.” Hans said, proud and threw Vanir the runes to unlock the Mystic Glades. “ I have the key. Lets go.” Hans dragged Vanir by the collar and jumped inside the ring.
He and Vanir materialised in a blink, finding themselves in a moist, cold forest. The air was thick with a damp chill, and the density of the foliage blocked even the sun's attempts to penetrate the canopy. It was a two-star beast zone, but an eerie silence prevailed, as if the usual hum of fauna had been erased.
“Aren’t the Chairman going to follow us in?” Vanir asked as he surveyed the new environment.
“Don’t know?” Hans replied indifferently. Hans knew how laidback Dietrich was so he wasn’t surprised to not see him here.
“Hmm. Okay.” Vanir hushed in the stillness, “There are no beasts or even normal animals here.”
"Explains why the trees are overgrowing without any natural checks." Hans said in response. The towering trees loomed above, their branches twisted in a chaotic forms as if reclaiming the land, yet the absence of the usual sounds of wildlife left an unsettling void there.
“Well, it works in our favour, Vanir.” Hans continued, looking right and left.
“Senior…” Vanir responded in a hushed voice, and asked, “Mind telling me, how this would earn you money.”
“Listen closely then, my minion. We will..not we particular, but our Golems would rob others here—”
“I don’t think it will work, senior. Why would anyone come here to get robbed?” Vanir questioned, and he had a point, so Hans explained by emptying out his coffers. He had made Rudolf exchange the rest of his money into Mana stones and gems and pointed out, “This is the bait.”
Vanir understood the gist, “So your plan is to attract people by giving them illusion of wealth they can claim if they explore this forest, right?”
“See, you are smart. Then shall we—”
“But we have a tiny problem, senior.” Vanir mentioned, “The Golems I have modified, fortunately they doesn’t look like yours and good at combat, but they aren’t that intelligent to make swift decisions. If somehow they killed anyone here. More powerful people will come and destroy this, watchamcallit, dungeon.”
“We need Cognitive cores for that, and your savings won’t even come close to buying one—“
“Leave the Cognitive part to me, junior. Just make sure to design them as tough as nails.” Hans said, and Vanir got to work setting up the gems and stone for Hans to create the army.
Hans combined the mana gems with the copied seed of Day. Soon, a bunch of Golems made of stone and plants appeared. The copied seed of Day wasn’t exactly like what Hans had eaten, but it was enough for the Golems to survive and make decisions based on Hans’s wishes.
“Alright, let’s bring in some guests, shall we?” He grinned wickedly. It was time to kick off the second part of his scheme.
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