The Author's POV

341 Taking the initiative [1]

Halting his steps in front of a large metallic door, the guard paused for a moment.

Placing his small blue hand by the side of the door, the metallic structure rumbled and slowly opened up.

Rumble-

Once the door was halfway open, the guard started talking.

"This over here is the artifact testing area. As you're probably aware, this place is dedicated to testing artifacts and their power."

"Oh? I've heard of this place."

Walking into the room, I pretended to be unamused by what I saw.

In truth, I was beyond shocked. With all sorts of complex machinery around the room, duergars could be seen testing all sorts of artifacts.

BANG-

Covered in sophisticated equipment, the duergars tested weird-looking artifacts against some sort of odd machinery. Displayed on the machine was all sorts of data which other duergars looked at by the side, taking notes on their holographic- looking devices.

Some of the artifacts were so powerful that I could sense the mana in the air convering towards it.

Keeping a straight face had never been more difficult for me.

'...I wonder if I can steal them.'

I thought to myself.

Oddly enough, that was the first thing I thought as I looked at the artifacts. I couldn't be blamed though.

Each one of the artifacts present would sell for astronomical prices back in the human domain.

To be honest, the probability of me being able to steal them was low, but a man could dream, right?

'Mhm... Actually, it's not impossible for me to steal them...'

A wild thought suddenly entered my mind.

If everything proceeded as planned, then, perhaps, I may be able to take some of the stuff here.

having, standing next to me, the guard patted

some

"Rhimestone?"

my brow in mild

I remember, Rhimestone was an incredibly sturdy

was also ridiculously

finger across the wall, the

worry about the facility if the artifacts ever do malfunction. The walls over

they didn't

my best to memorize the layout of

to be

isolated from the

answer, I could probably

greed. This place

whether the mana fluctuations

"Yea."

it. In that case, no. Everything in this place is completely

corner of the room, where a lone

density reaches a certain level, it will

a chance to flee? I assume

die. We don't want to take any risks. For better or worse, everyone here knows how the system works

guard's eyes as he looked at the researchers

end up surviving, the system will deactivate as soon as it judges that the mana density in

"...I see."

quite ruthless

go outside of

to the people here, I did feel that Inferno had taken

sacrifice their own, after

to

actually quite useful

that I had previously envisioned became

to

me, moving towards the door

last glance

"Yes."