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.

the thoughts I was having, standing next to

some solid safety. This way, our researchers

"Rhimestone?"

my brow

I remember, Rhimestone was an incredibly sturdy

also

his finger across the wall, the guard nodded

made of Rhimestone. Because of it, we don't have to worry about the facility if the artifacts ever do malfunction. The walls

if they didn't

to memorize the layout of the

place might turn out to be more useful than I

isolated from the

his answer, I could probably make up

no longer a matter of greed.

Are you asking whether the mana fluctuations

"Yea."

no. Everything in this place is completely isolated. Take a

pointed towards the corner of the

the mana density in the room. When the mana density reaches a certain level, it will trigger a defensive mechanism and activate the security

Do they have a chance to

and probably die. We don't want to take any risks. For

eyes as he

the system will deactivate as soon as it judges that the mana density

"...I see."

quite ruthless

make sure the threat would not go outside of the room, they

didn't really care about what happened to the people here, I

ready to sacrifice their own, after

a pity to

actually quite useful

had previously envisioned became

go to the

called out to me, moving towards the door of

glance at the

"Yes."