Chapter 565: Autonomous Thinking Puppets

Around the time Tauro completed his fourteenth puppet golem in the forest, Ragune , who had been on an errand to the dragon-people village, returned via the Dimensional Corridor.

“Welcome back, Ragune. Were you able to get them?” Tauro asked immediately.

“Yes. When I told them you wanted the items, they brought out all their stock from the back of the warehouse.”

Ragune replied, and then pulled out a pile of lumps made of materials from the dungeon —amorphous lumps of unknown purpose—and stacked them on the ground.

“That’s more than I expected!” Tauro said happily.

“This is about the limit of my magic storage capacity. Is it enough?” Ragune asked, resting a hand on the pile.

“Yes, this is plenty. With this, it should be easy to create three humanoid puppets using the remaining three cores. I think I can use the remaining material to reinforce the others. Thanks, Ragune.”

Tauro immediately separated enough material for a single human-sized figure.

“You’re making them human-sized? About the same size as us?” Aeris asked with interest.

“Yeah. If they’re too big, they’ll stand out. If they’re about the same size as us, they can be used for scouting. And since this dungeon material is tougher than the stone golems, they should be even more durable. Also… until now, Pella has been protecting me—but attacks like the shockwaves from the Guardian Stone Golems can pierce defensive magic. Even Pella might take damage from something like that. so I thought it would be good if I could make a doll that could act as a shield instead.”

Tauro had come up with the idea to create it after experiencing firsthand the power of the shockwave, an attack strong enough to break through the defensive magic of his comrades.

Pela dropped its disguise and climbed onto Tauro’s shoulder, nuzzling him on the cheeks.

“…That’s true. Even though Pella has strong resistance to both physical and magical attacks, there’s no guarantee that she won’t take damage from a powerful attack.” Aeris agreed, gently stroking Pella. 

“Yeah. Those shockwaves were monstrous. If we took a direct hit, who knows what would’ve happened.” Ankh shudders as he remembers the battle in the underground temple.

“All right then—I’ll start shaping this into a human form. Any preferences?”

“““Preferences?””””

The group blinked in confusion.

“For example—male, female, child, demi-human… I can shape them into whatever feels most approachable.”

“Oh, I get it! Considering its intended use, wouldn’t it be better to make it a child-type to make it harder to notice?” Ankh suggested.

“But wouldn’t that make it fragile?” Ragune questioned.

“It may be good for scouting, but I feel like it might be useless in combat” Zion added thoughtfully, she knew from experience that size and weight were important in battle.

“Still, it’s made from tough dungeon material, right? It should be fine. How about this—make one specialized child-type for scouting, and The remaining two should be adult male and female types for general combat use?” Aeris offered a suggestion to strike a balance between everyone’s opinions.

“That’s perfect! Let’s go with Aeris’s idea.”

Tauro nodded and pulled out the broken Guardian Stone Golem body from his magic storage. Combining it with the dungeon material, he used Creation Magic to shape a child-like humanoid form.

The area was instantly lit up with the light of creation magic, but the light quickly died down.

When it faded, the massive stone golem was gone.

In its place lay a mannequin-like boy-shaped puppet formed from the mysterious material. Its face had simple eyes and a nose but lacked detail; it had no hair, making it look like a mannequin. Embedded in its chest was the shockwave-emitting mechanism originally mounted on the stone golem’s shoulders.

“…Phew. First stage complete.”

Tauro seemed to have lost a lot of his magical power; he looked exhausted as he wiped the sweat from his forehead, and downed a mana recovery potion.

“Wait, it’s not finished?” Ankh asked.

“I don’t have infinite mana that I can complete it in one go, and Creation Magic isn’t omnipotent either. So, I’m completing it in stages—like Aeris suggested.”

Smiling faintly, Tauro took out the Core from magic storage.

“That’s the special one you made from the two broken Guardian Stone Golem cores, right?” Aeris recognized it instantly.

“Yeah. I was saving this for something important.”

Tauro replied. Placing his left hand on the puppet’s abdomen and holding the 『Core』 in his right hand, he used creation magic again.

Again, Light enveloped the puppet briefly—then vanished.

The core had disappeared from Tauro’s hand.

“…All right.”

Tauro said this briefly and stood up.

　Then the child-shaped doll smoothly rose to its feet as well.

“Looks like it worked. I can share vision with it… Huh? W-What is this…? Amazing… This puppet seems capable of fairly complex thought. Is this what you’d call an autonomous thinking puppet?”

Tauro’s eyes widened as he appraised it with True Eye.

The child puppet bowed politely to Aeris and the others—then knelt before Tauro personally, a gesture of loyalty.

“Whoa, are you serious, Leader? When you remade that core, what exactly were you imagining?” Ankh asks Tauro in shock.

“Hmm…Come to think of it, I might’ve pictured an autonomous robot that I saw in an anime back then… But I never thought it would actually take shape…”

Tauro had unknowingly drawn on memories from his previous life while crafting the core.

“Anime? Autonomous thinking… what?” Ankh blinked, completely lost.

The others looked equally puzzled.

“…Haha. Anyway, it seems to have been a success, so I’ll go ahead and make the remaining two.”

Brushing off the confusion, Tauro drank more mana recovery potion and proceeded to create the adult male and female versions as well.