Drone 1 and 7 made their way down the deep passage. Seconds turned into minutes, and minutes into hours as they searched for the iron golems. Yet, all they found were more iron deposits. What was stranger was that it was just one straight pathway. Normally, the drones would’ve encountered at least four different branching paths after walking the same amount, yet there were none.

The drones weren’t allowed to pick a fight with possible golems hiding in the walls either. They were tasks with finding where the golems were running off to, that meant moving down the passageway no matter how far it would take, unless Custodian ordered otherwise.

“Just to be clear, I’m not allowed to fight unless you confirm that you cannot beat the inorganic entities, is this correct?” Drone 7 asked.

“Affirmative,” came the reply.

“How nice. Though, it would be nicer if I get to use these,” Drone 7 said as they placed a hand against the vials of acid lined across their belt. The glass-like vials were made from biomatter, shaped so that they would easily break and spread the acid everywhere.

It was crude and messy, but this was the best solution Custodian came up with in order to deal with the golems, other than breaking the rocky skulls of the iron golems, of course.

“Confirmation. Does that sentence have an ulterior motive?” Drone 1 asked.

“Yes.”

“Notation. I see, and I understand. Ha. Ha. Ha. Ha,” Drone 1 laughed with a monotone voice.

“Yes, heheheheheheh,” Drone 7 joined his brother.

“Ha. Ha. Ha. Ha.”

“Yes, yes. Enough. Look ahead. This looks like the end of the passage,” Drone 7 pointed ahead.

The two checked their equipment for one last time, then pushed into a massive, natural underground dome. They found their targets crowding around the center of the area, which was illuminated by light emitted by small crystal formations protruding from the walls. The golems formed a circle, facing each other as if they were convening a silent meeting.

‘Interesting phenomenon. Stop the hunt for iron golems for now, and observe,’ Custodian ordered.

‘Affirmative,’ the two drones obeyed.

‘Also, try to retrieve some samples of those crystals.’

‘I’ll get to it,’ Drone 7 responded. The two drones approached a small cluster of crystals. Shining brightly, Custodian hoped that they could be used to replace anti-mana torches to save resources.

Yet, when Drone 7 was about to reach for the crystals, all the golems turned and faced the metallic puppets.

‘Estimated chance for inorganic entities identified as Iron Golems attacking is very high,’ Custodian noted.

Even though the two drones backed away from the crystals, the iron golems continued to look at them. Finally, the golems started moving towards the drones. Drone 7 didn’t waste any time grabbing vials of acid off from the bag and thigh holster it carried.

‘Escape from area, but grab a sample,’ Custodian ordered.

Drone 7 grabbed a crystal and broke it off the wall. The golems, seeing this, started running towards the drones. Screams resembling crumbling stone echoed across the passage.

‘Run,’ Custodian commanded.

‘You don’t have to tell us that!’ Drone 7 retorted.

As a golem almost grabbed Drone 7, its arm was crushed by Drone 1’s massive pickaxe. After recovering from its attack, Drone 1 pulled its weapon back, then swung once more into the walking pile of rock. Upon hitting the head, the golem went limp on the floor.

“Let’s go!” Drone 7 shouted as they tossed several vials of acid behind their back. The vials broke and splashed acid into the iron golems. As their rocky flesh corroded, the golems screamed and crumbled.

The two drones didn’t stop moving back into the iron mine until they saw an iron golem charging at them from the front.

‘Warning! Multiple iron golems in your way! They’ve all woken up from my mine, and went straight for you!’ Niner alerted through hivespeak.

Drone 7 decided to use shock magic against the iron golem at the front, hoping to stop them. However, the drone didn’t realize it was holding a crystal, so it unintentionally coarsed magic through the crystal. When Drone 7 shot its right hand forward, it didn't expect a massive purple bolt of lightning to shoot out of the charged crystal.

The purple lightning slammed into the golem, and electrified it. The golem quivered rapidly, then stood in place. At first, Drone 7 thought it did nothing, but as another iron golem appeared from the front, the electrified golem attacked it.

Drone 1, who was fighting off a golem from the back, asked, “Curiosity. What did you do?”

‘Whatever you did, do it to the other golems,” Custodian ordered.

Drone 7 pointed with crystal and tried to shoot another purple lightning, but it arced and missed its target. Luckily for Drone 7, there were still several vials of acid left to toss at the incoming golem before it could get close.

‘I am not good at this,’ Drone 7 complained.

‘If you wish to live, keep trying,’ Custodian replied.

Drone 7 managed to electrify several golems, causing a huge fight between the golems. But the drones were still trapped, so they had no choice but to fight until all the golems were dead. After a few minutes of fighting, Niner arrived with reinforcements. Miner drones aggressively hopped onto the backs of golems, then started drilling.

The golems thrashed around, crushing several miners, but there were simply too many of them to handle. Unlike the rats or spiders, the golems didn’t give up until the bitter end.

As the last golem shattered onto the ground, silence ruled over the cavern passage once more.

Niner rushed over to check on Drone 7 when he noticed that the crystal on the drone's hand formed minerals around the surface. Seeing this, Niner took it off Drone 7’s hands and examined it.

“Wait. These things on the crystal are iron ores. They’re tiny, but they’re iron,” Niner concluded.

‘That crystal makes iron?’ Custodian asked.

“It’s strange. The crystal’s composition is similar to that of a…” Niner paused as he made a gasping sound and continued, “ monster core.”

‘But it’s not the same as a rat’s core. This is the first occurence of monster cores reacting to anything,’ Custodian noted. ‘Shock the crystal again.’

Niner began casting the standard drone shock spell, and when the crystal absorbed enough magic, he pointed the crystal at the wall. As expected, a huge wave of purple lightning blasted through the underground walls, charring the surface.

Not only that, there was a noticeable change on the crystal. Slightly more iron minerals were created on the surface of the crystal, as concluded by Niner. Despite that, the amount was still depressingly low to process into any usable amount of iron.

“Could it be that the crystals on the walls were all iron golem cores?” Niner mused.

‘Perhaps. For now, bring that crystal back. I will hand it over to Drone 2 for experimentation. With the mine clear of those inorganic entities, I expect you, Prospector Niner, to finish a fully functioning mining operation soon,’ Custodian ordered.

‘Yes, Master Custodian,’ came the reply.

When the drones sensed that their master went back to micromanaging its local operations, the drones decided to go back to their business. After all, drones didn’t tire, so there was no need to stop and rest.

“Well done, brothers. You expect a name soon, Drone 7?” Niner asked.

“No, I’m unsatisfied with the results.” Drone 7 looked at their last vial of acid and continued, “Though, I look forward to what I could eventually make.”

“Declaration. I shall return to the core room. Are you coming?” Drone 1 asked Drone 7.

“Negative. I will be finding Drone 6. If the spiders are tamed, I may be able to farm acid off them,” Drone 7 answered, then left after waving goodbye.

Drone 1 watched as their brother leave into the darkness, then turned to Niner. “Good luck.”

“What do you mean by that?” Niner asked.

Drone 1 marched off to the core room without answer, leaving a confused Niner. It wasn’t until he went to scavenge the dead bodies of the golems did he realize the true meaning.

“YOU GUYS CORRODED TOO MUCH PRECIOUS MATERIALS!”