Gunhand didn't look very pleased when I first reached him.

Alongside him, I was surprised to see not just Minnie, but Haliton and the gardening dwarf whose name I forgot. Honestly, I only remembered Haliton's name because it sounded to me like some kind of furniture brand's name.

"It's Uellor," Radio whispered.

What? That's a really weird name.

Haliton waved to me from a distance. The other people didn't really notice me for some reason. I couldn't help but notice there was quite a lot of baggage beside them for some reason.

"Hey!" he shouted.

Gunhand turned to face me and waved too.

"Is something going on?" Radio asked. "Did something go wrong with negotiations? The pigeon didn't really specify."

The golem sighed.

"I'll keep it short. The new laws are true, mostly."

"Mostly?"

"I'm not too happy about it, but after a lot of argument, it was decided that all golems need at least 15 years of work before they can be allowed freedom." he grimaced. "Those assholes call it 'repaying the debt of being created'..."

Huh. That actually doesn't sound unreasonable to me, honestly. In the end, the people that bought them probably had to pay a pretty big sum, right?

"Well, it could be worse..."

"I can grudgingly accept that. But they said the work years for golems produced in the future has not been decided yet."

"Okay..."

"Anyway, they don't have any records of you so now they want to send you down to the subterranean dwarven cities underground to check for ownership."

Wait, what?

"All of the other escaped golems need to check-in too. If we've worked under 15 years, we will be basically slaves for them again until the time is up. And who knows if they will suddenly change the laws and extend that time again?"

"Ack."

Well, so much for being able to do whatever I wanted then. Hopefully the city down there is fun. I heard from some people here that it was more high-tech down there as well, right? Probably won't be that bad.

"Oh, by the way, we're hoping to hitchhike," Haliton interrupted.

"Huh?"

"You see, the prices to go down are a bit steep, but if they're sending you, we can basically go there for free if we hitch a ride! We've been wanting the see the underground cities for ourselves for ages." the dwarf beamed.

Uellor nodded wordlessly.

...

So that's why they were here. It was a bit annoying they were only here to get a free ride but I guess I didn't have anything to lose. Maybe I could even charge them a small price...

"By the way, how did you even find Gunhand? How did you know I was with him?"

Huh. That's actually kind of weird now that Radio pointed it out.

"Oh, we just came across him by chance so we asked him how the negotiations went since we were curious," Haliton said "He looked very angry too. While we talked to him about it, he complained about how he had to look for you, so we found out."

I guess that makes sense.

"You can come along if you want..." Radio said. "If you need space you can put your luggage in the back."

Ask them to pay up before they get in.

I was really low on funds anyway.

"You... urgh..." Radio sounded exasperated.

"Also, I'm a bit sorry to ask for this, but can you pay a small fee for the ride? I'm a bit low on funds so..." Radio said. "You can think of it as a super discounted price for the trip?"

Haliton stared at me with a blank face.

"But... you just said we could come right in."

Uellor patted his friend on the back.

"It's fine," he said before turning to me. "20 silver should be enough for two of us, right?"

"Uell, you..." Haliton looked very touched.

Was there a need to be so dramatic?

"I'm coming along too," Minnie said all of a sudden.

"Oh, hi Min- MN... something? Sorry, I was distracted earlier talking to them. Everything is fine for you now, right?"

"Yes. You're not going to charge me for the ride?"

Remembering how Minnie easily smashed a hole in my hull, I decided not to.

"Nope!"

"Hey, why do we get charged then?" Haliton protested jokingly.

"He doesn't have money but you two do."

I took the coins from them and let them in. There were only two seats, but all three of them fit, with Minnie in the centre because of how short the dwarves were. They looked into my cargo section for a moment, then decided to place their baggage in the front too after seeing Sheepy there.

Right after, I was led by Gunhand to some guards who were in a car-like vehicle.

"Just follow us and it'll be fine, okay?" one of them said.

"Okay?"

We started to go into a very familiar area, the forest where the ant mound was. That made me nervous. I really hope I don't have to meet any of them again.

And naturally, against my wishes, they drove right before a huge mound with a huge entrance tall enough for me to fit in unlike the previous one. There were several huge ants guarding it.

"Umm, why did you bring us here?" Radio asked timidly.

"Didn't you know? The ground dwarves had a deal with the giant ants. They're in charge of maintaining the elevators and paths down to the caverns."

...

Okay then.

A dwarf got out and took out a strange device, speaking into it.

"We are here for the elevator service," he said.

One of the ants bobbed its antenna, touching the device.

"Why have you bought that monster behind you?" a voice came from the device, apparently a translator.

The ant hissed angrily.

And of course, they are still angry at me.

The dwarf turned to me with a confused look.

"I may or may not have squished one of them... It was self-defence though!"

He looked at me with a face that practically screamed 'You can't be serious'.