Chapter 129: The Treasury

After a while talking to my familiars and destroying more golems, I eventually arrived at the treasury. I still didn’t find a super robot worth taming, but I suppose I could look for it calmly later. Perhaps I need to find a ‘rare mob’ like Yuu calls them.

Either way, I used the crown prince’s key to open the door and found a room that looked quite like something you’d see in sci-fi. It felt completely out of place in the middle of this fantasy setting, though maybe it’s one of those ‘ancient technological civilization’ thingies.

As I advanced inside however, a weird machine in the middle of the room started moving. I immediately attacked it, but my attack was repelled by some sort of barrier, “Warning. Brutish methods are not allowed within this sanctum. Only the wise may pass.” The machine, which got up and now looked like a proper golem, said.

I guess I just need to solve a puzzle of sorts then? It’s probably some minigame that management made in order to make some parts of the game impossible to clear with raw stats alone… I guess it’s alright.

——

Quest No.00521

Unique Quest: The Ancient’s Knowledge Test

Commissioner: Almighty Golem

Task: Solve a question of the golem within the time limit in order to get the chance to attack it. Defeat it or prove your worth to it in order to clear the quest.

Rewards: The treasures within the room.

Note: Unique quests can only be accepted once per person, regardless of success or failure.

Do you accept the quest? <Yes/No>

——

I wonder what kind of power it uses that is strong enough to even repel my attacks… Let’s not mind this, it would just bother me if I tried reasoning about this one. I pressed <Yes>, and the golem started talking, “If you buy a white bread and a brown bread, you’ll pay 110G.

“White bread costs 100G more than the brown bread.

“How much does the brown bread cost?”

That’s the question? This is kinda lame… “5G.” I answered.

The golem answered with, “Correct” and I immediately cut it in half as soon as it said this.

But since it’s a golem, it kept on moving anyways, getting up and reattaching its parts, while also saying, “Next question,

“It starts snowing in the morning and continues steadily throughout the day. A snow-plow that removes snow at a constant rate starts plowing at noon. It plows 2 miles in the first hour, and 1 mile in the second. What time did it start snowing?”

“11:23am.” I replied… So boring, I was hoping for some form of puzzle, but they’re just logical questions that any high schooler could easily solve, what was in the management’s head?

“Next question… Wait, what are you doing?” The golem asked.

“Bypassing the puzzle because it’s not very interesting.” I answered while breaking the monitors within the room, as they were not invulnerable like the golem was.

“Warning. Quit the barbaric actions.” The golem said.

I answered by saying, “It’s okay, your barrier doesn’t protect the rest of the room. Also…” I then rushed towards the golem and cut its arm off, it was quite confused by this.

“… Why was my arm cut off?” The golem asked.

“Because I attacked it, like this.” I answered while cutting his torso in half.

“Why can you attack me…?” The golem asked again.

“Because that is the rule.” I said while stabbing its head with my sword, and twisting the sword left and right inside him… It was simple, really. I just needed to answer the questions of the golem to attack it, there was never any reason to wait for the riddles, I just needed to make it start asking questions on its own, “So, wanna join my army?” I asked it while using the <Tame> skill.

“… It is finished.” The golem answered. I suppose it is a given that <Tame> worked first try in this mob, since it’s just a mass-produced golem instead of a boss. And now I have the Almighty Golem on my side to use against the next player I face… Not?

“What’s that?” I asked as the golem put a thingy in my hand that looked like a miniature version of him.

“I cannot move from here, so this will be the one to accompany you instead.” The golem answered… I suppose that the skill of becoming invulnerable for as long as the opposing enemy doesn’t answer your questions properly might be too unbalanced, so they could only give a downsized version? I’ll need to test this one later.

“I see… Well, I’m happy that I solved the puzzle at least. Though you? I’m disappointed with you.” This was an extremely boring puzzle after all, the devs failed at this part, so… “Goodbye… Forever.” Let’s get rid of it for good.

“What!?” The golem exclaimed as I detonated the explosives I set up in advance, destroying everything in the surroundings while I teleported away with the <Teleportation Feather> that I stole from the crown prince’s corpse. This was a really practical item, alright. I wonder if I can mass produce it… “Never come back!”

I could hear those last words from the golem as I teleported away… Those, and the thunderous explosion that came right after.

——

Translator’s Note: If you didn’t understand the snow-plow question, don’t mind it, I spent an hour or so trying to understand it before giving up and googling “snow falling and ploughing math problem”. Turns out this is "a famous problem from the 1942 book ‘Differential Equations’ by Ralph Palmer Agnew.”, which seems to involve university-level math and stuff.