Chapter 323: Automatons

“Joe, Gou Dan, keep up the pressure on those two!” Edward cried as he caught one of the Red Eyes Black Dragon’s talons as it flew downstream. “I’ll help Eleena!”

After all, even though Eleena was able to cast her skill and prove that she wasn’t stunned or put to sleep, the sack and the rope keeping it close proved enough to stop her from escaping.

If left to her own devices, she might soon die and be resurrected in the Unnamed Town…

“I’m Doug Ag!” Gou Dan complained, but didn’t protest against Edward’s call. As a Player, he was certainly very sharp when his foe wasn’t dead.

‘The EXP hasn’t come to me yet! Who do you think you’re fooling by playing dead!??’

Even though the two kidnappers had fallen quite hard, they were certainly tough enough to survive it since they had managed to keep their distance from three first-rate Players for so long. In fact, they had regained consciousness even before Joe and Gou Dan could reach them.

Whether it had been because Eleena had flowed downstream and gone out of range or some other reason, the Chains of Penance that bound the two men’s feet had vanished, breaking into countless fragments of light and restoring freedom to them.

It appeared that they had no intention of running either—with their target lost, the two simply stood their ground to face Joe and Gou Dan.

The shorter man had even whipped out his small shield in an instant, deflecting the arrows Doug Ag shot at him.

The text on both men’s heads then left Gou Dan and Joe doing double takes.

The tall man was named ‘Mercurial Automaton’ and was Level 36. The short man was ‘Silvered Automaton’ and was Level 44. They weren’t humans, but automatons, like golems!?

And their levels were surprisingly high-few first-rate Players would have the depth to defeat them outright.

That was especially true in the cast of the shorter man. Although there’s no telling what template he possessed at the moment, at his level, he could hold his own against the young Barren Giant alone!

Furthermore, when their mysterious war hammer and the buckler were taken into account, they were surely evenly matched against Players of the same level even if they had normal monster templates, or perhaps even a class above.

Naturally, Joe and Gou Dan were prepared for them to be as strong as they were mysterious. But what truly stunned them was that they had clearly abducted Eleena and fought them, but their names remained yellow-neutral even now, and not red, signifying an enemy.

“Gou Dan, what should we do?” Joe asked.

If they stick to Edward’s usual orientation, they would refrain from attacking yellow names and try to win them over to their side, in turn strengthening the reputation of the Church of Games.

In fact, that principle was more or less how the Players easily won the assistance from the Crookes city watch. “Do you need to ask? Get them!” Gou Dan didn’t hesitate to raise his AWM. “It’s not like this is our first time taking down yellow-names! Or what, are we supposed to invite them to do after what they’ve done?!”

No sooner had Gou Dan finished, he was sent flying into a building beside the path as the war hammer streaked towards him.

That naturally provoked Joe, who swung his legendary greatsword Giant’s Toe at the two men while bellowing, “Smite!”

The short man merely raised his buckler calmly in response, but Joe’s familiar spirit suddenly leaped out from the ground beneath them, crying ora as it punched them on the chin and sent them flying.

“Fools! I’ve never learned Smite!”

Joe grinned as he pressed his advantage, controlling his spirit familiar to grab the Silvered Automaton—the shorter man-and barraged his face with full-strength punches with such violent force that the ground beneath was cracking!

Beside him, the lanky Mercurial Automaton could well see that the situation was dire. He immediately spread his palm to summon his illogical war hammer, which shot out from the building which dust had yet to settle.

But when the tall man really focused his eyes, he soon realized that it wasn’t just his hammer flying to him—the young human he had sent flying was coming too.

Even as Gou Dan held on to the war hammer as it streaked towards the tall man, he raised his AWM which was in wristbow mode and shot the tall man at point-blank range.

“Armor-piercing shot plus explosive enchantment! Now die!”

The bolt that was wrapped in Divine Grace easily pierced the tall man’s head, punching into his head with only half of its shaft sticking out.

Soon, the explosive enchantment kicked in and the bolt blew up violently in the man’s head, the shockwave even sending Gou Dan flyinghe was only able to stop after rolling a while on the ground.

At the same time, smoke billowed and swallowed the two automatons, preventing both Joe and Gou Dan from confirming what happened to them.

“No EXP! They aren’t dead yet!” Joe shouted at Gou Dan after checking his System notifications.

“Tch! They survived!?” Gou Dan exclaimed in disbelief. “I blew up his brains! It’s not like he’s undead!”

“Are automatons any different from undead?” “Uh…”

Gou Dan considered it at Joe’s question, and realized that the two really weren’t that different.

If one had to describe it, undead were bodies that moved driven by soulfire, whereas automatons used a different energy source.

Moreover, compared to undead which were merely fragile corpses and skeletons, the automatons were several times more durable…

“Looks like we either have to empty their HP bar or destroy their energy core if headshots wouldn’t work.” Gou Dan frowned while blowing a raspberry at how troublesome the situation was.***

As the dust settled, the two automatons were already gone, leaving silver fragments which had either been punched out or blasted apart. Each of the fragments were tossing and turning like worms or leeches too, twisting into an S-shape one second and a B the next…

Both Joe and Gou Dan were left bewildered, even though they had been wary of any danger at first.

“Damn it, they got away and without making a sound? Are they cats or something!?” Joe cursed, clenching his greatsword as he vented his frustration.

Gou Dan couldn’t help being weirded out too.

There weren’t any alleys nearby where the automatons could escape from, and while there were drains, it was too small unlike the sewage in Lancaster-no adults could move within.

And if they were really running under the cover of the smoke, they shouldn’t have gotten so far there was no glimpse of them in such a short time.

So how the hell did those two automatons escape right under their noses? “…I feel that this city is not as simple as we imagined.” Gou Dan muttered, scratching his head.