Guest

Rest here? Did the boy have no sense of danger? Well, it's not like the statue could refuse, what if he went and told the adventurers the location of the room? Not much, actually, it would just have to move and make a new home somewhere else in the dungeon. He did bring the salamander crystal so that counts for something, at least.

It just gave an internal sigh and then nodded before stepping out of the way to let him in.

"Th-thank you!" The boy looked quite happy as he entered the dim room. He rustled around in his pack before bringing out something like a lantern that looked to run on small crystals and set it on the floor before lighting it. A pale blue light spread throughout the room as the statue closed the door. With the light, the statue could see the extent of the damage from the explosion, some of the smaller furniture pieces had been knocked over and splinters of stone littered the area to the point the boy had to watch his step not to impale his feet on them.

Now that he was in the room he lost all reservations and set up various things in a corner as if there wasn't a fifteen-foot tall monster watching. The statue could only shake its head before beginning to clean up the remains of its short-lived favorite weapon and scattered crystals. It first repaired the table once again and threw the broken stone and crystals in a pile. Once it pulled the fragments out of its own body the tiny holes mended with energy but the missing hand did not, though the missing fingers on the remaining hand seemed to be minor enough to grow back.

By the time everything was cleaned up the boy had set up pretty much an entire camp along with a campfire made from some sort of fossilized wood that didn't give off any smoke. The boy was sitting on a wooden folding chair with a small cushion looking quite tired. He seemed interested in what the statue was doing on the table but was too short to see the top. While sitting there he started talking to seemingly no-one in particular.

"There were reports in the past two weeks of an abnormal golem that ignored adventurers and slew monsters, grabbed their cores, then sped off," he started.

'Two weeks? has it really been that long? Wait, I don't remember seeing that many adventurers,' the statue thought as it began assembling a new great-ax.

"The Guild Master and A-rank adventurers concluded that this might have something to do with the mana river phenomena that occurred around the same time as the first appearance of the golem in the third boss room of the second floor of the Labyrinth," he kept talking, his demeanor much different to the frightened little boy from before.

By the time the statue looked back, the boy was gone, and in his stead was a tall, handsome man with slicked-back black hair, piercing green eyes, and a slight smile. His black horns curled back along his scalp and his clothes were now a form-fitting black unitard with minimal leather protecting the joints.

"Nice to meet you, anomaly, my name is Dean and I serve as an intelligence officer for the Adventurer's Guild, specializing in subterfuge and illusions," the man slightly bowed as he introduced himself, "Given that you've shown no hostility and allowed me in, it should be safe to assume you do not intend to fight, correct?"

The statue was a bit speechless, even though it couldn't talk. The thought never even occurred to it that the small boy could be dangerous other than going and tattling about the location of its room. It slowly nodded, it really didn't want to fight against people as they would mark it as dangerous and would eventually overwhelm it.

With its answer, Dean smiled widely, "Wonderful, having something as peculiar as you opposing the city would be detrimental to the safety of the citizens. Although my reason for coming here other than to investigate was indeed to rest, so I hope you'll forgive my interruption in... whatever you were doing that ended up exploding." Dean bowed once again and started setting up a pot over the smokeless campfire before pouring some water and throwing some ingredients from his rucksack in then sat down.

The statue felt that it could generally read people fairly well due to a few jobs requiring the skill but this Dean felt more like a statue than it did, it couldn't figure out his motives at all. Based on what he said he should be here to investigate it but he appeared way too casual, maybe he was confident in his strength? Or maybe they were alike, confident in the ability to flee if things turn sour.

At the very least it didn't feel any hostility from him and was pretty sure it could survive enough hits from him to run, so it turned back to making a new great-ax. It spent more time shaping the blades, making slots for the crystals to fit into this time instead of forcibly merging them together. At some point without it even noticing Dean had gotten up onto the table and was observing the process with interest. Only by the time it was done did it notice Dean and jumped a little.

"Using earth magic to make weapons? Nothing new but the application of cores is interesting, though I doubt they will have much effect like that," Dean rubbed his chin, "You should try engraving magic veins along the shaft in order to be able to supply the core, that way they might do something."

The statue just stared at him in response.

"What? Don't tell me you don't know how to do at least that." Dean smirked.

The statue suddenly felt like punching the man standing on his worktable, but eventually turned back to the great-ax and continued the assembly.