Encounter With The Knights

With the knights providing ranged support from the back and Atlas taking the attention of the horde the zombie's numbers quickly dwindled to a much more manageable number at which point the knights stopped their shield-drumming and charged in to cut down the rest of the zombies.

By the time the last one fell the younger knights were panting heavily from not pacing themselves correctly and with one of the senior knight's agreements they went and sat against the wall to take a break.

Atlas counted five young knights along with two seniors and then the blindfolded knight, a total of eight imposing figures. The blindfolded knight and the senior knights had engravings on their pauldrons the younger ones did not have, probably denoting rank or something similar.

The blindfolded knight approached with the senior knights by his side, the one on the left was a female wolf beastman with grey fur and full animalistic features, but the one on the other side was also a beastman, male, and only had fuzzy cat ears poking out from under his hood.

'𝘛𝘩𝘦 𝘣𝘰𝘰𝘬𝘴 𝘰𝘯𝘭𝘺 𝘮𝘦𝘯𝘵𝘪𝘰𝘯𝘦𝘥 𝘣𝘦𝘢𝘴𝘵𝘮𝘦𝘯 𝘪𝘯 𝘨𝘦𝘯𝘦𝘳𝘢𝘭, 𝘪𝘵 𝘭𝘰𝘰𝘬𝘴 𝘭𝘪𝘬𝘦 𝘵𝘩𝘦𝘳𝘦 𝘢𝘳𝘦 𝘷𝘢𝘳𝘪𝘢𝘵𝘪𝘰𝘯𝘴.'

"Hail, friend, thank you for your timely assistance. While we could have handled it eventually the new recruits were unable to keep up," the blindfolded knight smiled and bowed slightly.

"You're welcome," Atlas replied while looking at their armor.

Now that things have calmed down the two senior knights that could see noticed the silver embellishment on the golem's face, the female knight spoke up first, "Captain, this golem has the mark of the Labyrinth upon its face."

"Really? Interesting, would you introduce yourself? I am Captain Saric, in control of the third squad of our Order." Saric briefly touched his blindfold as he introduced himself.

"Call me Atlas. You are part of an Order of Knights?" Atlas asked as he cleaned the black blood from himself and his equipment.

Captain Saric laughed, "Well yes and no, while we call it as such we are not recognized by the Queen and act more as Watchmen for the Labyrinth, thus we just call it an Order without tacking on a proper name. Anyways, before anything else, I should confirm your intentions," he stated while tapping his fingers on his sheathed sword.

The atmosphere got a bit tense as Atlas stood there not responding, this was due to Atlas not really knowing what it wanted to do either.

"I intend to get stronger, delve deeper, and find out why the Core gave me life," the golem gave a generic answer.

"... I see, were you born recently then?" Saric probed.

"Correct."

The male knight who had been glaring at the golem spoke up, "Are you hostile to the outside?"

Atlas shook its head, "I attack those who attack me or get in my way, so far none have tried, will you be the first?" The golem tried to sound menacing.

The male knight narrowed his eyes but said nothing, the female knight snickered but went silent with a glare from the male knight. Captain Saric coughed, "Don't you two start. Sir Atlas, err, you are a sir right?"

"I do not have a gender," the golem replied flatly.

Saric nodded, "Right, of course. Atlas, would you be willing to accompany us for a little while? These five promising knights turned out a little poorly so an extra hand would go a long way."

Atlas sighed, was everyone in this place so friendly to monsters? "Fine, but do not waste my time."

The male knight scoffed and the wolf-woman snickered again. The golem shook its head and began gathering a portion of the crystals while the three knights went over to the five younger knights resting to talk to them. Atlas had counted each zombie it slew and only took as many crystals as it earned, throwing them into the growing pile of small crystals.

It could feel the glare of the male knight all the while and was a bit relieved, at least someone had the common sense to be suspicious of an intelligent monster. Atlas felt that being a monster would mean having a strained relationship with society but so far only Charlie and the male knight showed any sort of caution. While Saric was cautious at first he just believed Atlas' words and even invited it along.

In the end, Atlas decided to just ignore it since it couldn't figure it out.

The golem heard footsteps and turned to see the wolf-woman approach, "Hey, why are you collecting cores?"

Atlas paused, "The crystals?"

"No no, these things are called cores, specifically magic cores, any monster capable of using magic has them." She seemed happy to explain and talkative like Dean.

'𝘙𝘪𝘨𝘩𝘵, 𝘋𝘦𝘢𝘯 𝘢𝘭𝘴𝘰 𝘤𝘢𝘭𝘭𝘦𝘥 𝘵𝘩𝘦𝘮 𝘊𝘰𝘳𝘦𝘴'

"I use them," it replied flatly as it continued collecting its share of the cores.

The wolf-woman tilted her head, "Wait, you can make magic tools? Or can you do inscriptions?"

Atlas shook its head, "I use them as throwing weapons."

She snickered again, "Hold on, you mean like you throw them like rocks?"

"What? No, let me show you," Atlas sighed as he grabbed another core from the floor and injected energy in, making it glow dangerously before tossing it down the hallway. The resulting 𝑩𝑨𝑵𝑮 startling the young knights into a panic as they fumble to get into a combat formation.

The wolf-woman stood there with a dumbfounded expression as Saric and the male knight ran over, "What was that noise?" Saric asked with slight panic.

"I simply showed her how I use the cores," Atlas replied, unsure why they were upset.

"Hold on, you don't feel drained or anything?" The wolf-woman asked in disbelief.

"No, why would I?"

"Normal people would pass out from trying to overload a core with energy, yet a golem who should be inefficient using energy can do it casually, do you see the problem?" She talked fast and was clearly excited.

Saric processed the information for a moment before turning to Atlas, "Do you have access to 'Status'?"

"Yes."

"Could you tell us your energy value?" Saric started to get excited too, even without seeing his eyes his body language gave it away.

Atlas pulled up its status to double-check,

[ Name: Ad Omne Argentum

Race: Golem+

Vitality: 265

Energy: 315

Core: Lapis Crystal, Unknown Soul

Durability: 198/∞

Materials: Compressed Labyrinthine Stone, Sacred Silver

Durability: 2400/2400

Skills: Advanced Earth Magic - Lock Picking - Flee ]

"Three-hundred and fifteen."

"..." Saric's jaw hung open and the wolf-woman started laughing while shouting "Amazing!" repeatedly.