These Familiars Are Strange

"What is it?" I asked after seeing that awkward look on the gnome's face.

The gnome seemed to hesitate to show what was making it feel awkward, but it did it in the end.

The gnome went over to the machine that had the tablet and opened up a compartment in that machine before reaching in to pull out something for us to look at.

He held that thing up in front of him for us to see.

It was a crystal, but it seemed to be completely colourless. It seemed like whatever had been inside of the crystal had been completely drained, which was why it had lost all colour like this.

But we recognized this crystal.

This was something that anyone that dived into the dungeon recognized since it was one of the most common things that dropped from the monsters of the dungeon.

This was a monster core that humans now used as a source of clean energy.

It seemed that the gnomes had figured out a way to use this monster core as clean energy as well.

After showing this used up monster core, the gnome went over to the side to open up some kind of compartment. When that compartment was opened up, it showed the monster core stores of the gnome.

It seemed that there were only so many monster cores that he had.

Based on everything that the gnome showed us, it seemed that it required the monster core for it to produce one of the sets of living armour and there was a limit to how many it could make.

With a rough estimate, I could see that there were around ten monster cores that were inside of this compartment.

At the same time, I could see that this thing required a certain level of monster core to work.

It seemed that only monster cores of a certain size would actually have enough power for this machine.

But that wasn't a problem for me.

That was because in my Storage Ring, there were plenty of monster cores that were at this level. I had been saving them just in case I ever needed money in the future, but if I could use them here to help me with this dungeon.

Well it would be money well spent.

With a wave of my hand, there was a pile of monster cores that suddenly appeared.

There was a shocked look that appeared on the face of the gnome before he came forward to take a look at the monster cores in front of him. He grabbed one and held it up in front of his face as if he was closely examining it.

After a while, there was an even more shocked look that appeared on the gnome's face.

We didn't understand what he was shocked by, but it seemed that it was related to the monster cores.

When the gnome came back to his senses, he grabbed the monster cores and moved back to the machine. Dropping that pile of monster cores on the ground, the gnome picked up one and threw it into the compartment that he pulled the monster core out from.

After throwing that monster core in, he tapped a few times on the tablet before going over to insert a core into the large glass vat.

Once this was all done, there was nothing left for the gnome to do as the machine ran on its own.

It was going to create another set of living armour all on its own.

When it was done, I asked the gnome, "Where did you get these monster cores? Are there other monsters in this place?"

The gnome quickly nodded before going out into the corridor.

We followed it out to see him pointing in one of the directions in this hall. After pointing for a bit, he started mimicking some kind of monster.

It seemed that this was some kind of flying monster with the way that he was flapping his arms.

Then pointing in the other direction, he brought his hand to his head in the form of horns.

Though he was clearly trying to show us something, it wasn't as if we could tell what he was trying to say with charades alone.

But that didn't matter.

"Can you bring us to the other monsters?"

The gnome was surprised to hear this, but then he ran back inside the room. Before we could follow him back in, he came out with the orb and the two sets of living armour that Wang Rong fought before.

It seemed that he was planning on guiding us with the sets of living armour.

After thinking about it, I decided to go along with this.

With the strength of the Echo Bat's hypnosis ability, it wouldn't wear off even if we moved out of range. There shouldn't be a problem with the gnome even if we moved away.

And if there was, we could always come back to take it over again.

Leaving the gnome here to run the factory and create more suits of living armour would allow us to build an army over time. That was as long as the gnome had enough monster cores to keep producing those suits of living armour.

But before leaving, I also couldn't help adding, "Are there other gnomes in this place?"

This time, the gnome seemed to hesitate a bit before answering.

It was as if he was hesitating to betray the other gnomes of this place.

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But eventually he gave a nod and pointed in both directions to show that the gnomes were spread out.

Then came the important question, "Can they control the sets of living armour just like you?"

This time, the gnome nodded without hesitation.

A smile appeared on my face when I heard this, but I didn't ask anything else since there was no need to ask anything else.@@novelbin@@

I would take care of this after seeing what kind of other monsters were in this place.

I couldn't wait to see the army that I built up.