These Familiars Are Strange

Just like this, they disappeared from the dungeon.

The small round thing that I crushed was a special thing that they gave us along with the maps that sent us in here.

Each chip like thing was actually an emergency escape button.

As long as it was crushed, it would send the team that it was associated with out of the dungeon. It was used as a way to give up on this competition, but also to save one's life.

Once it was crushed, it would mean that the team associated with it would be out of the competition.

For those that had pride, they would rather die than give up. But this thing did give a second option for those that valued their lives more.

As for why I didn't just kill them…

None of the people that participated in this competition were normal people. All of them were talented youths that were gathered from all over the country.

These were people that all had people behind them. Killing them would just mean offending those people behind them, in addition to Governor Nangong that we had already offended.

But the real deciding factor was the fact that they didn't know it was me. While there would be ways of finding out if they really wanted to, as long as we didn't cross the line…

That was why for now, I decided against killing anyone in this dungeon. Just sending them out was more than enough.

If it ever came to them knowing my true identity though…then I might take some more drastic measures.

After sending Brother Shi's group out, I didn't even bother cleaning up the area as we headed back to where the gnome was.

I had a few questions for the gnome with all the new information that I had gotten from Brother Shi's group.

"You know where the other gnomes are, don't you?" That was the first thing that I asked the gnome.

The gnome had a surprised look when he heard this and it seemed like he was hesitating to say anything in response…but he eventually gave a nod of acknowledgement.

I wasn't surprised to hear this since I had already figured this was the case.

The next question was, "What about the leader of the gnomes? I'm sure that you know where your leader is, right?"

One of the Elite Monsters that Brother Shi had mentioned before was a higher grade gnome. It was a Master Gnome, the higher evolution of the gnomes that would usually be the leader of a large group.

Since there were gnomes in this dungeon, it only made sense that there would be a leader of said gnomes.

The gnome had an even more awkward look on his face when he heard this.

Instead of just being unwilling to say this, it even seemed like there was something that was pressuring the gnome to stop it from saying this. It seemed like there was some kind of restriction on the gnome regarding the Master Gnome.

Was it because the Master Gnome was a higher grade than the normal gnome, so there would be bloodline pressure on the gnome about betraying the Master Gnome?

Regardless of what it was, that didn't matter to me.

The only thing that mattered was the information on the Master Gnome.

So I just waited for the gnome to give me the information that I wanted.

At the same time, the Echo Bat on my shoulder opened its mouth.

When that happened, the gnome almost seemed to fall into a trance. It seemed like he wasn't being affected by the bloodline restriction anymore once it fell into this daze.

The gnome slowly raised his hand and started giving us the information that we wanted, but it wasn't that clear since he wasn't actually able to say anything to us. We had to figure it out based on his hand gestures.

So instead…

"Just show us the way to the Master Gnome."

Once the gnome nodded in agreement to this, the Echo Bat closed its mouth. Read new adventures at My Virtual Library Empire

That was when the gnome slowly came back from his daze.

Right after coming back from his daze, the gnome's face twisted as if he was suddenly feeling something. The gnome grabbed his chest and then bent over as if he was being filled with pain.

We didn't do anything as we just watched the gnome like this.

The gnome remained like this for a bit before the pain slowly faded from his body. When that pain slowly faded, the gnome also started to bleed from his mouth and eyes. It was as if there was something that was hurting him from the inside.

This bleeding only lasted a while before the gnome stabilized itself.

This really was an interesting phenomenon since I had never seen something like this before.

I was actually curious how far I could push this gnome, but this wasn't the time to be thinking that.

"Bring us to the Master Gnome, but before that…I'm sure there are other gnomes along the way, right? Bring us to those other gnomes."

Before reaching the Master Gnome, I wanted to see if we could gather a few more sets of living armour to follow us. The more gnomes that we had under us, the more sets of living armour we would be able to get.

An army like this would certainly be helpful, though there was a part of me that wondered if they would actually help against the Master Gnome.

After all, the gnome seemed to have been affected by the bloodline restriction when it was talking about the Master Gnome.

What happens if it used its sets of living armour to attack the Master Gnome?

There was no doubt that the bloodline restriction would be even worse.@@novelbin@@

Still, these were disposable pawns for me in the first place.

I would make the most out of them before discarding them.

As long as the Master Gnome could be taken down, I didn't mind sacrificing a few of them.