Ball of Nothing

Two days later, Zero and his group finally arrived in the area that the young djinn said the gnomes settled in. Mii didn't know the exact location because her map was outdated but they were a lot closer than they were before.

"This is it," Zero told the team. "We need to start digging holes into the ground blindly to know where their hideout is. Be careful not to go too close," Zero warned. "They have defence mechanisms in place. Bob, you go with Jermine. Don't go too deep. Truen and I will act separately."

Truen and Zero's jobs were to imitate the presence of monsters in the area to trick the traps into activating. Once they activated the traps, they would be able to trace the origin of the attack. At least, that was the plan they had in mind.

Who was to know that the gnomes had been watching them ever since they entered their territory a week ago?

Jermine was the first to fall for the gnome's trap. Bob didn't have time to send a message back to his master before they were both put to sleep with sleeping gas. The mole girl had dug straight into a metal capsule and the dragon was too busy trying to pull her out when he was shoved into it together. The door closed on them and the chamber was filled with gas that put them both to sleep before the capsule was retrieved by the waiting gnomes.

Two down, two more to go.

"Where are the other two rats?" a gnome asked, keying in a new coordinate into the system's panel.

His colleague frowned and zoomed in on the camera image. He could see the archer but not the shorty.

"One of them is missing. I can see the dangerous fellow though..."

"What?! You dunderhead! How can you lose sight of them? The small guy is their party leader, he's the most dangerous one. How many times do I have to remind you not to judge a long-ear by their colour?!"

"Gah! Shut up you tedious gnat! My ears are going to fall off tomorrow with your yapping. Why don't you do this yourself and stop complaining about how I do my job?"

The former gnome growled. "I'm the head technician here. There are only six of us. If I do your job, who is going to invent new machines to automate the more important tasks?"

"Right," the other gnome snorted. "You've been doing that 'important job' for more than ten years and the portal still isn't fixed. Who's the one eating and drinking for free without pulling their own weight?"

Slamming their bald heads together and growling while staring each other down, the two gnomes refused to give way until the sirens rang out.

"Leader! The small one got through our wall and the archer is on his way! What do we do?"

At once, the two loggerheads called a truce for now. "All hands to the intruder command centre now!"

Twelve tiny feet ran towards the intruder command centre and everyone took their seats, strapping on their belts. Never had they thought that the day would come when they needed to use this giant golem operated by all six men. The lead technician designed this based on King Gregory's incomplete schematic for an ultimate metal golem to battle even dragons. He called this golem a Gun-dam, short for Gun - Damage Automated Machine. It was the true masterpiece that King Gregory wanted to create after his successful prototype for the gun barrel of the golem dubbed as the Gatling Gun. Too bad they could never recover the right arm of this golem so they had to make do with a replicate.

"Engine started and running stable. Initialising movement system," the first gnome assistant shouted.

"Ammunition loaded, prepared for attack!" the gunner gnome pulled down his goggles.

"Navigation system functioning, target locked on..." the sleepy but alert cartographer gnome announced.

"First base has been breached! What do we do, leader?" the scout gnome cried when an error message appeared on his screen.

The leader gnome clicked his tongue. "Prepare to engage them head-on. Wesley, you take charge of the hocus-pocus net."

The assistant leader growled. "For the last time, alchemy is no magic! Get that right, you stupid engineer!"

Outside, Zero was still trying to find a way into the gnome settlement. Unlike Jermine and Bob who dug down, Zero found a sinkhole and tried to get the hideout using it. He contacted Truen once he found a wall and blasted a hole in the thick metal sheet but couldn't use the same trick for the next layer of wall. The wall has a dull black surface but Zero wasn't fooled. This was a substance that fire wouldn't work on. The same blast he tried earlier that worked on the metal wall didn't make much of a dent on this wall. In fact, under heat, this substance became even stronger. Zero didn't know how to handle it and the surface couldn't be scratched by even a sword that YY Tonfas transformed into.

Zero was about to call Bob when the ground shook. The gnomes must have known that there were intruders so Zero quickly evacuated the area and pulled Truen along with him when he met the archer on his way out.

There was a huge shadow on the ground and a loud noise that made both elves look towards the sky. Zero became excited when he saw the robot. Unlike other golems he saw before, this was a true masterpiece, rivalling the size of a giant at twenty metres. It was also able to fly using engine power and Zero drooled. This was an engineering masterpiece!

"Long live the gnomes!" Zero rejoiced but the celebration was short-lived when the golem started to charge up a canon in its arm. The energy pulsing in the arm made Truen nervous. He didn't know if all the charms that Zero had on him by the Great Gods would be enough against such a violent power.

"Zero, run!" Truen yelled and dragged his friend along, trying to put distance between the giant golem and them. Still, it wasn't fast enough.

The golem fired its canon with a deafening boom, turning the sandy landscape into a charred mess where the charge landed.

"Did we get them?" the gunner asked after the shot was fired. The dust was still clouding their vision and all six gnomes held their breaths, waiting to confirm the results.

Somewhere in a different dimension, Truen finally regained his hearing. His head was still spinning and his mana dangerously low. Zero wasn't faring any better and his vessel was still slowly regrowing his legs that had been vaporised by that ridiculous beam of light. The young doctor was unconscious and Truen cringed at the sight. He wasn't doing much better, still regrowing the missing half of his right torso and face. If the archer didn't react fast enough to fire an arrow to slow time down and pull Zero into Zeus' lamp with him, they would both be vaporised on the spot.

That was too close for comfort. Way too close for comfort. Truen didn't manage to confirm it before but now he knew. This was one of the weapons that managed to kill Gods. It was a technology that humans of the old earth created. How did the gnomes discover it?