The members of Ainz Ooal Gown entered the newly minted factory floor, a vast, imposing chamber that bore more resembnce to a medieval forge than a true industrial facility. Amanomahitotsu insisted it still qualified as a factory—something about automation being the defining feature rather than its aesthetics.

  Magically enhanced mechanical limbs swung overhead, their heavy hammers rhythmically striking metal ptes upon conveyor belts, each blow resonating through the chamber like the heartbeat of a slumbering giant. The belts themselves carried the reforged parts from one side of the room to the next, their origins obscured by shadowed chutes that led to seemingly nowhere—a trick of the guild's custom coding.

  Below, rivers of water, molten steel, and seething magma surged across the floor in carefully controlled channels, a lethal maze broken only by the occasional small ptform that functioned as a bridge. Above, countless unfinished automatons hung from massive iron hooks, their hollow chassis exposed as they glided forward along a moving assembly chain, dragged inexorably toward... something unseen.

  At the center of it all stood an oval-shaped control tower, bristling with wired connections that linked it to the conveyor belts, the automated chains, and a single stationary automaton. This was the Overseer's Office, perched above the chaos, its pcement deliberately inconvenient. Accessing it required jumping from conveyor to conveyor—a tedious process, even for the guild members, despite the fact that environmental hazards were disabled for them.

  "This is a bit annoying," Ulbert muttered as he nded on another conveyor belt with a dissatisfied grunt. He turned back to gre at Amano. "Why the hell didn’t you make this more convenient?!" His deep, imposing voice momentarily cracked into a normal, irritated tone as he jabbed a cwed finger at the bcksmith. "You pnned this to torture us, didn’t you?!"

  Amano simply shrugged. "It was Garnet's idea. And just use the hooks, like everyone else."

  "Everyone else?!" Ulbert nearly screeched. "You mean Nishikienrai and Touch Me?! Oh, and you! You don't count!"

  Momonga, floating effortlessly over a va stream with Bukubukuchagama and Peroroncino, turned back with an amused hum. The three of them were completely unaffected by the terrain—one because she was a slime, the other because he had wings, and the st because he had an item that granted flight.

  Ulbert, upon realizing this, wordlessly equipped his own Neckce of Flight and breezed past the obstacles without another compint.

  Once the entire guild arrived at the factory’s core, Momonga took a moment to survey the space. It was more expansive than expected, lined with workbenches, tool racks, and scattered weapon parts—a meticulous recreation of a functional armory rather than just another dungeon floor.

  "So," Momonga finally asked, "what is he?"

  Amano, now standing near the stationary automaton, casually answered, "An Automaton."

  Ulbert scoffed. "Yeah, no shit."

  Amano ignored him and continued, "He’s theoretically as strong as Rubedo, and I threw in some extra cash to make sure the pop mobs around him are stronger than usual. They’re capped at level 40 and drop items he can use for self-repair."

  That statement earned an immediate reaction.

  "Oh? Someone finally opened their wallet!" Mochi Mochi teased, her avatar spamming grinning emoticons. The rest of the guild burst into ughter, with Yamaiko pointing dramatically at Momonga.

  "You know, he used to do the same thing!"

  Momonga, despite being dragged into the joke, could only sigh. "Why am I getting called out for this?"

  Amano, flustered, waved his cws. "I—it was necessary! Okay?! I put in a lot of time to make this pce look cool! It’s the bastion it was always meant to be!"

  Touch Me, still more focused on strategy than teasing, asked, "Can this pce really hold off that many pyers?"

  Amano straightened, regaining his composure. "Some of the pop mobs are level 80—four of them, to be exact. Antikythera himself is designed for attrition-based combat. Thanks to his [Self-Repair] ability and [Consciousness Transfer], he can essentially jump into any of the dormant automatons in the factory whenever he dies. Infinite retries."

  "That’s... actually broken," Bellriver murmured. "I like it. We should test it."

  The guild exchanged gnces.

  Peroroncino was the first to grin. "So, we provoke another raid?"

  Momonga hummed in agreement. "Ats might be a good target. If we start taking PvP fights near their territory, they’ll retaliate eventually."

  "Yeah, yeah!" Peroroncino sounded almost gleeful. "And then, they’ll come in expecting the same old dungeon, only to get wrecked by our new Floor Guardian!"

  Touch Me considered. "Automatons don’t have a standard heteromorphic weakness, do they?"

  "Only fire, and occasionally dispel magic," Amano admitted. "But Antikythera has Magic Resist IV, so good luck with that."

  The excitement among the guild was palpable.

  "Alright," Touch Me decred. "Let’s go find some pyers for Antikythera to crush."

  The guild cheered.

  ...

  Apple-Resin22 eyed her party. "This is the tomb," she said with barely concealed disdain. "Those stupid heteromorphs are holed up in here."

  "They’re ranked #9, right?" Darc 4rch3r sounded unimpressed. "Doesn’t seem like much."

  "Except they fended off a thousand-pyer raid before," muttered Yaddler, the group’s mage.

  Apple-Resin rolled her eyes. "That raid was mostly NPCs. We’ve got 400 of our own, plus our 100 pyers. This time, we wipe them out."

  They carved through the first wave of pop mobs—a squad of gold-pted skeletons who snarled at them like rabid animals.

  Apple-Resin smirked. "Again, not much."

  Then they entered the first floor.

  The sound of hammering filled the air—first distant, then closer, then deafening.

  As they stepped inside, the factory came to life.

  The conveyor belts churned, the chains groaned, and the hanging automatons—unfinished but eerily human-shaped—began to assemble themselves, mechanical limbs clicking into pce like a well-oiled war machine.

  Then, one by one, they dropped to the ground, their eyes igniting with a piercing blue glow.

  A sharp whistle broke the tension.

  "Yeah, definitely custom-made," a random pyer muttered in disbelief. "Are these guys devs?"

  Apple-Resin's smirk faltered as she watched the automatons move—too fluid, too well-programmed.

  "Whatever," she scoffed. "No way these NPCs are actually—"

  One of the automatons lunged.

  The raid officially began.