After being forced to step down, the once-annoying nun eloped with me.

Meanwhile, in the cellars of the town of Earl of Kagard.

The monsters, their antlers cut off, were weeping softly. Joseph, a former Red Cross doctor who had risked his life to save them but ended up harming his family, could only hold his wife and daughters and wail.

"I'm sorry, my wife, my children, I'm so sorry." Joseph was in tears. His wife and daughters, exhausted from crying, could only sob softly in his arms. "I shouldn't have taken this risk. I should have left this filthy and depraved country with them... These inhuman beasts, I knew they couldn't change their barbaric ways, but I never imagined they would be worse than wild animals!"

These children thought they were in distress, which is why they offered to help them, and these beasts did such a thing... Sigh! Sigh!

Joseph was the chief physician of the Red Cross established by the Regent. Under the guidance of a night school, he completed his studies in herbal medicine, which was still considered rudimentary at the time, in two years with his intelligence. After years of providing free medical care to the poor in the Red Cross, he became the chief physician.

He was one of those who witnessed the regent's expulsion. At the time, he was performing surgery on a poor man who was on the verge of death. After he, his assistant, wife, and daughter were dragged out and beaten, he happened to see the regent walking alone on the national highway.

Although the Red Cross had been completely abolished, Joseph still kept his oath before the Regent.

He and his wife and daughters carried scalpels and herbal medicine packets to provide medical treatment to those in need, even if the patients they treated did not offer them a cup of hot water after they survived, but instead offered their devotion to the God of Light. For the past year, he had lived a proud yet impoverished life, and at times he felt indebted to his wife and daughters who could not obtain a good life.

The more skilled he became in surgery, the louder the voices of the patients who survived his work echoed the voice of the God of Light.

The louder the praise of the God of Light, the more patients and their families will come to him for help.

Over and over again, he didn't take much money, and he didn't even drink many cups of hot water offered by the patients' families—he saved countless lives, but the people he saved thought it was a matter of course.

Friends have tried to persuade me that the Roman Empire is no longer the wise country under the Regent's rule. They should cross the sea to Isgard, to the Elves, or even to the Great Khan's land, rather than continue wasting time here.

But Joseph remained true to his vow: he never forgot that he studied to make the Roman Empire stronger, nor did he forget that he practiced medicine to save more ordinary people from the suffering of disease.

However, what happened in the Earldom of Kagard completely shattered his faith.

Did he save people or livestock along the way?

Looking at the monsters with their antlers cut off, Joseph felt his hands trembling uncontrollably: These were living, breathing people, why did they have to suffer such treatment? Why should they suffer such treatment? Why?

On impulse, he grabbed his surgical kit and bravely sneaked into the cellar. He stopped the bleeding and stitched up the wounds of the most seriously injured girls, but he was powerless to help those missing organs from their heads.

The only way to deal with this injury is to go to the elven kingdom and beg the elves, who know the magic of limb regeneration, to unleash their spells—before Joseph could reach that conclusion, a blow to the back of his head made him stumble and fall to the ground.

Upon waking, he found himself locked in a cellar. He then saw the farmer, whose surgery he had used to save his elderly mother and brothers, dragging his wife and daughter into the cellar.

"A heretic who colludes with the demons!"

With a spit, Joseph spat in his face, and seeing his wife and daughter, who had also been captured and were trembling in front of him, Joseph's faith completely collapsed.

Did he save people or animals along the way?

The chief physician, who was to be burned at the stake along with his family and demons on March 1st, wept bitterly. This man, who hadn't shed a single tear even when his parents were killed by barbarians, finally broke down at this moment.

Just as Joseph was sobbing uncontrollably, a pale-faced demon girl stepped forward, tore off some pieces from her rough clothes, and used them to wipe the tears of the three humans in front of her.

She murmured in a language that humans couldn't understand, but knowing that she was trying to comfort him, Joseph cried again.

"Your Majesty the Regent—Your Majesty the Former Emperor! Forgive my overstepping... Please return like lightning and bring this burning saga to a close—! I beg you... Do not let these beastly humanoid creatures continue to harm others, I beg you..."

In the cellar of Earl Kagard's territory, the doctor, whose heart had completely died, and the demon relied on each other, venting their inner fears and grievances.

In the Demon Forest, in the village of the Listening Clan.

Yang Hao was saying:

"Chief, have your people do as I say. Yes, have children with insufficient magic power make the [hands] within this framework, and have adults with abundant magic power make the [limbs] and [torso] within this framework—yes! That's it! Just like that... I was right after all. As long as a standard is set, even those of you who cannot make golems on your own can contribute to golem production!"

Looking at the Golem that slowly stood up in front of him, which was slightly smaller than the clan leader's 8-meter-tall Golem, only a little over 5 meters tall.

Yang Hao was extremely excited. This meant that the good days for the people of Khagad were coming to an end—the endless Golem army would break through the defenses of the priests and militia of the Church of Light and directly invade the heart of Khagad Town, catching them completely off guard.

But then he had a new idea:

According to the chieftain, these golems require precise control; they can even hold a bird egg carefully between two stone fingers.

This directly results in one Listener being able to control only one Golem, and the amount of magic power consumed varies depending on the precision of the Golem's actions, thus affecting the efficiency of the Golem army.

This is troublesome. Yang Hao doesn't need these golems to perform the agile, "dancing" movements that Naruja is so proud of. He only needs these golems to smash, hit, push, and charge—just these simple movements are enough.

So after thinking it over, in the heat of the moment, he suddenly had a new idea:

Could we reverse this process, rejecting precise control and instead using a "swarm" approach, allowing one Listener to control ten Golems to launch an attack?

This is not only more efficient, but also frees up more manpower for use as a reserve force...

Whether it will actually work depends on whether the Ling tribe has the ability.

Thinking of this, Yang Hao turned around to look for Naruja's figure.

While he was searching for Naruja's figure, he was unaware that Teresa was standing in front of Naruja with a serious expression, explaining to her the preparations she needed to make for her upcoming communication with Yang Hao.

Chapter 20: Why can't Golems use weapons?!

"Mother Teresa, what do you mean—"

"Yes, that's what I mean. Whatever you do... don't disobey his orders. I won't allow you to do that. If you do, I'll take him away from here right now, and you can deal with your own people's problems."

"I'd do anything if he could save my family. But I can't understand why you're taking this so seriously?"

When Naruja asked her question, Teresa simply shrugged and did not answer Naruja's question directly.

During this time, Teresa had been keeping a close eye on Yang Hao's condition, which had fallen into a state of frenzy.

She was worried that Yang Hao might develop some kind of mental illness because of this—fortunately, he only intended to seek revenge. An eye for an eye, a tooth for a tooth, is a matter of course, so Mother Teresa didn't say anything.

But after observing and suddenly realizing that even in this situation, Yang Hao would only have physical contact with her, be slightly intimate with her, and not even have physical contact with the Ling clan members—she suddenly realized something.

...This man probably only trusts himself. Since he keeps a distance of three to five meters when speaking to anyone else, he's likely only willing to trust himself.

Although he said he wanted to help the Ling people, he actually had no intention of trusting them at all.

It's not his fault—Theresa thought. Anyone who had gone through what he did would never trust anyone again. But precisely because of this, Theresa had to preserve this faint glimmer of hope, which could potentially influence the major events in his life later...

As long as the Ling tribesmen behave well, and as long as they do not disobey Yang Hao's orders in this operation, then for the time being... Yang Hao can gradually regain his trust in people and live an ordinary life, instead of having to build houses far away even after settling in the elven village, and not even wanting to greet his neighbors.

So after thinking for a moment, she simply said, "This is our little secret," and pushed the bewildered Naruja out.

She also needed to help cast a small divine spell on the Listeners who were making Golems. She trusted Yang Hao to handle it, so she decided to leave it at that.

......

After finding Naruja, Yang Hao immediately discussed his ideas with her.

Yang Hao's idea was simple: to make the Ling Clan abandon the precise control down to the slightest touch of each finger, and instead control the Golems in a cluster manner to perform simple yet effective ordinary actions.

Naruja was taken aback for a moment upon hearing this, a hint of displeasure flashing across her face—after all, this was a proud tradition of their Ling tribe! Their Ling tribe competed against each other through precise control of golems, with the strongest becoming the tribal chief... This man was going to change their tradition directly, and anyone would be unhappy about that, right?

But when he thought of the torment his people had suffered in Kagard, when he thought of how Yang Hao's ingenious idea had indeed allowed the village to withstand the bandits' attacks, and when he thought of Mother Teresa's warning...

Narudya swallowed her displeasure and humbly tried to approach him, but found that he subconsciously stepped back, so she stopped and asked:

"So what should we do?"

Seeing this, Yang Hao simply nodded:

"Let's start with experiments."

They then conducted experiments for about a full day. The other members of the Ling tribe worked tirelessly to create golems according to his standardized framework, increasing the number of golems from one to ten. From only the chieftain as a combatant, they now had a total of eleven combatants.

If this Golem army were to encounter a Roman Empire legion without mage support in the wild, and without siege equipment or operators, they could hold off an entire army single-handedly, not only crushing the entire legion but also pursuing them relentlessly.

The problem is that mages do exist in the Roman Empire, and not only mages, but also parish priests pose a significant threat to the golems.

Therefore, they need to produce more golems. But with such a large number of golems, whether the operators can control so many golems becomes a problem.

Therefore, Yang Hao and Naruja conducted an experiment. They first created three control groups: Naruja herself, an ordinary adult woman from the Ling ethnic group, and a Ling girl. Then, they compared the results using two tests: one with precise control and the other with coarse control.

Naruja herself can perfectly and precisely control two golems, and with rough control, she can also easily control all golems to perform somewhat agile actions—but this would put a huge mental strain on her. According to her, she could easily control thirty golems with completely rough control.

An ordinary adult female of the Listener race can only precisely control one golem, which alone can cause significant mental stress to them—but if she can roughly control the golems' movement and ordinary attacks, controlling five is not a problem.

The children of the Listener race cannot precisely control golems, but they can roughly control two golems under mental pressure, though they should never give them complex commands.

The Listener's control over Golems seems to be determined by the precision of their [Precision Movements]. After some thought, Yang Hao gave Theresa a simple and easy-to-understand analogy:

"This is like having a group of workers precisely manufacture screws according to blueprints; the difference between that and making screws haphazardly..."

The more precise the measurement, the more effort is required.

Conversely, the more casual they are, the more leisure and energy they have to do other things.

If the tribe members were to roughly control the golems' movements, any of them could handle the task. But if they wanted to control the golems to dance, then probably only the tribe leader could do it.

"So what do you plan to do?"

"Simple. Just let them perform only rough control... but their mana consumption is another problem."

Mana consumption has always been a headache for mages—this precious mana is like gold coins, hard to save but easy to use.

Even Yang Hao's former lover, Priscilla, wouldn't dare to cast teleportation magic twice in a short period of time—because that would mean her magic power was completely depleted, and it would mean she would be unable to move for the next day or two.

What is the Ling tribe like?

Yang Hao and Theresa sat on a bench, resting and eating juicy roasted meat. Before Yang Hao could carefully blow on a piece to cool it down and feed it to Theresa, who was craving it, the Ling Clan Chief came over.

"...If it's about mana reserves, you have nothing to worry about." The Ling Clan Chief pointed to the antlers on his head. "We Ling Clan members are connected spiritually through our antlers... We can communicate with each other over great distances through our antlers, and naturally, we can also exchange mana. Each of us can transfer our mana to those in need after it's been restored, but conversely... once our collective mana is depleted, we will all become lambs to the slaughter."

The sincerity of the Ling clan chief surprised Yang Hao and Theresa.

Then, Theresa first put the roasted meat in Yang Hao's hand into her mouth, and after chewing it carefully, she suddenly realized a problem:

"In that case, Naruja, you should be able to contact your people in Kagard, right? Why...?"

"...Our power comes from the [Horn]. If the [Horn] is destroyed..."

"...I see."

Theresa had heard before that in the parishes of the Roman Empire, there seemed to be a strange luxury item called "beast horn".

These beast horns, originating from the Monster Forest, are a unique source of magic. They are ground into powder and used to make various medicines and even spices for food—now she finally understands where the horns come from.

They're all demons from the Demon Forest.

Theresa shook her head and sighed, wiping her mouth with a large leaf and also wiping the grease from Yang Hao's mouth.

Yang Hao thought for a moment and then said:

"In other words, we must break through Kargard's defenses before your mana runs out, and after rescuing your people, create enough chaos before the army arrives, ideally forcing them to remain in Kargard town... Alright, I'll think of a way..."

He pondered for a while, thinking that if there were no problems, he could probably gather 78 Golems before the final battle on the night of February 28th—considering that the Listeners still needed to recover their magic to fight, they could gather a maximum of 80 Golems.

With 80 Golems, and given that the total number cannot be increased further and precise control is impossible, what can be done to make them more powerful in combat?

What should we do?