As the raid team entered the ruins, they prepared themselves. So far, the skeletons had ignored the automatons. In fact, when their path get blocked by the drones, the skeletons would just go around instead of attacking.

Since they would become hostile or run away if the raid team would actively attack the undead, Custodian ordered the drones to leave the skeletons alone… for now.

“Well, well. Look at that! That undead is carrying a weapon!” Drone 7 pointed at a skeleton wielding a rusty sword. It, like many others, were just wandering around the ruins.

‘Very interesting. Would it act differently or the same? Slayer and Drone 1, try to provoke the armed being,’ Custodian commanded.

As ordered, the two automatons flanked the skeleton, blocking its path. The skeleton stopped in its track, then bent its back slightly forward. It made a low creaking noise, then tried to go around the two drones.

After a while of struggling between the drones, the skeleton finally got through. Without even looking back, it made an annoyed clicking noise, then left.

‘Attack it now,’ Custodian instructed.

Slayer unsheathed his sword, then crept behind the armed skeleton. With a swift stab at the monster core, the skeleton fell apart just like any other. The skeletons never paid attention to the drones, so unless they get attacked from the front, they wouldn’t put up much of a fight.

“Slayer! There is a wraith looking at you” Drone 7 called out.

“What?” Slayer looked up from his latest target, then at a big flying ghost armed with a greataxe.

When the drones had to kill any undead, they usually did it in isolation, since they didn’t know how other undead would react to their kin being mauled to a second death.

Custodian had been thinking that the undead didn’t care. It seemed that the A.I. was wrong…

The wraith raised its bony hands, then screeched. Its ghostly fire intensified as the wraith charged forward.

Slayer prepared to block, but he felt a hand tug against his shoulders.

“Declaration. This one is my kill.” Drone 1 marched forward with his own greataxe.

“If you wish,” Slayer took a few steps back, but still kept his sword ready.

Drone 1 didn’t waste any time charging towards the wraith. Both lifeless beings raised their axes, pulled them back, and swung forward. The collision between the old and new axe blades caused a brief spark, showing how focused these two were on killing each other.

Reacting quickly, Drone 1 smacked the wraith’s axe, since it seemed impossible to physically kill the ghost.

“Drone 1, how do you intend on killing that thing?” Slayer asked worryingly.

“With this.” Just as the two axes clashed once more, Drone 1 charged both of its arms with mana. Shock magic danced across the drone’s metallic body and into the wraith.

The wraith screeched and howled as it got shocked into nonexistence, disappearing into mist and only leaving the rusty axe on the ground.

Just moments later, skeletons arrived in full force, but became confused when they couldn’t find a threat. Custodian almost thought the drones were going to be swarmed, but it seemed that skeletons lost interest and dispersed.

“A worthy fight, Drone 1,” Slayer praised as he nodded.

‘You might have to avoid the wraiths. We are not sure if it attacked you because it saw a kin being attacked and killed, or it simply did so because it wanted to kill us,’ Custodian followed up.

‘Understood,’ Slayer replied.

‘This is long overdue, but Drone 1, I hereby declare you Princeps. That is all. Carry on,’ Custodian declared.

‘Affirmative,’ replied Princeps.

“Congratulations. Now I feel left out not having a name,” Drone 7 said as they approached Princeps.

“You are Drone 7,” remarked Slayer.

“No, you idiot. I mean an actual name,” Drone 7 retorted.

“Work hard,” Magus interjected as he picked up the rusty axe. He examined the weapon carefully, then carried it along with his staff.

The drones didn’t come here to pick a fight with a bunch of walking bones anyway. They came here to raid the ruins for materials.

The raid team continued deeper into the ruins, navigating through the ancient roads, sometimes even through long broken buildings. It didn’t take long until they reached a courtyard devoid of life except for a few metal spiders.

The combat and scout drones were still scattered across the old town, so the raid team could come and pick them up to assist them with their raid.

“Two scout drones, and four combat drones…” Drone 7 counted.

“Excellent arithmetic skills,” Slayer noted.

“I wish Exarchi was here…” Drone 7 grumbled. Crouching down, the humanoid drone reached for one of its younger kin. Scouts were also programmed to pick anything interesting or shiny, but only on their path. The processors were still low grade, so Custodian had to make do with scouts not going out of their way to pick up treasures. Apparently, this particular scout got extra lucky.

“Why do you have a key?” Drone 7 muttered. The key was dirty, but was clearly made of gold. Jewels… or crushed monster cores… lined the key, making this highly valuable.

Highly valuable to the people from the past, that is. To the drones, these were materials to be processed, and tools to obtain more matter.

‘Keep the key for now. If we are lucky, we might be able to find a door that fits the key,’ Custodian remarked.

‘That would require us finding a door that’s not half smashed and rotted,’ Drone 7 replied.

“We should continue to the nearest barracks,” Slayer suggested. He called out to Magus, who was examining a pile of rubble.

“What are you looking at?” Drone 7 asked.

“This. Town have many of this,” Magus pulled out of piece of rubble and held it up.

‘It is a piece of wood. My databank has information on wood,’ Custodian noted.

‘Yes. But from where? Where it was mined from?’ Magus pondered.

‘That is…’ Custodian didn’t have an answer, but the ruins may. ‘Disregard question for now. Move on.’

‘Affirmative,’ Magus replied as he gave the piece of stick to a scout, which happily took it with its small front claws.

With the addition of the spider drones, the raid team moved on to their target. The roads around the ancient barracks was guarded by patrolling living armor, and there was a noticeable lack of skeletons or wraiths nearby. The building itself was walled, but many of the sections were missing or damaged.

The scout drones climbed onto some old houses to get a clearer view. Custodian observed the patrol patterns, and made the best routes in and out of the barracks. Three squads of living armors rotated around the barracks, never leaving their trail, which might explain why there were noticeable ditches around the barracks.

The raid team formed up, ready to move into the building as the living armors passed by. A pair of spider and humanoid drone ran across the street and through the barracks walls, barely slipping by a patrol.

It took a long time for all the drones to get in, but they couldn’t risk fighting with the living armors. Even if they manage to kill all of the living armors, nearby wraiths and skeletons might intervene.

Luckily, the inner barracks wasn’t patrolled. It was devoid of the undead, leaving the drones to freely scavenge the place. Unlike the houses, the barracks offered slightly more loot. There were some unburnt but rotting books, weapons, and armor.

Magus and Princeps scouted out a huge hall. There were tables and chairs lined neatly, though some were knocked out of position. At the end of a hall was a wall. Though the wall wasn’t interesting, what was on it got the interest of the drones.

Draped across the wall was a torn red banner. A symbol of a shield and a helmet was heralded in white on the piece of frayed banner. Magus tore the banner down, then held it up. Without a word, he slung the red cloth behind his back, then tied it across his shoulders, around his neck.

“How does this look?” Magus asked Princeps on his new cape, in response the armored drone simply shrugged.

“You two. Cease waste of productive time,” Slayer found the two drones and called out to them. He was carrying bundles of a few worn out scrolls. With nothing else in the barracks, the raid was completed, so they had to leave.

The four drones met up outside of the barracks to prepare for their exit. Drone 7 came out of the barracks with chainmail tucked under his fur coat. “You guys ready? We better get back with all these loot.”

Just as they were prepared to sprint back to safety, across the decayed street, a wraith was staring directly at them. After a minute of staring at each other, the wraith pointed at the direction of the drones with its rusted sword.

[Alert: High presence of mana detected]

The warning was the first of its kind for Custodian, and already, the A.I. hated it.

‘Prepare for combat.’ The order was clear, and resounded through the minds of the raid team.

As soon as the drones dropped the loot and prepared for a fight for their life, the wraith screeched. Not only that, wraiths all over the ruined city howled at the top of their ghastly lungs. If the drones had real ears, they would’ve bled.

Custodian started flicking through the eyes of the scout drones rapidly. Skeletons stopped wandering, then all simultaneously turned their heads towards a direction. The A.I. immediately took control of all combat drones, then propelled them towards the barracks the raid team was in.

Just as the wraith began moving, a horde of skeleton followed after it. The wraith swung its sword down, signalling the start of their charge.

The horde of undead began stampeding towards the barracks and… around it?

The drones watched as the skeletons ran around the barracks, then disappeared off into the darkness. Screeching and howling were heard throughout the city, but they were going further from where the drones were at.

“Perhaps… their directional cognition broke?” Drone 7 muttered.

‘It matters not, the way back is clear. Even the living armors had left,’ Custodian declared.

The A.I. didn’t need to say anything else for the drones to start moving out. While the raid team scrambled back into the outpost with all the valuables they got, the spider drones stayed behind to watch whatever was going on in the ruins.

Multiple scout drones scattered, trying to follow trails of the undead, while some tried to explore places they were barred from previously. With the living armors running off somewhere, many of the buildings and parts of the cities became open to Custodian.

Tall crumbling towers were climbed by the scouts, allowing Custodian to see from a vantage point. While it was still too dark, moving figures could still be seen from afar. The undead, in particular, wasn’t too hard to follow since the wraiths which led the horde glowed with a bluish tint.

Following the trail, the living armors all converged at an extremely tall tower. At the base was a fort, and at the center, a tower that was probably meant to reach for the skies. Custodian went through a lengthy, and costly process trying get scout drones to climb the fort in order to investigate it.

Out of the seven scouts sent to climb the fort, only two made it up onto the tower. Some were destroyed by wraiths, others got trampled on the way, another one fell off the fort wall.

It would take quite some time for the two drones to climb up the tower to check its height. There was also the possibility that the tower reached all the way to the underground sky. Nevertheless, Custodian took full advantage of the vantage.

While the living armor assembled by the fort, the other undead mobbed somewhere else. A few scout drones continued to follow the crowd, but they were lagging behind as they had to be careful not to be trampled by the skeletons.

While Custodian was wary about the undead horde, it decided to take full advantage of the situation. Almost immediately after the raid team dropped their loot off at the forward outpost, they returned to the city to raid the next building.

With nothing stopping them, barracks after barracks was raided without stopping even for a moment.

All the while, Custodian kept watch of the undead horde. Screeching resounded throughout the ruined town from time to time, but scouts were still too far from the front to investigate the noise. At best, they were at the backseat of the crowd, barely making out flashy lights from the front.

Nothing else happened until the raid team finished searching the fifth barracks. A large explosion wiped out most of the skeletons and wraiths at the front, and the crowd of undead started to move forward. They moved from a wide, open area of the city to a narrower, crowded part of the city.

The scouts took advantage of this and started climbing the old buildings. Once the first scout drone reached the front of the crowd, Custodian couldn’t believe what it was seeing.