Number One Dungeon Supplier

"What do you mean you have yet to take over the workshop?!" Edmond Diamondz shouted through his holographic communication console, sitting in his luxurious limousine while he waited for his secretary to order his usual takeaway breakfast.

He slammed his fist onto the leather sofa he was sitting on and it did not make a single dent from the force he exerted. His secretary could hear the sudden burst of anger from outside his limousine and subtly requested the cashier to take a little longer time to prepare the food.

The cashier also heard the commotion through the limousine's open window and gave a slight nod to the secretary as Edmond reluctantly listened to the incompetence of the commander at the other end of the conversation.

"So what if you cannot establish contact with the mercenaries and a few of our troops? If they could go into the workshop, that means there's an entrance. It does not matter how sophisticated their communication jamming was, just throw everyone into the fray. I want this to be done by today!"

"Yes, sir…" The commander heard the abrupt drop of his call indicating the rudeness of his employer. All he could do was grumble and complain in his head as he sighed at the reality of the current situation. Codename Eggshells, the commander who was working as the overall leader of this operation felt that this whole situation was a fishy one right from the start.

As the days went by, he felt that his codename was getting more and more appropriate. The development of this problem was something akin to eggshells. It was so delicate and when it broke, there was a mess all over the place which cannot be salvaged unless there's a proper cleanup.

At first, he and the CEO of Diamondz, Edmond thought that overwhelming power was the answer to this predicament. However, ever since the first day of this major operation, he had been seeing reason defying acts in the making that managed to destroy his perception of war. From a Mechanoid duo flying an unknown model of aircraft defeating an entire fleet of bombers by themselves to extreme coordination of the workshop defences that could resist their advance to a certain extent and even damage a portion of their most expensive equipment before they could get close to the workshop walls.

After which, the fierce resistance suddenly died out as they promptly retreated into the workshop where Eggshells believed they were making their last stand. He thought that was already a checkmate for the Diamondz Operation but the reality was that this was not the case. The adrenaline that the commanders had when they heard they had overpowered the walls had already felt that their overwhelming losses from this operation were justified.

However, as time goes by, the causalities seemed to be piling up as the number of Missing in Actions (MIA) increased as they lost communication just as how the initial few troops disappeared when during their day one of this particular operation.

That caused the rear command as well as Eggshells to think that there was an unknown force behind all of this before everything had started. Some deduced that it had something to do with the variant dungeon that was hidden under Mount Sunn. After all, everyone who was old enough to know about Old Fammet's reputation had some basic knowledge that he resided in this mountain mainly because of the existence of the dungeon.

It was through that dungeon that he was able to obtain resources for his creations and that was partially the case when it comes to his extensive customisation. Other Mecha Smith thought that particular mountain's dungeon was the key to his success and even attempted to rout him for hoarding the entire dungeon for himself.

However, Old Fammet merely laughed and said that the other Mecha Smiths were welcome to partake in the dungeon runs to get the resources and prove to him that it was the resources that matter. Many tried initially and failed at the start. But as they learnt the difficulty of the variant dungeon, a few richer smiths even brought in a large group of mercenaries with them to eventually learn that those resources were the same throughout the entire Empire. There was nothing different from the other dungeons despite its dungeon ranking to be placed in between the mid to high difficulty level.

He was merely choosing that particular dungeon because it was convenient for him to stay on that mountain and he want to use the mountain and the forest as a sort of seclusion.

And because of this, no other Mecha Smiths bothered to return after a few reputable smiths attempted to clear that misconception even further by clearing as low as possible, throwing as much money. It was to the point that it passed Old Fammet's dungeon clearing team and found that those materials even the rare ones did not differ.

Thus, Eggshells who was the most experienced commander when it comes to 'guarding' Old Fammet, knew that it was not the dungeon that created these phenomena but something else. And he suspects that it was related to the group of people that Nie had brought with him. Unfortunately, they turned out to be a mere team under the Empire's military. There was nothing special about them including their commander. The only recent feat they had was saving an archduke's kid which was broiled with multiple layers of classification that Diamondz was unwilling to invest to check. (After all, he believed it was not to let other people know how the kid got kidnapped in the first place.)

Other than that, there was nothing significant to them. All he could think of was that they were just here and in the wrong place wrong time.

Just as he sighed at the troubling orders that he was being given, a loud sharp sound was emitted from Mount Sunn once more. Eggshells immediately asked for his junior officers on the current situation although he was guessing it was Mount Sunn Workshop's mountain cannon. He could never forget the trembling of the ground if that deafening sound emerged out of it.

But before he could have verification from his officers, a light shone so brightly that it permeated through the thick defensive cloths of the makeshift combat tents that housed the headquarters. In a matter of moments, the rise of temperature within the surroundings indicated that the blast of searing heat was extremely close to the headquarters.

True enough, there was a huge energy signature that had been detected from Mount Sunn but the entire headquarters was in chaos. They never expected the Mountain Cannon capable of shooting at such distances. In fact, they assumed that the cannon had been disabled mainly due to its extensive usage previously. The only plausible clue they had was that the workshop did have a backup cannon or they fixed the cannon fast enough.

"Check for causalities! and report the damages to me as soon as possible!" Commander Eggshells said as his face turned weary.

But in all that confusion, there was a slight quick beep in the radar which all of the communication officers did not catch. An aircraft had safely ascended outside of its radius and proceeded to its destination.