"Three months, huh."
Hel could feel the slow absorption of the elemental crystal within her body—it would probably take even longer than three months to completely digest.
Still, gaining a sixth-tier combatant under her command within that time frame wasn't a bad trade-off.
But before that, there was still a major problem to deal with—the Beastmen invasion that would come with the spring thaw.
Given the current state of the Mandrake Territory's total collapse, unless the Empire sent reinforcements, both the Mandrake Territory and perhaps even the entire Kingdom of Sacrifice would fall—it was just a matter of time.
And if reinforcements did come, that might not necessarily be a good thing either.
No one could guarantee what kind of "support" would arrive—what if those who came had ulterior motives? With Heim's limited open power, there would be no way to oppose them.
And Hel couldn't simply deal with them in secret either.
After all, if one group mysteriously disappeared, more would come—and if too many people died in Heim City, even a pig would realize something was wrong.
Therefore, Hel needed a visible military force—something strong enough to deter others.
That was why she'd formed the Knights of Heim in the first place. But they hadn't yet grown strong enough to fulfill that role.
In the meantime, she needed a substitute.
And what could be a better choice than an army of puppets?
Fortunately, Hel already had a batch of puppets she couldn't easily show in public.
If she changed their appearances to make them look more like ordinary humans, as long as they weren't destroyed in battle, no one would realize they were artificial.
Besides, she'd recently received some useful information from Witt—that while puppets might be rare in the East, they were quite common in the West, especially in the Magic Empire.
So even if someone did recognize them as puppets, it wouldn't be that big of a deal.
After all, her grandfather was from the Magic Empire. Having a few puppet soldiers under her command was perfectly reasonable.
And so, Hel halted Niv's current large-scale project and summoned all her puppets.
At present, Hel didn't have that many—excluding the mechanical spiders used for mining, she had fewer than two thousand puppets.
Most of those were just second-tier cannon fodder.
Second-tier puppets…
They weren't particularly strong. Stronger than an ordinary person or a first-tier minion, sure—but not by much.
After considering the time it would take to modify them, Hel decided to skip the weaker ones and start upgrading from the third-tier puppets instead.
Her plan sounded great in theory—but once she started working, endless complications arose.
The goblins' puppet designs were not simple. If Hel wanted to alter their appearances, she'd have to modify the internal alchemy arrays and elemental circuits.
She could read the alchemy arrays easily enough and even tweak the circuits—but it was painstaking work to adjust every little detail.
Especially the arms on their backs—if she wanted to remove those, the entire structure of the formation would have to change.
At that point, it would be faster to just dismantle them and rebuild from scratch.
After several hours of tinkering, Hel finally completed her first new model.
A two-meter-tall puppet, fully armored in a knight's suit of plate, carrying a long lance on its back and a greatsword at its waist—
A perfect image of a knight.
And beneath it stood a warhorse, equally armored to the teeth.
"How about this?" Hel asked proudly, gesturing toward her creation and glancing at Niv.
"Master, I feel like this is kind of… wasteful."
Niv circled the puppet knight in amazement, clicking her tongue.
"Why did you make the knight and horse separate, Master? Wouldn't it save materials if you fused them together?"
"Partly to help hide their true nature," Hel replied, "and partly to enhance combat performance.
Don't underestimate the horse—it's actually quite powerful."
As she spoke, Hel patted the horse's flank.
With a whir of gears, two dark barrels extended from either side of its neck.
"These are rapid-fire magic rifles. They completely compensate for the knights' lack of ranged attacks during a charge.
And here—"
She tapped again. The horse's head transformed, revealing an even larger barrel.
"A miniature magic cannon. It can continuously fire explosive rounds without disrupting the charge, letting them handle large groups of enemies efficiently."
"That's amazing! Master, do you have more of these?" Niv asked excitedly.
"Not really," Hel shrugged.
"To maintain endurance, these two weapons already push the energy core to its limit. Any more would drain it too fast."
"That's true… but still a bit of a shame. Master could've made it bigger, you know. Doesn't have to be this small."
Hel's eye twitched. Of course, it was Niv—always taking every idea to the extreme.
"Good suggestion," she muttered, "don't bring it up again."
Ignoring her assistant's "improvements," Hel continued mass-producing the knight puppets.
Mass production, thankfully, was much faster than individual prototyping.
With Niv's industrial machines and Hel's Alchemical Wordcraft, it didn't take long to finish 60 third-tier knight puppets.
The six fourth-tier ones, though, took a lot more effort.
The structural difference between a centurion and a captain-class puppet was huge—the internal formations were completely different.
But since the overall design was similar, it still didn't take too long.
When finished, the fourth-tier knight puppets looked much like the third-tier ones—just taller, and wearing general-grade armor used by the Knight Empire instead of standard knight plate.
Meanwhile, in Mandrake City—
Several large groups were leaving the city in procession. Once outside, they split off in different directions.
They were the surviving heirs of nobles and rich merchants from across the Mandrake Territory, along with a few servants who attended them.
As for the unaffiliated commoners… most had already died in the waves of disasters.
Those lucky few who somehow survived were quickly enslaved or divided up by the nobles who remained.
Now, with the population of the Mandrake Territory reduced to less than one-tenth of what it once was, even a single peasant was considered a valuable resource.
To ensure they could resume their luxurious lives once they returned to their fiefs, the nobles had no qualms about working these commoners to death.
Among them was one familiar face—
The priest of Heim City, Gerhard.