by Matthew Peed
“You have to be an Arcarin! That was like the records of their ships!” Duilin accused, pointing his finger at Regan.
“Sorry, nope,” Regan said without a pause. “I just know how to make some very interesting toys.”
Internally, I was wondering if there wasn’t something to Izora’s claim, after all. These forces were on a level that mortals hadn’t seen in eons. Or at least, they appeared that way to me.
“Right . . .” Duilin seemed to take a deep breath before he continued. “Celestia is in another realm. Not sure how it came about, but one day a powerful individual was able to access Celestia. There were already quite a few beings there, but they accepted the person. We have records of a place called Hellia, but those records are severely lacking,” Duilin summarized. “Ah, right. So, Murgin has been attacked by at least one other planet. From where, I can’t say. Whether the second attack was the same aliens or beings from another planet entirely is also a mystery to me.”
“Well . . . this world, or I guess I should say, universe, just got a lot more interesting,” Regan said with his hands rubbing together.
I could already imagine the trouble that was going to come from this. I didn’t even grimace, as Regan had already proved himself my closest ally besides maybe Ezal. If he was having fun, I could only go along for the ride.
~~~
Regan banned me from cultivating mana without strict supervision before he sent me back to the town. I wasn’t in a particular hurry to cultivate more anyway. I wasn’t even sure of the current limits of my power, and adding more than what I had was a disaster just waiting to happen. Ezal was glad to see me when I returned, but I felt it was more due to the town slowly grinding to a halt without me.
Personally, I was a little happy the town needed me to be there. This town was all that I had to my name, and I wanted to protect it. The people who I interacted with daily, while not all of them could be called friends, many were on their way to being friends. Not to mention all the people who had come to start calling the town home—I owed it to them as their lord to do my best. I just wondered to myself why everything that came there had to be so powerful.
The dress Regan made for me helped alleviate the headache from the increased speed that my thoughts moved at. It was quite nice-looking as well. Obviously designed with combat in mind, the skirt was split in the sides to allow for greater movement. It was a light blue with lightning patterns that ran symmetrically on both sides. Plates of some type of metal covered my chest, then ran down the sides to cover my waist. I could feel with my senses that although it was heat resistant, it would conduct my lightning with ease.
I spent a day getting the day-to-day affairs back in order. That only took an hour with my increased senses. I’d never known I could read and actually understand something so quickly. After that, I slowed down to read the reports I’d gotten. Most of it was fairly standard. Monster environment changes due to the battle, inventory, and revenue from around town. The last report interested me most. While I was out, a merchant convoy had arrived at the town.
~~~
I was currently heading over to the spot they had set up. Large tents that were bigger than many of the buildings in town were on full display. Ezal informed me that many important high-ranking merchants came to check out the town. I had mixed feelings about that, but no place can survive without the lifeblood that is money. People had to pay to eat, after all.
Ezal was escorting me, as she felt this was an important meeting, and she might be required to alleviate any of the merchants’ worries that dealt with security. Of course, I was glad she was coming along, as merchants were usually the hardest to deal with. Even more so when they were a merchant with a noble rank. That was the combination for a self-entitled bastard if there ever was one.
We arrived at a castle-like tent that took up several dozen meters. Some of the most well-equipped guards stood watch over the entrance, and there was even a guard every ten meters or so along the walls of the tent. The Thonacan flag flapped along with a flag of whichever merchant this was. If my memory served me correctly, it was an Olivia Holdin. She was a sort of legendary figure to many women, even if she operated brothels. At least the women there worked of their own volition, unlike most, which used slaves. Though, I’m not sure if I believed that anymore, given what had happened the last few months.
To the left and right of the castle-size tent were several more that formed a pseudo district of mansions. I was kind of impressed with it, actually. My biggest wonder was why the top-ranked merchants of Thonaca had deemed it necessary to come themselves. I wanted to find that out before I or Regan got stabbed in the back again.
“OH MY! Is that the viscountess?!” a sweet-sounding voice called toward me.
I saw a woman who looked to be in her midforties. She wore a dress that screamed wealthy, and was surrounded by a dozen-plus guards. I was sure there were a few hidden in the background.
“Countess Highwater. A pleasure to make your acquaintance,” I said with a curtsy. While we were both nobles of the same country, she still outranked me. Thus, I had to be . . . respectful. Part of me actually felt a bit . . . upset about having to show this woman respect.
“Lady Louella, it truly is a pleasure to meet you. You have no idea how much I’ve heard about you and your little valley,” Countess Highwater said as she raised a parasol over her.
“Indeed,” I said, having to force myself not to be sarcastic, “I have heard many stories of Lady Highwater as well.”
“It really is a shame about what happened. Had you stayed with your family, you might be a marchioness right now. I would have been curtsying to you,” Countess Highwater said with sweet smile.
I probably wouldn’t have noticed if not for my increased senses. The fact that she knew about the happenings of my family meant I was most likely nice tea party gossip right now in the capital. I could only grind my teeth at the fact that it was the enemies’ capital, from a Lecazar standpoint.
“Funny how life works sometimes. Though, I can say that I’m quite happy with my current lot in life,” I said with a bright smile in return. I wasn’t completely sure if it were true, as it hadn’t sunk in fully, but given what Regan had told me, I was quite powerful now. I felt I could generate enough lightning to burn this entire tent city down, so I had no reason to fear people who only knew how to grow their money.
I saw Countess Highwater’s eye twitch, then she said, “I see. Well, I have matters to attend to. Please excuse me.” She nodded to her guards, and they made their way to another of the giant tents a bit of a ways down the line.
I heard loud laughter from Olivia’s tent and turned to see a woman I couldn’t get an accurate age for standing in the entrance. She was dressed in nice clothes that could match Countess Highwater’s, but they only covered her womanly features and left most of the rest exposed.
“Damn, it’s about time someone stood up to her. You normally have to have a certain amount of money to do that,” the woman said with a large grin.
“Miss Olivia Holdin?” I asked to be sure she was who I was looking at.
“In the flesh . . . maybe I shouldn’t say that, considering the events,” she said as she gestured for me to enter her tent. I made my way in, Ezal close behind. We let the guards stand outside, as both of us would have been able to handle anything that happened within the town grounds. A simple call was all that was needed to bring Regan, after all.
“I want to thank you for allowing one of my brothels to be opened here a few months ago,” Olivia said as she sat at a small table.
“You? I never got a request from an individual as esteemed as yourself,” I said. There was only one brothel in the town, and it was operated by some guy. It did very well, and the town got ten percent of the profits per our agreement.
“Well, I couldn’t very well come myself, but I can smell opportunity. If you dug at any of the dungeon towns, you would find the brothels all belong to me,” Oliva said with a smil
e that seemed to give her teeth extra points. I wondered if she wasn’t part beastkin.
“I see. I’m sure that has turned out profitable for you,” I remarked. Just the income from the one here in town could make many people very wealthy.
“Quite. Many of the girls here would rather turn to slavery than give up their jobs at the brothel. Some of the men too, but we only have a few of those.”
“Glad to hear my town is so well liked.”
“Indeed! Your town is the perfect place for a business like mine. You don’t know how many times an offended customer, or worse, a lovestruck customer seeks out the girls when they are on their own time. I have had too many men and women killed from animals like these,” Olivia nearly growled as she explained. “But those little obelisks! They are a piece of masterful magic! If only more towns could have them—”
“I’m going to stop you right there,” I said, cutting her off. “The obelisks are only under my jurisdiction. I have no real control over them,” I explained honestly. Some of the light in her eyes immediately dimmed. At least I could curb any interest in that bit of information quickly enough.
“Pity. Do you think you could introduce me to the man responsible?” She was giving me wide eyes while cupping her hands. The process had the effect of making her look incredibly cute, while making her chest pop out of her clothes, leaving only the tips of her breasts covered. If I were a man, this would have worked wonders, no doubt.
“I will inquire for you,” I said.
She narrowed her eyes but held her tongue. I stood up, feeling that it would look bad if I stayed in any one merchant’s tent for too long. “If you’ll excuse me, I have other members of this venture to speak to.”
“Of course, of course,” Olivia said as she gestured to the entrance. She didn’t look very put off that she’d failed to get the answer from me.
Once outside, Ezal turned to me. “Well, that’s two, so maybe if we try hard, we can make them all hate us.”
“I don’t know. Olivia seemed to understand, but something about them does just rub me the wrong way,” I said honestly. Everyone was cordial, but it was all fake, I supposed.
“Well, of course. You don’t know which is going to try to take your toy away,” Ezal said with a snicker.
“Very funny,” I said, then smacked her arm. I failed to hold back and pushed her nearly two meters. Thankfully, she wasn’t quite normal herself anymore and was able to correct her posture before she went tumbling.
“Damn! That fucking hurt!” Ezal said, rubbing her arm.
“Sorry!” I said, rushing over to make sure she was alright. It was the arm that Regan had created for her, thankfully, and there wasn’t a bruise or any other damage.
We started heading for the next tent when I heard a voice, which I honestly thought I would never hear again. “Ezal! It’s so good to see you! Tell me, where can I find my daughter?”
“Fuck!” I vaguely heard Ezal say next to me as everything around me narrowed to a point.
Chapter 12
Regan
After the discussion with Duilin, I dropped Louella off with Ezal, then moved to the north. I’d considered making a few more floors on the main dungeon, but I felt that there was little reason right now. With Nova blocking the path forward, I doubted anything smaller than an army could manage to make their way through. Of course, I’d seen things that had caused me to be wrong before.
I stood at the end of one of the arms of the floating city, which I’d named Alpha, and observed the undead forest around my aura. I was pretty sure I knew what was interfering with me now. One of the patrols had made it deep into the forest, where they’d found an ancient-looking tree. Only one managed to make it back, but from the information it brought, I was sure it was a dryad.
Dryads were known to be extremely powerful in their center of power, which is usually their forest. They can command the animals and even many of the monsters in their domain. In fact, it might be wise to consider them weak dungeon cores. A dryad was a dangerous foe to contend with, and I had an inkling that there was more than one in these forests.
There were a few of them in other forests on the continent that maintained communication with the mortals, according to the records kept by the Adventurers Guild. They were rated A+ lord-class monsters that only the strongest of the strong even attempted to deal with—usually resulting in them hanging from trees by their necks for destroying the forest where the dryad lived.
The forest in front of me didn’t corrupt overnight, which meant the dryad most likely didn’t have enough power to stop it. Or, in what I thought was the real answer, was told not to stop it by its master. I had a feeling the dryad was a monster that had been released by Alara in her free days and was subsequently corrupted due to the aura she had been putting off for several decades now. The question was how to deal with it.
“Jarvis,” I called out into the empty night around me.
A few moments later, a circle appeared on the ground, and he emerged next to me. He bowed, then said, “Yes, sir?”
“Give me a rundown,” I ordered.
“Yes, sir. We have gathered enough data on the undead to be able to resist the undeath in the air. We are working on the spells, but no one has sir’s level of knowledge of the intrinsic level of magic. We have captured several monsters that appeared to be mutations from the natural order they should have followed.”
“I understand. I will pop over to the labs to check it out later. Any news on what the airships are doing?” I asked. They were all anchored in a line around roughly a hundred kilometers from where the capital of the north was located. A few had dropped off the map in various places, likely to hunt or recharge their mana capacitors.
“No, sir. The monsters in the north area are hard for drones to deal with alone. Any aerial scouting we’ve attempted so far is intercepted about two hundred kilometers from here. The line extends as we move our forces farther but . . .” he explained.
“I don’t like it,” I said as I turned toward him. “Someone is trying to buy time, and I don’t feel inclined to give it to them.”
“What do we do, sir?”
“It’s time we move. Begin operation Scorched North. Take command of the Zeta, the Etara just left on a long-term investigation.”
“Yes, sir.”
I turned back to the undead forest, then held both my arms out. Five pitch-black holes appeared that possessed a large spectrum of colors on the borders. A few moments later, five ships started to emerge from teleportation. I wasn’t just sitting there and watching the north; I was building an army.
I could move people, even lots of people, but once the object reached a certain mass, I had to take another route to move it. I could do this outside my aura, but the mana cost was quite bad. Like several tons of mithril bad. It was all factored into the operation and thus prepared for, though.
Beta emerged from the nearest gate. It was the first ship I’d created, captained by Benjamin. Next came Gamma, which was designed to be a battleship with a lot of armor and shielding, and carried armaments that could easily wipe out a few countries. It wasn’t quite as long as Beta, coming in at only four hundred meters, but it could easily win against it. The ship was more flat than tall, with turrets dotting its surface. It was captained by Ja . . . I mean Spare. I really had to be careful with my names.
The next ship to finish emerging was small, only about two hundred meters, the Delta. It served as a medical and repair ship. Its generators where capable of powering all the ships at once and then some. It used microwave technology that I’d adapted to work with mana to send the energy to other ships within a fifty-kilometer range. It had a lot of bulk to house the generators, and its surface was covered in microwave dishes. It was captained by Liz.
The Epsilon emerged next. A destroyer, it was small at three hundred and fifty meters, give or take, but it boasted a speed that would be hard for many things to match once it got into a fight. With its armor and shields,
it would survive anything the north could throw at it as long as it was near the Delta. It had a sleek design that allowed for less air resistance. This ship was captained by Wilson.
Lastly was the Zeta, the ship I gave to Jarvis. This one was sort of a copy of the Gamma, as it was a battleship, but just a touch bigger with a few more turrets on it. I was going for a dreadnought but felt it missed the mark by just a hair. I hadn’t gotten around to creating a captain yet; they were getting more expensive every time.
Once the ships finished emerging, the gates closed with a strong ripple of mana. I helped myself to the “runoff,” as I was starting to call it, only slightly recouping the cost of opening the gates in the first place. Four teleport circles appeared around me as the ships came to a stop just over the city walls.
Four very different automata emerged from the teleports. First was Benjamin. He hadn’t changed since I’d made him a few weeks ago. Standing next to him was Spare, a bit smaller than Benjamin, but his eyes seemed to be able to take everything in at once. He kind of reminded me of a steampunk version of the captain in the movie. His weapons were an energy sword and a pistol, though the pistol was capable of doing quite a bit of magic. It appeared that the ammo used in the pistol allowed for different spells, depending on which type was chosen.
Next to them were Liz and Wilson. Liz was currently locked on to Wilson’s arm. I wasn’t sure how it had happened, but I was still learning more about magic every day. Especially this precreated dungeon magic that I used. Liz looked much closer to the original, only her body was made up of skin-colored metal plates, with a few places that showed circuitry or wiring. I wasn’t sure why, but her weapon was a giant cannon. I mean, it was larger than her.
Wilson was much the same, except he carried over twenty swords on him. They hovered around him when they were in use, but while “sheathed,” they floated close to his back. He was pretty strong when using only his martial skills but could decimate a large force when he used all his weapons at once. He mainly used his mana to control the swords and reinforce his body.