by Charles Dean
“Then maybe you’ll be able to help me out with this problem,” Lucas said, gesturing to the open land.
Katie nodded. “I can. You need plans.”
“Yeah, I do,” Lucas agreed. “But where would you start?”
“Lumber. Lots of it. There are no trees around here. The marketplace may have it. May have stone too. This land can’t be a quarry. Glass. The marketplace had glass shops . . .” Katie only paused for half a second, and she seemed to be talking to herself more than Lucas.
That is definitely a Follower of Lee. “What about the ground? What can we do with that?” Lucas asked.
“Soil? It makes bad tunnels. Low friction. Lacks proper compressive force,” Katie continued. “Would need a fix. Ants use adhesives; men use steel.”
Ants . . . Lucas let that word linger in his mind for a moment. Previously, Saba’a’s silk had been one of the cornerstones of Lucas’s Territorial Income and his land’s economy. It had served several purposes, even making the base for the armor he was currently wearing. The fourteen acres that he had bought would be too small to use for farming, so he wouldn’t be able to establish trade. He didn’t have any silk to move without Saba’a, and there were no natural resources to take advantage of. His Territorial Income was a huge part of upgrading and maintaining dungeons, but it was going to stay at zero for the moment.
The only hope he could see to raise his cash flow would be to create a product, and monsters, like ants, might be the solution to that product. I just need to figure out how to make them into actual monsters, the same way Smash went from a regular Grobendiss to the monster he is now. If I can find a way to forcefully evolve my creatures so that they can work my territory, I can transform this land very quickly.
“Alright.” Lucas looked over at the tents. Katie had managed to set one up for everyone except for Nick, who finished his in a relatively quick time too. “I think it’s time we go tackle classes,” Lucas said.
“Boss,” Bonnie said, looking over, “are we really going to do that whole ‘go to school’ thing? I mean, I’m supposed to be doing classes in real life. I don’t want to sit through lectures in a game.”
“Supposed to be?” Nick looked over. “Please don’t tell me you’re skipping out on classes. You do know you can’t play video games if you don’t get a good enough job to have the spare hours?”
“I didn’t mean it like that. I’m ahead on classes. I just meant that I do them a lot in real life. This is a nice break, okay?” Bonnie grumbled back.
“Well, I don’t think we need to take them too seriously. I’m not here to play a simulated school-time experience that others might enjoy, but those lectures have information we need. Just look at some of these titles,” Lucas said, doing his best to share the list.
“There is an herbalism class, an alchemy class, a monster trainer class, an Arcanum spell designer class, a Holy spell designer class, a physical combat class, two different weapon and armor-smithing classes, a jewelry class, and a skinning and salvaging class,” Lucas said, reading the key classes aloud just in case they couldn’t see well enough to make out what was written on the tiny bit of paper.
“Seems like you’re listing a ton of crafting classes,” Nick observed. “Not that I mind. I can take the . . . herbalism and alchemy classes and bring back notes.”
“Right,” Lucas said. “Can’t be missing out on that chance to mac on a fresh NPC girl.
“Hey! NPCs are characters too!” Bonnie snickered.
“I’m not judging him. The game’s artificial intelligence is still a lot more intelligent than some people I’ve met,” Lucas said with a shrug. “It’s amazing how realistic conversations with AI are these days.”
“I wonder how helpful those classes would be in the real world,” Viola questioned. “‘How to Win Royal Contracts’ and ‘How to Suppress Poor People,’ What to Do When Your People Are Revolting,’ ‘The Pros and Cons of Expendable Mercenaries Versus Trained Soldiers,’ ‘Defending Your Manor and Town Against Barbaric Subhumans,’ ‘Etiquette,’ and ‘Dignified Speechcraft: Capitalizing on Your Superior Breeding.’”
“Viola, why do I feel like that’s the list of classes that interests you most?” Nick asked.
“Because it is?” Viola looked over at Nick as if he had just posited the dumbest question possible.
Nick and Lucas just shook their heads.
“What? Don’t give me that look. If Lucas is going to play the villain, he needs to act like one. In order to act like one, he needs to know how to act like one. At the moment, he’s falling short. Sure, he came up with the brilliant, amazing, and perfect idea of stealing me, the most beautiful woman on Hesse and one who had already captured the hearts of so many, but after that, he hasn’t done much villainy stuff. He is, in fact, doing good things. He’s killing bad guys, he’s messing with nobles, he’s beating up aristocrats, and he’s employing and treating non-Humans like they’re everyday people,” Viola continued, waving her hands and making the entire conversation far more dramatic than it was as she acted out every word she spoke. “It’s a tragedy. He’s not a villain. He’s the hero. How is he going to get people to want to kill him? I mean, sure, he issued a challenge for every aristocrat in the city to come after him, but those are the bad guys, not the players. It’s like asking the world to unite against the first vigilante to take down banks that overcharge interest rates on mortgages right after he deletes student loan records.”
“Yeah, she . . . does have a point,” Liu admitted reluctantly. “You really aren’t that evil. Maybe you do need to take some of those classes--especially that one about oppressing people. Currently, I think people would want to be more like you than not.”
“Or, you know,” Nick began, “he could just beat random people to death. That seemed to work for Ivan, right? People still call him Ivan the Terrible despite all his great works just ‘cause of his violent temperament. I mean, he was the first tsar, redid the laws to give more rights to the people, established a parliament and council of nobles, helped local governments in rural regions with self-governance, established a standing army, defeated a significant military threat to Russia, got the printing press working despite the constant arson attacks and more by the scribe guilds, and still had time to build cathedrals and other public works. He was a hero to Russia, but he was so violent that people considered the terrifying part the only part worth using for his moniker. So, Lucas just needs to ramp up that already violent nature of his.”
“Yeah, but how would that help? Lucas isn’t violent, and he doesn’t have a temper,” Liu continued, causing the rest of the party except for Katie to look at her like she had just said the sky isn’t blue. “He’s as nice as they come and always so calm.”
“The calm part might be right . . .” Viola thought aloud, and her “you must be dense” look deepened. “But . . . yeah. That could be a solution, I still think you should consider learning how to really make peasants hate you and generate more of those delicious quests where everyone tries to murder you.”
“Nnn . . .” Katie began to speak up, and the group fell silent as they waited for her to finish what she was saying. “Ivan wasn’t . . . umm . . . terrible. It’s a mistranslation.”
“What? What do you mean?” Nick asked.
“It doesn’t mean ‘terrible.’ It’s closer to ‘grozny,’” Katie explained. Disciples of Lee were often capable of speaking Russian, so her knowledge of this made sense. “It means ‘fearsome,’ not ‘terrible.’ More like . . . ‘menacing.’ He wasn’t terrible. He was terrifying. He was Ivan Grozny.”
“Oh, so . . . the beating random people might not work?” Bonnie asked. “‘Cause, you know . . . if you need practice with the whip . . .” She gave Lucas a not-so-sly wink.
“Ugh,” Nick groaned at Bonnie’s overt lechery. “I guess that does make sense. It hasn’t really stopped a lot of people from worshipping some celebrities when they get caught beating people randomly.”
“Well, it�
�s not like we need to debate this,” Viola said flatly. “There are plenty of options available for you, Lucas. You can study up on your villainy while we go learn crafting for you.”
“Hmm . . . Well, we all need to take the combat training regardless,” Lucas said, pointing to that option on the class list. “I don’t know about you, but after seeing that girl in court today, I can clearly see what our team is lacking.”
“Yeah . . .” the whole group unanimously agreed, all looking down as they did. The only one who responded differently was Katie, who just nodded.
“So, we’re all in agreement then,” Viola concluded. “Our great and illustrious leader shall take classes teaching him how to transform from the people’s benefactor to their wicked malefactor!”
Lucas shook his head. “No. That’s not happening. I’m interested in crafting, and I don’t need to make enemies just yet, especially if it means becoming like that noble, but I think . . . I think Nick wasn’t too far off the mark with his first suggestion. I need to become terrifying. Lucas Grozny. I kind of like the ring of that.”
“It’d help if you had a single mean bone in your body, though,” Liu muttered. “I still think you should consider Viola’s strategy.”
Lucas sighed. “Yeah, no. We can figure out what we’re doing with crafting, but the only ones I’m going to personally focus on are monster training, physical combat, and potentially learning how to make magic boards and design spells. Those are the ones that interest me at the moment. I love history, but video game history has a tendency to be rather dull, especially since the good guy almost always wins. So, no. I’m not going to study the game’s history. The real world is filled with much deeper, darker, and more interesting examples of villains. I don’t need an AI class to teach me how to be the bad guy.”
“So, you think it’s just as dull as fetch quests?” Liu asked.
“Right. And we’ve already wasted enough time figuring it out,” Lucas said. “Viola, if you want to go take classes on the history of this area and court culture and whatnot, have at it. I’ve already paid for whatever you want to do. But in the meantime, we need to focus. We’ve got six people here, so this won’t be hard. We have one goal at present: to defeat these nobles. In order to do that, we need to draw in more players and NPCs. It may not have been an option in the past, but with me here, now it is.”
“What? Are we not good enough, boss?” Bonnie moped.
“No, you’re not. For a core party and a dungeon room, this is good enough. If we’re going to change the entire structure and make-up of the Imperium and take on attackers from all sides, we need a contingent that’s strong enough to actually do that. If they rush us with a thousand guards, we’ll be as good as dead.” Lucas remembered all too well exactly how tough the easy-mode noob island fight defending Rowland from 200 basic farmers had been. “Players will be the best way to balance this out.”
“Mmm . . . yeah. We won’t be a challenge to many people at all without enough cannon fodder. You had the backing of the Imperium army before, so I guess you need that here too,” Liu said.
“Right. And we’re not going to get it. So, let’s get the backing of players,” Lucas said.
“But how do we get more players?” Nick asked.
“That list,” Lucas answered. “Crafting has been trial and error for players. The game creators specifically left it vague, making it difficult for any player to understand how any of it works. The guilds that have figured out most of it don’t share a bit. They keep their secrets tight in vaults. Luckily enough, we’ve actually got classes that will give us an advantage. It’ll be awhile before we reach the level of competency gained by the top guilds, who have been perfecting and tweaking their techniques through trial and error for the last eight years, but it’ll give us a fighting chance at grabbing some of the newer players, since many of the big guilds are very selective.
“The next thing we’re going to need to do is work on the base of the dungeon. I have a few ideas for how to handle this, but I haven’t decided yet. I need to first see exactly how a few of my classes go. After that, we’re going to need to go kill us a noble. Doesn’t matter which one. We just need to provoke one of the eviler ones whom the people hate into throwing the first punch, and then we butcher him and throw his head on a spike in the middle of our yard. The more brutal the kill, the better a flag he’ll make.”
“Well, that checklist went dark quick,” Nick noted. “Straight from ‘let’s go crafting’ to ‘let’s go brutalizing someone.’”
“Building and killing are the backbone of life,” Katie said with an unusual amount of confidence and certainty in her voice. She pulled out her bow and plucked the string as if to remind everyone what sort of business they were in.
“Well, let’s get to it then. Everyone take the classes you want, and we’ll meet back here at dusk,” Lucas instructed. He figured that timeframe would give them plenty of time to take notes, figure out what was happening, and go from there.
Truthfully, however, Lucas was already set on exactly what he wanted to do: evolve a random creature into a monster one way or another.
Chapter 4
Character Name: Lucas
Level: 30
Hit Points: 4995
Arcane Energy: 2600
Stamina: 100
Holy Energy: Class Locked
Current Class: Enchanter
Stats:
Arcanum [increases Arcane Energy by 10 per point]: 250
Holy [No Effect/Class Locked]: 0
Athletics [increases Stamina by 10 per point]: 0
Fortitude [increases Hit Points by 1% per point]: 350
Charisma: 350
Luck: 60
Unspent: 0
Current Elemental Attunement:
Lightning Affinity: 1.5%
Effects: +3% Lightning Element Damage
+6% Lightning Element Channeling Speed
-3% Non-Lightning Element Channeling Speed
+0.75% Lightning Element Damage Resistance
Arcane Resistance: 2%
Combat Proficiencies:
None
Racial Quest Chain Progress:
Vampire: 2 out of 5 requirements met to start chain.
Lucas eagerly beelined toward his first class, monster training. He expected to see a hundred students at the very least, as there were only two classes total being taught at this time on the schedule, but what he discovered instead was an empty classroom filled with hard steel tables intended for two people each like what would be found in a chemistry lab back in the real world.
Slightly concerned, he froze in the entranceway and immediately turned his attention toward a mechanical clock on the wall and read the time. I’m only five minutes early. Are most people going to show up just before it starts? He had always been the type to show up early in real life, so this situation stunned him a little.
“New here?” someone asked from behind.
“Yeah, you could say that,” Lucas answered. He turned to find someone even older than he was, which was a bit of a shock given how young all the other students were that he had seen so far.
“Kids these days,” the man muttered. He shook his head as he extended his hand. “They don’t understand a man’s true passion.”
“Right . . .” Lucas reached out and returned the greeting only to falter once his hand was in the other man’s. Even though he was around Lucas’s size, he had the grip strength of a giant crab, and it felt like every bit of that power was leveraging down into his handshake.
“Name’s Jesse, though I often get called Pizza,” he said.
“Pizza?” Lucas asked curiously.
“Yup. Pizza. I eat it all day, every day, and considering no one sits with me at lunch or comes to this class with me, that’s about all they know of me. So, they call me Pizza,” Jesse explained.
“I think I’ll call you Jesse nonetheless,” Lucas said warily.
“I don’t know if I’d prefer that or no
t.” Jesse actually seemed somewhat put off by having someone use his actual name. “I kind of like Pizza more than myself.”
Lucas knew it probably came off as rude, but he couldn’t help but chuckle at that. “So, do you know anything about the professor?” Lucas asked. “Or the class? I know I’m late to the term, however long those are, but I’m kind of hoping to learn a lot here.”
“Oh, the monster class? The teacher rarely shows. She’s a ditz. She’s always busy taking care of those giant cats, dogs, and birds of hers. She’s missing out on a man’s true passion. She’s just as bad as the others.”
Jesse took something out of his pocket that was about the size of a fist, and he held it up, allowing it to sit comfortably on his hand. “If she were a teacher worth her salt, she’d be worrying about these instead.”
“What the heck is that?” Lucas asked. He honestly had no idea. It had the same loose green leathery skin of a garden-variety lizard, but its proportions were all wrong. Instead of a long and narrow frame with legs that jutted outward, it looked like someone had drawn a face onto a piece of paper and stuck it to the side of a fat blob with a loop of tape. Its legs were even more pathetic, each one of them a spindly twig.
“This, my friend, is the future. This is glory, greatness, and hope.” He spoke almost reverently, as if he were holding a miracle cure designed to fix all the world’s greatest diseases, and he pushed it forward toward Lucas as he spoke. “Can’t you tell exactly how wonderful it is?”
“I don’t think you answered my question,” Lucas said, picking it up and holding it. He instantly realized one of the things that was off about the creature the moment it was within his grasp: it wasn’t naturally this fat. It had eaten something over half of its body size and was now just vegging out, content to stare up at Lucas peacefully while it digested its meal.