First War

by Nathan Valerio

“Alright, nothing looks too bad. Everrath, with these rules you can now recruit minions and subordinates into the religion. We will build the Religious school once you have enough priests to teach. Inform Idre that she is in charge of all clergymen training.” He said.

  “As you wish master.” Everrath bowed and turned with a copy of the list.

  Valring was sent to implement the rules.

  Congratulations, you have begun to set up the basics for a judicial system. From now on, players and NPCs will be able to gain sin points within your territory for committing crimes and will be hunted.

  Akor laughed, he had some trouble with that before, specifically players randomly killing each other. Now with rules, this would cause a huge amount of chaos.

  Next Akor began to look over the huge pile of research scrolls Valring obtained. They were in his inventory and would organize in piles of the same one but there was a very large number of similar common research topics that he had previously obtained. That said, this was very good because they could be used to upgrade his research.

  The number of skill scrolls were not small either. As they say, war brings progress. When you calculate the profit, sometimes the gains are immense.

  With all these research scrolls merged, he wondered what the limit would be pushed to. After finishing the piles, he called some demons to transport it all downstairs before he logged off to rest and eat.

  He took the chance to check some things and was surprised to find a number of emails.

  When he looked through it he found it was replies to a few posts he had sent when he checked out the lord players.

  More than 70% were calling him ignorant but the other 30% thanked him for the information after having checked on the problem he noticed and watching it themselves.

  These people were developing a bit faster after noticing the problem that was pointed out.

  Lucas smiled when he saw this and ignored the insults while going to the ranking. His smile widened when he saw his name was off the worst lords listing. He went beyond the 50th place and found his name was below 100th place already.

  He knew that it was a combination of having a religion formed, having a demon queen, clearing the territory and having full control now. It was the first step to internal control, and the next was economic stability, in other words, building roads and connecting all villages and towns before expanding outwards.

  He opened his video section and his eyes widened when he saw the number of views for his channel had increased. He gained $2 per 1000 views. The previous month he got $200, so he had 200,000 views but the count was reset each month. His count was already 467,000.

  The first comments complained about his slowness and how boring his game-play was but after Lucas changed the comment search to display the newest ones, there was a shocking change about how systematic his growth was progressing as he invested.

  Many comments found it strange that demons could be driven in such a strange path and some wondered how long this could last since it went against the demon race’s nature.

  These pessimists were rebutted by a number of a people who were probably players in Lucas’ kingdom.

  He slowly lost his curiosity about the topic and actually went to check out the ‘best’ lords and remembered the name of that rich looking lord.

  He looked for that guy and found he was a human lord. The development was as you would expect from a ‘studied’ noble. He was even more systematic than Lucas who was doing things on a whim and trying to control the flow against the current and build a new current higher up stream.

  This lord had a lot of player support, most likely his family, and had a fast rate of development and a firm slowly growing government.

  “Hmph, family power is really annoying to counter against.” He complained as he saw the collective gains. It wasn’t something he could compare to without hiring countless people to help.

  This was how a number of the population made ends meet nowadays. They had to join strong organizations to work, or they had to go off planet and find work in space. There was always a new asteroid field that needed miners or terraformers to transform a planet's surface and make it livable.

  Countless times Lucas had thought of doing something like that but he felt it was just degrading having to terraform a planet for greedy people who waited safely in a different world while paying meager wages.

  Despite the need of gold to dollar being 1000:1, it wasn’t impossible to achieve for anyone with a large power base in a game, and the dream of countless people to achieve one day.

  He spent hours watching the development of the humans learning a few things that could be done and found that the best thing to do was upgrade agriculture early on even if it cost more resources because when you had a lot of food early on you could wage war and expand much quicker and more often.

  Thinking how his demons were still planting wild plants while the other lord was already using proper crops irritated Lucas but it was just something that made his mood a bit worse.

  In a bad mood he decided there was no point in watching and got up to jog to clear his head and gather up some tasks to do in game.

  Chapter 11

  After Lucas had left to rest, his territory didn’t stop. From the establishment of the basic laws, Valring used the armies as town guards and messengers to spread all the rules. Most of the messengers were scholars and intelligent enough to announce the rules.

  This caused discontentment among more violent players and when some tried to cause trouble, they were met with the bad side of the guard’s weapons.

  There was no jail so demons pretty much killed these people for their attitudes.

  These violent players were used as examples causing the others to feel cold inside but after several incidents they finally calmed down, accepting the rules because they couldn’t fight against the army without sufficient strength and weaponry. Since the territory controlled the mineral supply and weapon market, they could do nothing.

  While Valring was overlooking the work of the scholars who had taken all the low level research to merge into common level research scrolls like the first time, she found Idre walking into the lord’s house.

  She had a keen perception and noticed the demon kobold demon queen. When she noticed Idre enter the throne room, she followed behind.

  “What are you doing?” Valring asked.

  The kobold queen turned but her eyes were emotionless. "I have come to aid the propagation of the religion.” Idre said.

  She opened the territory management while she pulled out a very old research scroll. The scroll added a new blueprint and building called a chapel.

  Chapels were an interesting building, it was, in fact, a downgraded version of a basic temple. It was faster to build but far smaller. It was perfect for building in small villages where a single priest would do the teaching.

  The material cost was also very small, only 100 wood for each chapel and 30 stone to make the ten idols of the gods.

  She unhesitantly placed chapels in all the minor villages while she placed basic temples in the three main towns. Everrath was still recruiting priests and clergymen but this process was quick as she took countless subordinates. They just had to undergo a period of learning to read, write and learn the skills of a priest.

  For clergymen, it was a little slower because it was a hybrid warrior class needing magic skills and warrior skills. She had a small unit of 20 members but she was limited with her own skills which were only level 1. She was planning on taking her unit to train in the wild to level up.

  The buildings were placed but as it was explained to Akor, she could control the army but all actions passed through him. Only if she was given a territory to manage herself, could she do things without needing approval from Akor but every movement was still relayed to him.

  After the temples and chapels were placed down, she added the last building, the religious school, only to the cities with demon hearts.

  The cost to b
uild these was very large which was why she didn’t plan to put them in villages which would eventually be swallowed up by the expanding towns. Also only towns could have them and only one per town so there was no point even thinking about placing them in the villages.

  “Done, it simply requires approval from lord husband.” She said and turned to the beautiful humanoid advisor. She looked up and down and after a moment she said, “Also, advisor, although you helped me obtain the position of queen, as queen I do not need your approval over the actions I do. I work for the prosperity of my lord husband’s land.” She said and walked past Valring whose face turned dark.

  She didn’t expect that the demon kobold would be ungrateful, but she also didn’t care about it either.

  She just snorted and headed to the research area to aid the scholars in merging the countless copies of skill scrolls to unlock the limits of the nation’s population.

  ***

  In the elevator, Lucas was dressed for jogging. An old pair of sneakers were on his feet while he wore an old t-shirt and shorts. It was discreet and didn’t draw attention, perfect for jogging to cool his head.

  As he got out of the elevator, the other elevator next to his also opened and to his surprise, among the people walking out was a very familiar face he had gotten used to butting into his life.

  “Sam?” he said as he saw the girl.

  “Oh Lucas, are you going out as well?!” she said happily.

  Sam walked over and was dressed for exercise but as with all girls’, her clothing was made to make her look good and very appealing. She wore the yoga pants which were firm against her body, a tight shirt, a pair of running shoes and her hair was in a cute ponytail. She didn’t wear much makeup because when she sweat it would get messed up.

  “Yeah, I was watching that annoying lord guy from the interview and it pissed me off to see him using his family or organization to become number one. Thought I would jog to cool off.” He said.

  She giggled at his response. "I saw your ranking suddenly jumped off the lowest rankings.” She said.

  “Yeah, I got several lucky breaks and achievements. I finally took total control of the territory I had between all my main towns and I succeeded in building the temple. Now I am starting a national religion.” He replied.

  “Oh wow!” She said shocked.

  She was much clearer than Lucas about the insider information of the game since she researched far more through the forums. Things like religion were among them since it caused such a huge stir amongst demons.

  The two left the building jogging while she kept asking questions about what happened and was shocked to hear about the queen and concubine features before she frowned.

  “Does that mean demons will have harems? And even reverse harems?” she asked.

  Lucas’s face twitched slightly when she said that. Only now that she mentioned it did he realize that indeed, to increase influence of the lord, queens and concubine actually worked as a fixed buff for a lord.

  Sam noticed his expression and laughed, “Don’t worry so much about it, instead we should probably be more worried about expansion.” She said.

  “Yeah.” He nodded.

  “So you have total control already. Are you going to expand your territory? I think you said the territory size you have now is probably only around 30 km in diameter right?” She asked.

  “Yeah, most of it has a huge number of scattered villages.” he said.

  “You should know that 30 km radius isn’t a lot. Given time and the explosive population of demons this territory will very quickly merge into a single city.” She said.

  "I know, most villages have between 300 and 500 people while the demon heart towns have over 1000 or so. My capital is the one with most people which is nearly 3000 counting players.” He replied.

  “That is a lot.” She said surprised.

  “Not so much, the top lords are much larger and they occupy much more territory as well.” He said.

  Sam frowned and began to think about what she could say.

  “Well for now it doesn’t matter, what is important is to find another mana spring and place more demon hearts to level up my capital.” Lucas said.

  Hearing his words she smiled.

  The two continued to trade ideas and several times they looked up to see passing superhumans. The athletics they did made it all seem like superheroes from comics.

  Eventually they got tired of jogging while in a park and went to a vending machine and grabbed some energy drinks. Lucas put his head under a nearby sink and let the water fall over his hair.

  After cooling off he quickly squeezed off the water and left his hair to dry. Sam laughed at what his hair looked like and from a small pouch she handed him a brush. He didn’t deny that he looked a bit ridiculous and just straightened his messy hair.

  The distance between the two had already shrunk quite a bit since Lucas began to get healthier. That said as they were walking home, they were unexpectedly blocked by a group of ten punks. Nine of them were varied from skinny to fat or muscular but the leader of them was an amazing 2 meter tall wall of muscle. If compared to anything he would be like a wardrobe from how big he was.

  “Hey babe, hows about ditching this chump for real men.” He said with a deep rough voice.

  Sam’s face turned into a scowl, “Eww, so gross. What the hell is that smell?” She said covering her nose and jumping behind Lucas waving her hand over her face. “Seriously when did you last take a bath?! You still have courage to pick up girls smelling like that!” Sam cried out.

  Sam, by no means, spoke quietly. The large group was already very distinct so when her voice resound throughout the street, eyes focused on them instantly.

  The muscular man’s face turned bright red in rage at once.

  “You little bitch!” He shouted.

  Lucas frowned and took a step in front of Sam further hiding him, “Back off punk.” he said.

  Veins appeared on the guy’s face.

  “Who do you think you are!?” one of the minions began to shout. “Boss here is picking up a chick, you had better leave before you are left with broken legs!” The guy threatened.

  Lucas didn’t even look at these second-rate punks. “Get out of our way.” He said.

  “That’s it! You want to get hurt for this little tramp then be my guest. Boys get him!” The boss said.

  The guys laughed and one of them suddenly ran out and punched at Lucas’ face.

  Lucas was by no means a fighter but superhumans would not be special if they were so easy to beat. Even their most basic aspects were at a higher level than normal ones. It is no wonder they are called the next stage of evolution for humanity.

  Because Lucas’ brain had also been improved, he had developed a minor level of kinetic vision. To him, the movement of these guys were slow, and he simply raised his hand and with the side of his hand he pushed the punks fist to the side before it reached his face and grabbed his wrist. With his recently improved strength he pulled the entire weight of the guy and spun him around and threw him back at his group.

  He fell face first into the ground having lost his balance.

  Next one of the guys came throwing a kick but Lucas had even fewer problems with that and took a step back letting the kick hit the air before he stepped forward and low kicked weakly the guys supporting leg causing him to flip on the air and land on the ground.

  He was very controlled of course, currently his strength was probably equal to three or four adults superimposed. If compared to a normal human, he had the strength equal to the strongest normal human body builder, more or less.

  “Hmm, so this is three times human strength.” he thought amused and looked at the leader. "I said get out of the way punks. We have things to do.” he said.

  This was the straw that broke the camel's back. The leader stepped up raging and shouted while throwing his massive fist at Lucas.

  Lucas calmly looked and just raised his right hand while hi
s left leg moved behind his right to support his body.

  PA!

  The punch landed in his palm while the force was absorbed by the entire body. Lucas’s arm bent half way before stopping the fist completely and his fingers were each in the grove of the other guys knuckles before they clamped down like an iron clamp.

  When the guy felt the pressure, his face turned pale and pulled but to no avail. “Let go!” He roared and threw his other fist but Lucas simply lifted the other hand and grabbed it in the same manner and clamped down.

  “Let! Go!” The leader shouted shaking and pulling his arms.

  After a few seconds he felt a pressure from Lucas who began to turn his hands. He tried to resist but slowly Lucas turned his fists around and the lower side of the arm was faced up making the group leaders arm straighten out. He couldn’t pull back as it was or even struggle.

  Suddenly Lucas took a step back and pulled the guy before lowering his body and stepping forward. This was done smoothly and very fast. The guy stumbled forward while his straightened arm was pushed down before Lucas put force lifting the guy’s body using the momentum and tossed him over his body behind him and letting go of the guys arms.

  “Ahh!” the leader shouted as he came down hard on the concrete. Many people gasp and flinched at the impact.

  “Boss!” the minions shouted and ran towards the guy.

  Lucas on the other hand grabbed Sam’s hand and pulled her away, “Let’s go.” He said and entered the crowd.

  Sam was blushing after being pulled but as with the man, Lucas’s grip was tight and he probably didn’t realize.

  Half way back after the fight Sam coughed, “Y-you can let my hand go now.”

  When Lucas turned around and found that he was holding her hand, it was the first time his expression changed to embarrassment. He let go at once “Sorry about that.”

  Sam giggled, which made it a very cute scene because of her blushing face. She was strangely very happy about seeing him like that.

  “Come on, let’s head back quick.” She said and led the way back. The two separated, but she said she would come over after taking a bath to see his video feed while bringing her own for them to share experiences of the last few days.