Chapter 4:

…

Ghor of House Khanrow was quick to take control of the Citadel.

And, within days after taking it, the area was in the beginning stages turning the Citadel into a capital city of the region. Everyone was seizing on the benefits that it offered. Whole villages showed up with their livestock to become citizens, and the less fortunate ones sent their leaders to offer fealty, so that they crops would grow faster and their people would be healthier.

I say citizens, but the rule of law wasn't really at play here.

Rights weren't guaranteed, and Ghor was essentially a tyrant with the strongest military force in the land, and he had people beside him that he could happily reward to keep him in power.

Back in my previous life, it'd be called the establishment of a military dictatorship.

Here, it was an upgrade from centuries of chaos, bloodshed, and turmoil.

"This place is one step away from breaking into a festival." Riegert was given a room in the main spire of the Citadel. The sky-scraping structure was a lavish palace on the inside. The center was mostly hollow, but the walls were thick and held multiple rooms and facilities. Scholars and mages on retainer were poring over the place and bringing it up online. Since it was supposed to instantly give the player starting income in the turn it was taken, I was sure they'll have everything figured out in four months. "When was the last time we went to on Ilych?"

"I do not recall." Ilych, thankfully, calmed down when the winds stopped talking to her. I suppose she used up all her actions for this turn. Now that I thought about it, regeneration wasn't a terrible trait anymore, if you could heal from 1HP to full in one turn without paying any money. "One will begin soon. Lord Khanrow is planning it. They will use the food produced by the Citadel."

I shuddered a little at those words, while studying the local literature to make reading second nature to me again.

Riegert made a face while looking down at the masses below from the balcony.

"Can't say I trust the scholars on those vats of flesh. The ancients knew more than we did, but some lines shouldn't be crossed." Yeah, one of the writers of this game was all about using magic in place of science. If healing magic can regenerate flesh and even help resurrect, why wouldn't it be used to grow beef? The result was quite a few rooms of the logistics hub having vats of living meat that you cut hunks off of endlessly. It didn't have any nerves or a brain, so it couldn't possibly feel pain, but it still… moved and twitched when you stabbed into it. "I'll take the bread made from the wheat grown in here, and the fruits too, though. Those are perfect."

On that, I agreed fully.

I could see why this place provided a morale boost for armies and a happiness boost to your citizenry.

Running water, a set amount of food that can be harvested freely everyday, and easily-defended chokepoints and unpickable doors.

The food was the best part, though.

After years of subsisting on gruel and small game I'd caught myself, I had fresh whole-wheat sourdough and sweet fruit every day. Not only that, but I could force myself to eat the meat from the vats just fine once a day, which secured my future growth.

Or, so I hoped.

I didn't want to end up stuck as a prepubescent, like a certain salaryman did in his second life.

"Anyway, if you told me that you were a scavenger, I wouldn't have believed you." Riegert addressed me with a big smile. I sat on one of the chairs that just grew out of the ground after it thought about wanting a place to read. It had no cushion, but the material for my back and rear was elastic and it formed a stand for my book. I wouldn't have believed anyone sitting literally magical furniture would be a scavenger either. All of the furnishings in the Citadel was like this. You thought it and it rose out of the ground for the purpose you wanted. "You clean up well, kid."

I slapped a smile on my face and beamed Riegert's way.

"Thank you, sir!" Looks are important. I learned that in my last life the hard way, after feeling just how differently everyone treated me after I lost weight and thinking about how I looked. It was a wholesale upgrade and less of a hassle to talk to people and get them to do what I wanted. So, I wasn't wasting my knowledge of diet and hygiene while growing up in this world. I got myself a haircut to just above the ears, cleaned myself properly with the best soap I could get my hands on, and dressed myself simply, but with fine materials. "A-about this artifact, sir—"

"Jeez, I told you, it's yours. Stop trying to foist it on me." Riegert rolled his eyes, before chuckling. The goblin king's staff was pure white and it changed size to fit my hands, after leaving the monster's. It was a sleek wand now, that I hid in my sleeve to stay out of sight. "Lord Khanrow told you to keep it, as well. He's got plans for you, and those plans will go better with an artifact on your hands."

I nodded and smiled on the outside, but seethed on the inside.

Get this shit off me! You're going to get me killed! You know how easily a kid disappears and never comes back in this world!?

I know! At least a dozen used to just disappear every year in my last warband, because they got lucky and a soldier wanted what they had!

They got killed for a sword or a piece of armor, while I'm running around with an artifact that's meant for tactical advantages on battlefields where thousands clash on the low end.

Yeah, that's right.

I'm eight years old and I have a wand that cleanses poison off of groups of a hundred men every minute.

In-game, it's called the Staff of Cleanse. It's how the goblins lived along the giant spiders and tamed them in the lore, but didn't matter as much. In the early game, debuffs like disease during combat were a pain. Then, there were the Events where your army gets a disease outbreak on the march and loses ten percent of its overall health. The Staff of Cleanse nullifies poison and gives a perfect solution to that damaging event.

Obviously, it's an incredibly valuable piece of equipment. I can cast its effect five times before getting tired, and I'm a child. In an experienced mage's hands, they could cure whole outbreaks of disease and plague in a day with a wave of their staff. In battle, they could practically make sure poison meant nothing to their side of the equation. Well, T0 and T1 Poison and Disease. Midgame needed the Cure Staff, and late game needed the Panacea… and this was the baseline for both of those necessary pieces of midgame and lategame equipment!

You might be reading a stolen copy. Visit Royal Road for the authentic version.

So, why the hell was everyone telling me to keep it!?

They should be slapping it on their support-oriented Champion the moment they're purchased or acquired and forgetting about it until it could be upgraded.

But no.

It's with the eight-year-old child they met a week ago.

What the hell is up with these people!?

Why couldn't I convince them to take it without breaking out knowledge from my previous life!?

Unless… unless there was a reason why it was with me?

No sooner did the thought occur to me that something washed over me, forcing me to get out of my chair, and look for the nearest exit.

Riegert's hand took hold of my shoulder, pulled me back, and placed me next to Ilych while I searched.

"It looks like the time has come. Kid, stay close to me. Ilych, don't hold back." Riegert offered no explanation. Instead, he took something in his pocket, then broke it. Dust spread over him… touching the full plate he was wearing and revealing it. Fragments touched Ilych and revealed that she was also covered in full plate. "Let's get to Ghor and deal with the traitors."

Earlier, I mentioned Ghor having complete loyalty over his people, which was the mechanic that allowed him to have five or so turns without any moral issues or forces attempting to perform a coup against him in the early game.

I was wrong.

That loyalty was gained from absolutely murdering everyone who was after his position with the Champion Units he had at his disposal.

…

The Citadel was a hard place to take. You needed to have at least five units of infantry at eighty percent health to take it in one turn, or a Champion Unit that had siege proficiency maxed out. That's after finishing off the enemy army guarding their capital. Every turn you didn't take it, you'll be withering away in enemy territory, unable to reinforce your army, and risking losing your Champions while trying to take the city.

That's somewhat because the defenders of the Citadel had food, supplies, and all the weapons and armor that they needed. Not only that, but the structure itself was built kill intruders. Hallways moved to favor the defenders and trap intruders. Stairs grew smooth, while levitating platforms refused to work, or gave the defenders an advantage by tilting very high up.

That's the in-game lore reason for the difficulty it takes to take a Citadel no matter the difficulty level.

Lots of players had issues with it, but most agreed that it ensured that people couldn't die before fifty turns and had a chance against the all-in that they faced.

People back home generally liked having their command center being hard to take.

It was horrible to witness.

Soldiers that were part of the coup attempt died horrifically. The halls outside the rooms showcased the hollow interior of the spire. Soldiers of the coup attempt were regularly tripped by the structure with outgrowths from the ground, and the railing disappeared as they fell. Stairs didn't just go flat, the base became covered in spikes that pierced those who fell and slid onto them, and the levitating platforms didn't just tilt… they sped straight up or down to kill the enemies of the one that owned the structure.

Meanwhile, the troops protecting it had mobile cover, weapons and shields and armor formed from the tower for them to use. Shortcuts formed for them, and the ground even moved forward with their steps to speed them forward like mobile walkways. The levitating platforms picked up their wounded and brought them to the infirmaries, where they were healed, and those already healed were returned to the fight.

If anything, only needing five hundred professional soldiers to take the Citadel seemed too little.

Then again, the Citadel usually wasn't garrisoned in-game.

Here, Ghor's loyal soldiers and officers turned the floors into killing fields, threw the bodies of the enemies over the railings, and they were supported by Ilych and Riegert. On horseback, Riegert was more terrifying that Ilych, but it was the opposite when it came to fighting on foot. Riegert could use his glaive in close quarters well enough. Even a bash from the shaft of the weapon broke limbs and torsos with a single strike, and the bladed end easily cleaved through two or three men at once. When he thrusted it forward, he could clear away halls by knocking armored soldiers down with sheer pressure.

Ilych, though, couldn't be stopped.

Not by sword.

Not by shield.

Not by spar.

Not even by familiar faces.

Everything in her path turned into bifurcated corpses clad in armor.

Helms were cleaved in half with the slightest twitch of her wrist. A lengthwise strike with her blade would cut through sword and spine in an instant. A screaming berserker wielding a heavy axe trampling towards her fell forward after losing his legs to a sweeping slice conducted during a crouch, and he fell face first into her sword, only for her to pull it out through the upper half of his skull and brain both.

Riegert protected me, while Ilych turned everything in front of us into corpses.

As we traveled, we gathered loyal soldiers and officers, and I barely managed to pay attention as I waded through hall after hall of death. I recognized the faces. Mages, archers, and pikemen. I did my best to remember them as units in a game, but they all had different faces, birthmarks, and personalized armor. None of them were alike. Some of them were on the front, when I saw real magic for the first time, and they smiled with their friends when their bows were granted the ability to project fire.

They were dead.

Dead like all those I stole from in so many battlefields to earn my freedom.

I barely noticed as we gathered a host close to two hundred and reached the top floor.

We found Ghor in the study of the Citadel, a room that was all too familiar to me from a screen, and the aged man was wiping blood from his blade and nodded at Riegert, Ilych, and his loyal officers… who all returned his nod.

Then, he laid his eyes on me.

My heart sank to my stomach, as I realized what they were going to do.

I held the only other artifact in this entire army.

They were going to make me their puppet-king to protect their true lord, by painting me out as some rags-to-riches peasant that tried to save the man who saved him by rallying his loyalists during a coup. A peasant who failed, but still managed to gain the respect of his former lord in his dying moments, and inherited a treasure that controlled the Citadel.

I was being turned into a hoax to protect Ghor of House Khanrow from dangerous coups like this in the future.

And, there was nothing I could do to stop them.