As the heir of the Tilati clan, the responsibility of ensuring its survival rested on Tia’s shoulders. It was a duty she held dear in her heart and would do everything in her power to fulfill it. Even if she needed to become a slave of a human, Tia whole heartedly accept it as long her clan prospers.
“I’m back!” the human she allied herself with announced his arrival as if the wyvern he was riding wasn’t enough.
He returned with four female humans of varying ages. Three of them had a resemblance to him, so Tia recognized them as his family. The other human looked very different, which led her to think of several reasons why she brought along.
Tia approached Syrus. “Have you secured your family?”
Syrus shook his head. “I still have one sister out there, but she’s a feisty one, so I’m not that worried.”
The eldest woman approached Tia. “Thank you for letting us stay here,” she bowed politely. “I’m Aurora Blake. Syrus’s mother.”
The woman had a very warm presence. “It is a pleasure to meet you Madam. I am Tia Tilati.”
The other woman stepped forward. “I’m Sylvia and this is my daughter, Samantha,” the little girl awkwardly bowed.
The last woman spoke. “I’m Hanna. I’m Sylvia’s friend.”
“A pleasure,” Tia greeted them as well. “This Yria, she will guide you to your lodgings,” the mage goblin approached.
“Thank you, Tia,” Aurora spoke before they were led away by Yria.
Tia turned to Syrus. “You seem to be in company of a lot of women,” she commented.
Syrus ignored her comment. “You already prepared lodgings?”
Tia nodded. “We made exactly three dozen lodgings,” Tia informed. “A dozen is given to my clan. Another dozen for yours. The rest are to be allocated in the future. We also made several facilities and remodeled your workshop.”
Syrus whistled. “You guys work fast.”
“Construction is the specialty of my race,” Tia stated. “But we lack in everything else.”
“My mother has a cooking class, so she could cover that,” Syrus replied. “I’ll try looking for people to cover other roles. For now, let this guy hunt,” he pointed to the wyvern.
“Ah... may I ask where it came from?” Tia asked hesitantly.
Wyverns were directly related to dragons. A creature like that should not exist in a world that was still at 2nd integration. Even other dimensional players could not face such a creature alone, let alone turn it into a creature serving under them.
“I made it.”
“...” Tia took a while to process his words.
Nobody could just make a wyvern. She could understand Gluttony being created since it was a humanoid unit, but a wyvern was different story. Syrus would have needed a wyvern’s core in order to make a wyvern unit.
“Anyways, I need to do something. See you around,” Syrus said before walking away, leaving Tia in deep thought.
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“This a mess,” Syrus muttered as he studied the holographic map in front of him.
It was a live view of the surrounding area being scouted by his ravens, which have increased ever since the rescue mission he went on a few days ago. The area they were in was mostly isolated due to being surrounded by multiple danger zones filled with territorial monsters. Had he not flown over them, he probably wouldn’t have survived the journey.
“The danger zones formed around the time you left,” the elder goblin stated.
“What exactly is a danger zone?” Syrus asked.
“It’s any area where a group of native creatures were mutated by mana resides,” the elder goblin answered. “The animals in your world have now been exposed to mana, making them stronger.”
Syrus nodded. He could picture a mana boosted pack of wolves being very dangerous. “Do we need to be worry of them attacking the settlement?”
Morac glanced at the wyvern outside. “At the moment, the mere presence of your wyvern would ward away any beast from approaching.”
“Good. I’ll keep him summoned then. He doesn’t need food anyways,” Syrus stated as the holographic map turned into an actual map. “I’ll leave this here,” Syrus said before leaving the hut.
Once he was outside, he couldn’t help but look around in amazement. When he first arrived here, the settlement looked like a small camp site. Now, it was a fairly large village. What Syrus found the most impressive was the log wall that surrounded the settlement.
“That couldn’t have been easy to make...”
Syrus couldn’t help but feel that he lucked out to be allied with such capable builders. During the past few days, both sides did their best to accomplish their end of the deal. Syrus’s wyvern and Gluttony became the main combatants of the settlement along with his sister, Sylvia and Hanna. Eliza helped out sometimes too, but her class wasn’t very useful on monsters.
“My lord,” Gluttony approached him a kneeled. “I wish to report the existence of a human group we encountered.”
“Humans?” Syrus raised an eyebrow.
None of the ravens reported spotting other humans. That meant this group intentionally avoided being spotted.
“What happened?”
“It was during a hunt. They ambushed us in order to steal our prey. Lady Sylvia was shot with an arrow on the leg, forcing us to retreat,” Gluttony explained. “I held them back until Lady Sylvia and Hanna have retreated.”
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“They’re hostile huh,” Syrus muttered and patted Gluttony on the shoulder. “Well done.”
He praised the summoned creature for prioritizing the safety of his sister, then he went to go look for her. When Syrus found Sylvia, he spotted her recounting the same story to Tia.
“What’s going on?” Syrus asked.
They turned to him. “Human OD players attacked them,” Tia stated. “They should be around level 25 to 30 if they could take on Gluttony.”
“Damn... and I’m stuck in my twenties,” Syrus replied.
Sylvia rolled her eyes at him. “Give me a few days and I could take them,” Sylvia stated.
Since she was hunting every day, Sylvia had already caught up to Syrus in terms of levels. She was now at level 23, while Tia was at level 27. Sylvia also had three combat skills from her spearman class.
Tia nodded at Sylvia. “Two more levels and she’ll get her second progression. That would put her on the same level as those OD players.”
Syrus shrugged. “Well, if you need it. You can take the wyvern,” Syrus said before walking away.
He rushed to his workshop and called over one of the highest-level goblin crafters. “I need these,” Syrus gave the goblin a list of items.
The goblin nodded before leaving. Once he was in his workshop, he took a crate of mana stones and summoned Gluttony. “Absorb them all.”
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There weren’t a lot of established human clans, but Valhalla not only became a recognized clan, it was one of the biggest clans across dimensions. And Arthur had the honor leading the expansion of the clan in a newly integrated dimension.
One so compatible with mana that it only took a month for the second integration to begin.
“Any news from the scouts?” Arthur asked the clan member that entered the office.
“We found the location of several settlements created by other outworlders, but one of our teams discovered something,” the clan member reported.
Arthur raised an eyebrow. “What is it?”
“One team encountered other players while hunting for food. Among them seemed to be a humanoid unit with a white body with no features. They noted that the unit was extremely powerful.”
Arthur rubbed his chin. “We might be dealing with a player with a unique class. Send a group to investigate. Find out if we’re dealing with a cho-”
Arthur was interrupted by an earthquake followed by panicked screams from outside. Rushing out of his hut, found people panicking.
“What’s going on?!” Arthur yelled.
One of his clan members pointed at the sky. “Wyvern attack!”
The wyvern crashed on the roof of his hut, destroying a portion of it as it perched. Riding on top of the wyvern was a person wearing leather armor, but the most eye-catching thing was that the person had no face.
“Why are you here?!” Arthur questioned as he drew his sword.
“You dare ask when your men attacked first?” the person replied.
Arthur gritted his teeth. He didn’t know what they were dealing with, but the fact that the person was capable of conversation meant they were likely a player. Their appearance might be from a skill used to conceal their face.
But a player powerful enough to tame a wyvern is definitely a chosen. He had two orders when it came to dealing with chosen players.
Recruit them or get rid of them.
“It seems there has been a misunderstanding here,” Arthur spoke. “My players were simply there to scout the area. We had no desire to attack you.”
“It is far too late,” the person said as the wyvern spread it wings. “I, Gluttony will bare my lord’s will!”
The wyvern took off, finishing off the hut that was barely standing. “Fire!” Arthur yelled.
Mages and Archers fired their attacks, but a powerful gust of wind blew everything away. Three armored knights stepped forward and threw hooks to bind the wyvern, but the person named Gluttony jumped off the wyvern and grabbed the hooks in the air.
He crashed into the ground, creating a massive crater. Then Gluttony pulled on the ropes connected to the hooks, dragging the armored soldiers toward him.
“Mages! Hold him down!” Arthur ordered.
All the mages released a wave of magic power, aiming to pressure Gluttony. But he simply shrugged it off and swung the armored soldiers he dragged towards him across the field, sending them crashing through several structures.
Arthur gritted his teeth in frustration. The feats of strength Gluttony was displaying wasn’t someone that was around level 25 could have. Not even a chosen could grow this fast.
“I have no choice,” Arthur raised his sword.
His sword was a weapon forged by the Valhalla clan’s best blacksmith. It had the ability to generate a large amount of magic power for one powerful strike.
“Out of my way!” Arthur charged.
Gluttony noticed and swung the poor soldiers toward Arthur. He leaped over them and aimed to bring down his sword on Gluttony. As the sword began to emit a golden light, the wyvern got between them.
“Perish!” Arthur swung down, creating a golden slash that cleaved through the wyvern and struck Gluttony.
The resulting impact created a shockwave that covered the whole area in dust. Upon landing, Arthur swung his sword to clear the dust and revealed that there was nothing left of Gluttony and wyvern.
Looking down on his weapon, he saw that its radiant color had fainted and was on the verge of shattering. Arthur sighed. It was clear that Gluttony had no plans on ending things peacefully, so he had no choice.
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Back at the goblin settlement, Syrus felt the return of his units. Both Gluttony and the wyvern were defeated and he needed to wait several hours before he could summon them again.
It wasn’t much of a loss since he gained a level and did significant damage to his enemies. In exchange, he only lost two units for several hours.
Tia entered his workshop. “May I ask why you requested gun powder from our crafters?”
“Oh, I needed them for my next project,” Syrus answered.
“Next project?” Tia raised an eyebrow.
“Well, I recently found out that all the monsters drop cores now,” Syrus stated.
Tia hummed. “I apologize. I forgot to tell you that in the 2nd integration, even the native creatures injected with mana would have cores.”
“It’s fine. It’s easy to forget something that was common knowledge for you guys,” Syrus replied. “Anyways, I plan on creating rodents that explode.”
Tia blinked for a few seconds, trying to process what she just heard. “Pardon?”
“Last week, Gluttony brought back a lot of rat monster cores. I plan on making units with the purpose infiltration, then blowing up,” Syrus explained.
“Why rats? Won’t birds be more effective?” Tia asked.
“Birds turn more eyes than rats,” Syrus replied. “If you were guarding something. What would you rather stare at? A bird or a rat?”
Tia sighed. “I get it. But why are you making them?”
Syrus leaned back on his chair. “I only have two combat ready units. Anything else I make right now would be pretty pathetic in comparison to a wyvern and Gluttony.”
“So... you’re making some expendable units?”
“I can summon them again after a while,” Syrus replied.
“You can?!” Tia asked in shock.
“Am I not supposed to?”
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“Status on the repairs?” Arthur asked as he was looking for anything he could salvage from his old office.
“A lot of huts were destroyed and few got heavily injured, but we don’t have any casualties,” a clan member reported.
“That’s good,” Arthur sighed. “Where’s the fools that caused these mess?”
“They were stripped of their positions and have been put to work.”
“Their mistake cost us a lot,” Arthur said through gritted teeth.
As he got up, he noticed a rat crawl towards the rubble. Normally, he would have simply ignored it, but Arthur began to feel a faint trace of mana, then it suddenly surged.
“Get down!”
Explosions erupted all around the settlement. The screams of agony echoed through the settlement as another wave of explosions followed.
“Get away from the rats!” Arthur yelled.
As he rushed to aid his clan members, he saw something in the sky that caused his eyes to widen.
“My lord is not done,” Gluttony announced.