I had a dying [Hero] on my floor. That was kind of a novel situation.

Never had this happen before. I paused as a memory flashed through my mind of the completely insane version of me curb-stomping a helpless and dying Jake.

That doesn’t count. I grumbled.

Either way, I had to decide what to do with her, and the first steps were obvious.

I quickly scooped up her rapier and shoved it into my inventory. Then I started pulling off her armor.

“Vile fiend!” she spat at me. “I won’t… let you… have your way with me!” She made a monumental effort and managed to prop herself up on an elbow during that statement.

I recoiled.

“What? Eww. No! You’re like… old!” I shuddered.

I mean, technically, I was way older, but it still struck me as weird and gross coming from the nearly century-old elf… Or perhaps even older. I wasn’t sure if she had [Long-Lived] as a racial perk or not.

“I’m just taking your armor and stuff while I figure out what to do with you,” I continued as I shook off my disgust.

I don’t know if she believed me or if the confusion of the situation was enough to erode just a little of the insane amount of willpower it takes to move while below 0 HP. Either way, she collapsed back to the ground, and I continued stripping her…

Of her armor! Just her armor! She still had plenty of clothing on underneath!

However, the awkwardness wasn’t done yet.

“My lord!” Anger shouted as he burst into the room with Hysteria right behind. “We heard the commotion and-“

He trailed off.

“We can, can, can, come back?” Hysteria added as he slowly shuffled toward the door.

I looked at them, then down at the elf.

I sighed. “Perfect. You two are right on time to remove any little remaining dignity in this victory,” I stated flatly. They continued to move toward the door, but I held up a hand. “Stop. I might want your opinion on something.”

They both froze, and I pulled off the final piece of Shalia’s armor.

“Now, just to make sure you don’t bleed out yet… Power of light restore health to my ally. [Cure],” I cast. I even [Overchannelled] it a bit despite the increased level of nausea that it gave me. I figured reflecting her [Pierce] had likely dropped her dangerously close to death.

Her eyes widened in confusion as the gentle healing magic flowed into her, and she tried to roll to her feet…

But was too slow as I [Fire Strike] kicked her before she could.

Non-lethally, of course.

She crashed back to the ground at 0HP and was unconscious.

“There, we now have some time. Any ideas on what I should do with the [Hero]?” I asked.

“Kill her where she lies,” Anger seethed. “That woman has slain me dozens of times. She needs to die! Painfully!”

I hmmed. “That is one option, but the problem is that [Heroes] are a renewable resource. If I kill this one, they’ll just get another one. Hysteria? Any other ideas?”

Hysteria cackled. “Bind her! Chain her! Break her! To the dungeon, she goes! I will take good care of her mind, her mind, her MIND!”

Torture. Of course. What did I frickin’ expect from demons? I asked myself with an internal sigh that I didn’t show on my face.

“So, your suggestions are to kill her or to imprison her,” I said instead. “Basically, what I was already deciding between, but I guess it’s helpful to get a second opinion anyway.”

I had also briefly toyed with letting the [Hero] go without her weapons or armor, but there was one big problem with that.

She knows where the island is. I thought. Then, I realized that might be a bit charitable. It was an island in the middle of the sea. I doubted that she was the navigator on that trek.

Either way, I probably shouldn’t just let her walk free with that knowledge. I thought as I started pacing. That leaves imprisonment or death. I frowned. Pros and cons. Pros for imprisonment. I know where the [Hero] is. She’s disarmed. Cons. How many stories have I heard where the [Hero] made a successful prison escape?

Pros and cons for killing her. Pro, the leak is plugged immediately. I paused. Well, except for the other people on the island. I’ll have to take care of them after this. I shook my head. Another pro, I would get a different [Hero] who isn’t level 25 and who doesn’t have a cheat skill that lets them follow me through teleports.

As for cons… I don’t know what [Hero] I’ll get saddled with next. In a worst-case scenario, maybe they’re strong enough to take me down without issue. It could be someone like Jeremiah with a stupid gun, of all things.

Also, I don’t know if the weapons and armor I took from her will stay in my inventory when she dies, so that may have been a useless gesture.

I looked down at Shalia.

Cons… I have to murder a now-defenseless woman.

“Never done that before,” I muttered in dark irony as I put a hand over the necklace still hanging around my neck.

Maybe I could go with an oath instead? I thought. I dismissed that idea in less than 5 seconds. It’s harder to think of a time when an oath didn’t completely bite me in the butt for something like this. And she would never agree to swear it anyway.

I was stalling, and I knew it.

So, I finally made the decision that I knew I needed to.

System: The Demon Lord has slain the Hero! As the Hero has named no successor, a new Hero will be chosen

My [Wordless Cast] [Overchannelled] [Lightning Spear] was about all I could do for her to give her a quick death.

It wasn’t painless, and she gave one final scream as she died, but it was the best I could do.

The System also had one more surprise in store for me.

System: No suitable Hero has been found. No Hero has been chosen

“Well, that gives me time to complete the island, I guess. Then I’ll get completely countered by whoever it sends,” I muttered. “Speaking of the island…” I sighed.

The [Hero] had brought an entire party with her to the island. Now all of them were potential leaks if I let them get away.

Am I up for more cold-blooded murder today? I asked myself listlessly as I looked up at the ceiling. Without the [Hero], the party was mostly defenseless, so while they would be at least attacking me back, it wouldn’t feel much like a fight.

Being the dark lord would be a lot easier if I was a psychopath. I thought dryly. But that at least gave me a thought. I looked down at Anger and Hysteria, who were still standing there awkwardly.

“If you don’t want to do something, have an underling do it,” I muttered. With a soft snort and a shake of my head, I called out to the two demons. “Meet me back here in three hours. You two are going on a trip.”

They both moved toward the door, but Hysteria paused briefly.

“Where, where, where to, my lord?” Hysteria asked.

“An island. I want you to kill everyone there.” I paused. “Unless you encounter any merfolk. Leave them alone since I have a treaty with them. But kill everyone else.”

They nodded slightly, and I realized that I was dealing with demons. I needed to reinforce my point.

“Do not fail me, or I will know, and there will be severe consequences,” I stated, mostly bluffing.

“Yes, my lord!” they replied in unison as they scurried out the door.

Three hours. Should give me plenty of time to recharge the mana crystal for [Panic Button], top myself off, and…

I paused.

“Wait, can [Teleport To Beacon] even take more than just me?” I asked with a frown.

----------

The good news was that, yes, my [Teleport To Beacon] could take along at least two additional willing targets at no extra cost.

I had to wonder if that was just a bonus because of my levels in [Spatius] and [SpatialTemporus].

Either way, all three of us made it safely to the island, and I sent those two off while I continued to work on creating my pocket dimension. Shalia’s skill had given me some ideas for how to proceed, and I wanted to strike while the memory was still fresh…

And I wanted to throw myself into something to forget the bitter taste in my mouth.

It soon absorbed my whole focus, and I didn’t even give the [Hero’s] party a thought. I was sure that Anger and Hysteria could handle them, no problem.

And I had been trying so hard to avoid stupid villain tropes up to that point too…

---------

Hysteria wasn’t terribly confident about finding the people the [Demon Lord] had mentioned since they were on a large island, and the only hint he had given was a single point in the direction of the enemies.

However, neither he nor Anger seemed to be in the mood to question the [Demon Lord], so they both took off running.

Hysteria did his best but couldn’t keep up with the taller demon’s pace.

“Wait, wait, wait for me!” he called out.

Anger shot a glance back and then smirked.

“No. They’re mine!” he shouted back, followed by a laugh. Then, he doubled his efforts, and Hysteria was truly left in the dust.

“No, no, no choice. Must, must, must use it,” he muttered to himself. Then, he paused briefly before triggering the transformation. “But I hate, loathe, and despise it!” He declared grumpily. Then, with no further ado, he let out a maniacal laugh, mixed with a scream of pain as he bent down and his body shifted.

This transformation could… charitably… be called a wolf.

If you ignored the extra mouths, the ribcage that was completely open and appeared to be breathing, and the head that cocked an angle that would have broken a normal wolf’s neck.

“Don’t like, not like, hate,” he muttered as he started rapidly gaining on Anger. “No HP, not enough health, too easy to die!”

He only had 500 HP while in that form. That was far too little for Hysteria’s comfort.

However, the transformation was worth it as he saw the look of shock and rage on the other demon’s face as he passed him up and reached the party first.

There were several possible targets. However, the choice was easy. Instead of the tough-looking men with metal plates or the flighty people with a stick and string, he went for the soft woman in the white robes.

Hysteria’s charge completely blindsided the party, and they were slow to react as he took the woman to the ground and started mauling her with every weapon his body could create.

Her screams were music to his ears… except they sounded familiar.

“-restore health to my ally!” Hysteria finally caught her saying.

Hysteria was ecstatic! Healing herself would just prolong her suffering! He was so glad that-

“[Cure]!” she finished, and Hysteria’s disfigured eyes bulged as the holy power flew into him.

He screamed in pain as he lost nearly half his HP.

To make matters worse, the rest of the party reacted, and one came forward and bashed him off the soft healer with a large piece of metal.

“Chew on this if you can, monster!” he bellowed as he slammed the tower shield into the ground.

Hysteria would rather not. The metal-covered ones were never as fun to deal with. Unfortunately, he had little say in the matter.

System: You are taunted and can only attack the taunter

The attack was a disaster, and Hysteria likely would have died if he hadn’t quickly decided to transform back into his scythe form… and if Anger hadn’t appeared, shouting in rage, splitting the party’s focus from the madness demon.

It was not a fight that Hysteria was happy with, but in the end, the mortals were dying on the ground, and both he and Anger got to have a bit of fun.

Anger put away his club to torture his captives with his own fists while Hysteria enjoyed their screams as he played with their now-unprotected minds.

Unfortunately, they were mortals, and there were only a few of them. All too soon, the demons were left with only corpses, which were no fun.

“I needed that,” the bloody Anger said with a contented sigh. “It has been far too long since I heard mortals screaming in terror.”

Hysteria nodded in agreement.

Then, Anger looked at him.

“Wait. Where’s the 7th one?” he asked.

“7th one?” Hysteria asked in confusion.

As a look of wide-eyed panic came over Anger’s face, Hysteria could say only one thing.

“Uh-oh.”

--------

Anger and Hysteria could only watch from a distance as the one adventurer they missed ran screaming to the docked ship. Before the demons could get there, they had cast off.

“Our lord will be furious,” Anger muttered.

Hysteria thought so, too.

He will be furious. Raging. Mad. Hysteria shuddered involuntarily… even more than he usually did.

And then he had a thought.

“Or, or, or!” Hysteria replied and pointed out at the sea. “We’re out of the wall! Outside the wall! We’re out!”

“If we delay telling him, that will only make him angrier,” Anger replied. Then, a small smirk broke out over his face. “But, he has let that wall pen us in for decades. And besides, if he asks, we’ll simply tell him that we needed to give chase.”

“Agreed, agreed, agreed!” Hysteria shouted.

Then, the two demons, who had no need for petty things like air, food, or sleep, started their long swim.

Sure, they were going in the direction that the boat was going, and they were likely to kill everyone who had been on board. But, since they were slower swimmers than the ship, that would, unfortunately, mean that they would have to catch up to the sailors after they finally docked.

And they wouldn’t know who had been on the boat, so they would need to be thorough.

They were both looking forward to it. Ever so much.

--------

“I think that’s it,” I nodded as I exited the Mindscape. “I need to actually create a copy instead of just trying to shove all of the space inside of a pocket dimension. It should be just a few more months now.”

I took a quick break, walked outside my unactivated dungeon, and frowned at the night sky.

“They should have been back by now,” I muttered. I tried [Messaging] both of them after that, but neither of them replied.

Then, I switched to a [Scry].

They were swimming. That meant a few possible things.

1. They had blown off my orders

2. They hadn’t succeeded at stopping the boat from taking off, and they were chasing it, or

3. They were done and had decided to leave without telling me

My money was on number 2… Though I didn’t rule out either of the others.

Welp. Time to pack up the island, I guess. I thought with a sigh. Frickin’ dang it. It took so long to find this, too. I looked up at the crystals that I had set up and carved already.

“And where would I keep you? I guess I could take you all back to the throne room…”

I didn’t like it. But then, I had a second thought.

“You know…once it becomes a pocket dimension, it will still be hidden if I have the only entrance underwater. So, I guess this wouldn’t be a bad time to test out the second reason I picked an island.”

I nodded. “Time for a dress rehearsal of Titus vs. the world.”

-------

I immediately swapped focus from my pocket dimension research to what essentially amounted to magical weapon R&D.

The narrative has been taken without permission. Report any sightings.

While I had a decent number of things to deal with small groups or singular enemies, I lacked a bit on the wide-area front. Or, more importantly, on the strategic front.

I was cognizant of the fact that I would be wildly outnumbered after all.

And while I could have made it army vs. army by bringing in the demons… I was still convinced that they would find out my actual plan somehow just because of how awful my luck was, and I was absolutely certain they would not be on board with no longer existing.

Which meant it was up to me… and whatever I could summon.

And after casting [Summon Dave] for the 158th time, I had an epiphany.

I knew that enchantments could store spells, and I had giant magicite crystals that could slowly generate the mana needed to power them indefinitely, so why not put the two together and automate the creation of my slimy army?

Compared to everything else I had been up to, that was actually the simplest. It was only the same array I’d carved dozens of times now connected via a mythril line to a “store spell” enchant with [Summon Dave] in it.

… I did test it before I went too far, though. Since the mana casting the spell wasn’t technically “mine,” I needed to ensure the dave ended up under my control, or things would get really awkward.

The good news was that it seemed that either the enchant being mine or the stored spell being mine was enough that the System generated slimeballs that were under my command.

The other good news was that I was smart enough to remember an “off” trigger for the enchant so that if I left that running, I didn’t come back to literal mountains of daves that would roll off into the sea.

… and perhaps kill the merfolk since I wouldn’t be around to give them orders. Yeah, as funny as infinite daves would be, I decided it would be best to keep it at “a finite but large number” of daves to fend off the inevitable invasion.

With my “army” taken care of, I transitioned back to detection magic for a bit. I needed to know when the army was coming, after all.

I settled on modifying my [Detect People] enchantment array a bit. I excluded people who were underwater since I didn’t want the merfolk to ping it. I extended the range to dozens of miles offshore. And, with a bit of frustration, I finally got it to send the information to me as long as I was within a short range of the array.

It seemed that getting it to send me that info regardless of distance would not be worth the effort.

Oh, and speaking of detection, I also set up my own ad-hoc scrying array where I just put several large mirrors next to each other and had them each tuned to one specific spot on the island and/or sea next to it.

Either way, I had to make a lot of runs to the Below to get enough mana generation to offset everything I was setting up, and it wasn’t until I belatedly counted nearly 200 giant crystals that I had to ask.

“It’s been almost 2 years. What’s taking them so long?” I grumbled.

-------

Earlier

“This is it!” Anger said with glee as he and Hysteria approached the docks. “No walls and an entire city to destroy!”

“Can’t wait, can’t wait, can’t wait!” Hysteria agreed as he switched into his scythe form.

However, no sooner had they come to shore when an unfortunately familiar light surrounded them.

“What are they already doing here!?” Anger bellowed as the angels descended.

“I thought you might be following, so I called ahead,” the one mortal who had escaped them called out as he showed up on the scene with dozens of armed soldiers. “This time, you get to be the ones to scream.”

The one fortunate thing was that the cursed archangel wasn’t included in the number of Heaven’s host that time, so Anger forced a few angels back to Heaven before his HP neared empty.

Then, he bellowed in rage at the surrounding army before one final crossbow bolt dropped him to the ground…

But he didn’t go to Hell. And he could vaguely hear some voices.

“Keep shooting! He’s still alive!”

“No! Hold!” came the mortal’s voice. “If we kill him, he’ll just respawn. But with this-“

Anger felt something heavy clamp onto his arms and legs.

He was in an unconscious daze, but even in that state, he knew he was in trouble.

-------

Blissfully unaware of the utter failings of my underlings, I continued my prep.

With my army settled and the information war won from the start, I focused next on direct damage.

First, I wanted a ritual-type spell with enough range to hit the ships before they even reached my shores.

I took initial inspiration from the [Siege Fireballs] that Gram had initially crafted, and then also from the spell that I was internally calling “throw really big rock” that had been used to great success against my demon army in my previous life.

However, after some deliberation, I realized they might be smart enough to bring fire resistance. And if I showed something else in the upcoming fight, they might bring resistance to that for the real deal. So, I decided I wanted a spell that could take on any damage type I chose… at least out of heat, cold, earth, air, and lightning.

I was happy with the result.

From there, the army still wasn’t coming. I’m pretty sure I had enough time to finish my pocket dimension at that point. However, I was now stubbornly determined to test out my defenses at least once against a real force before locking everything away in the pocket dimension.

So, I continued making more defenses. I decided my daves needed something to protect since they would likely be useless for much else, and also that I needed something with ranged damage.

And since I was in an automated base defense mindset, my solution was… well, I’ll get to that later.

The only unfortunate bit was that I completely ran out of mithril before I could implement the solution even halfway… and I had kinda forgotten to keep Jor-Ex-Ar posted about everything that was going on.

I took a break to solve those two things real quick.

--------

I started to cast my [Advanced Message] to Jor-Ex-Ar when I had a sudden realization.

“Ya know, the message that went out when I killed Shalia specifically said that the [Demon Lord] has slain the [Hero],” I muttered. “I could easily see the System translating that to be ‘the calamitous one’ has slain the [Hero] for the undersea dialect of virian.”

I frowned. If that was the case, it was entirely possible that the truce was over and that I had accidentally robbed myself of the only people I was willing to entrust the island to.

I shrugged. “But, maybe it didn’t. Soo…. [Advanced Message] Jor-Ex-Ar. Hey, sorry for not speaking for quite some time. I’ve been trying to figure out this ritual and also been coming up with defenses so that no one can take the island from us. How have things been going?”

The spell failed.

“Aw, frick,” I muttered. “Did he go and die on me? Wait. How long has it been?” It didn’t seem like it had been long enough for my main fishy friend to have died from natural causes. Still, my sense of time was pretty messed up from being a several-century-old immortal… and from whatever [Ageless] was tacking onto the mix.

“[Get Date],” I cast.

System: Current Date is September 4th, Year 107 Age of Darkness

I furrowed my brow.

50 years for my respawn… about… 20? For derping around becoming a [Stage Magician] and a [Weaponsmith]… That leaves the last 37 for helping out the fey, learning spatial magic, finding my island, and making all of these defenses.

“Helping the fey felt like it took a long time in comparison, so I would bet it’s only been 5 years. Max.” I paused. “But, if their only [Diplomat] kicked the bucket, and I’m the one who was supposed to keep in touch with him, this is kinda on me.” I frowned. “Assuming that they didn’t receive the message from the System and immediately freak out. Oh well. Better go check either way.”

My mana was topped off, so I cast [Teleport To Beacon] right away, heading directly to the underwater entrance to the dragonlands.

Things would get a bit awkward if the merfolk were hostile, seeing as I had that whole oath not to harm them and stuff, but I figured they didn’t really have any weapons that could damage me, and I had [Panic Button] if things got really out of hand.

Neither turned out to be important. As soon as I appeared in front of the portal, the two mermen guarding it held out their spears in salute.

“Lord Titus!” one of them said. “We heard that you had cut ties with us!”

I raised an eyebrow. “Uhh… No?” I shook my head. “I just got absorbed in my work and then realized I hadn’t made contact for a while. Then, next thing I knew, my [Messages] weren’t getting through to Jor-Ex-Ar.”

“Ah, yes… A… shame… about that,” the other guard added in.

However, he seemed more awkward than apologetic. I thought that was pretty frickin’ rude being that blasé about the death of a high-ranking guy like Jor-Ex-Ar.

I held my tongue… but not my facial expression or aura. A demon-lord-aura-empowered scowl settled on my face. “So, are you going to let me in?”

“Of course!” the first guard said as his hands holding the spear started shaking. “Right this way!”

He led the way through the portal, and I followed behind to their city.

“Is there anywhere specific you would like to go?” he asked.

I almost said “the council” but stopped. “I’d like to go pay my respects to Jor-Ex-Ar if you don’t mind.”

“O-o-f course. I think I know where to go,” he replied.

Did I want to get all sentimental over a half-fish guy I had just known briefly?

Not really.

Did I feel like it was the appropriate thing to do?

Yeah. He had been… well, not exactly a friend, but about as close as I could get to one at that point.

I’ll have to see about his family, too. I continued thinking as the guard led me past several people who were slowly chipping away and expanding some of the underwater caves. I know he had a wife and-

“Jor-En, you have a visitor,” the guard called.

“Jor-En?” I echoed. Then, I looked across the cave at a weary merman in tattered clothes who stared at me in shock.

I put two and two together as he started screaming at me.

He got up in my face and yelled about how his demotion was all my fault, and how they thought I had completely cut ties with the merpeople when I didn’t send any messages, and even more so when they went to the island and found it guarded by slimy acid monsters all over the place.

Meanwhile, as he shook my shoulders and cursed my existence, I quickly finished connecting the dots in my head.

So… He got the name change because I didn’t message him and because their expedition to contact me on foot failed. I didn’t think daves would be too much for them, but it’s also a good thing that they came before the other surprises were setup, or that could have been very lethal. I frowned as Jor-En finally stopped yelling and took a few seconds to seethe in rage.

Any way you look at it, this is my fault. And if I want to keep up relations with these people, I should probably fix this.

“I’m sorry, Jor-Ex-Ar,” I replied, using the name he no longer technically had. “Magic of that caliber isn’t something that can just be done in a few months, and I got a bit too caught up in it… and also with trying to make defenses so that people wouldn’t come and take away the island in the meantime.” I debated about trying to do that one pose of “complete submission” or whatever that the merpeople had where they grasped their tail to their chest, but I decided against it since I lacked the requisite anatomy.

… And I also thought it looked a bit too funny.

I pivoted to the guard. “Take us both to the council immediately. It looks like we have quite a bit to go over.”

“Uh… Lord Titus, the council isn’t in session right now and-“ the guard replied.

I cut him off with a glare and a cutting motion with my hand. “Then get them in session.”

He opened his mouth to protest but closed it immediately when I doubled down on my glare with a hint of demon lord aura.

He darted away… which meant that I was left unsupervised with Jor-Ex-Ar and didn’t know where the council chambers were.

Their cave systems were confusing, okay?

I looked at the former [Diplomat] slightly helplessly, and he just sighed.

“This way,” he muttered. He led me back to the council chamber, and it looked like he was about to leave.

“Where are you going?” I asked with a raised eyebrow.

“I’m not on the council anymore, so I-“

“Like heck, you’re not!” I immediately replied. “If they don’t permanently reinstate my favorite [Diplomat], then they can say goodbye at any chance of me teaching them weaponsmithing!”

“Thank the bountiful sea,” Jor-Ex-Ar stated as he looked up at the ceiling. “I couldn’t handle another day of expanding the caves. I was going to go insane soon.” He looked stricken after a moment, and he looked down at his clothes. “The council will be here soon! I need to get changed!”

He tried to swim away, but I grabbed him by the tail to stop him.

Which, given his squeak, could have been any number of social missteps.

Ignoring that, I let go and explained myself. “Stay as you are. I want them to see why I’m so ticked off at the treatment of my liaison.”

He looked uncomfortable but agreed.

The council members slowly trickled in. I held my peace until they were all there and refused to respond to any questions until they had all arrived.

Then I let them have it.

I gave them a rant, tinged with a hint of wrath aura, about their treatment of Jor-Ex-Ar and how I truly would cut all ties with them if they didn’t reinstate him immediately for all time.

I successfully browbeat most of them into submission. However, most was not all.

“And why would it matter if you did?” the leader of the [Sea Hunters] scoffed. “What good has come out of our dealings with you anyway? A few fancy spears that rusted away in a few years?”

I’m surprised they lasted that long. I thought before making my reply. Placeholder must have slower rusting than back on Earth. Either that, or I guess storing things in people’s inventory would slow that down.

That wasn’t exactly a helpful train of thought, so I tried to get back on track with shaming the merpeople until they reinstated Jor-Ex-Ar.

“And what about the island?” I asked in reply. “Don’t you want a safe place to keep your people on the other side of the portal?”

“Of course!” he replied immediately. “And you have yet to show any indication that we’re even one step closer to that than when you started. You’ve given us nothing but empty promises and sometimes not even that!”

“I just need 5 more years,” I said through grit teeth. I could probably have done it sooner… but I wanted to have the island defenses ready, too.

“And we’re just supposed to take your word on that?” He scoffed again. “Council, I call to adjourn. This is a waste of our time.”

“Fine,” I snapped. “I’ll give you something else in the meantime. I’ll give you some more weapons, I’ll show you fire, and…” I paused as I debated what else I could give them. I guess that would work.. Just need a slightly smaller pocket dimension.. “-I’ll give you an underwater smithy.”

They all looked at me in confusion until Jor-Ex-Ar whispered to me.

“They don’t know what that means,” he stated.

“Right. Underwater. No fire,” I coughed. “It’s a place to craft weapons. Refine metals. Even make armor, though I doubt that you would want that. It’s a bit difficult to swim in.”

There were several murmurs in favor, but the [Sea Hunter] guy wasn’t biting.

“Ha! Do you know how many people we have? You think a single smitheen would be enough for our entire population?”

I scowled. “How many do you want?”

“Five!” he called back immediately.

“I’ll give you two. You don’t even know what you’re asking for.”

“Four!” he countered. “And we’ll ignore the wounds that were caused by your acid monsters on the island.”

I paused. “Wait. Wounds? Did you guys lose so badly that some of you got conditions out of fighting them?” His awkward silence spoke volumes.

I sighed. “Two smithies. But I’ll throw in some weapons, heal up your warriors, and also teach up to Five people [Restore].”

“10 people!” he immediately shot back.

I was getting real sick of that guy and his BS.

“You know what? No. One smithy. Some weapons, healing, and five people taught [Restore]. And you reinstate Jor-Ex-Ar right away because you’re an awful negotiator, and I don’t like you.”

He looked like he would burst a blood vessel, but thankfully, cooler heads prevailed.

“Thank you, Titus,” that one mermaid I recognized as the ocean priestess, or whatever her class was, stated. “We need a few minutes to deliberate over your proposal. Would both of you gentlemen mind leaving the room momentarily?”

We both went peacefully but could still hear the arguing from the other room.

“I think that went well,” I stated as we waited.

“It better have,” Jor-Ex-Ar muttered.

I raised an eyebrow.

“Did you grow more of a spine while I was away?” I asked.

“Hard not to when I was stuck as a laborer for that time,” he shot back.

“Fair enough.”

We waited in awkward silence for a bit. Then I realized something.

“Hey, would you be interested in learning [Message]?” I asked.

His only reply was a bewildered. “What?”

“I figure that I could teach it to you, and then you would be able to [Message] me instead of always needing to wait for me to message first,” I paused. “Though, you would also have to swear a pretty restricting oath since I would have to tell you my real name.”

“Titus isn’t your real name?” he asked.

“My real last name,” I replied.

“What’s a last name?” he asked in confusion.

I groaned. I didn’t want to explain all of that. “Are you in or not?” I asked.

“I guess… I’m in…But I want to hear the oath first before making any promises.”

-------

At the very least, coming up with an oath that was as airtight as possible and teaching Jor-Ex-Ar [Message] with [Teach Spell] nicely ate up the rest of the time before the council saw us again.

The council also agreed to my terms pretty readily. However, it didn’t escape my notice that the [Sea Hunters’] leader was gagged when I returned to the room.

They were excited about the possibility of creating their own weapons, but I had a problem on that front. I was basically out of materials to make either weapons or a smithy.

The good news was that Pumil was only a teleport or two away, and I was sure I could get what I needed in the good-ol land of the dwarves.

--------

“This… is Pumil, right?” I asked as I looked around and saw mostly humans.

I mentally played back my spell cast.

I’m dang sure that I portaled to a beacon that was near my old workshop. I thought. Maybe this is just a human section of town now or something? I asked as I started walking around.

I was getting a lot of side glances in my dwelf disguise, and I was growing more and more sure that I had simply ended up on the wrong side of town.

However, that idea was dashed when I saw the procession of short people in chains being guarded by Gram [Watch Officers].

One of them tripped, and the [Watch Officer] practically growled.

“Up on your feet, demon-spawn,” he spat.

Fortunately, he didn’t whip the poor dwarf to complete the usual cliché… because I also wasn’t exactly planning on stepping in and saving them, so it would have been wasted anyway.

I ducked into a side street as the dwarf regained his feet, and the procession continued on.

So… Gram has occupied Pumil, and the dwarves are enslaved. That’s… new. I frowned as I adjusted my disguise to be human.

It’s also… not really my problem? I came to a tentative decision. I still thought it was pretty awful, but it wasn’t like I had caused it or anything.

With my non-intervention determined, I continued my quest to get some forge parts and a lot more mithril.

The first wasn’t that hard to get… the second… well.

“Is this the best quality you have?” I asked the third shop in a row.

“It’s the best quality in North Gram,” the shopkeep grumbled. “Take it or leave it.”

I went with leave it. It was simply not up to my standards.

And the reason for that seemed pretty obvious. While the dwarves appeared to be enslaved and forced to do the forging and other crafting that I saw… they were also sandbagging it.

Which made sense. I mean, would you give slavers your best work if they didn’t know your craft well enough to tell that you were giving subpar results?

I sure as heck wouldn’t.

Unfortunately, their subtle act of rebellion meant I would have to make my own mithril. And that meant I needed to secure a supply of gold and silver ore.

That meant several days of running around, quite a bit of gold thrown around, and an apologetic [Message] to Jor-Ex-Ar explaining I was delayed. (Though, Jor-Ex-Ar was technically still Jor-En. The “immediate” reinstatement still took some time since they had to do the whole name change ceremony thing).

Eventually, I secured a talk with an owner of mine that produced both silver and gold, and we were close to closing a deal when… well… a less subtle act of rebellion stymied things a bit.

-----

“If I’m going to pay that much, you should at least throw in another quarter shipment,” I argued with the owner.

“No deal. Do you have any idea how much work it takes to run this mine?” he replied.

“None of your own, and your costs are lower than the floor,” I shot back, referring to his literal slave labor. “But I’ll settle for another 10 percent and-“

My train of thought was completely cut off as a dwarf with a crossbow popped up behind the man.

I was too confused to act before the bolt shot forward into the man’s neck, and he fell to the ground dead.

A second bolt also found its way to my neck, but despite the unarmored disguise I was wearing, I was still in nearly my full suit.

The bolt bounced off harmlessly, and both dwarves were stunned.

“Retreat!” the dwarf who had apparently managed to [Sneak] behind me called out in a hushed voice. “High-level threat!”

I turned to look at him and saw that he was speaking into a communication artifact of some kind.

I shook my head. “Oh, no. Don’t mind me. Go ahead and do whatever it was you came here to do.” I paused. “Unless that included taking all the gold and silver, in which case I’m afraid we’re at an impasse.”

“We need that ore,” the first dwarf growled as he drew a steel shortsword.

“Don’t!” the dwarf behind me called out. “Freeing our people is more important!”

As the lead dwarf rushed me, I had several options, including killing him and the entire raiding party they had brought to this mine.

Instead, I simply caught his sword with my bare hand and bent it in half.

Armor values let you do some funny things sometimes.

“In return for you earning me a discount, I won’t call for the guards or stop you,” I stated with a tinge of my demon lord aura. “Just leave the gold and silver, or we’ll have problems. Understood?”

He finally got the message; his only reply was a shallow nod and a deep gulp.

Never thought I would see dwarven [Rogues]. I thought as I started collecting my now free gold and silver. That’s not an archetype you usually see the short folk play.

I realized something else about the ambush, too.

Dang. They must have had some pretty high-level [Sneak] for my [Detect] not to notice them.

Not that my [Detect] was any better than mediocre, but still.

I finished collecting my ore with my five-finger discount and left the dwarves to their jailbreak... even as one of the guards apparently caught one of them and sounded the alarm.

Next up… some more materials for the merfolk’s stuff. I thought as I walked away from the shouting and utter chaos that ensued. And then I just need to put their forge in a pocket dimension and we’re good. Should be easy enough.

--------

It obviously wasn’t as easy as I expected. The problem wasn’t securing the supplies or making a pocket dimension that was essentially just a single forge room. No, the problem was making it so that literal tons of water didn’t flow into the dang thing anytime someone activated the orb to go inside.

… Yes, I used a small mithril orb to hold the entire forge. Either Varnak or the fey were rubbing off on me.

Either way, I eventually figured out how to block the water from entering and then solved the myriad problems that popped up afterward.

Merpeople didn’t have a way to start the fire? I made an enchantment for that.

They started suffocating in the room because I forgot about air? I made another enchantment with [Aeris] to create some fresh air and also filter out the fumes from the forge.

They were intimidated by the ominous billowing walls of darkness that indicated the edge of the pocket dimension? I made it a bit bigger and put up some walls and a door so they didn’t have to stare at it.

Then there were a few more problems like the fact that I needed to supply them with iron, but that was mostly overshadowed by another realization I had.

I had been deadset on an island because it was remote, and I would be able to plop down as many mana-gathering crystals as I needed in order to create manipulation points. However, if it was just going to be a pocket dimension anyway, couldn’t I also put it somewhere else?

I’d already put a lot of effort into my island, but I vaguely remembered a piece of advice from Earth that seemed appropriate. It was something like “Don’t stick to a mistake just because you spent a long time making it.”

And so, once I had the merpeople off my back in regard to them getting something in return for helping me find the island, I headed out to somewhere that could possibly be a better spot to host my pocket dimension.

-------

My first three attempts melted. I lost my fourth attempt and couldn’t find it. And then, my fifth attempt which finally seemed like it might be working, collapsed under the strain.

… It turned out lava was much, much harder to filter out than water.

“Fine!” I shouted up at the sky. “I get it! You don’t want me to just make a pocket dimension inside a volcano and then win by default since no one can get here! Well, screw you and your stupid arbitrary rules!”

I’m not even sure that the System had actually done anything specific to make that harder, but I chose to believe it because I was already ticked off at the System, so why not?

With my day completely ruined, I went back to my island to continue prepping it for the invasion that would surely come at any time.

Any time. I thought as I finally finished the ranged portion of my “army.”

Any time. I thought as I dug out areas for each and every crystal so they wouldn’t stick out as such blatant targets.

Any time. I thought as I went back over all of my stuff and added some extra surprises courtesy of Varnak’s inventions.

“Aaaand… I’m out of time,” I muttered as I checked the date. I had already pushed the start date of the ritual three times, and Jor-Ex-Ar mentioned that his people were getting impatient.

So, with a heavy heart that I wouldn’t get to test any of my shiny new defenses after all, I sent Jor-Ex-Ar a message that any of his people should clear the area. Then, I started the cast.

System: Dangerous ritual cast detected by alert system. Issuing Quest

System: The Demon Lord has begun casting a ritual that could destroy Placeholder! Stop the ritual in the northern sea before it is too late!

I blinked a few times upon reading that.

“Well,” I muttered. “I did say that I wanted to test my defenses out…” I paused as I looked at the timer. “But I should probably come up with a plan B.”

Plan B added a couple of weeks to the countdown timer the System gave out, but I didn’t think it mattered too much.

I was pretty sure that whoever would come to stop me would arrive just in time either way.

Alright, Placeholder. I thought. Give me your best shot.