I ate my lunch at a very run down restaurant run by some slave. They don't seem honored I’m here, but they are surprised I’m here. The food is... edible. I had slaves who cooked better than this.
I don't know what that king meant by spending time with these bestials. I think I’m letting his stupid words bother me, I've lived for 532 years, and I know they're only useful as slaves. To think I even considered those dull-minded words; an utter waste of my time.
By the time I returned to my estate, the sun was setting and I was able to watch the beautiful twilight. If nothing else, one good thing came from today. These are things you normally wouldn't pay attention to unless you're riding a coach and happened to be looking out.
I couldn't spot any guards around my estate when I returned, maybe they finally gave up and went back to their jobs. I found the troops training where they usually did, by the side of the main house.
William was enjoying tea and playing a game of chess with Ilmey.
"You guys look like you're having fun."
"Yeah."
William said barely paying attention to me, confidently playing his game. While Ilmey mumbled something of a 'yes' as well.
I took a closer look at the board, William is doing pretty well, and looks to be winning. He’s a pawn and bishop up. Leaving the two alone, I went to talk with Zejimal.
I confirmed the arrival of the Golem, and that it was left outside with the carriage behind my estate. I asked him to bring the crate in.
Zejimal took a few of his men and went to get the crate. While he was doing that I went back to watch the game between my apprentice and William.
I know for a fact as a young sorcerer that Ilmey is very intelligent and talented, but William was dominating throughout the game. He was winning pieces, it was starting to become a one-sided slaughter. Removing her pieces one at a time, but chess isn't a game of winning pieces.
As time went on her chances of winning only went down, before long he was chasing her king around the board. Either her pieces were being killed or standing idly by as the king ran around the board. Finally, when she was only left with 2 pawns and the king against an army, she resigned.
When the game ended it was very much night, and the crate had long been brought to the backyard, they had it standing up when we went to take a look.
♦♦♦
"Your Majesty, I have to disapprove your choice of letting him go?" I looked up to find a very disgruntled Grayson staring at me. “I think you should have in the least exiled him.”
“Grayson I understand where you are coming from but I have to disagree. If we remove him someone else will take his place. This isn’t a problem we can fix by removing people. We have to change minds.”
“That’s fine against someone we can control. Someone we can overpower, but a radical like him needs to be dealt with using force.”
“They’re not a threat, Grayson. They don’t have the power to defeat me, so you have nothing to worry about.”
“Hum~”
He moans at my statement because he knows it’s true. They’re not the threat, the real threat is Nolybab. If they attack then I’ll deal with him, punishing someone before the crime is ludicrous.
“What we have to worry about right now is the Kingdom of Nolybab, not a single Sorcerer.”
♦♦♦
So they brought it in, I could have just told the golem to walk here but where's the fun in that.
Zejimal and his subordinates are trying hard to open the crate.
"You guys don't need to do that let me open it for you." I interrupted, I couldn't watch anymore. I cut in and spoke to the crate. "Come out Uno." In the moment I said it, the crate creaked, and the front of the crate broke open and the Golem stepped out.
In a panic, the troops jumped back and pulled out their weapons. The 2 and a half meter behemoth startled them, even the so-called great Sorcerer was taken aback by its blue glowing eyes.
"M-may I try appraising it?"
"Go ahead."
The sorcerer touched the Golem, emitting his magic.
"[Sorcery: Appraisal]"
He started mumbling the words that appeared in his mind.
"Cr-ted by a leg-ry cra-man of taboo... holds immeasurable power... Ghul stone... soulless life... This is... This is amazing, where did you get it!? Where!? How!?"
He was shouting right into my ear, while rubbing Uno everywhere, he’s really much interested in the Golem’s chest where the flame design met. He was sweating profusely, as he cast a few other appraisal spells.
"I can feel its magical power, it’s not surrounding it like normal magic casters, but within is a large about of magical power. Whoever made this must have been a legendary figure, but I've never heard of anything like this in my books. Maybe technology from some fallen country, some ancient country perhaps. It's hard to tell its age, or method of build."
"Amazing Master Danial."
Ilmey was exited as well, the adventures couldn't fully understand, but they realized how amazing it must be as well.
As the excitement slowly died down, Zejimal suggested an idea.
"Hmm... How about all of you try fighting it?" He directed the question at his troops and turned to me. "Can you make it so it doesn't kill them? I can only guess its power… If it's going to be fighting the king… I know my troops can't handle it… yet."
The last word seems to have been added to increase their moral because I know they’ll never be able to match up with my Uno.
His men must have picked up on it as well, since they seemed a bit dejected by his words, but they could only hold back their pride and accept it as the truth. Few of the men stepped up to fight Uno, so I could only oblige.
"Sure, Uno fight them but go easy, try to minimize injuries. Just take away their weapons or something. It's only training."
It can only understand me to a certain extent, it wasn't to the level of a NPC in that regard, but it should be enough to carry out this simple tasks.
Not all of them faced Uno at once, but about 20 of them gathered to take it on. It's good this is an estate, otherwise noise form the battle would be heard by the neighbors.
With the Sorcerer’s suggestion, we sat on the outside area of the north wing to watch the battle, he even made Ilmey bring over the chess set to play a game with me. So I enjoyed the night, playing a game while watching Uno fight against some low level adventures. In the moon light they started their training.
At first they tried to attack it one at a time. The first attack came from a spear wielder, he lunged forth and aimed for the eyes. It was a futile attempt from the very beginning, it had no real eyes and the attacks were too low level to do any damage, but it dodged it anyway. Since it didn't have a neck and it’s perfectly spherical head was directly attacked to its shoulders, all its movements were a bit large. It had to move its entire upper body to the side and bend down, so that the spear would just miss close enough to grab the spear near the wielder’s hands. After Uno grabbed it, it was hopeless for the adventure to pull it back, his attempts were absolutely pointless.
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Realizing their friend was in trouble some of the adventures tried attacking from the side. Uno lifted up the spear wielder by his spear which he refuse to let go, and threw him at the adventurer coming at him from the left. Luckily the spear wielder let go at the right moment to land safely to the side. The spear alone hit the warriors coming at Uno, square in the nose. It was only the stick but it was heavy enough to knock a warrior to the ground. Holding his face in pain, he crawled and tossed on the ground.
Coming from the right another warrior came with a sword and went for a slash at Uno's knee joint. Uno swung his leg ahead of the slash, lifting his leg to do a half assed back kick at the solider, and he flew. Everyone stared dumfounded at how far he flew before he bounced on the floor before collapsing.
They stopped the test training to go help the guy, he was mostly fine. I had to explain to them that Uno was holding back, and that's just how powerful he is. It seems he pushed more than hit, so there was no injury from the initial kick itself.
"Hmm... I'll challenge it."
Zejimal wanted to go at it solo, even though about 5 people couldn't do a thing.
"Then I'll go after you, I want to test it out as well. I want to try and get it to show its full strength."
It seems the Sorcerer can’t judge from just watching and wants to fight it.
Even I would have to take it seriously if I was fighting it and only with items that matches up could I win against it, so it's suffice to say that 'yes it's holding back, if it wasn't you would all be dead within in a single move'.
That reminds me of its strongest move: the Blue Sun. A fireball like attack about the size of a basketball, but the blue fireball undergoes nuclear fusion as it is created and creates an explosion that is about as deadly as a small supernova. In the game it was a large area attack that could turn the entire place into a crater, but wouldn't that be able to destroy the world now that everything is real. It can't be that deadly since the nature of the world itself has changed... right? I should tell Uno not to use it unless the opponent has something just as deadly. If we're going to die either way, we might as well win… or take them with us.
"I tested it out a few times, and I don't think it's even showing 10% of its full strength."
I answered the Sorcerer as honest as I can be in character.
"Amazing" Was his response, and "Frightening" was Ilmey's. "Ha ha ha... That too Ilmey, it surely is frightening. I'm glad you're on our side William."
"Think nothing of it." Because I'm not, I'll kill you all in-time. “We’re all humans here after all.”
Zejimal's sword had a green glow around its edges, as sparks of green electricity pulsated from within the sword only to curve back into it. It's a pretty rare item in this world, an electric sword.
Zejimal shot a beam of electricity at Uno, Uno could have received it but dodged it showing its incredible speed. Where its body blurred as it moved to the side. Uno went straight for Zejimal, realizing he can't dodge he activated some attack of the weapon which send sparks of electricity in all directions. The sparks only avoiding its user, it even hit some of his subordinates too close to the sidelines, and this was something Uno could not dodge either. Sparks rained down on Uno but they didn't even faze him. He clutched the sword by the blade with one hand and smacked Zejimal with the other. Zejimal's hands were forced apart as he flew through the air.
Ilmey ran over to cast some healing spells, after which he seemed okay. Uno took away his weapon like I instructed it seems, for he came to me with it. I order Uno to return him his sword and Danial prepared to fight him.
Noticing Uno's powers laid mostly in hand-to-hand combat, he widened their distance before starting the battle. It could have also just been his style of fighting given his main class as Sorcerer.
Uno merely waited as always for the opponent to attack, unless I give him direct orders to attack a specific person he won't do a thing.
"It seems lighting or physical attacks don't do much against you." The sorcerer said out loud for everyone to hear. "Then how about this: [Sorcery: Widen area - Quick Sand.]"
A large yellowish-brown magical circle appeared on the ground with Uno on the center.
It caught some of the people around him as well, when the whole area turned into quicksand, devoid of the grass that was there a moment ago. While the few who got caught struggled, Uno slowly sunk further in without moving a muscle. Uno slowly looked down on the ground and realized that the ground had changed. Upon realization the sand around him exploded with a bang, and Uno was floating a few feet above ground.
Bang*Bang*Bang*
The sound rang throughout the estate, Uno was kicking the air. His feet moved at too high a speed that it took some time for the rest to notice. The bangs were from breaking the sound barrier. I don't think they ever saw that in their lives, they realized it was flying and kicking the air but they couldn't fully grasp the situation.
Ilmey beside me muttered "What is it doing?" in a quite dumfounded voice.
The sorcerer was dumbfounded as well and stared at the phenomenon for some time. When he realized Uno is staring back at him, cold sweat broke out all over his face. His complexion changed quite visibly, it so cartoonish that I smiled unconsciously. I stopped myself forcibly before someone noticed. I looked around to see if anyone noticed, thankfully it being night, and with everyone’s attention on the flying Golem I am sure no one noticed.
When Uno slowly moved towards him, he panically started casting magic.
"Wh-Wh [Sorcery: Fireball.] [Sorcery: Ic-]"
Before he could cast the second magic Uno was holding him by the mouth in the air. His mouth sealed shut, he tried to struggle but the grip didn't lighten or tighten. Everyone could only stare at the mockery in front of them, the strongest Sorcerer in the country so easily subdued.
There was no difference between the experienced Sorcerer and the inexperienced warriors that went against it, they were defeated all the same.
I also learned one other thing from this, the Sorcerer hasn’t mastered voiceless casting. I know it has nothing to do with levels, but it’s still better to learn.
Some of them feared it immediately I could tell, while others were filled with adoration.
"Alright that's enough Uno, put him down."
Before he tossed him somewhere, I made sure he put the Sorcerer safely back on the ground. Stumbling back, the Sorcerer still managed to land on his bum.
"Convinced he can take on the king?"
I asked the shaken Sorcerer. Noticing me beside him, he struggled to his feet, then he stared at the golem for a moment before turning to me and saying:
"Yes, more than convinced. H-how did you get your hands on this?"
"Ah~ that’s a secret."
He looked at me with an ambiguous expression for a moment and turned away, to stare at the Golem once more. Without saying a word.
Zejimal was the one to break him out of his trance.
"I think that's enough training for today. Everyone go get some rest."
There was still some warriors helping their friends out of the quick sand. The Sorcerer finally noticed and canceled his magic.
"Danial you should get some rest too… tomorrow we'll have to meet with everyone… This Golem… Hmm...."
"I'll teleport it to the hidden estate."
Danial finally said when Zejimal mention the golem. Danial touched the golem and activated his teleportation, and he disappeared, but only him, the golem stayed where it was.
I suspected this might happen, he's not the owner, and his magic power is too low. Uno will deflect whatever magic is cast on it.
Zejimal and Ilmey were a bit surprised when only Danial disappeared, but soon he reappeared.
"I think it deflected your magic." I explained. "Whatever magic is cast on it, it will deflect without discrimination; healing or damage."
"I see."
"Hmm... Then should we… leave it in the shed?"
Zejimal was the one to suggest it, the shed was a space of its own, mostly to keep weapons and other tools, so I had no problems.
"That should do."
"Alright, if William doesn't have a problem."
The other two nodded along with that, and so I commanded Uno to the shed.
"William I think it's best if you move in to the estate for the next few days."
Danial had suggested this before and I had refused, but since it was close to the date, I agreed.
"Alright, but I'll have to get a few things from my hotel."
"That's fine, should I get one of the coachman to-"
"No that's fine, my subordinate is right here." I pointed to the human summon that brought Uno, he was still sitting on the sidelines watching the whole thing. He was probably the only one other than me that wasn't acting surprised or panicked by everything, maybe because he himself is a high-level summon. "If I can borrow a coach that would be great, since ridding around in a crate carriage would be difficult."
The moment I finished saying that Danial looked very tired for some reason, arguable worse than when he was fighting the Golem.
"Ah~ Sure. Take whichever one you want. When you come back a maid will show you to your room, I think I'm going to get some rest, today's been a long day." He leaned over on Ilmey and I think I heard him say "Let's go to bed." And she took him to his room.
"Hmmm... I'll wait for you to return, you'll need help carrying your luggage."
That was awfully nice of Zejimal so I accepted it with "thanks."
So I picked a coach and went to get my stuff, from the hotel that I was so suddenly teleported out of in the middle of the night. When I think about it, god damn fucking assholes. With a deep sigh I tried to bring my blood pressure down. Anyway when I got back to the hotel, I took the time to message Verra, and let him know where I would be staying.
♦♦♦
"It looks like my clone will be staying at the estate for the next 6 days."
"I see, will Master William be fine on his own without any contacts."
William is going to take care of the player, Tinkula, and Derraacs is still training the boy…
"I'm sure he can manage on his own, but just in case add a few more Shadow Stalkers around the estate. But don’t let them act, only report. I’ll personally give them orders if need be."
"Understood Master Verra."
“Also Stella, how is the ship coming along?"
"Yes, I visited them a few days ago, the construction is going well, as on schedule Master Verra. It will be finished by next summer at the latest. But the turbine you wanted… they tried talking with the engineers working on the hydro-powered plant and other physicists, and news from their side isn't good. They believe they can build it as Master suggested but using mana as the power source instead of electricity as Master wished."
"I see."
Well, that can't be helped, that project is a lot harder than simple construction. Electricity powered would be the best, then we can improve our battery or solar power, but using a few summons even mana powered is economic.
I was only talking about the future, they didn't have to take me so seriously, but I suppose I shouldn't complain about that. Really I'm glad.
"But they said they're waiting to build that last, in hopes of better news from the scientists in a few months."
That's optimistic I suppose. Progress can happen in a small amount of time but a few months…
"Tell them it's fine either way, what's important is finishing the ship on schedule."
"Yes Master Verra, I'll make sure to inform them."
When the ship completes we'll finally be able to set sail into new frontiers. Hopefully by then everything - well at least most of everything - will be settled here.