Shortly before the Sun kingdom was destroyed…

Josh had managed to run away safely. Josh couldn't even tell how long he ran for, but he knew that he must've made it far because this is the first time he is exhausted from running.

He couldn't even see the black mountains anymore, which turned out to be a giant dragon all along. He didn't even know what to call it anymore but was glad he couldn't see it.

Josh sat down, he was sweating, he was tired, hungry, nervous, and scared. He thought his power was unrivaled, that no monster could face him head on.

But there is a mutated dragon made of gold who could even take on his strongest attack. Not only that but now he had woken up a dragon whose size was way too big.

"Pete, let's get our stories straight: the dragon woke up and we had nothing to do with it whatsoever, we don't mention the dragon to anyone. Understand?"

Josh turned to where he thought Pete was. There was no one there.

"Pete? Where are… oh, no." Josh had come to a realization.

He had left Pete behind for dead.

"Oh, shit, oh shit." Josh began sweating bullets.

Because of him Pete is dead, since he forcefully dragged him here with the false promise of simply taming a lizard mount. He knew that he was going to be in a huge amount of trouble should anybody else realize what he had done.

Josh also knew that he couldn't lie out of this, the Great Sage can and will read his mind.

He pulled the hairs on his head, he was very nervous and scared. He had killed a person! Even if he didn't mean to, Pete's blood is on his hands and he knew it.

And how did Josh know that Pete is dead? After getting to know Pete for the past 2 weeks, he knew his legs would have turned to jelly upon seeing that giant dragon. There is no way he is still alive.

"What am I gonna do?"

Josh worried about himself. He can't possibly go back to the Reyes kingdom.

"Hero!"

Two girls ran at him, glad to see that he was alive and well.

"Where… is the other hero?" Naveah noticed Pete was gone.

"Pete… he went back to the kingdom." Josh lied, obviously. He couldn't tell them the truth.

"Is he going to be alright? He didn't seem to be well versed with the area, he might even be lost." Felicia pointed out.

"Relax, he's a hero, he'll be fine." Josh faked a smile. He was still wondering what he was going to do.

"Did you manage to get that dragon egg you wanted?"

"Egg? Oh, right. No. I managed to kill a few dragons… and that is when I realized that dragons are really weak compared to me. So there is no need to tame a dragon anymore. They're overrated anyway. Pete agreed with me as well."

Naveah and Felicia doubted his words. Wasn't the whole point to get a dragon mount to 'flex' on others and to ride it everywhere without needing to go through the effort of walking?

That is when they realized that he really failed. Much like how he failed to get an elf slave from the black market.

"Then perhaps we should head back to the kingdom. I'm a bit hungry." Felicia added.

"Um… yeah, let's not do that." Josh did not want to go back to the Reyes kingdom.

If he does go back, most likely he'll be questioned about Pete's whereabouts soon, and that's when they'll realize what he had done.

Having Pete killed is already a heavy charge to bear, but awakening a dragon the size of a mountain is possibly even worse than killing a hero. He didn't want to tarnish his hero image, that is not what happens to MC's… most of the time.

The best thing he could do is warn everybody about the giant dragon, but he won't, else they will also know that he was the one who woke it up.

So he had two choices to make: warn the kingdom about the dragon which might save a great number of lifes and prepare humanity for it, or keep it to himself until someone else comes face to face with it and hopefully by then it won't be too late.

"I… had this crazy idea! How about we go to the… Empire! Yeah, the Empire!"

Josh had heard about the Empire: how the Empress is fat(?), and likes to kill and murder everything she sees, and how she uses her insane wealth to damage the kingdom and she is the reason why the taxes are so high, and so on.

The main reason he didn't want to go is because he didn't want to have a fat woman fall in love with him(?) because he knows that in fiction, most women in powerful positions fall in love with the MC. He only accepts beautiful women in his harem.

But the part about her wealth is what tempted him to visit the Empire. After all, he needed money and items to get stronger.

"The Empire? Why?"

Both girls have heard about the Empire, especially about the horrible things the Empress has done, which in reality is just false information spread by the kingdom.

"Because… I'll tell you on the way. But will the both of you trust me, for now?" Josh asked.

Both girls looked at each other. Should they follow him?

It's not like they'll become traitors or criminals for wanting to go to the empire. But it was far, and Naveah had a family she needed to visit.

"If it's only temporary I don't see why not."

"Yeah… temporary." Josh will not mention that he plans to be there for a long time. He really needed these two to guide him since he is clueless.

'No one must ever know.'

And thus Josh set out to find and maybe live in the empire. He hasn't thought that far yet.

Currently, Will is cleaning up the mess and restoring his kingdom. When Victoria punched the ground it also shattered the foundation, without a strong foundation any building will fall.

The foundation used to be made of wood since he thought it made his kingdom look nice. But now he changed it to iron, the entire ground, even if one were to dig 30ft under his kingdom it'll be nothing but iron.

Although the ground might be iron, he decided to use stone to cover the floor. Iron floors weren't just that appealing to him. And wood floors easily get scratched and it's more difficult to fix it compared to stone, for him at least.

This book was originally published on Royal Road. Check it out there for the real experience.

Should Victoria land that kind of punch again he is certain it won't be as damaging as before. Still he isn't planning on letting Victoria anywhere near his kingdom.

Another thing worth mentioning is the waystone. He ignored it in the beginning but the waystone was actually floating, as if it was immovable and completely denying the laws of physics, like a floating minecraft block. It was the one thing Victoria's punch did not damage.

The waystone's description mentions that 'one you place it down you cannot move it' Will just didn't think that it could also defy gravity as if it were something from a cartoon. Perhaps this function was there so Will couldn't drag it anywhere else.

But despite that, after testing it, there is one confirmed method he used that can break the waystone, a good pickaxe. Something about his pickaxes seem to be the most powerful item but also the weakest. Powerful because it can shrink items and destroy items easily, and weak because it can't kill most things.

When he destroyed the waystone with his pickaxe, a small portion of the materials he used to craft the waystone were returned to him, which is also a part of the item's description. Luckily at his point the materials he can use to craft waystones weren't that expensive compared to other items.

Will could not make sense of this logic. Victoria's punch could not even leave a dent on it, yet a steel pickaxe could destroy it with just a couple of dozen hits? Not to mention that Will had the strength of a normal man.

Ignoring that, another annoying thing he noticed is his farm. His farm takes a long time to make, but it produces food in a few hours because that's one of his system's perks that he found out by himself.

Instead of planting crops inside his kingdom and making a farm for the third time, he decided to make a farm somewhere far away where he could use waystones to teleport so that in the event of his kingdom ending up being destroyed for the third time, at least his farm would be protected.

He would also use advanced golems to protect and report to him should anything unforeseen happen to his farm.

But his farm idea would have to wait for now.

Will left the kingdom. He planned to expand his kingdom much further than before, and needed to make a rough calculation on how much iron he would need to make the kingdom he wanted. Instead of stone walls he would make it all into iron.

Instead of just a single row of walls protecting his kingdom, there would be multiple walls, much like in Attack on Titan where there are rows of walls inside of walls.

This is so if anything were to try to break into his kingdom either by jumping over the walls, or flying, or climbing, or anything for that matter Will could place hundreds of sentry turrets and anything will be shot down.

Upon exiting his decimated kingdom, Will saw people who were hurt.

"Will!"

Jack, Will's young blacksmith friend, ran up to him. His clothes were torn and shattered, there were also bandages on his arms, his hands were dirty. Not just him but there were people behind him who were in a worse state.

"What happened?" Jack asked.

Many of the villagers just heard some shooting, of course they ran, next thing they knew the entire kingdom blew up as if a meteor struck right in the middle of the kingdom.

"Oh, crap. I had forgotten about you guys." Will was so busy with Adaline and his kingdom that he had forgotten about Jack and the villagers.

"What was that?"

"Nothing."

The villagers had lost everything when Victoria destroyed everything. All their belongings, hard work over the past month were just destroyed. Everything was gone.

Luckily most survived when they ran and only suffered some injuries, some died unfortunately. Some of the rubble flew and hit their vital organs and died.

Seeing the people in such a state reminded him when he saw those people in that poor village. It was the first time Will wanted to help them at the time, before they wanted to kidnap and sell off Adaline.

"But, Will, what caused the explosion?" Jack asked. Everyone was as curious, but most did not feel like it mattered as knowing would not help them right now in any way.

"It was a hero. Her name is Victoria."

"Wait, seriously?" Jack asked to be sure. He had never heard of a hero doing such a thing before. And as a big hero fan he knew every single hero's names and some of their abilities, so naturally he has heard about Victoria.

They didn't think Will was the cause of the explosion because why would he suddenly want to blow up his kingdom and the village, which is a village that his girlfriend is basically taking care of? It didn't make sense.

Some people thought it was Will at first, because he's a hero and it would make sense for him to have some sort of destructive power, but Jack quickly changed their minds.

"Seriously."

Will felt something hold on to his leg. He saw a little girl hugging his leg, gently pulling him as if she was trying to lead him somewhere. She was covered in dirt, with minor scratches on her body and clothes.

"Mister hero, my mommy is hurt. Please help her." She pointed to her mom, who was in a horrible state.

Her mother's condition reminded of the last time she saw her uncle, the same night where he got drunk and lost their house in a poker bet, later he would then fight some goblins in a drunken rage to vent out his anger.

What killed him was after a few days his wounds were infected, especially around his torso and waist that were either cut wounds or arrows, especially since the weapons goblins used aren't clean and are filled with disease. He died in the living room half naked, and she was the one who saw his dead body first.

The mom's hand was horribly bruised and inflated. Her face was covered in dry blood as she fell harshly on her head and landed on stone which caused severe bleeding. She had trouble breathing. Her state is worse compared to other villagers as far as Will could tell.

"You've gotta be kidding me." Will muttered under his breath.

"What?"

"Nothing. I'll be back soon."

Gently pulling the girl away from her grip, Will came back with healing and regeneration potions. These potions he had bought after Adaline was completely healed, just in case.

"Jack, give these to the people who need it. I unfortunately lost everything as well, my food, clothes, everything."

Jack nodded and ran to the villagers.

The little girl gently pulled Will to her mom and Will then applied some healing and regeneration potions to her as well as others.

Will had decided to help these people out, for now.

He could relate to these people. He was just trying to live, trying to have a better life, only to have that taken away from him.

He almost lost Adaline, his kingdom was destroyed. Luckily he could rebuild because he had the time, the ability, and the resources. These people didn't have any of that.

And he couldn't even imagine losing Adaline, as some of these people had now lost others because of Victoria.

Will just felt bad for them, especially the kids which was something he couldn't ignore right now.

"W-what happened?"

As Will was applying potions to the injured, Sandra had finally returned with a lot of people.

Everyone stood in daze wondering what happened.

"Long story short, Victoria did this." Will said.

"Vic… but, oh my god are you hurt?" Sandra just thought of Will because he is standing in front of her seemingly fine, she couldn't tell due to the armor he wore.

"I'm fine. Adaline, however, almost died." whenever he thought of Adaline the more angry he got.

"But, she's going to make it, right?"

Will nodded.

"Sandra, please help me out with these people."

Without hesitation Sandra nodded and began helping the injured.

The villagers that Sandra guided to the village, which was over 250, all decided to split up in groups to help the injured, something Will did not expect.

Some people brought whatever food and water and shared it amongst themselves. Some children even gave their spare clothes to other kids because their clothes were dirty.

Will stood in the middle of it all, just watching it all happen. Then he left and entered his kingdom.

Sandra saw him leave and wondered where he was going.

30 minutes later Will returned.

"Will? Where did you go?" Sandra needed Will's help. When she went to look for him he was gone.

She did notice his kingdom part was destroyed but part was also being repaired, for example the ground. She was weirded out when she saw dozens of statues, which were motionless, all carrying different types of weapons from shields, guns, blunt weapons, swords, and so on.

She did think they were sentient like golems, but she moved and touched them and they did not react in the slightest bit. Her doubts about those statues still lingered in her mind.

Will placed a few chests on the ground. Each chest contained food, water, clothes, and materials for him to use which was mostly wool and other necessities.

"Did a little bit of shopping."

Will put Sandra in charge of giving out people stuff they needed since he trusted her the most.

Next he built houses made of stone instantly. Using the {Holographic platform} it was rather easy to make houses for nearly 300 people.

Everyone stared at him in disbelief. They knew he had an ability to create buildings quickly but not in a literal second.

The first building he built was a wide and tall building where sick and injured people can sleep so others can take care of them. What made him build that building was the kids that were injured. Making beds was easy since he had an abundance of wool.

It would be 3-4 hours later until things were a little more stable. After Will did everything he could to help the villagers he went back to building his kingdom.

What was first built was the foundation for the kingdom and the village, without a proper foundation his buildings might fall. There was 30ft of pure iron all around beneath the kingdom that expanded more than a few hundred meters, which already covered more ground than his old kingdom.

He likes to call it the 'iron foundation' for no reason really.

What was the most time consuming task was gathering the iron that his golems had mined all this time.

After Will was satisfied with the foundation, what was next was the iron walls. The walls now even covered the entire village and they were just at the edge of the iron foundation. They were bigger than before, but he knows if they were too tall they'd fall like dominos.

It was at this point he really started to hate the laws of physics, and appreciated the laws of minecraft and terraria logic more.

What was different about his iron walls is that instead of just having sentry turrets at the top of his walls, he also installed sentry turrets inside his walls. One could see various machine turrets barrels sticking out of the walls like splinters.

Each turret had different types of enchanted ammunition for specific purposes. Some had piercing bullets, others had explosive bullets, and others had impact bullets which was like minecraft's knockback enchantment, except that it really hurts as if one were to be hit with a cannonball. All turrets had the infinite ammo enchantment, and other types of enchantments as well.

Will sat atop of his walls. He was proud of his creation. But it still wasn't finished, he still had other structures to build.

"Will." Sandra sat beside Will. She was tired and dirty from helping people all day.

"Sandra, I'm going to war with the kingdom." Will said.

"Wa… war?" Sandra did not expect that from Will. And he didn't sound like he was kidding.

"3 heroes already infiltrated the kingdom when you left…"

Will explained what happened to the three disposable heroes.

"Oh… that's… I don't know what to say about that." Sandra stared down, not knowing what to think.

"And I'm going to kill Victoria."

Before Will had no plans on killing anyone, But after what happened he wants to kill her. No soul's boss has ever made him this angry or made him crave for blood.

Sandra also did not know what to say or feel as her feelings were all mixed up. Many of the villagers she knows were seriously injured or died, and for what?

"Will, I am with you on this."

"...What?" Will expected Sandra to be against the idea of killing somebody. She has never taken a human life before.

"These people have done nothing wrong, neither did you, nor Adaline. So why did all of you have to hurt? Doesn't make sense, right? It's like what happened to Alex. He was just minding his own business in that store, then that asshole burglar had to rob the place and eventually got killed in the crossfire. Victoria should get everything that's coming to her, that's only fair, right?"

Remembering Alex, Will agreed.

"Thanks, Sandra. For agreeing with me."

Sandra hid her expression with a forced smile. Personally she didn't know if she could take a human life. She liked to believe she had the strength and courage to do it. Taking lives is something she is not used to.

Like many other people in her generation, she's lived a rather peaceful life where she didn't need to kill to survive. Even now she is not fully accustomed to this new life of hers where she actually needs to kill.

Rather than that she would rather help others to avoid spilling any blood. But now she realizes that perhaps it's unavoidable to kill others.

"You don't have to fight, and I am still not ready for war. I need to do… some things first."

"Okay. Oh, right I came to tell you a few things: I saved you some food, it's not much but we're rationing our food for now."

"Oh, thanks. Now that I think about it I am hungry."

"And secondly… where's the exit?"

"E-exit?"

"You didn't place any doors or gates on the walls."

Will stared at Sandra for a few seconds before he realized it. He held the back of his mask and angrily muttered "Goddammit! I forgot!"