"Mmm… this is some good food." Will enjoyed the bread and meat that he took from Shane's ring. It tasted better with some salt sprinkled on it. The only thing that was missing was sodas, which has not yet been invented in this world.
In this world it was indeed possible to create sodas. It's just that it's impossible to make them since it'll require time, people, money, resources that they don't have like sugar, and much more. And right now making sodas wasn't too important as much as living and defending themselves from monsters.
All they had was water, flavored water such as lemon and other fruits, and different types of wine.
The one thing Will had that was sweet is fruit, and so he makes orange juice on a daily basis since all he has is water. Better than nothing some might say.
Sugar would be great to have, but acquiring sugar is extremely difficult and is the ONLY way, in this world, to acquire sugar. There weren't too many sugar canes, and sugar was only for exemplary heroes and the king due to its scarcity.
After finishing his food Will went around his castle. The Golems placed around as guards made it feel more like a castle, still it did feel empty.
"Golem, has the spider Golem found anything from the cave?" Will referred to the cave where that giant scorpion tail attacked them.
"Nothing as of yet, Master."
"Then how long until we have gathered the equivalent of 5000 low-tier mana ores?"
Will needed that many ores to make an exclusive craft that allows him to make stronger metals, since the best metal he has right now is steel.
Although anti-hero metal is far better and heavier than steel, he doesn't even have enough to make a single golem of anti-hero metal.
"We estimate a day at most."
"Hmmm… that's still too slow. There are other things I want to craft."
Will looked at the new list of exclusive crafts he unlocked when he crafted his first high-tier mana ore.
{Metal converter}
{Converts metals into other types of lighter, heavier, and stronger metals}
{Terraforming ray gun}
{Terraforms any place you desire}
{Materials required: 1x pistol, 10x high-tier mana ores}
{High-tier mana bullets}
{Materials required: 1x High-tier mana ore, 100x bullets}
And lastly, the most expensive and possibly strongest exclusive craft he has seen up till now is this:
{Sovereignty}
The item looked to be a rectangle box with some blue lines moving around in an irregular manner, almost as if they were alive. This is the first time Will had seen something move in his brown book.
There was also a giant hole at its center that could fit in large items.
Although the appearance of the item did get his attention, the description is the main reason he wanted this item more than anything.
{Place any weapon, armor, tool to upgrade them to their highest potential}
{TL:DR: Basically pack-a-punch from CoD zombies}
{Note: Once placed you cannot remove it and destroying it is near impossible. Choose wisely where you will place it}
{Materials required: 10,000 titanium bars, 10,000 tungsten, 10,000 cobalt, 100,000 gold bars, 100x high-tier mana ores}
When Will saw sovereignty's description, he could barely control his breathing. Imagine, his guns being 'pack-a-punched' he would be unstoppable probably.
There were a few problems however:
1. The materials required to make them are insane! Right now he has only 2 high-tier mana ores, in a day he's lucky to get 3. Meaning that it'll take a long time before his golems are able to mine that many, even with the enchanted pickaxes.
2. He does not yet have tungsten, or titanium. Cobalt and the gold bars are easy to find, he could easily fill up that insane number.
However, titanium and tungsten do not exist in this world. This world was a bit more lacking in its variety of metals compared to his old world.
It's why he wants to make the {Metal converter} first. Hopefully he'll be able to craft tungsten and titanium, perhaps even stronger metals.
3. What exactly are the materials needed to power up his weapons? It certainly couldn't be free nor cheap.
He already foresaw how poor he is going to be once he crafts {Sovereignty}
"This would take too long if I just leave it be."
Will once again started to make low-tier golems only. They only take up 10 low-tier mana ores to make a single golem, by the time he makes one, his other golems would have already mined much more than 10.
There were a few extra things in his crafting book, sorcerer robes that require high-tier mana ores. Will didn't understand why he would ever craft those robes, he isn't even a sorcerer. It might benefit someone like the Great Sage, but he doesn't care about him. And the only sorcerer 'friend' he knows is Jasmine, who isn't even that strong or close enough to give such expensive items.
Will, however, did craft one item he thought he needed.
{Metal vision}
It's an item that can make any item have x-ray vision only for metals.
It was sort of expensive, only 20 advanced-mana ores are required to make one. And a mask or eyewear was needed to implant the metal vision.
The item was not like the other items he has crafted. It was a small, blue flame. Holding the small and gentle flame with both his hands, which by the way did not burn his hand at all, made Will feel as if he was firebending.
While the book did have a picture of a blue flame, Will did not believe it would be only a blue flame.
Despite the cost, he thought this would be useful to find higher tier mana ores or possibly other treasures he has not yet acquired.
"It's… beautiful, isn't it?" Will asked his Golem.
"Yes, Master. Whatever you say."
Using a Golem's face, more specifically the advanced tier Golem's head, Will inserted the flame on its face which surprisingly worked. He thought he would have to make a mask for a Golem to use it.
Of course he added some eye holes on Golem's face to make the system believe it was a mask.
The Golems face had blue fire around it for a few seconds. The fire dissipated before a blue light appeared on the Golems' eyes.
"How does it feel?"
"My vision has been limited, but I can see the ores through the rocks."
Before the golem could see everything around him as if he had eyes everywhere. But now his sight has been limited to where only his eyes would face much like every living being with eyes.
It didn't matter much as the golem is a hive mind, all golems could see what the other sees.
"I even added an enchantment that lets you see further than usual."
Will tried to use the {Eagle vision} on his golems in the past, but didn't work as they needed eyes to see. Now that one has eyes, although it limited his sight to one side only, he could see further than any other golem could.
To be clearer, each golem can see at a complete 360 degree angle.
Will continued to craft and build whatever he thought was necessary.
Before he realized it the number of his Golems increased from 100 to 282. The majority were mining Golems which were arguably the most important. Less than 50 are fighter Golems with mid-tier cores, who would protect the mining Golems and guard his castle from intruders, they all have items and weapons that vary from swords, shields, guns, and so on.
Will wanted variety and not just 100 copies of the same copies, as he believes they'll be more difficult to defend against. This idea he got from dark souls, if all enemies and bosses were the same with the same movesets, it'll be a much easier game, same goes for his Golems as he thought.
If you discover this tale on Amazon, be aware that it has been unlawfully taken from Royal Road. Please report it.
There was only a single advanced-tier Golem, it was the strongest and wisest one. Will felt as if it was a leader considering the fact that he's smarter than any other Golem. It could make better, faster, and wiser decisions and so could the other Golems thanks to it.
Meanwhile…
Sandra was sent by the king to do her best to help the people and quell any ideas they had to join Clement's revolution.
They all had the same problem 'money' and because of that, especially the new tax laws, they started to revolt and some ended up joining Clement's 'revolution' in order to force the king to change everything so they could have a better life.
Sandra, nor anybody else, could find nor locate the rebel Clement as he was always moving and evading them. Even the king's guards, which were basically sorcerer nobles, failed to locate him.
Everyone knew that Clement had a deep grudge against the king, some saw this as an opportunity as they too had a grudge against the king.
Clement never scouts out people himself, that would be too easy for the king to set up traps to capture him. Instead he sends people in his stead to scout others. It might be a risky move but Clement believes it was necessary.
Clement could not have guessed before that people would have the same goals as him. It became much easier to recruit others thanks to the new tax laws.
Sandra would help out the people from different villages, some wanted to go to the empire to have a better life but that was too risky as it was a long trip.
She then began guiding people to 'her' village which is the village that is right outside the Sun Kingdom, and it was a much shorter and safer trip.
The nobles guiding and protecting Sandra had no idea what to think of her actions.
If these people decide to leave their homes to live in the 'Sun village' as Sandra calls it, then they wouldn't pay taxes as the Sun village is not required, by the king's law, to pay taxes. Then again the tax laws are the main reason that they are leaving.
And they couldn't say anything to this hero, because of their past experience talking to the other heroes, some got easily offended for giving them pointers, and some have called them 'perverts' 'dumbasses' 'idiots' and other names.
Sadly some nobles were even given punishments because the heroes were dissatisfied with them. No death punishments were handed out, some involved whips, or imprisonments, or being docked of their pay for a month and being forced to work for free.
It might seem stupid and idiotic, but that's how it was. The king wanted to please the heroes by any means necessary.
Many heroes enjoyed having some power and started to abuse their power. Some of them didn't like to abuse their power and have done nothing.
Sandra, without rest, gathered people. Surprisingly there was a large number of people who were willing to follow her, the number was between 120-140. It seems that the words of a hero have a much bigger impact than she thought.
The majority of the people who ended up following her were mostly women and children. Many men had died trying to find work to pay the tax laws for their families, or they ended up joining the revolution, or some had just ran away.
The current population for the village outside the sun kingdom was roughly about 200 people.
"Hero, do you promise that our lives will be better?" A villager asked. Many villagers behind him thought the same.
Many of them traveled light as they had to sell some stuff to make some money to pay for the taxes. Some barely had anything to carry aside from their clothes that they wore, as it is the only thing that they owned.
Many still had a difficult time believing her words. Even the Great Sage wouldn't or couldn't do anything for them, why would this new hero help them out?
If it wasn't clear already, many of the villagers did not like the heroes as they all thought that by having more heroes everyone's lives would improve, but clearly that wasn't the case.
There were still some supporters supporting the heroes, but their numbers were starting to dwindle fast as did their money.
"Well I don't know, but in this village you won't need to pay any taxes, and any currency is useless as we only trade with each other such as food or goods, and another hero will be able to protect you." Sandra smiled at them.
Sandra wasn't sure of the last one as Will has no plans on helping anybody out except himself, and a few friends. But she thought they would have peace of mind if they hear that two heroes will be helping them out.
*Tug*
Sandra felt someone gently pulling her shirt as if to get her attention.
Sandra looked down, it was a cute little girl, soft white skin, long brown hair tied in a ponytail, with brown clothes that went with her hair color.
The girl is none other than Kat.
Kat is a girl who was kidnapped by the 'child killer' but was saved thanks to Will rescuing them.
Later she would then encounter Maid, the loli dragon, and help her out.
Kat's entire family was forced out of their village because of the tax laws, despite the king having promised them that they would be set because it was a noble who killed all those children and promised to take responsibility.
It wasn't just them, it was almost 50 families that he had promised to. The king forgot about his promise a week later and backed down on his promise.
Even the money earned from 'the cause' that people made for those families wasn't enough because of the tax laws.
"Hello, there." Sandra said. She thought how adorable she was.
"He… Hi." Kat was hesitant to ask the hero for help.
Maid, who is now named 'Amelia' has the slave collar. She wanted to ask Sandra to help her remove it, since her family did not have a method to remove it safely.
Maid at this point was adopted by Kat's family. She wore a large scarf around her neck to conceal the slave collar. Anybody who sees her collar would immediately recognize it.
Kat's father, mother, and newborn child, held Maid's hand as they traveled together while keeping a close eye on Kat.
When people asked about Maid's scarf out of curiosity, they made up a story about how the child killer cut Maid's throat with a knife and couldn't talk, and she wanted to hide the 'horrible' wound from everybody.
Maid was never kidnapped by the child killer, but it was a convenient excuse to tell and a tragic one as well. People who heard their story felt bad for Maid and let her be.
Meanwhile…
Hours had gone by. The king was sitting on his chair reading a piece of paper.
"Hmmm… I wonder why people haven't paid their taxes. I guess if I add more tax laws it'll solve the problem."
Harmony, the king's daughter, let out a long sigh. She thought that her father wasn't an idiot, truly she did.
But it feels as if when these heroes were summoned he had been making stupid decisions again and again. The king from the past, that a lot of people liked, was nowhere to be seen anymore.
She tried to convince her father to make better decisions, but her words entered one ear and exited the other.
"Dad, don't you think that these heroes should go out and help the people? I feel that they would be of significant help to our current predicament." Harmony suggested.
Perhaps if the people see that the heroes are taking action, it might bring them hope that they will truly do something to better their lives.
"I told you, that they'll leave the castle when they want to leave."
Harmony didn't even know what to think anymore.
The king's communication stone glowed brightly. He let go of his paper to read the stone.
What he read made his face darken.
{My king, it is me, Louis, the one who gave the 3 heroes a ride on my wyvern. I am using the personal stone you gave me to tell you something important. I have not seen nor heard from the 3 heroes in almost 10 hours. They won't even answer their communication stone.}
The king told Louis to only use this communication stone for one reason only, if the heroes are in trouble and are in need of help.
{Where are they? Where did they go?}
{That's the thing, I don't know.}
{You don't know?!?!} The king stood up, furious. Who loses 3 heroes?
Sensing her father's anger, Harmony stepped up and left her father alone.
{I saw one hero jump over the missing hero's walls, come back, and talk to his other hero friends which I don't know what they were talking about since they did not tell me anything. It was night and I fell asleep, when I woke up I noticed that they were gone.}
{Did you not check the sun kingdom?}
{The sun kingdom?}
{That's the place that the missing hero is calling.}
{Oh. I did fly over the kingdom, but I did not see anything out of the ordinary apart from some statues.}
{Did you hear anything out of the ordinary? Anything?}
{No, just this guy beside me has been farting non stop and it's quite disgusting.}
Ignoring what he just said, the king sat down. The 3 heroes were tasked to infiltrate the sun kingdom to find out how Will changed the weather, and that is if he did as they had no evidence to prove that.
'Did they all infiltrate the sun kingdom in the middle of the night? Even if they did it's not possible to take down 3 heroes in a night without making a huge ruckus.'
A few things did not make sense to the king:
Why would all 3 heroes infiltrate the sun kingdom when Shane could do that by himself with his ability?
Why would they not tell Louis or the king about where they might go? Why would they keep that part a secret?
"Morgan!" The king shouted.
Morgan is the name of the Great Sage.
There was no response. The Great Sage was currently asleep.
"Hmmm…" The king racked his brains to figure out what to do.
"Victoria!" The king shouted.
"You called?" Victoria was bored and was just sitting on the corner. She was waiting for the king to give her news about Will.
"The 3 heroes we sent are missing?"
"Oh shit, really?" Victoria did not expect that. She did hope that they were dead.
"Yes. I want you to go to the Sun kingdom and find out what happened."
"I would love to!" Victoria smiled as it was the best news of her life.
Now that she had the king's permission, anything she did she could pin the blame on the king.
She could have gone anytime without his permission, but if the Great Sage asks her why she killed Will, she believed she had a valid excuse and a scapegoat. And did want to kill Will.
"Please, bring them back safely."
Without missing a beat, Victoria was already gone from the Reyes Kingdom. She could barely contain her creepy and sadistic smile.
Meanwhile…
"Josh, how much longer?" Pete said lazily. He was being carried by Josh on his back as Pete got too tired to walk any more.
Josh wasn't tired, he was just mildly annoyed by Pete's actions. Who asks someone to piggy back ride someone on a long hike?
"Just a few minutes." Josh said, trying to contain his anger. But the thought of getting a dragon egg was so close he could practically smell it.
"Hmm… oh, what is that?" Pete pointed to a mountain that was black, large enough to touch the clouds, and pointy.
Everyone in the world knows that those mountains are the black mountains, home of the dragons.
Pete, however, did not know anything about the black mountains.
"That is… where the lizards live."
"And… where are the girls?" Pete noticed the two girls accompanying them throughout their travels were nowhere near them.
"They… stayed behind to find a bathroom, and set up camp."
"Cool."
In reality Felicia and Naveah stayed behind because they were not stupid enough to go anywhere near the black mountains. Pete was asleep when that happened.
*Growl*
Pete's body froze in fear at the sound of something growling. It felt so loud and heavy that his body could feel the vibrations.
"About time." Josh smiled, totally clueless on how his life could end any time.
*BOOM*
A dragon landed in front of them, creating a strong gust and knocking down trees.
It was a dragon on the third layer, a dragon Josh could easily kill.
"emit nibrom s'ti(Snack time)" The dragon said.
"Pete, work your magic." Josh said.
The dragon opened its mouth, believing that the two stupid humans in front of him were frozen in fear. He was half right.
"Pete?"
Josh noticed that Pete was unresponsive. His face looked mortified and lost all color.
"Pete?" Josh couldn't believe that Pete was actually frozen in fear. Just how much of a pussy was he at the mere sight of a dragon? Josh thought.
The dragon got closer.
*BOOM* *BOOM* *BOOM*
When it got too close, Josh let out fireballs from the palm of his hand and therefor killing the dragon.
"Can't believe this."
Josh placed Pete down and started slapping his face.
"UguguguUGuGuGU!" Pete couldn't say anything as he was too scared. His legs gave up like jelly, he used his arms to crawl away as running was the only thing he could think of doing.
"Where do you think you're going?" Josh held Pete firmly.
"Ugagaugugghug!" Pete pointed at the dragon, pointed at the sky, pointed at the mountains, he wasn't making any sense but one thing was clear: he was too afraid.
"Dude, snap out of it!" Josh continued to hit Pete until he could respond normally. He didn't want to hit him too hard as he was afraid it would knock him out unconscious for a long while.
"DRAGON! DRAGON! DRAGON!" Pete started screaming exasperatedly in an extremely high pitched voice.
It took Josh 30 minutes to calm down poor Pete.
"Pete. Calm down. Deep breaths."
Pete's face was all read and bloated from the repeated slappings that happened on his face.
"I wanna go home."
"Yes, of course you can. Right after you convince a dragon to give me a dragon egg… at least two minimum."
"Are you focking serious?" Pete couldn't believe what he was hearing? Did he not hear his own words?
"It's easy. We'll walk up to them, talk to them, and when they see how awesome I am they'll start begging me to take their eggs away from them. In fact if you do a good job I'll give you an egg as a reward."
Pete didn't care about that. When he saw a dragon attack the kingdom, which was Maid, he started to be deeply afraid of everything.
"Dude, don't make me get Victoria." Josh said, which was no different from a threat.
"I don't care about her. I might be afraid of her but at least she is not stupid to kill me while the Great Sage is there. I'm going back with or without you."
*BOOM*
A mini fireball exploded on the ground beside him.
"Pete, listen, I lost a fucking dragon loli not too long ago because of an accident. Did you hear me? A fucking dragon loli! I'll probably never see another one again in my life! By now she would have been in love with me. I am not letting you leave until I get a fucking dragon egg, understand me?"
"What the hell are you saying? Do you really believe that you're in a fucking isekai manga?" Pete has read his fair share of mangas, but this is the first time he's seen someone so delusional.
"I'm the MC here, I am the only hero with two abilities. I was the hero who tamed a dragon loli. I am the only one with a harem by his side. It seems like no other proof that I am the MC."
Josh, little by little, is starting to get lost in his delusions.
"What the hell? Josh, this is the real world! This is not a manga, or a DnD campaign! It's fucking real life! WE COULD DIE!"
"Ah, don't sweat it." Josh firmly believed that he wouldn't die, his 'plot armor' would protect him.
*BOOM* *BOOM*
Two dragons, bigger than the last one, landed beside Josh and Pete.
Pete, out of fear, leaped back and sat down. He tried to run but his legs and arms wouldn't respond.
"Come on, Pete, talk to them." Josh said.
"!seoreh neeb evah thgim ew dlog touhtiw dlrow a ni. (What happened here?)" A dragon asked.
"I can… understand them."
"Ereht olleh (Did that human just speak in our tongue?)"
"Um, um, um, I, um, did!"
The two dragons leaned closer to Pete.
Josh tried to understand, but Pete was unconsciously also speaking dragon tongue.
Pete's ability lets him speak to animals in the voice that they speak.
"Trid fo raj a tog I (How can a human possibly learn our language?)"
Many have tried to learn dragon tongue, the Great Sage was no exception. After a while it was deemed impossible.
It was as if one tried to speak to a dog. They could imitate barking noises, or imitate a cat's meow or snarling, but they could not communicate properly no matter how much one tried.
Maid could learn to speak human tongue but only in her human form. Speaking human tongue while being a dragon would be impossible.
"I am a- I am- hero! M-m-my ability le-let's me speak to anything." Pete's voice cracked and quivered in fear.
The two dragons looked at each other. This is the first time anybody has been able to communicate with them.
"?nosrep elbanosaer dna mlac a uoy erA. nosrep elbanosear dna mlac a ekil mees uoy. (Did you kill him?)" A dragon gestured to the dead dragon beside them.
Pete quickly shook his head.
"No, I don't have such power. He did." Without pointing, Pete told them it was Josh.
After exchanging a few more sentences, the dragons walked away.
"Pete, what's going on? Did you tell them that they should give me a dragon egg?" Josh said.
"They said to follow them."
"Well, then, let's go." Josh began following the dragons like it was nothing.