> Upon this a question arises: whether it be better to be loved than feared or feared than loved? It may be answered that one should wish to be both, but, because it is difficult to unite them in one person, it is much safer to be feared than loved, when, of the two, either must be dispensed with. Because this is to be asserted in general of men, that they are ungrateful, fickle, false, cowardly, covetous, and as long as you succeed they are yours entirely; they will offer you their blood, property, life, and children, as is said above, when the need is far distant; but when it approaches they turn against you. And that prince who, relying entirely on their promises, has neglected other precautions, is ruined; because friendships that are obtained by payments, and not by greatness or nobility of mind, may indeed be earned, but they are not secured, and in time of need cannot be relied upon; and men have less scruple in offending one who is beloved than one who is feared, for love is preserved by the link of obligation which, owing to the baseness of men, is broken at every opportunity for their advantage; but fear preserves you by a dread of punishment which never fails.
>
> Nevertheless a prince ought to inspire fear in such a way that, if he does not win love, he avoids hatred; because he can endure very well being feared whilst he is not hated, which will always be as long as he abstains from the property of his citizens and subjects and from their women. (...)
- Nicollo Machiavelli, The Prince, Chapter XVII.
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Ricco stood supporting his frail mother in the line. His heart pounded. They heard of the healing miracles happening in this tent set on the central square of Luiburg, Windemere's capital city. He thought it to be a scam of some sort. But his mother needed help. So he brought her here. A lot of people
A knight approached and spoke to him, "His Majesty wishes to offer the lady a chair to sit on. She'll be looked after in a few minutes."
He couldn't believe it. The rumors he heard about this new King were terrible. How he could kill with a single glance. A grunt of displeasure was all that took for one to perish. When the armored man said that the King wished, he had no doubt. He agreed.
"Yes! I'll comply, sir!"
A servant with a chair came and Ricco's mother finally could rest her legs. Then he saw a halfling with a rectangular plank of wood in his hand and a pen in the other, looking at each person in line and taking notes on a piece of parchment attached to the plank. The diminutive man stopped before Ricco and the young peasant noticed the Royal crest on the halfling's tabard. After examining his mother, the halfling said, "This lady is next. She is not well. Sir, is this woman your relative?"
Ricco's brain took several moments to process what was happening, so scared he was. "She's my mother," he finally said.
"You should go with her. Please," the halfling waved and some servants came to pick Ricco's mother.
He received angry glances from the people in line. Behind him, the Halfling said out loud, "By order of His Majesty, people in dire need, as assessed by me, shall be ushered to see the healer before the others. Barring that, they shall be treated by order of arrival."
Ricco shuddered. He was just a [Porter]. At the tent, two women in pearly white gowns so bright he swore they were celestials helped her mother into a raised cot with wheels. The curtain separating the tent in two opened and he saw a lanky man completely covered in shiny metal. Ricco appraised the man.
> {KIng}
>
> Level 101
Ricco leaked some pee. The King waved his hands over his mother and touched her brow with a brown-skinned hand, the only part of his body without armor.
"Boy? Is this your mother?" He spoke to Ricco.
The [Porter] fell on his knee, staring at the packed dirt.
"You can speak. Have no fear," he heard a female voice behind him. Turning his head slightly, he saw a grinning halfling girl.
"Stand, boy. You may approach and speak," The King commanded. His voice was a sharp tenor and sounded ethereal. Hadn't it come from the King, he would believe it was from a woman with a very hoarse voice.
Ricco's legs didn't want to. He was scared. But he feared what the King would do to his mother if he didn't obey. So he stood. So he walked.
"Your mother needs deep healing. Her kidneys... her pee has a funny smell and blood, doesn't it?"
The young man's mouth quivered, "Yes, Your Majesty. Her pee sometimes comes out red."
"Fear not," The King spoke softly, his voice rising an octave and sounding somewhat feminine. "I'll heal her. Wait outside. Give him some refreshment."
One of the ladies in white took him by the arm and led him out, while the other closed the curtain. Ricco drank the juice he was offered but his heart threatened to flee through his mouth. One hour later, his mother walked out of the tent.
"Ricco!" She called.
He looked up and wept. She looked ten, fifteen years younger. The young man ran to hug his mother. Even her teeth were clearer. Then his gaze met the armored figure of the King.
"Your Majesty!" Ricco shouted. The King nodded.
Unauthorized duplication: this narrative has been taken without consent. Report sightings.
"Go in peace," The King said. "And take good care of your mother. That's an order."
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I slumped on the chair, exhausted. After the last patient of the afternoon left the tent and the servants were giving numbered enchanted tokens to come back the next day. The last months were a blur. After news of the fate of the criminal elements in the Kingdom spread, the rumors about what happened to the nobles in that tragic meeting spread like wildfire. To fight them, I set an itinerant healing tent, spending a week on each city and a day in each village, healing the people.
The influx of people was staggering. I tried to save on my MP but I needed it to heal the people and perform my surgeries. Fortunately, nobody caught up on my resource usage and while a noble here and a servant there died to the geasa, the full-scale rebellion where they'd drain my SP and break free didn't happen.
I had three teams with tents traveling around. It took a day or two to go from one city to the next, with the precarious transportation available. I had half the mind to upgrade all my roads using Earth magic. Gotta put those eleven million MP to work. But it was ridiculous to take a day or two to travel a distance a good XX century car could do in less than an hour on a highway.
Without traffic. Traffic kills everything.
I took the Eleon youngsters to the Dungeon to grind Exp. Basically, they all had a short bow and arrows and would shoot at the monsters while I killed them. It was a power-leveling scheme in its best form. I even convinced some of them to invest in Exp multipliers. The loss of a perk was compensated by increased Skills and Attributes. And they practiced their Skills before leveling up and spending the Skill Points. This way they grew into their power instead of just crunching numbers together and failing when it mattered. Majin Boo might be feared, but not respected. Strength without Skill was a fluke.
A three-digit level was imposing. I knew people feared the steel-clad faceless King, but my healing and reforms were slowly winning the hearts of the population. I was still failing the Quest if I were to die right now, but I was getting there. So long it had no hidden movable goalpost, I would be in the clear next spring.
I also had to go back and reopen Rosewise's shop from time to time. Not only I had to "recharge" the dildos every four months, but I also needed to keep my cover and pay my staff's wages.
Back in Windemere, I started to work with the town guards and soldiers. I had to beat them into a disciplined peacekeeping force, not ruffians that believed that their strength and position allowed them to step on the citizens. We were closer to the equator so our winters were milder. In Windemere, snow was a rare product.
Happiness during winter plummeted suddenly. I immediately started to investigate what happened.
I caught them traveling between one city and the next. A traveling party with armed guards, all bearing the heraldry of Bundeus. I flew after them transformed into a bumblebee bat. The next day, they started preaching in the city. On how banning the church of Bundeus was an evil act, and the King should be punished for that.
Wasting another day, I flew with them as they left the city, traveling to the next village. That's when I decided to use them as guinea pigs for my experiment. You see, a weapon untested is an unreliable weapon.
I cast a wall of force around them and triggered my {Manastorm Wellspring}. Since my Magic Attribute was at 130 with the magic items I was wearing, they would take two hundred and sixty times their MP regeneration as damage to both their MP and HP. The party started to scream while the priests fell on their knees and clawed their faces, collapsing on the ground, and writhing in pain. The soldiers were affected but to them, it was a minor inconvenience as their MP was ridiculously low.
keeping the wellspring active cost me no action so I kept counterspelling their magic while the arcane energies burned their bodies and the magic energy they generated. Satisfied with the effectiveness of the perk and disgusted at the cruel torture I inflicted on them, I tossed some explosive fireballs inside the force walls, killing everyone inside. I landed, cleaned everything, stored the remains, and looked at the sky.
"This is your fault," I screamed. "You shouldn't interfere with your own Quest, Bundeus. Let this be your warning. Meddle again, and I'm going on the warpath."
He had a plan, and I bit into his bait, hook, line, and sinker. They were sent here as sacrificial pawns, to serve as a pretext to escalate things. I had to prepare.
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Three roads connected Windemere to the neighboring countries. Pekothas was the first continent and was geologically stable. It meant mountain ranges were rare. Rolling hills, plateaus, but not mountains.
Even teleporting almost twenty kilometers every few seconds, I took almost a whole day to find the mountains with Nenandil's help. There, I set to gathering rocks, boulders, breaking the mountain and gathering the rocks. I even had to deactivate {Less Debris} because half the rocks I was breaking vanished.
I even tried some {Earthquake} spells to collect the landslide rocks later.
Some monsters showed up to see what was going on, but they sensed my displayed level and fled.
After a whole day gathering stone, I teleported back to Windemere. I ordered a detachment of soldiers, two hundred for each road to depart. From there, I used several thousand tons of rocks to mold walls and a gatehouse along each of the roads leading into the country. The walls didn't block the entire border but they extended two hundred meters to each side. I cleared fifty meters of forest on each side of the walls and used the wood to build some buildings including an inn on our side of the gate.
I hired earth and wood mages to help with the construction. No way I was going to do that alone, even if I could.
People could infiltrate by going around the wall but then again some people could punch through the wall. The structure was more of a statement and deterrence than an actual barrier. One of the soldiers suggested that I should clear some farmland because, with the inn and the wall, some merchants would start trading and turning back along the way. These outposts would eventually evolve into villages.
Between all my duties, by the time the outposts and walls were done, spring was upon us. Rosewise became one year older. It was time for my monthly visit to Perennenth. I went from tree to tree and reached the one in the backyard of my mansion. I expanded my senses and had to exclaim.
"Fucking shit."
The whole city was overtaken by monsters.
Whoever was aiming for the Dungeon stampede, succeeded.
I shifted into a hummingbird and took to the air. Someone had weakened the Kingdom too much, it seemed. I started to rain force spears on the monsters, two or three to each creature while also releasing the mana wellspring for all sentients.
I few toward the biggest concentration of monsters, the Dungeon entrance. The fighting there was intense. I could hear the blast of spells going off and the warcries as people called their abilities so there wasn't much overlap. Saying the name of your power out loud was something that every now and then struck me as dumb but I could see the utility in coordinating one's attacks.
Invisible, I shifted high above the walled Dungeon entrance and dropped down, summoning my clothes as I descended. I turned incorporeal a few seconds before hitting the ground and my momentum brought me down into the ground. I climbed out and found a place to become material again.
The fight was evenly balanced. I believe the stampede happened without advance warning and the adventurers and guards rallied into the battle. The monsters outside were the ones that got out during the first hour or so before the defenders arrived.
The wellspring alone might be enough to tip the scales. But I had one thing I wanted to do. A D&D classic. The image came clearly for me.
"MorDreadKane's Sword!"
Well, ain't nobody suing me. The Force blade materialized in front of me. I mentally commanded it to attack monsters down the tunnel. Then I summoned another. I kept going until I had two dozen of them.
I stood next to the wall, letting my swords do their job. Nobody would complain that I hogged all the Exp this time.