Ephrain Barony, Lebrante Kingdom
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It was an ordinary day to baron Ephrain. He was busy doctoring tax reports so he could keep some coin from the King when his servant barged into the room.
“My Lord, an esteemed guest has arrived!” The page exasperatedly declared. The young man seemed to have seen death.
The haughty baron stood up. “What guest is this?”
“It’s a kitsune [Queen]! From Windemere!”
The baron quickly tried to piece facts together. Why would a beast-kin from… Unfortunately, he never got to finish it. The doors to his study burst open and an enraged beast-woman barged in. She had red hair, fox ears, and looked short and stocky, like a dwarf.
> [God-Slayer Heroine Queen] – Level 184 half-dwarf-kitsune
> HP: ~250,000,000
> MP ~200,000,000
> More information unavailable.
The baron froze at the title and level, his legs faltering as any will to fight left his mind. The Resource pools were ludicrous, not to mention the number of tails behind her. It was well-known that a kitsune’s magical power was proportional to the number of tails but the numbers in her {Appraise} results were beyond reasoning. He attempted to kneel but never reached the ground. He felt as if invisible pincers picked him and lifted him from the ground.
Staring into his soul she asked, “Did you order the murder of your daughter?”
The stupid wench and her two beast offspring. But that was ten years ago. “No...” immediately after that, the air failed his lungs. He couldn’t breathe.
“That was your one chance at getting out of this alive and you squandered it by lying to me. You,” She addressed the page. “Tell every person in this mansion to leave with only the clothes they are wearing now. Whoever doesn’t vacate the premises in one minute or carries anything out dies.”
The page flinched as if a heavy burden was placed on him. Baron Ephrain felt an Ability had been used. The young man fled the room and started to shout at everyone. The house came alive as a heavy pressure bore down on him and probably everyone else.
* You are in the presence of a Royal Aura. All Attributes lowered by 10.
A minute later the mansion disappeared, leaving a round hole where it once stood. All the mansion staff was outside, staring at the floating kitsune and himself.
“Let’s go,” she said. “We have an appointment with your King.”
She spread pristine white wings and took off. He was dragged along by the invisible pincers.
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Sensing the palace below, I quickly located the throne room. The way people stood in a court session was almost always the same. I dashed down and crashed through the roof, the wards, and everything else, landing in the middle of the room. {Royal Aura} and {Eldritch Presence} flared to the maximum as I spent two minutes of {Cosmos Within} to draw everyone’s attention to me.
“King of Lebrante. I’m Haru Stouthammer, the kin Matriarch.”
The guards charged at me but the King shouted, “Stand down!”
Some nobles attempted to flee the room. I set a bladed barrier of opaque Force around the whole room with hot air circulating next to them just like the Dungeon tunnel In Perenneth. The only change besides the lack of transparency was that I added a sheet of cold air in front of the blades, so the room didn’t become an oven. After the first fool impaled himself and cooked on the blades the others gave up on escaping.
Lebrante was the second Kingdom north of Pruinvel. By the look of fear in the King’s eyes, he knew who he was dealing with. I said nothing but didn’t take my eyes off of him.
“Your Holiness blesses this Kingdom with your presence,” he said with reverence. “How may I serve you.”
I tossed the baron forward, causing the man to roll like a ragdoll on the carpet. “Your kingdom discriminates against my kin. Your nobility refers to them as ‘filthy beasts’. This man, one of your nobles, murdered two of my blood siblings and their mother, his daughter. For too long you judged people for their appearances. This ends today. I have half the mind to turn this Kingdom into an example to all others on this continent. What says you?”
His eyes told me he knew of what happened in Sadian and Lonid. Of how we annexed Leondirac.
“Divine Matriarch, we beseech your mercy,” the King stepped out of his throne and knelt. “Benevolent mother, I vow that no child of yours will ever suffer discrimination in my country ever again. I’ll pass laws and edicts, and send my heralds to all corners to let everyone know. Please spare us of your wrath. Every city shall have a might temple in your honor.”
I threw a stack of parchments down from my storage. “Baron Ephrain not only murdered his own daughter and grandkids but also embezzled taxes. As well as several of the nobles present,” I scanned the peanut gallery. “Step forward and confess your crimes and the King and I will be merciful. Try to lie to me and your Houses end today.”
We negotiated to settle the issue with the crown paying tribute to me and reparation to Constance. Suffice to say a lot of noble houses saw their heirs swearing their oaths before the King to take over their fiefs. Only a handful of the old nobles were spared but the King of Lebrante fulfilled his vows. Word quickly spread to all northern kingdoms and they preemptively followed Lebrante’s example. Of course, I added another crown to my collection.
If you spot this narrative on Amazon, know that it has been stolen. Report the violation.
Constance and Ridel decided to get married and raise the kids. I went south to pick up my other siblings and they settled in Saegalla’s noble district, living in the same mansion Constance grew up in.
Whenever possible, the temples to the Matriarch were erected next to the temple/orphanages of Zacheia. This way, the two churches could take care of the orphans, Zacheia with the housing and feeding, and my own priests with the orphans’ education. That coupled with the Academy of Magic back in Windemere would trigger a profound change on the Matriarch’s divine portfolio after a few years. It also consolidated a fact in the minds of the Kings all over the continent.
Don’t mess with the Matriarch and her children, if you want to keep your crown. Literally.
My job there was done and Constance’s murder vindicated, I returned to Windemere. I could finally dedicate myself to my own projects.
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I attempted three times to make an adamantite sword that had an embedded {Living Thread} silk mesh. All attempts failed. I even left a strand out of the oven to feed Energy directly but the Adamantite sucked the power before the rest of the mesh could use it. I got in total four “Dead Adamantite Thinblade” for my troubles and two points of [Metalsmith] Proficiency but no living sword.
Just to make sure the problem was with the adamantite, I crafted a living steel sword. Worked like a charm.
> Living High-Steel Longsword – level 0
>
> Price: 5 kingmetal coins.
>
> Damage: 9d10 +30
>
> Durability: 447 / Hardness: 25
>
> MP: 0 / 40 (+5 MP / hour)
>
> Enchantments
>
> * +20% Accuracy, +25% Attack Speed.
> * +10 Dexterity and Endurance.
> * +13 base damage (factored in).
> * +20 to weapon Proficiency.
> * If disarmed or dropped, weapon teleports to scabbard.
It was an excellent and high-quality weapon, no doubt. The threads fused with the metal and could restore the blade, automatically sharpening and realigning it. With enough Exp, this weapon would surpass the Adamantite Thinblade but that was not the point. It was certain now that Adamantite and magic didn’t mix. The result of several experiments proved it all too well.
Adamantite absorbed magic at a rate that depended on its mass. The next weapon I crafted would make use of it to the extreme.
> Masterwork Adamantite Spiked Greatclub
>
> Price: 90 kingmetal coins.
>
> Damage: 17d8 +29
>
> Durability: 750,000 / Hardness: 350
>
> Minimum Strength: 110
>
> Minimum Endurance: 75
>
> -20% attack speed.
>
> x4 damage to magical constructs
It was the first time I've seen a weapon with minimum Attributes.
The massive club weighed ridiculous fifty kilograms of pure adamantite. With that much adamantite to soak up magic, it broke down Force barriers and magical constructs like they were made of wet cardboard. The minimum Strength score was to wield the weapon in one hand. Even my summons was disrupted by the club as I tested it on innocent al’Mi-raj and tentacle abominations. Not that It wasn’t efficient in killing other things. The damage stats on this weapon were simply ridiculous.
That reminded me, Raleigh was AWOL for more than four years. His ring never showed up so he was alive somewhere.
I stopped making adamantite weapons. The club and the four thinblades were more than enough and I didn’t want to spread mage-killing weapons out there. Adamantite armor was also out of question for several reasons. One, it caused interference with the wearer’s magical powers and many Perks, even the martial ones, used MP. Two, it didn’t deform. The impact went straight into the wearer although it was distributed. With enough padding, even a bullet (no guns!) strike would feel like a gentle push. But the ricochets were terrible. Adamantite armor needed to be form-fitted to the wearer and not even my {Mold Armor} Perk could make it change shapes.
The process to harden Adamantite had to remain proprietary. Helger and Baritono knew how to do it but I didn’t want Adamantite to become widespread. Some pesky bug was telling me it was a bad idea. Intuition, premonition, I didn’t know. Claw Demons being the only known source of Carbonium alloy helped a lot.
I set my sights on another type of magical metal. If a metallurgically impossible Carbonium-iron alloy created Adamantite, what could Truesilver make?
I was betting heavily on Mithril. The problem was, which elements and in what proportion. I had no idea. Looking at the formula for Adamantite, I was baffled by the sheer amount of possibilities. Worse, I knew of no alloys of silver besides sterling silver that had a tiny bit of copper. Worse yet, each attempt would use some Truesilver, of which I had a limited supply. Okay, not a limited supply but I wasn’t too keen on using gallons of my own blood to extract a few milligrams of Truesilver.
And that was even before I knew if I could extract truesilver from my blood. I had a little more than 43% chance of success, given my abilities. I needed more Proficiency with [Alchemist]. No, wait. Since it was dealing with body parts, I gained synergy from [Physcian]. Big deal, it went to 55%. Even if I could get over my reluctance to use myself as an ingredient, it was too risky. I needed more Proficiency.
So I vanished into my lab and put myself to train these Proficiencies with the training implements, alternating with grinding sessions in the underground Dungeons for Exp and leveling up these same implements. I quickly ate the bonus Fast-Growth points from my birthdays and pushed forward.
Meanwhile, Windemere kept growing as people immigrated seeking a better lot in life. We settled the Saegalla and Leondirac regions, cleaning it of monsters and developing new settlements. Mirina commanded the construction of forts along the foothills to stop the monsters from coming down from the mountains. The elves started to migrate to the home-tree grove deep inside Tuisto’s valley. The fairies in the Lierin settlement I first reached as a baby gated the elves to and from, cementing our alliance.
My chest swelled with pride. Windemere was truly a fantasy realm. Lierin and Thennean elves, the Eleon halflings, dwarves, lamias, beast and were-kin of all kinds, silk-folk, and humans. These species composed the core species. We then had a few gnomes, minotaurs, and centaurs, a mermaids tribe, and even some goblins and orcs that were outcast from their barbaric tribes for being “too soft”, read, sensible enough to embrace the gifts and burdens of civilization.
The priests of the Matriarch followed my guidance and sought to work in tandem with the other deities. At Zacheia’s orphanages, we educated the children so they could obtain better Classes. With Queltphion’s [Myrmidons] and [War-Priests], we trained our guards and soldiers to defend our realm. Along with Galbarar’s [Paladins] and [Justicars], we spread justice and settled disputes. With Yznera’s [Druids] we tended our forests, wild animals, and livestock. While Labraid was the chief deity of the dwarves, the nocturnal and burrowing Kin like the gopher and badger-kin helped them mine.
Trade in the Uroko gulf changed but not as we expected. Sadian pre-empted our channel and lowered their taxes. Ships coming from the southern tropical regions still entered through the mouth of the gulf but the ones from the north used Ekar’s channel. Windemere proper lost some land trade as some caravans started to stop by Saegalla on their way across Windemere. Suddenly the loop to reach our capital wasn’t worth it but it opened a niche for transportation of goods from Windemere to Saegalla.
Vanagon decided to be reborn and gained a body in his late teens. I quickly power-leveled him back to the third rank.
Burying myself under a ton of work was all I could do to stop worrying about Lorna’s soul. Another year passed, the fifth since I made the deal, and no news about Wyxnos’ side of the bargain came. I decided to pester Galbarar and finally the God of Justice, Truth, and the Sun promised to pay Wyxnos a visit.
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Author's Note:
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MDW: SSS 004 should be after this chapter. I kinda jumped the gun. After the next chapter is up, I’m going to change the order.