******* Captain's POV *******

"We should head back, captain. We are already really deep in the forest. Why can't we just let them go?"

"Shut up, soldier! The general wants them so we are going to capture them no matter what it takes." I hissed at the soldier who asked me a stupid question.

We are in the middle of the night right now camping deep into the forest.

We are in pursuit of some village folk that managed to escape.

We believed that they may have been following these signposts we started seeing since yesterday.

The general wants them to be captured but nobody wants to enter this forest so the general just suddenly picked me and my group to go after them.

He probably thought that I and my people are expendable.

Selfish bastard.

If he really wants to capture these people, why can't he just do it himself? He got like thousands of people in his command.

Just you wait. I'm going to rack up many achievements in this conquest and I'm going to outrank him.

If only that person didn't interfere.

While we are raiding a small village near the Forest of Monsters, one of them suddenly fought back with his iron spear and managed to kill a dozen soldiers. He then tried to evacuate his people into the forest but we managed to capture most of them.

How can someone from a backwater village have an iron weapon? It is really well made and enchanted too.

But it doesn't matter what tricks he has on his sleeves.

He cannot fight on 50 people all by himself.

I got 10 mounted soldiers, 10 archers and the rest are foot soldiers.

All of them are equipped with the highest possible grade of leather armor and stone weapons. Weapons and armors are enchanted to the best enchantments an enchanter can put it. I paid all of my army's equipment with the money I loot from the war to make sure they don't die easy and to help me raked up quite a lot of achievements.

I'm also an anointed knight which means I am equipped with iron armor and an iron weapon.

Once I captured those people, I'm going to make sure they suffer a lot for making us follow them into the forest.

I just hope that most of them are still alive and monsters didn't get to them.

Now I think about, where are the monsters in this forest? We didn't encounter any since we entered this forest.

******** ********

This is the type of situation that I really wanted to avoid.

After gathering the strings, I make my horse ran as fast as he can to get back quickly here. The bridge is down and the gate is locked so I just went to the north towards the mine shaft and used the tunnel to get inside the castle basement.

I was surprised to see someone in here.

I should have known that someone will go to the basement even with my warning.

Why did I just give him all the keys? I wasn't thinking straight at the time since I'm so excited about meeting them.

Damn. Now, how will I explain this?

"Answer me! What are you? What are you going to do with my people?" This Arthur guy keeps repeating these questions.

What is he talking about? I just went outside at night and went to one of the most dangerous places in this forest to gather strings for you.

He is a lot more ungrateful than my pigs.

After screaming for a while, he suddenly charged at me and thrust his iron spear towards my chest.

This is not good.

I don't know what enchantments that iron spear has but my diamond armor is maxed out with enchantments so it is just going to break. It is pretty well made so it must be an important item to him. I have to make sure it doesn't break.

I just twist my body to avoid the spear and slightly push him with my right hand. I also put away my sword to make sure not to accidentally use it.

He suddenly flew across the room and hit the wall.

He then laid face flat on the ground.

Did you know this story is from Royal Road? Read the official version for free and support the author.

Damn. I haven't fully figured out how to control my strength.

This past month, I suddenly noticed that my strength and speed is getting stronger the more monsters I killed.

I don't know why it is happening but it is not related to levels since it keeps getting deducted every time, I enchant an item.

There are also no changes in my status when I looked it up.

Maybe I could ask this guy about this if only he stops attacking me.

"Have you calmed down yet?" I ask him since he suddenly stops moving. I hope I didn't manage to kill him.

He looked up as he was reaching his hand towards me while begging.

"Please don't hurt my people."

"What makes you think I'm going to hurt your people?" I genuinely asked since I really want to know how did he reach that conclusion.

He got up on his feet and once again preparing to attack.

Calm down already and let's talk this out.

"Explain to me, why are you keeping a zombie locked up? Where is everybody in this castle? Who are you?" a barrage of questions suddenly came out of his mouth.

Okay. We are getting somewhere.

"I believe I already told you that I lived alone and…"

"Liar! There is a lot of belongings of other people…"

"LET ME FINISH TALKING!" I suddenly shouted.

I'm getting pissed off and wanted to clear up the misunderstanding quickly.

It is already quite late and I wanted to craft beds so the people upstairs can sleep comfortably. I don't want them to sleep on the floor.

He still looks like he is about to attack me but at least he quiets down and will start listening to me.

I started explaining things to him about living alone in this castle I just recently built, the things I gathered in the storage room and most importantly the zombie.

"He can be cured?" he asked after listening to my explanations for a while.

"Yes. He still has clear eyes and not black and his skin is not as green as the other zombies so I think he still can be cured."

I found this zombie during my one of my zombie tunnels expeditions and decided to bring him home.

I really don't know if there is a cure for zombies here but there no harm in trying.

But I don't have any materials to craft a brewing stand so I can't craft potions. In the game, the way you cure a zombie villager is to splash him with the potion of weakness and let him eat a golden apple.

I have plenty of gold to craft a golden apple. All I need right now is a blaze rod to craft a brewing stand and materials to make a potion of weakness

"Look. Arthur. It is up to you if you believe me or not. I'm going upstairs to help your people so you do what you have to do." I said to him after a while since he didn't talk back.

He looks like he still has a lot of question but I just ignored him.

I took off my armor and put them in my inventory.

I turn around and head outside the room.

'Please don't stab me in the back.'

This is a brave move I've done to make him trust me but I'm really scared.

I just keep on walking towards my horse I left behind outside the room.

After a while, I see him following behind me without saying a word.

Thank god it worked and he also put away his spear.

"Did you lock the door?" I asked him after getting on the horse.

"…Yes." he reluctantly answered me.

He still has doubts about me but at least he is no longer attacking me.

"Good. Give me the keys and wait for me on the second floor. I'm going outside the keep to tie this horse in the stables. Make sure you don't tell anyone about the zombie."

He gave me the keys and I quickly head outside.

After tying the horse in the stables, I quickly head to the second floor to start crafting the beds and clothes.

When I got to the second floor, I was really surprised to see that almost all of them are already asleep. They must be really tired from their journey.

Luckily, Arthur didn't say anything about what happened in the basement to his people since the mood is still calm.

I quickly crafted enough beds and clothes for them.

There still a lot of space unused on the second floor so I have plenty of space to place the beds.

I ask the old man to wake them all up to change their clothes and sleep in the bed since they are sleeping in the floor. I wonder why the old man is still awake? He also looks really worried when I got here.

I also checked on the two injured men.

I was really surprised to see that they are really hurt. By the looks of things, they got about 2 to 3 hearts left. I'm not even surprised if they only have 1 heart left.

They even worse than me when I got hurt by the zombie.

I quickly feed them each with golden apples since I don't have any potions on me to heal them.

At first, they refuse to eat the golden apples since they thought these are really expensive items so I just shove them into their mouth to force them to eat it.

Golden apples give you instant health of 1 heart and regeneration status when you eat them.

I tried this when I managed to gather a lot of gold and I don't know what I'm going to do with them but you can only eat one golden apple a week or else it will overdose you and turn the regeneration status into poison. I learned this the hard way. The regeneration status also lasts for only an hour just enough to heal you additional 1 heart so, in total, one golden apple can heal 2 hearts of damage.

The golden apples seem to be really effective.

All of their wounds are quickly healing but I don't know if they are already safe since I can't see their status.

They said they already good as new but still sound hurt and just acting tough. I should head to the nether to hunt some blaze so I can craft a brewing stand. I can brew them some health potions.

The problem is I don't have any obsidian to build a portal.

I managed to find a ton of lavas in the mine shaft but I just cover them up since they only heat up the tunnel.

I should start mining obsidian tomorrow.

After tending the wounded, I head to my room to plan my trip to the nether.

I was sitting in my chair re-reading research books I gathered from the dead to see if there are any mention of nether that I missed when suddenly I hear someone is knocking on my door.

"Come in."

Arthur opened the door and slowly bow his head like he is facing a royalty.

Okay. This is becoming really weird having people look up to you like you are a king. I should tell them that I'm just an ordinary person but how I'm going to do that? I freaking live in a castle. I regret building my home as big as this.

"Sit down. What is it?" I told him since he just keeps on standing just waiting for me to talk.

"I want to say I'm sorry my lord about what happened on the basement and to thank…"

"Don't worry about it." I interrupted him since it will be troublesome to hear him apologize and thank me and I really need to prepare for my journey.

"And stop calling me 'my lord' and just call me…" I paused for a moment.

I realized that I don't have a name in this world. I can just ask him to call me by my real name but I don't want to leave any trace of me here once I get back home.

Hmm. Name. Maybe I could just name myself from a famous artist or celebrity.

No. I don't want that.

Historical leaders then like Genghis Khan. No. He committed genocide if I remember correctly. Alexander the Great. Oda Nobunaga. King Charles. Wait.

I know a name.

"Carolus. Carolus Rex." I told him after a while.

I also checked my status if there are any changes and surprised to see the name is no longer empty.