Why is he here?

Why is he still alive?

How did he get here?

These were the three questions going off in Arnold’s mind as his body was trembling uncontrollably. He accidentally dropped Luxtivin since he couldn't grip it probably anymore.

He stepped back slowly.

Is Gederick back to kill him?

‘Does he know where Rafaela is…?’

Suddenly the two made eye contact.

Gederick opened his mouth:

“To have survived against this entity this long… I had underestimated you.” He looked at Vatria , Kellene and Ruene, “The three of you should go back to Yorm’s house. Heal any injuries you have. I will deal with this entity myself.”

Vatria looked at Arnold for some reason. He could see worry in her eyes.

Did she notice his reaction to Gederick showing up here?

‘Dammit, stop shaking… Stop…’

It was no use.

Not again… I don’t want to feel that pain again…

Gederick suddenly walked past Arnold without sparing him another glance.

Arnold felt a feeling of relief wash over him then suspicion.

“Uhm, are you coming, Arnold?” Vatria asked after she picked up Kellene with Ruene’s help.

“The boy stays behind. The two of us need to talk.” Gederick said in a commanding tone.

“E-Eek, y-yessir!”

The three of them hurriedly left the two behind.

Instead lf finishing off the monster for good, Gederick spoke to Arnold:

“It had only been a few days since our last confrontation yet you have healed all your injuries. You are even in the same state as when we first met—top fighting condition.”

“……” Arnold tried to say something but he just couldn’t.

Gederick put his large hand around the Faceless’ throat. It screeched when a golden energy surrounded his hand.

Arnold could hear the sound of sizzling skin. The Faceless’ head exploded before its body started melting like hot metal.

‘It’s not regenerating but it’s still alive… He must’ve forcibly sent divine power into its body just like he did with me…’

Gederick turned around to face Arnold.

“Is this what they call sorting out unfinished business?” Arnold’s mouth contrasted how he really felt, “You were too slow and weak to finish me off before so now you’re—”

“I apologize for what I did.” Gederick, with both arms hanging loosely by his sides, bowed his head.

“Huh…?”

“I almost killed you. At the time I believed that what I was doing was for the good of the divine realm… but I was blinded by my selfishness. To me, what mattered was what others thought of me. I had lived as the disgraced god—no, a mere demigod after my exile from the divine realm. I wanted to prove myself. I wanted to show them that even I, a man who fell from grace, can be useful. My sole purpose since my exile was to protect the Fragment from those who wish to use the power of the Ring Lords for malicious intentions. What you have in your possession does not only allow you to control space which you can use to teleport. One can mind control godly beings, summon undead that have might equal to demigods, change the orbiting path of a small moon—”

“I know what the Fragment is capable of by itself…”

“I see. I will not inquire as to how a human knows such things. You are no ordinary human after all. Knowing all of that, the only reason you wanted it is so that you can travel between different locations?”

Gederick stared into Arnold’s eyes. It was like he was staring into his very soul.

A lie will not go unnoticed in this situation. A trained warrior can notice the faintest muscle twitch and change in body language to detect lies.

Well, Arnold doesn’t have any reason to lie.

Arnold closed his eyes and spoke after a brief moment of silence, “The power of teleportation is one of the many powers that I seek. I have no interest in world domination or controlling gods to my whim. Maybe the past me would’ve seen some benefit to becoming such a villain.”

He then pondered something:

‘Is it okay if I tell him…?’

Even though the two had their blades to each other’s necks, it felt like Arnold could even trust Gederick with his life. The devotion he has to proving his worth should be an example of how determined he is to meet others’ expectations, even the expectations of his enemies.

“I am a reincarnation of an Archmage from the past,” Arnold decided to tell half-truths, “I could cast all 17 ranks of magic. I could reverse time, visit other timelines, make the dragon lords kneel before my power… I was a beacon for scholars, wizards and mages across the world.”

“A reincarnation of the Progenitor’s vessel…” Gederick muttered something Arnold couldn’t quite hear.

“My ambitions weren’t many, all I wanted was to travel and find out what new things there is outside my realm. I would’ve braved through the Between Realms to fulfil my starving ambition for adventure. Discovering and collecting artifacts was the second ambition.”

“Hoh…” the light in Gederick’s eyes changed. Somehow, he seemed less hostile, “Why not build teleportation gates in your world? Surely, the humans can see the worth in venturing into far-off worlds?”

If they did then they would invest in this ambition of yours as well, he said.

“It’s not that the humans from my world don’t want to. We don’t have the resources to construct teleportation gates.”

Technically, that is. They definitely exist but were very hard to obtain. Unlike teleportation spells, the gates constructed from raw material have the power to send you everywhere so long as you have a good idea of where each location is. For example, by looking at a map of a country and focusing on one particular area, you will be able to teleport within that area once you step through the gate.

The Tenth-Rank spell [Gate] can also do this but there is probably no one besides Freya who can cast that spell.

Gederick rummaged in his magic bag pocket and threw something at Arnold. Arnold swiftly caught it.

“On the condition that you bring me the World Ring Fragment, I will allow you to keep this item in place of the Fragment.”

A ding resounded in his head.

· Virgin’s Blood Ring (SS)

· Instantly teleport to far-off worlds three times a day. No restrictions are given when teleporting to locations on wielder’s own world.

· Yormilia, the Sallengette Giant infused her powerful magic and her precious virgin’s blood into a dying star core fragment to create this artifact.

· Cooldown time when venturing to far-off worlds will be equivalent to a day in the user’s home world.

“This is… an artifact from Goddess Yorm…”

“Hm, how did you know? Nevermind. Yes, she created this for you.”

‘How did she know I wanted the artifact just to travel around…? Hold on a minute, did she read my memories!?’

That sly goddess, he sighed.

Was this the method she mentioned before?

Gederick suddenly stepped to the side. He pointed at the Faceless.

“One more thing before we head on our way: kill it. I didn’t kill it on my own because I want you to do the honor. You may take its experience to grow stronger.”

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“…..” Arnold looked at the wheezing monster. It was still alive despite the fact that its body was decaying from divine energy.

Arnold approached the monster. He held up his left arm, calling forth Gergois’ left gauntlet.

He grabbed the golden spear that was lodged in the monster’s stomach then pulled it out.

Arnold could feel the heat through the gauntlet. If he holds onto the spear any longer then it’s only a matter of time before his skin chars from the heat.

He pulled back the spear. A golden energy surrounded the tip of the spear when Gederick called out: “[Evil’s Erause]” a level 30 skill.

Translated from Godorin, Erause means “Judgment”.

“Huup!”

He thrust the power of a level 30 skill applied to the spear with such force that the tree that the monster was leaning against shattered like a twig.

The monster was disintegrated by the divine energy.

· Experience points gained from defeating Offspring (Faceless) - 200 000 XP

· XP needed until next level up – 1 899 418

‘200k! That’s like two S-rank dungeon bosses’ worth of XP!'

Arnold looked at Gederick.

“I’ll be back soon and return with the artifact.”

“Umu.”

◇◇

· Whitage City

· 6:10pm

· Arnold’s office

After less than a week since the auction that took place at Duchess Isolde’s manor, Lunaria had noticed that there had been an increase of tourists from other lands into the city.

There weren’t any interesting sights in the city or its land yet so this baffled Lunaria. Turns out the tourists wanted to observe the mines in the mountains and the caves in the forest.

Some of the workers reported directly to her that a few of the tourists offered them money to give them crystals. Naturally, this led to Lunaria stationing more Shadows and Homunculi Knights around the area, dissuading any further illegal dealings.

Besides that, there had also been a lot of nobles who requested to speak with Lunaria, Victoria and Empress Roseria. From other people’s perspective, the aforementioned three are the brains behind this operation. This is probably because the three of them are always seen ordering people around and sorting out all the paperwork.

Roseria had gone across the country having tea parties with high-class nobles whom she had befriended over the years. Before the auction, only two of the eleven nobles had shown interest in the magic crystals’ investment.

However, after word spread of what the magic crystals could do, the number increased to nine. Each of them invested a million gold in the city and will invest half a million in the near future. This wasn’t initiated by Lunaria since the nobles decided amongst themselves what amount would be enough to keep this operation going. Lunaria drew up a contract in kind to make the matter official. Their vault is now filled with millions of gold waiting to be spent.

Of course, investors aren’t the most important in this operation.

You need to make connections, wash off another’s hands and expect your hands to be washed off in kind. These connections can share information, military forces, supplies, or workers with Whitage City.

So far there had been 230 skilled labourers given to Whitage City from the connections that Roseria made. This allowed Lunaria to fix most of the broken down structures or start construction on new buildings in place of the unfixable buildings. By the look of things now, the city might become stable again before her contract with Arnold expires.

“Hmm… This is a lot of paperwork…” Lunaria looked up at the mountains of stacked papers with a soft sigh, “I wish Lilith was here to help me. She’d be able to finish all of this in one day. I’m afraid I’ll be busy for five days at most…”

That’s bad. She has to draw up a supply route map for the nine nobles who Roseria brought on-board. Two were plantation owners, three had conglomerates across the country and the rest were oil tycoons. Their supplies will help out the city a lot, especially the workers who have to work 16 hours a day with measly pay. She’s looking to come to reasonable terms to avoid legal action by some Union looking to profit by helping the workers.

Lunaria originally wanted to pay them five copper a head per day but that was much too high for their finances at the time so she decreased it to three copper. Although many were displeased, they didn’t dare say a word of protest.

It’s now been increased to the original amount.

The only way she knew their complaints were from the shadow assassins who hide in the shadows, watching every single one of them with eagle eyes.

If one of them tries to steal a crystal weighing more than a kilogram than they would lose an eye. Take a crystal weighing twice that then you lose a hand.

There had only been one such incident. No one dared to steal again since they knew they’re being watched.

The starting price for a crystal weighing a kilogram goes for 100 gold. That’s a lot of money for common folk. Depending on the magic crystal market’s situation, Lunaria might raise the price by ten more gold.

A crystal equal to the size of the average city core would go for close to a million gold. Lunaria showed the projected price to potential buyers and was pleasantly surprised when three cities called to be placed on “priority list”.

Compared to the usual city cores on sale, the magic crystals that Whitage City possesses is ten times more efficient. Instead of breaking off into pieces once their mana is used up, the red magic crystals disintegrate into the air, sometimes naturally spawning new red crystals if it goes into the soil.

Vetis tested the above when he tried use a red crystal to power a Tenth-Rank [Gate] spell. The crystal turned to sparkles and vanished. The very next day smaller red crystals spawned in the area. It’s quite possible that the crystals spawn infinitely if given enough time to grow naturally using the mana in the atmosphere.

The public doesn’t know this yet. For good reason of course. If a potential competitor shows up that could threaten the red crystal’s dominance in the magic crystal market then they can use this as a trump card since there has been no other crystal in existence that can “reproduce”.

Back to the main topic, the priority list is like it sounds, it prioritizes the buyers on the list first to grant them access to crystals before anyone else. So far, they’ve excavated two “city core-sized” magic crystals.

Since those crystals were too big to bring to Arnold’s manor, they had to move it someplace else.

Where might that be?

Lunaria walked over to the window. She looked into the distance.

In the distance was a ginormous palace, casting its great shadow over the city.

It appeared there out of nowhere a few days ago. Lunaria sent several of the Red Knights there to take care of any threats. Miraculously, there was a knight in that palace who could match every one of the Red Knights in strength and speed.

His name was Sceptim, self-proclaimed royal knight of the queen of the palace.

Lunaria was going to meet this queen later, after almost two days of silence.

The queen, or more like a messenger from the palace instructed by the queen, gave Lunaria a letter the day the palace spawned in the city. Lunaria couldn’t believe what she read in that letter.

A woman with the power to cause World Ice Ages in mere minutes as a result of a cursed soul power was in the heart of their lands. If Lunaria had stopped reading the letter there then she would’ve disposed of Siana herself. Her knights wouldn’t have been a threat to her.

Arnold went into detail as to what happened after meeting Siana in the dungeon. There was a fight with a woman named Kalda who wanted to give her soul to some powerful entity in exchange for removing Siana’s soul power.

The palace that housed the queen and her knight will be given to Arnold. Lunaria had no idea how Arnold pulled that off. He didn’t go into detail either.

Another thing that baffled her was how Arnold declares in his letter that Siana will be made a noble. She didn’t know what kind of person this Siana was yet since she delayed their meeting to attend to other matters.

Maybe she should go to the palace tomorrow?

‘That would be preferable for her too since she’s unfamiliar with the city.’ Lunaria thought so as she put the letter down after skimming through it again.

The rest of the letter’s contents is just Arnold making sure Lunaria knew her duties. For someone who came off as carefree at first, he sure had a lot of demands of her.

A fraction of the demands were as follows:

· Check that every citizen has running water.

·Install sewage systems

· Build shelters for the homeless

· Provide gear to common folk who want to become soldiers in my ranks. The quality should be decent enough for C-rank adventurers. Even if they aren’t strong, they can still be meatshields if the Red Knights are stationary elsewhere and can’t respond to threats in time.

· Set up a blacksmith workshop somewhere near the palace. But don’t hire any blacksmiths yet. I have someone in mind who can become the city’s main blacksmith.

· Reach out to Lumourge about opening a branch in my city.

· Reach out to the Adventurer’s Guild about opening a branch in my city.

These things could be done by Arnold himself but maybe he wants Lunaria to get to work quickly to make life easier for the people. The first three points are aimed directly at the people’s overall quality of life while the rest will be used to generate profit and attract more people to this city.

Next, the construction of the “Gifting Centre”: Lunaria had ordered building materials already but hasn’t hired any architects yet since Arnold still needs to approve its construction first. Its location also needs to be figured out so that it doesn’t interfere with the construction of other buildings.

Lunaria picked up one of the letters on Arnold’s desk after sitting down.

It had Ersa’s name on it.

She wrinkled her brows.

“I thought we were getting rid of this human after she serves her purpose.”

The original plan was to enslave Ersa. Why, one might ask? Well, there’s a likelihood that people with malicious intentions would approach her and offer her a deal to betray Arnold. The magic crystal market is just as dominant and big as the oil or military equipment market in this era so there are bound to be greedy businessmen who want to ruin Arnold’s plans to make this city as wealthy as a nation.

Lunaria doesn’t believe that a human, who had been grovelling in front of the nobles and her peers to get where she was , would refuse the wealthier party.

This city is poor compared to their competitors so they can’t offer Ersa any money until the city’s economy is stable. The money will be used elsewhere. It would be understandable if Ersa takes “hush handouts” which is essentially money given to her in secret in exchange for information.

Lunaria wanted to eliminate all obstacles that might get in the way of their operation.

Alas, this isn’t a decision for her to make.

“She wants us to build shelters for the poor folk as well…? Utterly ridiculous… I would’ve refused to do so had Lord Arnold not included it in his demands…”

Seeing as how Ersa declared that every single person will be able to become a mage, even a slave and the lowest scum of society, it would make sense for even the poor and homeless to seek their services. Apparently it takes a while to learn how to use the Great Rune to cast magic so Ersa wanted everyone to remain in this city until they’re able to make use of the rune. She’ll take it upon her self to care for them and mentor them.

Lunaria couldn’t understand at first why they should use precious crystals on humans who aren’t useful.

This will put them a step closer to dominating the magic crystal market so she didn’t press the matter.

The most important question here is: will Ersa continue helping people like her even after they achieve their goal?

No, a bigger question would be if Arnold will allow her to continue wasting resources. If it were up to Lunaria, she’d chase them out of the city.

Lunaria suddenly sensed something.

Teleportation!

How does she know? Well, Selia gave each of her creations a magic item that can detect space distortions and sense danger. The former phenomena usually occurs when a portal opens up or in the case of teleportation.

Lunaria stood up again. She took out the hairpin holding her long hair tied up. It transformed into a shortsword with a pink blade and red handle.

A Semi-Star weapon is overkill since she could just use her barehands but depending on what level the opponent is, her physical strength might not be enough.

She’ll kill the intruder the moment they show their face. As a level 100, there should be no one on par with her in raw strength even if she isn’t a close combatant.

A blurry figure appeared. Lunaria moved at that moment, aiming directly for their throat.

“Wha!?” Lunaria didn’t know what happened but the intruder managed to get behind her and hold one of her hands behind her back.

“I didn’t expect to get attacked in my own office. Then again, it’s my fault for choosing this location as my destination. Good job on your response to possible threats.”

He let go of her arm.

“Milord…?”

Her lord’s handsome face was illuminated by the candlelight.

Somehow his deep blue eyes have lost the light that she saw the last time they met.