As the sun rises up into the air, as if sensing it, I woke up from my small slumber.
Normally an undead wouldn't be able to sleep; however, since I have fused my human body and lich body, the fused body as a result was somewhat affected by my human one. I would now require sleep, but not very much as I'm also part undead. Maybe just around 30 minutes I guess.
Which means I would sleep even later than Akuezhor and Nylen. Though normally I don’t sleep at all, so it isn’t really much of a change. I pretty much stay awake all the time since I was here.
I turned my field of vision to my (servants/companions). They were sleeping on the bed that was provided by the inn.
There were only 2 small beds which could only fit one person, so one of us had to sleep on the floor.
When we had this trivial issue about who or not should sleep on the beds, I took out my own personal one which I had in Elareven.
For what reason do I have a bed in my inventory?
Simply, there is a feature in the game where you have your own personal house. I bought transportable house in Elareven and is currently in my inventory which actual costs a shit ton of money, game money of course, but I got it easily because of my cheating. Obviously I bought some furnitures such as drawers and beds, plants, and decorations for my transportable house, but I had yet to organize it. I was planning too, but was however transported here before I knew it.
Houses aren’t really that necessary in the game; however, it allows a player to practice their professional skills like alchemy, blacksmith, etc. This is because when you buy a tool set for your respective profession, it can only be used in your house where you can set it there. There are some who grew alchemy plants in their house by making a greenhouse section for the plants where they can harvest rare materials to use it for alchemy or maybe even sell them.
Anyways, since I was the one awake first, I waited for them to wake up as I thought about what would be my future actions for the slum people and about Arand who has a relic weapon. The relic weapon actually has a lot of unique abilities when I checked it with ‘Analyze’.
Lauden Drach
Cursed Relic-Tier
A black dagger which drains the wielder’s life force as fuel in exchange for power.
Passive Skills: Instant Death Chance, Life Drain
Active Skills: Melting Decree, Quick Steps, Frenzy
+500 Strength
+547 Avoid
+370 Dexterity
Honestly, if ignoring the part where it drains the user’s life force, this Relic-Tier weapon for me is considered one of the best weapons in that Relic-Tier level in Elareven. Especially the stats shown.
However, it is a cursed weapon nonetheless.
Cursed Weapons are normally stronger than that of a regular magic weapon.
The cons of a cursed weapon though is even though you gain strong stats or abilities from the item, in exchange, you would probably lose HP and MP continuously if used in combat. For Lauden Drach which Arand currently wields, that weapon is pretty good if you have potions to recover health without relying on the Life Drain Passive Skill on the dagger.
Despite that aspect of losing health, as long as the enemies aren’t significantly powerful, this weapon may have already given any wielder in this world the ability to influence much of this world. Given the behavior of people for magic weapons even if it is High-Tier and Greater-Tier, it is pretty much a fact.
Even with though it is cursed, it’s still a powerful Relic Weapon. However, I don’t believe it is recommended to use Lauden Drach for a long period of time against strong opponents if Arand is using it.
If you don’t have any potions or skills to keep your health up, the cursed weapon would kill you by you just using it.
Weaker enemies would be the best where you could have an easier time draining another person’s health so you may use it to prolong the time of wielding the dagger. But Arand should have known about this already since he has been using Lauden Drach for a long time already.
No doubt, if anyone knew of this its abilities, trouble would stir, which had already happened though.
The king and the high ranked nobles such as Sky, Barton, Bekorth were still stubbornly searching for Arand. I just realized who were the 3 shitbags which I knocked unconscious the day before. Well, it shouldn’t be a problem for me anyways.
That being said about the Relic Weapon, I guess that would be considered normal and matter of course since it is hard to come across such a powerful magic weapon in this world which not even an adept appraiser can ‘Analyze’.
I believed in this world, countries are compared by wealth, military strength, and by artifacts instead of technology which my world was focused on most of the time.
If two countries are comparable for the first two, then it all comes down to the weapons and items they have in their disposal. Which meant magic weapons and artifacts are extremely valuable. This kinda reminds me of the incident in the auction where all those rich guys have gotten mad with reddish eyes as they looked upon a Greater-Tier weapon which I had taken.
Coming back to the subject, for those reasons, it would be obvious why this kingdom is spending so much time in searching Andor. If they didn’t, they have pretty wasted their opportunities for increasing their influence and power in the world and also making a huge reputation for themselves.
As I thought about this Akuezhor seems to have woken up.
His race is a dragon/demon, so with both racial traits within him, it could be said he is superior to both races. With the strength of both dragon and demon along with a demon’s intelligence, it is obvious how strong he is in this world.
Because of the racial traits, his need of sleep isn’t very much. I believe it is around an hour everyday, but he can decide if he wants to sleep longer. Not like he could die anytime soon.
"Good morning Master, how was your sleep?"
" ...Well If anything, it was refreshing in fact. Being a living being even though it is just partly, definitely have some joy in itself."
This is quite true especially since I missed the pleasure of eating and sleeping. Maybe even the feeling of exhaustion gives me joy when you knew you worked hard and decided to rest. Maybe I just missed my important object in my crotch area.
As an undead, I felt mostly nothing except for physical or magical pain. My former senses were deteriorating ever since in my lich body. Especially my sexual desire. Compared to my former world and this world, I didn’t have as much desires to have sex. Of course it is the result of being undead.
Being able to taste something last night in the luxurious restaurant brought me a small form of happiness and gratitude for being (alive).
Akuezhor and I waited for the other 2 to wake up.
After an hour, Nylen woke up and Nemaus was still napping.
I continued with Nemaus since I believe it doesn’t matter to him whether or not he knows what our group’s objective today. Both ways he would be tagging along with me.
I then told Akuezhor and Nylen everything about what I learned from reading several people's memories through ‘Soul Reading’ which I have been doing for some time. Other sources of my information is my Eyeball Corpses which listens to other people’s conversations and reporting it to me depending on the subject of that conversation.
I then told them what is our objective today and how we are going to act.
First, I once again explained to them about Andor's circumstance and for some unknown reason, every poor person kept going to a specific area in the kingdom. Which is a bit unusual. Normally you wouldn’t expect a group of poor people being isolated in a certain area. It would be expected if they were all separated all over this kingdom.
I then explained the recent activities of the kingdom from what I found out from my Eyeball corpses. Many of the increase of poor people was related to the situation the human kingdom was facing.
That is the war with the Demi-humans. Right now they are preparing for war with them and all 4 human kingdoms are signing a treaty and alliance to not attack each other until the Demi-Human war is over.
This the cause and one of the major reasons why people are becoming more indebt and poorer. Taxes were being raised to hire people and soldiers to go to war. Conscriptions were also being used so even if many young males didn't want to be enlisted, they were forced to anyways especially when the taxes were pretty high right now and if they didn’t, they wouldn’t be able to eat or feed their families. Of course there were several people preparing for riots because they don’t want to fight and possibly die in a war, but with the help of certain magicians who uses investigation magic in the kingdom, the riots were suppressed.
The adventures are also taking part in the war. Usually they wouldn’t be involved in political related things, but since demi-humans are pretty much the enemy of the human race currently, it was decided that the adventurers would do their real job and protect humanity. It was issued that if the adventurers were to take part and protect humanity by warring with the demi-humans, those who participated would get a suitable compensation and land would be given to them.
Though believing in promises made by government officials or other people with power is foolish.
How would they be able to compensate anyway? Pretty sure in history, slaves were once promised they would gain freedom if they were to participate in the war and survived, but the leader who made that promise never honored it.
Anyways, unfortunately for the human side, I killed Salaam the S rank adventure. I am sure that the humanity would have a bit more room to breathe especially when they have some artifacts that may be of use. To bad I killed him.
‘....Wait….did I forget to take those guys’ stuff in the Auction Massacre? If assuming Salaam was there, then maybe he brought that artifact with him….Maybe if I’d known, I could have obtained some info from it. Also, if Salaam did die in there, shouldn’t this kingdom already have that artifact which Salaam was using if they cleaned up that Auction House. Or maybe did it disintegrate from my ‘Disintegrate’ spell?’
I decided it was useless thinking about it.
Right now, the humans are doing other preparations for the incoming war and are gathering huge amounts of mana and collecting it into a certain mana container.
There was a rumor that the objective for collecting enormous amounts of mana is so they may do a hero summoning where they would literally summon a person from another world, which they would use to help out in the war with the demi-humans.
This was necessary for them because if humans were compared to all the sentient races, they would pretty much rank bottom in power. That is why a hero summoning was a necessity. A Hero is said to be the strongest possible human to exist who also comes from another existing world out there. Their power and abilities could potentially match an extremely powerful dragon.
This book's true home is on another platform. Check it out there for the real experience.
The reason they probably haven’t died out is because of their huge population and interference of the Apostles and Church. It seems that one of the almighty gods were sending messages to their apostles to stop any wars if it threaten humanity’s survival. Makes it seem like humans have special treatment, but elves were protected by a barrier made my one other almighty god, so I suspect the demi-humans might also have one. All assumptions though.
‘Anyways, I honestly don't know what a hero is capable of, but I think it should be interesting. Maybe I should get one of my Eyeball Corpses to observe him as he grows stronger? Maybe even play the bad guy as the Overlord of the Undead?’ I kept these thoughts to myself though.
Telling all of this to Akuezhor and Nylen, they nodded their heads showing they understood.
There is some information which might not be necessary for our objective today, but it is always good to let your companions be aware of the situations around them.
"Well then, let’s start off with solving the slums predicament. Currently the taxes are pretty high right now, taking away even the poorest person’s money and leaving him or her homeless. Even we should avoid buying things here since there has been a noticing able increase in prices and it's not like we need to spend much anyways.”
‘ Though I heard the entitled nobles were excluded from the taxes. Such utter bullshit.’
Thinking of the possible solutions, I thought maybe I could threaten the King to lower down the taxes? I’m sure the King would obey if I altered his soul with ‘Soul Manipulation’, but how would the poor obtain money? Should I steal some and give it to them? No, it won’t really be a stable income in their lives if I do that and sooner or later, the money would run out. From what I can see, they already gave up on life, so I’m not sure what would they even use the money for.
Taking some time to collect my thoughts, I continued
“If we are to solve this then...how about making a village out of them?”
Akuezhor inquires, “..What do you mean by making a village?”
“Could it be Master Ridar wants to make a settlement for those people?” Nylen asks
“Yes, allow me to explain it very briefly. To be honest, I don’t think the people who are living in the slums would be able to live here in this place. Especially with such high taxes. So if they can’t live here, why not just move them somewhere else?
Creating a settlement for them would allow them to live there while making a new start in their lives. While at it, they won’t get taxed from anyone since they won’t be affiliated in any kingdom if they desired too. However, I don’t know much about land management where people claim it is their land? Anyhow, I will just deal with those problems later. If someone comes to whatever area I chose to make a village and says that it is their land and whatnot, I would just alter their souls a bit and the problem should be solved for a while.
Akuezhor as if catching up to what I had in mind, “Yes, it could work, but if we are going with this, which place should it be located? In this continent, there are 4 kingdoms including this one and many villages and other locations that may be possible to inhabit. But how would those guys be able start of with in that area. Would they have to farm, or would be something akin to a trading town?.... Is there something in it which they could make a living with?”
Hearing this, I realized what I was missing.
‘Even if I planned to save them out of poverty, how would I do it? Starting with a village could be a start in itself, but what would they do from then on?’
Putting some thought into it, I end up giving up not long after.
The first thought I came up with was actually farming which Akuezhor had said. But it is doubtful whether they would do such tiresome work. If I were to choose between farming food, eating it and selling it with living a poor man’s life, I think I would go for the poor man’s life. I think I would be too lazy to wait for crops to grow. But since I never once did farm, my perspective of it is limited
Sighing, I scratched my head.
Nylen then said innocently, “ Hey Master...why are you focusing so much on them?”
“....What do you mean by that Nylen?”
She begins leaning on the bed, “ Well...ever since you had freed and summoned me, it always seem that you been focusing so much on those slums people.” She begins curling up her small body as she hugs her rainbow beach ball , “And what exactly do you get from this? I don’t see the point in helping or saving them. Is it really that important?”
“......”
Akuezhor stays quiet, but I can feel that he didn’t like what Nylen is saying. He is a nice guy after all. He empathizes with other people who are suffering pretty easily.
Well, it is ultimately true even if I don’t save them, it wouldn’t affect me much. I guess I could even ignore this problem and just go on and do whatever stupid things to relieve my boredom. But emotionally, I wanted to help change them. Seeing such poverty caused me to think what I want to do something about it. Kids who aren’t even in their teens were starving and dying. People who were awaiting death as their salvation. People sleeping in the streets where they would be vulnerable from robbery and abuse. Though maybe in whatever world or place you would be in, there would always be poverty somewhere.
“...Yes, what you are saying is actually correct. Whether or not we helped them wouldn’t change the fact it wasn’t necessary for us to do so. But…,” pausing for a moment, “This is something I want to do personally. I hope you understand that I’m doing this for self-satisfaction.”
I don’t plan to be a hero or savior, it would be hypocritical of me. But I at least want to save the unfortunate families who had suffered because of the circumstances they were in. Whether or not it is taxes or war, I believe they should have another chance in their life. That is something I believe.
Maybe I was just influenced by all those ADs and propagandas about saving others and whatnot in my former world. I believe if I there weren’t so many of them in my world, maybe I would’ve thought differently.
‘Ah wait, thinking about taxes, those fucking income taxes. The damn government taking shit load of my salary. Who the fuck created that tax anyways. All they are fucking doing is stealing my money away, goddammit.’ I cursed at the unrelated topic in my mind.
Went off topic there.
Nylen hearing reply suddenly changes her mood, “Oh! If it's about Master’s satisfaction, then I for sure will help you out. Count me in Master Ridar.” she smiles happily.
‘Uh, okay?’
However, I can tell that she truly doesn’t care whether or not unfortunate innocent people are dying from poverty and whatnot. Might just be her settings or something. Everyone have different values and ethics afterall.
After that small and trivial disagreement, we pretty much discussed how should we make a settlement to create a community. We decided the location would be a bit farther than the outskirts of the nearby kingdoms. We chose an inhabitant place where people have yet to build or settle there, but suitable for living.
It was in a place called Kebriel, just East of the Kingdom of Pledia.
The Kingdom of Pledia is located in the North, so in other words, going East from here, Kebriel would be located just right there. Also, it is located near another Kingdom, the Kingdom of Hekyr. Well known for its magic weapon crafts(though only capable of making the Medium Tier weapon), they have the strongest military force in the human race. With each magic armor and magic weapon that may be cost a fortune to any peasant, they have more than 1 million soldiers with a set of magic A/W. I guess the reason why the human kingdoms have some confidence in the war with the Demi-Humans was because of Hekyr.
The Kingdom of Hekyr were keeping their secret of manufacturing their goods which were considered treasues in other parts of the continent. But there were only little variety in the magic weapons and armors. If what I think is correct, the Kingdom of Hekyr must have gotten an artifact or magic item that could duplicate an item.
I know one such magic item in Elareven, but it wasn’t very useful. Though it could duplicate items, it could only duplicate of those in a certain Tier or lower. If someone chooses to sell those duplicated weapons, it would be useless since they don’t sell as much in shops.
Anyways, I was on my way to Kebriel with Nemaus on my shoulder and Nylen was tagging along. Akuezhor was currently tasked for persuading the slum people that they could have a chance to start their life over again. Which meant making a new life, not literally starting over their life. (s for slum)
By the war, Kebriel is a land that has yet to be inhabited by humans or other races. Which makes it a good place to reside. I had a feeling that this place would soon be targeted by other human settlements, so I might as well do this early and claim this place as my land. I don’t need permission from anyone anyways.
Currently for us, we would be going to Kebriel and start making a dungeon which Akuezhor had wrote down the chant for me on a piece of paper. This most what we discussed in the inn. Akuezhor made that idea and I believe there were no problems. The plan was to create a dungeon where the types of monsters in their would be undead, which would be my minions by the way. The items that would be dropped would be items that I have obtained from the goblin dungeon, and also the items Akuezhor had in his storage.
Of course, I won’t be taking his stuff and putting it as a prize for defeating a floor in my dungeon, I would be using the duplicating magic item I was talking about. As before, I said that I didn’t need such trash items in the game, but there were times where I forgot to throw them out of my inventory. Honestly, if you were to look into my inventory right now, all you could say is, “ Damn you got a lot of shit in your pack.”
--
We would be building a dungeon first instead of building houses for people to reside in because we don’t know whether or not the people would want to start a new life or stay like how they are currently. If they do plan to move on and come to this area which Akuezhor may have instructed, they would be using the dungeon so that they may start trading and getting money.
However, that was all Akuezhor told me. This is because I am not well talented in this business or whatever it is suppose to be. So I just told Akuezhor if he can manage this operation, and obviously he agreed.
Either way I would be creating a dungeon both ways. Though it would be nice if Akuezhor is able to persuade them into leaving the kingdom where they are and make a start somewhere and it doesn’t have to be here in Kebriel.
I soon arrived to a flat green plain with a couple of trees around here.
I guess this is where I would create my first dungeon then.
With that, I chanted the chant.
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I'm back! Were you guys bored with this chapter since there wasn't much action and just some descriptive stuff about the current circumstances with whatever? I guess that would be too bad huh. :(