After the Elven princess rushed through her speech and darted off stage I stood up from my seat and gave a brief nod to the other noble children around me as I bade them farewell before rescuing my sister from the other male nobles pathetic attempts at courtship. As I grabbed her hand to pull her from the crowd and I also pressed the button hidden in my sleeve to summon my guards. While I was waiting for them to arrive the other nobles constantly bragged as loudly as they could about their parents power and how powerful they would become in the future. Every last one of them was useless and only knew how to use their families name to get what they want. Still they persist in attempting to convince me to give them my precious sisters hand in marriage. All around me it’s a constant flow of voices app bragging about their worthless mortal families! “My father killed a Wyvern with his bare hands yesterday!” “Well my father has adamantine mines all over his territory and one of the biggest armies in the country.” On top of being completely shameless bragging about their fathers strengths as if it’s they’re own but they’re all side eyeing me to see my reaction. I’m no good at politics but even I can tell they’re trying to figure out what kind of noble family I want connections to. Sadly for them I’m the next head of the house of Arbor and I have no intention of giving my sister away to anyone I don’t trust. As soon as the rest of my guards make it through the crowd and surround us we head back to our rooms.
Of course Cassandra wouldn’t leave me alone until I sat on the floor and listened to a two hour long lecture about respecting the princess and making sure to never be in the same bed as her again. I could sense my guards laughing under their armor even though they turned their communication crystals off. As soon as Cassandra finished telling me off I was gonna make them regret daring to laugh at their lord! They would be doing triple the standard amount of physical exertion that I required of my soldiers. I grinned to myself just thinking about it and I could see the giant armored morons quiver in fear. My victory was short lived however as Cassandra sent an electric shock through my body to bring my attention back to her.
Once my torture was over and Cassandra had gone back to her room Elizabeth finally appeared leaning against the wall as the two royal guards I’d had replaced stood on either side of her. Glaring at her I struggled to my feet as blood slowly started flowing through my legs again “Did you enjoy the show Elizabeth?”
Placing a hand over her mouth Elizabeth gave a delicate giggle and avoided the question. Her little act didn’t fool me, even with many of my memories sealed away we both still retained all our personalities. This little act of hers did not fit her true personality at all. She was a very powerful fire attribute mage, Just like when she was a primordial alongside me. When I took her into my house I had only been at the rank of a minor true god. I had found her in some kind of rescue operation against slavers, but my memories fails me as to why we were there. I couldn’t remember much else from that time period but I did know She had been a member of the God beast Divine Phoenix species when she had served as the commander of my personal guard, The 17 stars.
After I became a champion she decided to try forming a contract with some spirits as well. And Just as I had become a Champion of the world and specialised in the concepts of life and death after taking two greater spirits into my body she had done the same. However the way she had done it was very different from how I had. I’d formed an equals contract with the spirits and in exchange for me helping them become greater spirits they would give me every scrap of power they could. Elizabeth on the other hand formed an subservience contract with a greater spirit of fire and a Holy Spirit/high ranking Angel. Normally subservience contracts mean the mortal becomes a slave to the spirits or what ever upper tier life form made the contract but not this time, instead Elizabeth beat the ever living divinity out of both of them and forced them to submit to her. It honestly terrified me. Neither of us could access the power of our spirits in these past several years because they were undergoing an evolution into a pillar spirit after me and Elizabeth teaching them more about their elements. While the memories of every power other then mana had been locked away memories of the concepts we had become one with couldn’t be. So even though I couldn’t use any of the spells I had as a primordial due to all of them using higher forms of energy, i still knew had memories of them and I still understood the law of death and I knew enough about life that I could teach the spirits to understand them. Of course we had forgotten that spirits are supposed to slowly learn about their laws so their bodies can get ready for the next stage. So the spirits had gone into a deep sleep inside us as their bodies tried to get use to the massive influx of energy they had received. As annoying as that was it did mean we would have a massive amount of power available to us whenever this evolution finished. Until then we just had to train as hard as possible. Which was actually why we’d stayed in the same room last night. Despite these mortal emotions being incredibly annoying about the fact there was a cute girl in the same bed neither of us wanted to waste so much space just to take up two different rooms. Instead our soldiers had spent the whole night carving runes into the walls and installing training equipment into the unused rooms both to protect us from assassins and eavesdropping so we can talk about our plans and so we could train when we had free time.
As soon as we sat down in the main room the table spilt apart and a projection came out showing my territory and the surrounding countries. (authors note: I am working on a map for you guys so it doesn’t get to confusing when I mention places) my territory was massive even compared to the territory my father controlled. After my troops and I played a major role in repelling the elves invasion the king wanted to reward me with territory and I wanted a place I could raise my army in secret. During the awards ceremony I had acted like a child and asked for the peninsula of the infested forest as my territory because it was the closet to my fathers territory. Despite the king trying to convince me it was a bad idea I acted like the naive child I was supposed to be and It had been given to me after some of the other dukes who hated my father released I might very well be killed in the forest due to the amount of monsters that lived there and even if I wasn’t no one expected me to be able to domesticate any large amount of land. Of course I didn’t mention I’d already talked to a clan of merfolk that lived in the area and they had allowed us to use their territory to sail through and set up a city in a cove. Making it so I didn’t actually have to go through the forest.
This text was taken from Royal Road. Help the author by reading the original version there.
Now that the map was up we could see number of troops, placement production estimates and tax revenues. Most of my population were golems and homunculi I’d made or taught others to make and while they made for a great military force and I don’t actually have to pay them the organic population of my city sat at around 400,00-450,000 people most of whom were slaves I’d bought and then freed. So our tax revenue was almost nothing. Including the golems, homunculi and research personnel from the dwarven kingdom our population sat right around two million. I’d been emptying my mana pool almost every day before coming here turning all sorts of monster cores and materials into soldiers and other productive members of my army. Eden city itself had been expanded again and after nearly 6 years of trying I managed to get something called a city core to spawn so now instead of having to use my soldiers to build anything I need I just had to give this “core” a lot of mana and the resources to build whatever I needed making the city’s development much cheaper. I was very proud of the city it was surrounded by seven layers of walls and had never fallen to any attack or raid.
Unfortunately I didn’t have time to gloat about my city to Elizabeth, Next on our list was a string of crimes happening throughout the city. Demi-humans and demons were the targets and would be murdered in their homes in the middle of the night. We all knew the church would manage to infiltrate the city sometime in the near future but never this soon. After they stole out technology counter intelligence operatives had been on duty 24/7 making it impossible to get any where near the military or industrial districts. Patrols happened around the clock and intruders were shot on sight. It was obvious to me that a group of people most lily church fanatics were attempting to force us to send more troops through residential districts so that security would be lighter in whatever areas they wanted to attack. I buried my head in my hands and searched my memories for anyway to deal with this situation. If I didn’t send more troops to catch the culprits it would ruin my reputation and give other nobles and even the king enough reason to say that I since couldn’t even protect my own citizens how was I to be expected to protect the technology I had and order me to turn it over to them. If I did send the troops their spies would probaly be able to steal several blue prints and maybe even finds records of my deals with the kingdoms of the demons.
Finally looking up at the projection of my top advisors and generals I spoke, “Initiate a curfew in the city. Anyone who is still moving after dark is to be shot on sight. Recall the 23rd infantry core from Beta position and deploy them in the city to look anyone who follows the church. Declare martial law as well and any suspicious persons are to be held for interrogation. Deploy any forensics teams we have to look over the bodies again and if they find any trace of mana or any scent of the killers uses the hounds to track them down! I want them found before two weeks is up! The royal family in inspecting our territory in three so we need time to clear out monsters around the roads as well. You have your orders get it done!”
As soon as I killed the call there was banging on the door. Glancing up at the clock I noticed class’s were about to start. Me and Elizabeth jumped up and rushed to the door to see my sister waiting there patiently surrounded by her guards. “Come on Leonidas!” Noticing Elizabeth next to me she gives shirt curtesy, “Your highness class starts in 10 minutes! We’re gonna be late if we don’t hurry!”
Nobles are only allowed two guards and one servant when in class so six guards are with us as we rush towards the classroom. My sister and Elizabeth are both in dresses and having a hard time running so two of the guards pick them up and we start back up at a steady pace. Arriving at the classroom just before the bell rings the guards set the two down and we take our seats. I can feel someone’s gaze on me and I look up to see the commoner from before glaring at me. I just smile brightly at him and then shoot a glare at the elven bitch sitting next to him. One of her guards steps in front of her to shield her from me and mine rest their hands on the pommel of their swords. Behind me I can hear my sister mutter, “it’s not even the first day and he’s already started a Cold War with half the kingdoms of this continent!”
Next to me Elizabeth hides her mouth behind her hand and giggles as I shoot them both a mock glare. These next couple year might not be so bad.