In Poris Kingdom...
"We have new information, Your Majesty."
"Speak," said a commanding voice that was female.
"There has been sighting of a new town near Sorus Bay," said a scout.
"And how did we not notice it further? Didn't we travel that route many times to trade with Trupe City?"
"Yes Ma'am, but this one appears to just be built. We don't have any information about the residents or the leader, but they seem to be stationed there."
Queen Peluna thought for a moment.
How could a town just, appear, without anyone noticing?
"I want you to dispatch a team of scouts disguised as merchants. Take stock of their residents, leader, and magic. Do not aggravate them, for they could be an ally for us," Peluna ordered.
The scout saluted. "Yes Ma'am, we will dispatch them right away."
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Lucius wiped the sweat off his forehead as he finished wiring in the last light bulb to the generator.
He successfully added electricity to every household and instructed the villagers on how to use it. They were pleased to know that it was a lot safer than magic lights and wouldn't explode in their face.
"Now that all of the lights are in, what else are you going to make?" Asked Luna, who was watching Lucius wire lights in Balos' and Luna's room.
"I don't know. I'm thinking about making basic supplies, like maybe a stove. But since there's an attack that might come, I'm probably going to make defense mechanisms."
Lucius had a turret in mind when he said this. He had no idea how he was going to go about making it, but it would be a great defense tool when it came to fighting.
After Lucius finished the wiring, he went back in his workshop.
He needed to make a weapon or something that was more, explosive. His current gun was strong, but he had to face a whole army, it would be much too slow.
He could make something like a gun, maybe it would be semi-automatic--
What was that? Lucius thought. He grabbed his gun and his sword and rushed outside.
There was a small group of carts being dragged along by horses trotting through the forest. They slowed as Lucius blocked the road.
"Hello; what are you here for?" Lucius said. He rested his hand on his katana but didn't make a move to pull it out.
"We are merchants looking to see if you could buy things from us, and maybe you could sell things to us," the lead person said.
Merchants? Maybe I can get some money this way...
"Very well; you may come in. But if you do anything funny, you will be forced out."
Lucius went back inside the gate and told some wolf-people to spread the news and stay inside. The merchants slowly trotted in.
Lucius could tell that the merchants were shocked at what they saw. They slowed down and just looked at everything, taking in the view.
The beast-men were hiding inside their houses, but Lucius could see a few villagers looking through cracks through the doors.
"Where is everyone?" One of the merchants asked.
"They do not want to see you," Lucius said, trying to keep his voice calm and slightly intimidating. "Some people are not as forgiving as me."
"Ah."
They walked up a hill where they were greeted by Balos and Luna. The merchants released a cry and took out weapons.
Luna both grinned, but Balos didn't seem too pleased to see them.
"Relax," Lucius said. "They are residents of Baylight."
"Residents?" Luna said, looking hurt. "We are more than residents."
"Ok ok, leaders of Baylight, along with me."
"Ah, sorry," the merchants said and put away their weapons. "We just aren't so friendly with beast-men right now."
"Like we are with humans," Balos said and bared his sharp teeth. The merchants blanched and put their hands on their weapons.
"Chill Balos. Why don't you go and relax? You have done a lot these few days," Lucius said, but his eyes said, Stay where you can still see and hear.
Page Break
Apparently, Balos understood and walked away. Later, Lucius thought he heard a scuffling of footsteps on top of one of the houses.
"So, if some of your leaders are beast-men, does that mean the residents of, Baylight, are also beast-men?" One of the merchants asked Lucius.
"Yup, but they are under my rule. They won't attack you unless I tell them to, but just because I'm also a human doesn't mean I'll side with you."
Lucius couldn't believe how he was sounding like a leader. Normally, he would be quite meek, but after seeing people get killed and learning about the realities of life, he has seemed to harden into something different.
"A-anyway," the lead merchant started. "What do you have to sell?"
Immediately, Luna and Lucius looked at each other with a suspicious look on both of their faces.
Wouldn't they ask us to buy their products, not to buy from us?
Pushing the thought aside, he faced the merchants.
"We do not have any specific products, but..." Lucius was about to talk about his engineering in weaponry, but he thought better of it.
One of the merchants seemed to be writing something down, but Lucius paid him no attention.
"Well, if that's the case, we will be leaving. Before we leave, can we have your name?"
"Lucius Avalan, ruler of Baylight," Lucius said.
The merchant wrote something down again, then they all turned around.
"Good-bye, Lucius. Hope we meet again."
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There was a bright blue flash in the middle of the room. The "merchants" stepped out of it. The carts and horses shrank until it became a coin, where the scouts took them and pocketed them.
Support creative writers by reading their stories on Royal Road, not stolen versions.
"We have returned, Your Majesty," the lead one said.
"Good job. Now, what is there to offer us?" Queen Peluna asked.
The scout that was writing things down stepped forward. "The ruler of the town, which is called Baylight, is named Lucius Avalan. He carries a katana and an interesting object on his back that is unknown to us," said the scout.
"Also," continued the scout. "They do not seem to have any products that would be "rare", but Lucius was clearly hiding something. We think it has to do something with the object on his back, but we don’t know for sure."
Another scout stepped forward. "Also, the ruler has two helpers. One is from the wolf race and the other is a dragon-kin, two races that normally wouldn't be together. The dragon-kin is in her human form, revealing great strength and power. The wolf-man is clearly a fighter and seemed slightly hostile to us.
Queen Peluna thought for a moment.
A human, a dragon, and a wolf-man in on village? This is very interesting.
"What about its residents?"
"Lucius told us that the residents are wolf-people, but we haven't confirmed this with our own eyes. Would you like us to go back?"
"No," said Peluna firmly. "We will return tomorrow, but this time, I will be accompanying you."
Everyone in the room gasped. Then, voices filled the room.
"Your Majesty! You cannot leave!"
"Yes, I can. I am queen here, am I not?" Said the queen in a challenging voice.
The person who objected slumped back, as with everyone.
"Prepare a royal carriage and bring twenty soldiers with us with five spell-casters. I will give further orders before we depart.
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Lucius stood on top of the wall and looked at the forest beyond. There was a strange feeling in his gut after the merchants left, and Lucius was growing tenser by the second.
Suddenly, there was a he heard someone rush up behind him.
"Lucius!" He heard a wolf-man call his name out.
By the way, he told the wolf-people to call him by his name and not in any other way. It made the wolf-people comfortable around him and lessened his air of superiority.
"What is it?" Lucius asked.
"The hunting group came back and told us that there was a group of humans that were attacking a group of Royal Slimes!"
Again? Is another race being attacked by humans? What...
"Where were they sighted?!" Lucius hastily climbed down the wall.
"They were rushing toward this location! None of them seem dead yet, and I think that they will make it here if we wait. Do you want us to fight back?"
Lucius thought as fast as he could and came up to a conclusion.
"No. Let them come here and we'll hit the humans as hard as we can. Are wolf-people capable of creating an ambush?" Lucius asked.
The person nodded. "Do you want us to set one up?"
"Yes, but don’t attack unless I really need it. Do not risk your life. I will try to take care of the situation alone, but again, if I need help, attack. But in the meantime, just wait."
"Yes, Sir!" The wolf-person said and ran off.
Soon, Lucius heard the gate open and the trotting of the wolf-people running into the forest. When Lucius climbed up the wall, there was none in sight.
Balos climbed up to him.
"Are you planning to fight? From here?" He asked while raising his eyebrow.
"Yeah. I have a question," Lucius asked. "What are Royal Slimes?"
"Royal Slimes? They are a race of slimes. Normally, slimes are just balls of, well, slime, and they just eat. But Royal Slimes have human-like intelligence and can shape-shift at will."
"Are they immune to anything?"
"Yes, they are immune to anything that contains water. If it has even a little water, it will go right through them in any form."
This is the time I have to use it then. I don't know if I can shoot the humans without killing the slimes, Lucius said. He brought the gun over his shoulder and changed the magazine to a very special one.
It had three crystals in it that were more than rare. They were
Lucius really didn't want to use the
Suddenly, he heard the sound of a waterfall. Confused, Lucius looked around and gasped.
The Royal Slimes were pouring out of the forest and rushing toward Baylight. Lucius dropped to his knee and took aim at the forest behind them.
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Queen Peluna heard the sound of a waterfall in the distance.
"No one told me that there was a waterfall near Sorus Bay. What is making that noise?!" Peluna asked. "Move forward quick."
The horses put on a burst of speed and they arrived in a large clearing where the trees were cut down. The sight in front made the horses stop without an order.
There was about fifty Royal Slimes rushing toward a town that was encased in walls that were twenty feet high.
But before she had any time to ask any questions, there was a group of about one hundred men, all armed with various weapons, that came rushing out of the forest and pursued the Royal Slimes.
Right when Queen Petuna thought the humans were going to overtake the slimes, there was an ear-splitting crack! and suddenly, there was a massive hurricane. But it wasn't traveling upright like a normal hurricane should've—it was directed right at the humans, something even magic couldn't do.
There was no magic pulse! That was definitely magic, but why couldn't I feel it? Queen Petuna thought as she watching it happen.
She looked at the source of the hurricane. On top of the walls of Baylight was a small figure, that was definitely human, holding a long, oddly shaped metal tube pointed at the humans.
Queen Petuna faced one of the scouts that came earlier.
"Was that on his back when you entered the village?" She asked. The scout nodded, still awestruck.
"I had no idea..." He started, then the use of words seemed to fail him.
The humans have blown away, spinning like a starfish in the air. Some screamed, but most were knocked out as they flew. The Royal Slimes were completely unaffected.
In an instant, the battle stopped. There were wolf-people coming out of the forest and started dragging people into the gates of the village, where more wolf-people started to tie up the men.
"Let's go meet Lucius," said Queen Petuna.
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(AN: BTW sorry for all of the POV changes. Bear with me)
Lucius was pleased with himself. The
He was still watching the forest on top of the wall, just in case there were more humans.
But coming out of the forest was a gold-plated carriage along with people.
Alarmed, Lucius climbed down and rushed out the gate. The wolf-people were too busy to notice him.
He stood in the way of the carriage as it rolled to a stop fifteen yards (or about fourteen meters) in front of him.
Hey... some of those people look familiar...
With a start, Lucius realized that some of the people around the carriage were the merchants that came.
"What are you doing here?!" Lucius yelled. Then, someone stepped out of the carriage.
She was obviously someone of high ranking. Her robes were dirtless and had gold thread woven through it. And since she wore a crown on her head, Lucius guessed that she was a queen of some sort.
However, Lucius didn't feel like being respectful at the moment. He was more concerned about why the merchants were with a queen.
"First off," said the queen. "I have to apologize for some of my actions."
Lucius paused. Uh... wut...?
"I am Queen Peluna, queen of Poris Kingdom. The merchants that I sent were not merchants. They were scouts, aiming to find out what you have," the Queen said.
Well, that was expected. I didn't think that they were actually merchants in the first place.
"But they came back, saying that you didn't have anything special."
"However," Queen Peluna continued. "They did report something about your metal staff."
What metal staff? Are they talking about... my gun?
"We did not know your capabilities until today, where I saw you wipe out the group of people. And even though this may seem very greedy, will you show us how you created this?"
No way.
"Of course, there will be compensation..." She said more things, but Lucius ignored her. He waved for Luna and Balos to come over.
"Take the people to the prison. Don't talk to them."
"Aight," Luna said.
"Now," Lucius rubbed his hands together as he faced Queen Peluna.
"I will not reveal anything about my "metal wand" of any sort. There is no compensation that could reveal my secrets at all," Lucius said firmly. "And please hurry up. I must make more preparations for a battle later."
Queen Peluna did not show a reaction for Lucius' will to not show the gun, but when he mentioned the war, she looked a little surprised.
"Against whom?"
"Voxis Kingdom," Lucius said. He stuck his katana in the ground and leaned on it.
"Then how about this. You don't have to show us your magic, but do you wish to form an alliance? We are also enemies with Voxis Kingdom, and with your help, we might be able to overthrow them."
An alliance? That would definitely help, but what if that's just a fluke to get my things... Well, I'll have to risk it.
"Alright. I am willing to make an alliance."
"Good," Queen Peluna said. She extended her palm and a fire burst alive in her palm. Once it died down, there was a scroll.
"Sign here with your blood. It will complete the blood contract."
Nifty, Lucius thought as he pricked his finger with his sword. Then, he dropped a drop of blood on the paper, which burned up again.
Then Queen Peluna extended her palm.
"Welcome to Poris Kingdom, Lucius Avalon."