The antiheroes headed back to the slime village with the ultimately loyal group of lizardmen behind them.
Samantha was even whistling. She seemed to be in a good mood.
Arlo was in somewhat of a daze at first but he came to his senses quickly.
"We could use a warrior to protect the people... what do you say we put you to work as a sort of secret police? Your job is simple. Defend the people while we aren't there, and ensure that there are no seeds of rebellion spread among the people. A fair job for someone of your caliber, no?", Trevor recommended to Arlo.
Arlo immediately agreed.
"I will do it."
"I will do it, YOUR EXCELLENCY", Trevor stated with emphasis.
Arlo shuddered at the sudden reprimanding and immediately corrected himself.
"I will do it, your excellency!"
"Now then... I think that takes care of one problem. What about the others? Should we simply put them to work like the goblins?", Garett asked.
"Do you all have any special skills or anything?", Samantha asked Hiru and Lolop.
"Well... not particularly. I am not exactly a warrior, however I will fight if need be. I can do manual labor for sure! My wife is skilled in cooking, and my son, Gotek, has an odd trait... I'm not exactly sure what to say about it, but perhaps it would be better if he were to show you. As for my daughter, Wara, she and my son have been training since they were young to become warriors. While their training is far from finished, I am certain that they could be molded into fine assets for you given time..."
"What is this trait? Gotek?", Garett asked, interested.
Gotek stepped forward and held one hand forward, and made a grasping motion. A chunk of air formed into a cube, about 4 inches in each dimension, of solid air.
The cube dropped to the ground as if it were a solid piece of rock, vibrating on the ground before settling.
"What is this? Do that again.", Trevor said, intrigued.
Once more the child formed a solid cube of air.
"What is going on here? Is he pressurizing the air so that it becomes solid? No... there is no amount of pressure that would cause air to become solid like that.... could it be that he is changing the physical properties and limitations of the air itself? Interesting! He must be shifting the critical temperatures of the substance so that the air exists in a solid state, even under a standard temperature! Red, this could prove useful not only for your alchemy, but perhaps even for other areas. What do you say we have this fellow help you out with some experiments?"
Garett grinned.
"Perfect."
"I am glad that my son could be of use to you", Hiru said.
"Where did your son learn this skill?", Samantha asked.
"I have no idea, to be honest. It seems that he was simply born with it. There are not many lizardmen who possess magical skills like this, and the lizardmen are a warrior race, so there was no benefit in gloating about such a thing. In truth, you are the first people who we have told about this skill."
"Surely our demon here will think up some use for that which was considered useless...", Ashley chuckled.
Garett then turned forward towards the village while waving to the group to follow him.
"Come. You all have renounced your silly pride in order to serve a greater purpose. We will now show you what it means to serve as our slaves."
-----
The antiheroes then led the group of lizardmen through the village. None of the goblins ceased their work as they passed by, mainly because of something that Trevor had said to them.
"If you have time to waste by paying us respects and stupid things like that, then spend it getting more work done. Efficiency is everything. Worthless things like flattery and keeping up appearances only ever get in the way of efficiently completing tasks."
"What wise words from your excellency! I would expect nothing less from a leader such as yourself, who truly considers things which would be unthinkable for a normal ruler to consider!", one of the goblins replied.
"What did I just say? If you have time to speak pretty words, get your ass back to work!"
The goblins immediately resumed there work from then onward, and despite having respect for their leaders and wishing to acknowledge them as they passed, they understood the intentions of Trevor, and out of respect for his wishes, instead did not pay him or the other antiheroes respects when they passed.
While this disappointed Samantha slightly, she agreed with the logic and understood that it was better for them to focus on getting work done. There was so much to do if the town was to be completely remodeled. Much progress had already been made, however they were nowhere close to where they should be at.
"I have an idea, regarding the secret police force you suggested, Elf.", Ashley stated.
Her intuition told her that there would be no issues with this idea. While Ashley normally would not have the confidence to make a suggestion like this regarding the use of their human resources, ever since she had gained the trait [Always right], she ended up being more confident in her decisions. She felt as if she couldn't make a mistake. It was as if she had an answer key in her mind, telling her whether or not she was doing the right thing.
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"Before anything, I think we should head to the home of those two spiderlings. It involves them. Also... where is that one goblin who seemed to be the least tormented among the bunch? We should find him as well. I think he would be a good asset to use for this."
Trevor pointed out the way.
"I think he should be working in that area right now. Let's go get him"
----
After finding Oraguth hard at work with a couple other goblins and an orange slime person, Trevor approached him.
"Oraguth. Come with us. We have a task for you to perform."
Trevor had come to trust all of his comrades in the party, and didn't even ask what Ashley's plan was before putting it into action. He had come a long way from when he first came here.
'If you want something done right you have to do it yourself'.
Trevor still firmly believed these words, however after going through thick and thin with these three, he considered them to be almost an extension of himself. Even with their flaws- even if they were all deranged to an extent- even if sometimes he couldn't understand them.
They were people he knew he could trust, since they were linked together.
His benefit was their benefit, and their benefit was his benefit.
This was why Trevor had such a great trust in his comrades.
If he was hurt, they all were hurt, and if he was happy, they all were happy. It was a situation that could never have happened to him in the real world, but he felt almost happy to have his fate shared with others.
Never in his life had he depended on others like this.
And never in his life would he have. However, the very fact that the four functioned as a single party- the fact that they were literally bound together by the strange rules of this world, forced them to work together. It ensured that betrayal of one another was something which would only hurt them, and so it was an absurd possibility to consider.
The group, now with Oraguth, then proceeded to the home of Berith and Coran which they had previously visited just that morning.
Samantha looked at the tailor shop before a light bulb sparked in her head.
"Hey, ghost girl. If were gonna go with a haunted theme for the entire city, don't you think we should redesign this shop to be a bit more... spiderish? Like, cover it in cobweb designs and rename the shop... how about 'The spinner'?"
"Not a bad idea... we should go into more details later."
The group then entered the tailor shop to see Berith, still hard at work- with three shirts and pairs of pants next to her, made of a bandage-like material, however more grey than normal as opposed to the usual white shade. They shined almost like a metal. She was currently sewing another one on her loom.
Next to her was Coran who was currently doing some shadowboxing. He clearly wanted to improve himself in order to be able to defend his sister, and to further assist the antiheroes. The blowpipe which Garett had donated to him was laid carefully on a stand, and surrounding him was a small practice area for target practice and even a sandbag for physical combat... of course, it had many tears and rips in it due to his sharp spider-like arms.
"Ah... you all have returned. Your excellencies, please take a look at these outfits I have weaved after consuming that potion that was given to me.", Berith requested.
Garett and the rest walked over to the outfits, and he picked one up while inspecting it.
It was a normal shirt- similar to the ones worn by Coran and Berith, which looked like it was made of bandages, and it drooped in Garett's hands as would be expected upon picking it up. It was soft like cloth, and did not seem to have any metallic properties.
Garett was somewhat disappointed that giving Berith the potion of steel thread did not allow her to create a chain-mail like thread which could be used to create a more durable material, however he would still put this material under experimentation to see if it had any properties that made it different from the average threads she was using.
"I see... these can't be used for armor then. Well, that is unfortunate, but there can be no success without failure. Thank you for your hard work, Berith. Please continue trying new things, and I will once more return to the lab to try to make something better for you to work with."
"Failure? Your excellency, I think you might want to test out those pieces of equipment before you deem them to be a failure."
"Hm? They're just regular shirts, no? They aren't any different from standard clothing that you could've made without the potion of steel thread."
"They are not regular shirts. Why don't you have someone wear one of them and undergo an attack to test them out? While there is no way they would be able to withstand an attack done by one of your excellencies... ah! You over there. Yes, you. The buff lizardman."
Berith pointed to Arlo excitedly while she slipped the steel thread shirt on over her and got up from her seat. Coran seemed to be watching nervously, unsure what his sister was up to.
"That's a mighty large club you have there. Do you think that you can give me a good smack with it?"
Arlo was a little shocked at the bluntness of this small spider girl.
He looked to the antiheroes to see what he should do, but only received a shrug from Ashley.
"If she seems so confident in herself, let him hit her. Don't go all out though. Try to make it so that she can be healed if worst comes to worst."
Arlo flashed a bitter smile at being underestimated like this, however he raised his club.
There was no way that a flimsy shirt would act as armor against his attack. He would have to hold back significantly so that he didn't kill the small girl on impact.
Was this spiderling actually very strong, despite her appearance? Or was she nuts? Or perhaps she was just an idiot? Based on the way she spoke, Arlo thought it was most likely the case that she was insane.
'But what is this that I feel from her... it's as if she is... bloodthirsty... those eyes... they are not the eyes of a little girl... they are the same eyes that the spirit girl showed when she was tormenting Pilir and ripping off his flesh... what on earth has she been through to become like this...'
It was only for a second, but Arlo sensed it. The spider girl was a menacing ball of rage inside, and this cutesy appearance- perhaps along with her respect for the antiheroes, was the only thing that kept her from going off the rocker.
Arlo raised his club, and stepped forward towards the spider girl who seemed to be taunting him with two of her spider-like arms.
"What's wrong? Can't hit a cute little girl like me? Or perhaps you're too ashamed that you won't be able to hit me? Hehe... probably the latter..."
He swung his club through the air at her torso, which was covered by the steel thread shirt, and smacked her lightly. At the end of the day, Arlo was no longer the proud warrior he once was. If he was his former self, he would have been provoked by that taunt, but...
After being subject to the dominating strength of the antiheroes, he had been well put into his place.
He was not about to do anything rash and ruin his reputation over a slight provocation. If he were to harm this spider girl as a result of something as silly as his pride, then he would lose much more than his life.
Clang!
The club hit the shirt, however as it hit the shirt the material hardened significantly. If it were in slow motion, the motion of the club striking the shirt would have looked like how a person bounces off of a trampoline, however it happened in just an instant, and the elastic deflection of the shirt was only around a millimeter at most.
The club came flying backwards as Arlo stumbled back, barely keeping his own balance and staring at Berith in shock.
"What on earth!? That material was as soft as a pillow just a moment ago!"
Garett grinned devilishly.
"Hohoho? Interesting! Very interesting!! So this material only exerts its metallic properties when under a great amount of stress? I wonder how it would do in tensile stress.... I suppose we should test that later. For now, produce as many of those as you can. I will have Iotar send you more of the steel thread potions later."
"Of course, your excellency", Berith said with a somewhat menacing tone of voice, as if she were a witch who was commissioned to perform experiments.
"Now then... the reason I wanted to come here was to make an announcement to the people here", Ashley stated in an indifferent tone as she slithered forward with uninterested eyes.
She grinned violently.
"Red, Elf, you both have touched on this before, so I am taking your idea, but I think we should establish a punishment force in order to enforce our rule and ensure that any seeds of rebellion are crushed at the roots."