Oraguth, Hiru, Arlo, Berith, and Coran were gathered, all standing at arms waiting for the antiheroes to address them.
They were all dressed in the steel thread armor which Berith had mass produced and all bore their respective weapons, which had been hand crafted by Garett. The quality of each weapon was amazing, and they felt so light that their training went swiftly and they each became capable warriors with little difficulty. Of course, the durability of the weapons did not suffer as a result of being made of this lightweight material.
Not only this, but because each person here had been acknowledged by Trevor- who currently had the skill [Magnificent Leader], their strength was far beyond that which could be considered normal. While it was nowhere in the realm of the antiheroes, it was enough strength to consider each and every one of these fighters to be on par with an entire military force- that of a country's ace in the hole. If they were to be compared to other monsters, they would fit right in among the highest tier of monsters- the 9th tier, also known as the upper echelon of the most powerful set of monsters. The antiheroes, mostly thanks to Ashley's intuition, were well aware of not only their own strength relative to the inhabitants of this world, but also of the relative strength of their own subjects- which now outclassed even the strongest monsters of this world.
The subordinates of the antiheroes could fight even the most powerful of monsters in a one on one fight, despite the fact that they all came from the lower and middle tiers originally. The tier which they came from originally did not actually effect their current strength however, as Trevor's ability increased their abilities by potentially thousands, or even millions of times, however this was not a simply direct increase. There were many factors that went into the calculation, but essentially it maximized their strengths and eliminated their weaknesses so that they each became a powerful fighting force. As of right now, the only enemies which would stand a chance of beating one of the subordinates of the antiheroes in a one on one fight would be the monster kings themselves. However, if many 8th or 9th tier monsters were to gather and fight against the subordinates as a group, there still existed the possibility of being defeated.
In the case of Coran, he begun as a lower tier 2 monster, however after being awakened by his masters, combined with his own personal training, he was currently on the upper end of tier 9 in strength.
His strength has increased by a factor of around 80,000 as a result of coming under the wings of his masters.
Trevor's skill only applied to those who he acknowledged, and so these five were the only ones who had received its benefits thus far, however Hiru had been diligently training his son Gotek and his daughter Wara to be strong warriors so they too would eventually become members of the punishment force.
'All in due time... a long term investment is meant to pay off more than an initial investment after all', Trevor thought when directing their training.
Also, Garett had taken an interest in Gotek's abilities, and had performed a few experiments with him as an assistant thus far. From what he knew, Gotek was able to manipulate the physical properties of a substance, however only on a small scale- and anything that Gotek could do Garett was able to do on his own using his [Master Craftsman] skill.
Even so, he was able to find a use for Gotek's ability. He was able to produce concentrated liquid mana without having to compress it just by having Gotek mess around with it until it worked. There was a lot of trial and error involved, but eventually success was had.
'Ah... the amount of rolls I saw going off Gotek's head before he finally succeeded was mind boggling... but it was certainly intriguing... to try endlessly to hit a jackpot with a low probability... heh heh... if one has a 1% chance to roll a critical hit, then normally they would assume that they would get one if they rolled the dice 100 times... but that isn't how probability works.'
In statistics, anything greater than a 20% chance is considered to be significant, and anything less than a 5% chance is considered to be insignificant. What does this mean? It means that if something has greater than a 20% chance of happening, then it isn't some random unreasonable event that should have never happened but by some miracle did, and if it is less than 5% then it essentially means that it is some miracle type event that shouldn't have happened but did.
In between is considered a grey area where it could be significant, or it could be not significant depending on the accuracy needed.
Using 20% as the level of significance to define what is considered reasonable, it would be reasonable for the number of tries to span anywhere from 22 to 160. This range is very great, and as such it should be obvious that within the first 100 tries it is not guaranteed (As many would assume it is) to be successful within the first 100 tries. As a matter of fact, the chance of not being successful within 100 tries is 36.6%, slightly over 1 in 3.
Therefore, Garett was not surprised at all when it took forever for Gotek to actually get a good roll.
Garett turned to his subordinates and spoke with a grateful smile.
"You all... what wonderful slaves we have obtained... to be so ultimately loyal to us, and so competent as subordinates pleases me as a future demon lord... I am convinced that with things as they are, that there will be no issues with us leaving temporarily to gain information, and so we will leave the ruling of the village to the Determined, while we are gone. Coran. Step forward."
Coran stood forward, trembling with excitement. He was delighted to be acknowledged by such great and compassionate leaders, who had given him and his sister more than they could ever have hoped for. Position, power, prestige, and the ability to pursue their dreams and hopes. Most importantly, they had freed them from the chains of living as mere monsters, by ironically placing the chains of slavery onto them.
There was no other leader worthy of his respect aside from the antiheroes in his mind, and he was truly elated to be here right now.
"You have made the most progress of anyone here, and taken your duties as the leader of the punishment force very seriously. There have been no issues since installing you as the captain, and I am confident in saying that there will be no issues with you remaining in your position. Is there anything you desire from us? We plan on going to the human realm very soon to investigate. If you have any wish, state it." Trevor proudly exclaimed.
Coran began to think. What could he possibly ask for?
"No, there is nothing I wish for, your excellency. Only that me and my sister are allowed to remain as your vassals and do your bidding as you see fit."
"I see... that is fine, however we will be keeping in contact with you. If anything comes up- whether it be an issue or a request of yours, please let us know. Do not ever feel as if we are unapproachable. If there is an issue, I want you to come to us so that it may be considered and addressed."
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"Of course."
"We can leave things to these guys. My intuition says there will be no problems while we are gone, and either way we'll be able to return quickly should anything happen.", Ashley whispered.
If her intuition said so, it had to be right.
"Thank you all! Please keep our village safe!", Samantha exclaimed.
The five merely smiled and bowed, before exiting.
When the five exited, and the other subjects currently inside the chamber had exited Samantha let out a sigh of relief.
"Whew... good grief. Being a leader sure is tough. Being able to hear the thoughts of others is... disturbing, however thankfully none of our subjects harbor any ill will towards us. I'm sure it would be a lot more aggravating if anyone hated us... however we could easily take care of that.", Samantha sighed.
"Absolutely. I wish we could get a break, but you know what they say. The more you get done, the more there is to do. It seems like the second we finish one task we are presented with three more to replace it...", Trevor responded casually.
Garett simply laughed and Ashley got up from her slouched position.
"So, what now?"
Samantha then waved her hand, and before they knew it each of the antiheroes had become....
Elves.
They had decided to infiltrate the human realm as a group of elves for two reasons.
The first was because Trevor was an elf, and so it would be a lot more believable if a group of elves randomly showed up at the gates of the human realm. Now- technically speaking, they did not know whether or not elves were considered monsters in this world, however Ashley's intuition told her that there would be more issues if they showed up as humans to the gates, so they instead took these forms. No matter what she considered, there would be slight issues, but this was the idea which her intuition told her would have the least issues.
If a group of humans showed up at the border of a country, then one would initially assume they were citizens of the neighboring country who were trying to get into the new country- and if the border was between the country and a wasteland where no humans inhabited, then this would only lead to suspicion. Why would humans be lost in the middle of the monster realm? If they were from the country that would be one thing, but they had no way to prove that, and using mind control to deceive an entire country worth of people would be completely out of the question, particularly because they would never be able to return them back to normal without raising huge amounts of suspicion.
That would become far too problematic. As elves, they might be able to fein ignorance about the country and its customs. This raised it's own problems though. What if elves were common citizens of the country, and they were assumed to be inhabitants? What if there existed no other places in the world where elves resided, and they were unable to fein ignorance, only leading to further suspicion? Or what if elves were marked with prejudice by the human rulers, or even considered to be monsters?
Still, these worries were mostly taken care of by listening to the gut of Ashley, who was [Always Right]. While Trevor was worried about all these things, there was only one thing he could rely on- and that was her intuition. There was simply a lack of information.
From what the antiheroes knew from Claire, the Vythguard empire was the country which controlled the border between the human and monster realm. They had established a guard force called the border patrol, who occasionally went on expeditions to beat back any encroaching monsters from the wall which separated the realms.
While it would have been possible to disguise themselves as members of the border patrol, Ashley had a bad feeling about doing so. Trevor speculated that the reason Ashley had such a bad feeling was likely because the members of the empire would be suspicious if new faces showed up and their cover would likely be blown. If they instead masked themselves as elves- who may or may not be welcomed, they could claim that they merely got lost or left behind in an elven expedition, and are looking for shelter as refugees.
It was not a perfect plan.
There were holes in it.
However, the antiheroes had decided on one thing.
They would try not spread their existence and the establishment of the dictatorship to the land of humans just yet.
They had already allowed their fame to spread in the monster realm, however from what they knew, the humans did not consider monsters- even the intelligent ones- to be worthy of conversation.
They were simply beasts to be beaten back, not even able to be put under interrogation.
That was too optimistic of an assumption for Trevor, but he decided that if the existence of the Dictatorship was exposed that that would be acceptable- as they could deal with that problem when it arose.
The real problem would be if their fame spread and then their identities were exposed while they were in the land of the humans.
That would likely cause mass panic, and they might even have to resort to massacre in a worst case scenario. They should only expose their identities in specific situations, to people who were either completely trustworthy, or who they knew would not spill the secret due to aligning motives.
Garett and Ashley did not seem to mind the thought of massacring people who did not acknowledge them as worth negotiating just because they were monsters, however Trevor and Samantha wanted to avoid this if possible in order to keep their reputation up and their profile low, so they had all agreed to keep their identities secret while in the human realm.
They had even come up with new names for each other, and decided to use them as their common names- not only for their undercover operations, but to allow their subordinates to refer to them as such.
Garett became Gary, Trevor became Theo, Ashley became Ally, and Samantha became Sarah.
Yes, they were all names that somewhat resembled their real names.
Was this dangerous? What if the indeterminant found out about these code names and was able to guess their real names based on them?
Trevor had deduced that this was not dangerous.
Lets say that the indeterminant found out their code names, and tried killing the antiheroes by using a command.
If the indeterminant used the fake name and an error resulted, what would happen? Perhaps first he would check the spelling, and after confirming that the spelling was correct, he would then ponder as to why it didn't work. He might realize that the names were false, and perhaps he would even try a few similar things, however...
Was that really likely?
If you found out that the password you had been using was not actually the right password, what chance was there of you randomly guessing the right one with no further information? It would be a pointless action. If the one which you thought was correct was incorrect then there was no reason why the real password would be similar to it. It could be anything.
Everyone knows that when they forget their password for a site, they end up trying everything they can think of, only to find out that nothing works. Then, following this, they reset their password, only to be told the following:
'New password cannot be your old password'
Point being, trying to guess something with no reliable information is ridiculous, and will never yield fruit. Trevor was certain of this. If the indeterminant was intelligent, surely he would understand this and not waste his time guessing. Even if he was an idiot and spent his time guessing, then he would likely grow bored after failing many times before he actually guessed the correct names of the antiheroes. If he truly was guessing and happened to get lucky, then there would be nothing more to say aside from that the antiheroes simply got an extremely bad roll.
So, the antiheroes decided to use these new names and create a new persona in the human world.
They gathered everything they needed, and equipped themselves in the steel thread armor, full with helmets, boots, gloves, and body armor. Who knows? Perhaps they could even get others to be interested in it, and later cause a flood of buyers to flock to the dictatorship. For now, however, they covered this armor with an illusion and made it seem as if they were wearing elegant robes that were fitting of elves.
After gathering all they needed, the four stepped outside of the pulsating royal heart building, and walked through the village with the postures of true rulers. Not a single person bowed as they passed, however Samantha overheard the thought's of all the subjects.
'It's the antiheroes! I can't believe they are right in front of my eyes!'
'Ah! Our kind and benevolent rulers! How I wish to lick their feet in submission!'
'How wonderful they all look... I am unworthy to be stepping on the same ground as them!'
Samantha smirked devilishly as she was being complemented by the goblins and slime people she passed. She currently had the face of a true demon and was laughing in an evil manner to herself.
'It's great to be a dictator'