Discoveries

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Arathorn Liaqen (3)

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Reality was oftentimes the bane of expectations.

Arathorn knew this quite well, which was why he wasn't entirely disappointed with how things were going. Sure, he had considered the possibility that they might have arrived in a different era, which was why everything was out of order— canonically speaking of course— but the existence of two familiar faces on horseback dispelled him of such suspicions.

"Stronoff and Unglaus, ha? Though the former seems to lack his signature armour while the latter his katana." The king murmured softly as his golden eyes flickered to the many people that rode behind the pair.

The people were far too mismatched for them to be from one organisation…but just as well they were many who had emblems that spoke of uniformity and cohesion.

Arathorn felt like he was missing a major part that would make sense of a specific "why" behind this small mixed army's deployment.

"This is certainly an interesting development."

He looked at the projected broadcast with an expression that spoke of contemplation…and perhaps a tiny bit of amusement. In his left hand was a tumbler glass with an amber-clear liquid that came just a quarter of the glass length, the liquid swirled, encouraged by the slight motions of his hand.

This was Macallan "M" and it tasted like a wet dream. Given how easy the upload of miscellaneous items was in YGGDRASIL, he had gotten as many vintages as he could and stashed them with dimensional spaces within the 3rd Floor.

These were items denied to the common man in both his past lives. He would rob them of that value in this one.

'The Dwarves would probably love this.' He thought with a soft smile that quickly faded, 'Of course that's if there weren't extinct by the Quagoa in this life.'

He had already ordered the search for the Dwarven Kingdom within the Azerlisia Mountains if only to find kin for the many Dwarves that were Elgroth born.

There was always the bonus of acquiring innately skilled craftsmen and a race with a natural affinity for Runecraftwhich had actually been available in YGGDRASIL, if less unpopular, racially exclusive and obscure.

Arathorn couldn't blame Ainz for not knowing of it, he doubted the office drone had any deeper understanding of the Norse Mythos. In a way, the true YGGDRASIL craftsmanship was born of Dwarves…but maybe he was getting a bit carried away.

Unfortunately, the search would take months if not years, and he couldn't truly rely on a canon character— Zenberu Gugu— since everything was out of…well, whack.

He had to revise many of his plans and pre-established notions about the New World. After all, it appeared the changes hadn't been limited to the dark elf settlements. History was changed and he didn't know if it stemmed from the First Wave or the Second…

Yet despite it all, it seemed Surshana and Kikotenshin had used Djinn of the Fae similar to how they had in canon: Mana Presence, Omni-Understanding, and Global Affinity.

His prior self hadn't had much difficulty finding the two players given how one of their two World Items' name was known. Deducing how it was used in the original timeline proved simple after that. It was also convenient that Djinn of the Fae was one of the Twenty, thus its abuse would be nonexistent.

The same was true for Ouroboros and Five Elements Overcoming, the former of which he had taken great precedence to secure since it suffered from no limitations.

Arathorn took another sip of the liquor and folded the order to prescribe temporary Coin Cards worth at least five golds to all refugees who be taking residence in Velena the coming days.

"I'm sure a million gold coins will be enough to cover their expenses and encourage the more ambitious of the citizens to buy lands outside Velena."

The fact was, he needed his people to chase after opportunities and wealth in order to grow his Elgroth. To expand their businesses and build farms which would hire the natives of this world and indoctrinate them to the greatness of Elgroth.

If that meant giving away coin and resources then so be it. It wasn't like he lacked for funds anyway. And whatever he'd spent would come back 100 folds since he'd also promised to help those who might be unable to foot the bill by their lonesome.

Unfortunately it was something that all the houses with power would do as well… The Bloodfallen, Einzbern and Smaragdina would probably have fiefdom plans before a week's pass.

The council meeting had ended…and all his aides had headed out to fulfill the duties born from their discoveries.

He had come to his study to take care of the few papers that were in need of his attention, and draft ideas. But mostly he had wanted time to come to terms with the mess he and Amata had done to the timeline.

Carne village wasn't attacked by the Theocracy in this reality. Hell, he doubted if the village ever existed to begin with. For all he knew, Thomas Carne might have tripped and died as a boy.

Instead, there were close to twenty villages that were infested with monsters—Barghasts, Harpies, Slyzard, Dire-beasts, Giant Ants—and Undead creatures. The monsters feasted on the corpses of villagers and livestock laid to ruin by swarms of Undead led by cultists with familiar items in their possession.

It was the cult of Zurrenorn… probably. And they were slaughtering villages to collect Negative Energy via Death Orbs. Judging from the advancement of their death armies, it seemed like they were aiming to converge on a walled medieval town close to 300km north of Velena.

Another anomaly, this town, and one that reminded him of what medieval truly meant— because the dark elven village wasn't enough for some reason.

The town stood confined by fort walls constructed from weathered wood, their once rich hue faded to a somber, dull tone. The design was uninspiring, lacking the pomp of fine craftsmanship that Velena boasted in abundance, but that wasn't a fair comparison.

The wooden walls bore the marks of time, with patches and repairs evident in their structural work, telling tales of skirmishes long ceased.

Within the fortifications, the town wore an air of humble existence. The inhabitants, clad in poorly made and worn clothing, displayed a lack of affluence. The wears were simple, showing signs of numerous repairs, fraying edges, and faded colors, reflecting the austerity of their daily lives.

As for the architecture, it had been built blocky and crude, embodying functionality over finesse. Buildings had been constructed for shelter and security rather than elegance. Irregularly shaped stones and roughly hewn timber formed the foundations and walls. The roofs, thatched with hay and straw, sagged under the weight of years, revealing the struggle to maintain the structures.

This wasn't an isolated case of grim reality but one that seemed to encompass all of the places he'd seen thus far. Despite being a mystical world, everything so far had either fallen under the category of horror, or true medieval sufferance.

He pulsed his mana with intent, and the broadcast changed to one on the destroyed villages…this one infested with Harpies feasting off the remains of villagers long passed but unclaimed by the curse of undeath.

Harpies, the creatures that were meant to be a merger between a bird and woman were instead something…nightmarish.

'So much for adding the Winged Tribe to Elgroth.' Arathorn jokingly thought, 'Then again, I should've probably expected this given how anti-human aesthetic the races of YGGDRASIL were.'

Unless one was from the three humanoid races originally, the nearest their races could come to a humanoid was the bipedal skeleton. This meant that most players relied on custom skins just to enjoy the many cosmetic items available to the humanoid races.

These monsters weren't creatures of fantasy but horrific abominations that seemed to thrive of violence and destruction… Of course, he knew that things wouldn't be equal in aesthetic to their 2D-rendition, or even be the more splendour version of their YGGDRASIL counterpart, but this was a little extreme.

However the humanoid race seemed close to those of his own. They were beautiful and symmetrical…but were withered by the hardships of their lives. These were people who'd ever known survival and thought luxury…comfort, conditions of fairy tales.

And yet for all its depressing appearance, the town had one thing in its favour. Citizenry. Close to ten thousand people. And the number was slowly increasing from the many foreign villagers moving into it.

But alas, the town housed a large cemetery… And if what Arathorn suspected was correct, then Re-Estize was about to lose a huge chunk of its peasantry and fertile land.

…well, at least some of it.

A knock came from his study's door and he beckoned entry after dismissing the projections.

The door opened and a knight clad in phantasmal armour appeared before giving him a bow.

"My king, the lord commander seeks an audience with you."

Cocytus, ha? He was probably here to petition something entirely military. It wasn't that the man was militaristic— he was— but he had a set of principles he abided by. And one of those was separation of personal matters from professional matters.

Again, this wasn't included in his bio.

"Grant him entry." Arathorn permitted with a flourish that arranged the documents on his desk via the use of Order. Convenient magic was a very unpopular category of magic— both in-game and here (for some reason)— due to its lack of harm.

"By your will, my king." The blond knight responded, but before he turned around, Arathron Blinked the stacked documents into the man's hands.

"Have them delivered to one of my assistants, they will know what to do."

Again, the knight bowed.

Cocytus, having heard the granted permission, stepped aside the knight and let himself in. The door closed behind him and Arathorn gestured for his approach while also gulping down the rest of the whiskey in his hand. Gods knew what Sebas would do if he found him drinking hard liquor before the strike of noon, much worse his wife.

The commander was unchanged from when he had seen him two hours ago. Still garbed in his uniform…and still missing his weapon. While it was prohibited for those who weren't guards to be with weapons in the palace, certain people were barred from this rule, and Cocytus was one of those people, which made this all the stranger.

"Thank you for granting me a moment of your time, your majesty."

Arathorn signaled the man to take seat, "No need for formalities, Cocytus." The king said, sinking into his own chair, "We've all been busy— you more than I— so I would rather we get done with the main topic before moving on to more pleasant things."

Cocytus let out a sigh and his features took on a gentler expression, "Oh, that makes things a lot less complicated. Honestly, I was starting to forget some of the steps Irisviel showed to me."

"The wife, heh? I'm guessing she's also the one who's holding your sword hostage?" Cocytus nodded with a self deprecating smile on his face.

Well, that made plenty of sense. There weren't a lot of people— two actually— who held authority over the Legionary Commander.

"So, what do you have for me."

"All I have is requests, I'm afraid. And some information that might not be as valuable as I had previously thought." Cocytus admitted, but that got Arathorn's attention.

"What is this information?"

"The Platoon dispatched to aid the villagers and deal with the monsters successfully secured a village and apprehended some necromantic prisoners. However, they faced challenges in extracting information from the cultists. As a result, Second Lieutenant Finn has submitted a formal request for their transfer to the Black Capsules."

"But, that's not the information, is it?" None of what the commander said truly required his intervention.

The man nodded, "That is true, my king. While the cultists remained mute, the villagers were all but willing to surrender any information that might be of help to their, to put it in their own words, "saviours"."

Arathorn scoffed before gesturing for the man to continue.

From one of his pockets, Cocytus retrieved a folded note he passed to Arathorn, "To summarise it succinctly: 1. All the villages and towns observed belong to the Conclave. 2. The Conclave operates independently, not under Re-Estize or Baharuth. 3. They sought aid from nearby entities, with Duke Vaiself's youngest daughter being the sole responder. 4. The Kingdom of Re-Estize lacks a king, and is currently witnessing a power struggle among its nobility. 5. The villages have been experiencing bad harvests and monster attacks for the past four years."

The king's golden eyes bored into Cocytus, pressuring intent behind them. The man remained uncowered…unaffected, a display that spoke of his honesty. Then again deception wasn't something one could expect from the albino man.

The commander was wrong…so so wrong. The information he'd provided was the greatest thing— behind the dark elves' presence in Tob— he heard today.

This…

It took all of Arathorn's control not to gouge a chunk out of the table with how hard he was grabbing on to it.

…changed everything.

With a slight frown, he looked at Cocytus, "And what are your requests, Legionnaire Commander?"

The man sat straighter and with greater poise at his question, "To build legionnaire outposts near the Great Forest. To promote legionnaire recruitment." The commander said the last one with gritted teeth, as if the request was painful to vocalise, "And to request assistance from the Templars and Gardeners in order to purge the dark taint from the villages' grounds."

Arathorn smiled, pulled parchment paper from his desk and wrote the decrees on it before stamping the Royal Seal, "Granted!"

It seemed villager deaths would be kept to a minimum.

•••••••••World Item (OC) Exposition•••••••••

Djinn of the Fae does not grant perfect wishes; often, the granted wishes might not align with the person's intentions.

For instance, if someone wished for increased mana reserves, the wish might come true, but the drawback could be limited access, only available during sleep, or causing excruciating pain or even death due to the body's inability to handle the sudden surge.

Limits imposed on Surshana's wishes include:

1. Mana Presence: Introduces magical mutations, creating monsters, restricted mana access, and severe limitations on wild magic usage.

2. Omni-Understanding: Requires prior knowledge of a language; written words remain untranslated, with translation being an active, conscious process. Only sapient creatures can utilize this ability.

3. Global Affinity: Imposes varying mana reserves, racial advantages, challenges of bloodline dilution, and exacerbated mutations, particularly with inbreeding leading to rapid and extreme mutations.

==========Author's Notes==========

The Saint: Story will now head out into the world. I hope it isn't far fetched that the MC knows who the Six Gods were in-game, the guy was a hacker and knew about Downfall of Castle and Country. I introduced an OC WCI because I wanted to show that the New World wasn't really a magical place before the first wave. "The Six Great Gods introduced magic to the world and the Greed Kings taught it to the people," I think was what happened.

Making mana existence something that was directly introduced by players will make understandable the animosity of the True Dragon Lords.

It's basically "there can only be one moment" between World Energy and Mana. And Mana is dominating the fight.

There will be a lot of lore and history concerning these two groups in the future. Heads up, there will be major deviations from canon.

Well, as usually remember to provide feedback and criticism. Do you think the OC world item was well explained, or could it be better?

Bye bye!