Carne Village

It turns out that gaining the devotion of hundreds of people you just met is super easy, barely an inconvenience. All you need is to own a location that has injected itself into the collective unconscious, reveals its existence to those at a required level of desperation, magically transports those people to it, and it helps to look quite divine.

Unfortunately the majority of my new hires didn't even qualify as Lackies, let alone something actually useful to me like Functionaries or Cultists, on account of them being mostly starving children. We're talking weeks of recovery followed by months of training before they become productive assets, and years before they peak their potential. Truly, benevolence is the slow road to gains.

Fortunately the grown up Cultists were perfectly capable of taking care of all the children, even more so after I used the devotion generated by the Tiamats, Cultists, and the rest of my almost six hundred followers to purchase a 200 point Church for them, putting up a building that blows away their little shrines by raising the potential of my Cultists trained their Churches also increase the Devotion multiplier of attending Cultists, and have a 300 point upgrade to a Cathedral, and a 500 point upgrade to a Grand Cathedral, a building capable of producing Tier 7 Cultists with a 3.5 multiplier on Devotion gains, and Tier 8 High Priests, effectively spawning a religion capable of taking over the whole world.

Of course, to get to those levels requires time, dedication, talent, and support not each of those things available in abundance. Over time I'd overcome this as the potential available through my purchases grows, especially All Kinds of Tools.

More importantly, by generating three of these Churches I'll be able to complete the Standard Mission: Witness My Divine Splendor and its first optional objective which would land me 180 Company points. If I choose to keep the mission for longer than that and manage to become the only major religion in the world I'll get a copy of the True Longinus from DxD. A pretty dope Tier 8 weapon that fits my build really well.

After awing everyone with my god tier construction skills - actual god tier as I built a Church with just the click of a button - and settling in the new arrivals I generated a powerful stallion - a high gloss black Frissian - with his accompanying tack and mounted up to complete the final objective I'm willing to do for the Tutorial Mission, interact with plot relevant characters.

While some may not feel Enri and Nemu matter much to the plot of Overlord, they obviously missed the part where Mamonga handed Enri a horn that summons the third most powerful military force in the New World. It really encapsulates the theme of the setting that a casual trash item from Ainz manages to summon a fighting force more powerful than the Black Scripture minus the godkin. I obviously can't just let Carne Village get raided in a few days by the Theocracy. I own it as a part of my holdings from the Artist's Lair, and that raid is a violation of my rights. I won't stand for it, and I need to rub some dirt in the Theocracy's eye if I'm ever going to be the only religion in the setting without getting wildly reductive of the population.

Even at a normal canter it took less than fifteen minutes to arrive at the frontier settlement. I stopped out of sight, a hundred yards or so within the tree line that surrounded the little clearing that these people built their whitewashed homes in. Riding into town alone failed to capture the essence of the message I intended to convey with this introduction. That message being 'I own you'.

With a flex of my will and a ripple and slither of my Shrouds I was now joined by fifty mounted knights, as well as ten stocky drovers and porters who brought with them two steers, and two carts loaded with mead, grain, nuts, roots, and salt. Despite the sentience of my homunculi, they don't count towards any of my population goals, and do not generate Devotion. They also don't gain any of the benefits my various types of servants gain, nor do they generate Talents nor gain levels.

Despite this, if they were to fight, my knights would rampage over most of this world. The Primal Shroud had no problems making man shaped monsters, and though the human body isn't an ideal combat form, a full biological overhaul in the form of a monster zoology collage can easily generate Tier 5 transhuman bodies with finely tuned combat oriented sinapses. Arm and sheathe them with adamantine weapons and armor and you have a fighting force capable of outmuscling most of this world's problems. A blunt tool for sure, but a commodity I can endlessly spawn and the knightly shape grants me a large measure of ingrained authority in human realms.

The appearance of a knightly force certainly got the locals tending their herb gardens running and shouting, not that this location had any defenses or defenders to prepare, or even people capable of running fast enough to escape a hostile action. Carne Village, and the other frontier settlements in this region relied on proactive hiring of adventurers to clear out their surroundings of danger and the good will of their fellow humans not to attack them. Places like this get wrecked on the reg, but Carne Village stood the test of time, existing for over a century before the Slain Theocracy chose to wipe it and its neighbors off the map.

A small gathering chose to meet me on the path into the village and I cut off the middle aged man who opened his mouth to greet us with a shouted, "Rejoice!" I called out to them with my magically enticing voice, the sound carrying clearly far beyond its physical limitations, "I bring you good tidings of great joy and rich gifts which shall be to all the people of this village."

From the look on the middle aged man's face you'd think no one ever gave him a gift in his entire life. Stunned disbelief, guarded skepticism. It's almost like these backwoods hicks never met anyone in this life who didn't want something from them. If that's the case, they still haven't as I am here to secure some sweet sweet Devotion.

Come to me, little sheeple. In a world where human life is cheaper than dirt, I value you. You are more precious to me than silver and gold, all 120 of you. I value you all at a rate of 12 points up front, and more to come as I infect you with my cult. I will keep you protected, sheltered, sustained, and healthy so that those lives pay dividends for as long as possible.

Ayn Rand lives on rent free in my heart.

As the members of the town gathered, a long process considering some had to return from their work in the forest, my homunculi got to work butchering the cows in the village square below their bell tower. My new citizens got to enjoy the whole show from slicing the steers throats to skinning, gutting, beheading, and sawing in half for both animals. Normally, the beef needs to hang for a couple of weeks to break down and tenderize, but not my cows. GMO's for life. Blades sharper than razors produced the eight primal cuts of beef, and then worked them down into the fantastic beloved cuts ready for the grill.

Truly the Primal Shroud shows its place as the premier of all Shrouds in the copious marbling of the beef.

"My friends, and you are my friends." I began my announcement speech as I pressed my finger tips together, breaking the spell of the beef with the magic of my voice, "It is a time for celebration, great in merryment and gayness. From now on Carne Village shall be a place of security and prosperity, great gifts in any place, but these are to be expected for Carne Village has already received the greatest gift of all: Me, Donnchadh Lennox MacFarlane, your new Baron. I own these lands, and everything and everyone on them. How wonderful for all of you."

An elderly man forced his way out of the gathered crowd, thin as a whip and bald as an egg.

"Did you say MacFarlane?" he demanded loudly with his fist clenched in front of him.

"Yes I did." I nodded, idly gesturing in his direction with one hand before returning it to the other.

"You people are sheep fuckers!" he screamed and the crowd gasped in remarkable coordination.

Normally, one does not accuse the man with the platoon of knights of sheep fuckery, but for me it felt incredibly nostalgic.

"Of course we had to fuck the sheep." I nodded in genteel agreement with the man, causing another round of gasps, "After all your wives and daughters got too sore for more, someone had to take up the slack."

"Keep my wife out of your mouth!" the man shrieked in a rage.

"What's wrong, old timer?" I put some obviously fake concern in my voice, "Remembering all those fond smiles your missus sported every time she thought about all the MacFarlane men she serviced in the past? Keep talking and I'll see to it that the new generation of your family learns to smile like that."

"You!" the man choked out as he fell to his knees weeping while I marveled at this piece of personal history the company put into my backstory.

"Me." smirked at the man then turned my face back to the crowd, "Worry not, all those who remember what it was like to have MacFarlanes as your neighbors. The fact that I brought a gift of cattle should have clued you all in, but for those who don't understand, just know that I made a promise to be a good lord, even if it kills me… or anyone else for that matter."

I could feel the dissonance between the menace in my words and the magic in my tone soothing everyone down, and after a brief chuckle I grinned and announced, "That is enough talking, it's time to cook."

And in a flash of inspiration I realized something amazing. I can manipulate the synapses of my Primal Shroud creations to generate memories and skill sets, and the Faerie Feast lure not only makes food cooked by me supernaturally good, but also can be turned down to just giving me the capabilities of a world class chef. I made the 10 point purchase and manipulated the brains of my non combat homunculi, giving them the skill sets I just received from The Company. It was almost enough to move me to tears, as now I can eat top tier food every meal and I don't have to cook it myself like all those cuck contractors I read about.

Glory, glory, hallelujah!

My incredible mood infected the villagers, and soon I had the population singing and dancing as the food cooked, save for a handful of old men who looked upon the event as the beginning of Armageddon and me as the Devil walking the earth among them. After looking at some of the new missions that arrived onto the board, I don't think I blame them for that take.

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Author's Note :

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