Home, sweet home

So I ran off.

I would rather die than spend 5 hours talking to that idiot.

While running through the caves, my mind drifted to thinking about my citizens.

In the war, I noticed some trends.

For example, Dante used a big axe and copied the same motion he used to execute someone. When he did so, you could hardly recognise him. His eyes turned sombre and his face grew expressionless.

He returned to what he was meant to be, a killing machine. Compared to what he actually was, which was a dumb oaf, the change was immediate and almost seamless.

In fact, I had noticed that, in general, most demons wore expressionless faces when killing.

They became machines almost, with deadly precision and no regret.

It was a side of them I barely recognised.

Was this why demons were touted as one of the top races?

They were essentially war machines!

They were created by a psychopath, who created a two-faced race with one side normal and the other a maniacal robotic slaughterer side.

I found myself to be far more heartless in action than in thought.

I had killed tens of people, yet all I felt was that it was a waste of human labour.

When was I such a maniac? When did I start thinking this was a game?

No, I wanted to be in control, not some stupid demonic defect.

Last time, all I had to do was meditate, so I will do it again.

So I did, and I found nothing.

No image, no fighting.

Nothing.

What do I do now? Do I have to do something else?

Argh! I hate this. Why could I not just be a regular human?

I mumble under my breath, "Stupid demon, stupid game."

As I returned home, I found Randol and his friend working hard.

Lately, Randol has been kind of like a grandpa to me. He gave me advice when he thought I needed it, and most importantly, he gave me customised weapons.

His ore magic meant he could create, bend, and even harden most materials he had. He was, latterly, the perfect blacksmith. I did not even need to give him any materials.

He was a walking treasure producer, and I would protect him as well as I could.

Hold on, did I even think about defence?

Argh, I didn't.

C'mon, Alex, you need to get it together. A single mistake could cost your citizens their lives, and you're out here forgetting defence.

A blunder, a massive, stupid blunder on my part.

I had left Randol with no guard or even put any thought into his safety. He could have been taken or worse, killed, and I had not even thought about it.

Randol had taught me many things. As a craftsman himself, he knew many things, and his age brought with him wisdom.

When I would occasionally talk to him during my inspections and free time, he would always give me sound advice.

Yet, I had not thought about his safety even once.

I was ashamed.

I would have to fix this.

For now, though, the best I could do was guard him until the others arrived, so I cosied up and prepared for the long wait.

I put Dante as the leader as I left, so I was sure they would get lost in some shape or form on the way back, so it was going to be a long wait.

So, I put my feet up and relaxed a bit.

It had been a long day after all.

Finally, they arrived just as I was about to doze off. Apparently, Dante had gotten them lost.

5 times. In fact, his intellect insults high demons.

Anyway, I then discussed with him having measures installed to guard the place if and when we were gone.

After that, I decided to check my village out completely to see how it was doing.

As I wandered around in my shabby clothing, huts grew like mushrooms in my village. They sprouted in specific areas I had predesignated and carefully planned out, and 3 areas were beginning to rise in prominence.

The busiest area was by far the training area. Still a circular area of flat stone, people used it constantly to both meditate and train. You would think the noise from the other training would distract them, but instead it served as extra training to keep them focused. In other words, they decided to go into hardcore mode and make it harder for no reason.

Next was the town hall, where people used to gather and chat. They usually went out to hunt in groups, and from time to time I would get a notice saying some people were going out to hunt. At first I was scared and told them no, but I slowly realised I could not lock my citizens away and let them rot. I needed to free them.

I still gave them a warning, though, and told them to be careful.

Finally, each and every citizen had their own house. even myself, though I did not use it.

Randol and the workers down in the workshop would spend their days there, but that's self-explanatory. Otherwise, the only place people went was to the campfire for dinner, which everyone had to attend.

I, of course, was allowed to be on leave as I was the lord and was a busy person.

Looking over my kingdom, I felt a surge of pride in what I had built. I myself had worked hard and built some of these structures, and it was home.

I had slept, ate, and fought on these grounds. From placing my pole to recovering from a dire battle, this place is now my home.

Now I had to claim my rewards.

I ran up to the pole and claimed my reward.

Apart from the usual boring screen saying mission achieved, I found myself staring at the fusing poles in mid-air.

They seemed to fuse into one and hovered over my head like they were causing a gravitational shift.

When they completely fused, I felt a wave of power as a blue area ran off in the direction the enemy base was.

[Map updated to include enemy areas.]

[New spawn rate: 9 lower demons and 1 regular demon per week].

Okay, I see. This is probably another incentive to attack people. It seems the games really are ruthless. I noticed when the pole fused that the pole grew in height, maybe 2x as tall as it was prior.

Was this a growth thing? Did the pole act as a beacon of sorts?

Who knew?

Anyway, my rewards were looking delicious, and this only bolstered my idea of being super aggressive.

I was patient, though, and I was going to make sure I lost as few men as possible.

For now, I focused on the beginner's information pack the mission gave me. The reward was supposed to be spawning at any second now.

Ah, here it is.

A slash appeared in front of me a bit like the citizens, and I greasily unfolded it.

Information is king in this kind of scenario. It's why protaganists who go back in time always have such an advantage.

Unfolding the scroll took a bit of figuring out, but after a while of fumbling, I found the method.

As the scroll unfolded, I started reading from the very top.

Hello and welcome to the beginner's information pack.

Here you will learn about a few of the basic power systems.

Then you will be given a brief world map and that will be it.

The basic power systems are:

Swordsmanship: from 1 to 7 stars, 1 being the worst and 7 being the best, each star higher is 10 times as good as the precious one.

This works for most weapons in exactly the same way.

From 1 to 10 rings: 1 being the worst and 10 being the best, each stage higher has access to more mana and a larger variety of spells. They also have more mana storage and can therefore shoot more spells at any one time.

Magic varies from person to person.

The map of your area will be revealed once you explore it.

The map consisted of nothing new, just revealed to me the scale of the world, which was terrifying. I had to spend a few seconds scrolling to get a surface view of where I was. The rest of the map was covered in a dark fog.

It was kind of underwhelming. I was looking for more, but oh well, beggers can't be choosers.

I believed it was the 38th, so that meant I was meant to be doing my medium mission, but we missed it. I guess we will do it tomorrow.

I was lying in the moonlight getting ready to cultivate when I thought about my home and my dream.

Looking at the map made me realise how hopeless my dream was. I was beginning to doubt myself. I was a spoiled child. Everything was given to me on a silver platter, yet this time I had to work for stuff. I was not going to let this opportunity slide.

I wanted to become a kind of king, and some dumb map was not going to scare me in the slightest.

Okay, maybe a bit.

just a bit.

Okay, maybe a lot, but, ah, the moon is looking nice today.

I guess I should cultivate.

With a grin, I closed my eyes and began to wonder.