Standing at the head of the long formation of canoes, I watched the small waves rocking the sides of the front row of the boats, and slowly lifting it along with the other boats in the next row. Even though my current viewpoint didn't let me see this accurately, I could imagine the entire formation bulging up and down, along with the passing of the small waves.

With five hundred boats strapped haphazardly together, there was no way to keep everything stable. Even though all of the canoes were connected with at least three others except for the four ones at the corner of the formation, I still had to jump around the entire group whenever someone failed to hold the stick properly and caused the whole group to start spilling.

Despite how madly this whole contraption looked like, with no strong current to test its vulnerability nor storm incoming to shower us in its wrath, the trip was just as nerve-wracking for me, as smooth for everyone else.

The moment the first row reached the sandy shore, I kicked them out of their boats, forcing them to jump into knee-deep water, from where they had to pull their own boats on the shore by themselves. Separating it from the rest of the formation by simply dropping the axis that connected each of the boats with the deeper row, the people would simply drag their own vessels to the dry shore.

With the constant lack of the materials like wood in my small world, there was no way I would discard such a huge amount of it, so instead of just letting them rot on the side of the beach, even before leaving their home island, I told everyone to drag it as deep inside the place as they could, before making space for the next round of parasailors.

Row by row, people were jumping to the water, separating their boats from each other and pulling them deeper into the beach. By the time half of the entire group was already ashore, we actually started running out of free space for both the people and their boats, but with the initiative taken by one of the refugees to move deeper into my island, the process of unloading the carg… eee… people on the land proceeded without any major hiccups.

"Welcome to your new home!"

Spreading my arms wide, I declared as soon as the annoying procedure of getting on the dry land was finally done. While we were all standing on the barren sands on the island with nothing but my tower in sight, I was the only one with higher ground, using the pile of the discarded canoes as a platform so that entire thousand of the people that I brough with me would be able to hear me properly.

Before any protests could start, I shook my hands to indicate I wasn't done with my introduction.

"I know how this place looks like, but before I will lead you to the actual paradise, I need three of you to step up. I will just ask you a question, so deal with it amongst yourself who do you trust that is not an insider placed in your ranks by me in order to convince you guys. Just try to make it fast."

With how they would the first to enter the sphere of influence of my stronghold would disappear from the sight of others, I had to prepare everyone for this fact. If I were to randomly choose from the current inhabitants of my small world, there could still be a doubt that I intentionally bribed them or some other dumb excuse that those poor and terrified by their new reality people would make up in order to make sense of the events.

If I really wanted to force them into accepting the fact that I wasn't the legendary monster from under their beds that mothers used to scare their children into obedience since ages ago in most likely any given culture around the world, I had to give them the choice of who I would bring out to prove my good intentions.

After waiting for a few moments, the three people were finally elected and moved forward out of the crowd.

"Give me three names of the people that went with me back when I saved the first one hundred of you guys. Just keep in mind that a few of them ran away, so I can't say for sure that you will be lucky enough to pick the right ones."

By bringing someone who came with me back then, I could prove that disappearing in the sphere of influence of my tower wasn't anything bad, saving myself loads of trouble bound to appear where this one thousand souls strong group would start to panic. No matter how much I would attempt to explain how it worked to them, only a direct showcase could prove my words!

"Helia, Matosn and Gabriel."

After taking a short time to debate, the trio finally came up with the names of the people they wanted me to bring outside. Maybe because they saw me being close to Helia and heard me back when I brought them all when I spoke about Gabriel, but I knew that I could bring at least two of them! As for the Matosn guy, he could be either one of those idiots who ran away and ended up either in the ancestral ground's and now with everyone else at the beach, or in some random wild beast stomach. Only by going inside my small dimension I could get to know that.

"Okay, then guys. I need you to wait here for a few moments. Don't get scared when I will disappear! I will be back with at least two of them in just a few minutes!"

Jumping down from the elevated platform made out of the discarded canoes, I approached the boundary of my stronghold's sphere of influence. After turning around to wave at the big crowd of people just a fewteen meters behind, I stepped forward and crossed the barrier.

While the vision was blocked by the defensive mechanism, it didn't apply to the sounds at all. I could hear a great commotion raised the moment I had to disappear from their sights, but instead of going back to show them that I was all okay, I dashed forward, keen on bringing those who witnessed the glory of my land as soon as possible. After all, even if I proved that nothing wrong happened to me after disappearing behind the illusory barrier, it wouldn't change anything about their potential worries.

Covering the distance separating me from the tower's doors in a distance that would put many of the marathon runners and even short-distance sprinters to the shame, I finally entered the small world.

But it was strange!

According to my calculations, with how the time was diluted about two times when compared to reality, it should be already night in this place, yet it was filled with the rays of the fake star that shined way above my head!

While it bothered me a bit, I sprinted towards the closest person.

"Where is Helia?"