Maxwell

While the developments of the morning had been thrilling, it was time for me to get back to work on building up my village. The first was getting the new arrivals down to the village. Thankfully, my new spell which was called Transcended Teleportation by the system allowed me to preform a much larger group teleportation.

I returned to the cave and found it crowded. A quick headcount put the total at thirty-six people. All dark elves. I walked through and asked a few their backstories, but the diversity was amazing. The only story I found that was even remotely common, was nearly dying in the Abyss to a monster and wishing to have a second chance at life.

Many of the people were giving me an odd look, but I figured it was due to my void features. I really needed to get a mask to cover my face. I knew these people were bound to the village for a year, but if someone had a strong enough adversity to the void then they might try to sabotage us in some way. Even just refusing to work and eating our food would be a drain on our resources.

Teleporting us to the village plaza. I had a few of the original members of my village help them get settled. Today, I planned on using my mana to promote my people to better positions by giving them the right skills and jobs. I would be lying if I said I didn’t want to go out and hunt to raise my level, but my power came from my village. If it was strong than I was strong.

While I was heading back to the manor, I spotted Rowena. I hurried over to her to let her know about the incident of this morning. As I approached I heard her mumbling. “First a demon lord and now a goddess. What’s next, a titan? Seriously, what are these people thinking releasing beings that can probably wipe out a country. And what was that strange wave that washed over the village this morning?” She sighed loudly while shaking her head.

“Good morning!” I called from right behind her. She jumped and turned around.

“What the hell?!”

“Sorry. You looked so lost in thought I really couldn’t help myself.” Even back on Earth, my friend hadn’t been able to handle jump scares much. He would never let us watch horror movies in the dorm room.

“Very funny. Did you see the message? Now a goddess has returned.”

“Yeah… about that.” I started but Rowena interrupted me.

“What the hell happened to you,” she exclaimed looking me over.

“What do you mean?” I asked then looked for myself. My ebony skin had changed to a bluish-purple. The pulsing cracks had covered my hands and feet as well. I pulled my shirt out and peeked inside to find they were all over my body. In particular was my heart that nearly blazed with purple energy. Rowena pulled out her mirror and showed me my face.

My eyes were glowing even brighter now. My hair had started to crystalize in places. I ran my hand through it. Needless to say, the sensation was strange. It felt hard like a crystal, but moved like regular hair. I thought about this morning and remembered the blood that had gotten onto me from the goddess. That was the only thing I could think about. Quickly checking my status screen pretty much confirmed it for me.

--

Name: Maxwell Orfen

Level: 10

Race: Sacred Void Elf

Class: Lord

Specialization: Void Lord

Total Mana: 574/1,520

Abilities:

Dark Sight

Elemental Magic – Dark, Earth, Fire

Void Magic

Basic Sneak

City Management

Learn Spell: 1

--

“So… about that goddess,” I said rubbing the back of my head awkwardly. That mask was suddenly very high on my list. Being a void elf would apparently attract trouble. Being a Sacred one was sure to invite even more. At least, I had a significant mana boost of almost five hundred points due to the race change.

“No!” Rowena said shaking her head vigorously, grasping what I was getting at.

I smiled with a shrug. “Yep.”

She rubbed the bridge of her nose and exhaled slowly. “I hope it was worth it.”

“Not really sure. I made a mortal enemy as well,” I remarked with a shrug.

“Mortal enemy? So, you pissed off a player?” She asked.

“A player? It couldn’t be an NPC?”

She shook her head. “The grudge system is player exclusive. I really doubt the people studying us changed that.”

I tapped my chin in thought. “Players can be dungeon cores?” Dungeons were usually where players went to level up and get loot by killing monsters. Why would a player want to play something like that?

Rowena shook her head again. “No, or well, I don’t think so. I’ve never heard of a player dungeon core.”

“The message said dungeon core Aurora Nightingale.”

She crossed her arms and seemed to go into deep thought. “I don’t know. There are too many things that I don’t really know about this game. This world…” She paused and looked at me. “Was it the goddess returning that caused it?”

“I don’t think so. There was about a minute between messages. I think it was right after my land became Divine Ground.”

Rowena’s eyes widened. “Shit! This could be bad. Really, really bad.”

“What?! What do you mean?” I asked surprised by her reaction.

“It was after your current territory became Divine Ground, right?” I nodded. “Then there is a very strong chance that you just flooded a dungeon with Divine aura! Depending on the alignment of the dungeon it could have been anything from a spring breeze to feeling like it was being submerged in lava! Considering she declared you a mortal enemy, then I’m willing to bet it was the latter.”

“Crap!” I paced as I considered this implication. “Wait. That means there is a dungeon in my territory?” I looked back to the mountain that I had my back against. It suddenly appeared much less friendly. Any one of the caves along the base could be an entrance to a monster filled hell hole. A monster filled hell hole that was apparently run by a player, and I had just pissed it off.

“We need to get this place’s military going as soon as possible,” Rowena said finally.

I nodded in agreement. If the goblin village wasn’t bad enough, now I had another threat right next to me that might be even worse. Rowena said goodbye and went to a grove to commune with nature. I made my back to the manor and got to work using my mana elevating my people.

First, I worked on the royal guard force. I selected only individuals from first batch of people that had been with me. All the guards were increased in rank, and I made one of them my Royal Commander. He would be able to command all military forces that I created until I broke the hierarchy down some more later.

That gave me a royal guard of twelve including the Commander. There levels ranged from five to ten which was great considering mine and Rowena’s level. I planned to take them with us when we went hunting in the future. I’m not sure how much help it would do, but anything was better than nothing.

Moving on, I gave all the original members of the settlement jobs and higher positions. Quarry and mine foremen, blacksmiths, armorers were among the most used jobs that I focused on. Of the twenty-five originals, they were all assigned new jobs. After that, I set the new arrivals as best I could solely based on their stats and existing skills.

From what I could tell, not everything from their previous life was lost. Many of them had quite a few skills. They were just reduced to level one along with their overall level being reduced to one as well. I assigned anyone that appeared to have skills for fighting to the barracks and the new militia. Since the militia consisted of all new arrivals, I assigned a leader from their group as well. She would report directly to me and the Royal Commander, but it would make the newcomers aware that they could receive good jobs as well.

I also threw some resources into new housing. The influx from the upgraded gate had overwhelmed the extra housing I had constructed the other night. Since there would be a new group every twelve hours, I had to make sure to keep up with the new members. After that, I had used up just about all the resources we gathered during the night. Other than the thirty that went to the barracks, I had roughly twenty members that were continuing on as workers.

Flipping open a notebook, one I had found in the few supplies we’d had with us during our escape, I checked over the names of the people I had in positions and what positions still needed to be filled. The menu listed a lot of information, but I personally liked seeing it on paper. Plus, I couldn’t take notes next to individuals on the screens.

I wasn’t worrying about any trade positions. With no other settlements remotely near us, they would likely stay unfilled for the foreseeable future. Internal affairs would need to be filled soon. I had Levada handling most things right now. I planned to give him an official position at a later date, but the Townhall cost quite a few mana stones, the one resource I was sorely lacking at the moment.

I snapped the book closed and stood up from my desk. I wanted to go inspect the town and wall while I waited for my mana to recover. At level ten, I had nearly a thousand mana, then my racial change had given me five hundred more. I was sure that I would be the envy of the other players if they heard that. For example, Rowena was level eleven and only had one hundred and ten points.

Walking along the streets of the pre-planned city, I felt it was odd. I had already built a considerable number of streets, but the lack of buildings made it feel like a magic circle that sat under the village. The stone paths were comfortable to walk along though thus I did my best to ignore the odd disconnect.

Following the main road, a sizable construction that would allow four carriages to move along unhindered, I made it to the main gate of the wall in record time. The roads really did apply a movement bonus. The Royal guard was patrolling the top of the walls. This morning hadn’t exactly been quiet. I had feared the goblins might have noticed the light show and wanted to keep our guard up.

Climbing the stairs, I found the Commander standing watch at the center of the wall. A gentleman by the name of Telmu. He had been the highest level and had several skills geared toward commanding already. “Commander. How is the forest?” I asked as I moved to stand next to him. He went to salute, but I quickly gestured for him to stop.

“Restless, my liege. Something dangerous is stirring.”

I thought about the dungeon and frowned. My wall went to the edge of my territory in this direction. That was how I knew it was under the mountain. Whatever was in the forest had to be something else. “I’m guessing our presence is beginning to wear on some people’s nerves.”

“The dark elves are never welcomed. We always have to fight for our place.” From his expression, I was able to gather that us being forced from our village hadn’t been the first time.

I reached over and grasped his shoulder tightly. “I know, but I plan to make this a place that dark elves might one day call home.”

“Then I shall use my life to defend it from anything and everything that might do us harm,” Telmu declared slamming a fist to his chest.

“That’s great to hear…” I started but a loud rumbling filled the area from the distance. A dust cloud quickly followed the shake rising into the air a way down the foot of the mountain. What now!? “Prepare the guard and militia. Whatever that was might be heading for us.”

“Yes, my liege!” Commander Telmu quickly ordered another Royal guard to send a message to the village militia while he formed up the guards remaining on the walls. I cast my gaze over the mountain until I found a spot that I felt would allow me to see the area in question. I cast my teleportation and moved to the ledge.

Testing the ledge, I carefully peeked over the edge to see what looked like a cave opening nearly twenty kilometers away from my territory. Debris had been blasted out from the cave and then a good two hundred meters of the mountain’s face had collapsed in a landslide which had caused the noise and dust cloud.

My breath caught as witnessed a woman walk out of the cave. She looked around before she sent a glare up at the sky. Did she have issue with the sun? She looked around for a few more moments before her gaze went to the mountain. I was a good distance from the new cave. The only reason I could see anything at all was my elven eyes that had an almost zooming in function.

I gulped when I found the woman was only wearing a coat. I would be lying if I said she wasn’t gorgeous. How she could walk around naked was beyond me, but there were weirder NPCs in the game. I was staring at her body when I noticed that her arms were crossed, and she was tapping her foot. Wondering what had made her upset, I moved my gaze up to her eyes and found her glaring directly at me.

A malignant aura blazed around her before she snapped her fingers. I watched as four massive pillars made from black bricks rise into the air. It looked like I wasn’t the only one with buildings that magically constructed themselves. When the pillars finished growing, I managed to see a magic sigil form just before every drop of light was sucked into them completely blotting out the area.

“Well, that doesn’t feel evil at all,” I remarked with a snort. I was about to teleport back to the wall when from the darkness several dozen black wolves rushed out in every direction. “Not evil at all!” I growled before getting to my feet and teleporting back to the wall. Rowena had another hour or two before she could stop her commune. It would be up to me and the Royal guard to contain the dozen or so wolves heading our way. At least it wasn’t all of them, or this might be impossible.

“Form up!” The commander shouted just as I appeared back on the wall. “Welcome back, my liege. What is the situation?”

“For now, we have a dozen or so black wolves heading our way.”

“Worgs. Demon wolves,” Commander Telmu said before spitting on the ground.

“Will they be able to enter Divine Ground?” I asked. Demons usually couldn’t do that after all.

“Yes. They aren’t much different than normal wolves. It is best to consider them beasts that just happened to be borne in the demon realm.”

We didn’t get much more time to discuss it further. The Worgs came into view from around the bend in the mountain face. They gave me a feeling similar to the Gregs from yesterday. They barely slowed in their run as they came at the wall. I was wondering how they planned to do anything to us on top of the ten-meter wall when a rain of fireballs launched from their mouths.

The Commander threw himself at me just in time to push me out of the way of one of the fireballs. “Return fire!” A few of the royal guards had bows and the tang of their bowstrings filled the air. I wasn’t about to take this lying down either. I climbed back to my feet and started sending Spatial Tears at the beasts. It was at this point, that I realized that I’d had it easy so far. My spells were falling short by wide births of the running wolves. They might be beasts, but they were smart enough to duck and weave to avoid running in straight lines.

The guards made up for it. They had already downed three of the wolves with well-placed shots. Another volley of fireballs slammed into the wall. I checked and was appalled to see how much damage my wall was taking. A single volley had lowered the durability by seventy points. The only thing that made up for that fact, was that it was already recovering using mana in the air.

Not wanting to see the wall I had worked hard with the others to build destroyed so soon, I kept throwing Spatial Tears into the wolves. The more attempts I did, the better my aim was becoming. Practice and all that. I finally nailed one directly in the side and sent half its body flying.

I only managed to get one more before the Royal guard finished the rest. I took a deep breath and leaned against the wall. This was bad. If she was able to summon monsters as she willed, we could find ourselves overrun in a matter of hours. Taking note of all the corpses, I quickly teleported from the wall and looted them rapidly before teleporting back to the wall.

Going through the spoils, I was suddenly not too upset. Each of the wolves had dropped a mana stone. Thirteen mana stones would be very helpful in the short term. The sound of howls went up from the forest. We had held them off with our wall, but every other creature in the nearby forest was likely easy game from the demon wolves.

The militia arrived soon after that. Commander Telmu got with the militia leader and began working out shifts and defensive patterns. I walked up to the pair. “Don’t let your guard down but try to get some rest during the day. Something tells me that this adversary likes to move at night.” If she didn’t like the sun and used demons. Then there was a good chance the real foes would come under the cover of night. Damn. There was so much to do!