It has been two or three weeks since I arrived back at Follis. The place was starting to look better and the people were starting to become more productive. We even managed to fix a lot of the houses and created some workshops. Recently, the mines and docks have reopened with the help of the volunteer workers.

Luckily for me, my army of possessed armors were proficient at construction since they had to build forts in a short period of time whenever they campaigned. The Phollician Legion was said to be able to build a castle within a week with nothing but sand. Well, it wasn’t like I wanted to a castle. I just wanted to fix this damned place. I had Asha’s parents sweep the place with the rest of my knights.

“OoOOoOOoo,” A ghost howled as he dropped some documents onto my table. I dipped my quill with ink and signed on them. It flew through the wall with the documents on its hands but it forgot that paper couldn’t go through walls. It came back and went through the door while grumbling.

I had to increase the number of spirits working as office workers and had to increase security around my mason. I didn’t need normal people finding out that the mason was ran by spirits.

Word should start spreading by now that Follis was starting to prosper and we should expect a lot of migrants soon. I may have to start preparation for that, maybe send some knights to guard the roads around. But then, I’ve already captured all the bandits in Follis…

There were also rumors that a black knight came into Follis, murdered the Follis family and took over Follis but the peasants seemed to be fine with that. In fact, they seemed happy. Sigh, I had to regain the respect of the people. Really, what had my descendants been doing?

Asha was also helping me with the documents. Apparently, she was also a natural when it came to this. Was Asha my only competent descendant? How harsh was it for Asha to live in this broken-down hellhole!

There was also the problem with the question as to why my family wasn’t sitting on the throne. Who was on the throne? Was House Follis knocked out of the throne? But I was sure people knew the consequences of not having a true royal blood on the throne.As I contemplated over all these things, one of my knights knocked onto the door.

“Your highness, there appeared to be an army moving from the south of here, through the forest,” He bowed then reported to me. What?! But I just managed to fix the plumbing system! We finally had toilets! I didn’t want my peasants shitting their pants again!

“An army?! What kind? From who?” I stood up from my table and grabbed my helmet to put it on.

“It appeared to be an army of trees and they’re hostile,” My knight continued.

“What do you mean ‘an army of trees’?” I grabbed my greatsword and strapped it onto my back.

“They seemed to be mithril trees who could move,” My knight finished. Mithril trees?! They started to move around? Was that what happened to all the mithril trees? Over the centuries, they managed to gain legs and sentience?

Nevertheless, they’re intruding into the heartland of Follis - My home! I could feel my anger boiling my body. A puff of smoke came out from my joints. I went to the back of the manor and saw my lieutenant.

“Lieutenant, gather the army. We have intruders and I want to meet them head-on,” I ordered. The lieutenant was holding a plow, tilling the soil and had a straw hat over his helmet.

“Eh? But I still need to tend to my tomatoes…” He whimpered.

“Hmm...it’ll probably be only a few minutes. I’m sure we’ll be done before the sun goes down.” I shrugged. He complied then ran off to gather my knights. It didn’t take too long, but because they were gathered on a hurry, they didn’t have time to properly gear themselves.

There was a knight who was still wearing a white apron and was holding a bread, another armed with a shovel and another one was wearing a sundress over his armor. Well, whatever. My legion was capable of handling anything no matter the situation. We rode off to meet the intruders.

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At long last, another Dark Tea Party was going to begin. While our armies was situated around the frontline kingdoms, the most elite of the Dark Army was moving to annihilate the heroes' party. We managed to sneak through the Angolians who were lax with their security. With our numbers, it should be sufficient enough to burn down their capital to make the Angolians feel despair. Ooooh. I couldn’t wait to hear their cries.

“Ahead of us is Follis. A backwater barony that has nothing but dirt. It should be the easiest place to burn down, Regrettably in Vain,” The walking tree told me. He had brown barks with bluish tint, above was blue leaves. He had a shield with a sword around his trunk-hips.

A few hundred years ago, mithril trees were grown everywhere. We were too lazy to make mithril weapons so we just used our magic to give sentience to the trees and enslaved them to us.

They called themselves Mithrilians but we didn’t care. They were just tools to slaughter other races. They were also good hosts to control and was easy to do so. I, myself, was buried inside a mithrilian controlling its dead husk.

“Hu...hu....General Rivers, the peasants of Follis should be good meatbags to warn the world of the new impending doom. I want you to cut them all up and spread their guts all over the place. Let the world shudder and tremble in fear! HA HA HAHA HAHAH!” I laughed. However, when we exited the forest, we found a shieldwall waiting for us.

“Ugh….” General Rivers took out a map. I moved to his side and looked over his shoulders to see the map.

“Are you sure this is Follis?” I asked him.

“I’m pretty sure….we went through this forest and….I’m not sure…” He ran his finger through the map. I got frustrated then shouted at the shieldwall.

“HEY!”

“WHAT?” A reply came.

“WHERE ARE WE?” I asked.

“FOLLIS,” Someone shouted back. Whether we were in the right place or not, there’s an army of fools I had to slaughter in front of me! I ordered the mithrilians to prepare their weapons. I stood in front of my army.

“Foolish mortals! You dare stand in front of the 1st Dark Army?! Are you not aware these Mithrilians have bark so strong that it might as well be made from mithril! Nothing can hurt them! There’s nothing that could penetrate thro-..” I didn’t even finish my sentence when the shieldwall opened and a bolt was shot out from the hole. It pierced through the mithrilian near me and he walked over to me.

“I think you should change that speech a bit,” He stated before falling down on his back, dead, with a gaping hole on his chest.

“They could actually penetrate us?! Kill them before we get killed!” I ordered. My army charged towards the shieldwall and collided with them at great force. However, the shieldwall remained standing, unfazed. Kuh?! Who the hell were these guys?!

The Angolians tried to jab us with their spears and a piece of bread as we attacked their column, but we managed to narrowly avoid them. Some of the mithrilians tried to go around, getting caught by some Angolian swordsmen. The shieldwall started to get loose and all the knights charged at us. Soon, it was a chaotic mess. The Angolians matched our numbers but we were superior! Or at least, I was!

I used my body to cast multiple lightning bolts to the Angolians. They fell down and dropped unmoving. Some Angolians tried to attack me but was stopped by General Rivers, who was a veteran of the last Dark Tea Party. I was thinking the Angolians would break any moment when I heard a voice.

“Hey, you guys! I’d like to finish the documents up soon so could we hurry up a bit?” An Angolian noble on a horse shouted from the back. He was just idly sitting on his horse watching the battle. He seemed so carefree! This ticked me off. I could feel my entire body burning, I wanted to tear his flesh with my own teeth!

I took up a stance to charge at him, but General Rivers stopped me. I was about to lash out at him when I saw the noble raise his sword and swung it horizontally. Massive flames came out and just burnt the entire battlefield. The Angolian knights weren’t bothered by it but the mithrilians were panicking. What the hell?! Normally mithrilians were immune to fire, but the fire he summoned wasn’t ordinary! The mithrilians were screaming in agony as the fire consumed them. I chuckled a bit at this misery, of theirs and mine.

“Regrettably in Vain, we need to retreat with whatever little men we have left,” He suggested. I clicked my tongue in anger and ordered a retreat. As I ran through the forest with whoever was still alive as I laughed all the way out. This was fun! No, this was soooo very fun! I hadn’t felt alive for a long time! I’ll get back at the Angolians for this!

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“Your lordship, the cleanup is finished.” My lieutenant bowed. I nodded then went over the dead bodies. I filled the fallen armors with essence of death and once again they rose up. The only way to really kill these knights was with holy magic. Luckily for me, the enemy didn’t have those or they didn’t even think my knights were possessed armors.

“Whoa. Is it over? That’s a lot of dead….what are those?” Asha came by, riding. She was watching the battle from afar guarded by some knights so I could demonstrate to her one of the Phollician fire ability.

“Those are mithril trees. I don’t know how they managed to gain legs, but it doesn’t matter now since they’re all dead.” I got off my horse and kicked a dead walking mithril tree.

“Wait, that means that their fruits are made of mithril?” She said, as she scavenged the trees for some mithril fruit. I checked the bark of the tree and it was really tough. I was thinking that perhaps I could use these as logs for my manor...Wait, I should also make use of the free mithril lying around.

“Men, gather as much mithril as you can,” I ordered. My knights started gathering any mithril they could find. Well, mithril could withstand a high enough temperature so even if the mithril tree was burnt, the mithril fruits were pretty much intact.

“What are you going to do with them?” Asha asked as she held a mithril fruit. She wiped the fruit and was amazed that mithril fruits were as big as apples.

“I’m going to use them to boost the economy,” I answered.

“Excuse me?” She turned to me.

“I’m going to use the mithril to make tools. Like plows or saws,” I explained.

“Whoa whoa whoa. Wait. You’re going to take these mythical metal which was said to be used to make weapons of the heroes into everyday tools of the common people?” She hastily ran up to me and asked me.

“Yes. What else was I going to do? Make weapons out of them? What’s the point? Sell them? It’s better for the long-term economy to make near-indestructible tools. Imagine a plow being used to plow for hundreds of years. An amazing investment. Besides, if we had any spare, we’ll make weapons. But tools comes first,” I replied.

“I...whatever. You’re the head of the house. But you have a problem, how are you supposed to smelt them? Are you going to head back to the United Fortresses?” She pointed out.

“No. Let me show you your true inheritance.” I pointed my chin towards my horse. I ordered my men to bring all the loot back at the manor and I went ahead towards the Follis manor. Inside, I went down to the basement and searched for a room. When I found the room I was looking for, I opened it.

“Hey, Ancestor. This is my room! You can’t just barge in!” She complained.

Apparently, before I came, the Follis family couldn’t afford to repair the manor so most of the rooms were broken down. By the time I arrived at Follis, Asha’s room was at the basement and the second level only had one room which her parents used. The manor was still under repair so she temporarily had to stay here until we get her a proper room.

I rushed into the room, and I saw the closet that was still here after a thousand years. This was a special type of closet that couldn’t be moved. I guess the Follis family just didn’t bother moving or breaking it down at all after all these years. I opened her closet and threw her clothes out to stop them from obscuring my view.

“Hey!” I ignored Asha’s ramblings and reached into the back of the closet. I channeled mana and the false wall disappeared, revealing a lever, then pulled it down. Asha’s bed was thrown to the wall as the floor popped up spontaneously, revealing a staircase.

“My bed!” She complained.

“That wouldn’t matter after you’d find this. Follow me.” I guided her down the stairs and used a small ball of fire on my hand to lit the dark staircase. Once at the bottom, I revealed a massive room similar to a certain type of room at the United Fortresses.

“Wait, what?! I had an enchanted dwarven forge below my bedroom the entire time?! No wonder the house was so warm during the winter! We were so glad we didn’t had to use the logs to make fire to warm the place up!” She shouted in surprise.

“Heh. My wife was a master smith like you. I got her an enchanted dwarven forge and she was so happy,” I explained.

“Anyways, this is your true inheritance! Asha of Follis, as the head of House Follis, I bestow upon you this thousand-year-old dwarven forge!” I waved towards the forge.

“....I guess...I’ll go start making some mithril tools, then.” She simply gave up and went back upstairs.

Great! With tools coming up, Follis should be back on the road to prosperity. I couldn’t wait for Boss and the others to arrive here. I’m actually glad that only I came here first. Or else it would’ve been such a massive embarrassment to me and Boss would probably make this into an inside joke. Well, I had to get back to work. Next up should be making a proper castle like my old one!