A commotion was going on outside the mine right now.

There was a dude clad in bluish leather armor and a sword on his waist holding a fox girl by her collar. Also, the other fox beastkin were staring at him with resentment, seemingly about to pounce on him if no other Axiom Order members were restraining them.

Seriously? Who was he anyway to make such a scene?

Name: Jackie

Species: Human

Sex: Male

Age: 37 years old

Height: 187 cm

Occupation: Executive of the Axiom Order, elementalist warrior

Vocation: [Ignition Touch]

Stats:

STR: C (71) AGI: C (69) VIT: C- (65) MAG: D+ (60) SPR: D- (43)

Accumulation Points: 106 [C-]

…What?! So he’s Jackie, one of the executives of the Axiom Order. No wonder. Still, to think that I would encounter someone else with the name “Jack” the second time, they were truly a troublesome bunch.

“Time for retribution.” I cocked the spring gun in my hand and situated the iron golems around the mine while opening the hatch of the transport golem.

“Master…”

“Mm. I’ll save your clan.” I patted her head, consoling her.

Since I was afraid of misfiring and shooting the girl, I aimed my gun at the other guy that seemed to be the overseer of this mine and pulled the trigger. What a way to test shoot this thing.

Bang! The first blood of this battle ensued.

As if my gunshot was the cue for action, the golems hidden behind the surrounding foliage jumped out simultaneously, firing the guns installed inside their hands.

Shocked by the first gunshot, the Axiom Order members, who numbered about ten or so, were unable to quickly respond to the surprise attack of the golems. Dying ceaselessly without any meaningful resistance.

My hands holding the gun were trembling slightly. That was the first time I killed someone directly… But I almost didn’t feel anything other than slight disturbance — talk about the incredible mental state of a Dungeon Master.

“The die is cast.” There was no going back, as once I trod this path, I should see to it till the end. Still… Wow. To think that this weapon was stronger than anticipated.

The bullet aside, which was accelerated twenty times its supposed original acceleration when it left the barrel, the gun itself would cock whenever it was fired, making the manual cocking of a spring gun unneeded. The result, it was so fast and powerful that it should be a notch more potent than a run-of-the-mill handgun.

Jackie was yapping at his subordinates to take action, but soon lost the color of his face when all of them died under the onslaught of the self-improvised iron golems. Nevertheless, he got ahold of himself, tossed aside the fox girl, and unsheathed his magic sword.

“The strength of an elementalist warrior is not somethin’ that the likes of ya golems can face! Hah!” The red gem inlaid in his sword shone and immediately engulfed it in fire, turning it into a burning sword.

Elementalist warrior, huh… A warrior that can infuse their weapons with Elemental Magic is called so. Aren’t they akin to spellswords or battlemages, then? I wondered, stroking my chin in curiosity.

“Master!” Fuku squeezed through the narrow gap left between me and the hatch and informed me, “I can feel his magical power is being channeled into the gem in the sword. It’s drawing the mana in the air!”

“I know.” I had heard something similar from Rowan about the Axiom Order, so it wasn’t that much of a surprise.

The surrounding golems quickly fired their guns at Jackie, raining him with endless deadly projectiles.

“Did that get him?” Not even I could survive when being bombarded with countless bullets.

Contrary to my expectation, however, the bullets melted before they managed to wound him. Really, someone with a C evaluation wasn’t an opponent to be underestimated with.

“Fool! You think you can injure me with this? Never in a million chances!” His skin was burning red, looking like a monster coming out from the netherworld.

Then, Jackie launched himself at the iron golems at an insane velocity that could no longer be called human and swung his sword at them. Whenever the sword connected with the golems, it would easily cut through them like butter being sliced with a hot knife.

I quickly changed the magazine of the gun with stronger bullets with an acceleration of forty times — the limit of what was capable of being withstood by a good quality iron — and zeroed in at him. This time, I added another “tiny” condition on the bullet to be heat resistant. Luckily, it didn’t break.

When he was a bit exhausted after his initial burst, I pulled the trigger, and the bullet left the barrel, accelerating to a speed that couldn’t be seen by the naked eye, and shot him between the eyes. Because of his insane constitution, his head didn’t burst like a watermelon, but instead, the bullet lodged itself deep within his skull.

“Ah! No… No, no, no!” Jackie scrambled to stay alive, desperately trying to dig the wound for the lodged bullet, but alas, an injury to the head almost always meant a death sentence.

Moments later, his body fell to the ground, lifeless. His face was frozen in an expression of disbelief — eyes and mouth opened.

Although I doubted that it would be as effective against large beasts, it only took one shot to kill an executive of theirs!

***

Here I was, standing before the members of the Aureum clan, acting all aloof and mysterious. It wasn’t within me to showcase Oscar-level acting, but after all this time, I should have gotten some ability to speak to a small mass. Someone who was originally an introvert like me…

“You. Wh-Who are you, sir?” a middle-aged man of their clan that seemed to be the leader asked in caution.

“I am…” That’s right… What should I call myself? I stopped for a moment in thought before continuing, “My name is Astra Argentum. You can call me Lord Argentum.” I spread my hands wide to announce my name.

Shoot! the name sounds cringy as hell! But, I mean, this is something that I came up with right on the spot. I held the urge to scream in shame down the drain and continued with the charade.

“I came here to save your clan from the Axiom Order — the people that have enslaved you. So, I want you to be at ease.”

They began whispering with each other intensely, keeping a low voice that was almost inaudible to me. Naturally, they wouldn’t believe a strange man that suddenly came from nowhere and claimed to have come to save them without any apparent reason; I wouldn’t believe it myself.

Thus, I clapped my hands to regain their attention, which worked stellar, probably because of my appearance and demeanor.

“Fuku, you can come out.”

“Is it Fuku’s time to shine, Master?” Fuku came out and slid down from the transport golem and dashed toward me.

“F-Fuku?” The man asked, “Is that really you? So… this sir… Lord Argentum saved you?”

“Uncle Rupert! Yes! Master saved Fuku from those baddies.” Fuku continued telling her story, which had been filtered from things regarding the dungeon.

“Master?” Rupert murmured and looked at me. “My apologies for my late introduction, Lord Astra… I am Rupert, the patriarch of the Aureum clan. Thank you very much for saving my clan.”

“Indeed.” I made a small nod. “However, it wasn’t for free. My intention is for your clan to be my people.”

Hearing my statement, they glanced at each other with uncertainty.

“Forgive me for my rudeness. May I discuss this with my clansmen first?” Rupert asked.

“You may do so.”

Well, after being forced to do forced mining with a group of people that freed them from the slavers, they wouldn’t believe me so easily. Even so, I wouldn’t know the result before trying. Though in the unlikely case they were to refuse, I already had some other plan to convince them.

Before long, the discussion concluded, and they seemed to have reached a consensus.

“We… We will follow Lord Astra… No, milord!”

““We will follow you, milord!””

Rupert, along with his clansmen that totaled less than twenty people, knelt before me.

“Good. I accept.”

Actually, I wasn’t expecting them to agree so fast and with such a dramatic action at that. Plus, their reason for accepting appeared to be a mixture of several conditions and Fuku’s appearance. To be the last push, with their homeland gone, they hadn’t gotten much of a choice but to accept.

And thus, I told them to pack up any things they could find in the mine along with them into the transport golems. As the commotion earlier had drawn out all of the people in the mine shaft, there were no more of the guards hidden inside, and I had sent out the golems to watch the parameter for any signs of the enemy.

With this, the first step of the plan had concluded.

***

The sun was already setting, and the sky was a deep blue with scattered clouds when we finally returned to the dungeon.

The six golems that had been sliced into two by Jackie had long since regenerated and reattached; they got their cores undamaged, after all. While I had said that the iron golems had a hollow interior, I never said it was completely void of anything inside. In fact, there was a large pile of soggy clay filling the inside and protecting the core, which acted as the main body of the golem since they could come out, similar to a snail leaving its shell — they were not much different than slimes in a sense.

I didn’t bring the corpses of the enemy with me this time to convert into CP for a specific purpose. There was no worry in leaving the enemy corpses in the open since only the mana inside their bodies would dissipate into the air, the rest would remain still. In addition, dungeons had a slow speed at absorbing mana anyway as seen by our daily gain that had just risen to 80 CP.

I figured that building the settlement at least a hundred meters away from the dungeon would be ideal so as not to make it too conspicuous. Thus, I did just that while giving them the unused tents from Rowan’s camp near the ravine’s mouth. This would do for now until they cut the trees around.

Next, I secluded myself near the ravine mouth and purchased a pile of staple food (mostly bread) that cost me about 200 CP. The already bare amount of CP we had left was almost empty now.

Immediately, Lorelei's figure appeared beside me like a ghost as she remarked, “Hey, don’t splurge all our remaining CP on food! You glutton or something?”

“Whoa, that was sudden… Y’know, it’s particularly sad hearing those words from you. And no. This isn’t for me, but for the people outside.”

To win their hearts, I must tempt them with food. If you wanted people to work hard for you, first let them eat!

“So, not only do we have to prepare a safe place for them, but we also have to provide food now? I don't see the point in doing all this, to be honest.” She shrugged half-heartedly.

Doesn't what you just describe clearly portray the state of your life? I knitted my eyebrows.

“It’s just temporary. The forest is teeming with animals and vegetation, so they should be able to scavenge for food easily.”

“Is that how it is? I see.”

“Well, people are the backbone of a nation…” I murmured.

“What’s that?” Lorelei pointed her head at me.

“Nothing.” I decided to remain silent and said, “I’ll be giving this to them, so please remain in the dungeon until further notice, got it?”

“Then I’ll do just that.” She disappeared the same away as she appeared. Bizarre.

After that, I had one of the golems bring the pile of food to the people of the Aureum clan who were busy setting up a makeshift camp.

“Milord, is something the matter?” Rupert, noticing my presence, came to me and inquired.

“Distribute this to your people.”

“Is this really for us?” His expression brightened, his ears were raised, and his tail was wagging like a dog. “This is too much, milord… We can’t possibly—”

“Do as I say.”

“Bless you, milord!” Rupert bowed at me, unable to hide his immense gratitude.

I guessed not having eaten anything adequately for a while did make them appreciate this little gesture very much. While there was also some food gotten from the mine, it wasn’t that much and lacked quality.

“Oh, and you gather your clan around; I’ll have your slave collars removed.” I didn’t want to rule through force and tyranny, so it would be better to have them removed as soon as possible.

“As you wish!”

Hmm… Does he have a Vocation? I checked his status and found nothing. Well, only like one in four to five did have Vocation, and I’d been meeting a lot of top warriors and mages so far…

While I was at it, I used this chance to inspect the others’ stats and demographic. There was a total of nineteen fox beastkin that I saved with twelve of them being older than sixteen years old — basically an adult in this world. Although, there were only four among them who had a Vocation, and none were as interesting as Fuku’s.

Once I was done dealing with these two matters, I came into the depth of the forest alone. And soon enough, a giant silvery wolf emerged from behind the thick bushes. Blizzard had been watching the parameter, thereby not appearing at the time of the first assault.

“Let’s go.” I mounted her back and stroked her head.

It would take them a bit of time to react, but just in case, I shouldn’t stay in this place.