Unbound Deathlord_Obliteration
Page 38
Him calling me that gave me an idea. "Henceforth, I shall be known as the Emperor of the Armless Empire. Address me as such."
I was against slavery, but the minotaur had sworn to obey the Master of the Castle by its own free will. Also, I wasn't against pranking him a little.
"As you will, Your Majesty," the Boss said.
"All hail the Armless Emperor!" Bear yelled to my surprise, throwing a fist up.
"All hail the Armless Emperor!" Others followed.
"All hail the Armless Emperor!" Daggers also joined the call.
My face twisted into a scowl. I had meant that as a joke; I didn't want to be known as the Armless Emperor!
"Wait, wait!" I got up and yelled. "I mean the Handsome Emperor! Awesome Emperor!"
"Armless Emperor! Armless Emperor!" They continued chanting with smiles and laughter, and I understood Bear had got the better of me.
"Ah, shit." I sat back on the throne.
As the friendly mockery of the chant continued, I started opening the exclamation points on the edge of my vision.
Intelligence increased to 31 (+1)
Preventing the floor from collapsing was a clever move!
» MP: 2575 (+155)
(Items disregarded)
Charisma increased to 20 (+1)
Your ability to influence people is akin to brainwashing.
Strategist increased to 31 (+1)
You got yourself a small army, found a good instructor to train it, used their abilities effectively, and achieved victory against a superior enemy using top-notch strategy.
Unique raid complete: Edward's Castle
Random attribute points received:
» +1 dexterity
» +1 perception
» +2 charisma
» +1 intelligence
MP: 2735 (+160)
(Items disregarded)
Level up!
Current level: 37
HP, MP and stamina restored
Title received: First Raider
You were part of the first group of Travelers to complete a raid in the Underworld!
» +25% damage against raid bosses
Castle conquered: Edward's Castle
You can now access the Land Management window.
It's highly recommended that you review your Subjects as soon as possible.
The rewards were great, but what was that about Subjects? As far as I knew, I had only one, Oxfiend.
Land Management, I thought.
A new window opened. It had seven tabs:
Real Estate, Economy, Politics, Military, Recreation, Subjects, and Populace.
I focused on the Subjects tab and it opened a new interface, where I could list Subjects or summon new ones. I chose to list.
Subjects List [Edward's Castle]
Subjects (1)
Subjects have formally bent the knee and accepted your rule.
You may see the Subject List of any of your Subjects by focusing on them.
» Minotaur Sovereign — Oxfiend
Slaves (318)
Slaves cannot refuse to serve you.
» Fairy Queen — Sylvania
» Fairy Lady — Maria
» Fairy Herbalist — Sonia
...
» Fairy Apprentice — Lucia
Unknown status (1428)
The following have pledged to the previous Master of the Castle but their current status is unknown.
» Centaur Lord — Rushfar
» Centaur Soldier — Termor
» Centaur Soldier — Sulef
...
» Slime Mage — Lokomokolov
» Slime — Sukulumov
...
» Giant Spider Youngster — Shivrak
...
The list was huge. I never expected the number of fairy slaves to be that high.
Summon all fairies to the throne room, I commanded. Nothing happened. I guess the summoning ability of the castle was related to obtaining new minions, not bringing current ones to me.
Thankfully, I had another choice. Focusing on my Commander trait, I willed it to contact the Fairy Queen.
The Commander trait didn't allow the fairy to reply, but it was better than sending someone all the way down there.
The chanting had died away, probably because they weren't able to get enough reaction out of me. The zombies were chatting and some had even left the room. That reminded me:
The child's voice replied in my mind:
That was somewhat interesting. Valia made sure to blend game with realism and although I hadn't found an Instanced zone yet, they existed. And now, I knew they also had an in-game explanation for existing. It gave players freedom but also consequences: you want to destroy this Instanced Dungeon? You can try. But are you strong enough?
The prospect of absolute power and dominating every aspect of Valia was cool though, even if completely fictional; even if the Crusaders could be killed somehow, it would surely only bring even more powerful system-defending measures.
Still, a nice touch.
Even more interesting was to see everything revolving around the Guardian. He was supposed to be the anti-cheat AI, but it seemed he was much more.
The fact that this wasn't a raid anymore made me think of something. "Oxfiend," I said, "what are your fighting capabilities now? Do you still fight the same way as before, with HP thresholds and such?"
"No," he replied as he put his helmet back. "Before, I was bound to fight in phases because of an agreement with Edward. Now I'm free to unleash my full power at any time. However, I have no control over this room's secrets anymore."
That was both good and bad. Good that he could go all out from the start, bad because now more than twenty-five people could come and fight him at any time.
"Alright. I saw no minotaurs in the Subjects list." I wondered if I had killed them all. I knew that at least those in the Castle had been thoroughly exterminated. Slaver bastards.
"They are all my Subjects." Oxfiend explained.
I checked the list and indeed he had thousands of minotaurs under him. "Where are they?"
"Outside the Castle, but inside the outer walls."
I checked the 'Real Estate' tab in my Land Management window and it updated my minimap. The castle was in the center of a somewhat big city, which in turn was inside the huge walls I had seen before falling into the underground maze.
The maze itself was also in the minimap, at least the part inside the walls' perimeter. There were descriptions about how the maze was developed as a means of escape for the royal family and so on.
What interested me more was the Economy tab. Theoretically, a castle was supposed to have thousands upon thousands of gold coins in its coffers, but I couldn't find it in the map.
"Where's the money?" I asked, and the people in
the room immediately stopped talking and looked at Oxfiend interested.
"There is none," the Boss said.
"What about this number in the 'value' box?"
"That is an estimated value of all Castle owned possessions, including buildings and even the walls themselves. I understand Your Majesty and your friends already looted some of it."
I frowned. "But how can you keep a Castle running without cash flowing?"
"Minotaurs don't rely on material trade." He smiled. "Force is our only currency."
That wasn't good. I opened the Military tab and noticed that the local guards were commanded by someone called Terrorlord; Terrorlord, however, was currently part of Oxfiend's Subjects, not mine.
"Oxfiend, order all military men to come and pledge themselves to me," I said.
"Your Majesty, with all due respect, you're not strong enough to make them bend the knee."
I stared hard at him. "If you respect me as you say, obey me. Now."
"As you wish." He sighed and left the room.
I smiled.
They had nothing more to say; I had conquered the castle after all.
The fairies soon appeared at the room, all of them in fairy-size. The Fairy Queen was in front of the group, attended by two other fairies. By then, the zombies were already standing in a formation in front of the throne room.
The fairies flew close and bowed mid-air. "Your Majesty," the Fairy Queen said.
I raised from the throne. "By my power as the Master of Edward's Castle, I free all of you of slavery." A faint yellow light pulsed over their heads. "You may choose to stay and cultivate any of the lands in this place, or leave. If you want to leave though, I suggest you wait until I can personally escort you out."
Quest completed: Free the Fairies
Random attribute point received:
» +1 strength
All the fairies gave radiant smiles. Some hugged each other and some cried. It was much more contained than the scene in the Magic Garden but happiness was still apparent on their faces.
The Fairy Queen curtsied. "Thank you, Your Majesty. We don't mean to sound ungrateful, but we feel it's past time we went back to our land."
"Very well," I said. "I have a few things to attend to, but I should be able to escort you out of here tomorrow at the latest."
"Your good intentions do you credit, Jack Thorn," she said, "but there is no need. If you ever get to the Surface, come see me in the Fairyland."
She winked.
And disappeared.
The more than a hundred fairies simply blinked out of existence in front of me.
"Long Range Teleport, I guess," I said to the perplexed zombies. I didn't believe it was that but I had no other explanation to provide.
A child laugh echoed in my mind.
"Teal, Turtle, protect the armory," I ordered. "Let me know if anyone goes there."
"I don't want to miss the fun here," Turtle complained.
"Me neither," Teal said.
"Well, I didn't say you had to personally go," I said. "I told you to protect it. You're a Lieutenant and a Sergeant, you can order Privates to go in your places, just be prepared for the consequences in case something happens and you're not there to deal with it. That's only fair."
They looked at each other. Teal ended up going with a Private while Turtle stayed behind.
I kept watching Daggers move on my minimap. I had a complete map of the city and saw that she stood in some building near the Castle.
About half an hour later, her icon finally started moving back.
Soon, Oxfiend appeared with Terrorlord beside him. Terrorlord was small when compared to Oxfiend, but he was still an elite, about twice as tall as me. His darksteel armor and halberd made him stand out next to the three lightsteel-armored elites following him.
Behind them, about two hundred minotaurs followed. Almost all of them were in lightsteel armor and only about thirty were mages.
"Ah, Terrorlord," I said as they were approaching. "I heard you said you would kill me when you got in my throne room?"
The bastard didn't even miss a step, he only sniffed indignantly.
I had eleven fire morbs floating above my head, and they all flew at Terrorlord's face, one after another. I didn't even wait to see how much damage they would do.
Terrorlord was a veteran. He hadn't been expecting my sudden attack, but he still tried to defend himself with his halberd, only to fail when I changed the spells' paths.
The firebombs hit him. After failing to cut the spells mid-air, he used his hand to defend his face, as it was his most vulnerable point, and that helped reduce the incoming damage by a third. Instead of an average of three hundred, they now dealt two hundred each.
Still, in the end he received almost three thousand points of damage from my initial attacks.
"Kill him!" He yelled while he was still being hit by the firebombs. The minotaurs let out roars of rage and came at me.
The Blackguard appeared behind Terrorlord. His armor wasn't as good as Oxfiend's and Daggers' blades dug into his back all the way up as she climbed him. In just a few seconds she was on his shoulders melting his HP away with constant stream of critical strikes to his head.
He struggled, trying to bat her away, but failed. With a hundred damage on each blade, she had finished off Terrorlord in five seconds.
"Terrorlord has fallen!" I yelled as his body was falling. "Oxfiend, close the doors! No one leaves! Blackguard, kill the mages too! Defenders, wait while I kill the elites! Spare anyone who surrenders, kill everyone else!" New fire morbs had already begun to amass above my head.
The minotaurs had barely engaged with the zombies and looked back, confused, only to see Daggers shadowing in the direction of the mages. The mages had seen her killing Terrorlord and were better prepared, but when her throwing knives cut spells mid-air, you could plainly see panic on their faces.
She was moving towards the closest mage. Seeing she couldn't be stopped and that she'd just felled Terrorlord in a short time, the mage let go of its staff and dropped to its knees, raising its hands. "I surrender!" It yelled.
Daggers immediately redirected to the next mage, who did the
same thing.
An explosion and a yell of pain made everyone look back. A firebomb had just exploded in an elite's face.
"I surrender!" The mages kept crying.
Most of the armored minotaurs were looking up to the elites to see what they would decide.
"Oxfiend!" I yelled. "Tell your people the truth: how many elites have I killed since I entered the castle?"
"Your Majesty has killed eight Minotaur Minor Lords before reaching the throne room," Oxfiend said, "and your group was much weaker at the time."
It was as if the elites had received a blow. All three of them immediately dropped their halberds and knelt.
All the minotaurs followed suit.
Silence filled the room. I hadn't even stood up from my throne, but I had removed the biggest obstacle to my rule of the minotaurs. I'd cemented my position with blood and a show of power, which forced them all to surrender.
I let the silence go for almost a full minute, making them anxious about what I would do. Finally, I spoke.
"You all have two choices. One, pledge loyalty to me." I waited a few extra moments before speaking again. "Two, die."
I didn't feel conflicted about forcing them to bend the knee. It wasn't even close to slavery, because even if they were said to be the most loyal of Valia's species, Oxfiend had just shown me how little that loyalty was worth. Plus, their loyalty was their personal decision, not my problem. I only needed their obedience.
They had just tried to kill me, forced labor was the very least these murderous slavers deserved. Maybe it would help them develop some decency.
Should the NAC do the same to me? So I develop some decency?
The thought didn't bother me much; they were slavers, I wasn't.
Yes, I was being hypocrite in one way: one minute I wanted to kill all the slavers, the next I was making them my subordinates. However, now that I had control over all of them — something I didn't know I would achieve — I could just order them to stop. Why kill them when I could reform them? Who knows, it could even make the Underworld a better place.