Chapter 124: Lemon Tree

Year 140

 

My news about the heroes came mostly through eavesdropping on Stella. After the death of 3 heroes, they called her frequently, they hoped to rely on her for mental support. Which was strange, because I could see Stella struggling, and she turned to alcohols and herbal remedies to cope. 

 

Was I supporting a junkie? 

 

Am I enabling her behavior by giving her things?

 

“Look, Astia.” I used her name, I didn’t want her to know I was eavesdropping or reading her mind. “I’ll need you to earn some money. I can’t keep supporting you like this, especially if you’re not doing much other than mope around all day.”

 

I felt like a dad giving a talk. She nodded. “Alright... what can I do? I uh... I can teach, I suppose? Will that work?”

 

“No. Did you do any work in your past life?” I had to pretend I had no idea what’s her background was. 

 

“I was uh... an admin assistant.”

 

“Alright, then you can do paperwork. The Freshlands Treetiary College needs someone to tabulate results, handle time schedules and manage logistics. I’ll have you work on that.” 

 

“Then my... Uh... bodyguard?”

 

Good point. What sort of paperwork can be done by someone, where they didn’t need to interact with others. 

 

“Research.” Trevor suggested. “She may assist with documentation of research results.” 

 

I proposed this to Astia and she made a trip to one of the [biolabs]. She quickly noped out of there. 

 

“I’m not doing this job. That lab is waaaaaaaaaaay too scary. What’s with all the beetle-limbs floating around in various green vats?! Even if I’m not afraid, I’ll be too nervous to even work.”

 

I mentally sighed. “How’s your maths?”

 

“Average?”

 

“What are you good at?”

 

“Computers? They don’t exist in this world, do they?”

 

“Can you do art?”

 

She paused. “I... could?”

 

“Then you will do paintings and design. The Valthorns will pass you the materials and requirements, and you can do posters and picture design.”

 

“Oh. Okay.”

 

Finally. She was average at the whole painting thing, but it was good enough for the Valthorn’s posters. She made a ‘We-want-you’ Poster as part of the regular Valthorn recruitment flyers. At the very least, she would be paid.

 

-

 

“Miss Stella...” Tom was on the magical call again. 

 

“Oh hi.” Stella was working in a painting studio, working on the next recruitment poster. She quickly put on a smile, instead of her usual resting bitch face. 

 

“This demon king thing... it’s really hard.” Tom sounded really depressed and sad. “But I keep hearing these voices to tell me to go on. I feel like my body’s not listening to my mind.”

 

“Oh dear, that sounds really bad.” If that was her attempt at empathy, I think a certain car-show host could do better. 

 

“I sometimes keep thinking of them, but somehow, I couldn’t remember. It’s so weird.” Tom cried and wept. Then he looked like he had one of those mind-attacks again. 

 

Stella didn’t know how to react. She wasn’t good at this kind of thing. So she said nothing.

 

Tom suddenly woke up as if it never happened, and the conversation went elsewhere. “We’re all about level 70 to 80 now, but we’re still not good enough for the demon king. We kept fighting it’s larger demonic dragons, but so many people are dying.”

 

Stella was silent, almost like a statue. 

 

“We’re going to try, though. So many people depend on us to slay the demon king.” That sounded so familiar. At some point, all these heroes really, really sound the same. I wonder whether I’ll ever meet a hero that could resist the influence of the gods. That would be something, I think. The powers of a hero, yet without their influence. 

 

“Good luck.” Stella forced it out of her mouth, somehow she managed to smile. 

 

“Thanks Miss Stella. Hang in there already, we’ll come and get you once we slay the demon king.” They somehow turned positive again, as if they were entirely different persons. Stella noticed it of course, but she didn’t say a word. In her mind, the first thing wasn’t god’s influence, but instead, did Tom have bipolar disorder?

 

-

 

There were about 10 seagoing kingdoms building new warships, ships that we hoped to use someday, to break the blockade. The Valthorn’s Naval Academy was new, and though I had the ability to bestow [Captain], [Admiral] or [Pirate] or [Privateer] clases, there’s a huge body of knowledge, about navigation, about logistics of a navy, which we took and adapted from the existing maritime kingdoms.

 

With intercontinental trade absolutely dried up, some of the merchants have turned to piracy. This was especially true in the nations further away, where my eyes are limited. THis created a negative feedback loop, since piracy increased the cost of business, and made the business of merchants even more unviable, which drove even more sailors and captains into piracy. 

 

I met many pirates. More like, I’ve spied on many pirates, many of them are just plain criminals. They want money. Some are driven down a path of desperation and couldn’t get out of piracy. 

 

The Valthorns were stretched thin, especially the upgraded classers. I had about 100 upgraded classers, but the Central Continent has many more kingdoms. So the Valthorns had to travel from place to place, and I could not focus all of my classers to take out the pirates. It also didn’t help that some of the pirates were quite high level, in their level 50s, so they could easily be a match for the younger upgraded classers who got their classes not so long ago. 

 

I needed to strengthen the elite much more. 

-

 

Still, I’ve reclaimed close to 40% of the Rottedlands, except for that magically combustive space where the last demon king perished. The swirling vortex was difficult to tame, and it kept destroying all the trees that I placed. The magical energies were something else. I thought my [forest rod] could be useful, but it has a small area of effect, so it must be placed in the heart of the vortex to work. 

 

So, over the past few years I made small steps towards the core. I tried to tunnel beneath the ground, and discovered that the magical vortex extended even underground. In short, whatever that’s left in the middle, created a spherical spinning vortex. 

 

That didn’t stop me. Spinning vortexes, that’s just like my soul forge. Not exactly a stranger. 

 

So I set up multiple giant attendant trees around it, and gradually drain out the mana from the vortex, and at the same time, inject my own mana into the spinning vortex to neutralise the spin. 

 

It’s a slow process, since I can’t slow it down immediately, that tended to cause a whiplash and a really strong mana-explosion that generally destroyed even my [giant attendant trees]. 

 

Still, this was a process that just took time. Eventually, I managed to diffuse and pacify the vortex. It just took a lot of mana. 

 

Then, we discovered the vortex has spawned a massive demon hybrid, from all the concentrated demonic and magical energy. It’s not a pure demon, as it seemed like a frankenstein-ish creature with limbs made from a hodgepodge of animals, and seemed only lightly affected by my resistances. It was asleep, or at least, inactive, up until the vortex was broken. 

 

It woke up. 

 

It was more powerful than a walker, but less than a demon king. It had daemolite crystals all over it’s body, and living flesh in other parts. It roared with it’s worm-like head, with a mix of organic teeth and daemolite. 

 

If the gods that spawned monsters were experimenting, this seemed like it. 

 

I immediately called on my Valthorns and my elites to intercept, while I used my abilities to slow it down. I could tell it was working... a bit. It wasn’t a pure demon, so it suffered less from my extensive anti-demon perks. 

 

“Aeon didn’t say there was a monster inside?!”

 

There were already a small crew of Valthorn Elites when we cleared the vortex. But they were insufficient. It had three long tails made of a mix of tree roots and demonic spikes, each capable of independently attacking any nearby enemies. 

 

I unleashed my root strikes, and it weakened it slightly. Then I used [constrict]. Constrict worked a lot better, since it had various mana-draining qualities. Still, it struggled, and struggled. It broke free once. 

 

Then I had to use my abilities again to bring it down. It struggled. It fought. I added more giant trees to the area, to strengthen my abilities. 

 

It weakened. Then it pulsed. It felt nostalgic. 

 

It was going to explode. 

 

I used more [constrict] and more [steelwood barriers]. I needed to drain away the core from exploding. 

 

My vines and roots pierced it’s body, like tentacles attempting to reach a reactor core that’s about to go off. I drained it of it’s mana, as much as I could take, and vented it out in the surroundings. 

 

Patreeck and the artificial minds helped. More vines covered the body of the hybrid demon. It was still going to blow. I quickly told the Valthorns to retreat. 

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It blew up, but only a small explosion. The power behind the explosion mostly drained away by my vines. The explosion didn’t destroy everything. 

 

What’s left was a massive reddish crystal mixed with streaks of other colors. 

 

[Tainted Demon Crystal Core - A curious mix of demonic and native energies] 

 

The center of where the Demon King fell reclaimed, there was daemolite in smaller quantities. Thankfully it didn’t all ignite in a chain reaction when it blew up. 

 

The crystal sat unused in my materials lab and magic. I had to run more experiments on it. It was an unstable magic core. It had a lot of potential, though. I just needed to figure out a way to use both of it’s energies simultaneously, since the crystal only released the ‘blended’ version. 

 

Could it be a color for my soulforge once I’ve managed to control it?

 

I placed it deep within my labs in the Valley of the Unrotten, for further experiments. 

 

-

 

The heroes fought the demons many times, and they are gaining levels. But it seemed that the demon king was still too strong for them. 

 

[Naveen Fraug has died. You received a fragment]

[Ellen Ascas has died. You received a fragment]

 

Another two more died in the fight against the demon king.

 

“That was our fifth encounter with the demon king. Naveen and Ellen stayed back to delay the demon king, so we could escape.” Tom said to Stella. “We won’t let their sacrifice be in vain.”

 

“It must be hard losing your friend.” Stella nodded. 

 

“Yes. But we’ve come this far. We’re almost level 100 now. I can feel that our victory is not far away. Some of us have unlocked our full star-mana powers. Once all of us do, we’ll take the fight back to the demon king.”

 

“I see.”

 

“Then we’ll come and find you, and free you.”

 

“That won’t be necessary, Tom.” Stella said. “Enjoy yourself after the fight. I mean it.”

 

Stella didn’t want to deal with them at all.

 

-

I’ve begun to see some slight benefits to the various schools, as I noticed some kingdoms setting up mini-academies to train their noble children, a ‘prep school’ before they were sent over to the FTC. 

 

The commoner students also had some improvement, as I started to give them classes more liberally. [Merchant], [Knight], or [Administrator] basic classes, I gave them out to any commoner who wanted them, since these were common classes anyway. These generic classes helped them to cope with the various topics of administration, trade and warfare.

 

Also, among the first generation of graduates, they created new trade routes and formed cooperation agreements, spearheaded by the Dwarven Trade Lord. It was, in many ways, what I wanted to see. 

 

An FTC alumni created a network that would only grow with time. This was a necessary step to bypass the old ways of networking and introduction, that relied on royal events, and also religious gatherings. 

 

Most graduates left the college with a favourable view of the Freshlands, and me. That was important, because the initial goal was to strengthen the culture of the Freshlands. I needed the nobles to act as advocates of the Freshlands culture, and I believe they would come into conflict with the incumbent culture of the nobles, carried forward from the days when the temples ruled. 

 

Still, this is the new wave, and the many of the savvy nobles are quick to get on my side. Really, culture is this strange thing, sometimes it can change quickly, sometimes, really slowly. I wanted a cultural change that would stick in the continent as a whole. 

 

The ones who feel the cultural change the most, are the priests, and the Valthorns. They venture everywhere in the Central continent, to spread my cause, to carry out social work, to provide protection for soldiers and traders. They were unknown, then they were scorned, and now they get treated with respect. 

 

As a whole though, the central continent still had their conflicts. In a way, the Freshlands have become the Vatican, and I am both the Pope and the God. The countries fought wars with each other, and I’ve ignored them, so long they continue to profess loyalty and faith to the Freshlands. Of course, the Valthorns and our assets are pulled out from the participating countries. 

 

There was no point getting caught in stupid friendly fire.

 

Countries will have disagreements, and after some discussion with my artificial minds, it’s fine to let them fight each other, as long as the source of their unhappiness was not me. In fact, it was also the opportunity for the Priests to strengthen their cultural hold, as they stepped in to provide relief to those affected by wars and battles. 

 

If anything, these wars only weaken themselves, and strengthen the Freshlands. Cultural victory in my opinion involved watching others make mistakes and then resist the urge to interrupt them. 

 

-

 

“We’ve fought the demon king eight times now.” Tom said in a call with Stella. “I honestly don’t know what we’re doing wrong. We’re using our star mana powers, we are all level 100 plus, all 5 of us. We attacked the demon king, and somehow it managed to either run away, or find a way to hurt us so bad that we retreated.”

 

“Keep trying, you’ll get there.”

 

“The people of the Eastern Continent are starting to complain and grumble.” Tom said. “They didn’t say it in our faces directly, but many cities don’t even want to host us, often, they would send us a messenger with whatever supplies we needed, and told us to camp outdoors, preferably far away from town. They said it’s for the safety of the cities. It’s not our fault that the demon king attacked us when we are in the cities!”

 

“That’s tough.” 

 

“Any ideas how we should fight it? Sometimes it refused to even attack us, instead fleeing.  I totally don’t understand this demon king. The gods told us the demon kings are simple-minded creatures!” Tom sighed, and at the same time, I felt bad. They were clearly being lied to. The demon kings so far have displayed some intelligence, especially in battlefield intelligence and strategy. It wouldn’t be a surprise if they actually are sentient, if they are a step above the demons I’ve met. 

 

Stella shrugged. “I’m not one for violence.”

 

“Maybe we should lure it. We need something.”

 

“Wave a big stick at it and say come here?” 

 

“Yeah. Maybe we need a way to lure it.” Tom answered his own question. “Maybe with a lot of star mana.”

 

Another hero jumped in. “How do we do that? Make a big beacon in the sky to tell the demon king we’re here?”

 

“I thought it could already see us, why would it even respond to our lure?”

 

Stella just sat there and waited. The remaining heroes started to talk among themselves. The surviving five were Tom, Jason, Ryder, Adam and Rick. Strangely common names, compared to those that died but I wasn’t going to challenge it. Maybe they used a nickname, instead of their real names. 

 

They talked about various strategies, with Stella sitting there. They clearly have a poor sense of information security risk. 

 

Stella got bored at one point, so she intervened. “Guys, I’ve got something to do, can you kick me out of this conversation?” She didn’t. She just wanted to have a nap. 

 

“Ah sorry Miss Stella. We got carried away in our anti demon-king plan.”

 

-

 

The year was coming to an end. Did it normally take so long for the heroes to kill the demon king? Didn’t they take a year or two? 

 

Then... 

 

[Thomas Ragash died.]

[Jason Stateches died]

[Ryder Flynnish died]

[Adam Eastwest died]

[Ricky Roller died.]

[You received 5 fragments]

 

Wait. 

 

Did the demon king die?

 

I waited for 2 days, nothing.

 

But, but... 

 

That’s a total of 10 heroes died! The demon king lived even though the heroes died? And this is a new batch of heroes! 

 

Does this mean the gods will summon a new set?

 

What will happen now? The Demon King no longer has any heroes to fear!

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