Chapter 54: I'm relaxing, but there's an explosion?
What a life, I used to think mine was going to be average, but here I am expanding our quaint north-eastern domain into a full-blown city! Today, I was overseeing the approval of construction projects and brainstorming with the Home Construction Supervisors, Martini and Skarz, about how to expand our city's trade relations.
Initially, I thought we should expand towards the Wyvern Pass, but with the recent sightings of those scaly beasts, that's out of the cards. Martini, with his Unique Skill [Linguistics], will handle negotiations with other cultures, but I'm enlisting the help of Bazirta to teach him standard negotiation processes.
We're building roads to make our city more accessible, which will please Lord Randolph. He's already smoothing the way for us, making connections with other Duchies and promising to provide the best blacksmiths if we give him 30% of our earnings when we start making those sweet, sweet trades.
In addition to the roads, we've constructed a school to shape the young minds of our future leaders. We've also built storage facilities for everything from our stash of potions to our arsenal of weapons. We even have a special storage space for our bag of precious minerals.
The only thing we're still lacking is a blacksmith, and lucky for us, Lord Randolph has that sorted too! Now, we can finally deal with this nuisance of not having proper weaponry. Overall, today was a great day for our city. Who knows what else we can accomplish? Maybe we will even have a casino, and I'll be a billionaire. Ha! I better not get ahead of myself.
---
My office had undergone a transformation, and now it was much more presentable. The wooden chairs and desk gave it an air of sophistication, and I had even procured wooden boards for us to write on. Regardless of how we decided to use them, they were undoubtedly an improvement, at least until we figured out the best way to produce paper.
In my past life, a man had failed a thousand times to invent something called a light bulb. With magic, however, there was no room for failure. With that in mind, I set to work integrating the dormant magic cores with fire magic, and it wasn't long before we had created a sustainable source of light that we could use at night.
I sighed contentedly, my eyes fixed on the ceiling as I thought of how much progress we had made with construction recently. I was about to inspect the other worksites when Serena, my fiancée, walked in, her footsteps echoing against the well-polished floorboards. My heart skipped a beat at the sight of her; she was the epitome of grace and beauty.
"Hello there, Serena. How are you doing?" I asked, admiring the way she carried herself towards me with effortless poise.
"I'm doing well, my lord, thanks for asking." She returned my greeting and proceeded to walk closer, dropping a tray filled with wooden cups of tea on my desk. "I brought some tea for you," she said.
I couldn't help but smile at her, grateful for her thoughtfulness. "Thank you, Serena," I replied, taking a cup from the tray. "What kind of tea is it today?"
"It's from the helvin herbs," she said, her eyes sparkling with warmth. "It's known to regenerate one's magic."
"Ah, that sounds amazing," I remarked before taking a sip.
Before I could utter another word, Serena kissed me charmingly on the cheek. A rush of warmth ran through my body, and I couldn't help but smile. "I love you," I whispered to her.
"Oh my... we're moving a bit too fast, don't you think?" she said, raising an eyebrow.
"But I thoug— and y— didn't we—" (Lumiere)
"I'm joking, my lord, of course I love you.." she teased.
We shared a good laugh about it.
---
Serena and I stepped out of the office building, feeling like the ultimate rulers of our community, even though the herb processing building and the school were bigger. Still, there was a certain charm to our building, and we planned on expanding it to become the grandest structure in the area. As we strolled down the road which was still under construction, we spotted Sangria out for her early morning patrol. I waved at her, but as usual, she disappeared into a shadow and reappeared behind me.
I was always amazed by her [Shadow Meld] skill.
"Good morning, Sangria!" I chirped.
"Good morning, my lord," she replied with a respectful bow.
Serena couldn't help but tease our loyal follower. "You should take it easy sometimes, Sangria. You're always so diligent with your patrols. You deserve some rest!"
But Sangria was quick to defend her actions. "I have to protect everyone in this domain with all my might."
I nodded in agreement. "You're doing an excellent job, Sangria. But you don't have to do everything yourself."
Sangria shook her head. "No one has my stealth skills. It's better if I handle the patrols alone."
I smirked. "Typical Sangria. Always the silent... well, always silent."
I remembered her new weapon and brought it up. "By the way, how's your new magic bow? <
>, right?"
Sangria's eyes lit up a bit. "It fits me perfectly, my lord! Thank you so much."
Even when she was excited, she was still a tad ambivalent.
I waved my hand dismissively. "No need to call me 'my lord' all the time. We're friends, right?"
Serena interjected, "But it would be disrespectful not to address the leader of the domain as such."
Sangria nodded in agreement. "I agree, my lord."
Then, like a gust of wind, Sangria vanished. We stood there in silence, admiring her work ethic and her mysterious abilities.
"I wish I could move like that," I mused.
Serena laughed. "You'd probably trip and fall flat on your face."
"Heyy that's not nice." (Lumiere)
As my companion Serena and I were leisurely walking through the grygan city, we suddenly heard a loud explosion emanating from the Industrial District.
That district was always churning out all sorts of innovative products ranging from textiles and wind magic core integrated airships to our beloved potions.
I immediately felt alarmed and instinctively used [Demon Wings], creating a surge of darkness that soon transformed into bat-like wings, much to Serena's surprise. She hadn't gotten used to my wings. Her reaction wasn't unexpected, however, now we have matching wings!
Within seconds, we were already soaring at breakneck speed, heading straight for the source of the explosion. Our quick flight took only half a minute, surprisingly, and we landed at the industrial scene in no time.
My wings vanished into dark particles that soon got reabsorbed by my body.
A group of grygans and minotaurs had already gathered, and Sangria swiftly appeared on my right as Serena walked on my left. She was quick to apologize "I'm sorry my lord, it seems we have an uninvited visitor - it's my duty to know these things prior."
I felt a slight pang of guilt inside.
I was the one who delayed her after all.
"Sangria, can you tell me what happened exactly?" I asked, my face etched with a serious expression.
"It looks like we had an unexpected visitor in our domain. Fasit's behind that explosion," Sangria replied, utterly mortified.
Upon hearing the name Fasit, my eyebrows arched up involuntarily while Serena and I exchanged awkward glances. Honestly, we did suspect something like this would happen eventually.
The grygans and minotaurs around us quickly made an aisle for my companions and me to pass through; they even bowed down in respect to us.
"Thank you," I said politely, although I was more curious about who that mysterious visitor was and what brought Fasit to cause an explosion.
The source of this c𝐨ntent is freewe(b)nov𝒆l