Settled

The crowd that exceeded several hundreds of people, all surrounded the castle, waiting for the hero to come out.

Despite the harsh rain, some had set up shops and took advantage of the situation to earn a few quick copper coins.

There were many commoners there, as well as some sorcerers, and a few people of power from the kingdom. All of them wanted the same thing, to meet the 100th hero. After all, meeting and possibly befriending a hero could bring lots of profitable gains to them.

However not everyone was in it to profit from it.

"Mommy, when is the hero gonna come out?" A little girl asked her mother.

"Soon baby, soon." Both mother and daughter were resting inside a tent that they set up.

"Where's daddy?"

"He's working."

The mother, and some of the parents really did not care about seeing the heroes as they had their own troubles to deal with, but their children really wanted to see at least one hero. It's situations like this that every loving parent has to deal with at one point..

Many of these kids could not see the heroes when they were being summoned months ago. The reason varied between families: some lived too far, or it was too risky to travel, or they couldn't afford traveling all the way to the kingdom from their poor village home.

But upon seeing the new deserted lands, how it wasn't so harsh anymore, many parents finally brought their families to see the missing hero even if it is just one. And many of these families lived close to the deserted lands so it was perfect.

The only downside was the sudden heavy rain, and the hero didn't seem too keen on showing himself to the public anytime soon.

"I'm tired mommy."

Then, the heavy rain, which showed no signs of stopping, finally stopped. In mere seconds the dark clouds vanished, and the sun shined the entire area.

"IT'S HIM! HE'S HERE!" Someone shouted and pointed to the skies.

Everyone saw a humanoid figure flying with his dragon wings on his back. Will landed on top of a wooden carriage gently. He stood above everyone where everyone could see him.

"MOMMY! IT'S HIM!" The little girl's eyes shined like little beautiful stars as she ran up to him. But the girl's mother held firmly onto her hand.

"Hold on there." The mother was just happy to see her daughter happy.

Everyone gathered around the carriage where Will stood on. Everyone wanted to touch him, to get closer to him, but didn't.

"I know it's a little late to ask but is it okay if I stand here?" Will asked the owner of the wooden carriage.

"YeS sIr HeRo SiR!!!" The man's voice cracked as he answered. The thing is that he isn't even the owner of the carriage, he just happened to be sitting on it.

"Thank you." Will took off his mask, revealing his tanned and well toned face. He placed a wooden megaphone on his lips. The megaphone was crafted by him, obviously.

"Can everyone hear me?! Good. Now, please leave." Will said.

"You must tell us why you went missing for so long!"

"Are you actually a dragon?"

"Is it true that you're dating the red-headed hero?"

"Did you do a backflip, snap the bad guy's neck, then save the day?"

"Can I live in this castle with you?"

"Let me touch you."

"Are you single? I may be a man but… ya know."

"Please, just a single strand of your hair, please let me have a strand of your hair!"

Apparently Will's words were ignored by everyone. And apparently many were either weird, perverts, or just have a lot of time on their hands.

'This was a mistake from the very start.' Will thought. Instead of talking anymore, he flew back to his castle.

"NOOO!" People cried when he flew away.

Will landed like a superhero in the middle of his base.

"How did it go?" Sandra came out of the building, she wore fine clothes instead of the comfy clothes she wore not too long ago.

"Not great. Why do you always get so lazy whenever there's rain?" Will remembered that many times during school when it rained Sandra would rarely ever come to school that day.

She is not as lazy as he used to be before, but on rainy days she was super lazy.

As for Adaline she was lazy all the time except for the times when Will needed her help.

"Pfft! I dunno."

"Seems legit."

"I'll go talk to the people outside, maybe I can convince them to leave or something. Not making any promises though."

"Thanks." Will never really liked being with crowds, heck he always hated family gatherings and parties whenever he was forced to go by his mom.

His dad was also the same, never liked talking with people. But Will's mom liked to talk with people all the time, and is the one who is in charge so there was very little that they could do.

'Wait, Sandra likes crowds, and I don't. Oh no we're gonna become like my parents! Hopefully my child won't turn out like me." Will always had low self esteem, like many people his age do.

"Where do you think you're going?" Sandra saw Will headed to his little cave. She was never allowed there because Will was afraid that a sudden cave in could happen, and it would kill her.

"To mine." Will did not want to tell her about his golems.

"You lost the bet, remember? Now you get to clean the buildings." Sandra handed Will a broom.

Will, with his head drooped down like a wounded dog, slowly headed towards the nearest building.

Meanwhile…

The king was in his chair, reading the latest tax report.

"Well after all the taxes we have accumulated from this short time, we have enough to probably make a single magical weapon for a hero. But that is probably inefficient. More than 90 heroes are too scared to go out. It would probably be better if I ordered the remaining master blacksmiths to enchanted armor and tools for the majority of the heroes. BUT! There's a slight chance that perhaps this new magical weapon might become a very, very powerful weapon."

The person on the side was just listening to the king talking to himself. This is why many heroes don't have armor, and why he's bleeding the people dry of their funds, it's because he likes gambling it all for a magical weapon which might or might not break.

And if against all odds the weapon does not break, there's an even smaller chance that that weapon is actually good!

It's like the weapon Bruce won after the tournament of heroes. All the money went to making that weapon.

"Hold on, why have these villages not paid their taxes?" The king pointed at the report.

In each village there is one person in charge of that village, and that person in charge can decide whether or not the village needs protection of the kingdom, which in turn they pay taxes to the king.

Of course if someone from that village who is under the protection of the kingdom does not pay taxes, just get kicked out of the village.

The closer the village is to the kingdom, the higher the tax rates are.

But on a large section of the tax reports many of the villages that are under his protection have not paid a single copper coin.

"My king, many people say that they cannot continue paying taxes to the kingdom so they decided not to."

"But it doesn't make sense. There's at least 6 villages who have all decided to not pay their taxes? Something is wrong here. Levy, I want you to investigate these villages and find out what's happening there. Take a few half-nobles with you and stay in disguise."

Levy is another noble that the king trusts.

The king found this highly suspicious. There have been one or two villages every month who don't pay or meet their quota. There was nothing weird about that.

But if 6 villages suddenly decided not to pay taxes at the same time, something was definitely fishy and he needed to fix it. What if the next time instead of 6 villages it's 10, or 20 that don't pay taxes?

Nevertheless he needed the money for the heroes.

"Right away." Levy left quickly to fulfill the king's orders.

"Hmm… This smells like something Clement would do. And the people I sent to talk to the missing hero have not reported to me yet."

The king noticed that all the other nobles are busy and thus none of them are here with him to protect him. He sends them away to do other kinds of jobs, that way he doesn't have to pay ordinary people and therefore saves money. Most of his staff are half-nobles or nobles, and a few of them are ordinary people who carry out difficult tasks like cooking, cleaning, and so on.

But because the king doesn't like to employ too many ordinary people, he only hires 3 people to do a lot of work which is more than normal people can handle. In fact 3 people are in charge of cleaning the entire kingdom.

"Hey, reporter, what's your name?" The king asked. This reporter has been with him for years and he never learned his name. After all, the reporter is an ordinary man.

"Lucius."

"How would you like a 'temporary' promotion?"

"Would I?" Lucius's eyes sparkled like beautiful little diamonds. A promotion means more money for him. And since times are tough right now, everyone needs money.

"Check the deserted lands and report to me what is happening there. I'll leave it up to you."

"Yes, my king. Can I take a horse?"

"If by that you mean your own horse then absolutely."

"But… I don't have a horse."

"Okay. And?"

"But… the deserted lands are at least 2 weeks walking distance. It'll take a month before I can report anything to you. That is IF I make it alive."

"Yeah. Safe trip. Oh man, 1 month? Can't wait that long. Nevermind, you can forget the promotion."

"Wait, no I can do it!"

"Then you better hurry. And I need a report in 7… no 5 days."

"4 days… fine." Lucius ran outside the kingdom at lightning speed. He had a plan to make it to the deserted lands in 2 days but it'll require money.

He desperately needed this promotion.

However he seemed to have misheard the king's words 'temporary promotion' meaning that it's not a permanent job.

The king saw Lucius leave. As he was resting comfortably, thinking what to do next, his communication stone lit up.

The men he sent to the deserted lands finally reported back to the king.

"Oh? Well I thought the guys I sent to the deserted lands died or something. And there's another castle there? What?"

Many years ago there was a hero who set up his own place on the deserted lands, Christopher Lawrence.

He had spent the majority of life in the deserted lands, and all he made was a giant village with fences around it, and some buildings as well, but as the village was deserted after his death. The buildings crumbled, everything was gone and reduced to dust.

"Now this I gotta see. But will the hero find it offensive if I suddenly visited him? Probably."

He wrote back to his men to talk to the hero and find out everything they can without mentioning that he was the one who sent them.

"Now I wait."

…

After cleaning, an entire day went by. All Will did was protect his golems. Because of their hard work their numbers went from 5 to 8 golems.

Will also helped mine with them and it progressed a little bit faster.

Will never really realized how boring it was to mine. Grinding in real life is much more boring compared to in video games.

But he is grateful that he doesn't have to do it by himself anymore.

And finally, after two days of grinding, he finally got 10 low-tier golem cores to make a mid-tier golem core.

"Finally! Hope the wait was worth it!"

Will took out all the golem cores from his golems to infuse them into a better golem.

{Mid-tier golem core}

{A better golem with a higher IQ than a low-tier golem. The core is now tougher than diamond.}

"Tougher than diamond? So not that tough." Will has experience using diamond tools, and it was not worth it.

Will never experimented just how tough low-tier golem cores are because he doesn't have the luxury to waste those low-tier golem cores.

But most of the golem cores before were crushed by the giant scorpions unfortunately. Did this mean that the mid-tier golem cores wouldn't break as easily?

There were a few slight differences compared to the low-tier golem cores, it had a brighter color, and was tougher apparently. The size was still the same.

Will inserted the mid-tier golem core inside a golem. It grew to life as expected.

"MaStEr! ThAnK yOU FoR gIvING ME LiFe." The golem said in a hoarse tone.

"Holy!" Will was surprised and somehow did not expect it. Before all that his golems could say is 'master.'

"Can you say anything else?" Will wanted to test just how intelligent this new golem was.

"YeS I CAn! DO yoU hAvE aNy ORDerS foR Me?"

The golem talked like that because of how crappy his body is.

"Not now. Do you know who created you?"

"YOu dID, mAStER!"

"No, I mean do you know anything about the crafting system? The one who actually created you." Will only crafted the golem cores. But the one who made this possible was the system.

"I Don'T KNOw What YoU mEAN bY thAT!"

Will knew that these golems can never disobey him, that's what the system told him at least. So there is no chance that he's lying to him.

"Do you remember anything before I created you? For example another user… another master?"

Will remembered how the man called him a 'lab rat' and that he wasn't the first one to be picked. That thought really stuck with him.

"YoU'Re thE OnLy MASTER I knOw."

"Nevermind then. What's 1+1?" Will wanted to test out how much it knows.

"?" The golem slightly tilted his body in confusion. It couldn't tilt his head like it wanted to because of his crappy design.

"Do you know math?"

"NO."

"Hmm… Yeah. I figured. Do you know how to mine?"

Will understood another thing about these golems, that is that they are able to learn. At first the low-tier golems learned about mining after he showed them how to do it.

After all, it would seem unrealistic if they suddenly knew everything about science, or math, or anything that they haven't been taught. The only thing that they knew what to do is communicate and listen to his orders.

The funny thing is that he only showed a few golems how to mine. After that he never taught another golem again.

That's something that he never really thought about. The thought of the golems having a connected mind, like a hive mind did occur to him, but there was no way to figure that out since he couldn't really ask his golems that.

"I DO knOW. YoU tAuGhT ME!"

"Then get to work."

"YeS! MASteR!" The golem immediately began mining as fast as he could.

Will thought that he would have to retrain the new golem to mine. But because of his poor body he couldn't work efficiently as he would like to.

"Hey, stop, what do you mean I taught you? I just created you two minutes ago."

"YoU tAugHT me WHen YoU FiRST creATEd Me WeeKS Ago."

"But I didn't just create you, I created more than one of you."

"THeY ArE aLL mE. I REmemBER EveRyTHInG."

Will thought that was creepy.

"Do you remember when the giant scorpions destroyed your cores?"

"YeS! I RemEMBer."

Will went into a deep thought. In order to test out something else he needed more golem cores.

"Get back to work then."

The golem got to mining again. It went slower because it was only one instead of 10. Will realized that the next time he has the chance to create another mid-tier golem core, he's gonna have to wait because what he needs right now is a bigger number of golems.

The more golems he has, the faster he can gather golem ores and also other types of precious materials.

'Wait, if this golem is intelligent, does that mean I don't have to guard the low-tier golems anymore?' Will wanted to do something else other than to stand around and keep guard. Not only was it boring but he could be doing something else.

'Maybe, if I put this golem in charge for now and let him command and keep the other golems safe, I won't have to worry about another stampede of giant scorpions."

"AH!" Will felt something grabbing his foot, it was Adaline.

"I will never get used to that. And you… do you have a name?" Will asked. He forgot what he named his other golems and wasn't too sure what to call him.

"YoU GAvE Me manY nAMEs, MAsteR."

"Nevermind, I'll just call you golem. If you happen to hear anything moving while you're mining, like scorpions or anything at all, don't do anything and just keep still until I come back."

"AffIRMaTIvE, mASTER!"

'You don't know what 1+1 is but you know what affirmative means?' Will thought.

He ran up to his base. He was once again out of breath, and he still needed to get used to the light after having spent so long underground.

"Will!" Sandra ran up to Will.

"Did something happen?" Will asked.

"Come look." Sandra dragged Will up the walls.

What Will saw was people, more people than before. And they were already trying to set up permanent homes.

Some people had brought in wood, building materials, livestock, and even began claiming their own 'territory' by setting up wooden fences.

Some had even begun to trade with each other. Since they lacked money, they traded other things like food for tools, livestock for clothes, herbs for jewelry, and so on.

"Um… what?" Will couldn't believe it. Didn't they come just to see him? Why would they suddenly want to settle here?

"I talked to a few of them. They started to like this land because they could stand it now that the intense heat is gone. And since there are no monsters living here, it's perfect for them. And the fact that you're here is also a plus kinda." Sandra said.

"This is what I didn't want. Then again it was inevitable." Will already foresaw this happening long ago, ever since he finally got rid of the heat.

He wouldn't mind if people settled on the deserted lands, after all there's a lot of space to go around. But what he didn't expect is for people to suddenly settle RIGHT OUTSIDE OF HIS CASTLE!

"Doesn't this remind you of when we created a huge stone building in the middle of a village in minecraft? Our building will always stand out, and the villagers would breed, mingle with each other? And we could trade with them.'

"Do you want them to stay?" Will asked Sandra. It sounds like she was convincing them to let them stay.

"Well I can understand why it's annoying. But look on the bright side, if they make a village here, they'll start to bring in stuff that we might need. And this way we won't have to travel ALL the way to the kingdom and back. And also it's nice to talk to people. And they also have a safe place to stay."

"Hmmmm…" Will had to admit that she had a point. But he had to hide his secrets, and the worst way to do that is by having hundreds of people living in your front yard.

If they were living inside his castle it would be crossing the line for him. But they're outside, and a huge wall is blocking everyone from entering.

He had to really think about this. Should he let them stay?