Amazon Apocalypse 7: Chapter 14

I spent the next hour consolidating my hold over the city. Much of the city's nobility was dead. Offices needed to be filled and jobs needed to be assigned.

Coming in firing spells and killing people wasn't the cleanest way to take over, but it certainly left an impression. Now that I was literally ripping up the vassal treaty, I had no intention of allowing a second rebellion to take place.

Stories of me casually strolling through the palace and disposing of anyone displeasing to me with a gesture would hopefully keep the upper classes in line for a generation or two. I planned to still be around then, and hopefully I'd be an A-Grade. At that point, I could transition from being a feared ruler to a beloved ruler.

"These words mark the covenant your Sages entered with me. It turned out their promises were worth worthless in the end." I tore the copy of the vassal treaty I held in half. The scraps of paper burst into flame and turned to ashes in my palm.

"I'm sure some of you have heard of me, but for those that haven't, I am Carter Smith, Emperor of Crownhill and lord of all the nearby lands. Until I can appoint a governor of suitable skill and trustworthiness, I will manage this city directly. If any of you find my rule untenable, stand and make yourselves known."

No one stood, which was a good sign. The bodies on the floor was a hint to all the smart people about what would happen if they crossed me. I had successfully cowed the surviving nobles. Now all I had to do was win the loyalty of the rebel army.

Thankfully, Eowyn's world had taught me how to do that as well. I'd shown these people the stick. Now was the time for the carrot.

"You there. Percival was it? Is it Sir Percival?" I asked, pointing at the young man who'd followed me all the way to the throne room.

"No, your imperial majesty. I'm just a man at arms." Percival's shoulders slumped in embarrassment.

"I sense there's more to your story. That armor has been in more than one or two fights, but it's of fine make. I see a noble crest on your shield. Take off your helmet and share your story with the court."

Percival removed his helmet, revealing a young and handsome face.

"I was born the son of a whore. One of my mother's oldest clients was a knight when the inn she worked at just outside the wall was attacked. He and I slew the monster, but not before it dealt him a mortal blow. He had no heirs, so he left his sword and armor to me and asked I carry on his family name," said Percival.

"I see..." I drummed my fingers against the throne. I hadn't expected Percival to be quite that honest with the court. Perhaps I'd spread some rumors that the knight who gave him his armor was more than just one of his mother's patrons.

"Taking this city was brave, Percival. You fought well at my side as we took the palace, and I can attest to your bravery. Take a knee before me."

Percival's eyes went wide as he dropped to one knee before the throne. I gestured, and his sword unstrapped itself from his back as I lifted it toward me with telekinesis. While not powerful enough to be used in combat, the casual display of magical power my Kindling Architect job granted me was still impressive to a layman.

"I, Emperor Carter, dub you Sir Percival. You bear that crest by my will, and I declare your blood as noble as that from any ancient family. Furthermore..." I flipped through my notepad looking for a suitable place for him. "...I grant you ownership over the Chamblin estate, and name you baron of the lands and villages it governs."

Percival looked shell-shocked. An official knighthood would have been a shocking gift on its own. Making him a baron to boot was shocking to the whole crowd.

Something else besides fear entered the eyes of the gathered nobles. Greed.

There was much to fear from my takeover. But also much to gain. Young Percival might be too overwhelmed to understand the political nuances at play here, but the nobles behind him weren't.

They saw my gift for the offer it was. Pledge your loyalty to me, and you will be rewarded. Now, the ambitious had reason to make themselves useful to me.

I repeated the ceremony with Sir Percival a few dozen times. Mostly I was handing out knighthoods, since those were cheap. I had a limited number of feudal lands to dole out. I still considered feudalism a more primitive form of government, and closer to the borders of Crownhill I'd experiment with different political structures.

But for the major cities and towns of the Camlaan shard, working within their existing hierarchy would be better. Introducing modern political theory could come when we'd made it through the integration and I could start building schools to educate and unify my territory.

I was largely killing time in the throne room while waiting with Cyra. I'd been communicating with her through the party interface while I talked with the nobles and told them how things would work from now on.

Eventually, I sensed Cyra approaching.

"Ah, Sir Percival, the Marshal is here. Take his weapon when he enters so he may pledge his allegiance to me," I said.

"Yes, your imperial majesty!" Sir Percival said as the door swung open.

Cyra entered first. Behind her was an unfamiliar knight. He was a pretty strong C-Grade, but from the nervous looks he glanced at Cyra, clearly he'd been no match for her.

"Your sword, Marshal Torin," Sir Percival held out his hands.

The marshal had a sour look on his face, but handed over his weapon. He looked up at me sitting on the throne with a small smile on my lips and realized whatever schemes he cooked up were over and done with.

"I see our new ruler has arrived faster than expected..." Marshal Torin looked at me. No doubt his gaze was normally predatory and piercing, like being locked in the eyes of a wolf. But he was a wolf, I was a dragon. If I wasn't constantly fighting off the transformation, I'd be able to prove it.

"I'm here to restore order to my new city. You did a good job getting started, but I prefer to finish these sorts of things myself. Take a knee and you can help me as my loyal vassal." I nodded at the ground before me.

I would hear the full story from Cyra later, but I was pretty sure I knew what happened. Marshal Torin rounded up a few dozen local lords and the heroes of the outlying settlements and brought them against the city.

He was using my name to capture the city and figured that if he played his cards right, he'd have full control of the place by the time I arrived. If he managed it fast enough, I'd have to appoint him governor of the place or I'd have another fight on my hands.

But he hadn't expected the Sages of Camlaan to be defeated so quickly. Nor for me to storm the palace single handed. All his schemes had fallen apart in the face of overwhelming power.

Left with no other choice, he had to pledge his allegiance to me. Handing over his sword to Sir Percival was symbolic of this new reality. The army he'd built was now mine. And if he wanted to keep any of what he'd gained, he'd need to turn his false, self-serving loyalty into real loyalty here and now.

So the Marshal took a knee before my throne.

"I pledge my fealty and that of my soldiers to the emperor," Marshal Torin said.

And just like that, the last of the major forces had fallen. The System recognized the significance of the moment by finally giving me the notification I'd been waiting for.

This shard has been fully pacified under one rule, with no major opposing factions remaining.

• All members of the victorious faction will receive a blessing of might, granting increased stat points in their race, scaling with how long each individual has been associated with the victorious faction.

• All members of the victorious faction will receive a blessing of talent, and will be granted extreme affinity for a useful skill.

• These bonuses will scale depending on how long each individual has been associated with the victorious faction.

The next stage of the integration will begin in approximately three weeks.

A more personal message popped up just after, this one meant for me.

Congratulations, Carter Smith, for maintaining and controlling your territory through another stage of the integration. Your power and influence has grown.

• Your title Shardking (Divine) has been upgraded to Shard Emperor (Divine)

• Your power over your given territory has increased, granting you use of more advanced quest menus. You can now grant access to your former simplified quest menus to governors of your choosing. Your royal title has been updated to Emperor.

• You and other notable individuals have been granted reward chests in recognition of your accomplishments.

I figured the reward chest would appear when I was in private, so I excused myself. There was the guest chamber Frank and I had stayed in last time we were here, and I found it and sat down for a bit.

I closed my eyes and focused on my new Shard Emperor title. It wasn't as much of an upgraded as hitting Shardking had been, but some of the additional quest features were undoubtedly useful.

For one, I could easily schedule automatic and recurring quests. I could also set up conditional quests that would activate even if I wasn't paying attention. These could be set up like a computer program and would trigger based on the parameters I set and could tap into the System's own vast sensory network.

The one I ended setting up was a simple quest to deal with dangerous monsters. Whenever a monster was spotted in a nearby village or inhabited territory, the System would automatically forward my quest to the nearest person of the correct level and grade to handle the threat. If they failed or rejected the quest, the reward would increase and the quest would be issued to someone else. This process would repeat until even my smallest towns and villages were well patrolled by adventurers.

I set up the bulk of my day-to-day workload to run automatically. Truthfully I could have set it all to be automatic by appointing a governor like the System suggested, but issuing quests was one of the few things about being an Emperor. It might be handy to give Cyra, Sakura, Bridget, or Margaret the ability to issue quests in my name, but I planned to keep sending out the bulk of these myself.

I set up a barrage of quests designed to integrate Camlaan and its territories. Already I could hear my quests impacting the city below. One of the easiest quests I'd issued was available to a few thousand people scattered throughout the city, and it would pay a small amount to each of them who loudly proclaimed their loyalty to their new emperor where anyone could hear. Even from way up in the palace I could hear noise echoing out from homes and taverns.

"Our glorious new emperor is a hero to the people! The future is looking bright under his leadership!"

"Long live the emperor! Long may he reign!"

"You know, I think having our city conquered was a good thing. I have a feeling this emperor is a pretty good guy."

Since the quest was only made available to select individuals, a lot of people were confused by their friends and family members suddenly saying as many positive things about me as they could. They'd never find out why either, since keeping quiet about the quest was a condition for completing it.

It was a bit of a shameless way to spread the word about me conquering Camlaan and to increase my reputation with the common folk, but I had a hunch it was going to work.

I enacted a few more ideas like that and got involved enough in the process that I hadn't noticed the System subtly and silently placing the reward chest. Eventually, I stretched, turned around, and finally saw it sitting behind me.

I figured that was worth a break, so I stopped fiddling with my quest menus to see what the System had for me.

Congratulations in playing a key role during this stage of the integration. You have been granted the following rewards.

• Ancient Ship Fabricator (Divine)

• Ancient Zero-Point Reactor Power Plant (Legendary)

• One billion units of raw metallic construction materials (Legendary)

The rewards from the System all seemed to point in the same direction. Had the System been spying on me while I showed Adrian my designs? Or maybe my recent repair of an Architect vessel had caught its attention.

Whatever the case was, I suddenly had pretty much everything I needed to build myself a space dock. All I'd have to do is set up my System rewards and I'd already have something better than the shoddy wooden things filled with nailed-together wooden dinghies that most of the Arcadia Multiverse used to traverse space.

Plus, with that new moon, we had a reason to go to space. I figured if I was the first one with a space fleet around Earth, then the moon was mine to do with as I pleased. Since our new moon had been created by the death of an A-Grade void monster, it was what Jade and her people might call a cultivation paradise. I was curious if that would translate into any bonuses for System users, whether measurable or otherwise.

It would take a week or two of work before Camlaan was settled enough for my life to go back to something approaching normal, but I could afford a brief trip to outer space to drop off my rewards.

Getting to the moon was more difficult than before with the System's integration barriers up in force again. Thankfully I'd left a teleportation array to jump to, and I used that to get to the moon, and from there flying to lunar orbit. As I worked, I realized I hadn't taken in the true scale of our new world last time I was up here. It was massive, though it was covered in enough System barriers it was impossible to see exactly where Crownhill was. I'd have to map the whole thing eventually.

Once I was free floating in space, I finally opened my chest.

All the rewards were far too large to take out anywhere else. The billion units of raw construction materials especially. I ended up pulling out the Ancient Ship Fabricator first, attached it to the Zero-Point Reactor Power Plant, and fiddled with it for a few hours until I found a design for a standard Architect spaceport.

After it was done with that, it had another lengthy build list to work on. Governess could update it remotely if need be, and I tasked her with the job of uploading some of my more recent work. I'd been working on and off with some big projects, one of which Adrian had admired even when he was a baby. With this fabricator, I could skip the weeks of manual work it would take.

I debated calling Adrian and Bridget back then and there, since the battle was won already. But eventually I decided against it. Given the time dilation, Adrian had probably already started taking lessons. They usually came a month at a time, so I'd let Adrian wrap up what he was learning rather than pulling him away from his studies.

That would give me time to really put this empire into shape for him. I wanted this place safe enough to give him a tour of the family holdings, since I was pretty sure the kid still didn't know that his dad was actually something of a local big-shot. I kept the whole emperor thing on the down low, especially around my family and close friends.

And if he was unimpressed with the whole empire thing, a giant space battle suit would be fun backup. Maybe I could even talk Bridget into letting me fly him to the moon. We could have a family picnic or catalogue the extraterrestrial life there. Hopefully, Adrian was still into bugs.

I left a teleportation array aboard the station before returning to Camlaan. I had a lot of work to do to make Crownhill safe. For now, it would be best if they stayed in Mucaria. Until the dust settled, he'd be safer there with his mother.

The Dragon Lodge's headquarters was far older and much more secure than a newly integrated world like Crownhill. Surely Adrian was much safer there.

<Note>

I could change my mind, but I think next chapter should be an Adrian PoV. Otherwise what comes next may feel like it appeared out of nowhere. I was looking through earlier chapters and realized Dramonar got a PoV chapter at some point, so it doesn't break precedent to do a non-waifu PoV. And I do think Adrian will be fun to be inside of.

Meta news:

The plan for this week is to do four chapters at the regular time or until we reach the end of my outlined content (which is what was originally part of the ending of book 6.)

After that, I'm going to have to go on another break again to finish editing book 6 for publication and to outline the rest of this book.

Let me know if you have any artwork ideas you want to see or other content, since there's probably going to be a week or two with limited new chapters. I don't think I'll be fully in the groove of releasing chapters of book 7 week after week until book 6 is out the door (and the audio for book 5, hopefully.)