Amazon Apocalypse 7: Chapter 4

I spent the next four months doing all the tedious stuff that came with suddenly expanding my territory fivefold. All my time in Crownhill was spent with my family, but my every waking moment besides that was spent chasing down loose ends outside the city.

My reputation in all of the smaller settlements increased dramatically, though not so much in Crownhill. Truthfully, I felt bad about putting something like this off for so long. My responsibilities carried far beyond the walls of the city I was in when the integration began. San Antonio especially needed more work.

I'd basically handed the job off to Governess to build up walls and laid down some basic enchantments and infrastructure, but that was it. Now, I put down things more on the scale of the great cities of Glacia.

At the end of the day, Crownhill was more of a fortress settlement, like Valkyrie's Watch. It was impregnable and well guarded, but those countermeasures limited some citizens' freedoms and economic opportunities. In contrast, San Antonio was expected to be more of a place for people to live. Given that it had an obelisk, it would likely be the biggest economic center of my sprawling kingdom, at least as far as humans were concerned.

New Kyoto was bigger in terms of population, but I had far fewer ties among the leadership there, and their semi-autonomous status meant I wouldn't be giving them aid like this unless they negotiated for it. Here though, I was free to contribute as much as I pleased.

So San Antonio got lots of attention, and nowadays that was where I directed dispirited human survivor groups instead of Crownhill. New enchantments rose up making the city extremely well defended. The strong adventurer presence kept the area clear of monsters, and a more formal police presence reduced petty crime and murder back to something approaching pre-integration levels.

From here on out, Governess would also be building the cheap housing she'd been constructing in Crownhill over here in San Antonio instead. In the long run, those who still hadn't come to terms with the integration would be better off moving to a city with more economic prospects for low-leveled people.

The Citadel of the Order of Sorcery and the military base were perhaps the two major factions that I thought I had reasonably well under control. I sent most non-humans accustomed to a medieval level of technology to the citadel, since they would have trouble adapting to a post-industrialized society quickly if I pushed them to San Antonio.

The humans in the refugee camp around the military base had already started moving out on their own, but I formalized the process and got most of them housed in San Antonio. Those that wanted to stay near the military base were welcome to do so, and I set up a local political structure that would allow them to live normal lives.

The military base was still in disarray thanks to the natural divinity that had taken possession of many of them during the integration, but Cyra's timely intervention had built something of an alternative political structure loyal to me. A side effect of this was that the new government was run more like an Amazonian feudal territory, but that was something easily fixed.

It actually didn't take much work or time. Cyra's Amazonian warriors had the human soldiers surprisingly well in hand. I feared there might be some cultural issues at first, but part of the reason Cyra had been able to bring over so many volunteers was that a lot of these Amazonians were hunting for husbands. Pairing up with an Amazonian meant that no man would have the spare energy to plot rebellion. He'd have enough trouble just keeping his pelvis in good enough shape to walk.

I put up better walls around the military base too, and soon it was more of a fortified town. The strong military backbone of the town would remain though, since it was something both the soldiers and the Amazonians shared in common. It would be a good place to recruit from a generation or two from now. Given the long lifespan of a B-Grade, I could plan for these sorts of things a century or two in advance.

The third place that needed my attention was the town surrounding Governess' golem factory. The people of the nearby tree house village had waited out the bulk of the integration under the protection of the golems, and now that the golems were under my control, they seemed content to continue doing so.

That wasn't such a bad thing though. Governess had taken the mannequin idea I'd had for the Adventurer District back in Crownhill and done her best to build a small town around it. The people here were living utopian-like lives where the local infrastructure was completely automated, including food growth and delivery. They were even given ready-made homes to live in.

They were far from the most productive members of my territory, but here and there I spotted an extremely talented crafter among them pursuing some System-related job through sheer passion.

Golem Town had an obelisk as well, though it was ancient and worn down. With it as part of my trade network, whatever skilled crafters emerged from this town would be able to dump their products on the market for anyone in my territory to buy.

Enough of the people were useful to governess that I was content to let the settlement stay as it was. The living standards were high enough that I'd probably have to keep people from flooding the place, but it would be an excellent peaceful settlement to send skilled craftsmen or the loved ones of powerful people who weren't powerful themselves.

I helped out building shields for the town and making spatially expanded warehouses for Governess. I also spent some time getting the rest of the nonfunctional golem assembly lines together again, and even designed something smaller and sleeker using the knowledge that Dane Delverson had taught me during my recent trip to Mucaria.

Given Governess' needs, I doubted there were many mannequins left on the shard. She was in desperate need of something human-sized and shaped that could run the nearby shops and structures, since human-sized buildings and tools called for a human-shaped golem.

I'd been thinking over the design for a while, so the whole assembly line came together quickly. Old cell phones were plentiful enough on any shard that had once housed earthlings that it wasn't tough to source the key material. And if we ever did run out, we could switch to something more like how the Architect golems nearby functioned. The range and response rate on the Architect golems wasn't as good, so both Governess and I preferred the technological solution while we had access to it.

Between seeing to the major settlements and upgrading their defenses, I visited as many of the smaller shelters as I could. I introduced myself by name and position, which went over well when I came bearing much-needed food, tools, and other supplies. I also upgraded the defenses for the Goddess in Jade's shrines, which the local Omykir villagers and knights greatly appreciated.

There were always a few people who weren't happy with the idea of having an emperor. These were always humans, since an emperor sounded perfectly natural to anyone from a medieval culture. I'm sure more complaints would appear once they no longer had to worry as much about survival and had more time to focus on social climbing. But for now the countryside was fairly well in hand and all the problem makers and future problem makers were finding themselves gathering in the capital.

I even visited the swamp settlement, which housed Crownhill's seedy underbelly. This place had previously been inhabited by trolls, and was now inhabited by many of the survivors from Crownhill County Prison. There was also a thriving industry and market for abusing ingredients like troll regeneration orbs.

I'd just been planning to look things over and make sure there wasn't anything too illegal happening. The shard needed somewhere to stuff the sins and vices of the world so I'd turn a blind eye to prostitution and recreational drug use so long as it was confined to the swamp. Anything more than that might require some personal attention. Criminals or not, these people were still in my territory and might need to be reminded as much.

I mentioned what I saw while touring the place to Mimiko, and she expressed interest in visiting with me.

"An illicit auction house, you say?" Mimiko said, eyes lighting up.

"Yeah, they were selling all sorts of strange pill blends that are supposed to increase the abilities or levels of whoever consumes them. Seems risky to me, especially when we have such a skilled chef at home who can accomplish the same effect with clean ingredients." I gave Bridget a kiss on the cheek.

We were currently eating her food at dinner. I was feeding Adrian his fruity mush, which he seemed none too pleased with, given the spread the rest of us were enjoying. It had been a lot longer than four months for him, thanks to the time dilation of the pocket realm, and his mind had caught up to his body's accelerated development.

He'd started speaking his first words, which were quickly followed by second words when his mother insisted on raising a polite child.

"Dessert please!" Adrian said with a cute pout on his face as he showed his empty bowl of baby mush.

"Okay, you can have a little. But only because you asked nicely," Bridget said as she ladled out some of her homemade chocolate pudding for the kid. We all followed Adrian's lead to get some ourselves, though none of us were able to replicate the cute baby pout.

After dinner, Mimiko volunteered to accompany me to the swamp, where we attended one of the illicit auctions. There were a variety of strange goods up for sale there, including some cultivator supplies.

Either some of the Order of Sorcery's people had made it to the swamp, or some of the people in the swamp settlement had chanced upon drug formulas that could help with leveling.

"I think this is aspirin with troll orb added to it. Maybe a little crystal meth too," I said, holding up a strange white pill with a familiar smell.

"They're blood-circulation breakthrough pills! They'd be a precious treasure on any cultivation world, though here with most people leveling through the System they're horribly undervalued," Mimiko explained. She had a stack of illicit goods sitting next to her.

"You know what, how'd you like to be in charge of enforcing the law here in this den of debauchery? If you need any help, you can bring Reluna in on this too," I said.

Mimiko quickly agreed to take the job of keeping the swamp settlement in line. Given how the Black Beast Sect operated, the place wasn't going to change much even when Mimiko brought it to heel. But even the subfactions of the Black Beast Sect knew not to plot rebellion. Out of all my companions, Mimiko probably had the most experience bringing a rowdy bunch like this to heel.

***

Sometime later, I was with Adrian in the pocket realm. I was making frequent visits here, since he and Bridget stayed here most of the time these days. At some point, we'd come to the decision that it'd be better for Adrian to grow up a little faster, so we were taking advantage of all the time dilation we could.

It meant I was there less often than I wanted to be, but I did my best to be there when it counted. Most of my spare time was spent watching him play with the other kids in the pocket realm.

Adrian had learned to build some impressive sandcastles during his year or so since birth. He built a large castle surrounded by towering walls and fierce ramparts. It took me a while to realize he was building our home. Several other buildings took shape around it, and it took me a while to realize he was building a copy of Crownhill.

"Looks like he's going to take after his father." Bridget nudged me as we watched him work.

"I don't know. I've seen some of your fancy cakes before. Some of those things are big enough to be castles. Maybe he's copying you." I teased her back.

I was still settling into being a new parent, though for Bridget it had been much longer. She stuck by Adrian all day. Her leveling had stagnated a bit because of it, but since she was already B-Grade she could freely level her chef job all the way to the peak of B-Grade without any fighting at all.

The two of us were giggling to one another and probably having more fun than Adrian was when we saw the first bit of trouble of Adrian's life.

The sand he and the other young kids were playing with was near a small pond. Adrian and those like him stayed near the wide open shore while parents drank and chatted while sitting at the picnic tables overlooking the water.

But next to the sandy area was a more marshy wetland where older kids tromped through the mud. From the snippets of conversation I heard, their latest obsession was hunting down crabs and beetles for some game.

An older kid of perhaps ten saw Adrian's sand castle, and I could tell from afar that he took a liking to it.

"We're taking this for our battle arena!" the kid said.

He stepped in front of Adrian's nearly-finished sand castle and made a shooing motion toward my son. At that moment, he looked very much like a tiny bandit as he robbed Adrian of the castle complex he'd spent most of the day making.

"Please build your own," Adrian replied in a display of his increasing mastery of language.

He tried to ignore the older kid and continue working, but the older kid didn't leave. Instead, the older kid crouched down and used his hands as shovels. He grabbed Adrian's model of the castle we lived in at the base and in one scoop pulled most of it out of the way.

"A battle arena needs to be clear and open," the older kid said, destroying most of Adrian's work.

Instantly, Adrian's little jaw clenched tight as he glared at the older boy in anger.

Bridget shot to her feet, but I held her back before she intervened.

"Give it a second." I held her arm.

"He's too young to learn from this," Bridget argued.

I shook my head. "I believe in him."

Conventional wisdom suggested Bridget was right. But I was pretty sure that Adrian was a brighter kid at one year old than most people were at a hundred. He could handle this any number of ways. His level was actually quite a bit higher than the older boy's so the only one in danger was the older kid trying to bully him.

Would Adrian resort to violence and shove the older kid away? Would he call for me and his mother to intervene? Would he abandon his project and let the older boy have it?

"You broke it. Please apologize." Adrian put his hands on his hips and stood.

The older boy scoffed. "Go over there and play with the other babies. We're taking this spot for our bug battles."

"Please apologize," Adrian repeated, this time more sternly.

The older kid ignored him but turned to the other kids coming out of the swampy marsh. "Hey guys! Bring the beetles and crabs over here!"

Adrian made a disgruntled noise. His hands curled into little fists at his sides, and in one swift move he knocked over the walls of the sand castle.

"You ruined it!" the older boy complained.

"Mine to build. Mine to ruin." Adrian crossed his arms.

The older kid looked mad. It looked like he might even give Adrian a push, but something in my son's confident stance told him that would be a bad idea. Maybe it was some natural instinct those of us who'd grown up without the System were too stubborn to listen to without an explicit System message giving us an exact level.

The other kid stormed off in a huff. Meanwhile, Bridget and I made our way over to Adrian.

"Are you alright, Adrian? I'm sorry about your castle." Bridget wrapped him up in a hug.

"You handled that well, son. He left without a fight. Conflict resolution is an important skill. It'll be especially important for you, I think." I stroked his head fondly. He was still staring at his ruined castle.

A perfect solution would have left Adrian with his castle intact, but there weren't really many other options when dealing with someone unreasonable like that. While Adrian might not have earned a perfect score, he at least got passing marks. I wasn't sure I'd be able to manage better in his situation, at least not without a bit of magic or using my status as the local shardlord.

I flicked my fingers, and the sand levitated back in place, just as Adrian had it before. His eyes lit up and Bridget set him back down to continue working.

This time Bridget sat down beside him to help and so the older kids wouldn't bother him.

Meanwhile, I tracked down the older kid. His parents needed a talking to. A kid with an attitude like that was likely going to get himself killed shortly after growing up and leaving this pocket realm.

<Note>

Adrian was born a bit more developed, like a one year old. Thanks to a bit of time dilation and a few trips away, he's now one year old in truth and two-ish physically, but a bit further along mentally and physically than his age suggests just because 24 levels in stat points provides a lot of boosts.

I'm not going to get too deep into this unless you guys really like it. Maybe one or perhaps two chapters of father-son bonding?