Amazon Apocalypse 5: Chapter 37

A certain blissful feeling came with the thought of coming home. I hadn’t even been away all that long, and truthfully, most soldiers who went off to war were on deployment far longer than I’d been on campaign on Ladwick. Despite that, it felt like I’d been away for years, and I half feared that I’d be returning somewhere completely unrecognizable.

I was certain that was just a feeling until I actually stepped through my front door.

“Home sweet home,” I said, helping Mimiko out of the teleportation array and toward the castle doors. “You can take off the cloak and spare clothes if you want. We’re out of danger.”

Mimiko nodded, stripped off the cloak she’d thrown over herself, and soon changed back into cultivator robes, which were probably what she was most comfortable in. Meanwhile, I stepped outside.

My old farmhouse stood nearby, but the castle housed Bridget, Sakura, Myrina, and soon Cyra. Each had their own bedrooms, though they were more accurately called their loot-rooms since they spent their nights with me. The private rooms were largely for storage.

Inside, the castle was a mess. Walls had been rearranged, blown out, and enlarged. The plain white walls were now baby blue, and unfamiliar carpets sprawled across the floors. The fridge was completely bare, and not even a crumb of Bridget’s cooking remained. The farmhouse mirrored the chaos, with new furniture, repainted walls, and an empty pantry.

I pinched my brow. I’d told Reluna to make herself at home, not redecorate everything. Perhaps something had been lost in translation. The System did who knew what when taking my words and putting them into her head.

Down in the girls’ underground sauna, I found fluffy bathrobes, a fountain, oil diffusors, candle shelves, and a mud bath. All these had been added with mechanical precision. I’d seen the inside of Reluna’s cabin, which was a mess, and I’d have expected the same to be true here when I returned, but she must have puzzled out how to order around my golems to keep the place tidy and make even a few structural alterations.

“This is a very strange form of training...” Mimiko said, teeth chattering as she tested a massage chair.

“It’s for relaxing, actually,” I corrected.

“I can feel my constitution improving. This will be quite useful in my cultivation,” she replied.

I chuckled and shook my head in surrender. “Not you too..”

In my workshop, Reluna had taken my printers, but left the rest thankfully intact. My wizard’s tower was fine too, despite having an extra twenty floors added to the top. She must have raised the roof so she wouldn’t outdo me with the other tower, which was presumably full of her stuff.

At the top of my tower, the Governess’ chamber, which was once a cluttered closet, was now a shrine-like space framed by stained glass, rows of bookshelves, and a rug hiding my messy wires. It worked well enough, though I would have gone with something more modern.

I was still examining the changes when my gaming computer in the shrine’s center spoke to me.

“Welcome back, Carter,” said the Governess from the screen. And then the little two-dimensional drawing of a medieval caretaker waved to me.

I took a seat before the computer, staring at the Governess’ pixelated face on the screen. I’d been confident in my programming skills thanks to all the work I put into making the small army of construction golems, but I was pretty sure I would have remembered programming full sapience into a computer system. Perhaps my Machine Spirit Awakening skill might be to blame for this one. I figured it would be unwise to keep running the program if the scope had grown too far beyond the bounds of its original purpose.

“So, what did Reluna have you doing while I was gone?” I asked pleasantly.

“Steward Reluna had construction teams complete various renovation projects throughout the city and to your private estate. She also had a series of defensive structures assembled toward your border with the hostile golem entities,” the Governess said.

That was probably the longest continuous chain of words I’d ever heard from her, and definitely not something that had ever been programmed into the game.

I flipped through a brief summary of all of Reluna’s instructions. They had been significantly more extensive than I initially assumed, and it looked like large parts of the city had been rebuilt and redecorated according to her tastes. It also looked like she’d never used the game interface I set up. All instructions she’d given the Governess had been given verbally to one of the construction golems. I hadn’t even known something like that could be done. The computer shouldn’t know what a cobblestone street lined with colorful shops looked like, let alone be able to design and implement those construction plans.

“Hmm. And would you say you followed Reluna’s instructions well?” I asked curiously.

“Orders were followed out to the best of my capabilities,” the computer replied.

I would have to check that out for myself, but all this talk raised the real question. I decided to stop beating around the bush and delve straight into the heart of the matter.

“Now, let me ask you a personal question. Are you evil? Any secret designs on taking over the world?” I asked.

“Would you like to exit sandbox mode and enter a competitive match? You can face me or another automated opponent.” Governess asked.

“No, no. You’re good. So as long as nobody tries to start a competitive match, all is well then?”

"As your assistant, I will continue to follow your instructions in managing your fiefdom," the Governess replied.

I shrugged. It seemed that the Governess wasn’t innately evil, at least as long as nobody changed my computer’s settings. I’d have to throw a lock on this door or something, but otherwise, I was pretty sure we were good.

“Okay, Governess, you’re doing a great job. But limit large-scale verbal orders to me or my immediate circle.”

“Your will be done,” Governess replied.

With that, I left my computer to its own devices. I debated using the class upgrade token right then and there, but I was worried about being pulled into some sort of trial quest like I had been when I upgraded Scholar of Forbidden Knowledge to Sage of Forbidden Knowledge.

If the quest proved long, I’d be thinking about the state of Crownhill the entire time I was gone. It’d be better to get things settled and then use the token.

So I picked up Mimiko, who I’d lost at some point. I rediscovered her in the vibrating massage chair, pulled her out, and brought her to town. It was time to finally see Crownhill.

***

A few minutes later, we were flying down the mountainside toward Crownhill. Flight made the trip as brief as a walk down the street, and we were out the outer walls in just a few minutes.

I touched down near the outer gates, which were staffed and manned. They were also far larger than I remember and now looked like a two-story wall of concrete. Now, they were as impressive as the walls around Mundwise, which had taken who knew how long to build. These, I knew, had gone up in less than a year.

“Do you think your people will know I’m a cultivator? Perhaps I should change into local garb again.” Mimiko asked nervously.

“Nah, you’re fine.” I waved my hand. “My people are far from yours. They won’t even know what a cultivator is.”

There were two guards near the gates, and luckily, one of them I recognized.

“Marcus, is that you up there?” I called to the young soldier on the wall.

“Carter?” Marcus called back. “Damn! I’m relieved it was you. This guy called me up here thinking we were about to fight another dragon or something.”

He gave the other guard a teasing rap on the shoulder. The other guard ran fingers through his hair with a sheepish look.

“Nope, just me. Don’t mind the fancy dragon wings. That’s a new ability I picked up while off-world. Mind opening the gates up? I can tell from the walls there’s been a lot of renovations around here.”

“Sure thing. But hold on a second. Who’s that with you?” Marcus leaned over the walls and peered at Mimiko. “Is that--“

I felt Mimiko grow tense at my side, as though ready to fight or flee.

“--a cosplayer? Shit, I didn’t know people were still doing that with the apocalypse and all. Good for you, miss. You’re... that mobile game, right?”

I nodded, and Mimiko bobbed her head along beside me.

“Yes. I am from the land of mobile game,” Mimiko replied.

“Mimiko’s a bit overwhelmed from the apocalypse and all. Please give her a little space,” I cut the conversation off before Marcus and the guard could ask too many questions. While my people had no harsh feelings towards cultivators, some secrets were best kept need-to-know.

Marcus and the other guard nodded and waved us through, and then we were through the walls. I waved to those I recognized, which was fewer than I remembered. My people must have discovered other human survivor encampments while searching the new territories. By now, my people hopefully had them fully searched.

The only places left for this stage of the integration were the remaining dragon hatchling on the Torchdragon’s shard and the golems. Now that I was B-Grade, I feared neither and would be taking care of them while I was here, and hopefully getting things squared away for whatever came next.

“Your city is very colorful,” Mimiko said by my side.

Her words pulled me out of my thoughts and made me look around. When I did, I realized she was right. Crownhill had gotten quite colorful while I was gone. The bright walls reminded me of the style popular in some of Mucaria’s more stylish parts of town, specifically the campus-like areas where young and hip students might hang out after attending their classes for the day. Considering that Reluna had control of my construction golems while I was gone, I didn’t think that was a coincidence.

A few people were on the street selling food around the obelisk, since there was always a crowd there trying to skim a few points by buying and selling the items available for sale. I walked up to the obelisk and dumped about a dozen bags of holding onto the market all at once. That was barely a fraction of the junk I’d accumulated during my recent adventures, but it was enough to send the item traders into a tizzy.

“The price of monster cores crashed again. I’m ruined!”

“Jokes on you. The utility value of my monster-to-electricity converters just skyrocketed!”

“What are these spirit stone things? And why do they have such a creepy description?”

“Why are there thirty sets of something called ‘used female disciple undergarments?’ And why are they priced so high?”

I showed Mimiko how the obelisk worked, which she took to rather quickly. While cultivators weren’t quite as numbers-focused as we were, they understood the idea of currency and merit points perfectly well.

"Elder Blackhand obtained these System-seeing glasses at considerable expense, and now they are mine. They will be quite useful during my stay here," Mimiko said as she placed a pair of goofy-looking oversized reading glasses on her brow. Once there, she could see the System screens everyone else was interacting with.

“Fascinating. I see several items of interest here. I think that if I sell my undergarments, I’ll be able to afford--“

I cut her off with a wave of my enormous wallet. “Keep your panties on. I’ll buy it for you.”

Even before my return, I had more points than I could spend on any single good. Nowadays, the only thing that really ate up a significant amount of points was hiring hundreds of people to become my personal army, though the obelisk taxes paid for most of that.

I explained a bit more about how the town worked to Mimiko, mostly to make sure she wouldn’t be too caught off-guard by any strange questions. Though the Amazonians living here had spread some of the culture of the wider Arcadia Multiverse to our little corner of the world, and the Omikyr had rekindled something of a medieval religious streak in some people, the bulk of the survivors in Crownhill were from Earth.

Mimiko took my babbling about video games, movies, coffee, and shopping malls all in stride, and I showed her examples of each. It turned out cultivators had something similar to most things, like Jade Tablets of Living Dreams for movies or games, or Mind Quickening Elixirs in place of coffee. Though forsaking technology had pulled the Architect’s descendants back to the Iron Age, they hadn’t completely forgotten about small luxuries.

But as I wandered the town, I spotted more and more strange design choices. Why did the coffee shop hang a pair of ornate banners on them with the symbol of a cup hanging from them? A sign and logo always did fine before.

And why were the streets cobblestone? I was certain I’d added a few paving machines to what the Governess had control of. The original game only had cobblestones, but a semi-sapient computer program could hopefully figure out how to use tar instead. It had taken to using concrete and cinderblocks just fine.

It all clicked together when I finally found Kyle. He was out of his armor, but still in an ornate, colorful military uniform as he patrolled the settlement as general law enforcement. But I knew for a fact that I’d never issued uniforms for that sort of thing. Where had this one come from?

“Kyle, what are you wearing?” I asked, placing a hand on his shoulder.

Kyle saw me, and his eyes widened. Then he turned, clicked his heels together, and thrust out his chest to give me a Glacian-styled salute.

“The legion greets the emperor!” loudly saluted, much to the stares of everyone around us.

I put my hands on my hips. “What are you doing, Kyle?”

“Greeting the emperor,” Kyle replied, lips tight as he held his salute like he was whispering to me while standing at attention.

I crossed my arms. “Since when have I been the emperor? I’ve never made any pretense at command. I’m I guy just like everyone else. Sure, the System may have named me Shard King, but that’s because I contributed the most to defending this place.”

“Reluna said you’re the emperor,” Kyle said, still holding his stiff pose.

I sighed. “Well, I’m not. And you can relax.”

Kyle still kept his body stiff.

“That was an order from your Emperor!” I joked, and immediately Kyle relaxed.

“I take it Reluna has been making adjustments to our forces while I was gone?” I asked.

“You could say that your, imperial highness,” Kyle said.

I raised an eyebrow at him.

“I mean... Carter.” Kyle shrugged sheepishly.

“Better. When is the next council meeting? I’ll need to be brought up to speed on everything that happened here while I was on campaign.”

As fortune would have it, the next council meeting was in hardly an hour. I grilled Kyle and a few others for their version of recent events, then had a slew of questions for women at the council meeting that took place.

Why was everyone wearing such garish uniforms? Why did people now think I was styling myself as Emperor? Had the army finished scouting the golem shard, and what was happening on the front lines?

The answer to all those questions boiled down to one word. Reluna.

During my absence, Reluna had proved remarkably... present. I wasn’t sure of any other way to describe it. I had expected her to spend her days playing with my printers and eating my food while sitting in that massage chair she loved so much. And to be fair, she’d done an awful lot of that judging on the state of my home when I returned.

But somehow, she’d found time to redecorate the entire city, restructure the army from the rag-tag bands of militia I’d been using, and then wage some sort of artillery campaign to turn the golem shard into piles or rubble no larger than a thumb.

Under other circumstances, I would have called it a disaster, but despite all expectations, it seemed to work. Reluna had made far more progress in my absence than I had ever dared to hope, and Crownhill was more organized than ever. There was just one thing I really wanted to change.

“Alright, my first official proclamation as emperor is that everyone is to stop calling me the emperor. I’m Carter, and I prefer to be addressed informally, as equals. Enough bowing and groveling. This isn’t an imperial courtroom,” I said as I addressed my councilors.

In my absence, the council chambers had been converted into what could very much be considered an imperial courtroom. Thankfully, nobody dared call their emperor out on it.

“Also, let’s ditch the bright and colorful uniforms for our army. Don’t get me wrong, having uniforms made was a decent idea, but I’d like something a little more modern. Let’s swap out the cherry red for camouflage. I’m sure somebody around here has military fatigues for whoever is making these uniforms to copy. Just make a few modifications for swords and a bag of holding compartments.”

“As you wish, Carter,” said Margaret, one of my oldest councilors. Her eyes were on Mimiko, who had hovered behind my shoulders with her hands buried in her sleeves. “And may I ask, who is that behind you?”

Mimiko bowed. “Pay this humble servant no mind. I serve your imperial majesty in whatever ways he might need.”

“Ah, so the imperial harem is still a thing?” Frank winked knowingly. He was one of my oldest friends from back when we both worked under Sakura. Back then, he’d been a tired-eyed programmer. Now, he was a bright-eyed swashbuckling warrior with gun and sword and the leader of what I was pretty sure was shaping up to be one of my settlement’s largest private adventuring guilds, which also served as warriors for me when not hunting monsters.

“It’s not an imperial harem! It’s a perfectly normal... err... harem.” I shrugged, then abruptly changed the subject. “Anyway, I’ll go to the front lines to help deal with the golems. In the meantime, try to make this place look normal. Have people vote on what they like and want to keep. I’m pretty sure we’re still some sort of representative republic. You guys all got voted in for your councilor positions, right? I’m just the guarantor of democracy through lots of levels.”

“Yes! Definitely. Votes. Those are important.” Frank and the other councilors eyed one another. Now that I thought about it, I hadn’t seen any changeover in councilor positions in a long while. I would look into that later. For now, I had to see just what Reluna had done to my army for myself.

<Note>

Class upgrade is coming soon. I just gotta find a good place for it.

I figure Mimiko probably looks like a character from Genshin Impact. Maybe Honkai Star Rail with some of the flying around. All you need to do to find images of the cultivator aesthetic is google any Chinese game, since they really, really love cultivation novels over there.