I went to the very peak of the mountain. Sat there and thought: "Aw man, the first steps are always the hardest. Just need to wait a bit." And finally fell asleep.
The next day I woke up from a signal—another golem had arrived.
Pop. I teleported to the spot.
So family was standing there.
"Hello!" I waved at them happily. At first, they were scared to death and started screaming, "Demon, begone!" But then I smoothed everything over and explained my rules. The head of the family was nad Farg, I think. The wife—sothing like that, the kids—sothing else. I didn't morize it. It turned out they left their holand because they couldn't pay the debt for their land and were left with absolutely nothing.
"SO YOU'RE FARRS?!" I yelled with joy. "I know exactly what to do with you!"
I imdiately took them to the warm outer ring, showed them the field, the stable with the horses, and explained that it was now their direct duty to take care of all this. They cried, thanked , bowed, all that stuff...
And then... then they dumped their massive list of wishes on .
They needed a plow. All sorts of agricultural tools. And a ton of other crap.
In general, kind of sad for now.
The stuff that just needed to be bought, I bought, but the things that could be forged, I decided to unload onto our blacksmith.
"Let's go, I'll introduce you to the local industry," I waved to the farrs.
We walked down the stone corridors, and soon I heard the rhythmic strikes of a hamr. Entering the hall, I saw Algur working in full swing. He seed to be forging so tool... a mini-shovel, maybe?
Seeing us, he didn't even stop hitting the red-hot tal.
"et the folks, Algur!" I started loudly. "These are your new neighbors. This is Papa-farr, this is Mama-farr, and these are their kids."
Then, of course, they introduced themselves properly, gave their real nas, but I was already tuning out.
"Anyway, get acquainted, discuss all your business here," I sumd up, backing toward the exit. "Tell him what iron stuff you need for the field, and I'll be going. You know, delegating authority and all that!"
The next day, more settlers arrived. And then another family. And another. As a result, a week later, there were already a hundred creatures living here! Seven dwarves, humans, elves... in short, a lot of folks.
True, towards the end of the week, the idyll was interrupted. I was sitting, relaxedly watching the kids frolic on the warm field, when suddenly riders appeared in the distance. All in armor, on steel-clad horses. They rode up and arrogantly started interrogating the locals about who was in charge here. Well, so I walked over.
One of them puffed out his chest and began to broadcast:
"I am the envoy of King Groutar! I will now read a letter. 'I, King Groutar, the rightful owner of these lands, demand an imdiate explanation of what the hell is going on here...'"
Well, or sothing similar was in that letter, I didn't really listen to their pretentious mumbling.
I had only one reasonable question: is this king even sane? Here, in the middle of an icy hell, an eight-kiloter mountain sprouted out of nowhere, and they think they can counter it with a piece of paper? Seems like I'm about to bite off a decent chunk of his land. Actually, wait, there was nobody here to begin with! Since it was a frozen, lifeless nothingness—that ans it's mine.
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"Alright, enough reading," I interrupted the envoy. "Where is this king of yours right now? Show . We're going to have a chat with him."
With a trembling hand, the knight pointed the direction and roughly described where their capital was located. I didn't overthink it and simply grabbed him by the scruff of the neck.
Pop!
And we found ourselves at the height of the clouds, right above the place he described. Below, so typical, gloomy northern town was visible.
"Is this it?" I asked, looking down.
But the envoy didn't answer. He was just dangling from my hand, suffocating from terror, and vomiting rcilessly from the altitude change.
Leaving him to recover, I descended to the city. The locals at the gates t
with obvious apprehension. The guards imdiately blocked my path, one of them holding out a hand:
"Where are you going?"
"Your king invited
over as a guest," I answered honestly.
The guards exchanged glances and guffawed loudly.
"What are you, the local village idiot or sothing?" one of them squeezed out through the laughter. "Alright, go on in."
I shrugged. Pop! And I'm already standing at the main entrance to the castle itself. But the security here turned out to be more serious—they turned
away again, flat-out refusing to let
inside. I sat down nearby and pondered: how should I get in.
I went wandering around the city and stumbled upon so sort of circus in the central square. There, a man dressed in a bright jester's costu was showing tricks to the onlookers. I couldn't find anything better to do than change into sothing similar.
And so here I am, walking towards the castle doors again, jingling stupid bells loudly. I approached the guards.
"Let
in," I said confidently from under the colorful mask. "Your king could definitely use so good cheer!"
The guards at the gates guffawed and agreed that the king could use a mood boost today. I was let in and escorted straight to the throne room. King Groutar was just listening to so townsfolk. Seeing , he clapped his hands and rose from his throne.
"Go ahead, jester, show us!"
I did a forward sorsault. Spun around, showed a couple of neat tricks. Flowers suddenly appeared from my empty hands—I gallantly tossed them to his wife. And then... then I reached into my bottomless, colorful hat, pulled out the severed head of so guard, and threw it right into the center of the hall. Blood spread picturesquely across the stone. I spun around once more and thodically started pulling a severed leg, an arm, and so on out of the hat—piece by piece.
The hall instantly filled with guards. The king looked at
with undisguised horror and disgust.
"WHO ARE YOU?!" he yelled.
"--? Who am I?" I laughed loudly and genuinely. "If only I knew that myself, Your Majesty!"
I gave a jester's bow. "I was sent here as an envoy from that very mountain."
The king's face imdiately changed, he puffed out his chest and haughtily began:
"My conditions are simple. Since this rock appeared on my territory, I will take it for myself. In a week, my troops..."
I simply extended my hand forward and slowly clenched my fingers, as if grabbing his throat. The king instantly started suffocating, even though I was standing ters away from him. He turned blue and wheezed, clawing at his own collar:
"Mage... mage..."
BANG! Dozens of deafening shots rang out from the guards. The projectiles flew into my puffy jester's clothes, but just got stuck there, not causing
the slightest harm. I unclenched my fingers. The king collapsed to his knees, greedily gasping for air, and tried to stand up.
"The conditions of my ruler are simple," I continued in a cheerful tone. "The mountain itself and everything within a two-hundred-kiloter radius of it—those are our lands now."
The king flushed crimson with anger, but, swallowing hard, squeezed out:
"We... we need ti to think all this over."
SNAP. I snapped my fingers, and one of the massive stone walls of his castle simply crumbled into dust. The resulting giant breach opened up a gorgeous view of my 8-kiloter mountain far on the horizon.
"If we see your army within a two-hundred-kiloter radius, we will consider it a declaration of war against us. Co on, good luck!"
I stepped into the breach and—pop!—teleported back to the mountain.
"Ah-ha-ha-ha-ha! What a performance!" I laughed loudly into the void.
Suddenly, a painfully familiar voice rang out from behind:
"Playing around again? I told you that you shouldn't play with other people's lives like this."
I turned around. Elvindor stood there.
"Oh, Elvindor! What brings you here? Let's just not do this right now, you're completely out of place."
The ghost of my past sighed heavily, looked at
reproachfully, and simply dissipated into the air. Phew. Fortunately, the hallucination backed off easily this ti.
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