Spiteful Healer

Chapter 59: Welcome to Rene

Aegis and the others arrived back at the ledge overlooking Rene as the sun was rising the following morning. The skies had cleared up and the rain had stopped but the ground was still muddy and covered with puddles. Looking down at the river, he saw that the water level had risen a good amount but the bridge was still well above it and stable. The lagnok’s were just the way they’d been left, content with wandering around the large pasture and munching on the tall grass.

“Alright. Everyone can pick a spot for your weird building requests and mark it. I’m going to be building houses over there…” Aegis motioned to the right side of the road beyond where the Pasture and Farm field were built. “And crafting stations will be on the other side.” Aegis motioned to the left side of the paved road. “Try to keep it organized and we’ll build roads afterwards once we get a decent layout. I’m not gonna build everything yet, as I’m running low on metal materials, but it’s good to plan it out. The forge is going to be the first priority, once we get some iron.” Aegis explained.

“Got it.” Lina nodded.

“Well, what about your castle?” Darkshot asked him curiously.

“Castle?” Aegis raised a brow at him.

“Y’know, you’re the lord of Rene. The lord of the land has to have a castle, right?” Darkshot replied, looking at the others for support.

“I don’t want a castle.” Aegis sighed.

“Boring.” Pyri puffed at him. “Okay, I call that spot over there.” Pyri pointed out at a piece of land close to the ruined rubble of the keep. Without waiting she excitedly broke into a sprint.

“I can pick a spot for a house too?” Amlie asked hopeful with puppy eyes to Aegis.

“Y-yeah, of course. I need to get as much architecture experience as possible before the forge, so, why not…” Aegis shrugged. “Just make sure it’s in that area.” He motioned again to the right side of the paved road.

“Okay.” Amlie cheered as she headed after Pyri.

“I’ll pick a good spot for the training grounds.” Rakkan grinned as he followed.

“Dang it, they're gonna take all the good spots.” Darkshot chased after them. Aegis and Lina watched from the vantage point of the ledge as the others all raced each other over the bridge.

“W-where will you live, if you aren’t making a castle?” Lina asked Aegis curiously.

“I dunno. I was thinking just a tower would be better, so I can see everything around the area.” Aegis shrugged. “Probably somewhere near the middle.” He motioned his hands around where he imagined a town square would be built. “What about you? You probably want your own place, right?” Aegis asked her.

“N-no, I don’t m-m-.” Her face lit up red and she had to pause and take a deep breath. Remembering Pyri’s words, she mustered up her courage to force the words out. “I d-d-d-don’t mind if we l-l-l-live t-t-together.” She got it out after a few tries.

“Oh…” Aegis paused for a moment. Avoiding eye-contact with Lina, he felt his face reddening as well. “That makes things easier then, I’ll make sure to add a room for you in the tower when I start planning it out. Aegis replied.

“O-okay." She nodded.

“Better get started then.” Aegis added as he walked ahead of her down the ramp towards Rene. Once he was a few feet away she let out a huge puff of air as if she’d been holding her breath, but she had a giant smile on her face.

Aegis marked off a section of land near the paved road and sized it to match the size of Farlion’s house back in Orm, then began by setting in the foundation with the help of the lagnoks. After the others had finished marking their own spots they all joined in, dumping the gathered logs out of their inventories into the stockpile so that Aegis could use his tools to cut it into usable planks alongside cut stone. With the 6 of them working together under Aegis’ leadership skill, it didn’t take more than a few hours to build the house with an extra room for Lucas. Aegis opted to add more stonework to the building to make it more sturdy rather than just a wooden house, but he hadn’t done enough with refining yet to make any glass, thus leaving the frames of the windows empty for now. He made sure that the kitchen section of the house had stone floors while the rest was wooden, just as the house in Orm had.

Once it was completed he worked on pathing out a plain dirt road that branched off from the paved one so that it passed in front of not only the house he’d built, but in front of the area Amlie marked off for her house. As a final touch he set in fence posts beside the building so the family would have a field to farm like they had back in Orm.

“It’s nice and cozy, but nothing inside. Are you going to make the furniture too?” Darkshot asked as they all stepped back to view the fruits of their labor.

“Yeah.” Aegis shrugged.

“Why’re you leveling all of these crafting skills?” Rakkan asked, but it seemed everyone else had the same question on their minds and they all turned to him to hear his answer.

“Well... I have a theo-" Aegis stopped himself as he looked at Lina's curious expression, then the others as they stared at him, finishing on Pyri's inquisitive eyes. He quickly cleared his throat and continued. "I mean, It’s all connected, isn’t it?” He shrugged. They all stared back expecting more of an explanation. “Blacksmithing needs ore, wood, leather… Ore needs a forge. A forge needs architecture, stone cutting. Armor needs weaving and sewing and blacksmithing. Alchemy needs farming and herbalism, farming can use taming and creature harvesting…” Aegis went on. “You get the picture…” He paused after glancing over them all to see their expressions once more, and saw that most of them were following his logic, but Pyri still looked suspicious of him.

“I know that other guilds and players split these tasks and specialize, but with my experience bonuses, if I do it smart, it’s no trouble to do them all myself. Easier, even. Streamlined. We’ll be able to craft whatever we want and need in this world, or sell it for gold. I don’t want any of those things to hold us back. If I can do all of it, it frees my party members to focus on nothing else but getting as strong as possible.” Aegis continued.

“So I’ll take the hits, heal, and build what we need, and in return, you guys can make sure nothing stands in our way.” Aegis finished. They all stared at him for a moment with varying expressions. Lina smiled at Aegis, Rakkan looked at him with respect, Amlie looked excited, while Pyri still looked suspicious, forcing Aegis to avoid facing in her direction.

“Phew, good answer. It’s definitely gonna be nice to not worry about buying expensive gear. I can save up my gold and trade it for a better Simbox than this hand-me-down.” Darkshot broke everyone’s stares as he patted Aegis on the shoulder, and this seemed to put Pyri at ease as Aegis felt her gaze on the back of his head fade.

“What’s next?” Rakkan asked.

“I gotta use taming and creature harvesting to get something from those lagnoks to make beds, so we stop sleeping on the ground and in carts.

“Ooh, I like that idea.” Pyri said before marching enthusiastically towards the pasture.

“I got some cotton seeds, I’ll see how fast I can grow them with my farming skills.” Amlie rushed towards the farm fields.

“I’ll get more wood for the frames and other furniture.” Rakkan pulled out his axe and made for the forest.

“We’re gonna need more stamina food.” Darkshot pulled out his bow and started heading for the mountain.

“I’ll help you hold the lagnok’s still and keep them calm.” Lina smiled at Aegis.

Two days later...

Over the next two days the party of 6 worked in unison with incredible efficiency. Thanks to Aegis’ pacifism and marriage bonuses, and the leadership experience sharing bonuses, he made great strides in leveling up all of the skills. He built up a second, similar house for Amlie which all of them started using for the time being to sleep in, and Aegis took design tips from all of them when it came to crafting the pieces of furniture for the houses until he’d settled on a consistent style for his wooden crafts.

He had several failed attempts at pillows and beds before he’d managed to make one that was satisfyingly comfortable and gained all of their approval, and from there furnished both Farlion’s house and Amlie’s house with anything and everything imaginable to try to get the most experience possible. He followed that up with a quick and sturdy construction of a stables and small pasture for Pyri to house up to 6 creatures. It was a lot easier to build than the houses were by the time they got around to building it, and once it and its surrounding pasture was completed, Pyri disappeared into the wilderness for the remainder of the building process to find the perfect horse.

Afterwards, Aegis felt obligated to build a small shelter for the lagnok pasture which made it easier to shear them anytime he needed more of their bulky fur for weaving, though he’d much preferred working with Amlie’s cotton plants and only went to the lagnoks when he had no other choice. (Amlie’s farming skill wasn’t high enough to produce a lot of cotton yet).

He still hadn’t managed to make glass due to not having a forge, thus continued to put it off. Instead he opted to cover the windows with curtains, and he’d made sure to dye all of the cloth he worked with a matching shade of blue - the party voted on a color theme for Rene and dark blue came out on top.

On the final day of the week-long project that began on an empty field of grass, they had come a long way. Aegis was in the midst of constructing Rakkan’s training grounds that morning when Farlion, Luca, and Tinsel arrived in Rene. Aegis spotted them looking down over his land in awe from atop the ledge, and seeing them caused him to nervously look toward the house he’d constructed for them across the way.

“They’re here. Do you think they’ll like it? Was it enough?” Aegis asked Darkshot, Lina, Rakkan and Amlie as they all stopped what they were doing.

“Honestly, I think you overdid it.” Darkshot replied. “Come on, let's welcome our very first NPC residents.” He started walking towards them.

“You go ahead, I’ll go double check the building.” Aegis nervously rushed over to the house he’d built for them. Amlie, Lina and Rakkan followed after Aegis as he stepped through the simple door of Farlion's house that he’d carved the symbol of Eirene into, he looked around at the interior to see all of the beautiful handcrafted furniture placed neatly around the 3 rooms, including a stone stove that matched what they had in their house in Orm.

“Y-you don’t need to worry, all of that is really high quality stuff, I think they will be happy.” Lina tried to reassure Aegis as she watched him straighten out the blue table cloth on their dining table.

“Wait, there’s no lanterns. How are they going to see inside at night?” Aegis asked Lina worriedly.

“They probably brought some, they have a big cart with them.” Lina replied.

“I’d be more worried about the lock.” Amlie tapped on the door, though afterwards she got a glare from Lina and regretted speaking. Aegis slapped himself on the forehead.

“I made a door and didn’t put a lock on it.” Aegis spoke to himself with disappointment.

“It’s ok, we can still add it!” Lina tried to cheer him up.

“I don’t have any metal ore or bars left. You think I can make a good lock out of stone or wood?” Aegis asked.

“I doubt it.” Rakkan replied. He promptly got a nasty glare from Lina as well.

“D-don’t worry, I bet they will be so happy that they won’t notice.” Lina replied as the sound of their cart approaching could be heard through the glass-less windows.

“And here is your house. There’s no glass on the windows, and no functioning lock on the door, but it’s got a really nice table cloth.” Darkshot declared the new residents loudly. Lina clenched her fists and sighed as Aegis, Amlie, Rakkan stepped out to meet them.

“It’s awesome!” Luca shouted as he ran up to them. “Thank you Mr. Aegis.” He hugged his legs briefly before running into the house and looking around. “Whoa my own room!” He could be heard from inside shouting excitedly.

“W-what was that about a lock?” Tinsel asked nervously as Farlion was clearly staring at the window frame to the right of the door where the curtain was blowing through the frame due to the wind and lack of glass.

“Well, we’re working on getting more ore to build a forge. Then I’ll be able to make glass and a lock.” Aegis replied anxiously.

“Okay.” Tinsel nodded back with a forced smile. “Rent free still though, right?” She confirmed.

“Y-yeah.” Aegis nodded back.

“Look at this land. It’s beautiful here.” Farlion smiled as he took in the scenery of the large green grassy fields surrounding the settlement. “Oh, I brought my old armor. I wasn’t sure if you had a uniform, or-”

“Perfect, that’ll be fine for now, I’ll make you better equipment later.” Aegis replied.

“Okay, sounds great. And these are all your companions?” Farlion asked as he looked to them. One by one they all introduced themselves and Farlion and Tinsel were sure to politely greet and shake their hands.

“Right. I suppose I’m on duty as of right now. What are your orders, Aegis?” Farlion asked respectfully once the pleasantries were finished.

“Uhm, well…” Aegis looked around, unsure of what to say. “I guess just settle in. We’ve been here a week so far and no creatures have come near the land so it shouldn’t be too dangerous…” Aegis trailed off in thought before thinking of what to say. “We’re finishing the training grounds now, it’ll be set up to practice your skills with weapons. Otherwise, your job will be to just uphold the laws of Kordas and protect our stuff. Let me make it official…” As Aegis spoke he began fidgeting his fingers around his menu to the Land management interface. Once he had finished updating the buildings and registering them correctly, the population of Rene updated.

Land Title: Rene

Land Status:Hostile[?]

Land Rank:1 (Encampment)[?]

Population: 4[Manage]

[Amlie - Level 4] [Farlion - Level 10] [Tinsel - Level 3] [Luca - Level 1]

Registered Structures:9 [Manage]

[Bridge of Rene] [Lagnok Pasture] [Amlie's Farm] [Amlie's House] [Farlion's House] [Pyri's Stables] [Main Road] [Road to Orm]

Construction Projects: 1[Manage]

Trade Routes: 1 [Manage]

Leaders:1[Manage]

He pressed the manage button next to his population where he was able to select Farlion and assign him a profession. He selected Guard and was prompted to input hours and pay, but Aegis left them blank for now and just hit accept.

“There, it’s all done. Welcome to Rene.” Aegis smiled at them.

“I won’t let you down.” Farlion bowed politely.

“Do you need any help with anything?” Amlie asked Tinsel with a smile. Tinsel politely accepted her help and Lina joined in helping them unload as Rakkan motioned Aegis to step away with him, Darkshot following.

“What’s up?” Aegis saw a concerned look on Rakkan’s face.

“That guy’s only level 10, and he’s not elite, that means not trained. Most guards are like that… but it means if any real trouble comes around, he’s just gonna be like a level 10 boar for other players to fight.” Rakkan explained. “Leaving him here by himself like that, he aint gonna be able to protect much.”

“Right…” Aegis picked up on what he was saying. “You’ve got a lot more experience with PvP than I do… what would you recommend?” Aegis asked him.

“The last few months before I rerolled here I spent trying to train Puagas NPCs to fight back and get stronger. They can gain experience and learn skills just like us. If you make me the Captain of the Guards, I can grant weapon skill experience bonuses to anyone under me because of my own skills, and I’ll be able to train them faster in the training grounds if I’m the leader of that building too. I can train the guards so no one will mess with them, or Rene.” Rakkan replied confidently.

“You’re willing to do that?” Aegis asked.

“Yeah. It’d be my pleasure. With a good headstart we can make sure something like Puagas doesn’t happen here.” Rakkan replied as calmly as he could, though Aegis saw his fists clenching.

“Okay, I’ll leave it to you.” Aegis replied as he went into the management screen. “I can’t register you as guard captain until you’re a resident, so I’m just going to assign you to live with Amlie for now.” Aegis said as he pressed the buttons.

“Huh?” Rakkan looked nervously in Amlie’s direction who was distracted by a large crate she was carrying into the house with Tinsel. “Yeah, ok…” Rakkan replied shyly.

“Done, you’re a resident and Captain of the Guard in Rene. I’ll make you the leader of the training grounds once it’s built. I’ll focus on finishing it, you train Farlion as much as you can before we head out to the dungeon.” Aegis replied as he closed the management interface.

“Wait, should I teach him some ranger skills too, like scouting or tracking? Guards should probably learn that, right?” Darkshot joined in enthusiastically.

“Eventually - the basics are more important first.” Rakkan replied before walking off to talk with Farlion.

“He’s pretty reliable for a 14 year old, huh.” Darkshot said to Aegis, to which Aegis nodded in agreement.

“Come, help me finish the training grounds. As soon as it’s done we can go looking for iron.” Aegis nudged Darkshot in the direction of their half completed construction.

“You mean explore that dungeon, right?” Darkshot groaned at him.

“Yeah, of course, that’s what I said.” Aegis replied sarcastically.

“No seriously, if after all this, you finally take us to a dungeon and end up just looking for ore the whole time, Imma be pissed.” Darkshot replied grumpily.

“Of course not. Of course I wouldn’t do that.” Aegis replied with an exaggerated tone.

The training grounds consisted of a large flattened and paved square section of land on which Aegis built up Archery targets and training dummies, and as per a guide video he watched on his livestream viewer, a training course with simple obstacles to practice mobility, and some stone weights for muscle training. It took up a large area of land but Aegis had the foresight to build it a decent distance away from the paved road so that it wouldn’t be too close to where he planned the townsquare to be. By sunset on that 7th day since they'd began construction, Aegis and the others managed to complete the training grounds and register it with Rakkan as it’s leader. Just as they all got the notification that the Project that Aegis had contracted them all for had ended, Pyri arrived back at the settlement, as if she’d been waiting for it to expire. She didn’t bring back with her a horse, but instead came back as a level 10 Wizard.

“No luck finding a horse?” Amlie greeted her as she approached, her staff glowing with a light spell so that she was visible through the tall grass a good distance away, despite night having overtaken the lands.

“Nope.” She shrugged.

“You were just killing monsters, weren’t you?” Aegis raised an eyebrow at her.

“I might’ve fought some. There’s a lot of dire wolves in that area.” She motioned to the forest west of the mountain. “Turns out, dire wolves don’t make very good mounts.” She sighed.

“Good to know.” Farlion commented.

“Oh who is this, our new resident? Nice to meet you.” Pyri smiled and bowed.

“The pleasure is mine, milady.” He bowed and took her hand, kissing it gently.

“Oooh I like him, he’s got such good manners.” Pyri replied excitedly.

“C’mon, we've got a lot of work to do.” Rakkan ordered Farlion, motioning him over to the training grounds.

“R-right. Yes sir.” Farlion replied obediently and followed him.

“So, building time is done, right? Time for the dungeon?” Pyri smiled as the sound of Rakkan and Farlion’s wooden swords clashing behind them could be heard.

“Yeah, it’s time we got some grinding done. Everyone, get all the rest you need and do your last minute preparations. At noon tomorrow, we’re heading to to the Caverns of Jia’nir.” Aegis shouted so that everyone could hear him.

“Finally.” Darkshot shouted excitedly. “I’m gonna get some sleep for the big day, cya tomorrow.” He said before logging out.

“Me too. Even though I’m not coming. I’ll make sure there’s lots of plants for you when you get back!” Amlie cheered as her avatar vanished from the game world.

“I guess I should have a shower and make dinner.” Pyri yawned as she logged out as well.

“Me too.” Lina waved and logged out. Aegis looked over to see Rakkan training with Farlion, showing no signs of wanting to rest.

“Hey Rakkan, you’re going to sleep, right? Before we hit the dungeon?” Aegis shouted out to him, causing him and Farlion to pause and look at him.

“Yeah, just showing him the basics so he can practice.” Rakkan called back. Aegis felt the urge to say more, but decided against it and logged out himself as well.

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