First War Page 17

  “What is wrong with it?” Akor asked.

  “The stats are too low, maybe. Only the bones seem to have expanded, in other words, the muscles don’t have the sufficient mass to expand.” Valring hypothesized.

  “Oh.” Akor muttered. “Well it doesn’t matter, do we already have saddles and bridles?” Akor asked.

  “We have made a few with copper metal pieces, they aren’t the best but they are enough for our current level.” Valring said. She called an imp to go acquire some equipment.

  The equipment didn’t need much adjusting, similar to humanoid equipment, mount equipment also adjusted to the mount’s specific body structure as long as it was within a certain range. You obviously couldn’t put horse gear on an aquatic mount but you could on something like a mountain goat and dire wolf. Both of which have similar size to the horse and body structure, being four legged land creatures.

  Soon the items were brought, and the pup was equipped so that its skinny bony body would not hurt Akor.

  “Can it support me? I am rather worried.” Akor said. He wasn’t small anymore, he was the size of a human already, with the minion buff, Amarok could carry at most, around 35 kilos before being weighed down and being affected by the weight.

  Still, he needed to train his beast riding skill, so he mounted the wolf pup.

  You have mounted an Alpha Dire Demon Wolf

  Movement speed increased by 5%.

  Warning, because of the low level of the mount and its low strength stat, your weight surpasses its maximum weight limit.

  Movement speed decreased by 15%.

  "I knew it.” Akor smiled wearily and sighed. “Well, we can still do this for training.” He said. “Come on Amarok, we will start slowly and just walk.” He said.

  The poor pup growled and began to walk under the weight of the strange new equipment and its master. The steps were heavy and labored making it seem quite pitiful, something that Akor didn’t like.

  He watched the wolf making sure to keep a look at the stamina and when it finally reached the limit, he stopped it and unmounted, removing the bridle and pulling out some meat from the town storage for it. “Here, you earned it.” Akor offered it to the wolf and put his head.

  The wolf’s eyes shone with happiness as it attacked the food.

  The most proper way to train a pet, was giving treats after doing a good job. It was also much easier in the game world where creatures are much smarter and there is the system aid bridging the gap between races.

  After Amarok was fed, he turned back to the puppy form, which was the battle form, and Akor unsummoned it into the pet system.

  He was happy with the new mount which only needed some training and it would be able to be easily used.

  He walked to the fence and jumped over it but something strange happened. Suddenly a cold gust of wind blew like a wave causing Akor to shiver.

  “Huh? Such a cold wind.” Akor muttered.

  “Cold!” Valring shivered and rubbed herself, "Is it already time?” She said.

  “Time for what?” Akor asked.

  Valring frowned, “Winter.”

  DING!

  Autumn has arrived and winter will soon follow, players and lords had best stock up on food for the winter months. From now until the start of winter, food production will gradually decline until it reaches -20% the regular production.

  Animals and monsters will begin foraging and gathering food themselves while some creatures will go into hibernation during the winter.

  Beware of the winter fiends

  The notice came suddenly making Akor frown. “What are winter fiends?” He asked.

  “They are spirits, monsters and undead. Winter is a season of great death and if areas are filled with death, the corpses, preserved by the cold, will rise as frost zombies. Also there are monsters who only appear during the cold season.” She said.

  “How big of an effect does it have on us?” Akor asked.

  “From what I know, the entire continent is covered in snow during the winter but mountain regions like here will be heavily affected. That said, for demons this is a bit of a relief because it is the only time the Hellish Badlands gets a steady supply of water. It is the time demon trees flourish the most by absorbing a huge amount of water that constantly falls.” Valring said.

  "I see.” Akor frowned. “We should begin preparations, I doubt any new lord we heard about will war during the winter, unless they are crazy.” Akor said.

  “Agreed Master, in fact, winter is a good opportunity as well, we will need to provide a lot of protection from winter monsters providing us with a great amount of experience points for the army.” She said.

  “Before we think of fighting, we need to deal with the food problem. How much is the harvest affected during winter?” He asked.

  “Of course, production completely stops.” She said in a matter of fact way.

  Akor clicked his tongue, “We need to find winter crops. We have already reached domestication of crops, now we just need to set the farms to research different crops that are resistant to cold.” Akor said.

  “But my Lord, if we focus on this, by the time winter comes there will be a shortage of food.” Valring said.

  “Of course there won't. I will set only one field in each village to research different crops that might survive in the cold. The rest is to produce and store all excess food. Next we will commission players to hunt more and mobilize the army in squads to hunt and raise their levels. All the meat gained will be processed and smoked before being stored for the winter.” Akor said.

  "I understand, my Lord.” She said.

  “Also, how many subordinates lack housing?” Akor asked.

  “How so my Lord?” Valring asked confused.

  “The housing conditions, how good are the houses, how many imps per house, how big are they, how many are without homes?” He asked.

  "Is there a need to know?” She was confused.

  “Of course there is, they are currently my manpower, if I leave them to freeze in the winter, how will I develop when spring comes? If half my population dies during the cold of winter, then I will have to release army members to regrow the population.” Akor said. “Make a report for me and tell me how many demons in my territory are lacking homes. Then gather them in currently undeveloped areas and make them set up small villages to help produce food for the winter. Also focus wood into improving village homes which are not demon huts. These impromptu buildings need to be improved to allow them to survive.” Akor said.

  “My lord is really different from other demons.” Valring smiled and quickly flew off to start doing his orders.

  Akor thought for a while and returned to his home to log off and start research for the winter and see the setup of all the other lords to learn from the bigger houses that did this for a living.

  Epilogue

  To the east of Akor’s territory, quite far, nearly 60 km away, a bloody war was happening. It wasn’t of demons, even if the creatures at war looked very similar to imps. No, these creatures were goblins, short, green skinned, long eared and ugly humanoids. More than 50 tribes were at war for supremacy, of which 6 of them controlled the rest.

  These 6 tribes all had a supreme chief which were the goblins most common Tier 2 evolution, hobgoblins. Although the race didn’t change as much as demons. Demons have several distinct forms, goblins don’t, not yet at least. What is different is their natural sizes. As humanoids, when hobgoblins appear, they range between the size of a human to much taller than them.

  One of the chiefs was a particularly big one being nearly 2 meters tall. He used a large monster bone as a club and had several furs as armor. His muscles were thick and powerful.

  The war had reached its apex where the six chiefs had come to finish off their main enemy, the other chiefs.

  The one most likely to succeed was this hobgoblin because of his immense size.

  The others were more human sized and used wooden clubs or animal claws
weapons.

  The 50 tribes were in a warring frenzy as the chiefs all killed the others members and reached for each other.

  Because of this state, they didn’t notice a small group of goblins appear. At their front was a strange cloaked hobgoblin. Her head donned an old ragged leather hat and a fur cloak covered her body except her hand that held a wooden staff.

  She watched the war unblinkingly before raising her staff, "It is our time.” She said simply and her tribe entered the fray.

  ***

  In another area, close to 70 km to the northwest of Akor’s territory, there was another war going on, even more bloody.

  Demons were merciless, and this clearly showed it, there was no distinction between tribes even, it was simply a bloody killing pit for demons. There was a strangeness about these demons that ranged from minogida to imps and even some unknown demons spread out amongst them. Their eyes glowed red as if under control of something.

  They had only killing on their minds and with each kill came experience for each of them. It was like the bloodbath that birthed a devil.

  The strangeness had something to do with the biology of demons. Under normal circumstances demons were under the command of powerful overlords such as dark lords or strong village chiefs. But, something recently killed all the powerful leaders leaving a power void within the region.

  It activated a special pheromone in the demons which would ultimately breed a very powerful demon that would suppress their impulse of destruction.

  At the center of this mess, a blood pool gathered of demon blood and a strangely calm imp stood there. His red color wasn’t the same shade of red as the common demons and imps. It was a deep bloody red, slowly his body seemed to absorb the blood and the strangest feature was the item in his hand. It was a big black rock in the shape of a hammer, it wasn’t a forged item, it was a natural item. Like the imp, it absorbed blood slowly.

  Finally all that blood seemed to ignite and gathered rapidly in the air in front of the imp. This caused the frenzy to stop, and they all looked at the blood gathered into the air compressing and gathering heat.

  After a while the blood formed a small pearl like item which finally combusted into a burning bloody flame. It slowly lowered until it finally reached the imp and entered its chest.

  He roared in pain as his body suddenly changed and grew bringing great pressure to the warring demons. They were all suppressed by it and finally bowed to the new powerful leader that had emerged before they could grow.

  When this demon finished growing, he turned towards the countless demons, “Come!” he ordered simply and the war ended but a dangerous creature had been born and such a being would not be far from war for very long.