?


    The doors to the lounge suddenly opened as dozens upon dozens, possibly even hundreds of people, walked out of those doors, wearing their armor and holding their weapons in hand.


    Ss was about to reach for his axes, but when he saw two kids walk out of the same ce as well, he lowered his arms and let out a small smile.


    "A lot more people stayed than I expected," Ssmented with a slight chuckle.


    "A few left, but most of them were Grant''s undying supporters." Seraphina exined with a big smile on her face.


    "Oh... You tried to trick me." Ss narrowed his eyes at her.


    "I did no such thing!" Seraphina harrumphed while puffing her chest out.


    Ss hadn''t increased the mana going to his eyes, so he couldn''t see her life force or heart rate to see what she was thinking; however, even if he did, it wasn''t like his mystic eyes gave him the ability to read minds. All he could see were her emotions, and a good liar would probably easily fool both of his tests.


    Turning back to the crowd that had formed before him, Ss would say something, but they beat him to the punch.


    Suddenly, they all fell onto one knee and stabbed their weapons into the ground.


    "Your Highness... We are here to serve you and this faction. Our loyalty belongs to only you." They all shouted in unison, including Seraphina, Nymira, and even Alex.


    ''Hmm... I never thought I would lead an army of real people, not robots. I have to say; this does feel a little embarrassing.'' Ss thought to himself as a slight blush crawled up his cheeks and flushed them red.


    "U-Uhm... Cut the highness thing. Call me Game or Judgement... Whichever one you prefer." Ss waved them off with growing embarrassment.


    ''I''ve quite literally stood in front of an entire army of people and scared them away with my speech! How am I blushing like a teenager from just this!'' Ss shouted to himself before shaking his head to clear the thoughts.


    "This won''t be easy. Don''t expect to be allowed toze around all day. Every single one of you will work, and I mean that. I will make this city a much better ce than the one we live in.


    I will make sure to punish everyone who does wrong, and the punishments will not be as lenient as they have been for the past few years." Ss exined, yet not a single person moved from where they kneeled.


    "We understand that." On the other hand, Seraphina suddenly stood up and spoke to Ss.


    "Everyone here understands that. You made it quite clear when you said it the first time after you won the duel." Seraphina chuckled.


    Ss nodded in acknowledgment before looking back at the crowd before him.


    "Alright, now, I''m going to exin to you what your job is."


    Many of them frowned for a moment. From their perspective, it felt like Ss was indirectly calling them dumb; however, it began to make sense when he continued.


    Ss wasn''t just telling them what they were, but exined to them the changes he would make to the faction, and with that came the changes to their job descriptions.


    Ss had been thinking about what to do when he finally became a judge, and eventually, he realized that thews from his would do as well as one might think on Gilea.


    In many Western countries, Thew on Earth was malleable. Murderers could get away with crimes despite there being plenty of evidence against them. People would take their punishment, go to prison ande out just tomit the same crime again.


    Earth''s humanity was soft. Weak. Pathetic. The younger generation was weak until he came into power.


    He achieved true peace when he defeated anyone who would stand in his way. His robots enforced thew, and while he couldn''t use robots on Gilea right now, he would take one of the many things that made his society awful one.


    A society that enforcesws without mercy.


    After exining what they needed to do, they all nodded in unison. Some had questions, and Ss easily answered them with as much honesty as possible.


    Some thought that the rules were too strict, and the punishments were too harsh, yet Ss didn''t pay them much heed. He knew what he was doing. He knew that this was what the city needed.


    Darkless was quite literally one of the worst cities in the kingdom. People ran to it, and it was bound to be filled with criminals.


    And the only way to keep criminals in check is to ensure they fear something.


    "The newws and punishments will be announced tomorrow. All of you have the day off today, but from tomorrow, you will start patrolling the city and bringing many criminals you find for me to judge. Is that understood?" Ss asked<novelsnext>I think you should take a look at </novelsnext>


    "Yes, sir!"


    After everything was over and done with, Ss went to check out his new office.


    Nymira, Seraphina, and Alex all came with him. Ss appointed Seraphina his right-hand woman, while also officially appointing Nymira and Alex as his apprentices.


    And just like that, the day passed in what felt like the blink of an eye, and everyone went to do their jobs.


    Throughout the next week, a few things happened.


    After a very long and tedious political battle within the Greed faction, Jessica finally became the 5th General of the Darkless organization. Ss had no idea how she did it, but somehow she got andslide victory of 60% by simply promising the faction that she would restore their name.


    Within that time, Ss had begun training Alex and Nymira. While Nymira was quite talented with the sword, Alex leaned more toward the magic side of things.


    However, something was off about the results Ss got from the element exam.


    "Hmm... That''s weird." Ss muttered to himself as he looked at the result.


    "Shut up, man! Just because you have a gazillion elements doesn''t mean one is bad!" Alex harrumphed in annoyance.


    Ss had known that Alex had the fire element, but he always felt like there was something more that he was missing.


    However, after not getting anymore more from the crystal testing Alex''s element, Ss shrugged, making a mental note to check up on that feeling in the near future.


    For now, though, he had more important things to focus on...


    ***


    -Misty Forest-


    "Have you found anything?" A man wearing silver armor and red robes asked with his arms crossed as he looked at the men before him, standing around the destroyed forest, searching for the slightest clue as to what had happened.


    "Have you found anything?" A man wearing silver armor and red robes asked with his arms crossed as he looked at the men before him, standing around the destroyed forest, searching for the slightest clue as to what had happened.


    "Sir... We''ve been searching for almost 2 months now and we haven''t found a single thing. The worst part is that the mist walker doesn''t even want to talk to us. It''s like its... Scared." The unit captain exined to the man who had just shown up.


    Unless the king or one of the king''s cohort came to personally talk to the mist walker, they doubted it would tell them anything.


    Plus, they didn''t want to agitate it since it undoubtedly had the power to kill every single one of them with a swipe of its hands, despite even the weakest of them being capable of taking on a dull-sapphire beast on their own.


    "The king won''t be pleased about this." The man sighed with frustration; however, the next words from the captain''s mouth made a glimmer of hope enter his heart.


    "However, after analyzing the battle, we do have a theory..." The captain looked down with knitted brows.


    "Spill with it, soldier! What is it!?" The man demanded.


    "If the statements we''ve gathered are correct, what awakened here was some kind of Eldrich terror... After seeing the battlefield''s scars, we first thought that we were dealing with a remarkably strong shadow swarm." The captain paused before looking around the remains of the forest.


    "But... After looking at it again, we discovered that there are two possibilities to exin what happened here.


    One possibility is that we''re looking at the remains of a battle between a powerful pink python, an extremely strong sonic bat, a shadowswarm, and a mist walker...


    Or..." A shudder went down the captain''s spine as the next words barely left his mouth as a whisper.


    "Or we''re looking at what happens when you mix all those bloodlines together and let the creature thates out of that mix wreak havoc upon thends."


    ------------------


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