Homesteading in a fantasy world

I could feel my heart starting to slow down. The fight was over, and my opponent was dead. I was still breathing heavily, and I could feel my muscles burning from exertion. There was some elation from my victory, but I never did like killing.

What came before it, that was enjoyable: the fight to see if you survive or not, but I couldn’t let him survive. Now, I don’t know what his true goal was. Was it to actually get me into a duel and kill me, or to get me in some other way? But now, it doesn't matter.

There were people rushing towards here, and some of them seemed to be healers. I pulled my sword into my tattoo storage and did the same with my helmet. My armor had battle damage, but it would not hinder my movement.

"Is your honor restored? Was it worth killing a person for your wounded honor?" I looked up to see an older woman speaking, who seemed to be using some abilities on the dead person. It looked like she wanted to speak more, but I answered her question before she could. "No, it was not."

That made her look at me. "Then why?" she asked in a tired voice. "Sometimes there is no other way, at least not in a way that isn’t risky for me or mine." It looked like she wanted to argue, but I didn’t want to wait here. There was a nice shower and a nice bed waiting for me.

So, I started to leave. "You are entitled to his possessions." That made me pause momentarily. It was a great set of armor, and even if I didn’t want full plate mail, it would be useful. Yet, I didn’t want it. "Donate it to the ring's protection fund."

I was quite tired of excitement for today. The shower was refreshing; it had hot water, and the pressure was amazing. It was always fascinating to see that magic could achieve the same as technology can. There might even be a case to be made that magic is even better, although I think it’s on average a lot more expensive. I fell asleep almost immediately as I hit the bed.

The next morning came quickly, and I was feeling a lot better now. I started to think back on the fight and what I could have done better. There would have been a few abilities that would have helped me win faster and without getting hit so often.

I still believe that showing everything I had was a bad move, and indeed, I did win, even if it was unnecessarily brutal. The breakfast in the inn was nice, but I still had some time to spend, so I went back to exploring the city.

The city's location was hidden, and I could see it being surrounded by mountains, but I had a rough estimate as to where it was. I was brought out of my thoughts when I noticed an interesting building.

It had a lot more windows; basically, the entire structure was just made out of windows, and that allowed me to see inside. At first glance, I would have to say it looked like an impressive gym.

As I continued to look, I would classify it as a fitness center for superheroes. Some of the weights people were lifting resembled car-sized hunks of metal that were connected by bars.

I walked in, paid the quite ridiculous sum, and did a proper morning workout. The ability that allowed me to increase my training difficulty had long ago stopped being useful. I see that I simply didn’t have enough vision.

Even without using this ability, I was able to get a proper exercise here. What a wonderful establishment this is. Unfortunately, I couldn’t stay for too long as I had an appointment I needed to get to.

When I reached the same office building, I was in yesterday, I found it to be a lot busier. The door I needed to go through was already open. The room inside was on the big side and looked like an auditorium. There were already about 15 people sitting all over the place.

I picked a spot and sat down. I then started to focus on the person behind the table. He was a dwarf, and his table was full of thick bundles of papers. He was also filling out some of them and then putting them into larger and larger piles.

Eventually, it seems that everyone made it here; there appear to be 23 of us. "You are all here, excellent," said the dwarf when he finished with the last bundle of papers. He then snapped his fingers, and all the papers disappeared, reappearing in front of the 23 people here.

I was surprised to see my own name on the cover of the paper bundle. "Inside, you will find all the information you need to know, but we will go over some points. All of you have been granted permission to form a high-rank organization. It is already a marvelous achievement."

The dwarf continued to talk, but it was hard to listen to him, and I wasn’t the only one having difficulties. He was short by nature, and the room seemed to be meant for regular-sized humans. That didn't seem to be a problem for this dwarf, as he was casually walking on air.

He walked side to side as he spoke and up and down as well. Then he finally pointed towards the huge blackboard, and an image of the world appeared on it.

What was different about this map was that the rings in the middle of the continents were shown. In all honesty, calling them rings was a stretch. Perhaps the inner ring matched the description the best, but otherwise, they seemed to follow a more natural line and be affected by terrain.

It seems that mountains were one thing that truly blocked the spread of the higher-ranked areas, but that wasn't always the case.

I opened up my bundle of papers to see that I was assigned to a fort named Breach. It was on the Green continent, and its location, being in the northeast of the outer ring, fit my needs quite perfectly. I think I have a few people named after colors to thank for that, although those weren't their real names.

"You have all been assigned to different forts and their connected towns. You are all lucky that you will be operating in the outer ring because you have this supply line. The reason for the supply line is that getting portals into even the outer area is extremely difficult," the dwarf explained.

I located this part of the topic in my paper bundle and read a little bit more about it. It seems that the higher density of energy makes portal travel a lot more difficult, mostly because of the extra mana needed to make a stable connection.

"Most of you are starting a Guild. You need to complete a specific amount of extermination quests or risk your organization being disbanded. Do not worry, you will never have to fight with other organizations to receive quests; there are plenty available. In fact, I think they should raise the monthly numbers," the dwarf said, the last part more to himself than to us, but we could still all hear him.

"Now, if you were crazy enough to start the company, you will still have to do the same amount of extermination quests, but you also need to support the Fort you are located in with supplies, be it food, defensive materials, and so on," the dwarf explained, and while he was doing so, he purposely looked towards four people, me included.

It seems that there were four companies starting. One of the people looked towards me and then winced in pain. He had just tried to enter my mind, but my defenses are quite nasty. Need to thank Alan for that.

The dwarf audibly sighed. "By the love of mountain home, why do I have to say this every time. You are not competitors. We are all fighting for the same goal of keeping our world safe. Every fort is owned by a large company and supported by smaller companies. You are to work together, and if you get large enough, you will be given an opportunity to start your own fort.”

“There is plenty of room, and never in history has there ever been a moment where there was no need for a new Fort. It’s an unfortunate fact, but forts are lost quite regularly, which is why you should not infight. Is that understood?"

All of us gave an affirmative in different ways, but we all gave them. I believed what the dwarf said, but I also believed it was not as simple as he made it seem. The lecture was quite long, but it basically just highlighted what was written inside the bundle of papers.

The requirements, especially for resources to be given to the fort, were quite low, but that was because I had just started out. It seems that I will receive a piece of land inside the Fort and in the town supporting it. It was also written in large and bold letters that the resources for building will need to be supplied by me.

When the lecture finally ended, I went and got myself a portal time to the western twin city, which was only in five hours. The wait went by surprisingly fast as I was reading and rereading the information packet I received.

My journey back wasn’t as fast; it took me a total of five days to get back to the capital, but to me, it went by in a flash. There would be a lot I needed to do, but also it wasn't actually that demanding.

I had plenty of time to grow the company without getting penalized, and the required extermination quests seemed quite straightforward and would not take a lot of time. It will still help me start climbing towards the fourth rank.