Homesteading in a fantasy world

As I was holding this card of mine, I felt like this was a pivotal moment. This has set me on a path that I cannot escape from. I felt so very weak at this moment. Slowly, I walked away from the dead body that was next to me until I reached a tree that I sat next to. It was a sturdy tree that helped support my back.

As time started to pass, my mind came up with scenarios and disregarded them until I was as certain as I could possibly be about what was in front of me. While nothing is certain, if you have enough pieces of the puzzle, you can see what the puzzle is meant to be.

Currently, I don’t have many facts, but over the course of my life, I’ve learned to glean a lot of information from the simplest truths. Something big was coming; it wasn't going to happen tomorrow or next month, but there was also no stopping what was going to happen. It was also a fact that I was already involved.

I didn’t know many things about the company and the person behind the trading cards, but I have heard of some rumours.

It is said that whoever runs the company has some sort of clairvoyance abilities. Now, I never believed that there was one singular future, and I never will, but someone who could see even a little bit into the future and who didn't like what they saw will most likely try to influence events to take a certain course.

It seems that I am involved, and most likely Arabella as well. For there to be cards that could be randomly gotten by anyone, it's also quite clear that the other side would know what was going on. That fact should already be a failure for the card maker, but perhaps it was necessary for everyone to know what game they were playing.

In the end, it doesn't matter much. Most likely, both sides have been moving pieces for a while now, and it was the seer, the one who controls the trading cards, who has chosen the date when the real battle starts, and the setup ends. My card was the 15th; that means there is one more, and then all the pieces are known, and the game can truly start.

I have two options in front of me: try to fight the future someone was trying to set up for me or be a good little game-piece and act how they want me to, which will most likely be how I would act normally.

All of this made me quite mad, but there is nothing I can do about it now. I’ve already been thrown into the water, and it’s either I swim or sink—there is no other option, as I didn’t believe anyone would be willing to jump in after me to save me, not when they need to deal with trying to keep themselves afloat.

“Power,” it comes back to that word, that singular concept. If I had been a little bit weaker, right now, I could have been someone's slave, someone who was eager to play the game without even knowing what the game was.

Now, I still didn’t know what the game was, but I had a damn good guess. Unfortunately, I couldn’t actually find out what the game was; otherwise, others would know that I know of this game.

Calling what was about to happen a game was disgusting: so many lives would be destroyed simply in the name of power.

Perhaps this was my destiny. I have always tried to give people as much freedom as I think I deserve. Was this the only reason I was brought to this place? So, they could dangle my heaven in front of me, yet to reach it I must once again walk in hell and be the reaper of innocence.

I wanted to break something, but as soon as I thought of that, the feeling immediately disappeared, leaving me even more empty. Taking a deep breath, I slowly pushed myself up and then finally let the breath out. No point in complaining about things I cannot change. There is only one thing I can do, and that’s to do the best I can.

I left everything on the corpses of the ones who tried to attack me. I didn’t want to come off as a thief. Previously, I thought that perhaps I would make them disappear as if this fight never happened, or simply deny everything. I no longer think that’s the best course of action. A blunt statement would be best. I will simply say that we had a disagreement, and they lost.

This will bring trouble but only a little. Most importantly, it will not bring more questions. For the last time, I looked at my card and then made it disappear into my tattoo storage, hoping that no one will ever see it again. Anonymity was my best weapon at the moment. This also meant there would no longer be any time to slack off, most likely for a long time. Truly unfortunate.

It was time to start actively leading my company, recruiting more from UF, and making sure that we could expand as fast but as safely as we can. Next would be to deal with UF.

It was time to start a few of the longer-term projects I have been thinking about. First and foremost, the expansion of our food production. In the next 10 years, UF needs to be the largest producer of food in the world, and that means we need a lot of homesteaders or more specifically, larger clans.

So much to do, and of course, expansion—we need to expand a lot. Fortunately, my company will be able to start funding many things. Education will also be incredibly important; getting as many loyal people into the court of the youngest possible will be crucial. There are a few more smaller things that I can do, but that was all, except of course, getting stronger myself.

I will need to focus on completing as many dungeons as possible, and when I have enough free points so that I will not be stuck in the fourth rank, it will finally be time to advance my current rank.

I guess it was also time to continue to work on my energy control and fighting capability, as those would also become quite needed. It was going to be a busy time.

POV Reginald Ferdondla the Eighth.

"Sir, the latest find." My subordinate said while handing me a tiny packet. They had found another card, but he was too nervous, which meant something was wrong. I opened it up and read the title of the card: The Immortal. One of One. It seems that they were prudent this time and used an unlocking card to reveal the text.

Previously a simple healer, now forged in the fires of battle inside a deep dungeon and under an unlikely mentor. He does not yet know the true extent of his power; no one does, but one thing is clear: the longer he lives, the stronger he will get, and he cannot die, so crossing him will guarantee your death.

My mind immediately started to work the problem. Numerous of my abilities fired up, trying to decipher these meanings. However, everything ground to a halt when I noticed a small detail.

This wasn't the 15th card in this set; it was the 16th and final card. It took a titanic effort on my part not to crush this card in my hand from the sheer fury I felt.

“Am I to understand this correctly, but are we missing another one? I can excuse missing the 4th card in the set; it came out before I knew of this set and the meaning behind it. It was most likely destroyed, and we will never find out who that card represented.”

“Yet somehow, with all our resources and our preparations, we have somehow missed the 15th card. Can someone explain to me how that’s possible?”

There was silence, which was the correct answer because I already knew the answer. It was a simple fact that we couldn't check every new card pack, and while the amount of people who knew the true game was small, it wasn't that small. "I guess there’s no unusual movements?" The only answers I got were negative.

There was only one thing to do: it was to make sure that the 16th card didn’t fall into the hands of the opposition. I started to read the packet of information that identified the person on the card.

Never in my wildest dreams would I have guessed that someone like this could potentially be my rival. It was a bit of a ludicrous idea that someone could be my rival, but I will eventually not be able to grow stronger, and given enough time, he should be able to catch up.

It should, however, be a really long time, and perhaps I would tire of this world by then. It should be enough time for me to fix everything that’s wrong, and perhaps then that insistent feeling of this world wanting to push me away would finally stop.

I wonder if the card maker saw the introduction of religion. The last report I got on this topic was quite enlightening. It was another way of getting even stronger. If executed correctly I should have enough power so that even if they were all to attack me, they would still all perish. It is time I stopped hiding. “We will execute the prime directive, but with a little bit of a twist. Gather everyone.”

My subordinate looked excited. Some of them had been preparing for this moment their entire lives, and I wasn’t going to let them down. It was time for this world to once again be ruled by someone competent, not that bumbling mess of a world council.

It was time for a new power to rise, someone who could actually unite all the races and finally free our continents of the undeserving races and the monsters who claimed themselves to be the true rulers of this world.