Homesteading in a fantasy world

Our destination was a specially built facility—or more exactly, a huge fortress—with only one purpose: to help end this war. Right now, it was the main command center for our alliance, with many of the representative nations and organizations coordinating their efforts from one place.

Usually, I wouldn’t want everything to be in one place, but it was needed, as this wasn’t Earth, and here there were abilities and skills that could be used to boost not just a few, but the entire war effort.

"Goose, you go back home and guard everything there. We will either meet again victorious in a peaceful world, or this will be our last flight. It has been an honor to watch you grow and to fight beside you."

I could feel what Goose was feeling, and it was hard to keep my emotions in check. I patted him a few more times on his neck and then jumped from high up towards the fortress below.

Goose screeched his goodbye, and I hoped I would be able to see him again, but a part of me doubted it. The enemy we were up against was not simple, and not what everyone thinks he is.

Supposedly, he’s a charismatic leader who wants to unite the world to more effectively put an end to the monster problem, and that might be true, but there are correct ways of doing things. From what I can tell, he plans to take away everyone’s freedom in exchange for a more protected world, which I’m not even sure can be achieved.

I landed softly and was instantly surrounded.

“It’s Rich, stand down!” I heard someone say, and I watched as one of the strongest fighters of my company walked up to me.

“You finally made it. We were beginning to worry. Everything is ready, but every day there have been more questions about our actions. I don’t think we could have kept anything hidden for much longer.”

“Well, it’s good that I’m here then, isn’t it? Start setting everything up down below and have them start pouring everything they have into the pillar. There isn’t much storage capability, but that’s relative because of the amount of energy I’m about to use.” He immediately saluted me, and I was escorted into the fortress proper.

Most of the people who were escorting me were from the United Freeholds, but not all of them, and they were puzzled about what was going on. I was a well-known individual, but to the public, I wasn’t anyone special—not anymore. It was just another way to hide my identity for this moment. It should give us a bit of extra time, and hopefully, that would be enough.

The fortress itself wasn’t anything special; it had one purpose, and that was to defend against high-ranked individuals. Its walls were thrumming with magic, energy, and holy power—a combination of all three to make it as strong as possible.

I never expected it to actually work, as it shouldn’t, but this world was filled with geniuses, and our alliance consisted of almost 70% of the world’s population, which brought along enough of them to make wonders like this.

Some of the people escorting me split off from the rest of the party, going down instead of up at the first staircase that we came upon. Down below were thousands of people from the United Freeholds, who could store huge amounts of energy that was dense enough for me to make use of. It was going to be painful channeling all that energy, but this fortress should help with that.

It took us a bit of time to reach the heart of the fortress. We had to go through many checkpoints. By the time we made it outside the main war center, I could feel the fortress drumming with energy. I could also hear arguing coming from behind the doors.

“You can return to your posts,” I said to the people escorting me. I walked up to the doors and swung them open. The arguing stopped immediately as everyone looked at me, but only a few people recognized me and smiled when they saw me.

“Who are you?” asked a huge person, a beastkin of some rhino-type animal. I didn’t answer him; instead, I walked to the center of the room where a huge round table stood. It wasn’t just a round table—it was a magical artifact made by a wizard as his last wish. It displayed the entire world and our entire war effort in real-time. This was the key, and everything would fall apart if it couldn’t handle what I needed it to do.

I touched it, slowly starting to feel its capabilities. To my surprise, it reacted to my touch.

“What are you doing? Stop that,” someone said, but I was too concentrated on the table and what it was telling me.

“You will work perfectly,” I heard myself say as I got more information back from it. It was semi-sentient, which was a big surprise to me, but I guess it shouldn't have been. The energy requirements for it to properly work were immense, and no one was supplying it properly—just using its basic functions to monitor and communicate orders. Such a waste.

There was one problem, it didn’t recognize me as the supreme general in command of the entire war effort. I needed that to use it properly.

“I call for a vote to elect a supreme general and nominate myself. There is enough authority here for an immediate vote, and from the looks of the war effort, it is needed.”

The room erupted in yelling as almost everyone demanded to know who I was, how dare I, and that there couldn’t be a supreme general because we were a council.

“Silence!” I yelled, and if this wasn’t a fortress of such strength, I’m pretty sure the entire room would have shaken. There were exactly three rank fives here, and I was just at rank four, but my core helped refine energy, and that refined energy was basically as strong as rank five. I didn’t have much of it to use, but it was enough.

“Explain yourself,” one of the rank fives said, ready to fight if needed. I looked towards him. He was a normal human and led the faction of the Veridisia continent that opposed the dictator. The lower half of the continent was where humanity began, and it was the most densely populated area in the world except for cities.

“What do you think this fortress was built for? It was built for me to use this table, be supplied with endless amounts of energy, and use my abilities and traits to boost our entire war effort. So, this war that would go on for decades will only last years. It will also cause the enemy’s elites to start searching for this place, and they will find it eventually.” I looked around at the surprised faces and continued.

"If we get our act together, our regular armies will crush theirs, but from all accounts, they have superior elites, and in the end, that's what matters in this world. This place gives us the best defensive advantage we can get, and we should continue working on making that advantage bigger.”

“I hope I can get everyone support in that. When they find us, we must protect this place, drive off their elites again and again until the final confrontation, where everything is decided in one go. We will either succeed, or we will fail, but at least the winners will have a world that won’t be overrun by monsters."

There was silence after my words as everyone processed what I had said. Another one of the rank fives eventually spoke up. "You’ve been planning this for quite a while—at least 20 years. Why, and how did you know?"

I simply reached into one of my sleeves and pulled out from my tattoo storage a simple card and showed it to them. "You’re one of the 16—and one of the two hidden individuals no one has been able to identify. No one knows who the card maker is, but everyone knows he or she can see the future.”

“Only a few know that those 16 cards from this set all represent individuals who are paramount to deciding this world’s future. I am number ten myself. Arabella is one of them, and altogether we have six on our side—now seven. You have my full support. I vote yes to making you supreme general."

Only the other three rank fives knew about the cards, but when they all voted yes, it didn’t take much convincing for the others to do the same.

"Now that I am supreme general, I need everyone to pick up this table and take it near that large central pillar so I can touch both that pillar and this table. And please, can we get a comfortable chair or something because I’m going to be in that position for at least months, probably years."

The table itself was not easy to move, and it took all of us to do it. I did question how we got it inside and was told that the fortress was built with it inside. It was good that there were other people who could think about the future and not just what was needed at that moment.

The table now eagerly accepted me, and I started to activate my abilities that would help me boost and command the entire army of this alliance.

“Where is all that energy coming from?” I heard someone question as I started to channel more and more abilities that required increasing amounts of energy. Fortunately, I had trained my energy pathways ever since that war, but even still, I was feeling the strain.

Slowly, I gained control over more and more communication channels. While I couldn’t boost the entire war effort at once, I could boost a dozen or so large armies at the same time, and that would be enough.

There were two critical fights happening right now, and I focused on them. I couldn’t see exactly what was happening with the soldiers themselves, but I could sense how they stopped giving ground. I bet they were confused as to where their strength was coming from, but that didn’t matter. In just 10 minutes, the front was stabilized, and they started to reorganize before we began to push.

I sank more and more into the table, giving hundreds of orders every few minutes. I had some capability to multitask, but the table made everything so much easier. In a day, I had set up a proper information network, allowing me to gather more and more intelligence on our enemy's movements, helping me see the bigger picture more clearly.