Utgard's decree

Members of the mountain bull clan.

We, the council of nobles from Utgard, have heard of your plea. You have been falsely accused of disloyalty by the verdant serpent clan and chased from your homes. You have our condolences.

But now that we, the council of nobles from Utgard, have heard of this great injustice done to you, we have decided to take actions to right the wrongs done to you.

Your village shall be named the frontier town of the mountain bull. We, the council of nobles from Utgard, shall send aid in your conquest of the wilderness and expansion of your new town.

This help will be in the form of workforces, tools, equipment, and counseling.

Furthermore, we, the council of nobles from Utgard, shall question the verdant serpent clan. The injustice done to you shall not go unpunished.

You have remained in exile for far too long.

As the king's proxy, we welcome you back to the sky kingdom!

Lies! All lies. That's what this decree was made up of.

As if any noble that had the power to be the king's proxy would care about a clan of less than a thousand members.

This was solely for the benefits this village held. Workforce? A convenient way to force us to accept more people. Tools? They wouldn't give them to us for free. Counseling? Just another word for giving orders.

And this frontier town thing. They just wanted to make us part of the kingdom again so they could get ahold of this village legally.

I wasn't mentioned in the decree but as a town in the sky kingdom, we would have to pay taxes.

The messenger had been invited to a feast by the joyous villagers. The only one who remained now was Nerida.

"Are you alright?"

'What do you mean?'

"Your giving of this scary vibe. It feels like you want to kill someone."

I was a little started. I had indeed begun to leak a minuscule amount of killing intent. Not enough to be noticed by the villagers and the messenger but sufficient to be sensed by Nerida.

'Sorry. It's just that I don't have a lot of appreciation for these political games. They say such sweet and immaculate words but behind these words hides insatiable greed. I just have a hard time listening to such pretentious words.'

"Don't be sorry. I'm the one who should apologize. We dragged you into this and now they'll try to control you too."

'So you realized the meaning of the decree.'

"I'm not as silly as the others. They are charmed by the idea of justice and having their own town. I know they just want to gain control of us and our knowledge of the landscape."

'You forgot about the taxes.'

"... ****!"

Nerida stormed off.

The messenger as expected didn't leave right away but immediately wanted to collect taxes. Twenty percent of the whole harvest. Collected every month.

And as expected, my iron ingots were included in their definition of harvest. Greedy bastards.

It was a good thing that I had pretended that I'd need about a month's time to regrow my 50 iron ingots.

Finally, the messenger left and the townspeople began building various structures under my guidance. I had them build two warehouses, a town hall, four inns and dozens of houses.

In my spare time, I engraved another rune in my trunk. The voice projecting rune. I was tired of being constrained to a little space where I could talk to others.

A peaceful month passed and Aldi returned. Along with the messenger. And a hundred workers.

They were welcomed by Nerida and received their houses. The messenger and Aldi settled down in the only inn that was running at the moment.

In the evening after dinner, all the workers wanted to go to their houses and rest. They were however harshly reprimanded by Nerida. It was time for the evening prayer. A tradition that had been kept up since the clan's first day here.

"Prayer why we were promised better lives here. Prayers weren't mentioned."

The workers were unwilling. They didn't come here to pray. They had all been poor farmers who had taken this offer to clear their debt. Who would they pray to?

"Lord Eldar is the guardian deity of this town and as it's inhabitants you are required to pray to him. Only with his protection can this town even exist. Only through his presence will the beast keep away."

I did that?