142 New Homes

Seeing the bow flying towards him, Dhursir slowly stepped forward and took the bow in his hands. He almost dropped the bow because the bow felt tremendously heavy and it took all of his strength to hold the bow.

The bow nearly matched his height in length as Dhursir studied the patterns and the engravings on the bow carefully to get an idea about the bow.

"me king, where did ye get this bow? who made such a thing?"

The bow greatly surprised and shocked Dhursir as he was sure that the bow was not made by the dwarves.

"Bought this in an auction and I don't have an idea of who made this"

"So what do ye want me ta do with this, me king?"

"Paint it in black"

Currently, the bow would draw too much attention towards Don if he used it with its shiny golden color. And since Don planned to use the bow more often to hide his identity as a swordsman, he wanted to paint this bow in his favorite color black and do some modification to the bow so the people wouldn't identify the bow as the bow of Arjuna.

"And make some changes to it so no one would find out its uniqueness, can you do it?"

"o' course, I can do it, me king"

"Come see me when you're done with it"

The dwarf left the throne hall with great anticipation of working his magic on the bow and study it as Don took out a space ring that Benedict bought and tossed it to Arrora

"Keep it"

Arrora was startled when she saw the pile of life energy stones inside the space ring

"You can use it to buy the slaves if you can't take them and give this to Arwen"

While she was still in shock, Don placed another ring in her hand

"Don, its too much wealth inside the ring"

"We don't care Arrora, just bring us some people"

Knight said as Arrora took a long breath and nodded her head

After Arrora left the throne hall, Knight and Don started to plan their next move

"What are we going to do about Benedict and Arya? We can't let anyone take them, we need them "

"I can't contact both of them, we have to wait for Joel's information before we do anything Knight"

"I think it's time to step up our game, Don"

Don returned to his throne and sat with thinking about what just Knight said

"After we return from the dungeon, I want everyone to bend their knees then I'm going to build a road connecting Emir and Agoria"

"What about the Korrinth that's in between Emir and Agoria?"

"I'll find a way"

At the moment, Emir and Agoria had no direct roads connecting them both and one must travel to Korrinth to reach either of the kingdoms. However if Don built a road connecting the kingdoms, it would help him develop the economic and the military aspects of both kingdoms.

"Also we need to form an army in Agoria"

Knight reminded Don

"Well, when we develop that kingdom, more people would come to live there"

"Alright Knight, I should go to Agoria now"

*************************************

While thinking about his future plans, Don reached his castle in Agoria and when he stepped into the throne hall, he was welcomed by a group of guards with frightened faces.

"Your majesty, you're back"

Pushing through the guards, Lord Clemo came towards Don drenched in water

"What happened?"

"Your majesty...we found the bodies of Cassek and Tisha"

Hearing Lord Cassek, Don was shocked as he frowned because Lord Clemo and the guards were supposed to be kept in the dark about the capture of Cassek and Tisha.

"Where?"

"Follow me, your majesty"

Lord Clemo said and started to walk towards the outside as Don followed him

And when he stepped outside, Don noticed a bunch of people gathering around and murmuring in the rain

"Your majesty"

Don didn't see any dead bodies as Lord Clemo pointed upwards. And when Don looked up, he saw Cassek and Tisha nailed to the wall.

"Who would do such a thing? your majesty"

Lord Clemo's face was pale while Don looked at the bodies, and just as Lord Clemo said, the murder was gruesome especially Cassek's. He was gutted like a fish and the killer wrapped his body using his own intestines.

And looking at the opened eyes, Don could guess that he was alive at the time the killer opened his stomach. Unlike Cassek,Tisha's murder was somehow less gruesome as the killer slit her throat open and gouged her eyes.

However, what drew Don's attention most was the message that written under the bodies in the blood

'The weak have no place in HER presence'

"Bring their bodies down and inform to their kin"

Arrora put both of them in the secret room beneath the castle and Don was sure that no one knew about their whereabouts except him and Arrora. Since Arrora was bound by the slave bond with Don, she couldn't have betrayed him plus Don knew that she couldn't have done this without him knowing.

So Don understood that the killer had the skills and information to find Cassek's whereabouts and kill them without alerting the guards in the castle as well as Arrora's men roaming around the castle at that time.

"And send the guards to search for the killer"

It was pretty obvious to Don that the guards would not find a clue about the killer but he had to issue the order as a king.

"Also clean this thing"

Before returning to his throne, Don ordered Lord Clemo as Lord Clemo nodded his head.

A while after Don returned to his throne, the villagers brought the children who were attacked by Ryan to Don. The old woman was leading the villagers with the woman whose son Don healed earlier.

"Your majesty, all the victims of Lord Ryan is here"

Seeing the pale faces of the people, Don knew they had witnessed the scene outside as he took a couple of healing potions from his space ring and sent it flying to the old woman.

"It should be enough for all of them"

While the parents and the children were having a heart-melting reunion, Don was thinking about the mysterious killer, Aathreya, and the one who took Benedict and Arya.

"Great ones bless you, your majesty"

"Thank you, your majesty"

The people kowtowed before Don one by one after seeing their loved ones get healed 

"From now on, if you have any problems or requests, you can come directly to me "

"We will, your majesty"

The old woman spoke for the crowd as Don nodded and sent the people away and waited for Stodemar and his men to return with the report about the rebuilding 

Eventually, the dwarves in full black armor came to meet Don with their report

"me king, this kingdom be a mess"

The nonstop downpouring and the worn out buildings flamed the frustration fire inside Stodemar

"Those humans shou' be better living under rocks rather than tha ones they call homes, me king"

The people who live far away from the capital were in a far more poor situation than the people in the capital. Due to the poor architecture and the building materials used in the buildings, their houses couldn't withstand the raining climate of Agoria.

When roaming around the kingdom, Stodemar and his men entered some of the houses to inspect the interiors and as far as they could tell, there was no difference in standing outside in the rain than staying inside the house. There were many clothes and woods stuck onto the ceiling to prevent the water from leaking inside the house but even then, they couldn't stop the leakage.

Aside from the buildings itself, the roads were basically nonexistent in Agoria as there was no concrete or paved roads in Agoria. People in Agoria used to live with occasional floods due to the poor draining systems which added to the problems in Agoria. However since the bandit problem was solved by Don, it wouldn't take much longer for the merchants to visit Agoria and now the only thing Don had to do is, rebuild the city and find the seeds that magically enhanced to grow in the rainy weather.

Only after that, Don could think about building a naval army and port. Fortunately, Don had an immense amount of wealth in his space ring because of the fruitful auction and now he had to find the right people for his plans. 

"I want those old broken buildings gone Stodemar, start building new houses for my people"

Stodemar and the dwarves knew very well about Don to not question him as he nodded and thought about the cost for a moment yet before he could open his mouth, he saw a ring flying towards him 

"It's for you, buy what you need with it and get the people around here to help you"

After sending away the dwarves, Don called it a day and went to his chamber to spend the rest of his day cultivating because he felt a storm coming in his way.