Harbingers of Change

The hammer struck the heated metal again and again. A strong, steady hand guided it with rapid, precise movements. You don't get the reputation of the best blacksmith in the capital by being sloppy.

Although outwardly the blacksmith was the personification of calmness, his mind was in turmoil.

'Twenty special grade swords due at the end of the week or the bastard will revoke my license!'

If up until now he already had enough reason to hate his friend-turned-adversary, then now it reached its boiling point. Not only was the current minister, Vesta, once his subordinate and friend in the Dwargon army, but he also was the one who caused his career to end, and him to be disgraced.

The memory of the rampaging metallic golem, or magical soldier as the project was called, was still fresh in his mind. It was Vesta who, eager to push the project forward, ignored many safety precautions. It was Vesta who not only didn't take responsibility for his mistakes but also bribed investigators to falsify evidence and shift the blame onto Kaijin.

The sword was slowly taking its shape. Strike after strike hit its target perfectly. His muscles and back screamed for rest. He was running on just two hours of sleep after nineteen hours of work yesterday. It wasn't enough for even the sturdiest of dwarves. But the order was an order. One hundred steel spearheads and twenty swords by the end of the week.

The spearheads were easy enough. He had an ample supply of steel left, but there wasn't enough magisteel to make the cores for the swords. His three friends went into the mines one day ago to search for the ore, despite the rumors of monsters roaming about. Admirable, certainly, but stupid. Despite the dire situation, he should have stopped them from going. Was it the need for the magisteel or simply his tired mind not thinking of the risks at the moment, he couldn't tell.

They should have been back by now. If something would happen to the three dwarven brothers, it would be on his conscience. He was not only their friend but also a guardian of sorts. When it came to arts and crafting, all three were undeniably geniuses in their fields, but when it came to practical matters, like running a business, every single one was incompetent beyond belief.

Of course, high-quality goods and a lack of any business sense invited unscrupulous people to take advantage of them. One day, they had lost their shop and all possessions and had nowhere else to go, so he took them in.

The steel was getting cold again so Kaijin stopped the shaping of metal and put it back in the forge.

"KAIJIN?" His brother's familiar voice reached him in the back of his shop.

"Back here. Do you need something?" Kaijin shouted back.

A sturdy built dwarf dressed in a guard captain's armor rushed into the forge room, panting.

"There was an accident," He said, trying to catch his breath, "Armosaurus in the mines… Garm, Myrd and Dord… they were wounded badly."

Kajin pulled out the heated sword, dropping it onto the anvil.

"How badly were they injured? Did they get to the healer in time?"

"They will live, I think. Some of my men took them to the infirmary, while the rest of us killed the beast."

Kaijin slammed the forges protective door to not cause a fire by accident and put the hot sword in water, not caring about the outcome at the moment. He needed to go see them. It was his fault they went into the mines.

The cold air and the adrenaline gave his tired body more strength to run than he would believe he had. With Kaidou running behind him, Kaijin reached the infirmary in record time.

The three brothers were not the only victims of the beast and medical personnel were at work using healing magic. Kaijin saw no potions used, but with the increasing paranoia about a possible invasion from the Eastern Empire, all the healing potions were for emergency situations only, and off limits for commercial use.

He located the trio but was not prepared for what he saw at that moment. Kaijin silently looked at all three of them. Garm, the eldest, was missing his right arm. Dord, the middle brother, had it the worst; both of his legs were amputated below the knee. Myrd, the youngest, was missing half of his jaw and had his left hand missing.

"Kaijin, sorry we didn't get the ore you needed." Kaido said apologetically.

"Forget about the ore." Kaijin said and turned to the head healer.

"Is there anything you can do to heal them? I will pay anything you ask."

"I'm sorry, Kaijin." The head priest responded solemnly.

The guilt and despair just rose and rose. His return to his shop was a slow and silent one. Kaijin carried Dord on his back, with Garm and Myrd walking beside him. Why was life so unfair? The reason for all this was pretty much untouchable. Vesta, on top of being a minister, was also a high-ranking noble and even insulting him could land a commoner like Kaijin in prison.

Once home, he put Garm down in the kitchen chair and took out the dried meat and bread from the pantry. All four silently ate for a while without exchanging the word. None wanted to address Myrd's half missing jaw at this moment. He just silently tore bread in small pieces and carefully swallowed them one by one.

"Kaijin, what do we do now? We can't just sit around." Dord asked.

It was painfully clear what he really was asking.

"I'm so sorry for sending you into that mine. I will take care of you three as long as I am able. That is a promise."

"We went on our own and you know that!" Garm said. "Us aside, what are you going to do? We didn't get the magical ore you needed."

"I will craft what I can and hope I can keep the license."

"That stuck up asshole Vesta will not let you."

"I know. But… but I have to do what I can. We will worry about what to do next after the deadline."

After the quick meal, Kaijin was back at work. For now, he still had magisteel for three swords and after that, maybe there was a chance to buy some for at least a few more swords. With more swords crafted, three was a smaller chance of losing license as even Vesta wouldn't so openly take it away if only a few items from the list were not done by the deadline.

Predictably, the sword he left half made was ruined, and he needed to start to craft it all over again. Pushing away the siren's call of sleep, he dropped coal in the forge and started his work once again.

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To not waste time unnecessarily, Albedo decided to eat dinner with Demiurge in order to discuss common projects. She already sat down in a restaurant meant for Nazarick's upper tier staff. The daily tasks were already given out, so what remained was future planning.

The punctuality of the archdemon didn't permit him to be late even for a second, and he predictably arrived on time and sat down by the table with a bow. The maids arrived with food a few seconds later, giving the impression of a well planned out act.

"I assume we start with the territorial question?" Demiurge asked as he poured wine in his glass and rearranged the utensils to his liking.

"Yes, we can get that out of the way first." Albedo responded, carefully cutting and taking the first bite from a rare steak. As for most of Nazarick's more predatory creatures, she enjoyed almost raw meat the most.

As the Overseer, she was well aware that meat was the favorite food of a sizable part of Nazarick's denizens, as most who needed to eat were predatory creatures. And even that number wasn't particularly high anymore as many gained nourishment from the magicules within the Great Tomb. The full mechanics of the new magical system were still unclear but |Nazarick| generated magicules by itself at a constant rate.

Lord Momonga probably knew how it worked, but for now, at least, she had set herself a task of figuring it out by herself, without relying on the wisdom of the Supreme Overlord.

"Considering the overall weakness of goblins, conquering their lands can be left to the one's Lord Momonga already named. One wolf rider can probably subjugate an entire tribe, even geared in that rather poor armament they themselves have made."

"Using even the weakest of Nazarick's forces would accelerate the conquest." Albedo remarked.

"It would. Did Lord Momonga give any specific orders?"

"Besides avoiding needless casualties, no, he has left the planning of conquest for us."

His best guess was that Lord Momonga likely wanted to use goblins for experimentation on naming, so just clearing the lands from the otherwise useless creatures by force wasn't an option. But there were a lot of effective methods besides that.

"Knowing that the wolves and goblins combined make a much more effective force, I would expand in both territories slowly. Taking tribe by tribe and pack by pack." Demiurge said.

"Mmm, then we order Rigur's goblin riders to coerce the nearest goblin tribes into submission, and those who refuse, we use as an example for others. Even such dull creatures could understand they stand no chance. As for the wolves, named alphas could just take everything over, pack by pack."

"Should work. We will see and adjust plans if needed. Did Lord Momonga give permission to do the naming ourselves?"

"Yes, but he also wants other floor guardians to test it."

"Naturally. I am curious about the differences between each guardian naming them." Demiurge said.

Knowing that even summoned creatures could be named to empower them, he of course wanted to perform tests to see the results, but the plan of that was in its infancy and wasn't presented to Lord Momonga yet.

"Have you met Veldora yet?" Albedo suddenly asked. Her facial expression openly betrayed her dislike for the dragon and his presence in the Great Tomb.

"Not yet. From what I have heard, he spends most of his time in Lord Peroroncino's company?"

"Yes, he does, and even then, that lizard's presence is disturbing."

"Wouldn't Lord Momonga remove his manifestation from Nazarick then? As I understand, his skill controls everything in the tomb."

"Lord Momonga was very surprised to see Veldora's manifestation, so I assumed Veldora used the connection to get inside without permission."

"That sounds unlikely. Could it be that Lord Momonga faked surprise and has not only permitted but also helped this unwitting dragon to manifest?"

"You think it is a possibility?"

"How else would it be possible? Lord Momonga can command everyone linked to his skill after all."

Albedo shook her head in shame, saying,

"How did I not see it? Of course, Lord Momonga knew and planned it beforehand. I just don't understand why he would do it. Keeping that dragon imprisoned is so much safer."

"Hmm, I think servants like us could only guess the infinite depths of wisdom Lord Momonga possesses. But the most likely reason in my opinion is to manipulate this dragon into feeling indebted."

"Sounds plausible. No matter, for now, our task is to deal with expansion and leave the long-term machinations to Lord Momonga. He will correct us if we make mistakes."

"Agreed." Demiurge said.

Every little titbit of the Supreme One's infinite wisdom observed and noticed by him gave him such joy. Of course, his meager intellect couldn't even come close to understanding the subtleties of Lord Momonga's planning, but everything he guessed correctly brought immense satisfaction to his dark heart.

With dinner out of the way, he quickly put together a proposition of naming Nazarick's NPCs and sent it to Albedo. The Guardian Overseer turned out to be an excellent ally, if a paranoid one. He had noticed no potential conflict between Supreme Ones, but he played along just in case something was there and he missed it. Albedo received a lot more information from the rulers than he did after all.

To his surprise, the approval for naming came a few hours later, but Lord Momonga expressed his wish to use caution and start with the weakest of NPCs and monitor the draining of magical energy carefully.

Shadow demons were one of the weakest one in terms of power, but because of their high utility as spy units they were the perfect target for naming.

Using his |Lord of Evil| skill, Demiurge quickly created another shadow demon and assigned it a name; Umbraun. Predictably, it grew its power significantly and the energy drain was rather negligible. He could safely name at least a hundred of them a day.

The next step was to request Pandora's Actor to assign skills to the newly improved demon. Although he found the Doppelgänger rather eccentric, he also couldn't deny his intelligence and organizational capabilities.

Not five minutes later, the demon had been given the |Extra Skill - Mind reading| and |Extra Skill - Possessor|. It now could read minds of weaker creatures and in some cases take them over permanently.

Final step of the testing was to give the shadow demon a title. With the title of Shadow Lord his newly created servant acquired even more power and potentially could mind control creatures with a much higher magicule count than itself.

Demiurge quickly noted that giving the title took more energy than naming and the overall power increase was higher as well.

Overall, the naming was very beneficial, but caution was needed to not exhaust one's magical reserves. Satisfied with the results, Demiurge proceeded to create additional shadow demons and name them. It was paramount to start gathering the information about the world they were in and the improved demons surely would prove useful.

Edited by Edgy.