Merchant Of Yliaster

Radam stood beside a window as he watched the city in ruins below him. He had commissioned this penthouse so that he could see all he ruled once he became the king, but now, it only worked in making him angry.

Below him, a city in ruins lay, as the city was almost unprotected against the initiation when it happened. He was promised a glorious city built by high-tech methods, but still preserving the medieval air, but he received a ruin of one instead.

Someone knocked on the door, probably to give him another report. That was at least unchanged, as claiming control over his ship had been particularly easy after waking up. People thought that they would be able to overthrow him due to him not having a level, but they were proved wrong after a few ventings. They now decorated the orbit. He supposed they would land on the planet soon.

"Come," he said, taking a deep breath.

A man strolled in, wearing a sleek uniform. Radam did not belong to the military, but this didn't mean that he wouldn't make his personnel wear proper uniforms. No one would take them seriously if they looked like common thugs after all.

"Speak," he said. And the man saluted him before starting to speak.

"Sir, the repairs are being undertaken with increasing speed. We estimate that the city will be completely repaired in 2 weeks. Our manufacturers reached an average level of 13, and there are some outliers doing exceptional work," the head of production said.

Manufacturers were the group of people Radam was most happy about. Soldiers became cocky after the initiation while the manufacturers seemed to become even more controllable. He just threw the materials and work to do, and they complied with whatever he wished.

"Make them reach 15 until the week is over. Also, make me a proper gun; this one is busted, too," he pointed at his gun. He became a gunslinger when he was choosing his class, but he was having problems finding a gun to sling. The materials they had were pitifully weak for some reason his scientists couldn't understand, and new mines were still not open.

They tried to trade with the other cities, but the other cities seemed to be reluctant to give them anything due to them being a threat to everyone. They managed to get some materials from bandits and such in the end, but there were still not enough of them to level up gunsmiths.

"You can leave, send in the head of military," he said. The man bowed before leaving the room. Soon, a man in high-tech armor entered the room. Radam stared at the man, exasperated by the vanity of his personnel. He was pretty sure that the armor the man was wearing was completely dysfunctional, as they still couldn't produce such things.

"You wanted to see me?" the man said, not even saluting him. You see, this was his problem with soldiers. Since the initiation, most of them went really cocky, and Radam couldn't help but show some leeway to them. After all, he still didn't have the necessary tech to control them.

When he woke up, the soldiers were already tier 2, and while now he caught up to them, he still couldn't stop an organized coup d'état.

"How is the exploration going?" he asked. The military was responsible for the exploration, as even a simple animal could kill someone who didn't know how to fight in this world. Radam was not amused when he found out that the infopack he received was hilariously outdated, so they needed to explore as if they knew nothing.

"We mapped the area around 500 kilometers in every direction. Not having a satellite makes everything harder, but manufacturers can deal with that soon, I hope. Olegor Kingdom doesn't think very highly of us, but they seem to be honoring the pact of nonaggression. I advise caution, though, as we don't have the same pact with other kingdoms like Thres," the man explained in a lazy tone.

Radam didn't show it to the man, but silently added him to the long list of people who would die immediately when he secured the necessary technology. Holding himself back from killing the guy was already very hard.

"How strong are the kingdoms?" he asked. This was a question he was definitely curious about. When he first planned to come here, he planned to be the undisputed king of this kingdom, and his plan after that was to expand the kingdom using his technological supremacy. Now, though, technology barely worked, and initiation made it so that the kingdoms had many ways of fighting back.

"I don't see a way to fight one without making one of the nukes work. Even then, if they marched to this area, we would be helpless to stop them," the man answered, making Radam fill with anger.

He truly liked how this system seemed to work, but he also hated it with a passion. His plans were completely ruined by it, and his enemies became incredibly stronger than they should be.

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"Is there a way for us to gain influence in this kingdom?" he asked. It was not hard to see the way out of this situation. If he could somehow gain some influence in this kingdom, its power would also be his.

His question seemed to make the other man hesitate for a moment, as he contemplated something, but he seemed to decide to say what was on his mind.

"I heard a rumor about there being a level threshold for gaining nobility. I think it will come into place in a week. If we can gain some levels fast, we can have many nobles among us, and we would technically all belong to the ruling class," the man said, making Radam's heart beat faster.

This was exactly what he needed, as he already had the territory and the people. With a title, he could turn this city into a proper city acknowledged by the kingdom, and from there, he could expand his power base until the kingdom was completely his.

If he were trapped in this world, he would make the most of the experience. "Is there anything else?" he asked the man for show. And was surprised to see that he actually had something to say.

"There is a small matter. You probably remember the two boys and the cleaner who ran from the ship with an escape pod before the landing, right? We managed to decipher where they would land, but the scientists say that they are dead. Apparently, pre-initiation pods can't handle the atmosphere well enough. We almost got cooked ourselves when we were landing," he said, sounding delighted by this.

Radam begrudgingly found himself agreeing with the man. One of the boys' parents was quite problematic, and he was really concerned about the rogue cleaner. They couldn't find any records of the man after they ran, so he was probably a spy planted by some other organization.

The last thing Radam needed was them overcomplicating matters on the planet. Things were hard enough as they were.

"Good riddance," he said simply, before observing the man beside him. He was sure that his level was lower than his, but he still wanted to see it.

Rex - Soldier - Level 26

"You said this noble thing was one week later, right?" he asked the man, glancing at the level with calm eyes.

"Yes, but I'm not completely sure. It is all rumors after all." Rex said, but Radam found his words hard to believe. It was apparent from the man's level that he believed in his rumors. Radam was pretty sure that this guy was higher leveled than anyone else in his city except himself.

"You can leave," he said, and watched the man immediately move towards the door. Radam sighed before pulling his gun and using his overload skill on it. His energy focused on the gun as it was forced to perform in a way that it shouldn't be able to. A deafening boom was released from the gun as the bullet inside was fired with a speed impossible for this gun before the initiation. The gun immediately broke down, but Radam had already commissioned the new one minutes ago; it would be fine.

Rex immediately noticed that something was wrong, but it was already too late. When he turned to see what was happening, the only thing he managed to see was a white flash, and his head turned into a mist of blood.

His body tumbled to the ground like the worthless pile of flesh it was, smearing the floor with blood. Radam sneered at the body. "Servants shouldn't turn their backs on their kings when leaving," he said, and spat on the corpse.

A few seconds later, his security finally woke up and rushed into the room. It didn't take long for them to understand the situation, as it was pretty apparent with a headless corpse lying on the ground.

"Sir? Are you injured?" one of his personal guards asked in sincere concern. Sometimes, even Radam was surprised that he still had loyal people around him. It seemed that people really loved following someone, and he would always be there to abuse that.

"I'm fine. He tried to kill me, but I was faster," he lied without even thinking about it. No one would contradict his words anyway.

He supposed there would be some unrest in the military, but that would be fixed in a week when he received his noble title.

He felt ecstatic after finally killing that annoying little shit. He turned to his guard. "Tell the manufacturers that I want two guns instead of one," he said, before starting to walk towards the elevator.

He was soon on the ground floor, and he could see that the place had an air of emergency. This was not very surprising considering the noise the previous encounter released. He supposed his people would be more hardworking for a couple of days due to their renewed fear.

He started to walk towards his private quarters. Seeing blood worked him up, so he would have some fun.

"Send me two," he said to his butler, who was standing beside the entrance, before entering a big mansion. He got this mansion designed by the best architects before setting off, and he was pretty happy with how it turned out.

It was made from pure stone and had four floors. It wasn't overly big, as he preferred his home to be more contained.

He entered his bedroom and quickly took off his clothes before throwing himself into the already hot bed. He made sure that the bath would always be kept in perfect condition. It had cost some lives, but the end result was truly heavenly as he lowered himself into the hot water.

A few minutes later, there was a click, and two women entered the bathroom, also completely naked. Radam hungrily examined the women before smiling.

And they say my ambitions are shallow, he thought.