Might as Well

The people who were approaching them were clearly wearing the symbol of Sam’s guild, Chrysalis, on their armor, visible even from far away. Probably, so anyone wanting to get closer would get an idea of who they were dealing with.

Though, based on what he knew of Tim and Liz, Sam was pretty sure these small teams were red herrings for those who wanted to sneak in or attack them. A small pulse of his mana showed him that there was another smaller team hidden nearby, ready to act if Sam and Fitzgerald made the wrong move.

Sam simply bade his fellow traveler follow his lead and slowed down to a leisurely walk as he watched the group rapidly closing on them.

“Halt!” called out the man in the lead with a serious voice and a hand on his weapon.

“Hello there!” Sam answered, flashing his officer medallion to the group standing before him.

However, instead of smiling or even a welcoming nod, all he received was derision. Even the team standing on standby felt ready to pounce on him.

“Hah! As if that little medallion would be enough to fool us!” exclaimed the man in the lead while the rest of the team nodded along, glaring at Sam and Fitzgerald, who was currently squatting on the ground and poking a small rock with fascination.

‘What the hell?’ Sam wondered.

“Maybe try scanning it with mana?” he spoke out loud, waving his hand holding the medallion.

The guards just scoffed. “Like that hasn’t been tried yet. Nice try, but turn around before we kill you!” came the aggressive response.

Sam eyed the group as he felt a small mana pulse aimed at his medallion. Instantly, the hidden group stood down based on the feeling of their mana but didn’t move from their location.

‘Glad to see that at least somebody is good at their job…’

Sam opened his mouth but before he could express his opinion about the general intelligence level of the people in front of him, the man continued to speak.

“Are you refusing our orders? We’re from the Chrysalis guild! We own this territory!” he announced proudly, holding his head up high as if expecting praise. His white tabard even managed to catch a glance of the sun, encasing the man in a shining aura for a brief moment.

“And I’m an officer of the guild?” Sam asked in a confused voice, his hand still holding the medallion in his hand. “You can check the guild screen for my name… It’s at the top…”

This time the woman behind the first man – whose name Sam still didn’t know – scoffed. She was wearing purple leather armor, the hood down, showcasing her magnificent red hair. “As if they haven’t figured out a way to spoof names…”

“They?” Sam asked, slightly afraid. Not even 10 years in the future did they manage to find a way to display a different name. Granted, one could use millions of different magics to look like someone else but spoofing names in system windows was probably impossible.

“It’s not like you’re the first one trying to sneak in!” came the answer.

“Sneak in? We were walking in the open…” he replied, still confused.

“That’s the genius of your plan! You expected us to be disinterested in somebody who wasn’t sneaking around!” exclaimed the third person of the group, a tall man, in a green light robe and holding a staff.

“We already caught several groups of players who tried to sneak in several ways,” came from the last member of the group, a mousy woman in a black cloak with orange highlights and wearing enchanted glasses. “This would be a new way, but I’m not surprised.”

Sam opened his mouth, then closed it. Looking at the proud group, reveling in the fact that they ‘caught’ another troublemaker.

Fitzgerald, meanwhile, moved on to a bush that caught his attention, probably being polite and ignoring Sam’s troubles.

“Now!” The redhead stepped forward, pointing at Sam. “It’s time for you to leave!”

“Or?”

“Or we’ll make you!” joined the man in the white tabard. Sam idly noticed the blue ascot around his neck.

Thankfully, Sam was spared having to kill his own guildmates when a cloaked individual suddenly appeared between Sam and the odd group, kneeling on the ground.

The group holding up Sam and his charge recoiled instantly.

“What the… What are you doing here?” the lead idiot asked, but the cloaked individual ignored him and instead began addressing Sam.

“Welcome, sir,” came the greeting from the kneeling figure.

“Thank you,” replied Sam with a relieved smile. “I would have hated to… act.”

Meanwhile, the group of proud guards were staring at the kneeling figure agog.

“What?”

“Really?”

“Marjory, is that you?” came from the woman with the glasses. Sam noted that it probably allowed her to see more than others. ‘Maybe I could create googles with the same enchantments...’ he idly mused. “Why did you interfere?”

The kneeling figure stood up and whirled around and at the same time removed her hood, revealing her youthful face and ponytail.

“Because I wanted to prevent you morons from attacking one of the guild leaders!” she yelled at them angrily.

“Guild leaders?”

“Wasn’t that Adam?”

Sam just stood there and smiled, watching as the no longer fully cloaked woman – one of the hidden guards – read the riot act to the overly eager group.

He pointed to the side and began ambling that way while using his other hand to grab Fitzgerald’s shoulders to drag him away as he was currently staring at an insect in his palm and mumbling.

“Then I’ll be just going…”

Sadly, one of the people in the group that stopped them noticed his extremely stealthy exit.

“Hey! Where are you going? We weren’t fin-urgh…”

Ignoring the sound of violence behind him, Sam continued to drag Fitzgerald toward their destination, hoping that they wouldn’t be interrupted again.

Thankfully, they reached the ruins without any interruptions, though they had to stop for a few minutes as Fitzgerald said his tearful goodbyes to his new insect friend.

The ruins themselves were rather underwhelming.

Most of the wood and other biological materials have long since rotted, carried away by natural phenomena, or eaten by local wildlife, leaving behind stone walls and constructs.

And even those constructs were in disarray, covered and eroded by nature.

As they approached the outer boundary of what had once been a mining town, Sam could spot where the old walls were, or rather their stone foundation. Now it was replaced with a trench dug by earth mages around the entire town, ready for the new foundation. The removed stone was set to the side, ready to be used.

Which gave Sam an idea…

In the world of magic, items used for a long time for a specific purpose would gain a sort of flavor in magic. And stones used to be part of a wall for who knows how many years would be flavored with the concept of protection and steadiness. It wasn’t something that would make them indestructible, but if he put together a simple runic sequence and carved them on those stones, which in turn would be distributed at all points of the construction, then it would create a symbiotic synergy with the sequence, enhancing and stabilizing the magic.

‘Man, it seems it was really useful to read all those boring books…’ he mused to himself as they walked through a small wooden bridge placed on top of the trench as several people – mostly NPCs – saluted them.

Based on the symbols on their clothing, they were workers from the Silvercrest family.

‘Oh no… I forgot about her…’

They walked through the ruins, following the signs posted by the workers toward the city center, near the entrance to the mines that Sam knew would be repurposed for warehousing, barracks, and experimental areas. As well, in the future, they would be used for hydroponics experiments that were in the plans.

Strictly out of the game, as they didn’t want to give the system any ideas.

The rest of the area was going to be used to make use of the items they gained from the valley.

The fertilizer and the Gardener’s Friend runic circle would be used to create very compact gardens to produce high-quality food, while some of the old refurbished mining shafts would be transformed into underground lakes, partly as water reservoirs and partly to use them for the Chameleon Fish Eggs.

There were already guild members out in the world, happily fishing in all sorts of weird places for guild contribution points.

Sam was also planning on taking a few small trips to pick up a few rarer fish to populate the lakes. They would be an excellent source of food, alchemy materials, and products to trade.

As they entered the center of the ruins, they could already see a big square marked out for the town square, and around it, with space left open for the roads, were marked plots of land with a sign showing their designated number.

“These will be for commerce, sir,” Sam stated as Fitzgerald looked around with interest. “The plot I showed you is deeper inside, both for security and protection. We actually plan to create an entire crafting district…”

Fitzgerald just hummed thoughtfully but didn’t say anything as they headed deeper, dodging around the constant presence of construction crews and servants, making sure everybody was properly hydrated and distributing food to those who were on breaks.

Altogether, to Sam, it seemed that everybody was in a good mood, working happily. Well, at least the NPCs were in a good mood. Most of the players laboring next to the NPCs were rather sullen.

But if they decided that this was the way they wanted to gain guild contribution, Sam felt that they had no reason to feel sullen. It was not like they forced them into manual labor, or they were mistreated… Hell, they were even paid real gold for their work, not just the contribution points, as Sam wanted to avoid being one of those greedy guilds that exploited their members.

Plus, they had the money, so why not boost the local economy a little…

Soon, they left behind the planned commercial district and entered a much better-guarded zone near the mine entrances. Here the guild members and well-armored Silvercrest family guards patrolled, especially around the few buildings that had already been built.

One of them was a giant mess hall, surrounded by a few warehouses and a few other basic amenities, and opposite were two buildings. From Lara’s reports, he knew that one was the planning office and Lara’s headquarters, while the other – helpfully marked with the Silvercrest crest – was where the daughter of the family was staying.

However, before they could move toward Lara’s building, they were interrupted by the sound of a wolf running toward them at high speed.

Sam watched as Fortuna, Lucrecia’s shadow wolf, charged at them with a grin on her face and tongue lolling out and just let out a sigh, knowing that meeting with the girl would be inevitable.

Thankfully, before the shadow wolf could reach them Lucky appeared from the shadows in front of Sam and collided with the much smaller and sleeker wolf. They were sent tumbling, but from the sounds Sam could hear it was a friendly tussling, as if Lucky was testing the younger wolf. Much like how an elder sibling would after coming home after a long absence.

They were so transfixed by the mock battle between the two wolves that they didn’t even notice as a servant approached them.

Sam turned around after hearing a throat clearing and beheld a maid with the symbol of the Silvercrest family on their apron bowing to them.

“Master Samuel and Master Fitzgerald, you honor us with your presence. The lady of the house would like to greet you personally if it is all right with you,” she stated while glancing at them from her bow.

Sam looked at Fitzgerald, who just nodded eagerly.

“I would love to!”

Sam swallowed his curse and forced a smile on his face. “Indeed, it would be a pleasure to meet the lady of the house again.”

The maid straightened and curtsied. “Then, if sirs, would follow me, that would be excellent!” With that, she turned around and began walking at a sedate pace toward the small, by noble standards, house that held the girl who was obsessed with Sam.

He took a moment before following the maid to call out to Lucky.

“Make sure not to hurt her and find me when you are finished!” then he simply followed her while listening to Lucky’s affirmative bark.