Chapter 912: Happenings

A Normal Day

Time passed strangely in Bastos. Ludwig had lived long enough that a few weeks hardly deserved to be called time, but the days felt unfamiliar because battles no longer marked their passing.

The weeks brought neither invasions nor awakening horrors. The Usurpers remained elsewhere, and Ludwig received no urgent messages claiming that a kingdom would collapse unless he crossed half the continent within three hours. For once, people simply lived.

The former inhabitants of the Tower spread throughout the old Bastos settlement and gradually began treating it as a permanent home. What started as a collection of occupied buildings became a town, then slowly developed into something resembling a proper city again.

Families claimed abandoned houses and repaired them. Those who remembered trades from their previous lives returned to them whenever possible. Carpenters worked beside goblins who had learned construction inside the Tower, while former orcs hauled stone under the direction of human masons. Trolls proved remarkably useful whenever something heavy needed moving, though Ludwig quickly learned that putting one in charge of delicate furniture was a terrible idea.

Workers cleared the fields beyond the old walls, and the soil proved surprisingly fertile after Wrath’s corruption vanished. Crops took root quickly. Old irrigation channels were dug out, bridges repaired, and roads buried beneath decades of weeds and blood-red roots exposed again.

What had once resembled a dead territory gradually became somewhere people might willingly choose to live.

The Bastos manor changed just as dramatically. When Ludwig first returned, the building had already been repaired enough to stand comfortably, but that was merely the beginning.

The wooden planks covering broken windows disappeared and were replaced with glass. Centuries of grime were scrubbed from the stonework, damaged sections of roofing were rebuilt, and entire corridors previously blocked by collapsed ceilings became accessible again.

Celine became far more involved in the restoration than Ludwig had ever intended, though he certainly did not complain. She actually knew what the manor was supposed to look like, while Ludwig’s knowledge was mostly limited to which rooms contained furniture comfortable enough to sleep on.

Celine remembered where paintings had once hung, which hall had been reserved for guests, and where House Bastos held formal dinners. She knew the room that had belonged to her father and which balcony once overlooked the gardens before the trees grew wild enough to hide everything. Even the windows mattered to her.

One afternoon, Ludwig found her arguing with three craftsmen because they had installed the wrong style of frame in the western wing. He listened for perhaps thirty seconds, recognized a battle that did not require his participation, and quietly left.

His vacation had already taught him several important lessons. Chief among them was that some conflicts could be avoided simply by walking in the opposite direction.

The Marquisate attracted attention almost immediately after word spread that Bastos was inhabited again. Small merchants arrived first, followed by minor officials. Then came the nobles.

Carriages began appearing along the restored roads every few days. Some visitors brought gifts of wine, fabric, weapons, and paintings that Ludwig suspected had spent the previous century forgotten in someone’s attic before suddenly becoming historic gestures of friendship.

Others arrived carrying contracts, trade offers, and marriage proposals that Ludwig rejected without bothering to ask whom they were intended for. Most of them simply wanted to meet the new power occupying Bastos, and that became irritating very quickly.

Fortunately, Celine handled almost all of them.

The Emperor had granted the territory to Ludwig, but the heritage remained hers. House Bastos still belonged to Celine, and Ludwig had absolutely no interest in pretending otherwise. An Emperor placing his name upon a piece of paper did not grant him her family’s history.

Whenever nobles arrived asking to speak with the head of Bastos, Ludwig usually directed them toward Celine. Sometimes he did so quite literally.

One particularly persistent count spent ten minutes explaining why it was politically essential that "Lord Ludwig" receive him personally. Ludwig listened until the man finished, called Celine from the hallway, and pointed toward her when she arrived.

"She is House Bastos. Whatever political conversation you came here to have belongs with her."

The count looked between them, clearly waiting for a more complicated explanation. Ludwig provided none.

"I’ve completed my part of the meeting," he added before leaving them alone.

The count never asked twice, and the arrangement worked remarkably well after that. Ludwig held the land, while Celine carried the house and its history. Neither felt any need to correct outsiders who assumed some elaborate political agreement existed between them.

The truth was much simpler. Ludwig wanted somewhere quiet to sit, and Celine wanted her home back. Everyone else was free to invent whatever politics made the arrangement easier to understand.

Kaiser, unfortunately, had interpreted Ludwig’s brief permission in the Dark Continent as encouragement. Communication remained limited while the teleportation gate was under construction, but a limitation like distance had never stopped the lich from finding magical ways to send reports.

The first arrived less than a week after Ludwig returned. He had been eating breakfast when a translucent projection of a skull appeared inside a bowl of fruit, startling Thomas badly enough that the little spirit nearly set the table on fire.

Kaiser’s voice emerged from the skull. "The citadel wall is complete."

Ludwig stared at the projection. "You already built an entire wall? How much of the city did you enclose?"

"Enough to defend what currently matters. The remaining districts can be incorporated when the population expands."

That sounded more reasonable than Ludwig expected, which made him suspicious. "How far did you expand beyond the original citadel?"

"Far enough to establish proper defenses."

"Somehow, that answer explained less."

Apparently, Kaiser had claimed a considerable portion of the territory surrounding Sloth’s former citadel. The unused white cubes made construction absurdly efficient. Entire defensive walls had been assembled from material Sloth had already prepared, with towers rising along the perimeter and several fortified gates controlling access to the city.

Skeletal patrols now covered the wilderness beyond those walls, while additional defensive positions had been established farther outside the perimeter. Ludwig listened to the report before asking the obvious question.

"What exactly are those outer positions supposed to defend against?"

"Whatever attempts to approach without permission," Kaiser answered. "That includes monsters, armies, adventurers, religious fanatics, and tax collectors."

"You placed tax collectors on the same list as monsters?"

"Lower. Monsters can occasionally be reasoned with."

Ludwig laughed, though his amusement faded once Kaiser began describing his continued study of the white material left behind by Sloth.

The strange giants that had served throughout the White Kingdom collapsed into pale sand when their master died, but traces of the method used to construct them remained within the material. Kaiser had naturally interpreted that discovery as an invitation to reproduce the process.

His early attempts were failures. One construct walked three steps before falling apart, while another developed only a single leg. A third lacked a head yet somehow continued following instructions, which Kaiser considered an improvement.

By the time the latest report arrived, the lich had created something functional. It was smaller and cruder than Sloth’s giants, but it could lift blocks, carry materials, and respond to simple commands.

Ludwig stared at the projected skull. "You made a golem."

"I created a materially reconstructed autonomous servant using residual Authority patterns and necromantic directive structures."

"That is an impressively long way of saying you made a golem."

Kaiser disconnected without answering, and Ludwig considered that a victory.

More importantly, none of Kaiser’s work required Ludwig’s presence. If the lich wanted a fortress, he could build one himself. Ludwig planned to visit after the teleportation gate was complete and had no intention of arriving a day sooner.

He maintained other contacts as well, including Van Dijk. His master rarely sent anything longer than three or four lines, and the messages remained frustratingly similar.

Nothing found.

Another trace disappeared.

False lead near the Tibari border.

Gluttony remained quiet, though the signs of his presence had not vanished entirely. Villages reported unusual disappearances among their livestock. Bodies were occasionally discovered almost completely consumed, and people afflicted by unnatural appetites appeared in scattered regions before disappearing whenever someone tried to investigate them.

Each incident appeared insignificant on its own. Together, they revealed the touch of the Gluttonous Death to anyone who knew what to look for.

He had raised no army, destroyed no kingdom, and made no open declaration. His behavior bore little resemblance to Wrath’s devastation, Envy’s games, Pride’s isolation, or Sloth’s expanding White Kingdom. Gluttony seemed determined to move without disturbing the world around him.

Ludwig found that silence more worrying than an attack upon a city. Something powerful enough to become an Usurper rarely became quiet without a reason.

Van Dijk continued searching while Ludwig remained in Bastos. Necros had told him to rest, and Ludwig intended to abuse that permission as much as possible.

A different problem developed farther away in the Desert Kingdom. News reached Bastos through Imperial merchants before official correspondence confirmed it.

The King was dead.