Weapon Log (1/2)

Year 115

The demon king didn’t come this year. The entire year though, the heroes were out and about attacking and fighting any demon walkers that appear. This time, they mostly resemble regular demons.

No unusual demons. The large demon champion or demon walker-class monsters were just giant upright demons with massive wings, massive claws that resembled something out of typical RPG games.

It’s a good thing, I think. Just regular demonic monsters that look demonic. As the heroes travelled the world to fight demons, they occasionally dropped by.

This year, Harris managed to obtain another 15 spell matrices of very good quality, so the heroes now have 25 crystals, of which, I kept 4, so each of them have 21 crystals, with 3 charges each. 63 charges. These crystals are far superior to the ones used by the mages from last year that created the defensive matrices. They contain more runes, and various crystals meant to absorb a different aspect of a spell or ability’s effects. It’s through a combination of all the components within the spell matrices, that they are able to store a wood shield that contains almost 90% of my real wood shield’s power.

It’s impressive crafting, and something Harris paid a lot of good money for.

“I come here so often I probably should set a teleportation beacon here.”

“If you want to set it, set it up in Freshka. Not here.”

“Of course. It’s good that the [message] system is partly online. Even if it takes a bit of... work.” Thanks to extensive clearing of the demonic sludge, and the conversion of more hybrid trees into my network, I’m able to suppress the effects of the magical interference, and so, [message] can now work, but it must be routed through the southern exits. Kind of like having to build telecommunication towers around an impassable mountain.

Without Astra, the heroes no longer have a flexible teleportation system, so they’re forced to use the teleportation system of the natives, which meant portal magic, like the one used by Madeus when I healed the Princess.

Harris was not a mage, so if he wanted to use portal magic, he had to use a beacon and a scroll. Something normal mages didn’t, since they could manipulate the portal magic spell directly.

Of course, this is a good lesson. Just like me, as a tree, there are some things I’m naturally better at. Like offensive abilities, mine is very low, if not for all the other boosts I get. The class system, while it works to amplify certain skills, at higher levels is quite limiting.

“Why don’t you take mage classes?” Curious, I asked Harris

“I already have 5 classes. Shield Hero, Warrior King. Weaponmaster, Inquisitor and Master Trader.”

“Don’t some of those overlap? Why not remove it?”

“I needed their offensive abilities to cover my defensive focused [Shield Hero] class, else I would be quite useless in the battle against the demon king, and magic didn’t synchronise well with my base hero class.”

“Then the trader class?”

“My kingdom was poor when I started. The Master Trader skill gave my kingdom some financial boost.”

“Oh.”

5 classes for a human hero?

“You must be very high leveled.”

“If I add everything up, I’m almost level 220. But I think that’s not how it works, because one hero level converts to about 4-5 normal class levels at the higher normal class levels, and if you divide it up using that principle, I’m probably about level 140 or so.”

“So your base hero is about... level 120?”

“Yes, about there. With 40 or so levels in King, and about 20 levels each in the other 3 classes.”

“You haven’t unlocked a domain?”

“What’s that?”

“...Nothing.”

“In terms of pure hero levels, Gerrard’s the highest because he only traded away 10 hero levels for his 45 levels in Master Brewer. So his hero class level is 135. Embarrassing, isn’t it, to think that Gerrard the Drunkard actually managed to keep most of his hero levels, and we two, the sane ones supposedly, traded more of our hero levels away.” Harris said, he placed his cup on the table.

“Is this supposed to be some kind of classified information?” I asked. Levels doesn’t seem like something one should state out publicly.

“On the contrary, as King, it’s in my interest to publicly state my levels. My levels help to encourage and convince the citizens of my ability to protect them, and the benefits that we have. Assassins are deterred by the fact that I’m so high level that they don’t even bother. But my children.... Well... they have reasons to keep their levels secret.”

“They’re going to fight each other?”

Harris sighed. “I could use another pot of tea right now. Yes. Everyone’s jostling to be the next crown prince. I’ve already told them that the will explicitly states that the country is to be broken up should it fall.”

“Isn’t it better for it to be together?”

“Honestly... yes.” Harris said. “But already I can see that my children are preparing for conflict should I not survive this next demon king.”

“Disgusting. Why do you not punish them?”

“I can’t. In the end, they are all my children, and what they are doing is building up their own group of supporters, and they have been clever enough not to actually start a fight. My spies tell me they’ve been goading and baiting each other to start an incident.”

“The younger ones will suffer.”

“I know, the lines are somewhat drawn by my wives.” Honestly I’m not interested in his Kingly drama. This is the kind of thing that China or Hongkong Ancient CHina Period dramas are super fond of. Courtly dramas. “It’s going to be like the warring states era...”

“Oh, so all the children of the same mother band together. That’s clever. How many wives do you have again?”

Harris frowned. “Uh... 7?” 7 splintered kingdoms.

“And how many kids?”

“I think 29 now...” 29 smaller districts split into 7 wives.

“You’re absolutely insane.” I mused. “You aren’t even being a good dad.”

Harris sighed. “Look, I’m not cut out for it, and my wives... they’re so sexy! And hot! When they speak and tease me I just can’t help myself, and my wives refuse to take any contraceptives! They say it’s a sin to not receive my seeds, and the way they say it is so sexy and hot, at that moment I just can’t think! I’m human too, and I need their care, their gentle touch, their pleasant, warm embrace. I’m alone in this world, and they are the closest thing I have to my old family, and they are my new family! I feel their love is genuine, even if I’m aware they are subtly manipulating me, and taking full advantage of my status as a hero.”

I just felt so sorry for Harris then.  I used a vine and just poured another pot of tea for the poor guy being manipulated by his harem. But, it is an equal exchange, no? “All human?”

“I took one elf, one they call Sandpeople, and yes, the rest humans. I prefer humans, I mean, but elves are sexy too.”

He’s just thinking with his dick, isn’t it? But then, the demon king was defeated, he was at the age where his libido was bursting. He’s not even twenty, and no wonder he succumbed.