Chapter 3 – Middle Management

When Kairon had Sovereign Eye up earlier, there was a single, flashing menu button. Part of him hoped the SLA option would be tucked away here, but he knew that was very unlikely. What came next proved him correct.

When Kairon read even the basic, information-sparse pop-up, a breath he hadn’t realized he had been holding whooshed out. Well. No SLA option as I thought. But it’s something.

If Kairon was going to survive here, he needed to find the best way to develop his newfound settlement.

So first… Let’s unpack this. My dominion is based on some kind of ring-based structure. If I focus on this… Kairon focused on the word “Ring” and got the following message:

He dismissed the popup.

A plot-based system, with expansion. Though the ring-based concept is something I’ve not heard of before. Intriguing. Very demonic.

Sustenance 100%? The little monsters could only talk about food, food, food. That’s concerning. I’d hate to see how they act when it is low.

While the stockpile is empty, knowing what resources I have to work with is a start. Wood is clearly plentiful. I’ll need to see about stone and iron.

Then his eyes came to the corruption metric.

Five corruption a day…

On instinct, Kairon used Sovereign Eye and looked outward, finding where hellscape met forest. Just as I suspected.

The boundary had moved a few paces. He was sure of it. And where it touched, trees at the edge were starting to blacken. Bark curled off like paper near a flame. The corruption is growing my domain outwards. Is that a feature, or a liability?

Nodding in satisfaction to himself, Kairon closed out the interface.

A new button appeared. Building.

He was just about to dive into it when the commotion inside the tower caught his attention. Breaking the connection, he quickly went to investigate.

“Here!”

“No. Here! Sticks for master!”

“Idiot! Master doesn’t want there!”

Three imps holding bundles of sticks were arguing about where to place them. Come to think of it, Kairon himself hadn’t seen a stockpile. Unless…

“Now, now everybody. Great work on gathering up all those materials. Please. Follow me outside. We don’t want to drag all that dirt in here, do we?”

Three imps in tow, Kairon led them outside the tower and walked to the back. Sure enough, the hellscape had three cleared spaces. Two were circles. The building plots. And the other one was a square space. Four posts connected with thin twine serving as a boundary marked it off.

Each of the crude wooden poles was demarcated with harsh, angular scripture. The symbols reminded Kairon of the script that had flared when he claimed the domain… Leaning forward, he dropped to one knee and got a closer look at them.

He tried to make out anything he understood, but to him it was basically just cat scratches. The fact that he knew it had to be something more but he couldn’t parse it left an unpleasant feeling in his brain. Later, he told himself.

He turned his attention back to the imps. Being specific is very important. If System users have shown me one thing, it’s just how important guardrails are when it comes to following instructions. At least, if the outcome is to be favorable.

Using Sovereign Eye, he commanded the rest of the workers to join them.

Once together, he looked over the bundles gripped tightly in each imp’s arms. Most of them were just heaps of sticks, twigs, pebbles, and dead insects all smushed together.

When his eyes landed on the last imp, Kairon realized it was the runt. Shiny. And what have you here? The little guy had two separate piles in both clawed hands. One had larger sticks, the other had smaller ones.

Did I tell him to do that? No. Surely not.

“Shiny, why did you sort the sticks by size?”

“Made sense. Big stick, small stick.”

Kairon patted his head gently with a claw. “You just got promoted. From now on, you are on stockpile duty. Nothing goes in or comes out without your say. Understood?”

The imp blinked slowly. “Shiny job?”

“The shiniest.”

With that, Kairon watched delegation at its finest as Shiny stood, claws on hips, and evaluated each imp’s haul before sorting it into the stockpile.

The last piece of timber made Kairon pause. He watched, curiously, as an imp dragged a rather small stick. The city lord cocked his head. Odd. The other imps had brought larger wood chunks by the clawful. Then his eyes noticed that the wood itself was darker than the rest, almost black at its core, and judging by the imp’s uncomfortable expression it was probably warm or even hot to touch. A faint orange vein ran through the grain, like something had fed on it.