Whispers of a Dead Empire

Chapter 69

I selected the template named Linal, and a large rune appeared as a set of antlers rose. Ah, I knew what those things were! I saw them across the lake from me when I first got here. They looked a lot like deer, at least from a distance I saw them. But we will see what they look like up close. I cleared my throat and glanced at my new dogerm wolf. I never had one as a child since my parents didn't think I was responsible enough.

To be fair, looking back, I probably wasn't. A lot of vet bills, food, and walking the creature, which was something that I don't think I would have been too fond of doing. But now, I don't have to worry about stuff like that. I mean, it's undead, so vet bills are out of the question. It doesn't need food as far as I know, and the best part is, I don't have to walk it! I turned my attention back to the summoning circle and saw a giant stag-looking creature. Its flesh was broken and leaking copious amounts of purposes and liquid. Its massive antlers were covered in dried flesh, and blood leaked from a broken jaw. The massive creature snorted and kicked its hoofs into the ground as it stared at me, waiting for an order. Well, more than likely, I would use the pigeon for now, at least until I could figure out another replacement, but I think this domain was missing some ambient wildlife, so I would have to add some of that stuff in.

With my mind made up and after a brief discussion with Kharon, I went ahead and started to spawn in large quantities of wildlife to fill the forest since having nothing, but undead humans felt a little lacking. As soon as I expanded my domain a bit, I would do more since I didn't want to overpopulate the area. Once I was done spawning in creatures, I must have had close to thirty undead pigeons, eleven wolves, and five of my totally not deer creatures.

I crossed my arms as I looked over the area, pulled about ten of the pigeons to me, and told them they needed to visit all the outposts and the central stronghold. As the birds flew away, I quickly sent a message to Rikard and Flint, informing them what I wanted to occur. Once I was done, I released my pint of breath and rolled my shoulders. This was stressful as shit. But, this was the path that I took, so I had to deal with it. I stretched and motioned for my new pet to follow me. Kharon had already left to go, man, the trenches since we saw a few adventurers had already trickled in.

I was excited now to see how many adventurers would handle themselves here, along with my undead. I also couldn't wait to see what undead evolutions would occur here in the future now that things could flow more smoothly, but I would cross that road when I got there. For now, though, I need to get back to my office, work on my expansion plans, and get ready for my domain evolution. I placed my hand on the wolves' shoulder and teleported back into my office.

When I appeared, it was in the main lobby. Many of the royal guards here were running drills with each other unendingly. I swore they were growing all the smarter with every passing day, and it was refreshing. Amari was becoming more and more dangerous, and the four assassins that had joined my ranks had really bolstered the strength of my assassination division. Well, when I say division, I really only mean eight of them. On my next expansion, I would attempt to double that number. Once that was done, I would have a team of killers that could roam the domain and pose challenges to all the adventurers. The longer they stayed alive, the less likely I would be to let them remain out and about. Experience is valuable, after all.

I walked through the main lobby and towards my office. I had an idea that I wanted to flesh out, which may benefit us in the future with evolutions. My idea was based on the Colosseum from Rome and would serve as an area for the undead to gather and fight each other to the death, and grow stronger. One day, I had plans to move it to the surface and let everyone use it. But for now, it will remain underground for us to use. Perhaps I could host war games here and let the veterans train the new recruits. That way, I could keep them safe while pumping out legions without a worry. I sat down at my desk, quickly grabbed my notebook, and flipped it open. I was quickly running out of space with all of my notes and drawings. Perhaps next, I should make a few more in a couple of hours. I grabbed my pen and quickly got to work mapping out the design for my colosseum.

I sat back in my chair and rubbed my eyes, and stared at my ceiling. Designing that thing took so much time, and it made my head hurt a bit, but I think I was happy with the results so far. To scale, it was double the size of the one on Earth. I thoroughly planned on giving it a seating capacity of close to one hundred thousand, though it wasn't specific. But for now, I will keep it small since I don't have that many resources just yet. But I think I like the general idea of it. More than likely, I would make a boss specific to this area to serve as a champion.

I set my pen down and stood up and stretched, happy to get off my ass for once. That chair was really starting to hurt. I glanced around the room, trying to decide what I wanted to do. Alessia seemed to be out for a while, which meant I wouldn't have anyone to talk to. Maybe I'll just lay in bed and see what's going on with my domain. It's been a bit since I last checked, and I remembered seeing some adventurers flocking in before I teleported back.

I flopped onto my bed, curled up in my blanket, pulled the screen up, and saw that four parties were in at the moment. All had four people apiece, and they seemed to work together much like a group from D&D would. So nothing out of the ordinary. Currently, three parties were camped in the safe zone or close by it, which I should probably make more of now that I think about it. The fourth group looked like they were on the run from the ghasts, but I wasn't interested in seeing people get torn apart by those monstrosities.

I glanced at my storage container near the bed and saw a small collection of coins that had accumulated in the past few hours. I dismissed the map and begrudgingly got out of bed and wandered over to it. So this place used coins instead of dollar bills or anything of the sort. I squatted down and picked up one that looked like it was made out of polished silver. On the front of the coin, there was a crown wreathed in leaves, and the sides looked like they were marked by tallies around the corner. I flicked the coin and caught it, and stared at it thoughtfully for a moment.

Did that mean that I had to create a currency for this place? I probably would, and hopefully, something a bit more efficient than carrying around metal coins all the time. Hell, I'll maybe even make a merchant that could exchange the currency, though just the thought of trying to figure out how the currency transfers over made my head hurt. Economics made my head hurt, and doubly since I was the one trying to do it. Honestly, sitting here doing this makes me respect the heads of state back on Earth all the more. This shit sucked.

I plucked a single silver coin from the crate and pocketed it while I consumed the rest and added it to my inventory. Hey, now that I have some of this world's currency, I can expand my treasure chests a bit more! I quickly located them and breathed a sigh of relief when I saw that most were still in good shape. A few were pillaged, but that was to be expected. I went ahead and spawned a few silver coins into each and closed out the tab from a distance. The best part about making anything that I wanted with thought is that I'll never actually run out of stuff. With that task finished, I checked out the stronghold to see how the troop numbers looked.

So far, they didn't look too bad. The numbers were still steady, though they were dropping slowly. Maybe I should spawn in a platoon or two and let them march to the stronghold to reinforce them. Though it's doubtful that the adventurers would wipe out everything in the time that I was asleep. Better safe than sorry. Besides, if push came to shove, I would just move my praetorians out to defend the stronghold while I made a new batch of soldiers and revived the bosses.

But I would cross that bridge when I got to it. I yawned and closed out my tab and stared at my ceiling; I was a bit lonely, and it was a bit quiet without Alessia harassing me about stuff. It made me wonder what she was up to. But that was okay. I wouldn't prod her on the matter. I was just lonely, and really, I was growing more attached to her as time went by, though I wouldn't admit that to her. With a sigh, I closed my eyes and rolled over on my bed. I had such a long day ahead of me, and hopefully, nothing would go to shit in the time that I was asleep.