It’s been almost three days since the mission has started. It’s currently morning, and we are currently walking around the streets with three carriages, all having civilians in them. All of my men are currently escorting the line of carriages in the sides. One of the carriages is carried by Khrus, while the other two is one horse each. There was one extra horse when we found them around a street, so I rode it. I thought the insurrection would be done by now, but it seems like it’s not the case.

They are still going at it, both sides seemingly haven’t exhausted themselves yet. What kind of funding did they have? The king, I can understand that he got his funds from taxes and bought supplies beforehand, but the people? I don’t know. Maybe they are keeping each other alive by supporting each other with their professions, like bakers bake food, blacksmiths repair equipment, etc. Honestly, if they are going to go this far, they should have just left this place and let it fall under that king’s rule.

Speaking of professions, we’ve recruited quite a number of people in these last few days. There are about twenty-three civilians with us right now, less than a half of them have jobs. They all willingly joined with us because they have nowhere else to go. The promise of being lead to a peaceful land while being watched over by my lord was very appealing to them. It’s not always that kingdoms and villages are actively being watched over by their patron gods.

Also, Khrus doesn’t like corpses, at all. We once passed by a street with littered dead bodies everywhere, and the sight was enough to make Khrus hurl his lunch. Hang in there Khrus, our lord chose you to come with us for a reason.

My horse strode in a slow pace to match the slow speed of the other carriages. I ordered the others to stop while I pray. The carriages did and I went down from my horse, kneeled, and prayed.

I heard the civilians inside whisper, probably looking at me pray. I didn’t mind them that much.

O my lord, Nemer. Hear my calling upon you.

“Nemer here. What’s up?”

My lord seems to be quicker to respond this time.

“I believe it’s almost due for our mission. We are now going to head back.”

“I know. I’ve already sent reinforcements to your location earlier. They should be waiting outside the gates when they arrive.”

“Yes, my lord.”

I don’t get why my lord would send us reinforcements with such a low number of current followers, but it’s better than having less than ideal numbers in certain situations. I stood up and rode my horse, commanding the others to turn and start getting out of this ruins.

The kingdom looked like it has been ravaged by a natural disaster, with crumbled buildings everywhere, and destroyed infrastructures as far as the eye can see. I can’t believe the unrest is still going on despite the damage they already caused.

Not my problem anyway. I’m only here to recruit, not worry about a sorry of an excuse kingdom.

We started to go to the gates, maybe about fifteen minutes travel from here to there in our current pace. Not yet a minute, and some people already ambushed as from the sides. They were royal soldiers, about eleven of them.

“Surrender now, heretic scum! You are surrounded!”

These royal soldiers are stubborn. Time and time again, they would try to make us surrender, then we would fight them off and let them live, but they would come again another time. This is really getting ridiculous.

“Have you all not learned your lesson?”

“Quiet, you! Surrender now and no one would get hurt!”

There’s no point in talking to them. I wasted no time and jumped off my horse, engaging one of the soldiers. My men did the same and started fighting, including Khrus. They all fell in no more than thirty seconds. Honestly, they were a pathetic lot.

“Arghh… all of you will one day experience the king’s wrath!”

“Oh shut up.”

I clobbered the royal soldier’s head, turning him unconscious. My men did the same to their opponents. We’ve been always attacked by the royal soldiers because we are apparently traitors. I am, but I am a traitor in a good way. The people of Gaimain would just ignore us once our civilians convinced them. So all in all, the royal soldiers were the one giving us a hard time.

We tied the sorry group of soldiers and put them inside one of the carriages. Killing them would stain our slowly growing reputation, and would certainly cause some of our recruited to decide not to come with us. Sure, they were enemies, but mercy is a great attractor. The civilians inside the carriage were uneasy with them inside, so we searched for another one for the royal soldiers, and for my men.

We found a turnt over carriage in the streets, along with other destroyed ones. This carriage seems to be fine, so my men flipped it right side up and hooked the horse I was riding on it. We then rode it, me coaching the carriage. Our line of four carriages then moved along the streets.

Judging by the number of carriages in this street, there might be a transportation of people, or goods judging from the spilt supplies in the streets, when the revolution happened. Actually, we should probably take them.

I ordered 5 of my men to get off and started hauling the supplies while we move, which they did. Food, plants, even clothes, stuff only a merchant would have. I pity the loss of income for the unfortunate merchants who happened to be here during the insurgence.

We passed by some rebels, but they ignored us once they saw who was coaching two of our carriages. One was a renowned blacksmith, the other was a kind apothecary. They passed by us without uttering a single word.

We then arrived by an outpost laid down by the rebels. By the time we’ve arrived, we have already gathered quite some supplies from looting the carriages.

“Aye! They’re here!”

Called one of the rebels on top of a stone building, looking like a miniature fortress. This was formerly the outpost of the royal soldiers, but the rebels overtook it and made it their own. We passed by this outpost, and I met some good people here. Part of the reason I stopped by here is to bid the people here farewell.

We stopped at the front of the building and the civilians we escorted started going down and mingled with the outpost inhabitants. There were a lot of people here than I remember.

“Good to see you back, Harle!’

Called one of the rebels. It was Greg, a long time friend of mine. He was the first royal soldier I knew that became aware of the king’s deception. He tried to snap me out of it and many others, but sad to say we drove him off. Now, we’re friends again after he realized that I am free.

He was a tall man, around 6 feet high, and sported a wolfish sideburn. His face looked like he was around his thirties, like me, and had amber irises. He was buffed with defined muscles, giving the impression that he is the toughest of the tough around here. The truth is that he is actually one of the softest in the bunch here. He wore moderate steel armor, and had a sword sheathed on his side.

“Good to see you too Greg. Anything new happened?”

Greg smiled and cocked his head behind him, beckoning me to follow him as he turned around to walk inside the outpost. I went down from the carriage and followed him to roof.

“This is what you wanted right?”

He was looking over the ledge, and when I did the same, I saw a long line of carriages covering the street behind the outpost. There are probably around twenty-six of those carriages. What the hell, that’s a lot!

“We disseminated the news of your gathering, and these people wants to come with you.”

“Really? Then what was my search in the streets for, if I could have just waited for you to gather this much people?”

“It was a surprise!”

“Surprise my ass.”

I could have spent those days doing something else, like practice controlling my arcus. Oh well, it’s not like it’s big of a loss for me.

“The kingdom will be broken beyond repair once were done overthrowing that king, and these people want to stay out of it and stay in a place where they could live normally.”

“I see. My lord should be glad of this. Thanks.”

“Happy to be of service.”

Greg pat my shoulder and descended from the roof inside the outpost. I stayed here, looking over at these people. These many people, I realized how much responsibilities a god needs to hold on their worshippers. Would my lord be able to protect all of them? I shook my head. There’s no use in thinking about it. What I should do right now is carry out my mission, for my lord.

I went downstairs into the hub, where people were talking with each other. Greg was talking with the others. Too bad he won’t come with us. He said that he has to stay and finally give the king the retribution he deserved. Well, I hope he would come to our village once this is all done, and I hope the others who will stay here does too.

“Greg, we’ll be leaving now.”

“Aye!”

He stood up and clapped his hands, getting the attention of everybody inside.

“Harle here will start departing. All of you that are going with him better start packing and go inside your carriages.”

Then they started to do exactly what he said. Most left while few stayed. I went outside and coached the carriage me and my men were in. Greg approached me.

“Good luck in your trip.”

Greg stood there, waving his hand.

“Thanks. We’ll be off now.”

I whipped the horse, and started moving. We moved through the streets, the long line of carriages following behind us. After a while, we passed through the gate were Barnon and the other male kobolds were waiting. The faces they made when they saw the long line was priceless. They probably didn’t expect this much to be gathered in such a short time.

We were finally a good distance from the kingdom after an hour. Looking back, the kingdom still had smokes and flames lighting parts of the kingdom, but at least those have lessened down during the previous days. Barnon was walking next to my carriage, us leading the others behind.

“So, uhhh… how did you get this much people?”

“From the help of a friend of mine.”

“Wow, that’s some helpful friend.”

We would have small talk along the trip, until we arrived at the forest. From our current pace, I suspect we will arrive at our destination around 2 days, not counting the times we have to rest for the night.

“Anything happened while we were away?”

“Yep. I received a blessing from my lord called [Arcus Vision].”

“Really? What does it do?”

“Apparently, it allows me to see everything as arcus. It really helps me identify differences in arcus, allowing me to see things before they come.”

“That’s quite handy.”

I envy him. Receiving a blessing from a god is enviable by anyone. It’s a god we’re talking about.

“With that being said, aren’t we going too slow?”

“No, we are absolutely not. We are not going to go apecrap insane with speed.”

Lord no. There is no way I’m going to have to experience that hellish trip from the first time. Just thinking about it makes me sick.

“Oh well. There’s no rush anyway.”

Yeah, that reminds me. Why did the lord give me a time limit? Is there something bad that’s going to happen if I didn’t comply with the time limit? Hmmm… Well whatever it is, I at least did it before time ran out.

Wait, aren’t we getting things a little too easy? None of us got injured, my mission was successful, Barnon got a blessing, it’s almost as if this is the calm before a storm. This thought is making me uneasy. I should prepare if anything bad does happen.

The trip went by smoothly. We arrived two days later in Nemeran in the morning, but there’s something off. The clearing seems to be much larger, there are a lot more residence than before, and now we have eight watch towers. The whole space is also covered with a wooden wall that is as high as 6’3 feet, and there were two wooden gates, northern and southern. So that’s why there are a lot of cut trees.

We went inside the southern gate, and we were surprised to see the interior much larger than the outside indicates. The carriages went inside and unloaded all of people inside. They themselves were in awe of Nemeran. The area was large, really really large. If I had to guess, maybe over a thousand carriages would fit inside the village. That’s probably an exaggeration. There were wooden houses everywhere, with a few large buildings here and there.

“Uhhh… are they the people you gathered?” my lord said in my head.

“Yes, my lord.”

“Umm… good job!”

“Thank you my lord.”

I’ve been praised! Well that’s to be expected for completing my mission. What I did not expect is how Nemeran expanded in such a short time of five days. From the looks of it, upgrades are still in progress from the sight of my men and the female kobolds carrying around logs and construction materials.

Barnon then came and instructed everyone to go to the altar for a meeting with our lord, which all of them complied, albeit with some doubts. The altar was quite easy to find, since it sits just under the giant tree and it’s impossible to miss that tree from how tall it was.

Once everyone, about two hundred or more of the newcomers, was seated in front of the altar on the ground, the altar started to glow. The newcomers stared in anticipation and shock at the altar.

“Welcome to my village!”

Suddenly. I heard my lord’s voice.

“I’m Nemer, the patron god of this village- wooaaahhhh!”

My lord suddenly let out a weird noise, cutting himself from speaking the full sentence. There was a moment of silence, before my lord spoke again.

“Ahem, sorry about that, had an extreme power surge there. Anyway, I am Nemer, and I am this village’s patron god.”

The newcomers seated still. It’s only natural to pay respect to a god by not doing unnecessary things. Their eyes were glued on the altar, its marking pulsating in every syllable my lord spoke.

“All of you shall live peacefully under my watch, as long as you don’t cause any trouble for me, or for anyone else. I want all of you to be friendly with each other as much as possible.

There are rules that I want to implement in here. One is what I just said before. Please be civilized. Second, do not pray to me unless you have something important to pray. Lastly, contribute to the development of Nemeran in any way you can. As long as you agree and follow of my rules, you are welcome under my wing. Understood?”

The newcomers nodded in agreement. I did too, and so did the other kobolds.

“Good. Now go, do whatever you need to do. Please talk to Barnon here to find a residence for you and your family. The others who couldn’t take a house will have to wait in one of our dormitories until another residence is available.”

Then the people stood up and went on to their carriages to take their belongings and such, amd returned to Barnon for finding a residence. Others took out construction tools and other necessary materials and started helping with the upgrade of Nemeran. Some took out axes and went outside to chop wood, while some helped carry the materials to their destination.

This sight of people helping each other eased my heart. I wonder if this is how our lord feels right now? If so, then now I understand gods a little bit better now.

"Oh god, there's so many people..."

Little did Harle know, many does not always mean good.