The looks from the five humans was slowly turning from incredulity to understanding. As their faces finally changed into ones of acceptance, they broke out into a cold sweat. Whatever myths and legends that were attributed to Kain were obviously ones where he was the ultimate villain. To be fair, Kain was designed to be as much an antagonist for the Forces of Light as he could be without being pure evil, so it was a certainty that he would at least have some bad rumors about him circulating in the Brightlands. It was therefore a high possibility that Kain would never have good relations with anyone who served the Light, and he probably should have realized that sooner and acted accordingly. If he had convinced the vampire (whose name he STILL didn’t know) who was occupying Kain’s home of his identity, he might have been able to avoid a fight and have a subordinate right away. But there was no going back now, what had been said and done could not be unsaid and undone.

“Y-y-yo-you a-are r-r-r-really him...? Then… We’re… We’re doomed…”

Kain sighed and shook his head.

“I don’t intend to rule with an iron fist unless such a thing is absolutely needed. Besides, I gave you a choice of whether to stay here under my rule or leave. I WILL reclaim my dominion from whoever controls it, but despite what tales you may have heard I am no cruel despot and those who live under my reign will be far better off than they were before as long as they are loyal.”

The elderly man struggled to keep from having a full-blown panic attack and asked a question he probably thought would get him killed.

“If… if we refuse to serve you and choose to leave… will we be leaving alive or dead?”

“Alive. I have no intent to slaughter you if you don’t want to stay. If you leave, you will have to make it through the forest that surrounds this place, and whether you can do so or not is something I do not know. You certainly have a much higher chance of survival if you choose to stay, but I am willing to let you go. Also, I have no intention to treat those who live under my reign with oppression. The apparatus of state moves much more smoothly when as many cogwheels as possible are not under immense strain.”

Slowly but surely the panic that once filled the five people in front of Kain lessened and he was able to ease their worries with more placations and by declaring his intent to be as fair and just as he could without destroying the state in the process. Apparently, he was acting very uncharacteristically compared to what the legendary ‘Master of Evil’ had been rumored to behave like. The fact that their legends about his supposed cruelty and vengeful nature were being debunked right before their eyes was enough to convince them to give Kain a chance, although the prospect of taking the near-suicidal trip through the woods that encircled the ruined city certainly helped steer them towards the rather unappealing fate of being a subject of the risen Kain Anathemas Nekronus von Darksol. When Kain addressed the people outside the castle, he had to do the whole song and dance all over again, but even with his assurances he still could not stop some from leaving and taking their chances in the haunted forest that surrounded the city. He didn’t know the name of the forest or the vampire I had killed, so he inquired about the two.

The forest was simply called the ‘Gallows Woods’ and was home to cursed trees and restless spirits that made the place a deathtrap for anyone who did not have the power with Darkness or Light Magic to navigate the place. Apparently, the trees themselves had some powers of Death, Darkness, and Curse Magic, as they were supposedly created by Kain to isolate the city from assault by the Forces of Light. The buffer worked perfectly until Heroes from another world arrived and carved a path through the cursed woods to allow the Army of Light to make their final assault.

After the forces of Dark and Light ended up wiping each other out in the final climactic battle for the city, the residual malice from the slain on both sides empowered the forest to grow even larger and heal the wound that had been dealt by the Heroes. As the Heroes lay dying, they supposedly teleported the few surviving forces of Light out of the city and back to relative safety and erected a near-perfect barrier around the city to prevent it from being repaired and becoming the seat of power of an Abominable King ever again. What surprised Kain was that this final battle took place fifteen centuries ago, and if you took the years he had aged since middle school then multiplied them times one hundred you got the exact number of years it had been since Kain’s supposed defeat.

As for the vampire, he was just the most recent in a long line of powerful undead who claimed the city as their own over the course of the centuries. Due to the mana inside the barrier being only as strong as the standard for naturally occurring mana, the myriad undead who ruled this place were no more powerful than they had been before they took the city. They likely could have been exponentially more powerful if they had decided to take up residence in the Gallows Woods instead of the ruined city, but the allure of sitting upon the throne of the God of Undeath was too great and they all ultimately traded a near-certain increase in power for the glory of sitting in the chair that once held the Abominable King himself. The vampire Kain had curb-stomped had never given his name to the humans he had ruled over, and thus they could not inform him of his name. This was kind of a bummer, as Kain really wanted to know who exactly he had mopped the floor with, but since he never gave his name Kain would never find out.

Kain then asked how the people here came to call this place home and got an answer he should have expected. The vampire he had killed had taken these people from their original homes and had led them like a twisted shepherd through the Gallows Woods and into the city. There had already been another undead who had taken up residence here when he arrived and rather than risk his own neck he sent the mind-controlled humans to fight for him. The battle was a victory, but the total casualties that the humans suffered was over 70% and the vampire only fought against the Lich that had occupied the seat he desired.

The vampire would occasionally use the humans it had brought to help it heal by draining them dry, and thus he had a greater chance of victory against the skeletal wizard than he did without the ‘snacks’. In a battle between a mage and a warrior, the victor is the one who can both keep their foe at their optimal range and outlast them. The lich was a mage and had to keep at a constant distance from the speedy vampire which caused it to be unable to gather mana as efficiently while the vampire was a melee specialist who needed to close the distance to attack. Eventually, the vampire managed to close the distance and defeated the lich, but with most of his cattle now dead he had the remainder of them string up the fallen in the Gallows Woods to help increase its dark power in the hopes that it would help breach the barrier.

As Kain was being educated on events both current and past he was sitting on his throne and using its control over the city and surroundings to try and test the limits of the barrier. It was an unfortunate reality that he was going to need to build up his city before he had a chance at tackling the barrier, and even then, Kain would only be able to take it down one bit at a time over the course of a great deal of time. However Kain had a choice to make in regard to which building to construct first, as he had only enough Mana for one. He had to make a choice between one of several options, each with its own boosts to the city. The construction would be instantaneous, but it would take Kain several months to build up the mana needed for another building. Thankfully, now that its rightful master was back in charge the city automatically built free housing for its citizens, but only after constructing a building would the city grow to be able to house more people in anything other than shacks and tents.

The choices for the building he was to make first were;

The Haunted Graveyard, which permitted the recruitment of units of Skeleton Warriors, Spearmen and Archers and added a permanent garrison of four units of Zombies, three units of Skeleton Warriors, two units of Skeleton Spearmen and one unit of Skeleton Archers The Bleeding Grove, which let permitted the recruitment of Dire Wolves and Fel Bats as well as providing a permanent garrison of six units of Dire Wolves and four units of Fel Bats The Corrupted Fields, which let my people farm grains and came into existence with a full harvest The Bleak Pastures, which let my people ranch cattle, pigs and other livestock and came into existence with several of each animal The Tarnished Gold Mine, which gave me a flat increase in the amount of mana the city could access per month

Once constructed the buildings themselves wouldn’t make themselves available in the city or its surroundings, at least not in the usual sense. Rather, they would manifest inside interconnected pocket dimensions so that there was no chance of them being attacked under normal circumstances. This meant that farming, ranching, and other jobs could all be done from within the safety of the massive series of heavy fortifications, at least once those defenses had been repaired. There were two military buildings Kain could get, two agricultural buildings, and one economic one. The question was whether he preferred to take a more militaristic stance or whether he would keep his word to those who chose to stay.

Would he willingly go back on his word just to make an extra bit of mana per month or to gain a potentially oppressive military presence or would he prove he was not the tyrant that the legends claimed he was? It was a tough choice, but one Kain had to make. The people who had lived here before his return had subsisted up to this point without the Fields or Pastures, but Kain was hesitant to leave them to hunt and gather in the Gallows Woods as they had for so long. With the vampire puppet master gone, they no longer had protection from the maddening effects of the forest, so to venture into the woods for sustenance was dangerous at best and suicidal at worst. Whether he decided to go for income, security, or growth, he had to build something.

Kain chose to build…