Ibro felt excited. What he really lacked was population. He needed to raise huge armies and make his village bigger. He desperately needed population desperately.
If this game was really this serious, then he had to take this issue more seriously.
“Where are these detention posts?”
“There is one here my lord. You only need to pour some blood into this heart and insert it into the ground. Then you will get the available population here.”
Ibro thought her words were really weird so he asked:
“What is the relation between these people here and the monsters? Are these monsters their guardians?”
“Guardians? These people are those monsters’ food. When the food was finished, these monsters moved to the surface to hunt the villages on the surface for food.”
Ibro felt angry and disgusting. He now had more urge to kill these monsters again. He suddenly understood something. If this was the situation in the whole game, didn’t this mean the longer he waited the less people who could survive?
He returned again to point zero. He needed to raise a huge army. He needed a large population. He hurt his hand with his sword and then stained this gem with his blood.
At once there was a sudden light that flashed in the place. Ibro then saw the appearance of shadows that appeared all over the place. In minutes these blurry things became clear and visible.
These were huge cages made of steel. Inside each cage, there was over 100 people. All these people were in their twenties. There were really a huge number of cages out there.
He looked at these people’s faces to feel deeply touched. Their faces were ashen black. There was no happiness at all. If he didn’t see their chest moving he thought they were really dead.
Ibro froze for seconds looking at these people. He engraved their faces deep in his memory. He would never forget them. He would never forget this cruelty. He also wanted to remind himself.
If he ever failed, he and his beloved people and the entire world would be like these poor people. This was a huge responsibility. Failure was never an option here. He ordered in a deep tone:
“Open these cages and move everyone back to the village.”
“As you order, my lord.”
Mony led this small group of her to open these cages. Ibro then looked to this suspended gem that was floating in the air. He held it in his hand. It was really warm.
He felt some intimacy with it as if it was a person he knew. He inserted this gem into the ground. Once it entered the ground it disappeared with a wave of energy generated from it moving outward. Ibro looked at this wave till it vanished from his eyesight.
“Congratulations to you, my lord. Now you officially got your first gem territory. You can view these territory characteristics from your profile page. You can control everything here.”
Ibro looked to Mony to find her smiling happily. He wasn’t in the mood to feel like her. He was really depressed from this cruel game. It wasn’t a game at all. Controlling others’ fate and life was never a game.
This is the most realistic life he ever experienced. He checked his profile page to find two added sections under his name. One was for his village statistics and the other one was for this underground area.
He found a choice to control these cages. He simply chose to open all the cages. There were a total of 10 cages for every region. He freed 10 monster regions, so he had now 100 cages.
That gave him at least a 10k population at one go. Although this was a huge achievement, he didn’t feel happy. If there were 10k people caged in just one gem area, then what about the rest of his quota?
That meant each player had around 1 million people to rescue. How many players were in this game? How many people would he manage to save? Then he thought about this test period.
How many players would fail this period? How many new worlds that would join slavery? That game was not a fun game at all. The risks here outweigh the benefits.
There was no return now, he had already participated in this game. He must make his best to secure himself. He looked to Mony and said:
“Gather these new people. We will go now to the village.”
There was another option that enabled him to link between the village and this area. When he chose this option, a tunnel suddenly appeared in his mind.
He needed to just choose a location for this tunnel. He didn’t choose a location inside the village. He put the tunnel opening far away from the village. He was afraid some monsters may invade here and reach his novice village.
He chose the opening here to be in front of him. By this, there will be two ways to reach here. One was leading to the area outside the river, and another was leading to the area inside the river.
Suddenly a big cave arose from the ground. It was typical of the cave Ibro came through. In minutes, the cave appeared completely and stopped shaking. The dirt on it stopped falling and it was connected to the surface. Ibro looked to Mony and ordered:
“I will move to the surface. Come with me. We need to organize what we will do with these people.”
He then looked to Megedy and ordered:
“You will be stationed here to organize these people. I will handle things on the surface. Try to be gentle with them.”
“I will my lord.”
Ibro then moved towards the cave. It was really an exact copy from the cave he used to enter here. In a few minutes, he reached the surface. He found another hill that appeared in this place.
There was a cave opening in this hill which he emerged from. This place was neither near nor far from the village. It took Ibro 15 minutes to reach the village with Mony.
Once he entered the village he was surprised. There were at least an additional 5 buildings. He also noticed the rise in the population of his village. It seemed he took more than one day in his expedition.
He went straight forward to the lord’s manor. Once he entered it, he went to the meeting hall and sat on the big chair there which was in the middle of this hall. He looked at Mony and asked:
“Tell me about the status of the village.”
“I have followed my lord instructions and started to organize personnel to do various tasks. We first built five wooden houses and one logging camp and one quarry camp and two ports.
Our wood reserves have been nearly consumed. Our food is consumed as well by the ratio of one unit per person daily.”
“What about the outcome of the logging camp and quarry camp? What about the fishing boat outcome?”
“We didn’t have enough villagers to participate in the work as we have many buildings to build.”
Ibro felt her words logical but he wasn’t satisfied by it. He asked again:
“Tell me; is there any high Personal Attitude in our villagers? Is there any special profession there?”
“Actually I haven’t looked at their PA yet.”
Ibro felt this Mony performance didn’t reach his standards. She noticed his obvious dissatisfaction so she knelt on her knees and pleaded:
“I hope my lord can forgive me and give me another chance. I will work harder this time and I won’t disappoint you.”
Ibro was taken aback by her sudden move. He felt she used to be treated in this inhumane way. He looked at her then said with strong vibrant words:
“Don’t think I will mistreat you one day. A mistake is a mistake; I won’t kill you for such a minor thing. You are still young and still have a lot to experience.
I too share some of the blame here. I should have stuck around to guide you here. You still don’t know me this well yet so you can’t know what I want to do.”
