Chapter 16

We had finally reached the island. Our landing went smoothly and within a day we had a camp set up on the shore. That night, we celebrated our arrival on the island with a huge feast of Spear Toro, roasted on a large grill that I had stored with Space King Ramiel.

The next morning, construction began on our new village. But in my mind, we weren't only building a small village, but an entire city where humans, demihumans, and monsters could live in peace, like Rimuru City. We just had a little problem. Rimuru had thousands of subordinate Orcs who managed to get the job done in record time, while we only had about a hundred and twelve people, barely more than half of whom could help with construction work. At this rate, building a single house would take at least a week, and building the entire city would take years. The solution to this predicament came from the hands of the ever-reliable Raziel: I had five thousand Undead Warriors with nothing to do who, with a little help, could be great builders!

Following Raziel's instructions, I moved a bit away from the camp and used Ramiel to extract all the Undead Warriors that I now controlled thanks to my Intrinsic Skill "Undead Tyrant". Raziel's plan was to use the Skill "Soul Manipulation" of my new Unique Skill "Kin Maker" to create souls for the Undead Warriors. To control the Undead Warriors, I didn't really need to create souls for them, but even with Raziel's extensive processing power, controlling every move of the five thousand Undead Warriors I possessed would require mental power that I could be using for other things and in addition to that, the bond I had with the Undead Warriors got weaker the further away I was from them, so if I were to leave the island, the Undead Warriors would go on a rampage and attack everything they came across due to the madness caused by the lack of souls.

Now, as Raziel had told me earlier, at the moment I could only create around a thousand souls, and that's only if I spent every one of my magicules. Since doing so would greatly weaken me, I decided that I would instead create only five especially powerful souls and implant them into five Undead Warriors chosen especially for the task.

Said and done, I chose five of the Undead Warriors.

These looked like all the other Undead Warriors. Thank the gods they weren't walking rotting corpses. They looked like normal human beings, only their eyes were devoid of any intelligence and moved stiffly, as if they were puppets controlled by strings. They still retained their appearance from when they were human, and their bodies were preserved from decay and time through magical means.

With the chosen five, I prepared the Unique Skill "Kin Maker" with the help of Raziel.

Creating souls through "Soul Manipulation" …

Creating Nucleic Heart…

Successfully done.

Creating ego through specifically designed artificial intelligence…

Successfully done.

Creating an astral body to contain the soul...

Successfully done

Soul creation successful.

I simply did these processes another four times, and I was already in possession of five new souls. Very carefully, I implanted the new souls into the five Undead Warriors I had chosen.

Fusion of the astral and physical body… successfully achieved.

As Raziel informed me of this, I could see how the light of consciousness returned to the eyes of the five Undead Warriors in front of me.

I was a little worried that creating new souls meant I would be creating something like babies that didn't know how to walk or talk, but Raziel immediately cleared my concerns. Apparently, when Raziel was creating the artificial intelligence that would function as the soul's consciousness, he implanted copies of the most common memories, feelings, and experiences such as walking, talking, and other necessary experiences. This achieved that, despite the fact that these new souls had no memory, they could think and act as intelligent beings with feelings.

I was also a bit concerned about the morality of controlling a creature's existence to such an extent, so I made sure that Raziel also implanted knowledge of who I was and how they had been created, as well as free will, with the condition that they never attack me or my city. I didn't want to create slaves without free will, but I couldn't risk my people's safety either.

Once that was done, I had Raziel also give them my knowledge on topics such as sword fighting, magic, and other topics that every warrior must know in this world, in addition to all the knowledge I had gathered in Ingracia on construction and architecture, since they would be the ones in charge of building the entire city.

Once the soul fusion was complete, the five Undead Warriors knelt in front of me.

"Do you know who I am?" - I asked them.

"We know, Lord Rogan" - they answered me in unison.

"Do you agree to follow me? Choose freely." - I told them.

"We understand that we are able to exist thanks to you, Lord Rogan." – One of them told me, who seemed to be some kind of leader. "We also understand that you want us to follow you of our own volition. And that is our wish. Even though we have basic knowledge about how to live, we don't have any memories or experiences of our own. It is our desire to gain such memories and experiences by serving you."

"Very well. Welcome to Avalon. Since you have decided to follow me, I will bestow names on each of you." – I informed them.

"Thank you very much, Lord Rogan. We hope to be useful to you." – answered the leader.

Since I had decided to name the island, Avalon; I decided to stay on topic...

"You will be called Arthur." – I told the leader of the Undead Warriors. "And they will be Lancelot, Galahad, Percival and Tristan."

Warning

The individuals "Lancelot, Galahad, Percival and Tristan" have met the necessary conditions to evolve.

The body structure will reformulate and evolve into a new species.

checked

Evolution from "Undead Warrior" to "Death Knight" …

Successfully done.

Increased all physical skills…

Successfully done.

Relearn all past skills and resistances...

Successfully done.

New Skills and Resistances:

- Intrinsic Skill "Undead Control"

- Extra Skill "Ghost Flame"

- Extra Skill "Chaos Eater"

- Extra Skill "Thought Communication"

-Physical Attack Resistance

- Pain Nullification

-Magic Resistance

Successfully obtained.

This ends the evolution.

Warning

The individual "Arthur" has met the necessary conditions to evolve.

The body structure will reformulate and evolve into a new species.

checked

Evolution from "Undead Warrior" to "Death Paladin" …

Successfully done.

Increased all physical skills…

Successfully done.

Relearn all past skills and resistances...

Successfully done.

New Skills and Resistances:

-Unique Skill "Undead Lord"

- Intrinsic Skill "Undead Control"

- Extra Skill "Ghost Flame"

- Extra Skill "Chaos Eater"

- Extra Skill "Thought Communication"

-Physical Attack Resistance

- Pain Nullification

-Magic Resistance

Successfully obtained.

Este ends the evolution.

Once the evolution was over, Arthur and the others raised. Their appearance hadn't changed much, only the color of their eyes was different, a bright blue like the ones I had in my Lich form.

The one who seemed to have become the most powerful was Arthur, who even obtained a Unique Skill. According to Raziel, the Unique Skill "Undead Lord" had three Skills:

Unholy Aura, which increases the combat strength of subordinates.

Life Absorption Field: Creates an area of a few meters around the user which absorbs the life force of anyone who enters that area.

Summon Death Steed - Allows the user to summon an undead horse, which can run at high speeds and possesses great stamina.

Once Arthur and the Deaths Knights were ready, I hand over control of the other Undead Warriors, and introduce them to the rest of the village. I thought that, being undead beings, the others would have trouble accepting them, but it turns out that Dark Elves were quite accustom to the undead, since when they were still under the rule of Clayman, they would regularly meet one of his "Fingers", a Wight King known as Adalman.

Once everyone was introduced, we got to work. I first used "Molecular Manipulation" to flatten the land near the sea shore, where we would build the city, and then I ordered Arthur and the Death Knights to begin cutting down trees and working with Tuatha and her Dark Elf architects to build the city.

A month had passed and the construction of the city was going great. Since the Undead Warriors didn't have to sleep or rest, they could continue building even at night. What? Labor Exploitation? La, la, la, I can't hear you!

Thanks to the speed of the Undead Warriors, a large number of houses had already been built. They were made of brick and mortar, achieved thanks to "Molecular Manipulation", and had a style very similar to Victorian London.

At the moment, I was staying in one of the new houses, but this was only temporary, as my citizens had insisted on building me a castle in the middle of the city. Apparently, it was not appropriate for a Demon King to live in a simple house. I tried to refuse, but was completely ignored. What a good king I was. The castle would be built by Arthur personally, along with about a thousand Undead Warriors.

The other Deaths Knights were spread out in different buildings sites.

Lancelot and a thousand Undead Warriors were in charge of building a school. This school would be several times larger than the one in the village, as I planned for a large increase in our population, once the city was finished. Normally, due to the long longevity of races such as the Dark Elves, Fair Oni, and Sirens, having offspring was rare. In fact, counting Jack and Esteno, there were only ten children in the entire city. I was hoping that now that the Dark Elves were safe from Clayman and our troubles on the mainland behind us, they would decide to breed more often. If we wanted to become a big city, we would need more citizens.

Galahad and another thousand Undead Warriors were building a new workshop for Dorian, equipped with everything he needed to continue producing weapons and armor for our city.

Persival and another thousand Undead Warriors were building a new hospital to treat the wounded and sick.

And Tristan and the remaining Undead Warriors were building a large soup kitchen. At the moment, we did not have a method to bring food to each of the houses, so the idea was to create a community dining room where each citizen could go to receive food. In the future, once we had fertile land and abundant hunt and fish, I hoped to create a distribution system to deliver food directly to citizens, and even create a bazaar where food and exotic goods could be sold. But that idea would have to wait until the city's economy stabilized and we started trading with other countries.

The morning the construction of my castle was to begin, a problem arose.

"Lord Rogan, we have a problem." – Arthur told me, entering my makeshift office.

"What's going on?" – I asked.

"This morning we were going to start the construction of your castle, but when we went to start cutting down the trees, we were stopped by someone." – He explained.

"Stopped? By whom?

"The being identified itself as a Treant. He demands an audience with you, sir." - Arthur said.

"A Treant…"

Treants are spiritual beings who have taken a tree as a body to remain in the physical world. They are the male counterparts of the Dryads.

That was what Raziel explained to me.

"Let's see what he wants." – I told Arthur and we headed towards the construction site.

Upon arrival, standing in front of a large tree, we saw the Treant. He was slim and tall; his hair and eyes were bright green, and he wore a kind of toga. He watched us intently as we approached.

"I'm the Demon King Rogan. I have claimed this island as my own. What seems to be the problem? – I asked the Treant.

"My name is Willow, and this tree that your creatures wanted to cut down is my body. Without it, I would be sent back to the Spirit World." Willow explained to me.

"Isn't it possible for you to change trees?" – I asked.

"I'm afraid it doesn't work that way. Even if I found another tree, it would take many magicules to stay in the physical world long enough. Also, not just any tree can serve as my physical body." – The Treant explained to me.

"And what if I give you another physical body? One where you can move? – I asked.

"How? To do that you would need a Spirit Core." - Willow asked me, surprised.

"That wouldn't be a problem."

"If you can accomplish what you say, then it would be my honor to serve you, Demon King Rogan." - said Willow.

With Willow's consent, I used the Unique Skill "Kin Maker" to create an egg out of magicules. This egg was about my size, made up of a semi-transparent membrane, and contained a newly created Dark Elf body. It had cost me a portion of my magicules, but not as many as I thought I would need. I then used "Molecular Creation" to recreate Charybdis's Spirit Core and instructed Willow to move his soul into the core. To finish the process, I placed the core into Dark Elf's body.

The body in the egg flashed a green light, and its completion changed to Willow's, retaining only the pointed ears. At the end of the transformation, the egg disappeared and Willow opened his eyes.

Warning

The individual "Willow" has met the necessary conditions to evolve.

The body structure will reformulate and evolve into a new species.

checked

Evolution from "Rooted Treant" to "Unrooted Treant" …

Successfully done.

Increased all physical skills…

Successfully done.

Relearn all past skills and resistances...

Successfully done.

New Skills and Resistances:

- Unique Skill "Gardener"

- Intrinsic Skill "Nature Connection"

- Extra Skill "Earth Manipulation"

- Extra Skill "Thought Communication"

-Physical Attack Resistance

- Pain Nullification

-Magic Resistance

Successfully obtained.

Este ends the evolution.