A row of warriors and hunters stood in Matt's office as they waited for him to finish reading a dozen maps they handed to him.
"Your highness, we heeded your call. How may we be of service?"
Map looked up at the one who spoke and smiled. "You're Irled the hunter right? Your maps are really useful, you can still improve on the drawing itself however. Anyways, I brought you all here to have you work together with some artisans and intelligence clerks to draw and create a complete map of Valhalla."
"What are your specifications for said map, your highness?"
"Hee…Surprise me."
The hunter's glanced at each other before bowing their heads and leaving, and as the last one exited the room, a woman entered in Matt's study.
"Gerent Matt, I have some news concerning the outside exploration." The one that stood before him was Verita, the hunting counselor. She had a cute and nice aura like a sweet neighbor that paired well with her hair tied in a bun behind her head and her casual leather and primitive fabric.
Yes she was really pretty…
[Whatever you are thinking of right now, don't. Or I'll destroy your balls.] Astrid's voice came in from his focus and it chilled him to the bones.
Since he cared for his jewels he skipped his staring and smiled wryly at the woman.
"Do tell."
"My hunters have found metal towers near the western mountain, they named some of the areas they discovered as per your orders of letting the one that discovered it name it.
We have also discovered a lot of machines but most of them were already recorded by previous scouts, including the titan."
"The titan?" This title spiked Matt's interest.
"The Tallneck."
"Oh yes, the giraffe."
"Precisely, the 50 meters tall metal titan, we dared not approach it."
"Where is it located?"
"In the south beyond the river."
"Good to know… Since you are here, why don't you join the others to make a map for the outside? That way we can have a complete idea of our territory, and bring me the descriptions of the newly discovered machines before sunfall."
"Right away." She seductively smirked at him before leaving Matt's office.
He stood up from his chair and stretched his sore muscles, he gazed out of the blurry glass window to lay his eyes upon the thriving city below. He saw an artisan presenting a wooden toy he had made to a group of children, he saw a few women comparing their bows as if they were pieces of clothing and finally he saw black smoke rising from a house.
"FIRE! FIRE!"
A man screamed at the top of his lungs trying to gather people to help him extinguish the flames. Dozens of people that were standing nearby rushed to the site, some of which haven taken wooden barrels and buckets along with them. There was no well or river near the center of the city so all of their water had to be carried up the hill to be used by the citizens.
Chaos ensued as they threw their water randomly at the fire, it shrinked but didn't extinguish, but the people didn't stop, they continued splashing the water on the scorching flames while other citizens, including the children, formed snow balls within their hands and threw them.
Matt calmly watched along as the fire dwindled hour after hour until it was completely put out, not before it destroyed two more houses and wounded several volunteers.
"Note to self, create a firefighter squad and separate the military into army and police to keep order correctly. Introduce grades and ranks."
"Speaking of grades, I should also start with a change in the schooling system. Word to word teaching needs to advance with some better teaching methods."
He sat back down, sighting at his impulse to make more work for himself as he managed his temples, readying himself to continue working.
Why can't things be as easy as in novels or movies?
~Weeks later~
A hall filled with dozens of people buzzed with noise as they discussed amongst each other, they were both diverse in appearance and in status but all of them, well most of them, went along well.
"You kid witch! Why are you always in my paws whenever I am working!?"
"OSLO ! DON'T BE SO MEAN ! I JUST WANT TO HELP."
"You ruin everything !"
"BUT but…"
*Sob Sob*
"Well done Oslo, you made her cry." Grettel came from behind and stood next to Oslo like two titans forming a wall.
"It ain't my fault… AND SHE'S 76 YEARS OLD ! She shouldn't act like a child !"
A group of hunters standing in the corner whispered and snickered amongst each other while a group of warriors did the same, although less quitely.
*DING! DING! DING!*
A shrill metallic ringing sounded out making all the guests calm down simultaneously and stop talking.
A woman wearing casual scribe clothing put down a metallic box from which the strident alarm came from and started speaking.
"Welcome to the great hall, this space that is usually used by the council to lead the clan is used today for a special occasion from our king.
His highness will be a little la-"
"Yes, sorry everyone for being late." A young man stepped out from the balustrade above the hall. He cordially walked to the circular stairs at the end of the room before stepping down towards his guests.
He gave a small smile to the girl that spoke for him, "Thank you Natasha, please bring the tables."
She responded with a small nod and left through a side door leaving him to handle the guests.
"Dear counselors, dear citizens, dear… friends. I have brought all of you here to congratulate all of you for your incredible work and contribution to the clan during these past few weeks.
Thanks to you all, we no longer live in fear of the unknown surrounding us, no longer are we shackled by the boundaries created by the old ones and no longer are we threatened by enemies within our own lands."
Yells and cheers exploded from the people in front of him, making Matt smile proudly.
"WE! Are free now. Free to grow, free to explore, free… to reveal ourselves. As of today I am inaugurating three new laws for the future of Valhalla.
To be short, from today onwards transforming within the dome is no longer forbidden, only restricted to certain areas. The land will be separated into districts depending on its contents. And finally… We reach out to the outside, but we need to be carefull. This year alone, after the devil was slain, ten of our warriors stupidly left their post to explore the unknown.
Maybe they thought that it was safe since the devil was no more, but they were wrong, the machines are still a major threat … and so are the humans beyond our walls."
The Valhalans didn't know how to feel, they were happy for all that had happened but were still very anxious of the rapid changes.
A bald crafter that had that very thought advanced under his leader's gaze and hesitantly asked his question.
"If it is so dangerous… Why go outside ? Can't we… stay within our home? Our ancestral lands ?"
Matt continued to stare at the man until he gave a small laugh. "You are right, the outside world is dangerous, but since when have we Valhalans acted like cowards !? We have so many undiscovered wonders, experiences and truths that we know nothing of !
You have seen it. Even within our holy land enemies dare to threaten us and you want to let them come and claim your life ?"
His speech was very mean but Matt didn't think about what he was saying as he met one of the individuals that held a mindset that he knew all too well but didn't want to see again, not because it was a bad mindset but because it wasn't the mindset needed in a backward world such as this one.
The man that spoke up lowered his head and left, leaving a few displeased grumbles as he went. The ones that didn't know Matt very well understood his choices and their opinion of him improved. They didn't dislike Matt for being their new sole ruler but they didn't trust his leadership and ideas yet, to their eyes he was simply an unruly youngster that was smarter than the others, far from the wise council of elders they had always known.
So he needed to prove his skills.
1436 words
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I have come back from the grave of work and mortal responsabilities to bring you the long awaited return of this story!
Thank you for waiting for me and as the benevolent author that I am I bring you two chapters !!!
But that is not all, now that I am free, I will reward your patience and love with an extra story that I will air alongside this one!
And lastly, I will make some changes to this story, taking some time of gave me quite a bit of time to polish my ideas and thus I want to make this story as smooth as delicious Osmanthus wine!