"Kneel."
My voice was authoritative and smooth, like a whisper in the dead of night—at least, that was what I thought.
The Golem I made from pieces of junk responded to my order by bending its knees in submission.
Of course, it had no mind of its own, so it could only respond to simple commands, like a robot.
Still, it felt satisfying—and freaking cool—to be able to command such a massive thing.
'In terms of power, this Golem can beat me, no sweat.'
In fact, it could handle almost everyone in the village—unless they all attacked it with a coordinated effort.
That said, Lucy would most definitely be able to take it down on her own quite easily. In terms of Level, I estimated the Golem to be akin to a Level 20 individual, at best.
Not even counting the fact that Lucy was a Level 30, she also had the 'Warrior Class'. That was a bad matchup for a Golem who could only rely on physical attacks.
'Brute strength has its limits, after all…'
Still, the fact that I made a Golem out of trash was a miracle in itself.
And so, as I turned to the audience to address them, I found them all kneeling as well.
"H-hero…"
"He's so magnificent!"
"A-amazing!"
They gawked in awe and amazement, forcefully immersing me in unwarranted glory. I felt a bit guilty that I was getting credit for something so simple, but there was no way I wouldn't welcome their praise.
The System also endowed me with more Karma Points, so this hero worship definitely had its perks.
Being surrounded by kneeling subjects, I smiled calmly and raised my hands slightly to address them.
"You may all rise. This is simply the beginning."
Their eyes were aglow with even more emotion and respect, but my craft of bullshitting didn't end there—no way!
"This world is about to enter a new era. When that time comes upon us, sights such as this shall be nothing to your eyes."
I wasn't exactly lying.
"No matter what, though, know this…"
More demonstrations of respect and absolute loyalty were showered on me. But, I was too far gone to repent.
"… I will always be by your side!"
And then, the cheers descended thunderously.
*************************
'I need to leave this place.'
My eyes were alit with determination, and my fingers were clasped together as I sat behind my work desk.
This was my 12th day here, and I had finally reached a dead end.
'There's so much work left to be done. The Harvest of the crops is in a few days, and I really need to start working on expanding our territory. There's also the issue of that new project I'm working on…'
It was driving me crazy, yet I was still stuck on one major problem.
'My Runes… I've run out of ingredients to make them!'
While I had access to lots of amazing knowledge and technology, I still needed Magic to make things happen in this new world.
My Mana Capacity was abysmal at best, and the demand for innovations kept increasing on a daily basis.
To maintain my reputation as the all-powerful Hero, I had to keep impressing the people. To be honest, I had myself to blame for raising the expectations of everyone so high.
'But, it's too late to turn back now…'
I had to do something, but I couldn't achieve shit without Magic Circles.
There were two major ways a person could cast Magic.
One was the usual Spellcasting. This involved using the Mana a person had to achieve their desired effects.
The second was to utilize Magic Circles or Runes. Depending on their effects and design, they could attract Mana from the Veins in the earth, or around the area.
Of course, to do this, one needed the right conduit. That was why Mana Chalk was used to attract the Mana while Mercury would keep it stable.
All this was elementary stuff, but without one of these ingredients, things got dicey—especially for me.
'I'm weak, after all…'
Fortunately, as always, I figured out a solution to my predicament.
The good news was that I could finally put an end to my worries. The bad news, however, was that I would need to leave this place.
'Considering the merits, it's not really a bad idea. It was something I was planning to do eventually…'
Since the situation called for it, now was as good a time to venture out to the outside world.
"Sarah."
The moment I called, the blonde responded hurriedly and approached from the corner where she faithfully stood.
Her apparent idleness initially upset me, considering the fact that others were busy with one task or the other.
However, after realizing that great men needed to have some sort of secretary at their beck and call, I decided to keep Sarah by my side.
'It isn't all bad, though. I get to send her on small errands and stuff like that.'
When thinking of days when I would rather just remain in bed, the prospect of having a personal caretaker did seem appealing.
"Yes, S-Sam?"
'She no longer struggles to call me Sam. Just a bit of stuttering, I guess she has finally learned my name.' I smiled at the lady.
Her beauty was mesmerizing, but doing anything funny would simply result in a scandal of some sort—that much was guaranteed.
'I can't sully my image in front of my greatest supporter, now can I?'
Especially considering that Sarah was a Priestess, I would practically be committing social suicide.
"Organize a meeting. I want every single member of the town present. There's an important announcement I need to make."
"U-understood!" She bowed and skittered away quickly.
I sighed and took my Tablet, connecting it to my laptop using a USB Cord.
My Hard Disk Drive was also connected, so I had access to the local storage of all three devices.
It would have been nice if I could access all my Cloud files, but Fantasy Worlds don't have any Internet.
Bummer!
"I should take some important stuff that I need, so I can study while on the road. Or should I just take everything for the journey?"
Realizing that I couldn't trust these primitives with any of my stuff, it was best to simply carry anything that could be damaged.
I mean, I had an Inventory, didn't I?
"Alright, then. Let's get my speech ready for the masses."
It was quite an enjoyable period, being in a remote place like this, but it was time to see more of this world.
'Just when I was finally retrofitting everything to suit my tastes too…'
Oh well, a Hero has to leave the starter town one way or the other!