Authority
Ian hurried toward his office, anticipation thrumming through him.
Every time a territory leveled up, its growth accelerated. Getting from zero residents to a hundred was always harder than climbing from a hundred to a thousand.
He pushed open the shabby office door, went straight to the desk, and flipped open the worn notebook lying there — the strange ledger he'd bought from the Aberration Shop, the one that recorded and managed the state of his fief.
He picked up the pen and was about to write when he froze.
"Huh?"
Something was different.
Ian stared at the pen with a look of pure disbelief.
Why aren't you fighting me?
This pen had always tried to write whatever it damn well pleased. Controlling it used to take nearly bone-grinding force and concentration.
Now the pen and his hand felt almost fused — more in sync than ever before. It glided across the paper, smoother and freer of resistance than it ever had.
"…Why?"
While he was distracted by the question, letters began writing themselves across the page.
The farm is being raised splendidly.
The Master is impressed, regardless of the proxy's inferiority.
The proxy is acknowledged a little more.
…What the hell was this supposed to mean?
Proxy? Master? What was any of that?
Eh. Just the usual nonsense, right?
It wasn't the first day this notebook had spouted garbage. Ian shook his head. Paying attention to that kind of thing was how you got your mind contaminated. With anything related to Aberrations, the best policy was to use it only when you needed it and ignore the rest. That was how you kept your sanity intact.
Checking the territory's status came first.
The moment Ian set his mind to it, the pen began writing with almost no resistance at all.
Territory population has surpassed 100!
Special Facility [Training Ground (Lv.1)] construction complete! (Improves combat ability of residents and increases the appearance rate of related heroes)
✦ TERRITORY LEVEL UP! ✦
Farm Proxy:Ian Darkest(An interesting 'feedstock.' At this rate, he might make a rather useful proxy.)
Territory Rank:3-Star (LEVEL UP!)
Population:102(A large influx of new 'feedstock'! Among them are specimens with rather appetizing potential. Let's cultivate them carefully.)
Capacity:120(Insufficient land for individual farms. Secure more flat ground, or increase farm efficiency.)
'Feedstock' needed for next rank (Stem Stage):900
Resident Satisfaction:68 (+3)(Stable food supply and the influx of new refugees are driving satisfaction upward.)
Mental Contamination:37 (−3)(Raise this number as soon as possible! Blessings of the Void!)
Finances:−57,000,000 Rene(Potential for improvement via Roella Amelia. Do not let the opportunity slip.)
Food Reserves:25 days(The little one called Anya has unmatched foraging skill. Draft a foraging manual and fatten the feedstock in other regions as well. Fat content is closely tied to flavor…)
Defense (Standard):40
Territory Potential:★★★★★+(Still calculating)
"I did it!"
Ian clenched his fist. A territory level-up. For Seorigol, this was enormous progress. Pushing past a hundred people and leveling up on land this barren… honestly, it would have been unthinkable before.
And then—
"Wh-what the hell?"
The pen jerked violently on its own.
The Master commends your achievement.
Authority is bestowed.
Authority is bestowed?
The instant Ian focused on that sentence, the pen in his hand went berserk.
"Damn it!"
He flung it away hard. Until now, the pen had always stopped moving the moment it left his grip.
Not this time.
Like a living creature, the pen defied his will and shot toward his forearm.
"Urgh…!"
Ian instinctively tried to block it, but an invisible, crushing force nullified his resistance.
A searing heat punched through the skin of his forearm. The nib drove into his flesh. Scorching pain flooded his arm — and something began to carve itself into him.
"D-damn it!"
He lunged to grab the pen, but a translucent membrane sprang up around it and shielded it from his fingers. Flesh tore. Skin burned. Ian screamed and collapsed to the floor, but the pen never stopped.
How long it lasted, he couldn't say.
"Hah… hah…"
The hellish agony finally ebbed. Gasping, Ian looked down at his forearm.
A strange tattoo he had never seen before was branded there in dark crimson light — a complex pattern of unknown characters, something like ancient Latin script.
At the same time, new words appeared on the notebook.
That which is called Master is a being that can contain all things.
Thud. The pen went limp and clattered to the floor.
"What the hell even is this…"
Still cradling his aching arm, Ian stared blankly at the tattoo. The characters remained meaningless.
Carefully, he brought a fingertip to the mark.
Then the impossible happened.
His finger sank into the tattoo with no resistance at all — as if slipping into water.
"Shit!"
He yanked it back in a panic. Thankfully, the finger was fine.
The shock passed quickly. He pushed his finger in again and again, trying to understand. There seemed to be an empty space inside his arm — a nauseating, hole-in-the-body sensation that made his skin crawl.
"…Hold on."
A small ink bottle sat nearby. He carefully pushed it into the tattoo. The bottle vanished without resistance.
At the same time, a faint section of the tattoo darkened and grew sharper.
Does the tattoo fill in every time I put something in?
Ian kept feeding it whatever small objects were at hand — the pen, scraps of paper, a pebble. With each addition the tattoo grew denser, until at a certain point nothing more would go in.
Roughly the capacity of a travel trunk, by the feel of it. When he pulled the objects back out, the tattoo faded to its original hazy state.
"…A subspace?"
The corner of Ian's mouth curled up.
If this really was a subspace, it was an incredible ability. With it alone, the number of things he could do from here on out would explode.
Wait. Could I use this subspace to carry items into ghost stories?
If so, that would be perfect. Especially for that Aberration he would inevitably have to face in the Darkest family. With this subspace, dealing with that deranged-grade horror would become far more manageable.
This is completely broken.
He sank into pleasant speculation about how to exploit the new power — until urgent knocking rattled the office door.
"My lord! It's Aurora! Are you in there?"
Ian hastily tugged his sleeve down over the tattoo. Whether the subspace activated seemed to depend on his will.
Outside stood Aurora, looking thoroughly distressed.
"My lord, we have a problem! I've managed to mine a fair amount of mana stone, but right now there's no way to haul it up from the dig site for Lady Roella to take!"
At her words, Ian glanced down at the mark on his forearm and grinned.
"Let's go, Aurora."
When they reached the pit where the mana stones were buried, Roella stood waiting with a face full of worry. Beside her, her knight wore a faint smirk.
The mouth of the pit was still barely wide enough for a single person to squeeze through, but below it, a mountain of blue-glowing mana stones Aurora had spent the night mining was piled high.
"Hmm… two hundred million Rene worth of raw mana stone ore. That's going to take quite a volume."
Roella folded her arms and spoke coolly.
"Refined ore would be one thing, but completely raw stone? You'll need at least three or four times what's sitting there."
At her feet lay a heap of mana stone that looked to weigh about thirty kilograms.
Aurora leaned in and whispered to Ian, flustered.
"The truth is, mining isn't the hard part here — moving it is. Through a hole only one person can pass, you can't carry much at a time."
"What about tying it with rope?"
"The pressure makes the mana stone corrode the rope instantly."
Aurora demonstrated, binding a stone and lifting — the rope snapped with a sharp twang.
"You can only move them with half-treated anti-mana materials. Or a person who already carries mana in their body has to haul them by hand."
Which meant that since Seorigol had none of that specialized gear, Aurora had been carrying everything herself.
"Hauling it out one load at a time through that narrow entrance… we just don't have the time."
Roella added,
"Well, if you had heavy equipment that could smash through a fortress wall, you could widen the entrance and send people down to clear it in one go. But Seorigol doesn't have anything like that, does it?"
Ian looked at her and smiled.
"I do, actually. Heavy equipment."
"Huh? What did you just say?"
Roella stared at him like he'd lost his mind.
Ian patted his forearm.
"Just got it. Extremely convenient heavy equipment."
"What kind of nonsense are you— wait, is this magic? You can't move mana stones with magic. If you mess it up, they'll explode—!"
"It's not that."
"Then what?!"
"Just close your eyes for a second."
Grinning, Ian jumped down into the pit.