Fun fact: Artemis' Primelium body is kinda durable than Adamantium and the Doom Slayer's praetor suit which it could survive 2 Megakelvin lasers for reference our sun's surface temperature is approximately 6000 kelvins and 2 megakelvins is equals to 2 million kelvins.
The next morning, Artemis came out of his room with a little smile on his face. The morning sun shined through his windows as a baste swathe of clouds littered the night sky.
Artemis walked down the halls of the castle and was greeted by several maids that passed by, some important bureaucrats who were going to do their shifts, and King Wart was out with Pandora and was about to go dining in the grand hall.
After brief honorifics and greetings, Artemis would walk away.
With everything back to the new normal of the new government Artemis had built, the Fortress City was more lively than before.
The agenda for the day, however, was to visit each of the eastern villages personally with an armed guard by his side to convince them of his authority.
Although the new kingdom was now well-known to the villagers of the surrounding villages, their loyalties were doubted upon by several civil representatives of the outer district. Some of the representatives once were villagers of the said northern villages and were quite knowledgable of the cultures.
All of this was compiled into a single scroll that was given to him after the trial yesterday by one of the said representatives who caught wind of 'The King's Proclamation' that detailed King Wart's intentions to invite all villages under the influence and indirect control of the Fortress city to migrate their populations to the city.
The man wasn't aware, nor was anyone really, that the proclamations said to be from the king were actually from the man in black, Also known as, Lord Erik.
Notoriously known as Artemis, the overlord of the metal demons.
But none of them knew the latter parts.
Yet.
As Artemis passed through the castle doors and walked through the streets of the inner district, many people recognized him and bid him their greetings. From the youngest who could speak, to the oldest who could walk. Everyone knew of him and quite frankly, most loved and appreciated his efforts.
[You are quite the charmer, dear] Caitlyn said as she watched what Artemis' eyes saw. Caitlyn was like a person who was inside of a giant robot but had only passive and no direct controls.
She could see what Artemis' sees, and felt what Artemis felt. If Artemis was in pain, Hailey would feel it as well.
Which its not gonna happen.
Artemis reached the main gate of the inner wall, there he found Toby passing by.
Artemis hailed him.
"Oh, ugh, me? Ay, erm, yes. Milord, what is it?" Toby stuttered.
[Oh my, the poor lad was startled] Caitlyn giggled.
"Are you familiar with the northern villages under the indirect governance of the Fortress City?" Artemis asked
"Ah.. yes, I actually came from one of those villages before passing the military academy for mages," Toby said.
"Well then, you need a squad of knights and check to few villages, made sure they are loyal to his highness. Any hard resistant, use lethal-force if requiredand neutralized them if they started to become hostile" Artemis said. Artemis made it clear that he wasn't taking a No as an answer and the only correct answer was Yes.
"Yes, milord," Toby said without question and abandoned his plans for the day and followed Artemis.
They went to the northern section of the wall that was under reconstruction. Stone from quarries were being poured in by the miners and were being used to make the stone foundations.
The place was busy, and would be busy until the walls finished.
Everybody began working faster, however, when Artemis suddenly came out of nowhere.
As if there was an immense amount of pressure mounted on them by the mere presence of the man in black watching them do their jobs he had specifically requested to be done.
"Uhm, milord, what exactly am I going to do again?" Toby asked.
Artemis then turned towards him, his heterochromia eyes seemingly piercing into his body.
"I want you start a battalion of knights clad in full armor to report here, immediately," Artemis said.
"Ah, yes milord! I'll call upon the needed knights right away," Toby said.
"Go," Artemis said.
Toby then skedaddled away.
Artemis then turned around and continued watching the construction of the walls.
Why he was doing this? Well, Caitlyn wanted to watch how humans with intelligence and technology comparable to the medieval era of prewar Earth acted up close and personal.
Excluding the personal part, at least she had a front row seat with her husband in observing the peasantry build the wall that Artemis himself was responsible for its destruction.
[It's quite ironic that you destroyed this part of the wall and now you ordered the people that this wall protected to rebuild it, was that part of your plan?] Caitlyn asked.
[Not... quite] Artemis felt a bit guilty.
Caitlyn then proceeded to tease her husband for failing to even consider the benefits and not-so-good benefits of his actions that came without a second thought.
------------------------------------------------------------------------
King Wart and his aides, Lady Pandora and Lady Silvanna were in the grand hall. The grand hall was the big, golden, and fancy cafeteria of the castle. Before the uprising, it was reserved for only the richest of the classes and the count.
But since everything was eventually turned upside down in a span of only a day, the grand hall and the works of the chefs of skills but of common birth were made available to the rest of the peasantry.
King Wart and his aides were at a separate table from the rest. Since security around the King was lenient, courtesy of Artemis' policies, no retainers were needed to check for poison.
The dwarf, the elf, and the human demigod all chowed down on the delicious food that was served to them.
As they ate, their lighthearted conversation about the future of their careers as newfound rulers and leaders of this young kingdom quickly turned into a serious discussion regarding what Pandora saw that night.
"Are you really sure there was someone else with Erik?" King Wart asked her the same question again.
"Yes, I saw them," Pandora said.
"But what do you mean she came out of thin air?" Silvanna asked raising one eyebrow
Silvanna was a powerful demigod who could access tier 10 magic spells at will but she had never heard of illusion spells that were at the levels of what she saw.
But Silvanna believed Pandora's story, so did Wart.
But the question was, who was that lady?
"Didn't you hear their conversation?" Silvanna asked.
"I told you, I tried but for some reason my elf ears couldn't hear what they were saying. But, knowing Erik until now.. this is my first time seeing him completely distracted, like, the door creaked when I peeked through but he did not care.." Pandora said.
Then the conversation took a very weird turn.
"First of, why were you entering Erik's room, without knocking, in the middle of the night?" Wart asked.
"Oh.. I.. ugh.. was concerned!" Pandora said.
Wart and Silvanna's expressions said otherwise, they weren't convinced.
"You had other intentions," Silvanna bluntly said.
"No I don't!"
Y̸͋͜è̷̙ș̴̀ ̸̞́y̶̬̾ò̸̫ư̵͙ ̴̱̐d̶̠͗ȍ̸̠
"I did not!"
When she shouted, she looked at Wart and Silvanna with question looks.
She dislikes the voice in her head, it sounds unnatural like both men and female said at the same time.
Ever since she was rescued by Artemis from Lord Rism, she get this strange voice on her mind, she always ignores it but it always came out random.
"Anyways, let's not stray away from what is the main issue here?" Pandora said.
"Fine, we'll discuss about your intentions later," Wart said.
"Soo, there was this girl, a beautiful girl, you described her like that so don't look at me with those eyes," Silvanna said. Pandora seemed too annoyed with the word "beautiful"
"The lady was with Artemis for the rest of the night, right?" Silvanna continued.
"Yes! But then she disappeared as if she was just an illusion," Pandora said.
Silvanna was aware that the lady in question was some sort of illusion just by what Pandora was telling her but the problem was, illusions were programmed only to do limited and menial tasks, mimicking a few or limited functions of their real life counter parts.
But the lady in question fitted the description of an illusion but her complexity was a bit contradictory.
And the fact that Artemis was interacting with her as if she was his lover.
But maybe she was his lover?
Silvanna was now trapped in her own rabbit hole that she dug for herself. But who pushed her into digging that rabbit hole? Pandora.
Wart, being the dwarf that he was, didn't really mind what the lady was as long as Artemis did not go astray from his loyalty and fidelity to the kingdom and Wart himself.
The discussion about the mysterious went nowhere.
"Fine.. I'll just accept the fact Erik has a woman by his side from somewhere.. someplace," Pandora pouted.
'She's jealous' Wart and Silvana minds were in sync.
S̴̩͠h̸̘͐é̸͖ ̷̮͐d̴̡̆e̵̯̍f̵̡̕ĭ̸̪ṉ̴͊i̸̺̿ṭ̸͗ẹ̸̀l̴̢͋y̴̜͆ ̵̘̈́i̷͔̋ṣ̸͛
The being said on her mind once again, Pandora still ignores it.
But Silvanna and Wart weren't really far off from their assumption since the evidence that pointed to the fact that she was jealous was too overwhelming and too blatant.
The being inside her mind however fully knew she is very jealous, for some reason, the being also share that feeling.
The feeling of jealousy on the same person it fought just a few days ago.
No, the same person it fought 1000 years ago.
Those damn organization and their experiments, it is their fault that made the poor Devour like this.
Meanwhile, across the City of Diadel, in the western fields where corn was being grown and cultivated, Artemis, Toby, and the battalion of 20 knights armed with magic weapons and armor he called for, marched towards the west.
They were to traverse the western boundary, although Artemis had done it before but this time, they were following a dirt path that went through a small clearing in the middle of the forest unlike Artemis' route which went directly into the forest.
The knights and Toby were a bit weary because the area was known for frequent ambushes by Magical Beasts and Monsters.
Artemis, though not weary, was being cautious.
His wife urged him to be more cautious since although she was confident that he alone could take on a large number of these so-called Magical Beasts, his followers weren't so safe.
Artemis needed to protect his men as well to prove to them that they weren't just fodder to be given to the enemy to buy him time.
Their lives mattered, even if it was a little I'm the eyes of Artemus who still viewed most of his companions as mere pawns.
Even so, since his emotions as a human have begun to return thanks to Caitlyn loosening the restraints in his mind, he wasn't all that completely cold anymore.
Stoic, yes. Would kill you for a menial crime? Well, fifty percent more or less than in the past but it was still a huge percentage.
As they marched further into the west, in the distance, some creatures peeked through the bushes and the treeline.
None of them were aware that a tragedy had befallen the western frontier. The trail that they walked upon was as dead as their destination.
Another army of invaders was upon them. They had overrun Wart's former estate that was the lake at the south. They had overrun most of the western villages and none were spared.
Who were these creatures? They weren't magical beasts, no, magical beasts did not form any strong unions with each other. Even packs of direwolves would kill other packs if food was scarce.
These creatures were foul, stinking, short, and ruthless.
And Artemis was all-too familiar with their kind.
"Goblins," Artemis stopped in his tracks. The knights behind him drew their magic swords and formed a line beside Artemis. Toby and several other mages with him readied themselves to cast their spells.