John decided, he would use the favor Ullr was owing him to force him to listen to him. John started walking from his Castle and reached the first village after ten minutes of walking. At first everyone that saw him was startled, as it was the first time John walked into a village or city in his normal appearance. Soon the normal NPCs especially the low ranked demons bowed down to him what kind of threw John off when he saw that.But suddenly one of the nearby players thought that it would be a good idea to slay the King of the demon nation to ascent the throne. What he didn"t expect that he manage to meet John now that he had an extremely bad mood. A loud bang sounded through the village and a humanoid body was flying through a house and crashed on the ground several hundreds of meters away barely alive.
John nodded to one of his nearby minions and soon the small poor house John had destroyed by punching the player through was completely demolished and replaced by a big and fancy mansion. The old poor couple that owned the shack were astonished when they were give the keys to this mansion by one of the robots, they couldn"t hold back their tears as they were nearly starving and living a miserable life up until now after they were driven away by the new Human king and now they had a gorgeous mansion bestowed to them by the king.
But John took it a step further he pulled out two small vials filled with water, next he p.r.i.c.ked the tip of his finger and put the tiniest amount of his blood into the water and gave it to the old couple. It was enough of his blood to ascend them to the lowest rank of demon n.o.bility but wasn"t enough to bind them to him as the blood was highly diluted.
John knew that he couldn"t create a democracy here in this game as the demon race heavily depended on the purity of the bloodline so he decided to give this poor family the first fief and basically made them the lord of this village. He bestowed the name of "Eisenfaust" to their family and told them that as long as they were willing to serve him, they could take care of this village and the surrounding lands as an apology for wrecking their house.
The old couple rejuvenated by the ascension to a High demon bowed down to their king and swore their allegiance and decided that they would do everything to help their lord and govern this territory as good as they can.
What John didn"t know that the House Eisenfaust would stay true to their words in just a few months this tiny village would have transformed to the second biggest city in the whole Kingdom that would only pale to the capital. Also their army of seasoned Demon Soldiers would smite down anyone who dared to hold evil thoughts against their king.
Also the poor player that John punched away was pulled away by a group of robots and looked away to never see the light of the sun again, but at least you could say that he did get something out of that encounter as the Dryas came from time to time to "eat" his lifeforce. Some rumors say that the player stopped going to work and would even left out meals to spent more time in the game. His skin turned white, his hair fell out and he kept mumbling strange sentences when he was laying in his capsule...but of course those are just rumors. But what was true is that the Carving Knife of Sin that turned slightly pink the other day completely changed color to a full blown and rich pink.
John did not find Ullr in this village so he kept walking to the next village and the next city after that until he visited every city except the capital and filled the prisons of his kingdom with some more daredevils that tried to attack him, but this time he just pummeled them to the ground as he didnt want to give out too much n.o.ble t.i.tles.
Now John took his first step into the capital, the guard saluted him and the normal citizens and even several players bowed to their king, and even though John was highly popular here there were still one or two players that thought it was worth to attack him. But before John could pummel them to the ground he got help from an unexpected source, two arrows impaled the charging players from behind nailing them the city wall behind John.
A man completely clad in leather armor wielding a magnificent bow emerged from the ma.s.ses and declared:"If someone, someday kills this king it will be me!"
A group of robots started to run the man that dared to spout such blasphemous words but John stopped them with a wink of his hand as he knew the man with the bow, it was Ullr. John´s voice changed when he started talking to a charismatic voice a skilled salesman would use and said:" Where are you going my friend? I am here to collect my debt from you. If i remember correctly you still owe me a favor."
Ullr stopped in his tracks as if magic was used and turned around. You could see pure rage in his eyes but he couldn"t move as he was bound by the game. And even if the game wouldn"t force him to stay Ullr´s personality didn"t allow him to break a contract he signed willingly.
Both of them went to a quiet place to talk and Ullr started: "Do you like trampling down on me? First you gift me these weapons just to show me that i am to weak to beat your dungeon and now you even dare to say it to my face that i was even weaker than you thought and that you had to give me an item to clear a dungeon floor. How cruel can a person be?"
But John just started to explain, he explain how he got started in the game, that he met the old smith and buried him with overpowered items. That he traded them for the dungeon and how he created the first Automata. Next he kept on talking how his dungeon progressed and that some players dared to hurt one of his friends and that he started the first war because of that.
John just kept talking until his throat was hoa.r.s.e and Ullr kept listening. John came to the part where he met Ullr for the first time and told him why he crafted the items for him, he also told him that he didn"t decided to give the devil"s contract to him but the system gave him the quest to do it.
Slowly Ullr anger subsided, but he just couldn"t accept it, who could he blame now for the state that his brother was in now? If he didn"t hate Chrome/Schmied how could he look into his brothers eyes anymore? For what did he waste this half year for if he couldn"t take his revenge? Ullr had to admit that he liked Chrome/Schmied but he just couldn"t have him as a friend, and it hurt his heart because he was his first real friend, someone special he could talk to.
When Ullr thought about his life up until the time he met his friend it looked bleak and lifeless, his mother died early and his father wasn"t interested in his children. Everytime he took a like to one of the maids his brother took special measures in his hand to get her fired or framed for a crime.
Even the company he saved didn"t mean much to him as it just earned more money for their fathers pockets. But his first real friend feel special to Ullr like something that was his, something his father did not have control over, something his brother could do nothing about. But now it seemed to Ullr that he would even lose that. He nodded to Chrome with a sad face one last time and logged off.
John also felt empty when he saw the sad face and the nod from his friend as he knew that Ullr wanted to say to him that he would miss him but they couldn"t be friends anymore. So he also logged off and just when he got out of the capsule his smartphone started ringing. It was an unknown number and John took the call he heard Constantine´s voice greeting him.
Constantine asked him if he would care to have another night out in the usual bar. John looked at the clock and saw that it was still a bit early to get a drink but as he felt down after the talk with Ullr he accepted and walked to the bar the met in the first time...