Dictator From Outer Space

Camilla did not leave right away, but stayed for a few more days.

The outside world was noisy, but it was not a situation that would explode anytime soon.

Zaium was waiting for her report, and Galisto was adjusting his anger level while watching Pangral’s mood.

And Elvrande seemed to have something going on, but there was no external movement.

Compared to that, Bagran was unbelievably quiet except for some minor problems.

There were some voices of anxiety among the merchants, but the public order was perfectly maintained and the supplies were constantly provided.

It was a strange phenomenon that Bagran, the main actor of this incident, was rather calm.

Thanks to that, Camilla had a good time for a change.

She smiled all the time as she stayed close to Leobold, keeping her rival Armara far away.

On that night in late July, Camilla was also with Leobold.

They had a passionate time until late at night, took a simple shower, and ate delicious fruits. 

That time was undoubtedly the happiest experience ever.

She asked him, who was holding her from behind.

“You said you wanted to keep your original name, right?”

“Yeah. Yu Ji-ha is my name.”

Their relationship became more and more favorable to Leobold as time passed.

The decisive factor was when Camilla found out that he was over 100 years old and started to use honorifics.

It would have been shocking if it was Earth, but there were many long-lived races like elves and dwarves in Astera, so it was not that surprising.

She stroked his thick arm that embraced her body.

“Tell me about Earth. What kind of world was it?”

“It’s a long story…”

“We have plenty of time.”

“Where should I start… Well, I guess I should start with the fact that there is no ether.”

“No ether? Do you mean no magic?”

“No dragons, no elves, no beastmen. Only humans in that world. The population was about 8 billion when I was there.”

“That’s amazing…”

“The land area is also several times larger than Astera. There were over 200 countries and they were in fierce competition with each other.”

“Without ether, the civilization level wouldn’t be that high.”

“Actually, it’s the opposite. They could easily conquer Astera with just a fraction of their military power. Magic might be a variable, but they would eventually overcome it.”

Astera’s magic was not omnipotent.

It was a kind of scientific phenomenon that occurred by ether, and it could be analyzed.

It would be difficult to penetrate its essence without artificial intelligence, but if they kept a distance and projected firepower, Astera had little to do.

However, meteor strike or mental magic were definitely something to be wary of.

Camilla seemed to be choked by his words and raised her upper body.

“If they are so great, why don’t they conquer our Astera?”

“I don’t know. I’m the only one who knows about this place. I traveled for 50 years and finally arrived here.”

“You traveled for 50 years… What drove you to do that?”

“A prophet. Rasa, the creator god in your language. All Earthlings, including me, owe him or her. So I have to meet him or her and say thank you. That’s all.”

“You came all this way just to say thank you?”

Leobold stroked her cheek.

“That’s been my motivation for living so far. I had another goal originally, but I achieved it when I left Earth.”

He wasn’t sure if he really achieved it, but he felt that way when he left.

Camilla lay down again and cuddled in his arms.

“What kind of person were you there?”

“A soldier and a dictator… An emperor with absolute power in your terms.”

Her eyes sparkled with admiration.

“An emperor who ruled 8 billion people… That’s why you have such a calm demeanor. You’ve experienced almost everything.”

“War, murder threats, terror attacks, slanderous rumors, economic sanctions… I’ve been through all of them. I’ll do the same here. If I want to unify Astera, I can’t be picky about the means and methods.”

“Why do you think so? Astera is doing well enough.”

“Well, not in my eyes.”

“Exactly in what aspect?”

Instead of answering, Leobold snapped his fingers.

A walker disguised as a table walked over with a clank and projected a screen on the wall.

“That’s amazing… Is it some kind of golem?”

“You can think of it that way. It stores everything I see and hear.”

To be precise, the video was stored in the data server of Settler and the walker received and played it through quantum communication.

It took too much time to explain these things so he just glossed over them and moved on.

Anyway, Camilla seemed to be fascinated by the video that the walker played.

There was a magic called Imagine Record in Astera that could store the scenery, but it was too blurry to be used for anything other than reference.

The video that the walker played now was recorded when Leobold had just arrived at Vandus Baronetcy.

The streets were full of corpses and the starving residents looked at him with fearful eyes.

“Vandus Baronetcy… I heard it was a rural territory, but I didn’t know it was this bad…”

“It’s much better now.”

It was not just better, but it was making a lot of income from various fishery resources.

It had been a while since Leobold last visited, but the population influx was continuous and the development potential was high.

Next, the images of Lantis Countship and other territories were shown.

And then time went backwards and dragons flew in the sky and monsters stirred up.

Camilla realized what he wanted to say.

Despite the passage of at least 200 years, Astera’s civilization had not changed at all.

“Isn’t it strange? There is ether, an energy that is close to omnipotent, but the only use of it is magic and Goliath. The farmers still use horned birds to plow the fields and water wheels to process grains.”

“I didn’t think it was strange before…”

“That’s not all. Zaium and Elvrande are also the same as 200 years ago in my eyes. No, rather they have degenerated. Who do you think is blocking their development?”

“Elves.”

She didn’t say the answer because she had a great foresight.

It was just that elves were the only race that could be enemies of humans at this point.

Leobold stroked her thin silver hair.

“They must have some reason. A reason to block Astera’s development. But to me, that’s evil.”

“Then your goal is to unify and develop Astera? What benefit do you get from that?”

“A minimum courtesy to the prophet.”

“What happened on Earth that…”

“Not only me, but all 8 billion Earthlings were saved by the prophet. He or she is like a god to me. No, the only god.”

“That’s a dangerous statement. I don’t know about Earth, but there are definitely gods in Astera.”

“They are not gods.”

“What if they stand in your way? What if a great war breaks out like 200 years ago?”

“If you stand in my way, I have no choice but to fight.”

Camilla suddenly felt afraid of him.

He was a man who was ready to fight against anything for his goal.

Even if it was a god, he would not make an exception.

***

Granden had been troubled lately.

He was fine until he completed his mission and returned to Bagran.

He was not nervous about the pressure of possibly going to war with Galisto.

But he was worried about the fact that Leobold was not preparing at all.

‘If he decided to go to war, he should at least have a basic plan for reconnaissance, tactics, and supply…’

There was no discussion related to him in the palace or any command center.

Did he not intend to fight Galisto at all?

Or did he plan to go alone and kill them all?

‘Well, that might be easier.’

The power of him and the Black Knight that he saw at the border was beyond imagination.

Even the Elven Knight had no meaning in front of him, and even Tirendell, who boasted the strongest in the continent, was pushed back one-sidedly.

So it was not a big problem for Leobold to look down on Galisto.

He felt more so after he learned that his identity was from another world.

‘A person who has a dragon and an ancient champion, and has the power to burn the whole Astera… Such a person would not care about Galisto or Pangral Emperor.’

What was strange was that he did not push them with his power.

If he used the huge ship that he came with to invade Galisto, or even Zium and Elvrande, it would be solved cleanly.

Granden walked around the camp and paid attention to the soldiers’ training.

The training of soldiers who were not knights in Astera was very simple, such as maintaining order, setting traps, or transporting supplies.

So their morale was low and they did not value their duties.

They were nothing but knights’ lackeys no matter what they did.

But today they were training in a rather serious atmosphere.

They started with physical training, followed by hard training such as obstacle cover, and also various training such as mission procedure awareness and battlefield analysis.

Granden did not understand why they were trained like this.

This was the way knights trained before Goliath appeared.

‘It’s all Goliath’s fight anyway. What’s the point of doing this?’

Goliath was so big and noisy that most of the camouflage was useless.

The only tactic was frontal power confrontation, and it had been going on for nearly 200 years.

It was anachronistic for soldiers who were not knights to train like this now.

As he waited a little, Leobold appeared with Vultorn, holding something big and dark.

“I greet you, my lord.”

As Granden hurriedly greeted him, Leobold called him.

“Do you know what this is?”

What he showed was a metal cylinder.

It looked heavy and it really was.

“Well, it’s too crude for a weapon. It looks like it shoots something from the hole…”

Vultorn burst into laughter.

“Uhaha! That’s right! It shoots ether stones!”

“…What do you mean?”

Shoot those precious ether stones?

He stuttered in surprise, but Vultorn, who had a more impatient temper than Lord, lifted the cylinder and swung it.

“A hundred times better than explaining is showing! Step back!”

Leobold gestured and Granden stepped back curiously.

What did he intend to show?

Vultorn fixed the cylinder on a brick-made obstacle and shouted at the soldiers to avoid it.

Then he manipulated something with his finger and shouted loudly.

“Fire!”

Pong.

The shooting sound was dull but the result was not.

The ether stone shot from the cylinder exploded as soon as it hit the wall.

The wall flew away in pieces with a loud noise and dust settled down revealing a deep hole.

Granden was surprised by its power, which he thought was nothing special.

“That’s amazing… Is this the power of exploding ether stones?”

“That’s right! My daughter developed it! It’s a bit awkward to say this but my daughter is good at hammering! Uhahaha!”

Actually, Arma gave him the blueprint and made him develop it, but there was no need to say that here.

The soldiers came out to clean up the debris while Leobold said.

“The cost of this launcher is only 1/100 of Goliath. If you can destroy Goliath with one shot at that cost, it’s more than enough profit.”

Granden’s heart sank.

He wanted to shoot this at Goliath?

“My lord. Do you intend to deploy this in war?”

“Why not? It might be different if Goliath had good mobility, but most of them can be overcome by soldiers’ training. The destructive power is obviously sharp. Unless they adopt living metal massively, or even if they do, the drive system and frame will not withstand it.”

“So you want to fundamentally change the current war that is fought only by Goliath? Then the nobles will have no place in the war…”

“That’s exactly what I want. To drag the nobles down to the position of commoners.”

“What will change by doing that?”

“At least the class will disappear. I don’t like the nobles who make a fuss as if they are noble. Especially if they have nothing to boast of but their precious ether bloodline. Now, everything will change. The nobles will fall by the hands of the soldiers they despised.”

“That’s the destruction of this world.”

“I didn’t expect you to be so serious. Do you accept conquest but not change?”

“…”

Granden could not say anything.

He was also a knight and a noble, so he felt a sense of rejection at the idea of being lowered to the position of soldiers.

Nobles should be noble, that was his thought.

They should protect the commoners by leading the battlefield and honor their lord with loyalty.

But Leobold was trying to break that.

“My lord… If you do that, the foundation of Bagran will collapse.”

“If it collapses by such a crude weapon, can you call it a foundation? Tell me, Granden. What did Bagran do for 200 years after breaking away from Gram Empire after the Great War? What is so great that it cannot collapse?”

“That is…”

Granden also knew well about the situation of Bagran before Leobold came, so he could not refute.

It was the nobles who made it that way.

Leobold did not show fierce hatred to them.

“All I’m saying is that if you know your shortcomings, you should step back and watch. I even preserved your property so that you can live in the future. Isn’t that a great benefit?”

“…Do you think that commoners can lead this country instead of nobles?”

“You are mistaken, Granden. There is no meaningful difference between nobles and commoners except for their ether bloodline. And I plan to distribute ether energy universally. I will make it possible for anyone to use ether.”

He suddenly felt suffocated.

Granden’s world was very narrow, so he could not adapt to such grandiose words.

But one thing was certain.

The lord’s will was firm and his ability was outstanding, so the world would change as he said.

If he could not adapt, he would be extinct.

A while later, Vultorn brought an old Raom-class Goliath that was scheduled to be scrapped and aimed the ether bomb launcher and fired.

Bang!

The abdominal armor plate shattered and the Goliath swayed and finally fell, making Vultorn laugh loudly.

“Kahaha! This is the taste!”

The soldiers were also amazed.

This small weapon was low-powered, but it knocked down Goliath in one shot, which said it all.

But to Granden, this scene looked like the fall of nobility that had supported Astera.

***

Tirendell wore an old hood and entered Rozelon.

There were guards, but they meant nothing to him who had obtained divinity.

But…

‘Strange.’

He was puzzled by the lively atmosphere of Rozelon that was more than he expected.

It was a common rumor in many cities that Bagran was noisy because of various accidents, and he did not doubt it.

The princess’s murder was a big deal because Elvrande was so stubborn, but cutting off the arm of a foreign diplomat was something that humans could not overlook.

It was a time when they should be busy preparing for war, but what was this peaceful atmosphere?

‘Elves…’

Tirendell spotted a wood elf walking on the street in broad daylight.

He thought they would lock up all the elves in some detention center as the relations between the two countries worsened, but his expectation was wrong.

The male elf was surprisingly carrying a farming tool and mingling with people somewhere.

There was no sign of indifference to elves from their noisy chatter.

‘In Elvrande, humans are strictly isolated…’

The human autonomy zone was an example.

The elves gave humans freedom by putting them in the autonomy zone, but that was the same as telling them to die in Tirendell’s eyes.

The territory of the autonomy zone was not cultivated at all and did not receive the blessing of Yggdrasil either.

Millions of people were trapped in the autonomy zone and literally dying.

The elves in Bagran did not seem so unhappy compared to that.

Tirendell confirmed his thought as he saw a female elf running somewhere with a bunch of newspapers in her arms.

‘Leobold, you bastard, at least you don’t discriminate against elves.’

What if he switched the situation and a human stepped into Elvrande’s capital Medea?

He didn’t know, but he wouldn’t survive that night.

‘Something is different… Is this the world you are creating, Leobold?’

Compared to himself who aimed to establish a proper autonomy zone under the rule of elves, he was more positive and proactive.

Maybe he was wrong.

‘But still, you have to die.’

Because he killed the princess and his subordinates.

Maybe he killed someone who could change Elvrande’s future, so he had to die too.

What worried him was the divinity that entered him.

Grakies at least talked to him, but this guy refused any communication and only obsessed with destruction and death.

‘I don’t know what you put in there…’

But all he had to do was kill Leobold.

He couldn’t set foot in Elvrande anyway, so his fate was to wander around and stay somewhere as a guest.

Meanwhile, Leobold was waiting for him in a secluded place in the direct control area.

Dingo had already installed various ether measurement devices and would produce various data from the battle with Tirendell.

Arma predicted that only power ether existed in Tirendell’s divinity.

If that hypothesis was correct, one of the unknowns in the simulation would be solved.

He could use billions of computing units to track the essence of ether.

“It will take two months at most or three weeks at least to finish modeling. Then we can use ether as much as we want.”

That meant a fundamental change came to Astera.

He could use ether more freely and widely than just for limited purposes such as magic and Goliath.

Quantum communication that even surpassed broadband communication, as well as subspace and teleportation were possible at will.

A world where you can live comfortably in summer and warmly in winter, and you won’t starve if you work hard and diligently.

“I’m a bit anxious about using it so much… But I guess I can worry about that later.”

As always, humans would find a solution.

Leobold looked up and saw Tirendell approaching from beyond the horizon.

He felt his will even though he was far away.

“Leobold… I will kill you.”

Suddenly, subspace opened and the Black Knight and the reinforced Belial-class Goliath popped out.