CHAPTER 117: RESIDENT

I turned to Pixia, who was already buzzing with a flurry of data analysis on her tiny holographic console.

"Explain," I commanded. "They’re not subordinates. They’re not Bloodkin. What, precisely, is a ’Resident’?"

"They are a new classification of follower, my Lord!" she squeaked, her voice a high-pitched buzz of academic excitement. "They are, for all intents and purposes, Citizens! They retain their free will, but are bound to your Domain. You cannot give them direct, individual orders, but you can issue broad, sweeping decrees. Think of them as a resource. A population to be managed, protected, and, of course, taxed."

"So, they’re basically Tamagotchis," I summarized. "Tamagotchis with complex emotional needs and the potential for rebellion. Fantastic. I’ll have Yori draft a basic constitution. Rule one: pay your taxes. Rule two: do not annoy the king. Rule three: see rule one."

I was in the middle of this glorious, nation-building moment when a sound, a beautiful, chaotic, and deeply satisfying sound, echoed up the hill.

CRUNCH!

It was the sound of a large, metal door being kicked off its hinges by a very large, very enthusiastic Beast King.

"MY LORD!" Takaharu’s voice roared, a joyful bellow of discovery. "I HAVE FOUND A CAVE OF SHINY METAL BEASTS!"

I strode to the edge of the hill and looked down.

The "cave" was a garage.

The "shiny metal beasts" were cars.

Takaharu, my beautiful, simple-minded engine of destruction, had just discovered the concept of a motor vehicle.

He was currently trying to ride a small, red motorcycle, his massive frame making it look like a child’s toy. He was revving the engine, a wide, happy grin on his brutish face.

Sarah, my former Demon Queen, looked at the scene with an expression of pure, aristocratic disgust.

"Peasant transportation," she sniffed, her voice dripping with a condescension that could curdle milk. "So crude. So... noisy."

Saburo, my newly evolved Vampire Noble, saw his moment. He leaped onto the hood of a dusty sedan, his cape swishing dramatically. He struck a pose, one hand on his hip, the other pointing a single, accusatory finger at the sky.

"Behold!" he declared to no one in particular. "The steel chariots of the fallen age! A testament to mortal folly! And an excellent backdrop for a brooding, melancholic portrait!"

This was my army.

My collection of magnificent, monstrous, and profoundly dysfunctional children.

And then, the real prize revealed itself.

It wasn’t the cars. It wasn’t the trucks. It wasn’t the single, sad-looking scooter that a goblin was now trying to lick.

It was the fact that they were still here at all.

"Wait," I whispered, the pieces of the puzzle clicking into place in my mind with a beautiful, satisfying snap.

My mind raced. When I took over a Domain, the System usually just... deleted everything. The furniture, the infrastructure, all of it replaced by the generic, pre-set templates of my own dungeon.

But Reign... Reign was different.

"The stuff... it’s still here," I breathed, a slow, wicked, and utterly glorious idea beginning to bloom in the dark corners of my mind.

"Pixia," I said, my voice dangerously quiet. "Confirm. Does the Reign ability preserve all non-living matter within the conquered territory?"

"One moment, my Lord," she squeaked, her tiny fingers flying across her console. Her eyes widened behind her comically large spectacles. "Confirmed! My Lord, this is a game-changer! Unlike a standard Domain usurpation, a successful Reign preserves all existing human infrastructure and technology! It is a bug! A glorious, profitable bug in the System’s code!"

A slow, predatory smile spread across my face.

It was a smile full of greed, ambition, and the sudden, dawning realization that I was about to become very, very rich.

"Commanders!" I roared, my voice booming across the valley, amplified by the sheer, unadulterated power of my own genius.

The bickering and posing stopped. All eyes turned to me.

"LOOT EVERYTHING!" I commanded.

"I want every car, every truck, every generator! I want every computer, every television, every toaster! If it has a wire, a button, or a wheel, I want it stripped and brought back to the Spire! This is no longer a conquest! This is a moving day, and we are the most aggressive, well-armed movers in the history of the world!"

The chaos that followed was a beautiful, beautiful thing.

Orcs and Ogres, with the delicate touch of a wrecking ball, began hauling vehicles out of garages.

Goblins swarmed into houses, emerging with armfuls of electronics, their beady eyes wide with a manic, consumerist glee.

It was a glorious, beautiful, and profoundly stupid display of overwhelming, acquisitive power.

We were no longer just building an army.

We were building an industrial base.

And I had just discovered the cheat code to do it.

Just as I was basking in the warm, satisfying glow of my own brilliance, a frantic, high-pitched shriek cut through the air.

It was Zix, one of my most reliable Goblin Snipers, his face pale with something other than his usual goblin-y pallor.

"My Lord!" he gasped, pointing a trembling, clawed finger back towards the town hall. "We... we found something! In the basement!"

"If it’s not a vintage, mint-condition pinball machine, I’m not interested," I said dryly.

"It is not a machine, my Lord," Zix stammered, his eyes wide with a fear I had not seen in him since the day he faced Grak.

"It is a man."

My smile vanished.

"A man?" I repeated, my voice now a blade of ice. "A hostile? A red dot I missed?"

"No, my Lord," Zix whispered, his voice barely audible.

"He was not a red dot. He was not a white dot. He was not on the map at all."

My blood ran cold.

An unknown. A ghost in the machine.

"He was chained to the wall, my Lord," Zix continued, his voice trembling. "And he was wearing the armor... of a hero."

The game, it seemed, was far from over.

And a new, unexpected player had just been dealt into the hand.