[Goldenveil's loyalty has increased by 30 points!]
[Your citizens fervently chant your name, +3 prestige points]
[Congratulations, you are now an intermediate knight!]
[Goldenveil's attractiveness has increased slightly, you will now receive more people per week!]
[GoldenVeil's prosperity has increased, its population is happier, and you will now receive more people per week!]
A wide smile spread across Ethan's face as his people chanted his name, the sound rising and falling like a living thing, warm and unrestrained.
It was a strange feeling.
He still remembered the first time his father took him to meet their people.
At the time, Ethan was a twenty-year-old man inhabiting the body of a child barely seven years old, long before the system began tormenting him with its missions.
Even so, he remembered well the smile that had dominated his father's face as the crowd called out for him.
Was that the same smile now carved across his own face?
He hoped it was.
Of course, not everyone was pleased.
The common people were never difficult to satisfy.
They liked good beer, bountiful harvests, lively music, and beautiful women.
Give them those things, and they would fight a lord's wars, till his fields, and sing ballads in his honor until their voices gave out.
Unfortunately, some men wanted far more than prosperity.
Alaric was like that. Ulric was like that. And apparently, all ten members of the guard were cut from the same rotten cloth, men with no real value beyond their boundless greed.
Whatever they wanted from that miserable settlement, they were willing to slaughter every last soul there to take it.
Sighing, Ethan pulled the remaining seeds from the system inventory.
Heavy sacks hit the floor one after another with dull, solid thuds, raising small puffs of dust. Alongside them, dozens of new tools materialized, each one of a quality that would have seemed otherworldly to the people of Goldenveil.
"Fill our warehouses before winter comes. Start with grains suited for long-term storage, then move on to the rest. Don't disappoint me."
The moment his words fell, the people surged forward.
Hunters, woodcutters, fishermen, even the baker. Not a single soul held back, each planting with careful, deliberate hands, some rummaging through their own homes for seeds they had tucked away months ago.
From just the first harvest, they pulled more than four tons of grain, every last bit of it healthy and whole, more than enough to carry them through a brutal winter.
Processing that much food would take an enormous amount of time, but no one there cared.
They would work through the night, go without sleep for days if they had to.
Not one of them was willing to let this chance slip away.
Ethan turned and walked away, leaving the people to their work. As he passed Ulric, he caught the old man's eyes and let a slow smile stretch across his face.
'I'm going to make you regret not killing me when you had the chance. I'm going to make you eat your own guts.'
Ulric stiffened, a visible shudder running through him as Ethan moved past without a word.
The moment Ethan was far enough away, the old man turned to his son, his voice dropping to a low, rasping growl.
"In a month, you will accompany that bastard to exterminate those green skins. He must not return alive."
Alaric heard it and smiled, his lips curling so high it looked like they might split at the corners. His gaze slid to Evelyn's back, lingering with a cold, hungry edge.
He would destroy that smug pretty face and then show that woman and Alice exactly who ran things in this cursed place.
Whatever magic Ethan had used, they would take it from him.
"You know those pigs are planning something terrible, right? Do you want me to slit their throats while they sleep?" Evelyn asked, studying Ethan's calm, handsome expression.
"Not yet. They'll likely only make their move in about a month, when we march against one of the three goblin camps we've surrounded." Ethan shook his head.
He had barely reached the front gates of his mansion when he noticed Evelyn had stopped walking.
"What?" he asked, turning back with a puzzled look.
She stood with her face tilted upward, fingers raised, measuring the height of the sun with a practiced eye.
A moment passed, and then a broad grin broke across her lips.
Before Ethan could react, her strong but delicate fingers closed around his shirt and yanked him forward.
He stumbled into her, his face burying itself deep in the warm, yielding valley between her enormous tits, the soft flesh pressing in from both sides and swallowing his world entirely.
"Come on! I told you I would turn you into a man, didn't I? It's still early, and we're burning daylight!" Her voice rang out bright and forceful, vibrating faintly through the very chest smothering him.
Ethan could only produce a muffled grunt in response.
Dying like this wouldn't be so bad.
He didn't even struggle as she hauled him toward the back of the mansion, where a small garden opened into a clear patch of ground, just wide enough for two people to train side by side.
"I gave you my first kiss and the first embrace from these little beauties, so you had better not disappoint me!" Evelyn declared, finally releasing him.
She stepped back and gave her own chest a few light, playful pats.
Ethan stepped back too, watching.
So round, so full, and impossibly perfect despite their size. Firm, and yet soft enough to conquer even the toughest of men.
Perhaps he needed to make faster progress on that system quest after all.