Wizard: Building a Golem Legion From Zero

The air in the council hall was as thick as congealed lead.

After William said, "This debt is just between you and me," his chest heaved violently.

The sharp pain from his broken ribs kept him lucid, and he glared at Allen, who sat across the long table.

Allen’s deep blue eyes were like two bottomless, dry wells.

"I was the one who failed to deliver on my promise to reduce casualties by 70%. So, speak, William. What compensation do you want? Magic Stones, technology, legions, mineral veins... I could even personally build an iron wall for Aiselan. All are on the table."

His flat tone was more despair-inducing than any sophistry or arrogance.

Time ticked by, second by second.

The sounds of weeping and the dull thuds of hammers nailing coffins shut drifted in from outside, seeping through the crack under the door into the dim room.

"I can’t bring myself to hate you." William’s voice was as hoarse as scraping sandpaper. "Without your Golems and technology, Aiselan wouldn’t have lasted even three hours. Those six hundred thousand people would have died, and the rest would have died too. That’s a fact."

He braced his hands on the oak tabletop, his nails digging in as if trying to claw into the wood grain.

"But there is one question I have to ask."

William leaned forward, his bloodshot eyes fixed on Allen, searching for a trace of humanity in this god-like man.

"If you could do it all over again..." William gritted his teeth, each word seemingly forced from his throat. "Would you still have gone to explore that sea?"

It was an exceptionally cruel question.

It forced Allen to choose between six hundred thousand living souls and an unknown truth.

Allen did not avoid William’s gaze.

"Yes."

Just one word.

No excuses, no "buts," no "if only I had known the cost would be so great."

It was blunt, leaving no room for argument.

William’s body stiffened.

Then, as if all the strength had been drained from his body, he collapsed back into his chair.

"Right... You’re a Wizard." William let out a bitter laugh, thick with self-mockery.

He fell silent again, and this time, the silence lasted even longer.

When William looked up again, the anger and conflict in his eyes had vanished, replaced by a clear sobriety.

"But I can’t deny it." William looked at Allen, his tone becoming unnaturally calm. "The information you discovered has allowed us, for the first time in three hundred... no, a thousand years, to know the true face of our enemy."

"We always thought the Heart Eaters were just beasts crawling out of the sea. Now we know they are being manufactured."

William stood up and walked over to the sand table.

On the sand table, more than half of the flags representing the Aiselan Kingdom had fallen.

"So, I can’t even say you were wrong."

William’s fingers swept across the area on the sand table representing the west coast. "I can only say that what you did... came at too high a price. A price too high for Aiselan to bear."

He turned and looked directly at Allen.

"Over the years, you brought us the Magic Furnace, the Alchemy Highway, and the Steel Legion. Aiselan’s population grew, our people were fed. We thought we had become stronger."

"But it was all just an illusion."

William pointed to his chest, where a blood-soaked bandage was wrapped.

"No matter how strong the weapons, they were gifts from you. No matter how many Golems we have, the control is still in your hands."

"Weakness is the original sin. To rely on external power is to be a tree without roots."

William took a deep breath, burying all his grief and humiliation deep in his heart.

He was the King. A King’s duty is to make decisions for the future, not to seek justice for the past.

The dead were dead. The living still had to face that man-eating sea.

He walked up to Allen, standing over the black-robed Wizard from across half the long table.

"You owe me six hundred thousand lives." William’s words were brutally direct, stripped of all pleasantries and pretense. "I don’t want lives in return. I want something the living can use."

Allen looked up. "What?"

"I want power." William enunciated each word. "I want the kind of power you possess, a power that can slay gods, a power that can be passed down through the generations of Aiselan’s people!"

"I want the children of Aiselan to be able to grasp the hilt of the sword themselves, not beg for the protection of others!"

Allen watched him quietly.

[Logical Analysis: Target is requesting access to the fundamental Meditation Methods and transcendent knowledge of the Wizard Civilization.]

[Risk Assessment: Native civilization mastering core technology may cross the Shepherd’s bottom line.]

Allen didn’t look at the data. He just looked at William.

"Beneath that sea, at the bottom of a ten-thousand-meter-deep abyss, there is a living weapons factory half the size of Golden Stone City."

Allen began to speak, his voice steady. "The power it displays is equivalent to the Dawn Star Level... In terms you can understand, it could easily destroy your entire continent."

"That is an existence I cannot afford to provoke right now."

Allen didn’t elaborate. Everything the Aiselan Kingdom faced, the so-called Beast Tides, the so-called wars... were merely a rancher’s routine culling of his own pasture.

He stood up, his black robes draping down.

"Your Level 5 Saint Spirit Adepts wouldn’t last a single second against it. You still don’t understand what kind of enemy you’re facing."

"I can’t guarantee what the consequences will be. This is a bloody path paved with thorns. You will lose more people. Far more than these six hundred thousand."

Allen walked toward the door, pausing as he passed William’s shoulder.

William didn’t turn around. He stared at the broken borders of his kingdom on the sand table, his back ramrod straight.

"We have shed blood for a thousand years. As long as we can truly stand on our own feet..." William’s voice wasn’t loud, but it was resolute. "Aiselans are not afraid to die."

Allen tilted his head slightly, looking at the young, wound-covered King before him.

It was as if he was seeing the unyielding spine of a civilization.

Faced with an absolute gap in power and a terrifying truth, he had chosen the most difficult path.

Allen averted his gaze.

"Alright."

He pushed open the heavy oak door and walked out.

The door closed behind him with a dull thud.

Allen walked down the palace corridor. The guards still kept their heads bowed.

He walked out of the palace gates and stepped onto a long street in the western district of Golden Stone City.

The sky was still gray, a thick layer of clouds pressing down from above like a giant lead plate.

The wind blew, swirling up soot and the smoke from burning Spirit Talismans, carrying a choking smell.

Allen’s expression remained unchanged. Like a Ghost, he drifted through the long street, which was thick with the stench of death.

A half-burnt Spirit Talisman twirled through the air and landed on his black robe.

Allen stopped.

He reached out and pinched the talisman between two long fingers. The embers at its edge quickly died out, leaving only a scorched black mark.

He looked at the ash on his fingertips.

Deep within his Sea of Spirit, the "anchor of humanity," sealed by heavy chains of logic, throbbed ever so slightly.

Allen raised his head and looked at the gray sky.

’If this were my previous life, I probably would have taken off my headphones, taken a sip of water, opened the game menu, and chosen to reload my save for a more perfect opening.’

’Reload the save.’

’Go back three days. Don’t touch that stretch of sea. Or set up stronger defenses in advance.’

’Everything could be redone.’

’Dead NPCs would respawn, and the ruined city would be restored to its original state.’

But there was no reloading a save here.

This was the real world.

These people weren’t data made of zeroes and ones. They would bleed, feel pain, and die.

And when they died, they were dead.

Allen loosened his fingers, and the ash drifted away on the wind.