When we got back to the kingdom, I shut myself in my workshop while everyone else worked harder than ever to expand.
When I first joined this game, Agnus and I had nearly the same goal, with different methods because of our classes. Now my class was legendary, and I had at least some information about the old legends and the legends of the other continent. For the first time, I could actually picture how to make the golem I wanted.
Even my NPC lore helped. The summary Morpheus gave me said the Golem King had a magical advisor who was always at his side. Closer to him than most.
I read that line about forty times.
That narrowed down what class to use as her base. And this time, the material was the Machina the developers had given me, enough for exactly one golem.
I spent almost a month on her.
I didn't rush anything. With Juliet, I'd fought the face for days and known what I was doing by day three. With Jane, I knew from the first hour. I let myself know it. I wasn't going to pretend this was an experiment.
Machina doesn't behave like metal. It moved under my hands. When I pressed a thumb into the cheekbone, it would drift a hair to the left, like it was correcting me. The first time it did, I nearly put the chisel down and walked away. Then I realized it was right. Her cheekbone was a little to the left. It had been for twenty years. I'd just forgotten.
I gave her silver-and-black hair, long, the way she wore it after Juliet was born and she gave up on fighting the silver. I gave her blue eyes. I gave her the little crease at the corner of her mouth that only showed up when she was trying not to laugh at me.
The ego took four days. I didn't think about what she was for. I thought about who she was. Every single thing I could remember. The way she sang wrong lyrics on purpose in the car to make Juliet scream. The way she organized the spice rack by color and then couldn't find anything. The way she said Hun when she was about to win an argument.
The Machina drank all of it. It never once looked full.
By the time I was ready to finish her, the Overgeared guild had gained territory and was waiting for Grid to arrive with Piaro and his eagle golems in tow. I barely noticed.
Before the finishing touches, I cut my finger and let a few drops of my blood fall onto the golem. Torva taught me that. It's the only thing she's ever taught me that I'd never have thought of myself.
When the last drop touched her, she lit up in a flash so bright that a pillar of light shot into the sky and pierced the clouds above the city.
I started crying for the second time in Satisfy, for a slightly different reason than the first.
Then she pulled me into a hug.
[Elsewhere]
[The Golem Queen has arisen from her slumber.]
To the players across Satisfy, this only made them more curious about the Golem Kingdom, and more determined to find it. The powerful beings of Satisfy, who'd thought the last feeling was already more than enough to handle, began fortifying themselves and preparing for the inevitable.
[Daz's POV]
Name: Jane Daedalus
Level: 1
Race: Homunculus
Class: Golem Queen
Title: [One Who Became a Legend]
Abnormal conditions have no effect.Will not be recalled when health is at its minimum. (12-hour cooldown)Easily acknowledged.Can always be seen by her creator, no matter where she is.
Title: [Golem Queen]
Lets the Queen of All Golems show power befitting her status. Choose one aspect of the golems created in your kingdom, and gain that aspect at a level equal to all golems under it combined. No time limit or requirements.
Title: [Wife of the Golem Creator]
Likeability with all golem-type entities +1000%.Nearby golems' attack and defense increase by 30% every three minutes. Stacks up to 30 times.Receives extra bonuses when patted on the head.Gains a 90% stat boost when showing strong emotion for the Golem Creator. Stacks up to 3 times.
Title: [Old Legend]
Remains neutral with established Legends unless changed on purpose.Likeability with created golem Legends +100%.All stats +800.
She looked just like my wife. Silver-and-black hair. Blue eyes. And the second she opened her mouth, that bubbly voice I hadn't heard in six years.
"Hun. You look terrible. Have you been eating?"
I couldn't answer. I just held her for the next fifteen minutes without saying a word, running my hand through her hair over and over, like I needed to check, every few seconds, that she was still real.
I know it's a game. I know. But it felt real. This was what I'd imagined when I started.
Then the door banged open.
Juliet stood in the doorway, her Machina sword still in her hand, breathing hard like she'd run the whole way from the far end of the city. She'd felt the pillar of light. Everyone had.
She looked at the woman in my arms. Her sword hit the floor.
"...Mama?"
Jane let go of me. She didn't walk to Juliet. She knelt right where she was and opened her arms, and Juliet crossed the room in three steps and fell into them, and the two of them just held on to each other on the workshop floor.
Fenrir appeared in the doorway a second later, in his human form. He stopped there, uncertain, the way he'd stood in the doorway the day Juliet was born.
Jane looked up at him over Juliet's shoulder. There was no hesitation in her at all.
"Well? Come here, my big boy. Don't make me get up."
Fenrir came.
I was so tired from working nonstop that I passed out right there in the game, and got forced to log out.
I woke up to Agnus bringing me food in bed. Did he take me out of the pod when I got force-logged out? He must have.
"You were logged in for a long time," Agnus said. "I'm hoping that means good news, since I saw that announcement."
"I... I did it, Agnus. I finally did it. I recreated them in Satisfy."
Tears started forming in my eyes as I looked at him. He stammered for a moment before he spoke.
"You... you're not lying to me. But how? Is it because you're technically an 'NPC' now? That means it's possible for me, too." His hands were shaking on the tray. "Just you wait, Daz. Once I do it, I'm coming to your kingdom. Both of us."
[Third Person POV]
The two brothers gave each other a bro hug, then had breakfast together.
Daz had finished the goal he'd set for himself the moment he started Satisfy. Now he could finally enjoy the game for what it was. The creators had also set out a few things for him to do now and then, until his 'chapter' came around.
Agnus, on the other hand, was still far from his goal. That didn't mean he'd give up or slow down. Seeing his brother had lit a fire in him that hadn't been there for a long time.
Once they'd eaten, showered and worked out, both of them logged back in.
[Daz's POV]
When I logged back in, I was lying in a giant bed. Jane was sitting on the edge of it, holding my hand. Fenrir was curled up on my head, and Juliet was lying across my chest.
The moment I shifted, all three woke up and pulled me into a hug.
Before I could say anything, I noticed something that froze my brain for a second.
Name: Jane Daedalus
Level: 200
What in the world had happened while I was supposedly sleeping? As if to answer my unasked question, Jane spoke up.
"Hun, from the look on your face, you're probably wondering how I got so strong so fast. When you passed out, I carried you up here and had Fenrir watch over you. Juliet joined him. Then I took a golem party and raided a dungeon for a while. It didn't take long to reach this level, since I'm just regaining my old power. With this new body you've given me, and that new material you made, I'm much stronger than the number shows."
I tried to process the fact that she was probably the second-strongest being here, even at level 200. I didn't get to think about it for long, though, because someone knocked.
When I said to come in, Martimer walked in. Apparently she'd appointed herself one of Jane's personal guards and her secretary. She went down on one knee, bowed, and gave her report.
"My King. The kingdom has reached its initial size, now that construction is finalized. We're expanding further to build more cities and villages, since we've discovered the forest has grown much, much bigger than before. The people would also like you to establish laws and taxes.
"Our current population is 3,000 humanoid golems, 2,300 monster golems, 1,000 giant golems and 5,000 animal golems. The people have also asked for a larger population to fill the coming cities and villages. Lastly, we'd like you to name the capital city where we live now."
It was a lot to take in, but I got ready quickly and went to work.
I named the capital Khilux. Every other city and village would be named by a vote of the people who live there.
I asked Jane for help with the laws and taxes, since I'm not good at that kind of thing. She looked at me the way she used to look at me when I tried to do our taxes, and said "Hun" in a tone that settled it.
Then I got to work making golems. I planned to make guard squads for Jane and Juliet, and I wanted the best material I could find for them.
Recently, a wandering golem party had found a dungeon with a special variety of mithril, called silver mithril. Torva crafted with it and told me it imbues whatever it's made into with random elements, usually two or more, and it's extremely durable. Whatever element it's imbued with makes it immune to that element. It can also absorb that element to restore durability, for weapons and armor. If I made golems out of it, they might even be able to heal from those elements.
The Queen's and Princess's guard squads won't happen anytime soon, though. We don't have nearly enough silver mithril yet.
I put that out of my mind and kept crafting while watching my eagles all over the world. These days, when I access their sight, it shows up like a giant virtual TV with dozens of screens at once.
Jane came and sat beside me with a stack of papers in her lap, reading me draft laws out loud and asking me what I thought, and then doing what she'd already planned to do anyway.
Just like old times.