I Somehow Got Tasked With Managing A Realm

I stared at my screen in complete awe at the transformation of my realm.

How much time even passed before I regained my senses? Hours? Days? Weeks? Year? Centuries? Eons?

In reality, it was just a few minutes, but that doesn’t undermine just how shocked, impressed, and excited I was about what my humans had accomplished while I was in the Academy, banging my head against a wall trying to make a semiconductor function.

I wanted some time to reflect on everything, but I didn’t even know where to begin.

I guess I’ll just go in the order I saw everything.

The first thing I did was investigate the ‘Mergo’ people, since I was curious about the request for popcorn I received in the Prayer Log.

My humans getting popcorn was surprising enough, but let’s not get off topic.

The way the request was worded made it pretty clear that the Mergos were some type of traders, so I started looking over villages for any signs of people carrying a large number of goods.

Imagine my surprise when I not only found a large caravan of hundreds of people, but also the wheeled carts they were pulling!

I nearly fell out of my seat when I saw them. I looked away from my screen in disbelief and waited for a minute before looking again. The carts were still there, but I still couldn't believe my eyes, so I used domain creation to make a mirror to check them. Surprisingly, only a handsome face with clear yet shocked eyes stared back at me.

It's a face worthy of an elf, right?

Tossing the mirror aside, I tried moving my screen around to learn more about the carts, eventually discovering they seemed to be a fixed-wheel type with wheels that were locked in place by wooden pegs.

While they still had a lot of room for improvement, it was a given how monumental this invention was for my realm. The trade possibilities alone were already showing their fruits with my humans gaining access to resources and technology from what were typically areas far out of their reach. My realm was becoming more interconnected and advanced with every exchange of goods.

If they can trade items, they can trade information. With information, they can learn. And with that knowledge, they can create things to advance them even further!

That’s not even mentioning how useful those carts would be in transferring supplies during this upcoming battle phase. This alone helped ease my worry a bit, and I was able to relax enough to let some air out of my lungs.

Phew~

I was witnessing the start of a new age in my realm; a sight that easily brought a proud tear to my eye.

Wiping away that drop of pride, I refocused on one of the carts.

“Man, they really have everything!”

The cart had things from the corners of my realm: corn kernels, obsidian tools, pottery, cloth, dough wrapped in corn husks, and even some mountain chicken hide.

It looks like that kid might get some popcorn, after all.

I glanced back over to the Prayer Log with a small grin before looking back at the screen.

It actually makes it really easy to see what’s been developed… it might’ve taken me a while to figure out they started making cloth. Actually, since they have woven cloth, they must’ve invented a loom too, right?

I was growing more impressed with my humans with every new discovery I made. These carts were practically like rolling museums in my eyes.

Just as I was beginning to wonder how they even managed to keep track of everything, I noticed the clay tablets with carved pictographs in some of the merchants’ hands, which shocked me enough to knock me out of my chair.

“THEY STARTED WRITING, TOO!?”

I screamed into my empty domain, yet there was no one to share my excitement with. And so, with no squawks to regain my focus, my mind started spiraling into thought.

It’s not full-on written language, but my humans really made an absolutely amazing first step towards it!

What they had currently achieved was, objectively speaking, just the very start of transitioning to a written language. Although I was proud of them, I knew it would be quite a while before those scribbles of goods with their amounts logged in dots and lines turned into letters that represented sounds.

The next step is by far the hardest, in my opinion. Instead of using existing things like drawings of pots, they’ll need to figure out how to represent sounds in their writing and figure out ways to put them together to actually make words.

While it could be argued that showing and developing grammar rules may be a more daunting task than inventing letters, I figured they could make things at least broadly understandable by mirroring their everyday speech.

Making spelling universal is a whole other hurdle.

I shuddered as I thought about the crazy people back on Earth who spelled ‘color’ as ‘colour’ and ‘traveled’ and ‘travelled’.

Yeah, we gave ‘U that ‘L’ back in 1776.

The sudden burst of red, white, and blue coursing through my veins brought me back to attention.

Speaking of war, I should check for the obvious, shouldn’t I?

There was one weapon that I was absolutely desperate for my humans to invent before the start of the invasion. Until just recently with the addition of corn, these weapons that I yearned for as a defense in the case those sirins could fly in my realm weren't really possible to make, as they needed some strong fibrous plant to use as a string.

That’s right; what I deeply needed was for my humans to create the pinnacle of ancient range weaponry: a bow… and an arrow to shoot with it, of course.

… But where should I look to find one of those?

Honestly, I was a bit anxious since it didn’t seem like the Mergo merchant people had any in their carts. I figured that if my realm did have them, they must be either a new invention or located fairly far from the crowded region near the plateau.

Maybe the northern hunting tribes could have them? Bows would definitely be useful against mountain chickens.

Having witnessed some brutal encounters with those rampaging beasts that looked closer to a feathery raptor than a chicken, I was sure my humans would rather take them out from a distance than risk getting cut by their sharp talons or chomped by their jagged teeth.

With anxious anticipation, I changed my screen to one of the northern hunting villages.

Oh? Are they fighting off a stampede? I guess it is around that time of year in my realm- that’s great timing for me!

The yearly spring stampedes, where the mountain chickens rushed down the mountains in the north and crossed the horizontal river spanning to the eastern gulf, were an extremely dangerous, yet equally prosperous, opportunity for the humans in my realm. Thousands of mountain chickens meant thousands of mountain chicken hides and tens of thousands of meals, after all.

To fend off these beasts, the northern hunting tribes would need to use every weapon at their disposal.

I let out a sigh.

But I don’t see them using any bows.

I watched my humans fend off the mountain chickens in an attempt to mask my disappointment and growing anxiety over the upcoming invasion.

"Calm down, me. You should've expected this. It makes sense, doesn't it? The Mergos had mountain chicken hide, so they obviously must've been up north, but they didn't have any bows in their carts. That was enough of a sign."

As I reasoned with myself, I noticed a javelin launch across my screen.

Schlinch!

"Whoa!"

I immediately straightened my posture and hurriedly moved the screen to find the source of the devastating weapon. It was roughly 100 feet away, the distance of about 170 chickens standing side by side, where I found a hunter notching a javelin onto a thin wooden handle. Once secured, the hunter lifted the weapon attached to the handle into a throwing position.

Whoosh!

Just as before, the javelin launched at a devastating speed before fatally and accurately embedding itself into the side of a mountain chicken.

"That is so cool..."

Words of admiration slipped through my lips at the scene, yet I struggled a bit to understand what I was seeing.

It looks like they made some sort of tool to give them more leverage for throwing spears? That small wooden tool probably doubled their power and range! At this point, I might start pitying those mountain chickens...

Although it wasn't a bow, it was clear my humans had gotten a huge upgrade in their range capabilities thanks to this device. I absolutely wracked my brain for a while trying to figure out if ancient humans on Earth used anything similar before I vaguely recalled a device called an atlatl, which I presumed was similar.

"I guess I don't need to be overly worried about my humans now. Even in the case they don't have bows, they should at least be able to defend themselves against those sirins decently well."

I scratched the back of my head as I started moving my screen around my realm.

Well, there's no point in giving up the search now. Even if the northern hunting tribes don't have bows, that doesn't mean they're not used somewhere else.

Despite thinking this, I knew that there would be the greatest chance of the bows being created in areas where they'd actually be useful. That essentially narrowed down my list to the northern part of my realm with the mountain chickens, the western half of the continent where there were still numerous predator chickens wandering around, or potentially the coast where the bows could maybe be useful in hunting quasi-ducks. Those in the northeast of my realm were actually pretty decent at flying, which I presumed was because there were mountain chickens present year-round north of the horizontal river where they frequented.

At this point, my humans hunting them might be playing a role in their flight evolving and improving, too.

With my next destination settled on, I began exploring the northern gulf coast in my realm. It didn't take long for my hopes to come to fruition.

"Jackpot!"

I hopped out of my seat and pumped my fist in the air. It was exactly as I predicted; I spotted a group of villagers stealthily sneaking through some tall grass on the edge of the beach with their bows drawn tight. Their targets were the numerous quasi-ducks sunbathing on the sandy shore.

If they rushed in, they'd all scatter and fly away before any of those quasi-ducks could be caught. Maybe they'd have some luck with throwing a spear, but that would probably be way too noticeable... and a bit overkill for such a small bird.

A small and mostly silent bow was the perfect solution for their hunting needs.

"And now I'm confident my humans can deal with those sirins in the worst-case scenario," I smirked, letting go of the last of my worry.

Still, as I watched the group shoot their first arrow, a feeling of curiosity filled my head.

If this village had bows, why aren't they used in other places? I can kinda see it not spreading far inland since they're not really needed against normal chickens, but I'm sure they could be used by the northern hunter tribes in addition to the atlatl things.

Even then, I wasn't seeing many signs of those bows too much further south than the village I first found them in, despite quasi-ducks also being present there.

Is it just their personal preference to use spears?

I wasn't sure of the reason, but there was no use thinking about it anyway. Regardless of their preferences, I needed my humans to become familiar with using the bows in time for the next battle phase. So with twitching fingers, I switched my screen to that of my temple.

"After so long, it's the perfect time to choose my next priest! I'll have to ask him to have those Mergo guys bring bows to the plateau."

To my surprise, the temple was actually empty- instead, the priest seemed to be preoccupied by a large gathering of men holding spears gathered on the mossy clearing just outside the temple. It appeared to be some sort of meeting with what were either soldiers or guards, but I had to listen in to try to get more information.

"Rus knowg vilnis tinbu kongi en sut. Hun cagni opt oudni kongi weng wagyu antuni."

The man who spoke those words was standing at the front of the soldiers, allowing me to make the assumption that he was likely their captain. Given how the man he was speaking to seemed to have less of a battle-heavy physique and was the only person not holding a spear, I figured he was likely the priest I was looking for.

While I took a mental note of this, a few things caught my attention.

Their language changed a bit since I was last here. It sounds a bit more... sophisticated, maybe? There's a bit more clarity in their vocabulary, at least.

The automatic translation that I received for being a Seedling meant I never really had to worry about understanding my humans. Even so, I developed a hobby of learning my realm's language so that I could grow a bit closer to them.

Luckily, it's not really very difficult to catch myself up with it, since I can easily use the translation thing to help me understand what their words mean.

Even so, I couldn't help but narrow my eyes at what the captain was saying.

The villages to the south are fighting? Are my humans already at the point where they're starting to fight against each other?

A sigh escaped my lips, and I scratched the back of my head.

"I knew it would happen eventually, and I know it might even be better for the development of my realm if they do, but I really don't like that my babies are killing each other."

As I muttered to myself, their conversation continued.

"Hun gan kongini... uta antuni kongi cagin hun cagni opt yu ok su. Credu ok un wund dungin bun hod hord urgu un wunda- wag huma gan conbu gu kongi kongrumas."

My humans have a pretty good grasp of time to know that I'd be back soon... but I guess they weren't expecting me to listen in on their gossip.

I smirked a bit before leaning back in my seat.

"But they seem a bit overwhelmed... is the fighting really that bad? I mean, I guess it would have to be pretty bad if the temple had to start getting involved with breaking up all of it. I know it's pretty crowded near the temple, but there's still so much empty land on the western side of the continent."

Curiously, I checked on one of my monitors and pulled up the current population of my realm.

"There's roughly 4,262,000 people now!? Man, my realm is growing fast! Can you believe we started with just 10,000 of them, Mr. Flippers? ... Oh, right."

The non-existent reply from the penguin who stayed behind with Tatton snatched me from my nostalgia, so I started thinking again.

It's a lot of people, but my realm can easily support many times that number.

By modern Earth's perspective, even the majority of the land east of the river was pretty rural. Of course, my realm had only two-thirds of the circumference of Earth, but that was still a lot of land. From what I could tell, there was more than enough land available for them- especially considering they now had corn and even seemed to discover nixtamalization while I was away at the Academy, judging by the dough I spotted on the cart. The caloric efficiency of corn was amazing- and that was only one of many food sources my humans had.

Based on what I was seeing before, I think my humans just really value their own villages and want as much land and resources as possible under their control. My guess is that the villages themselves aren't really at risk of running out of space; their conflicts are probably due to overlapping claims on the land between them.

Even so, it was not a simple problem to solve.

I think this fighting might even keep growing until the villages start uniting into small states.

Anxiety over resources was much less likely to become a problem when the people around them were allies instead of enemies. It seemed like most of the villages near the plateau currently saw themselves as the latter of those- or as rivals, at the very least.

Hopefully the concept of states doesn't take too long for them to discover. Maybe they're already starting to form, though, based on what I'm seeing with the soldiers at the temple...

Just as I was growing anxious about my humans falling into needless bloodshed, I noticed a small crystal ball on my desk starting to glow blue. With a smile overwriting my previously worried expression, I hurriedly lifted the crystal ball and answered the incoming call.

"Hey, Julia! You're already calling? I thought it would be another 70 years before I heard from you~" I teased.

I could practically hear her rolling her eyes through the ball, "I already told you that I'm going to double-check the rune whenever I change the time in my domain now. That's not a mistake I can afford to make again... I'm lucky that Elger was preparing things without me during that incident. But how is your realm looking so far, Jacob?"

"Honestly, it's looking way better than I could've predicted. My humans are really developing so fast; it's actually crazy! Oh yeah- they even have bows now, Julia!" I beamed.

"They do? That's great, Jacob! I told you that you were stressing about it way too much... but since you're saying that, I'm guessing that half-sirin did end up attacking you then?"

"Yeah... it definitely could be a tough matchup even with bows, but it's going to be way more manageable now that they have them~. What about you though, Julia? Did you get paired against anyone tough? You don't sound very worried, at least," I asked.

Julia spoke casually, "Yes, I got matched against someone... it must've been another random matchup because I don't even recognize this Seedling. It says it's a Spikang."

"The heck is that?"

"I don't know," she shrugged, "It’s kind of roundish and covered in these thin spikes. It would be a nightmare to fight them at close range, but I really don't see those spikes being a problem for my elves. They can shoot them down from pretty far away with their bows."

"Huh... they kind of sound like porcupines back on Earth. But yeah, I think you finally got a pretty decent matchup! They don’t sound like they’d be as big of a headache as those swimmy things, at least.”

“Ugh, don’t remind me,” Julia groaned, apparently hitting her head against her desk loud enough for me to hear through the orb, “Why in Alghelme are they still in my realm!?”

"I guess them dying off was just wishful thinking from you, huh?" I smiled.

Julia sighed through the orb, "No... I knew that would've been nearly impossible. Those things scatter into the water if an elf even looks at them funny... they're way too frustrating to disappear without a fight."

"They don't even disappear with a fight," I teased, "How many times did you send your Oracle after them?"

"..."

"Pfft-"

I couldn't hold back my laughter as I imagined her glare.

"... My Oracle got them to stay in the invader buffer zone at least," she pouted, "I'm just glad that they're still staying there... that will make it easier to deal with them this time."

"Yeah, it sounds pretty convenient," I nodded. "Speaking of which, are you able to see how many there are in your realm?'

"Maybe? I haven't checked- give me a second."

Faint sounds of Julia rearranging runes on her desk leaked through the orb.

"Gross. I can see it... There are about twelve thousand of them. They've really been having fun disgracing my realm while we were away," she grumbled.

"Wow."

Twelve thousand. While it was certainly a lot of creatures to deal with, their numbers were only a fraction of what our realms face every battle phase.

But if they're just left alone, their numbers will only continue to grow. My realm started with only ten thousand humans, after all.

"Since they're in the invader buffer zone, maybe those porcupine things, the Spikangs, will help you whittle down their numbers."

"That's assuming they don't just team up and cause more problems."

"Do you think they would? I'm sure that wouldn't be easy to even pull off. I mean, only Oracles can communicate with the other lifeforms, right?" I pondered.

Julia went quiet for a moment, clearly running through the scenario in her head.

"... You're probably right," she finally muttered, "I think instead of teaming up, those annoying things would use the chance to spread around my realm again."

"Well, I wouldn't be very surprised about that either. It sounds like you're gonna have a fun battle phase," I forced a smile, "I was wondering though, what's your realm's population up to now, Julia?"

"Hm? Oh, it's about 1.9 million now. It got counted when I checked for the swamp creatures' numbers," she answered.

Almost two million...

I glanced over to my monitor, where my realm's approximately 4.2 million population was displayed.

It didn't seem like our realm's birthrates were all that different based on our past conversations, yet my realm's population was double that of hers.

Her elves apparently also live a bit longer than my humans, too.

With that in mind, there was only one explanation for the drastic difference: the results of these world-clashing conflicts.

I thought back on the battle phases.

She lost 42% of her lifeforms in her first battle phase against the antmen and 23% of them against those table bear things in the second one. Even against those swamp creatures who she's still fighting, I think she mentioned that they still killed 7% of her realm's elves, mostly because of their coastal guerrilla attacks.

Those deaths were tragic even in the moment, yet seeing the scar they left in her current realm's numbers put the loss into a whole new perspective for me.

"You've really gone through some hardships, haven't you?"

My thoughts unconsciously echoed through my lips.

"Huh? What was that?"

"Ah- sorry, I was talking to myself or something," I straightened my posture, "Anyway, I bet you're going to choose your Oracle the second you're able to, right? That'll give you the most time to get rid of those swamp creatures before the portal opens."

"Of course. I don't have a priest like you, remember? Even without the swimming headaches, I still want as much time to be able to talk to my elves as possible. There's still about twenty years left until then, but you're making it sound like you're planning on waiting a bit longer to pick yours."

I nodded at her deduction, "Yeah, I think I'll wait until it's a bit closer to the portal opening. There's a whole hour in heavenly time between when we can pick an Oracle and when the portal opens, so that's like forty-two years in our realms... I'd rather not have my Oracle sitting there waiting for two long when it's not needed. My priest can handle the actual preparations; I just need my Oracle for the actual fighting."

An image of Ruglace sitting on his wall flashed through my mind.

I still can't forget the expression he had when the toad invasion failed.

I closed my fist, imitating the way his hand gripped his stone axe.

Two generations went by before the portal opened, if I remember correctly. He lived to see his own mother forget him, despite him looking nearly the same as when he left her... I don't want to put my next Oracle through that if I don't have to.

I still planned on giving my Oracle ample time to train and prepare, of course, but I felt a figure closer to ten years would be much more fair than forty.

"That makes sense," Julia spoke, "If you don't have anything for him to deal with, I think waiting is fine. But speaking of 'waiting', I'll probably be spending most of it training with my divine bow! I'm about to set up the targets I got from Tatton~ are you going to start training soon, too, Jacob? I can try to guide you on setting up those runes he gave you if you want."

At her words, I picked up the bag Tatton gifted me for my help with his research, and I took out the numerous runes and mana stones tucked inside.

Since Mr. Flippers can't help me train, I'm supposed to hook these things up to the titanium puppets.

"I should be fine, but I'll give you a call if I need help, so thank you, Julia. I think the demonstration you two gave me back in the lab was enough help," I grinned, "But I'll let you get set up, I'm sure you're dying to use that bow."

"I really am! Okay, I'll talk to you soon, Jacob!"

"I'll talk to you soon, too, Julia! Good luck with everything!"

With those parting words, the glow on the orb faded, and I was once again left alone in my dim domain.

After taking a few moments to organize my thoughts, I straightened my posture and looked back toward the screen.

There's still a lot of work to do. Let's get ready for this battle phase!