I Somehow Got Tasked With Managing A Realm

I Somehow Got Tasked With Managing A Realm – Chapter 36

The rest of the battle period went by fairly quickly as I spent the time silently mourning. Even Mr. Flippers seemed devastated at the loss of Uunga and left his ice palace- moving onto my lap instead. 

As the six hours of the battle phase came to a close and around 250 years passed in my realm, the feeling of loss began to subside a bit.

"He wasn't immortal, Mr. Flippers. His life span was only long enough to make it through the battle phase; even if he had survived the fight, he would have been gone by now anyway," I muttered, though I wasn't quite sure whether I was talking to him or myself.

"... Squawk."

"I know. I miss him too."

This is never going to get easier, is it?

With a sigh, I glanced back to my screen which had been focused on my temple ever since the passing of Uugna. Although only 250 years had passed, there had been a considerable difference in the surroundings when compared to before the Oracle had arrived.

What had once been a mess and jumble of tipis now resembled an organized settlement with lined shelters and continuous walking paths between them. These miniature roads all joined in a circle surrounding the temple, leaving enough room for a small village center in front where my humans happily roasted pieces of chicken over a warm fire.

It appeared that the humans maintained the layout Uunga had designed even after his passing, which gave the settlement a level of sophistication far ahead of what would be expected of their time. Had my humans been technologically advanced enough to use wood to build their homes, the area could easily be mistaken for a pre-modern town.

I'm honestly pretty surprised about how neat they've been able to keep the whole thing... maybe it's because the number of people living there hasn't changed much?

When Uunga left the plateau, I figured it would only take a few months before people started setting up in the clear pathways or out in front of the temple, but that clearly wasn't the case.

It wasn't as though the population hadn't been increasing, it had maintained roughly the same growth rate as before the battle phase, but the plateau had long reached its population limit based on the food supply.

There were only so many mushrooms, cherries, and chickens that they could reliably eat, so people were venturing from the plateau at the same rate as more humans were conceived. It was because of this that it became much harder to keep track of Uunga's descendants as their generations increased. They seemed to have much more of a drive to explore when compared with their peers.

The sheer amount of them is a bit absurd too... I watched them for as long as I could, Uunga.

I sighed taking one last look at the screen.

"It's about time for us to head back to the Academy, Mr. Flippers. Are you ready?"

"Squawk..."

"Come on, I'm hurting too, but we can't just stay here forever. Don't you want to see Julia?"

"Squawk!"

As if a lightbulb went off in his penguin head, a bit of energy returned to Mr. Flippers' depressed body. A small smile found its way onto my face at his reaction as I picked him up and rose from my chair.

"Transport to the academy!"

"Agh!"

"Squawk!"

The two of us were instantly blinded by the bright lights of the audience hall.

"It's been so long since we've been here... I can't believe I forgot about how bright it is," I muttered.

There wasn't really a point to it, so I hadn't been counting the total amount of time I had spent in my domain. Since I was constantly switching between varying levels of time dilation, it would have been hard to say for certain even if I had tried. That being said, it was probably a year or two, with most of that taking place during Uunga's final march.

Of course, I had only been in my domain for about nine hours from the Academy's perspective, which stayed on heavenly time throughout the battle phases.

Still... it looks a bit different than the last time I was here.

There was one key difference compared to before: the stage that had been left barren since my introduction to the Academy now had what resembled two treasure chests resting on its floor. In addition to this, the stage's back wall was now covered by a massive scoreboard.

Between the two chests was a small desk facing out toward the audience hall where a robbed figure sat while writing things down on a piece of parchment.

A moment after my observation, the figure lifted its head- its gaze focusing intensely on us.

"It seems you're finally here, Jacob."

That robe... this voice...

"Tatton?"

"So you remember me," the figure spoke.

I could feel a grin under his purple hood.

"Of course! How could I forget you after you helped me so much with my realm?" I said as I made my way toward the stage, "Thank you again for lending me those resource points back then."

"There is no need to thank me so much; it was for my benefit, as well," I could feel his smile deepen as he spoke, "It would have been a shame to see such an interesting realm collapse before it could get put to the test. Based on the data I gathered, I could say it was worth the investment- and that was only from your first battle phase!"

"You were watching?"

"Naturally- observation is my job, after all. The Flower Box monitors every battle to ensure integrity, but I made sure that I was assigned to look over yours. Speaking of which, that was quite a show you put on."

Tatton waved me onto the stage and pointed at the top left of the large rectangular scoreboard where the number '4' was displayed next to a small picture of me.

"Three points for a tier III defensive victory and one point for a tier I offensive victory. You're the only person who was able to score so many points during this battle phase, as you can see."

Now finally on stage, I could get a much better look at the scoreboard. Sure enough, I was the only person with four points, however, there were a ton of creatures with three and even more with zero.

"Hey, Tatton. What's with all of the zero points? Did they all not have an opponent?" I couldn't help but ask.

"There were no absentees from this first battle phase- all of the zeroes you see were from Seedlings who were defeated," he explained, "Everyone is awarded one point per tier victory, but points are deducted equivalently per tier defeat. As Seedlings are still getting used to the competition, out of mercy on these first battle phases, it is impossible to go below zero points."

I nodded at his words, but my eyes still wandered across the scoreboard. Eventually, I found the person I was looking for.

My heart sank.

Come on, me. You knew it would be a tough battle for her.

I clenched my fist regardless.

Zero points for Julia. She lost, but I don't know what tier it was... hopefully it wasn't too bad.

"So," Tatton spoke pulling me out of my thoughts, "You have one Tier I prize and one Tier III prize. Which would you like to receive first?"

"I guess I'll start with the Tier I prize."

"Well, there is a 50% chance of that happening," Tatton said as he sat back down at the desk.

"... What? So I don't get to pick which one's first?"

"Nope- I don't even have authority over the prizes. The whole system was designed by the Founder; the chest scans your divinity signature when you touch it and spits out a random prize or punishment based on what was earned in the competition. I'm just here to keep everything running smoothly... and to observe."

"Why'd you even-"

"To get your attention. Like I said, I need to make sure everything is running smoothly. There are still plenty of Seedlings who need to receive their prize and I would prefer to get you moved out of the audience hall before they show up. Having a line form would not look too good on my part."

"... Got it."

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With his feathered pen in hand, Tatton pointed to the chest on the left, which I leisurely approached.

"Once again, just open the chest and your prize will be revealed."

With a nod, I placed Mister Flippers down onto the stage and placed my hands on the side of a chest.

After a deep breath, I slowly opened its lid. A faint golden hue shone from inside of the chest, yet when I peeked inside, there was nothing present.

"Ah- it looks like you got some Resource Points. Judging by the strength of the light, that was your Tier I prize," Tatton spoke from the desk as he wrote something on his parchment, "I guess the odds were in your favor."

"... I guess they were," I muttered.

Resource Points were an extremely useful thing to have, and in fact, I had wanted to get them relatively soon for a certain side project. Yet despite this, a bittersweet feeling pinged in my chest at the prize.

Uunga... this was the result of your efforts.

"Now it's time for your Tier III prize. All you need to do is close and re-open the chest and it will be yours."

With no reason to wait, I closed the chest's lid, but just as I was about to open it again, something that Tatton said resonated in my mind.

The odds were in my favor...

"Hey Tatton, are the prizes we get decided beforehand?"

He looked at me curiously.

"I believe that the prize is selected once the chest is opened. Of course, the prizes available in each Tier are set beforehand by the Founder, but it should be up to luck what is drawn."

Light reflected off my eyes.

Luck is it?

With a sly grin, I turned to face the penguin at my side.

Memories of the thousands of times he had destroyed me in card games flashed through my mind.

If luck is the determining factor, shouldn't I have the luckiest person I know open the chest for me?

"Squawk?" Mister Flippers tilted his penguin head at my gaze.

"Would you want to open the chest for me, Mister Flippers?"

"Squawk!" the penguin excitedly hopped over to the chest at my offer.

"You are having it open the chest on your behalf?" Tatton asked at the scene.

"Yeah. Is that a problem?"

"Well, it's just that, like I said before..." Tatton paused while speaking, "You know what? Go ahead."

I shrugged off his comment and nodded at Mister Flippers who happily flung open the chest.

A deep blue hue spilled out from the container. I felt an intense stare from the robbed figure.

"How interesting..."

I picked up on Tatton's mutter and looked into the chest where a small stone statue roughly the size of a water bottle was floating inside.

Slowly, I reached in and picked it up.

"This... is us, isn't it?" I muttered as I looked at the statue in my hand.

"Squawk?"

The figure was clearly a statue of me holding Mister Flippers while in my winter gear.

"A temple upgrade this early into the competition!" Tatton exclaimed in astonishment.

"What does it do?"

"You will get all of the information regarding it once you return to your domain."

As he was speaking a creature teleported into the audience hall. I reflexively tightened my grip on the statue, which then vanished into a puff of blue smoke.

"It seems the next Seedling is here," Tatton spoke as he finished writing, "Please clear the audience hall, Jacob."

"Alright," I picked up Mister Flippers and made my way off the stage, "Thank you again for the help, Tatton."

"I am sure we will meet again soon. Keep showing me great things until then."

With those words, I made my way off the stage and headed toward the massive wooden doors connecting the audience hall to the rest of the Academy.

"It sounds like you got us a really good prize! Good job, Mister Flippers!" I whispered to the penguin in my arms as we walked through the doors.

"Squawk!" the penguin responded with a smug look.

I smiled and patted his head, but I soon let out a sigh.

I do want to check out what that statue does... but there's someone I want to see first.

"Squawk?"

"Don't worry, I'm fine. I'm just worried someone else might not be..."

She said that she would meet me-

As if cutting off my thoughts, I spotted a familiar elf girl leaning on the wall outside of the classroom.

My heartbeat increased at the sight of her.

"Sorry, Mister Flippers, I might need to put you down for a second," I whispered as I placed the penguin next to me.

It's been so long since I've seen her, yet she's just as cute as I remember.

I couldn't help but smile as I walked closer to the girl.

"Hey, Julia!" I called out.

The girl glanced over in my direction- a bright smile appeared on her face and she immediately ran toward me.

"Jacob!"

A moment later, I caught the elf girl in my arms.

"It looks like someone's happy to see me," I teased.

"Mhm."

Although I was expecting some sort of rebuttal, the elf girl only subtly nodded her head on my chest at my words.

"I missed you," she muttered while wrapping her arms tighter around me.

"I missed you, too. We were gone for way too long," I smiled and hugged her tight.

"Mhm..."

Eventually, Julia lightened her grip and pulled away with slightly red ears.

"You really cashed in that hug pretty quickly," I teased again referring back to the promise we made the last time we saw each other.

"S-shut up! I definitely needed it though..." she mumbled with her expression becoming somber with that final line.

"... It didn't go so well, huh?"

"No. It did not," she sighed.

I sat down against the wall and Julia followed suit.

Before we continued talking, Mister Flippers shyly waddled over to us.

"Squawk..."

"Oh, hi, little one!"

With a small smile on her face, Julia picked up the penguin and placed him on her lap.

"Squawk squawk!"

Ignoring the embarrassed penguin's protests, the elf girl leaned her head on my shoulder as we talked.

Apparently, Julia was matched against some sort of bipedal ant-resembling creature.

"They were pretty weak individually, but there were so many of them and they all worked together seamlessly. It was like they were naturally trained for war..." she complained.

"Well, if they are antmen, that would make sense," I let out a groan as I talked, "That might have been the worst possible opponent for you in the first battle."

"I know right!? What's up with that!?"

We discussed her realm's strengths and weaknesses in detail while preparing for the battle phase. Given her realm's geography and the nature of her elves, she had enormous potential to be a defensive behemoth in the future once magic was developed and proper cities were formed.

In the short term, however, and what was the main issue with this first battle, was that the elves' magic capabilities were still in their infancy and the settlements that formed were isolated and small.

These small settlements did not stand a chance against a large and coordinated force, which of course happened to be the specialty of a race resembling ants.

"... How bad was it?" I eventually asked the question that was squeezing at my heart.

Given the circumstances, it wouldn't have been surprising if it was a Tier III defeat where 66% of her lifeforms were killed.

But... the way she's acting makes that seem not to be the case.

Sure, Julia looked extremely sad, but it wasn't anywhere close to an overwhelming mourning.

Maybe she got away with a Tier II defeat?

"... Forty-two percent," she muttered.

"I'm sorry, Julia. That's horrible..." I clenched my fist as I reflected on that scale.

I cared deeply for all of my humans. If I had to witness such a massive amount of them dying with no way to stop it, I wasn't sure I would be anywhere near as composed as Julia had been.

But wait... it's fifty percent for a Tier II defeat, so isn't that still a Tier I loss?

As if seeing my realization, a somber smile appeared on the elf's face.

"That's... well I want to say 'that's great', but it's kind of hard to considering how much you lost. Still, how did you manage to pull away with only a Tier I defeat!?"

"If it wasn't for Orisa, my Oracle, it would have been so much worse," she explained, "Orisa was way ahead of the rest of the elves with using spells and she could somewhat use plant manipulation. There was no way the traps would've worked so well with anyone else."

"So you went the trap route, after all?"

"Yep! I thought it was the best option."

Given the nature of the antmen, they brought one massive and well-organized force. While this was powerful, the problem for them layed in there being no way to replenish their numbers. The antment are loyal to their own colony; it would be difficult for the Oracle to take over another's for the sake of the invasion. With that in mind, for the person defending against them, there was no need to worry about reinforcements; once an antman was slain, their overall number would permanently decrease.

"-So you used guerilla tactics!"

"Mhm! Orisa would take out one or two at a time using traps or through combat and would retreat once reinforcements showed up," she summarized, "Their Oracle eventually fled once we got rid of most of the weaker ones."

"... I'm proud of you, Julia. You did well," I said honestly.

I'm glad she remembered what I spent so long teaching her. She kept her reasoning despite seeing so many of her elves die.

I pulled Julia a bit closer- I ignored the slight reddening of her ears.

"Considering this should be the weakest your realm will be, coming away with just a Tier I defeat is pretty amazing, but it's still a defeat, so-"

"You wanted to know what punishment I got, right?" she interrupted with a sigh.

"... Yes please."

"I got lucky- it was a forest fire."

"That's lucky?" I thought back to what she told me back when we first met, "I thought that elves lived in those giant trees. Wouldn't a forest fire be horrible?"

"Normally, yes, but none of my elves are advanced enough with spells to manipulate those big trees yet, so they're all just living in small huts. Plus, I went back to my domain to check, and the fire happened to be in the main forest, but that was already cleared out by the invaders."

So that's about what I could expect from a Tier I punishment... honestly, it's not anything too crazy.

Despite the relief at Julia's fortune and the relative softness of the punishment, I was still left curious and slightly uneasy about what the higher tiers would entail.

With those thoughts in my mind, I stood up and reached out a hand to help Julia up, as well.

"I'm glad it worked out. I'm proud of you Julia," I said as she took my hand and stood up with Mister Flippers in her arms, "But that's enough talk about the competition. I just spent like two-ish years worrying about it nonstop; I don't want to waste the time I have with you thinking about it too."

"Yeah. I feel the same," Julia thought for a moment before suggesting, "Oh! How about we got to the bath!?"

"Sounds good to me, let's go! The stuff I make with domain creation really doesn't compare to the stuff they have here."

"I know, right!? I just can't seem to match it exactly-"

"Wait, hang on. You were able to make soap with domain creation?"

"Huh? Yeah, of course I could. Why, what's wrong?"

"No... it's nothing."

Does Julia know the chemical composition of soaps? No... there's no way she does. So how did she-

"Jacob~ come on! I want to go to the bath!" she called out a few steps in front of me, snapping me out of my thoughts.

"Squawk!"

"Fine, fine, I'm coming!"

Deciding to deal with that another time, the three of us made our way to the bathhouse to enjoy the time we had together.