Reincarnated as a Son of the Sword Saint and the Sage

Roughly two weeks had passed since the start of the year, also almost a month after the civil war of the Kingdom of Astley, an event that promoted our rank from a viscounty to a marquisate. On the day Mother had become the marchioness, we finally announced in front of imperial nobles that we had discovered and conquered a dungeon inside the Great Forest of Darkness, though we did not disclose the number of floors the dungeon consisted of, and told them that we would be making a city on it and we were needing people to move there.

Later on, we filed an appeal to the emperor stating that we would declare independence from the Empire of Dixon and establish a country of our own. Until now, no response had reached us. Giving up a portion of their territory that would become a potential threat must make them think deeply about the matter. Anyway, since the discovery of the dungeons had been announced to the public and it spread like wildfire, we had noticed a significant amount of adventurers coming to our city in order to set a journey to the dungeon through the dirt road we made. The Great Forest of Darkness was such a vast and dense sea of trees, so there were countless obstacles to overcome to get into the depths, such as the massive trees, the relatively suffocating condensation of mana, and the monsters themselves. For the dungeon to get populated, my family did the road-making ourselves. Firstly, we measured the distances between the dungeon and the Raevender territory's main city. The displacement was around six hundred kilometers, but that was not the actual measurement of the road. Upon further inspection, we finally found out that the shortest route possible was a seven hundred-kilometer road. Several months ago, Mom, Mother, and I began to make the road. Since the forest was thick and dense, Mom and I used magic spells like World Magic Level 2: Barren Lands that withered any vegetation in a large circular area and made any plants grow more difficult for a long time. As skilled mages as we could be, Mom and I were able to freely shape the casting area into a ten-kilometer-long, five hundred-meter-wide line. We decided to make the road that wide so that people could have time to react to a monster attack. As Mother slew the monsters around, Mom and I were busy withering the trees. Once every dirt road was created, we applied Earth Magic spells such as Level, Soil Compaction, and Soil Reinforcement as temporary finishing touches to at least minimize muddy surfaces and prevent potholes. We were planning to pave it with bricks or concrete, but we were not sure if we had a budget for that project. We also constructed bridges since there were rivers along the way. For the protection of the travelers, we basically massacred every monster ten kilometers from the road. Additionally, I used magic items that transmitted my Unique Skill: Fear Incarnation, and installed them along with the street lamps to scare off powerful monsters. Before that year ended, we finally came to a stop once the road was around fifty kilometers from the city. After the announcement, we finished the road and made it open to the public for anyone who wanted to go to the dungeon. As for the city above the dungeon, the population in it had exponentially boomed in the past few months. Together with Czarina and Inari, we explored the Great Forest of Darkness and looked for some settlements. The space in the city was still big, so we decided to recruit some around the forest. I was surprised that we found quite a number of villages and tribes living throughout the forest. There were various races other than humans, such as beastkins, elves, dwarves, lizardmen, kobolds and cat-siths, sorts of bipedal wolves and cats of the Southern Continent, and more. We managed to convince many of them to live in the city, though we did show off our strengths a little, which probably coerced them to do so. As of now, the city had a population of around twenty thousand.

With a massive influx of new residents, a large construction project was implemented. For the new and future residents, numerous houses and establishments were built, and the fields between the inner and outer walls drastically expanded. The city would be the capital of our future nation; therefore, we were expecting waves of people from several nations to come over here. But since there were a certain percentage of nonhuman individuals already living here, my family decided to allow any race to reside in our country, and we even implemented an order not to discriminate against everyone. We do not tolerate racism here. But we still could not stop others from judging anyone based on their outward appearance. There were others who were afraid of nonhumans. That was why I took some measures to reduce such incidents. The Elemental Foxes had been in this forest for some time. They were the most monstrous residents in this city and would definitely make anyone run for their money upon seeing them. By blessing each of them with Extra Skill: Personification, they could gain a human form without any nerfs. With that form, anyone without Appraisal would be seeing them as humans, and their diet would dramatically lessen as they would not have to consume large amounts of food due to their smaller body masses. For some grotesque nonhumans such as Kobolds, Cat-Siths, and Lizardmen, I just have them slay monsters in the dungeon and level up. At Level 200, Kobolds and Cat-Siths would evolve into Werewolves and Werecats, respectively. They would gain human-sized bodies and acquire Extra Skill: Anthropomorphization to transform themselves into human form. But personally, I prefer the Puss-in-Boots sizes for kitties. Lizardmen needed to reach Level 300 to evolve into Dragonewts, although they would not gain body-changing abilities like werewolves and werecats did. Although they had physical changes. After evolving, instead of an ability, their reptilian appearances would become less prevalent, and they would become more humanlike. Human-like head with dragon horns, more skin-to-scale ratio, human arms and hands. There were still indeed inhuman characteristics, such as the tail and legs and reptilian eyes, but they were way better than before the evolution. The city had just announced a relatively short time ago that traveling would take more than a week from Raevender by horse-drawn carriage, so only a few thousand had actually reached the dungeon. A few of them were some people I knew—actually, some people my clones were acquainted with. Apparently, one of them was the dwarf named Norm, whom Myriad Wings used to escort on a certain task. This city lacked master craftsmen, so we approached Norm and asked him to move to the city. He was hesitant at first, but when Michael opened a bottle of whiskey, which I renamed Moonshine in this world, in front of him, Norm immediately agreed to come with us and even brought some of his dwarf friends. We were basically bribing them with booze. Other than Norm, there was someone I recognized who moved into the city. It was someone who fought with us in the revolution and got enlisted in our military. So today, I am going to interact with that person and then try to gain her trust.