I Reincarnated As A Stick

Seraph Kingdom, within Verdant Breeze Town.

A day has passed since Argentum obtained news from the real-time information network he and the others had created, telling him that Aurus, also known by others as The Great Calamity, has made a move on a city called Nachthexen. At the moment, he was currently helping Delmann and Valstra out in the main three development plans they had for the town. Compared to before, the state of the town right now could be considered a far cry from how it was.

Thinking that it would allow resources to be moved faster, the streets of the town had been repaved with better material, allowing the roads to handle more wear and tear. Not only that, but the streetlights that barely lit up the town while at night had been replaced with streetlights that put out more brightness, and on top of that, used less money to operate. Overall, the citizens of the town thought it was a worthy investment.

As for the town’s defenses, the barrier that Felix and the mages bargained over had finally been erected around the town, allowing it to block the attacks of a Rank 5 class holder without a problem. Initially, the barrier was only going to be able to block the attacks of a Rank 3 class holder since they had less money, but with the donation of Torvas’s Rank 9 Mana Stone, they went all out, starting the protection level at Rank 5 and enhancing it to higher ranks. Right now, it had been enhanced to the point where it could stall a Rank 6 class holder for a couple of minutes.

The three main development plans for the town, on the other hand, had been modified multiple times over the course of Argentum becoming the leader of the town as they made sure that the final states of the plans would allow them to accommodate at least thrice the amount of people that were currently in town. Nevertheless, almost all of the people in town had basic access to the parts of the development plans that were built. People had more or less constant access to water right from the comfort of their home, their town was producing around half of the food they needed, reducing the need for imported food, and lastly, the houses people lived in had been more or less renovated to take on a slightly modern style, allowing people to look at their town with a breath of fresh air.

Other than the Tempest Regiment, which was still in the process of being trained and polished, the school, wherein Felix and the others were still finding people that were willing to teach there, and the plan to make the town focused on blacksmithing, wherein people were still finding more varieties of ore veins, Verdant Breeze Town was proceeding smoothly with its various plans.

While talking about what part of the town they should focus on next, a person Argentum appointed to manage the real-time information network instead of Valstra hastily headed to where he was, his expression incredibly urgent. Seeing the urgent expression on the man’s face, Argentum excused himself from the two beforehand as he asked the man, “What news have you received?”

The man, who was slightly surprised to see their leader appear in front of him all of a sudden, could not help but gasp for air for a bit before responding, “Sir…Argentum…we’ve received…urgent news…”

Eventually, the man finally caught his breath, allowing him to explain the news he had received in great detail. “Although the news has only arrived now, we’ve received news that after The Great Calamity had destroyed the city of Nachthexen, he also destroyed the city of Silver Hoof and Vallachia, both cities also being led by Rank 7 class holders just like Nachthexen.”

“How long has it been since The Great Calamity destroyed the last city?” Argentum asked in response, taking note that the news he might receive would probably be delayed, thinking that Aurus would make sure to not spread the news of his destruction of settlements. After going silent for a bit, the man replied, “Well, you could say that it has almost been a whole day since it happened, Sir Argentum?”

“Do we have any idea on his whereabouts?” Argentum said after that, to which the man slowly shook his head. “Although our team focused on finding his traces tried to search for him, since The Great Calamity has access to a great movement skill, it’s not that easy to do so. Unfortunately, we haven’t found his traces even after searching the possible places for a whole day.”

‘Since there’s no new news about him, I guess he’s doing something in the meantime, just like what he did before attacking Nachthexen City,’ Argentum thought to himself, though he wasn’t sure if Aurus was intentionally delaying his attacks between settlements to catch the inhabitants in those settlements off guard. If only he knew that Aurus was taking breaks to digest the improvements he had made from destroying those cities, then he would have probably done other moves.

After allowing the person manning the real-time information network to return to his station, Argentum could not help but ponder over the man’s words for a bit as he made his way back to where Delmann and Valstra were. ‘After we’ve tracked that the settlements he’s aiming for gradually get larger, then it wouldn’t be a surprise if his next target would be the provinces.’

‘Unfortunately for him, he doesn’t know that the Seraph royal family has announced for all of the people in the provinces to make their way to the kingdom in preparation for him,’ he continued, recalling how he had been surprised by the move the royal family did. However, it made his deductions quicker as he said to himself, “That only leaves the last target as the kingdom, then.”

As he thought about the final target Aurus was going to try and destroy, Argentum could not help but think about something else as an idea popped up in his head, still thinking of ways to allow Aurus to regain his sanity. With that in mind, he told Delmann and Valstra that he might be away for a day, to which the two did not care anymore as they were used to him leaving quite often by now.

Assured that the town would still continue to improve while he was away, he disabled [False Visage of the Animate] and activated all of his movement speed boosting skills and spells to head towards the Flame Spirit Inheritance. While heading to the inheritance, he went ahead and circulated a bit of the energy in his body to form a connection with one of the beings that signed a Spirit Contract with him, specifically Eleanor.

“Hey, Eleanor. You there?” he asked as he continued to trek tens of meters with one step. In response, the voice of a woman replied, asking him, “Yeah. What’s up?”

“Is Herellia still there?” he said in response, to which Eleanor replied, “Let me check.”

After a few seconds of silence, she told him, “Yeah, she’s still here. No, wait. You didn’t even tell me that she could leave. Anyways, why are you asking whether she’s here or not?”

“Well…” As he replied to her question, Argentum could not help but let out an awkward chuckle. “I was planning on letting her move out of the inheritance.”

“Oh. Makes sense.” Surprisingly, Eleanor wasn’t against the idea. “After all, it has been over half a month or so since you brought her here…or has it already been a month? Either way, it’s time for her to make use of the things she learned from me.”

“Alright. Talk to you later when I’m there,” Argentum said in response to her words before cutting off the connection between them.

…

Sometime later, Argentum had arrived at the entrance of the Flame Spirit Inheritance, the same charred and dilapidated building he had entered back then to become the inheritance’s partial owner. Contacting Eleanor, he was then brought inside the inheritance, prompting him to ask Eleanor, “So, where is she?”

Swoosh!

With the slightest movement of her fingers made out of energy, Eleanor allowed a corridor to open, revealing a red-haired girl in a red kimono at the end of the corridor. Seeing how the corridor to her room was opened, the red-haired girl could not help but look at the other hand, noticing the entity made out of gray energy heading to where she was. 𝒇𝙧𝐞ℯ𝒘e𝚋n𝚘𝙫𝐞𝑙. c𝐨m

Although it had been quite a while since they last met, she could still feel the same energy emanating from him. So, when he arrived in front of her, Herellia could not help but stand up in joy and exclaim, “Argentum, you’re finally back!”

“Sorry for not entertaining you all this while,” Argentum replied as he radiated an aura of slight guilt. In response to his words, Herellia let out a light chuckle, saying, “What are you talking about? With Miss Eleanor teaching me a lot of things, there has never been a day where I was super bored!”

“Then again, there were days where I wished to head outside,” she said, letting out an awkward chuckle after that. Hearing her words, Argentum went ahead and activated [False Visage of the Animate], leaving Herellia slightly speechless. After a few seconds, she asked him, “Have you ascended to the Animate level? Isn’t that impossible for a Pseudo-Animate?”

“Unfortunately, no. This is just a skill I’ve learned from one of my friends in order to allow me to mingle with other people,” Argentum said in response before letting out a playful giggle. “In any case, don’t you think it’d shock Horell if he were to find out that I also turned into an Animate?”

At first, Herellia couldn’t help but widen her eyes in response to his words. Though, not long after, she could not help but find it amusing as well, letting out a chuckle as she said, “Why wouldn’t he be shocked? If I were him, I’d definitely be depressed!”

After talking about a few more things, Herellia and Argentum then left the room as Eleanor helped them leave the inheritance. Accompanying them before they departed, Eleanor asked the two of them, “Is there anything else you’re missing?”

“Hmm…” After pondering over it for a bit, Argentum told her, “Could you tell Felix to follow us to where we’re going? Also, could you give Herellia some movement speed buffs? It’s going to take a while for us to arrive where we want to go.”

“I could do the last one,” Eleanor replied as she snapped her fingers, covering Herellia in a fiery red light that made her feel like her body was lighter. After that, she turned around and told Argentum, “As for the first one, you have a Spirit Contract with him. Just contact him.”

Whoosh!

With that, Eleanor headed back into the inheritance, leaving Herellia and Argentum looking at each other for a bit before the latter asked, “Shall we move?”

“Where to?” Herellia asked in response, trying to get used to the feeling of being able to move faster.

As he activated all of his movement speed boosting skills and spells, Argentum lightly smiled as Herellia’s eyes could not help but light up at his response.

“The Verdant Blossom Branch Alliance.”

…

Swoosh! Swoosh!

While making their way to Tempest Cliff, which was where the Verdant Blossom Branch Alliance was located, Argentum could not help but ask Herellia, “So, what kind of things did you learn while Eleanor was teaching you?”

“She taught me most of the basic stuff I needed to know as an Animate,” Herellia replied. “How to eat, how to drink, how to manipulate energy, how to improve my skills, as well as reading and writing. For some reason, the Animates really like to concentrate on reading and writing.”

“Those two are going to be indispensable for you once we head to the Animate settlements, so she’s not wrong,” Argentum said as he nodded at her statement. “Anything else?”

“I guess…things I didn’t know about myself?” As she said this, she could not help but slightly blush, prompting Argentum to let out a cough to alleviate the awkward atmosphere gradually forming around them. Slowly changing the topic of their conversation to mundane things, they eventually arrived at the entrance of the Verdant Blossom Branch Alliance.