David ducked slightly as a rock whistled past his ear. A moment later a small fireball burst somewhere behind him, showering sparks across the clearing. The kobolds were bold. Even after he easily scattered them. Maybe it’s because the leader had a barrier? They swarmed underneath him, screeching and hurling whatever they could grab.
David drifted backward on his improvised hoverboard, scanning the village while lazily weaving around the attacks.
There had to be something important here.
His gaze moved across the crooked huts, the cooking fires, the cages full of terrified goblins—then stopped.
One structure stood larger than the rest.
"Huh," he muttered.
Compared to the other huts it almost looked impressive. Still crude, still built from wood, hide, and scavenged bones—but clearly bigger. Important.
And if the goblin village had taught him anything…
"Yeah," David murmured. "That's probably where the crystal is."
He tilted forward and shot toward the building.
A few kobolds tried to intercept him, leaping up with spears, but they were far too slow. In seconds he hovered above the roof.
The doorway below was tiny—barely waist?high for him.
David looked at it for a moment.
Then he shrugged.
"Nah."
Instead of dismounting and squeezing through like some kind of polite guest, he simply punched straight down.
The brittle roof exploded inward as he crashed through it, scattering wooden beams and scraps of hide across the floor.
David landed inside in a small cloud of dust.
And there it was.
The settlement crystal.
Unlike the one in the goblin village, it wasn't mounted on a carefully carved stone pedestal. The glowing crystal simply stood in the center of the hut, pushed into a rough stand made from packed dirt and stones.
"Huh," David said, walking around it.
So the goblins had better construction techniques. Interesting.
"Note to self," he muttered, "ask them how they built that pedestal once I rescue them."
He studied the crystal for a moment.
"Alright… and how do I capture this thing?"
He barely finished the thought before something crashed through the ruined wall behind him.
The kobold shaman stumbled inside, claws skidding across the dirt floor.
The bracelet still shimmered faintly on its wrist.
The creature looked furious.
David sighed.
"Okay," he said. "Guess we're doing this first."
He raised one hand.
[Overcharge]
Energy gathered instantly.
A blinding lance of plasma?like light erupted from his palm.
The beam tore through the side of the hut with a deafening crack, carving a molten tunnel straight through the wall and out into the open air. The entire structure groaned violently as the blast passed through it.
Outside, the kobolds froze.
The village suddenly fell silent.
Dust rained from the damaged beams overhead.
David lowered his hand and looked at the shaman.
The kobold collapsed backward onto the floor.
Unconscious.
"Relax," David muttered. "Didn't kill you."
The beam had only grazed the barrier at an angle—enough to overload it without actually hitting the kobold itself.
He crouched and pulled the bracelet from the creature's wrist.
"Mine again."
Slipping the ring back onto his finger, he tried to repeat what he'd seen earlier.
A thread of mana formed.
He pushed it into the artifact.
Nothing happened.
"Huh."
He tried again.
Still nothing.
"Cooldown?" David guessed.
Artifacts having cooldown timers would make sense.
He shrugged and turned toward the crystal instead.
Outside the hut, the kobolds had gathered again. They shouted nervously at him through the broken walls, but none of them dared step inside.
David walked up to the glowing crystal.
"Alright," he said quietly.
Then he placed his hand against it.
For a moment nothing happened.
Then a translucent window appeared in front of him.
Settlement No. 4214246
Owner: Sskreth-Gar
Shield Status: 100%
Do you want to begin a siege?
David blinked at the floating interface.
"Uh… sure?" he muttered.
He mentally confirmed the option.
Warning. Siege initiated. Defense mode activated.
The crystal suddenly flared with bright blue light.
A spherical barrier formed around it, smooth and transparent—almost identical to the one the kobold shaman had produced with the ring earlier.
The sphere began expanding.
David didn’t resist when it pushed him away. He simply allowed the growing bubble to shove him backward and out through the broken roof of the hut while he watched with academic curiosity.
The narrative has been stolen; if detected on Amazon, report the infringement.
The barrier continued expanding until it filled the entire building. Then it stopped.
"Ah," David murmured. "So that’s how it works."
Outside, the kobolds had retreated several steps but still surrounded the hut in a loose ring. They were starting to recover from the shock. A few hissed angrily, others jabbered at him in their sharp, rasping language.
Another message appeared.
To capture the settlement, wait one day.
After that the shield will fall and may only re-enter defense mode after another day.
David stared at the text.
"Yeah, no," he said.
He could already imagine what would happen if he stood around for twenty-four hours while an entire tribe of angry kobolds gathered their courage.
It didn’t hurt when they attacked him.
But it certainly wasn’t pleasant either.
David stepped back a little and raised his hand.
"Let’s test something."
He activated [Overcharge].
A beam of plasma-bright energy slashed across the barrier at a shallow angle.
The settlement shield proved far sturdier than the shaman’s ring barrier. It held for several seconds, rippling like disturbed water.
Ten seconds later it shattered with a sharp crack of collapsing mana.
The kobolds froze again.
Dozens of reptilian faces stared at him with wide eyes and open jaws.
David calmly walked back into the hut and placed his hand on the crystal again.
Another window appeared.
Congratulations!
You have captured the settlement!
What would you like to do with the inhabitants of this settlement?
- Exterminate – You will receive points for each kill.
David snorted.
Points for that useless shop that sold nothing worthwhile? Hard pass.
Besides, the kobolds might be brutal little savages… but he wasn’t.
- Enslave – They will appear in your settlement list with a special tax status (100%).
"Ah," David muttered. "So that's what they did to the goblins."
His expression darkened slightly.
Then his eyes moved to the final option.
- Transfer to Stasis – Release from stasis becomes available after upgrading your settlement crystal.
David leaned closer to the floating menu.
If the interface had been physical, he probably would have grabbed it with both hands.
"Wait… this is it," he whispered.
That strange bear-like curator—Kravelon or whatever his name was—had mentioned something like this.
If kobolds could be put into stasis…
Then people from Earth might be recoverable too.
His pulse quickened.
David mentally selected the last option.
Outside the hut, the kobolds were still shouting and hissing, unaware of what was about to happen.
David exhaled slowly.
"Sorry to interrupt your little feast," he said quietly.
"But you're about to become part of an experiment."
He looked toward the forest where the goblin prisoners had been held earlier.
"One that might help me restore humanity."
The change happened almost instantly.
One moment the kobolds were hissing, shifting their weight, gripping their crude weapons. The next moment the entire tribe went silent.
Every single one of them froze.
Not gradually. Not hesitantly. It was as if someone had pressed pause on reality itself. A kobold in mid-snarl stayed that way, lips pulled back from sharp teeth. Another remained crouched with a spear raised over its head. One was halfway through turning to look at David.
None of them moved.
What was stranger was that none of them fell either. Even the ones balanced in awkward poses remained standing, as if invisible threads held them upright.
Then their bodies began to darken.
At first David thought it looked like scorching, like the aftermath of heat or flame. But that wasn't right. The color wasn't burning away—it was draining. The colors of their scales dulled, then dimmed further, until the figures began to resemble flat shadows rather than living creatures.
The effect reminded David of someone turning down the saturation in an image editor.
Soon it became difficult to judge their depth at all. They looked less like bodies and more like dark silhouettes cut out of the world.
A moment later they began to fade.
Slowly.
Edges softened. Limbs became translucent. The figures blurred into the air around them.
Within fifteen seconds the last traces of them vanished completely.
The clearing stood empty.
David exhaled.
"Well," he muttered to himself, "that was… dramatic."
Then he groaned and rubbed his forehead.
"I should've turned on Mana Perception."
Watching that from a mana perspective would have been incredibly useful.
Only then did another realization occur to him.
"Wait… the goblins too?"
He glanced toward the cages.
They were empty.
Right. Of course. Even if they had been slaves, they were still tied to the settlement system. If the kobolds were moved into stasis, the goblins probably were as well.
David had been so focused on the disappearing tribe that he completely forgot about the crystal behind him.
He remembered it when it began making noise.
A sharp creaking sound echoed from the ruined hut.
David turned around.
The settlement crystal was glowing much brighter than before.
Thin cracks of light ran through its surface while it emitted an unpleasant grinding sound, like stone slowly breaking under pressure.
"Uh…" David said cautiously. "Please tell me that's not because I shot it with an overcharge earlier."
The crystal didn't answer.
Instead it began to fracture.
Small pieces split off first, but instead of falling they seemed to dissolve as the core shrank inward. The crystal rapidly compressed, collapsing into itself again and again.
Within seconds it was the size of an apple.
Then smaller.
And smaller still.
David quickly activated [Mana Perception] this time.
The physical crystal was almost gone, but in the mana spectrum it looked far more complicated.
Faded symbols drifted around it in slow, controlled paths.
Dozens of them.
Maybe hundreds.
They moved in precise patterns that clearly followed some kind of logic, orbiting the crystal like fragments of a spell far beyond anything David understood.
As the crystal continued shrinking, the symbols adjusted their paths, spiraling inward along tighter and tighter orbits.
For a brief moment the entire structure resembled a miniature solar system made of pale runes.
Then the crystal collapsed into a point too small for David to see.
The symbols lingered for only a second longer.
And then they simply disappeared.
David scratched the back of his head and looked around the now silent settlement.
"Right…" he muttered. "So the conclusion is… I understand absolutely nothing."
Where a few minutes ago the place had been full of hissing kobolds, clattering weapons, and the smell of roasted meat, there was now only stillness. The village felt strangely hollow without them.
Several campfires still burned.
On one of them something blackened slowly over the coals. David didn't need to look closely to know what it was. The smell alone was enough.
Goblin meat.
Someone hadn't been lucky enough to make it into stasis in time.
David grimaced.
"Yeah… I don't think stasis revives people who already got eaten," he said quietly to no one in particular.
He raised a hand and summoned water using [Major Law of Water].
Moisture gathered from the surrounding air, swirling together until it formed a heavy floating droplet the size of a large melon. The shimmering sphere of water hovered obediently beside him.
With a small gesture he pushed it toward the nearest fire.
The droplet stretched slightly as it moved, then collapsed over the flames with a loud hiss.
Steam burst upward.
The fire died instantly.
David guided the same mass of water toward the next campfire, then the next, calmly extinguishing them one after another. The droplet shrank a little each time, but the forest around them was saturated with wild mana, and replenishing the water took almost no effort.
Soon the last flame sputtered out.
Smoke drifted lazily upward into the sky.
David looked around again, then shrugged.
"Well," he said. "Loot time."
Of course, when he said loot, he wasn't talking about primitive spears, chipped stone tools, or scraps of leather clothing scattered around the camp.
He meant magical artifacts.
Anything with symbols.
Anything interesting.
Anything he could learn from.
"Let's start with the boss house," he said.
He activated [Mana Perception].
The world shifted slightly as faint currents of mana became visible again—thin streams drifting through the air and soaking into the ground.
Then David walked toward the chief's hut.
Or rather… what used to be the chief's hut.
After two [Overcharge] blasts and the disappearance of the settlement crystal, the structure had lost any right to be called a hut. Two crooked walls still stood where they had once been supported by a roof. Everything else had collapsed into a messy pile of splintered wood, broken stones, and scattered debris.
David stepped over a charred beam and entered the ruins.
"Yep," he muttered, looking around. "Interior design could use some work."