[POV: Machine Lord]

 

“Edgar, why can’t you manage to cast the spell?! I have invested everything I have into you!” A man shouted at the boy in front of him.

 

A boy was lying on the ground with a deadpan expression on his face. He had black hair and eyelashes and a pair of blue eyes that seemed to be able to stare into someone’s soul. He looked to be no older than eight or nine.

 

“The Crowe family was so thrilled when their only son was the youngest awakened in history with a talent for enchanting, but you can’t even protect yourself!” The old man raised his foot violently and brought down his booted foot onto the young boy’s face.

 

Blood squirted out around the leather and wooden sole that was reinforced with nails, it was a pointed shoe that was bright and shiny. The old man was wearing a type of tight silk breeches and a formal robe all colored in purple that covered his entire frail body. His gray hair was long and sparse and he was missing several of his yellowed teeth, these had been replaced with gold and jewel-encrusted copies.

 

The room they were in was lavish and the wood and windows were all specially constructed from materials that released mana that was helpful for people who were trying to build up their base quickly. The wood was a light purple color that was said to have been created by a plant monster and the carpet was from a sheep that was a pure white color. This furniture was so special that all of Edgar’s blood that squirted and dropped onto it was incapable of staining it and just rolled around on top of it.

 

“My only son... trash… useless… weak…. “The old man lamented, with a sharp and harsh stomp of his foot. “The Crowe family has produced countless archmages! How could this happen to us?!”

 

The old man lifted his foot off of Edgar’s face after he kept it there for several moments. When he lifted his shoe and the blood ran off of the boy’s face, it showed unblemished flesh underneath that looked like it had never seen the sun. With the end of the abuse, the boy stood up calmly and brushed himself off as he adjusted his bloody and ripped clothes.

 

“I have decided to send you to the knight’s academy, you will be leaving tomorrow. I don’t ever want to see you again.” The old man spat at the boy. “If you can’t become a martial force user, then you can only go to the church.”

 

In response to this, the boy had a look of confusion on his face, this lasted for several moments before it slowly eased. It then turned into a sad but bright smile as if he was trying to cheer himself up.

 

“I am sorry I have disappointed you fa-” The boy said sadly.

 

“Get out of my sight!” The old man yelled, stopping the boy from speaking any further. 

 

Edgar gave the old man a sad smile before he turned to head to his room, there were tears of shame streaming from his eyes.

 

***

[POV: David Wilson}

 

His thoughts were chaotic after what he had seen in this vision. He knew that something insane had to have happened to create someone like the Machine Lord and this was in line with his expectations. He had no idea what had awoken him but he was thankful for it all the same.

 

Feeling something poking his face and he was startled to find a soft finger. From his lap he could see Lena who was hiding her face behind her creepy doll, seeing it made his heart go cold for a second before he got his bearings. He could feel that the van was stopped and he could hear voices and people moving around outside of the van.

 

“We made it home without any problems and the trailer is being unloaded,” Lena told him calmly.

 

David was able to breathe a sigh of relief after he heard this, then he looked at the girl who was still lazily sitting in his lap. “Why haven’t you moved yet?”

 

She held the doll to her chest as she avoided his eyes. “Don’t wanna.”

 

Looking out the window he could see the older men like his father and uncle working to move things like the meat out of the trailer to avoid it spoiling. His mother and aunt were also involved, they were helping move out the clothes and blankets they had gotten. Even the children who hadn’t gotten much from his family were helping to move and store all of the goods.

 

The only thing that would remain till the next day seemed like it would be the things like wood or concrete. Looking around the van he noticed it was just the two of them and everyone else was already gone. Lena must have noticed his gaze and began answering his inquiry.

 

“Harry took Billy to the garage to sleep, and Jasmin has retired for the evening. As for Pandora, she is currently in the kitchen having her fish prepared for her by Aubrey.” Lena told him calmly.

 

It looked like the only thing that hadn’t been opened and unpacked yet was the van that he was sleeping in. He noticed everyone was being quiet while they were unloading the trailer, they were keeping their voices down and avoiding moving heavy things. This caused some confusion for him that Lena quickly resolved for him.

 

“They are thankful for your help, they have been working for almost half an hour but they didn’t want to wake you up.” She told him quietly. “I think some people like your aunt feel embarrassed for treating you how she did after you started contributing to the shelter right after you arrived here.”

 

David noticed that the other creepy doll that resembled Sarah was gone, he assumed that she must have spoken to his aunt from the words that she was saying. There was some coldness in her voice when she told him about her, it sounded like Lena didn’t like her very much. He watched her pouting from the top of his lap as she held the doll in the black dress to her chest.

 

It seemed like anyone who treated him badly could expect that Lena would hold a grudge against them. Outside of that she rarely said anything of herself but she was a very good listener from what he had heard. She and Jasmin got along quite well and Lena treated her just like another woman, David wasn’t sure if this was because of his attitude towards them or not.

 

When he was training to be a lawyer, he realized that he would be dealing with a wide range of people with views that were different from his, but he would need to be able to defend them. There was no room for bigotry if you wanted to sincerely do your job well, and he had thought of entering politics when he got older. He didn’t like systems that were unfair and the only way to change them was from within, that is why he decided to go the legal route.

 

“Your mother is a good woman, I like her. She believed in you from the very beginning, she never once doubted you.” Lena told him and began patting his head. “I never once doubted you either.”

 

Would you get into a relationship with someone you knew nothing about? David had wondered this question many times since he met the blonde woman who was still sitting cozily on his lap. She was an enigma to him yet the entire time he knew her she had done everything she could to express care for him in her way.

 

“Sometimes actions speak louder than words, even when it was just our small group we have already provided more than anyone else was able to.” She explained.

 

“How long have we been here?” He asked.

 

“An hour.” She replied.

 

“We are in a much worse position than most people would think. I have to work tirelessly even if no one else will.” David said quietly.

 

Order would be restored at some point, either by the governments, if people were lucky but more than likely it would be local warlords. He had already discovered a piece of Edea that had made its way here to earth, what would they do if other things or beings had also come through? It was also clear from the state of many of those stone pillars that a long time had gone by on Edea after the Machine Lord had perished.

 

There was so much going on that he didn’t have time to process it all. This was the first time he had suffered any of the dreams of the Machine Lord’s life since he had been saved from the Ursok. This one though gave him a different taste of the man, one where he was a child trying to please his father.

 

“You don’t look so good, did you not sleep enough?” Lena asked him from his lap.

 

“I never sleep enough anymore, there is so much going on around us. I feel like if I stop and take a break we will get left behind by the world around us. If the government has fallen then we can only rely on ourselves, that is a lot to take in.” David sighed out sadly as he got to this point. “The dungeon itself is a ticking time bomb, as long as it is there then we will always have something that makes this area desirable.”

 

“Why don’t we just leave?” Lena asked.

 

“That is a mistake, a lot of people think that leaving to go to a prison or a mall is a good idea because that is what TV has told them to do. This place has a well that will not run dry in our lifetimes and with the dungeon around we can use it to divert any monsters that are above low-tier. Once we locate the dungeon then we can use it to provide us with food, this place might become a city in time.” David explained.

 

“Do you want a city to form here?” She asked.

 

“I want to keep the torch of civilization going… Edea was a terrible place. If you didn’t have a background or come from a large clan then it was very likely that you wouldn’t be able to afford any resources. Magic stones became the currency, this meant that the weak were forced to give up their ticket to power just to eat. I could go on and on about all of the various injustices that went on in that world, and I don’t want to see that happen here.” These were his feelings.

 

Life and society are very similar, it is so easy to slide back into your more primal nature but it is hard to be a good person. It requires constantly having to find and recognize your weaknesses and try to correct them. He knew that he was a flawed person, but he was raised with a very strong sense of justice.

 

“My mom suffered so much as a child, she often told me stories about it so that I would respect women and treat them as equals. She was really worried that I would hurt someone one day.” David explained this calmly.

 

It was why he didn’t pry into her past, he could tell from her lack of expression and her tendency to clam up that she had been through a lot. In time he figured that she would explain herself to him on her own terms, that was the best way to avoid causing her any pain. There was also his mother who he knew would spend time with her and try to help her in her own way.

 

“You have never hurt me,” Lena said while hiding her face behind the doll at her chest. “I’m happy.”

 

He knew that his relationship had problems, they would have many things they would need to work through in time. Without her, the fear that he felt from the Machine Lord and not knowing what was happening to him would have crushed him. She gave him a way to throw the dark thoughts and feelings away so that he could stay anchored at the moment.

 

“Thank you.” He said.

 

Knock! Knock!

 

David looked out the window to see his father knocking on the glass. He waited for several moments but Lena still didn’t get up so that he could leave. In the end, he could only reach forward and open the latch to pop the window open slightly so his father could speak through the crack.

 

“Hey, I talked to Harry about what you kids have been through, well I guess calling you kids now is inappropriate. Anyway, I wanted to thank you for helping out, you have bought us a lot of time.” His father started. “The meat will be enough to last everyone for at least two weeks and I should be able to start building shelters.”

 

“We need to get the people working, I want them making wire if they have nothing better to do. We don’t have time for squabbles or bent feelings between us. This winter is going to be brutal, we are all going to be malnourished and we may end up with diseases if we can’t find a way to get farming again.” David told him through the crack.

 

“Will barbed wire stop the monsters?” He asked back.

 

“No, I will also be electrifying it using enchanting,” David responded.

 

It was nice having someone with as sharp of a mind as his father when it came to figuring out what he wanted. His father could figure out immediately that he was planning to make a fence out of the wire, he had also thought about that. Using pieces of sharpened sheet metal and nails ground into spikes, this would make a wire that was brutal and useless against anything but monsters.

 

“It will be used to make some farm plots, I am also going to see about getting some kind of animals. I can also use it in the van, it is good for securing doors and windows against people. There are a lot of uses for it.” David concluded.

 

Barbed wire was not something incredible, but it was something humans had been using for over 150 years for controlling livestock and securing buildings. The first patents were taken out on it in the mid-1860s in the US and were implemented for ranching. That is when a machine was created for making the barbed wire, unfortunately, they would have to make it by hand.

 

“That shouldn’t be hard, there are a few retired army mechanics here.” His father paused her as he noticed something that kept coming out of the trailer. “How much bar soap did you find?”

 

A flat look slowly crossed over David’s face. “I am starting to wonder if bar soap is the most purchased product on the planet. Out of all of the homes we went to while coming back from the mine had at least ten to twenty bars each. I don’t think you can buy a single bar of soap, or you couldn’t.” David said this seriously as over a hundred bars of soap of different brands were all extracted from the trailer and piled to the side.

 

“The soap makes sense, I can understand that one…” What he was more shocked about was how much toilet paper his son had managed to find while he was out raiding. 

 

It was even more than the soap and probably weighed several humans in weight, there were easily a few hundred rolls between the various packages.

 

“You only get one ply! I will stand for it no longer.” David said this flatly.

 

His parents also got into the craze and kept a massive stockpile of toilet paper, it was kept in storage in the basement where they kept extra canned food. When they moved out of the city, this was supposed to be where they stocked up for their retirement since they were off the grid. Everything was cheap and bought from a wholesaler but it is what allowed them to keep all of the people alive.

 

“You are the one who drove in my head that if I need something one time then I will need it again! Imagine the horrors of a world without soap or toilet paper, I will never let us get to that point, so I never refuse it when I find it.” David said all of this with a straight face through the crack in the window. “Justice is blind and toilet paper is humble.”

 

His father shook his head and turned away to leave the pair alone in the van, he was just about to reach forward and close the window when he saw his mother step forward this time.

 

“I am very proud of you.” She told him bluntly.

 

“Thanks, Mom.” He said with a smile, this vanished when she finished what she was going to say.

 

“You brought home a beautiful girlfriend and I didn’t see condoms anywhere. I am not getting any younger, so I am glad you decided to hurry.” She told him.

 

David suddenly couldn’t breathe, and the weight in his lap didn’t feel as pleasant anymore. He also felt his face starting to go red from shame and embarrassment.

 

“Don’t worry, I have already started making plans,” Lena told his mother from his lap.

 

Wait… what? David felt his breathing start to hitch and felt like he needed to say something, but couldn’t.

 

“We will need to hold a wedding for you two before you get pregnant. Old Chris used to be a ship captain and has done several weddings, we will need to get you a dress.” His mother began going on. “Also, I want you to call me a mother.”

 

His mother smiled at them through the window and David felt his breath leave his chest. Just like Lena, his mother also had a very stiff face, but she could also smile as only a mother could, and right now that was directed at the woman in his lap. Meanwhile, she was also giving his mother a slight smile in return.

 

Why? Why is she suddenly like this?! David felt his vision start spinning when he looked at his mother. When he was in high school he started dating a girl that lasted only a week. That was because his mother was convinced that the girl was a bitch and needed to be separated from her son by all means necessary.

 

His mother had called her parents and began all kinds of shit that led to the relationship falling apart in the cradle before they ever got further than holding hands. His mother had always been incredibly protective of him, especially around women. The person who tricked his mother into the human trafficking ring was a rather good-looking woman.

 

“Yes, Mother. Thank you for your support.” Lena said and smiled.

 

David could only watch his mother walk away with a spring in her step, he wanted to reach towards her but his hands were being held by the blonde woman in his lap. A sad smile crossed his face when he realized he was trapped, then her hand released him for a moment while she reached forward and closed the window. It was now much quieter inside of the vehicle and they couldn’t hear the movements from outside anymore.

 

“I already gave magic stones to Billy, Aubrey, Harry, And Jasmin to use for training.” She told him faithfully. “We have twenty one of them left after I gave them three. It should last them nine to twelve days.”

 

David knew she was trying to get him off topic by reporting other things that would distract him. In the future, he knew that magic stones wouldn’t be a problem, but in the short term, he was like a starving man who needed every single magic stone he could get. That was because their weapons and armor all used these resources and eventually the stones would need to be replaced.

 

“What do you want?” David asked. “What is your goal?”

 

David looked her right in the eyes when he asked this. Without knowing this he felt like he wouldn’t be able to completely trust her. However, her answer was quite simple to hear.

 

“Your love. That is all I want.” She said simply and stared right back at him.