“This is what you saw? I… I have to go… I’ll take this with me and make some copies. You should probably hire some mercenaries to go explore the tunnels underneath Black Mithril, Angren and White Mithril as soon as possible. I love you Lori. Make sure to drop by Ael Tol in a few days. I should be finished with your suit by then.”

After I finished drawing the map of Alfirin, with all the silver tunnels and pyramids included, Ailyn took it with her as she left. I was alone again… Which meant that I was alone with a certain noisy snake.

“Hiss~! You probably shouldn’t have done that, hehehe~!” Levi slithered around my neck and whispered into my left ear.

I murmured “What’s wrong with Lyn? She seemed kind of weird after I showed her the map.”

He snickered, then told me “Mike put a seal on Azrael before he left but… Well, she’s getting stronger and she’s been spending way too much time with Uriel. The two of them are probably awakening now. It ain’t that strange for her to freak out after seeing that runic inscription you just doodled out. After all, she’s the one who designed it.”

“Is that a bad thing? What happens if Lyn and Pinky break those seals?” I walked over to the window as I watched the duel that was happening in the arena. It was between a Tiger Tribe guy and a Dark Elf girl.

Levi muttered “Ugh, well, depends on whether Azrael or Ailyn has a stronger hold over the body. It also kinda depends on whether Azra wants to be in control or not. He probably doesn’t. Yuri on the other hand, is pretty much the same as she always is… They aren’t like me, Mike and Iris. We’ll always fight and struggle for control no matter what. Usually why we die so often though.”

Anyway, even though Black Mithril was still the capital of Alfirin, there was a reason why I liked my tower in Angren so much. There was this small room right above my penthouse, basically in my attic. Ailyn made me a thingy called a ‘radio transmitter’ in there. I know, most of you probably have no clue what that even means anymore, since it’s ancient technology… But it basically shoots out these ‘radio waves’, carrying all kinds of different sounds.

Before that, the fastest way to send messages was through Wyvern and Harpy couriers. We still used them for package delivery services and personal messages though. In order for something to get put on the radio, it had to be pretty important. For example, when I entered the attic and turned the radio on, most of the channels were talking about the failed rebellion, the war in the west and the earthquakes that were getting worse every day. However, those were just the news stations. Some were playing music from things called ‘records’. A new invention at the time, which let people record stuff onto a weird disc and then play it back later. There were also live music stations too or talk shows.

At first, it was kind of hard to set up the skinny metal towers across the forest… But Pinky solved the problem by creating a special type of tree that was really tall. There was another plant that would eat up the mana in the air and then generate electricity, which powered the weird metal discs and stuff that shot out or received the radio waves.

Hmmm, I’m not really good at explaining all that kind of stuff though. The point is that we had a way to communicate from really far distances. Getting it from the surface to underground wasn’t hard either. People could either record it and then use a portal to reach one of the main cities or… Well, I think around that time, they had already set up radio towers near the entrance of the Black Mithril tunnels. There were lots of mining tunnels that led to the surface from Angren too. I’m not sure about White Mithril, but that doesn’t really matter.

“Attention, people of Alfirin! This is your beautiful, generous, adorable and super-awesome Spirit of Wealth, Lorelei Fleisher! Most of you work for me in one way or another, so I guess I’m your boss too.”

And thus, I began my speech, while sitting naked at the giant radio transmitter. The microphone was pretty big and bulky, but I didn’t need to hold it up or anything like that. It was just sitting on the table in front of me, with the rest of the mechanical equipment set up there as well.

“As many of you already know, there was a little rebellion a few days ago. It didn’t work out and lots of people died. More importantly though, it set back our construction efforts by weeks and months in some cases! If you guys really hate living in Alfirin so much, then just leave. Don’t go around murdering people and destroying shit! I think it’s pretty obvious, but that road does not lead anywhere good. Black Mithril, White Mithril, Angren, Ael Tol, The Nexus, along with all the towns and villages throughout Northern Lorthon Forest belong to us! Anyone who doesn’t like that, you should get the hell out of here now, because it’s only a matter of time before all of Lorthon becomes part of our territory! After that, we’ll continue expanding until at least all of Alfirin is ours! If you don’t like it, then get the fuck out while you still can!”

I hit the button to turn off the mic for a few seconds, while I calmed myself down a bit and started thinking of what to say next.

“Now that we’ve gotten that out of the way… It’s time to talk about the things you don’t know. First of all, the reason for all those earthquakes is simple. There’s a gigantic supervolcano erupting at the very northernmost end of our continent. It’s a giant hole in the world, where massive amounts of mana, lava and smoke are pouring out of constantly. If it continues to do that for too long, we’re all screwed. The good news is that we aren’t the only ones who would be affected and there are definitely other, much more powerful things out there who wouldn’t want the world to end. So basically, don’t worry about the earthquakes, it’ll be fine. The more important problem that we need to deal with, which actually affects us is this: There are more tunnels out there and we need to explore them!”

I smiled, even though nobody was watching me, then licked my whiskers.

“Just like the tunnels connecting our three main cities, there are loads of others all over Lorthon and beyond. I happened to see a map and drew a copy to the best of my ability. In a few days, Cartography United will be selling these maps for a reasonable price, to any Adventurers or Mercenaries who are up for the challenge. Some of the locations will be extremely dangerous and hard to fine. Some might not even exist anymore. While others might be inhabited by potentially friendly people…

“Like I mentioned earlier, Alfirin is always expanding. Have you ever wanted to settle down and start your own village? Maybe you just want to make a quick fortune and retire early? I’m sure that some of you just want to put your names on new, unexplored places! Well this is the perfect opportunity for all of those things! Who knows what kind of amazing ancient technologies and magical artifacts might be hidden in those locations?”

As I was about to keep going, Trixie suddenly cut me off and whispered “This is General Beatrix Aust speaking. The Nexus is currently under siege… All civilians need to evacuate. Any mercenaries or adventurers in the area will be paid for their services in defending the city. The enemies are vampiric aberrations and large mutated reptiles. Lorelei, this is the emergency channel. Fuck off.”

After that, there was a constant stream of reports and updates about what was happening over at the Nexus… Obviously Trixie didn’t talk other than that first announcement, since she was antisocial and had more important things to do. I on the other hand, had nothing else going on, so I went to the “Lorelei Channel” and continued talking about random stuff.

Why didn’t I rush over to the Nexus and fight on the front lines like the awesome hero that I was? Well, mostly because I didn’t feel like it. I totally could have though, if I really wanted to… But what if something happened to me? If I died or got hurt, then who would save the world from the evil flaming tigress in the Forest of Corruption?!

I needed to conserve my strength and wait… Wait for the day that the Super Lorelei Project would finally enter the testing phase!