“About an hour ago,” Gerald began, “One of the inspectors stopped by to inform me they had found a woman matching Nadines description dead in an alley. They sent a team to find Nadine, but as of now I haven’t heard back from them. They wanted me to stop by the morgue and make a positive identification of the body. I would like you to accompany me, we will also need to stop by the factory. If indeed my sister is dead, I will unfortunately have to take over,” he finished that last part a bit glumly.

  “What sort of factory does she work at?” I asked curiously.

  “Our father, Jacob, created a construct factory many years ago, less than a year ago he passed, and my sister took over running the place. Even though she is a few years younger than me she had my father’s knack for business and ruthless efficiency. I never had the head for it, but she and father were practically the same person. So naturally when he passed, she inherited my fathers mantel. Now she runs the factory with an iron fist, and I get paid to stay away and not interfere.”

  “Sounds like a great deal. Did your family make all the constructs here in town?” I asked.

  “Nearly, in the last 20 years we started producing newer versions of the constructs. Ones that could think and act more independently. Instead of constructs who blindly followed their basic programming. It nearly tripled the amount of money we were making, everyone in the four kingdoms wanted one,” Gerald said proudly though I saw a flash of something behind his eyes. I didn’t know what it was but for a brief second, I felt unnerved.

  “That is quite impressive,” I said genuinely impressed. Gerald stood and finished off the last of his coffee before turning to me, “I need to get ready, I’ll meet you in the foyer in about an hour and then we can head out.”

  “Sounds good,” I stood and together we left his study. Both constructs turned to face us as we exited, one began trailing after Gerald and I looked from my construct back to Gerald, “Hey, does this guy have a name?” I said pointing at the construct.

  “I believe that one is number 4,” Gerald called over his shoulder, “One of our older models, he doesn’t speak but he follows orders.”

  “Thanks,” I called back, then turned to my construct, “Mind taking me to the library?” Number 4 nodded and started walking away. I followed behind him as we made our way down the hall.

  After passing several doors number 4 came to a halt and gestured to a set of double doors to his left. I nodded and pushed open the doors, my mouth falling open in shock. Before me was easily the largest room I had been in yet. It was two floors and roughly oval shaped. I was standing on the upper floor with a railing a few feet ahead of me. Golden sunlight streamed into the room from the domed glass ceiling above me. Bookshelves dozens of feet high lined every wall.

  On the ground floor in the center of the room stood a towering statue of a woman. She was dressed in gleaming white and gold armor, her hand raised high into the air holding aloft a shimmering golden mace. The statue had to be over 20 feet tall and appeared to be carved from a single block of stone. I was sure it was the same woman that Carificux had shown me. This was the Unstoppable Hero, the one who had defeated the previous Demon King. While the statue was beautiful, something about it filled me with a sense of dread and I couldn’t help but hate the statue. I turned away from the statue and started admiring the shelves. Each shelf was crammed full of books of all shapes, colors, and sizes.

  I had been homeschooled after turning ten and some of my darker traits started to creep up. My father had wisely kept me away from the general public unsupervised for several years. As such I had never seen a library this big before. It was a bit overwhelming, and I was not sure where to begin looking. I absently scanned the titles of the books hoping perhaps something would jump out at me, but after a few minutes I hadn’t seen anything. The soft click of heels caught my ear and I leaned over the railing to see a short mousy looking woman with long brown hair walking across the lower floor of the library, I was sure it was the same woman I had seen last night screaming at Gerald for being drunk. “That must be his wife,” I thought.

  “Excuse me,” I said a bit too loudly, my voice echoing around the otherwise silent library. The woman gave a little jump and began looking around before looking up at me. “You startled me,” she called up, “you must be that new bodyguard my drunkard husband hired.”

  “I am,” I called back, this time lowering my voice so it wouldn’t echo as much.

  “He wouldn’t need to worry about getting mugged in an alley if he weren’t out late getting piss drunk,” she grumbled. It appeared Gerald hadn’t told her that he had nearly been killed last night, if so, I wasn’t about to spill that information. Probably best if she thinks it was just a harmless mugging.

  “I couldn’t agree with you more, but I not willing to turn down honest money, even it if means I have to watch out for a drunkard,” I grumbled. She smiled at that. “Could you help me find some books? I’m afraid I’m a bit lost.”

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  “I’ll send up the Librarian,” she responded and stepped out of sight a moment later. I wandered for a couple more minutes before I heard an odd noise approaching from behind. I turned and saw the strangest construct yet. This appeared to have been made to look a touch more feminine and was wearing a soft burgundy dress that would have ended at the knee of a normal person. This construct, however, didn’t have knees rather its legs merged into one at the base and it rolled about on two small ever so slightly squeaky wheels.

  “How might I help you, sir?” the construct asked, even its robotic voice was pitched slightly higher to add to its feminine appearance.

  “I need some books or maps of the area. Anything you can get me about the Outlands and finally I need some books on currency, exchange rates and such,” I responded.

  “If it is exchange rates you require, I can tell you that,” the construct said after a moment of thought.

  “That would be great.”

  “In the Northern Kingdom three types of coin are used. The most common is the copper bit, the second is the silver mark and third the gold crown. It takes 15 copper bits to equal one silver mark and 20 silver marks to equal one gold crown.” I ran the numbers in my head, if I thought of copper bits as 1-dollar bills then gold crowns were worth 300 dollars each. I currently had 200 gold crowns or roughly 60,000 dollars and that wasn’t counting the 196 copper bits, and 198 silver marks. I had more money in my pouch than I had ever had back on Earth. That put me far more at ease. It meant that once my training was over, I could dump working for Gerald and get back to the real reason I was here. Though I would miss sleeping in my new luxurious bed.

  At some point during my calculations the construct had rolled away. It returned a few minutes later carrying a couple of books and a rolled-up piece of parchment. I thanked the construct as I took the books. I was about to head for a chair a few feet away when a thought occurred.

  “What town is this?” I asked quickly before the construct rolled away.

  “We are in the town of Vexfort,” she replied. I walked over and sat down, placing my books on the small table next to the chair. First, I pulled up the piece of parchment which was exactly what I had been hoping for, an entire map of the continent I was on. Looking it over I was surprised to discover it wasn’t that different then North America. The shape of the continent was little off, but I could make out Florida, Michigan, even most of Mexico. Scanning the map I was able to locate Vexfort in the far north.

  If I thought of the continent as the US then Vexfort was in the northern tip of Maine. I then located the Outlands which seemed to encompass all of Washington, Oregon, California, parts of Mexico, Nevada, parts of Idaho, Utah, and Arizona. I groaned I was literally thousands of miles away from the Outlands and as far as I knew the only mode of travel was by carriage. It would take me forever to reach the Outlands. Not to mention I would have to leave the Northern Kingdom, and then pass into the Western Kingdom. I doubted border patrol would make that easy. Plus sitting in a bumpy carriage for weeks on end sounded like it would give me a sore butt.

  Frustrated, I set aside the map and picked up a book and skimmed over the pages. According to the book the Outlands was a vast wasteland of inhospitable mountains, deserts, thick jungles, and deadly swamps. At some point, many years ago humans had lived there and there are myths that say some still do, but now it has been claimed by roving tribes of monsters. After skimming through the book a bit more but not really finding any useful information I tossed the book onto my pile and stood stretching my legs while I pondered my problem.

  “Well this will make things difficult,” An all too familiar voice said from behind me. With a sigh I turned to see the apparition of my father sitting in the chair I had just vacated.

  “It will but I have never backed down from a challenge, you know that,” I said crossing my arms.

  “I’m well aware, you’ve done some pretty amazing things. You’ve also done some terrible things, like getting caught,” the ghost of my father chided.

  “Are you here for a reason or just to bother me?” I snapped. My father raised his hands placatingly. “I’m just worried about you, son. I’m very uneasy about this whole Demon King crap.”

  “You and I both know Carificux didn’t exactly give me a chance to say no. Besides, you saw what he showed me. This world needs a change and maybe I can be that.”

  “You would be putting innocent lives at risk. We both know you have a dark side; I just worry that becoming this Demon King is going to make your dark side stronger. Then it wont just be terrible people who deserve death that you’re killing but innocent men, women, and children. Could you live with their blood on your hands?” he asked pleadingly.

  I was silent for several long moments. Back on Earth dad had drilled into me a moral code for choosing my victims. They could only be people that had committed terrible crimes and gotten away with it. If it hadn’t been for the training, he had pushed me through, it was very possible I would have been a far worse person. Killing people just for the rush of spilling blood. Somewhere deep in my heart I knew killing people was wrong, no matter what they had done, but it just never seemed to bother me all that much.

  In two years, I had killed 20 people, all terrible people who had committed heinous crimes. I had been happy to kill them, my dark side purred as I thought over each of their deaths. It was undeniable that I would kill again, but it was possible my father had a point. For now, perhaps it was best if I stayed where I was, spent my time focusing on keeping Gerald safe and maybe even figure out who was trying to kill him. I simply didn’t know enough about the world to rush off and try and unite tribes of monsters.

  As much as I hated to admit it, once again my father was right. I turned to say something to my father, but the apparition was gone. I sighed and turned my attention back to my books and read for a few more minutes before Number 4 approached. “I take it my hour is up?” The construct nodded and I closed the book and stood. “Let’s head for the foyer then.”