Lord of Rot

The four-armed mercenary, Trevor, was slouched over. He'd been living well lately. Although his meals weren't covered, Porcupine Territory didn't much restrict his freedom.

Every day, he just trained the new recruits and then went to the tavern for a drink.

His only regret was that Porcupine Territory had no brothels, which left him uncomfortably pent-up.

"Tell me, why doesn't the Lord open one?" He couldn't figure it out. 'What a great way to make money.'

The soldier drinking with Trevor looked at him with contempt. "The Lord has his noble, devout Knights. He doesn't allow any unholy relationships outside of marriage. Here, only the bonds of husband and wife are protected."

If a brothel were to be established in Porcupine Territory, a group of girls would be "forced to volunteer" to work there.

Didn't Leech know how profitable it was? Of course he knew, but such places were also breeding grounds for disease. Porcupine Territory was on a path of healthy development; there was no need to model its economy after Iron Stone City's.

Although he prohibited such transactions, Leech wouldn't conduct a dragnet for certain secret dealings as long as they weren't too flagrant. He didn't have the manpower to waste on such things.

For various reasons, some people couldn't get married, even though Porcupine Territory currently had more men than women.

All he could do was forbid it publicly and refuse to provide any public venues for people to indulge.

You could be a boyfriend and girlfriend, but it couldn't be a paid transaction.

"I'm not getting married!" Trevor chugged a mouthful of ale. "I'm going to Iron Stone City in a couple of days, hehe."

At the mention of this "holy land," the soldiers all perked up.

"What's Iron Stone City like?"

"You've never been?" Trevor bared his teeth in a healthy-looking grin. "The women there are professionally trained. Even if you can't get it up, they'll scream their heads off to save your pride."

A younger soldier pouted. "Can't get it up? What a waste of time! And money!"

Trevor shook his head. "Kid, you'll get it when you're older."

As the men were shooting the breeze, someone shouted from outside, "Trevor, the Lord wants you at Porcupine Castle!"

'A job's come up.' Trevor stood up, casually pulling out a Silver Moon coin and tossing it onto the table. "It's on me!"

The soldiers cheered, "May God bless Trevor!"

"Haha, let God bless my asshole!"

The air outside the tavern was chilly. A cold wind gusted in his face, instantly clearing his nose, which had been clogged with the tavern's stench of sweaty feet.

He raised his second left arm, blew his nose into his hand, and casually wiped it on the sole of his shoe.

He walked quickly into the castle, following a manservant to the training grounds.

Today was the day for the soldiers' firearm target practice, so the training grounds were empty.

Trevor saw Leech chatting with a powerfully built nobleman. He walked over, bowed, and said, "Your most loyal servant, Trevor, greets you!"

"Trevor, I hope I didn't interrupt your rest." Leech turned and made the introduction. "This is Sir Lacy Sith. I'm sure you can sense that he is also a Transcendent."

"Lacy, this is Trevor, a Transcendent I've hired."

Trevor clearly felt Lacy's disgust, especially when the Baron revealed his identity as a mercenary.

Noble masters hated mercenaries. Aside from ordering them to their deaths, they couldn't be bothered to waste a single word on them. Trevor was long used to such looks.

He gave an indifferent shrug.

"I want you to help me test Lacy's abilities," Leech said to Trevor.

"My Lord, I'd be happy to oblige!" Trevor grinned.

'I get an order from the Lord to beat this guy up? Haha! And I'll get paid for it.'

Seeing him clenching his fists, ready for a fight, Leech immediately said, "I'm not asking you to fight. We'll use other means."

"Other?" Trevor was confused.

Trevor soon understood what that meant.

He had to place a giant boulder on Lacy's shoulders.

All four of his arms strained at once. The stone, weighing over 1,000 pounds, nearly did him in.

It wasn't that he couldn't lift 1,000 pounds. The difficulty lay in the stone's irregular shape, which offered no good handholds. If it weren't for his four arms, he would have had no way to handle it.

"HAAH!" Trevor gritted his teeth, putting more force into the lift.

Then, inch by inch, he raised the stone.

His fingers dug into the rock, sending stone chips flying.

His face flushed red as he strained with all his might.

Lacy quickly squatted, catching the stone with his shoulders.

THUD!

The dull, heavy impact made Trevor think he had just crushed the nobleman to death.

Then, he felt the stone in his four hands grow lighter as Lacy actually stood up.

Leech's eyes lit up. "How is it?"

Lacy nodded. "It's fairly easy, my Lord!"

"Can you take more weight?" Leech asked hurriedly.

"I believe so!"

Leech looked at the mercenary, Trevor. "Get another stone on him."

When a two-thousand-pound boulder was settled on Lacy's shoulders, Trevor instinctively sucked in a sharp breath.

'Such incredible strength!'

He could tell Lacy hadn't reached his limit; he could still walk.

But Leech saw even more.

Even though Lacy was carrying a boulder weighing over two thousand pounds, the ground beneath his feet hadn't sunk in at all.

Over two thousand pounds of weight was concentrated on an area only the size of his two feet. Normally, Lacy should have sunk deep into the ground, leaving large pits.

The same would have happened even to Leech.

"Can you run?" Leech asked. 'It was like he was carrying a small car on his shoulders.'

The visual impact was stunning.

"I can!" Lacy nodded, then broke into a swift run with the boulder still on his shoulders.

His footfalls were slightly heavier than those of an ordinary soldier in heavy armor, but his speed far surpassed that of a normal person, placing him among the lower tier of Transcendents.

After running a full lap, Lacy returned looking completely at ease. He hadn't even broken a sweat.

Trevor was utterly stunned.

'Is this guy even human?'

What shocked Trevor even more was that Lacy Sith was calmly chatting with the Baron while still carrying the boulder. 'That's over two thousand pounds of rock! You could at least pant a little, damn it! Otherwise, it makes it look like I was faking all that effort earlier.'

"Alright, I have a general idea now." Leech nodded, thought for a moment, and said, "Hmm, we happen to need large stones for the plaza construction. The two of you, go to the quarry and bring the biggest stone you can find back to the plaza."

It was one thing to make a mercenary do this kind of labor—as long as the pay was good, there would be no problem. But asking a nobleman to quarry stone like a slave might make Lacy think Leech was looking down on him.

So Leech added, "Lacy, once we've tested your weight-bearing limit, I'll have the blacksmith forge a brand-new suit of armor for you."

'A Transcendent laborer stronger than an ox. It'd be a crime not to put him to use.'

"Yes!"

The two nodded, accepted their orders, and left.

Watching their departing figures, Leech mused, "It seems every type of Transcendent really does exist."

Lacy's ability wasn't immense strength or powerful endurance. It was something highly specific: when he carried a heavy object on his body, its weight was drastically reduced.

What was two thousand-pound boulders to Trevor might have only felt like a few dozen pounds to Lacy.

'It might be related to gravity. If I have Lacy carry a two-thousand-pound object and then have two farmers lift him, would the two farmers then have the strength to lift over two thousand pounds? How is that possible? Can this power be developed further? Perhaps one day Lacy could wield a weapon weighing several thousand pounds with his bare hands, instead of just supporting its weight with his body.'

Leech pondered this for a moment before realizing he was falling into a conceptual trap.

'Why am I trying to explain Magic? That's a scholar's job. I should be thinking about how to exploit it.'

With an Extraordinary power like Lacy's weight-bearing ability, Leech's first thought was to turn him into a mobile iron infantryman, clad in steel plate armor as thick as an aircraft carrier's.

Or... he could just use him for manual labor. The pace of construction would surely skyrocket.

But he had to find a way to appease Lacy. The man had come to achieve great deeds, not to be a common laborer.

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