Greed God chapter 109

February 13th 2016 Gemworld 4:00 PM EDT

It  took me literally days to finish converting all the bandits to Gemsworn  (I called the village to let them know I'd be away, Barbie had pouted).  Cherry had been right sadly, none of the Barons made it to F rank. They  had been too weak among G rankers for the small bump from the chalice  to get them to the next level, though it had actually had a larger  effect on them than on the civilians. The Lifestorm bloodline synergized  pretty well with the emerald bloodline, even a small amount of it. The  Barons had been pretty much entry level G rankers, and were about  halfway through the process now.

The biggest difference  (though again, not enough to cause a rank up) was Malcolm himself. The  spectrum of F rank was much wider than G, with ranks appearing to work  sort of like an upside down pyramid. The higher you went the bigger the  potential scope of each rank, but Malcolm, who had already been pretty  solidly F rank, was approaching the peak of that ranking now that I'd  managed to imbue him with my own bloodline.

All in all my  Greed Points had reach two hundred and sixty thousand. With the ten  thousand from Malcolm added to the hundred and twenty thousand from the  treasury, I was up to to one hundred thirty, which left me with a  hundred and fifteen newly G ranked bandits, and about fifteen upgraded  Barons. It was hardly the be all end all considering Barons were pretty  much literal trash here, but it was more than enough to be a good start.

I  had been planning on leaving the Emerald Edge in place to keep  operating as they had been, at least after Cherry proposed it, but given  my new point value I had much better options now. The points I had were  more than enough to get both myself and the village to E rank and still  have a nice nest egg of forty thousand points or so, and that wasn't  even counting the income from all the new people who would undoubtedly  flock to the new town. I'd be able to top back up pretty quickly, plus  imbue my bloodline in hundreds if not thousands of new citizens to keep  expanding my power.

The biggest issue I had been facing  was startup capital, and the second had been force accumulation, and  this fucking cup had solved both of them at once. I legitimately  couldn't imagine how fast I could grow now. Granted I still had to save  up enough for my big plan once I returned, which would be running me  about ten million points, but I had a million coming from when I finally  dicked Zatanna into line and another million (probably) once I got this  Amethyst girl under control. The rest could be done one step at a time.

I'd  expected this trip to take months, but at this rate it was looking more  like weeks. I made a note to call and tell Dinah and Whisper. They'd  probably be happy to have me back sooner, and I was admittedly excited  to see what pregnancy had done for Dinah's already luscious tits while I  was gone. I turned to Malcolm, who was sitting at one of the nearby  tables while I lounged in his former throne. "Alright, that's everyone  right?" I hadn't really been paying attention to the conversion. After a  certain point I just had them hand me the cup once it had recharged. I  was pretty sure we were finished since they'd stopped, but I could have  been wrong.

Malcolm had become much more excited about  working with me as he saw the insane change in his forces. Keeping in  mind that he'd spent literally years getting his Barons up to a nobility  rank, seeing me manage the same with almost a hundred and fifty people  in a few days had him thoroughly convinced working for me was a good  idea. With the insurance of the Brand now adorning his arm courtesy of  the chalice, I officially had a new F ranked lackey to use, and one who  was relatively familiar with the local conditions.

The  former bandit lord shot me an enthusiastic grin. "Entirely, my lord.  Every member of the Edge had now reached Baron status. Even the  peasantry. I'd...I'd only ever dreamed of a force like this. Even most  of the major noble houses don't have forces like this. Our foundations  are incomparably strong." I wondered how excited he would get after my  rankup when I gave everyone a second dose. I didn't think it would be  enough to get everyone to F rank or anything, but I suspected the  existing Barons would be close enough to make the jump to Viscount, and  Malcolm himself would become an Earl.

Not that I was going  to fuck up my own ascension just to get some stronger minions sooner.  I'd make the jump when I found the proper materials. Still, I was  confident it wouldn't be too long before I was able to track those down.  Still, I liked the sound of being stronger than the noble houses. "Are  you saying we might be strong enough to take down one of the weaker  noble lineages if we declared war on them?" I wouldn't be doing that  obviously, it was a surefire way to both get wrapped up in local  politics long term and accidentally piss off the Amethyst bloodline, who  were apparently goody goody busybodies who loved to interfere in other  people's affairs.

As expected though, I got a strong head  shake. "No my lord, not even close. If we can keep expanding at this  rate we might surpass the number of Barons the nobles possess, but each  Lord and Princess has at least half a dozen Dukes, and each of those  have a dozen Marquis and so on. Even if we fielded a thousand centuries  of Baron soldiers past a certain point there's just a qualitative  difference. Forget the Lords themselves, or even the Dukes, there's  almost no number of Barons that can kill a properly trained Marquis."

I'd  figured that honestly. The difference between ranks seemed to grow as  they went up. I knew at F rank even I could probably take down every G  ranker in this fort, so hearing a D ranker could do the same with ease  wasn't surprising. Quantity may be a quality all its own, but there were  diminishing returns involved in relying on numbers when the  stratification was this drastic. Still, I'd needed to know exactly what  we were dealing with so I had a proper understanding of our position and  a strong stance from which to bargain.

I was confident I  could be enough of a threat to be worth talking to soon enough, and that  once I reached that point I could convince princess Amethyst to hear me  out. Even in the worst case scenario where she was a capital P Princess  and was all the way at A rank, I was confident in my people skills.  Pretty girls surrounded by sycophants weren't actually any harder to  seduce, you just needed to find the right pressure points. I looked over  to Malcolm. "Alright Mal, you and the boys are coming back with me."

Malcolm  looked surprised. "I'm sure you've thought this out my lord, but might  you share your plan with me? I was under the impression that your new  village is still small, even if it's very comfortable and well made. If  you bring us all back won't you overpopulate and lower the standard of  living?" I could tell he was hesitant to leave behind the fortress where  his people had built their reputation, but he would if I pushed. Even  if I didn't compel him with the Brand, I'd established myself as a gravy  train, and Malcolm wouldn't disembark unless I crossed his bottom line.

I  appreciated his tact. I mainly let my people have plenty of rope to  hang themselves, when you micromanage every aspect of your operation  your subordinates lose the ability to act without guidance, and that  just makes more work. I sought out competent subordinates specifically  so I could avoid having to hold their hands. Still, as a side effect my  people never really had the fear that my old man's subordinates had. I  wasn't planning to change that, but having at least one sycophant on the  payroll would be a nice change, even if I figured the behavior would be  unlearned pretty soon.

I appreciated it so much I decided  to actually answer. "I've got that taken care of. I have a way to  quickly make the village more hospitable to a larger group." I didn't  mention any specifics obviously, but he would find out about my merging  ability soon enough anyway. As long as I didn't let on about the points  or my specific limits no out would be able to easily work around my  abilities, so letting people know incomplete bits about what I could do  was really only an asset to me in the long run. Just meant they would  draw the wrong conclusions if they ever decided to cross me.

That  was enough for Malcolm. He knew exactly what I was capable of when  necessary, the fun thing about creating miracles was the people got used  to the idea. Sure, they expected you to pull a magic solution out of  your ass every time something went wrong, but that was as much of an  asset as it was a hindrance. I'd done amazing things, so if I said I  could do them again it was much more convincing. In this case I actually  could, but in the future if I couldn't I could still bluff my way out.  Reputation was a hell of a thing.

Hell,  Batman had figured that shit out from day one. He kept Gotham in check  even the small amount that he did because he was a brutal son of a  bitch. He was everyone's boogeyman. Sure, Batman might not be waiting  around the corner to stomp your teeth in, but he could be, and every  fucking criminal in the city knew it. Reputation could do much more for a  person than brute force ever could. A person was only capable of doing  so much at one time, but there was no limit to the hypothetical.

Malcolm  scurried off to gather the bandits, not that I was worried about it. I  could summon them all with their Brands and make them line up in neat  little rows easy as you please. But this would let them get used to  obeying me. You could force your dog to go outside to take a shit  whenever you saw him squat down, but it was ten times easier to just  teach them to go to the back door. Once everyone had gather I hopped to  my feet and we headed off into the forest, retracing the path we'd taken  a few days ago to get to the fortress.

We  obviously weren't bothered by any creatures or anything. We had a  literal army of G rankers with us, and we made pretty solid time since  all the lifestorm gemsworn didn't get tired. Finally, we ended up back  at the village, and I had all the others make camp outside. I told  Malcolm I needed him and the others out of the way for an important  ritual to upgrade the village, and then headed in to talk to Barbie.  Since I was passing by I also wolfed down some of those delicious ass  berries.

I  decided to knock because why not, and when she answered she almost  bowled me over in a lunging kiss. I caught her and spent a few minutes  with my tongue down her throat before I set her down and slapped her on  the ass, sending her back inside. Once she sat down I plopped into a  chair. "So, I'm back, we have lots of new mouths to feed, which is  pretty great, but also a pain. I've been away a while and built up some  extra power, so it's time to officially take things to the next level.  Gather everyone in the village and take them outside the walls. We're  going to turn this village into a town."