The imperial balcony was silent, wrapped in the cool embrace of a Mediterranean night that did not belong to the Mediterranean.
Below, Nova Roma lived and breathed. Millions of citizens moved through the perfectly illuminated avenues of the capital as the final light of evening bled out behind the western mountains. From this high up, the city was a masterpiece of impossible logistics and unrelenting ambition. Flawless marble buildings reflected the warm, flickering orange glow of alchemical lanterns. Merchants were securely closing their stalls in the forum, while armored legionaries changed shifts at the towering obsidian gates with clockwork precision. The distant, rhythmic sounds of forge-hammers and blast furnaces, which had roared throughout the day to feed the war machine, were gradually fading into the peaceful hum of a city settling into the night.
From this height, everything looked peaceful. Orderly. Perfect.
Maximus rested both hands heavily against the cold marble railing and stared out across the sprawling metropolis.
Behind him, the gilded bronze doors to the balcony remained open, framing a pair of Royal Guards who stood as motionless as statues. Their imposing adamantine armor drank the ambient light, and neither man spoke. Neither needed to. They existed only to step between their Emperor and death, a duty they would execute without a second of hesitation.
The Emperor's attention, however, was not on his guards, nor was it on the staggering beauty of the city he had built from nothing over the past year. His eyes remained fixed upon the translucent, faintly humming blue window floating in the empty air just inches before his face.
Five rewards. Five absolute absurdities.
Maximus slowly reread the shimmering text.
Absolute Victory.
He had encountered horrifyingly powerful abilities since arriving in this strange world. He had seen Tier Magic capable of reshaping landscapes. He had mastered martial arts that defied physics, studied runecraft that bound concepts to steel, and witnessed Yggdrasil-derived spells that bordered on divine intervention. He knew intimately of the strange, world-breaking powers possessed by entities like Ainz Ooal Gown.
But this was fundamentally different. This wasn't simply a measure of arcane strength. It wasn't even magic in the traditional sense.
It was a metaphysical rule. Reality itself would actively eliminate outcomes in which he failed to accomplish an objective, provided he actively pursued that objective with genuine intent.
Maximus stared at the description, listening to the wind brush past the balcony.
"That's..." He exhaled a long, measured breath. "Ridiculous."
The System offered no response. It never did when he editorialized. It simply waited, uncaring and infinitely patient.
Maximus rubbed his temples, feeling the beginnings of a profound headache. He had spent the entirety of the past year constructing Rome with paranoid precision. Food production, aqueducts, deep-core mining, layered military infrastructure, naval supremacy, magical academies, and ruthless diplomacy. Every single decision, every law signed in ink and blood, had been made under the cold assumption that failure was not just possible, but constantly stalking them.
That assumption had just been shattered.
Absolute Victory effectively meant that if Maximus decided a thing must come to pass, the universe itself would begin twisting and bending toward that specific result. The question was no longer whether he would succeed in his campaigns. The question was what price reality would extract along the path to that success.
His eyes narrowed.
"System."
[Yes, Host.]
"Can Absolute Victory protect me from death?"
[Absolute Victory ensures successful completion of an actively pursued objective.]
"That's not what I asked. Don't play semantic games with me."
A pause. The blue light flickered softly in the dark. Then the answer formed.
[If survival is strictly necessary for the completion of the Host's declared objective, reality will eliminate outcomes resulting in the Host's failure to survive.]
Maximus stared at the window, reading the words three times to ensure he understood the exact phrasing.
"So, if my objective is simply to survive the next century..."
[The Host will survive.]
A slow, humorless smile touched his lips. "And if my objective is to conquer this entire world?"
[The Host will accomplish the objective.]
His smile vanished instantly. The sheer weight of the power was almost nauseating. It was too powerful. Too absolute.
Maximus looked away from the screen, staring toward the dark horizon where the known world gave way to uncharted territories filled with monsters, Dragon Lords, and lurking Players.
"Then there has to be a limitation," he murmured. "Reality doesn't just hand out free wins without balancing the equation."
[The ability does not eliminate effort, consequences, casualties, collateral damage, or indirect costs. It enforces the destination. It does not dictate the safety of the journey.]
Maximus remained silent. His hands gripped the marble railing until his knuckles turned white.
That distinction mattered more than anything else. If he declared that Rome would conquer the world, the System would somehow arrange the dominoes to fall in his favor. But Rome could still burn in the process. Entire cities could be leveled. Millions of his citizens could be slaughtered. The people he cared about—the commanders who trusted him, the Chancellor who worked himself to the bone for him—could still die horrific deaths.
Absolute Victory wasn't a substitute for leadership. It was merely the ultimate insurance policy. And Maximus had absolutely no intention of becoming a careless tyrant simply because reality had handed him a set of loaded dice.
He swiped the first notification away. His gaze moved to the second reward.
Shenron.
A legendary dragon capable of granting wishes. Once per year, provided the wish was within the scope of its power.
Maximus raised a single eyebrow. "Dragon Ball."
The absurdity of his situation struck him anew, threatening to pull a laugh from his chest. A man who had died a mundane death on Earth, currently ruling a Roman Empire on a fantasy world governed by Dungeons & Dragons mechanics filtered through a Japanese litRPG, dealing with skeletal overlords, and now he possessed a wishing dragon.
He didn't laugh. Instead, he forced his mind into cold, analytical calculation.
"System, can Shenron revive the dead in this reality?"
[Within the limits of the manifested Shenron.]
Maximus's expression hardened. "And what exactly are those limits?"
[Shenron's power is fundamentally dependent upon the entity that created or empowered the dragon. In this iteration, the dragon's conceptual limits are tethered to the Host's current tier of magical and authoritative power.]
Maximus nodded slowly in the dark. That meant the ability was incredibly potent, but not a limitless omnipotent god-button he should casually waste. One wish per year. He wasn't going to spend it on something trivial like gold, adamantine, or resources. Rome could manufacture or conquer those things on its own.
He needed to save the wish for the impossible. Restoration of a destroyed soul. Resurrection from True Death. Or perhaps obtaining forbidden knowledge that the world's magic systems actively obscured.
He closed the window. The third reward materialized.
Creation.
His eyebrows rose toward his hairline. "You've got to be kidding me."
The description was deceptively, terrifyingly simple. He could create objects and matter directly through the expenditure of magical energy, provided he perfectly understood the molecular and structural makeup of the object in question. A steel blade. A complex gear mechanism. A microchip. Anything he could hold in his mind with perfect clarity.
Maximus looked down at his own hands. Calloused. Scarred. Humans.
Creation. He had spent an entire year constructing the foundations of Rome using the grueling labor of millions of citizens, clear-cutting forests, stripping mountains of their ores, and burning through vast quantities of raw materials. Now, he could potentially manufacture those materials from the ether.
But he knew better than to rush. Thermodynamics still demanded a toll. The System explicitly noted that mass and complexity scaled exponentially with the magical energy required. Crafting a simple iron dagger might cost a fraction of his mana. Crafting a functional nuclear reactor—even if he understood the physics—would likely drain his life force and reduce him to ash. The ability required rigorous, controlled experimentation.
He turned his back on the city and looked toward the open doors.
"Get Gaius."
The guard on the right immediately struck his breastplate with a gauntleted fist, a sharp, echoing crack in the quiet night. "At once, Your Imperial Majesty."
As the guard's heavy footsteps echoed down the marble corridor, Maximus returned his attention to the glowing blue interface. The fourth reward was, in practical terms, perhaps the most urgent.
Tinker — Defence (IV).
A cognitive power centered entirely around the theoretical design, engineering, and construction of defensive technology. Forcefields. Spatial locking arrays. Adaptive kinetic clothing. Element-resistant alloys. Automated interception constructs.
It wasn't a magic spell. It wasn't simply a crafting ability that instantly spawned an item. It was an entire framework of physics and engineering downloaded directly into his cerebral cortex.
Maximus closed his eyes, feeling the sudden, dizzying rush of foreign knowledge mapping itself across his neurons. Schematics for hard-light barriers unfolded in his mind's eye. Mathematical formulas calculating the exact frequency required to disrupt a teleportation spell danced behind his eyelids.
His eyes snapped open, blazing with sudden intensity. Rome's greatest weakness was no longer manpower, logistics, or economy. It was the unknown. It was Nazarick. It was World Items capable of rewriting reality. It was ancient Dragon Lords wielding Wild Magic, and anomalous Players treating the world like a sandbox.
An empire of millions could easily defend itself against mortal armies. But how did an empire defend itself against a single, invisible entity capable of teleporting directly into the imperial throne room to cast Grasp Heart or Fallen Down?
Until three minutes ago, it couldn't. Now? Spatial locks. Anti-divination barriers woven into the city's bedrock. Interlocking kinetic shields. Deep-earth emergency shelters insulated against Super-Tier magic.
Maximus's expression shifted into a predatory grin. "Now we're talking."
He pulled up the final reward.
Full Counter.
He stared at it, the blue light reflecting in his dark eyes. "That's going to be fun."
The ability was elegantly simple. With precise physical timing, he could reflect an incoming attack back at the caster with exactly double the kinetic or magical power. It didn't matter if it was a fireball, a physical strike from a giant, or a beam of pure holy energy. If it qualified as an attack, and his timing was flawless, he owned it.
Maximus vividly imagined Ainz Ooal Gown casting a maximized Reality Slash at him. He imagined catching it on the edge of his blade and violently returning it, mathematically doubled in its destructive output, straight into the Overlord's skeletal ribcage.
A slow, dark chuckle escaped him. "Not bad at all."
The heavy bronze doors groaned inward.
"Your Imperial Majesty."
Maximus turned. Chancellor Gaius entered, clutching several thick, leather-bound ledgers beneath his left arm. The man looked pale, his eyes heavily shadowed. He always looked exhausted lately. Running a rapidly expanding, highly militarized empire of millions had done terrible things to the Chancellor's sleep schedule, but his loyalty and competence were absolutely unmatched.
"Your Majesty," Gaius said, offering a deep, formal bow.
"Gaius. You're working late."
"The grain shipments from the newly annexed western provinces require strict auditing, Sire. You summoned me?"
"I did." Maximus walked away from the balcony, moving toward the massive, polished mahogany war table positioned in the center of the chamber. He traced his fingers over the meticulously carved map of the continent. "How much refined mithril do we currently have secured in the imperial vaults?"
Gaius blinked, taken aback by the sudden pivot. "Stored? Unallocated?"
"Yes."
"I would need to consult the Quartermaster General's exact reports, but it is a substantial reserve. We have been stockpiling it as you ordered."
"Then obtain the exact numbers immediately."
Gaius turned on his heel to leave.
"Wait."
The Chancellor froze, looking back over his shoulder.
Maximus pointed a single finger down at the map, directly onto the capital city. "Bring the chief runesmiths to the lower research chambers."
Gaius's eyebrows furrowed. "The dwarves, Sire? At this hour?"
"And the master engineers."
"Yes, Majesty."
"And the grand architects."
"I... Yes."
"And every senior magical researcher with a clearance level above four."
Gaius slowly turned around, fully facing the Emperor. He clutched the ledgers tighter against his chest. "Sire, if I may ask... what precisely has happened?"
Maximus smiled, and it was a smile that promised the absolute upheaval of the world order.
"Because, Gaius, Rome is about to become entirely impossible to kill."
…
Three hours later, the subterranean imperial research chamber was suffocatingly crowded.
Thick heat radiated from the mana-lamps mounted along the reinforced stone walls. Master dwarven runesmiths, their beards braided with gold and soot, stood shoulder-to-shoulder with human structural engineers in crisp Roman uniforms. Robed magicians from the newly established Imperial Academy gathered around massive drafting tables covered in blank vellum, whispering fiercely among themselves. High-ranking military officers stood near the back, arms crossed, eyes watching the center of the room.
At the center stood Maximus. He had shed his heavy imperial mantle, wearing only a dark, fitted tunic and trousers.
He reached into his pocket and placed a small, perfectly smooth, dark metal sphere upon the center of the obsidian table. It was heavy, dense, and completely devoid of any seams or markings.
Dozens of pairs of eyes locked onto it. The room descended into a heavy silence.
Gaius, standing opposite the Emperor, frowned deeply. "What is that, Sire?"
"A prototype," Maximus said, his voice carrying easily through the cavernous room.
"For what?"
Maximus ignored the question. He looked toward the chief engineer, a brilliant, frantic man named Valerius who had designed the capital's aqueduct system. "Valerius. Build me a container capable of housing this object securely."
Valerius stepped forward, squinting at the sphere. "Your Majesty, what exactly are its properties? Is it volatile? Magical?"
"Currently, it is nothing."
The cryptic answer only deepened the confusion in the room. The dwarven master runesmith, Thordin, leaned over the table, his thick nose inches from the metal.
Maximus reached out and lightly tapped the sphere with his index finger. He willed his mana to flow outward, channeling the newly acquired Creation skill, filtering it through the alien blueprints provided by the Tinker ability.
The dark metal sphere instantly began to glow with a blinding, searing blue light.
And then, it vanished.
A stunned, absolute silence suffocated the room.
Valerius's jaw went slack. "Where... where did the mass go?"
"It inverted," Maximus stated calmly. "It is currently occupying a folded pocket of space inside its own previous dimensions."
"But... Sire, that defies every known law of physical matter!" Valerius rushed forward, his hands reaching out to grab empty space.
Maximus slammed his hand down on the table, the crack echoing like a gunshot. "Do not touch the perimeter."
Valerius froze, jerking his hands back as if burned.
Maximus focused his mind. The System responded instantly.
[Creation activated. Blueprint accessed: Class-IV Deflector Matrix Hub.]
The empty air above the obsidian table began to violently shimmer. The ambient temperature in the room dropped ten degrees in a single second as massive amounts of mana were sucked from the environment to compensate for the rapid generation of mass.
Solid metal began appearing out of thin air. It wasn't being teleported in. It wasn't being pulled from a spatial inventory. It was being fundamentally authored into reality.
First, a small, heavily armored geometric box formed, its surfaces etched with fractal, impossible geometries. Then, another component materialized and locked into place with a sharp metallic clack. Then another. Copper wiring, glowing crystalline conduits, and heavy adamantine plating manifested layer by layer.
The greatest engineers and mages in the Roman Empire watched in paralyzed horror and awe as the machine assembled itself, piece by impossible piece, driven by the sheer will of their Emperor.
Within four minutes, a compact, humming machine the size of a small barrel sat heavily upon the table. It radiated a low, subsonic vibration that vibrated in the teeth of everyone present.
Maximus exhaled slowly, feeling a sharp ache behind his eyes. Creating complex machinery with dense molecular structures was vastly more taxing than he had anticipated. "Not bad for a first run."
Valerius looked like a man who had just watched the sky turn to blood. "You..." He swallowed audibly, his throat clicking in the silence. "You forged that... with your mind?"
"Essentially, yes."
"From nothing?"
"From mana and intent," Maximus corrected.
Thordin, the dwarf, cautiously stepped closer, his eyes tracing the metal casing. He didn't ask about the magic; he cared only for the material. "This isn't conventional metallurgy. The grain structure... It's completely seamless. There are no impurities."
"It's not steel, Thordin."
The dwarf ran a calloused thumb over a sharp edge. "It's denser than adamantine. But it feels lighter."
Maximus nodded. "It is a synthetic carbon-lattice alloy. Better than adamantine." He reached down and pressed a sequence of raised geometric panels on the machine's surface.
The subsonic hum spiked into an audible, high-pitched whine.
A translucent, shimmering golden dome violently snapped into existence, entirely enclosing the obsidian table. The displacement of air pushed Gaius and several engineers a step backward. The field looked like liquid glass, rippling faintly with hexagonal patterns before settling into near-invisibility.
Maximus drew a heavy steel throwing dagger from his belt and casually tossed it at Gaius's face.
Gaius flinched, throwing his arms up.
The dagger struck the invisible barrier with a sharp crack and stopped completely dead in midair. It didn't bounce. It didn't deflect. All kinetic energy was instantly bled away. The dagger simply hung perfectly motionless against the shield, suspended by localized gravity, before dropping harmlessly to the table.
The mages began whispering frantically. The engineers simply stared.
Maximus smiled. "Localized kinetic and magical defensive barrier."
Gaius lowered his arms, staring at the fallen dagger, his heart pounding in his chest. "Sire... how durable is it?"
"Let's find out." Maximus looked over Gaius's shoulder to the massive Royal Guard stationed at the chamber door. "Centurion. Step forward."
The armored giant marched to the table, towering over the researchers.
"Strike the barrier. Full strength. Use a martial art if you possess one."
Valerius immediately panicked, waving his hands. "Your Majesty, wait, the kinetic displacement in a closed room could—"
"Strike it," Maximus commanded, his voice slicing through the engineer's panic.
The Centurion drew his massive adamantine broadsword. He gripped it in both hands, took a deep breath, and triggered a martial art. A red aura flared around his muscles. The blade descended in a blinding arc aimed directly at the machine.
BOOM!
A deafening shockwave ripped through the room. Papers flew off the drafting tables. Mages covered their ears.
The sword hit the golden barrier and stopped completely. The barrier flared violently, a brilliant display of hexagonal light, but it did not shatter. It didn't even dent.
The Centurion grunted, his arms vibrating from the violent recoil. He stepped back, looking at his perfectly intact blade, and then at the unharmed barrier.
Maximus nodded, his eyes analytical. "Again. Maximum output."
The Centurion shifted his stance. BOOM!
The stone floor beneath them cracked. The barrier flickered, the golden light dimming for a fraction of a second before restabilizing.
"Again."
BOOM!
Dust shook loose from the vaulted ceiling. The sound was like a cannon firing indoors. The barrier rippled violently, the geometric patterns straining visibly, but it held.
Maximus's eyes narrowed in intense satisfaction. "Fascinating." He turned his gaze toward Thordin. "Master dwarf. The internal conduits are handling the energy displacement, but the external housing is suffering thermal stress. Can you engrave heat-dispersal runes into the alloy casing to reinforce the energy bleed?"
Thordin stared at the machine, his mind already racing through centuries of runic theory. "If you can give me tools capable of scratching that metal, Sire... yes. Given enough time."
"Good." Maximus turned his fierce gaze upon the engineers. "Take it apart. Reverse engineer the power coupling. Then scale it."
Gaius's expression shifted from awe to deep, administrative dread. "Scale it, Sire?"
"Yes." Maximus walked away from the table, striding purposefully toward a massive map of the Roman Empire pinned against the far wall. "I want a city-sized iteration of this matrix."
Dead silence fell over the room.
Gaius spoke very, very carefully. "Your Majesty... how large of a perimeter are we discussing?"
Maximus pointed a single finger directly into the heart of the map. Nova Roma. "The entire capital."
Someone in the back of the room choked on their own breath.
"Every district," Maximus continued, dragging his finger in a wide, sweeping circle. "The imperial palace. The military academies. The manufacturers. The civilian residential zones."
Gaius's mouth slowly opened. "And the outer defensive walls?"
"Everything." Maximus turned to face them, his silhouette framed by the glowing map. "A dome of hard-light and kinetic negation spanning twenty square miles. Integrated with spatial locks to prevent teleportation, and layered with anti-divination wards."
The Chancellor stared at his Emperor, horrified by the sheer logistical nightmare being proposed. "How... how quickly?"
Maximus looked toward Valerius. "That depends entirely on the genius of my engineers."
Valerius stiffened, squaring his shoulders, the sheer impossible challenge overriding his fear. "Your Majesty."
"Speak."
"If we receive absolute priority access to the mithril reserves, total command over the magical academies for mana-charging, and fifty thousand laborers... we can attempt a prototype array within six months."
"Too slow. The world is moving."
Valerius hesitated, sweat beading on his forehead. "Four months. If we work in shifts through the night."
"Two."
"Your Majesty, that is physically impossible! The trenching alone for the conduit lines—"
"Two months," Maximus repeated, his voice echoing with absolute authority.
Valerius turned in desperation to Thordin. The dwarf slowly ran a hand through his thick beard, his eyes doing terrible, rapid mathematics. He sighed, a heavy, rattling sound. "Three months, Emperor. We need time to carve the runes, and runes cannot be rushed, or they explode and take half a city block with them."
Maximus considered the dwarf. He respected the stubbornness of craftsmen. "Two and a half months. You will have a hundred thousand laborers. The military will assist with the excavations."
Valerius and Thordin exchanged a long look, and then Valerius offered a faint, manic smile. "Deal."
Gaius closed his eyes and began rubbing his temples vigorously. "Of course. Why do we need sleep when we have ambition?"
Maximus chuckled, a rare, genuine sound. "That, Gaius, is exactly why you are Chancellor."
…
The following morning, Nova Roma tore itself open.
Across the sprawling capital, massive foundations were violently ripped into the earth. The sky filled with the dust of progress. The engineering corps worked seamlessly alongside dwarven runesmiths, mapping out geometric nodes across the city's layout. Hundreds of mages from the academy were deployed to create stabilizing arrays in the deep trenches to prevent the earth from collapsing.
Architects hurriedly redesigned entire sections of the capital's outer ring to accommodate the massive adamantine pylons required to project the barrier. The citizenry watched in absolute awe as their Emperor's vision took physical form.
The initiative was quietly classified under the moniker The Aegis Project.
Its core directive was elegantly simple: Make Rome impossible to destroy.
The first stage involved the physical construction of the barrier pylons. The second stage involved the integration of sweeping magical detection grids—sensors capable of picking up hostile mana signatures miles before they reached the walls. The third stage utilized the Tinker ability's spatial locking theory, layering the city's airspace with frequencies that violently disrupted teleportation magic, ensuring no hostile entity could bypass the walls via gate magic. The fourth stage involved heavy runic integration to resist Super-Tier magic.
But it was the fifth stage that Maximus oversaw with obsessive, paranoid detail.
Because if an enemy somehow, miraculously, bypassed the shields... the city needed to survive.
Massive subterranean shelters were blasted out of the deep bedrock beneath the capital. The Roman war machine turned its earth-moving magic inward. Caverns capable of holding thousands were expanded to hold tens of thousands, and eventually hundreds of thousands.
Entire city districts were quietly connected through deep-earth underground corridors. These were not crude, dirt tunnels. They were paved, heavily reinforced subterranean avenues, superior in construction to many surface roads in neighboring kingdoms. They were equipped with autonomous magical lighting, deep-aquifer water filtration, advanced ventilation shafts disguised as architectural monuments on the surface, and massive granaries stacked with non-perishable rations.
At the deepest, most secure level of this underground network lay the new strategic command center.
Maximus stood inside it exactly two months later.
The room was vast, circular, and heavily armored in adamantine and lead to block scrying. At its absolute center floated a massive, three-dimensional magical hologram of the continent.
Every Roman city glowed a soft blue. Every paved road pulsed with light. Every fortress, military base, and major resource deposit was marked in sharp relief. The Aegis perimeter hummed visibly over Nova Roma on the map.
Maximus stared at the glowing projection, feeling a profound sense of achievement.
"This..." He smiled, glancing at the man standing to his right. "This is Rome."
Gaius, looking slightly less exhausted now that the Aegis Project was nearing completion, adjusted his robes and looked out over the map.
"No, Majesty," Gaius said quietly.
Maximus raised an eyebrow.
Gaius offered a thin, razor-sharp smile. "This is only the beginning."
Maximus laughed, the sound echoing off the steel walls. "You are learning, my friend."
…
The Roman Empire was changing structurally, but externally, its gravity was beginning to distort the entire continent.
The first tremors of this geopolitical earthquake were felt in the Re-Estize Kingdom.
It began quietly in the merchant guilds. Guildmasters and traders began reporting strange, impossibly pure coins entering the northern circulation. Roman gold denarii. Roman silver sestertii. Their weight was exact. Their minting was flawless, bearing the stern profile of a foreign Emperor. They could not be clipped or shaved.
Following the currency came the goods. Perfectly forged steel tools. Advanced medical supplies the clerics could not replicate. Unbreakable agricultural equipment. And, most devastatingly of all: food.
Roman grain flooded the western markets. A single Roman naval shipment entering a port contained more surplus wheat and barley than some Re-Estize barons could produce in a five-year harvest.
The nobility panicked. Prices plummeted. Aristocrats who built their power on the control of food suddenly found their leverage obliterated. Barons drafted frantic missives in candlelit studies, watching their stockpiled wheat rot while foreign merchants bought out their lands.
But the commoners? The peasantry who had starved under the brutal feudal yoke for centuries? They rejoiced.
For the first time in generations, bread was cheap. Children grew fat. Medicines to cure the plagues of the lower class became accessible.
And with the food, the stories spread like wildfire.
Whispers in taverns. Rumors shared over fences. Stories about the Emperor of the West. Stories of an empire across the sea where roads were paved with flat stone, where soldiers fought with absolute discipline instead of chaotic conscription, and where the lowliest citizen was protected by the law of the state.
The nobles hated those stories. They tried to ban the whispers.
But the common people loved them, and they looked westward with hungry, desperate eyes.
…
In the Baharuth Empire, Emperor Jircniv Rune Farlord El-Nix, the Bloody Emperor, sat in his immaculate, sunlit office. He listened to the intelligence report in absolute, deathly silence.
Four of his highest-ranking ministers stood before his mahogany desk, sweating profusely.
"The Roman Empire has formally established diplomatic and economic relations with the Roble Holy Kingdom," the first minister stated, his voice trembling slightly.
Jircniv's elegant fingers tapped a slow, steady rhythm against the wood. "I know."
"They have also aggressively introduced their currency into the Re-Estize economy, effectively destabilizing the kingdom's internal trade."
"I know."
"Their naval and trade fleets are expanding at a rate that suggests highly industrialized, possibly magical, mass production."
"I know." Jircniv stopped tapping. His piercing gaze locked onto the minister. "Tell me something I do not know."
The minister swallowed hard. "There is... one more matter, Your Majesty. Regarding their Emperor."
Jircniv leaned forward, resting his chin on his steepled hands. "What about him?"
"According to intercepted Slane Theocracy intelligence... he was engaged by the Sunlight Scripture. He reportedly defeated Nigun Grid Luin, and destroyed a high-tier angelic summon—believed to be a Dominion Authority—with a single, unknown spell."
Jircniv leaned back in his velvet chair. The tapping resumed, faster this time. That was profoundly troubling. The Theocracy's trump cards were not easily broken.
But then the minister delivered the killing blow.
"Additionally, our deep-cover scribes have attempted to estimate the population of this Roman Empire based on their grain exports and military movements." The minister looked down at his notes as if they were cursed. "They are believed to possess several million citizens."
Silence descended upon the office.
Jircniv's expression froze. The mask of the confident, brilliant ruler cracked slightly. "How many?"
"Several million, Sire. Upwards of six."
"On the mainland?"
"Yes."
Jircniv stared at the man, his brilliant mind grinding to a halt as it tried to process the logistical impossibility. "How? Where did they come from? You don't just hide six million people!"
"We don't know, Sire."
"What is the exact composition of their military strength?"
"We don't know."
Jircniv closed his eyes and pinched the bridge of his nose. For several long seconds, the most powerful human ruler in the eastern continent said absolutely nothing.
Then, quietly, he began to laugh.
It was not a laugh of joy. It was a dry, hollow, exhausted sound. The kind of laugh a rational man makes when reality itself has become too absurd, too broken to process through normal logic.
"Another monster appears," Jircniv whispered.
One of the ministers shifted nervously. "Your Majesty?"
Jircniv opened his eyes and looked past the terrified men, staring out the window toward the vast, blue sky.
"First the undead monstrosity, Ainz Ooal Gown," Jircniv murmured, his voice laced with venom and despair. "Now an empire of millions, ruled by a man who casually slaughters angels. This world is becoming entirely too crowded."
…
Far to the south, inside the most heavily guarded sanctum of the Slane Theocracy...
The highest officials of humanity's oldest defender gathered behind magically sealed doors. The Cardinals of the Six Great Gods sat around a circular stone table. In the center lay a vast, highly detailed map of the continent.
The western coastline. The Albion Hills. The Roble Holy Kingdom. The Re-Estize Kingdom.
And dominating the western edge, a massive, bleeding red mark had been painted over the parchment.
ROME.
The Cardinals stared at it, their faces grim in the flickering candlelight.
The Cardinal of Earth finally broke the suffocating silence. "We lost the sealing crsytal."
"We lost the entire core of the Sunlight Scripture," the Cardinal of Fire corrected, his voice tight with barely suppressed rage.
The Cardinal of Light steepled his fingers, staring blankly at the map. "And the Dominion Authority. Shattered. In a single engagement."
Silence returned, heavy and oppressive. Nobody wanted to voice the terrifying implication of that truth.
The Slane Theocracy had spent six centuries preparing for apocalyptic threats. They had contingencies for Demon Gods. They bred heroes to fight demi-human invasions. They monitored the ancient Dragon Lords. They guarded the Divine items with their lives.
But they had never, in all their centuries of prophecy and preparation, anticipated this.
A massive, industrialized human empire had simply appeared. An empire whose conventional military strength seemed to vastly exceed anything the Theocracy had deemed possible for ordinary humanity to achieve without the direct intervention of the Gods.
Worse still... its Emperor knew too much. He fought with tactics and power that defied their understanding of the Tier system.
The Cardinal of Wind placed a trembling hand over the map. "We must determine, with absolute certainty, whether this 'Maximus' is a Player."
"If he is," the Cardinal of Water countered, "why does his magic not resemble the tier system? Our seers report his technology utilizes principles outside the bounds of established magic."
"Then perhaps he is something else entirely."
"What?" the Cardinal of Fire snapped.
No answer came. The theological implications were too terrifying to entertain.
Eventually, the Pontifex Maximus, the oldest and wisest among them, spoke. His voice was fragile as dry parchment, but it carried absolute authority.
"We observe. We do not engage. We pull our scriptures back from his borders."
A younger official, a captain of the guards, frowned deeply. "Your Holiness... and if he attacks us? What if his legions march upon the Theocracy?"
The old man looked toward the western horizon, his ancient eyes filled with a quiet, terrible dread.
"Then, my son," the Pontifex whispered, "we pray to the Six that they grant us a swift death."
Nobody laughed.
…
Weeks bled into months.
Rome did not stall. It accelerated.
Castrum Albium, the initial forward operating base, exploded in population, transforming from a military fortress into a sprawling, fortified trade city. The Roble Holy Kingdom formally, and gratefully, entered the Roman economic sphere, eagerly trading their resources for Roman protection and technology. Trade routes were aggressively secured.
Roman engineering corps moved in, leveling terrain and pouring concrete to rebuild the ancient, broken roads of the human nations. Roman physicians established sanitized hospitals, introducing germ theory and advanced healing magics to populations used to dying from minor infections. Agricultural experts taught crop rotation and magical soil enrichment.
And everywhere the Roman eagle standard was planted into the earth... the world watched.
Some watched with paralyzing fear. Some with religious admiration. Some with burning hatred.
But absolutely nobody ignored it anymore.
Maximus stood in his private office late one evening, reading by the light of a single, smokeless alchemical lamp. A heavy parchment report lay unrolled on his desk.
Imperial Expansion Status:
Total Population: 6,400,000 (Rising)
Major Cities Established: 112
Legions Active: 45 (Recruitment accelerating)
Sky Legions (Wyvern/Griffin Airborne): 3 (Combat Ready)
Naval Fleet: Dominant in Western Seas
Roble Holy Kingdom: Allied / Economic Integration Active
Re-Estize Kingdom: Diplomatic contact pending / Economic destabilization successful
Baharuth Empire: Monitoring / Posturing defensively
Slane Theocracy: Hostile / Withdrawn
Nazarick: Status Unknown / Presumed hostile monitoring
Maximus smiled, tapping the parchment. The board was set perfectly.
Then, the ambient mana in the room suddenly fluctuated. The air grew cold.
A massive blue window exploded into existence directly over his desk, accompanied by a sharp, chiming sound that rang in his skull.
[Ding!]
[New Main Quest Initiated.]
Maximus's smile faded into a look of predatory focus. He read the glowing text.
[Quest: The Will of the Empire]
[Establish Rome as the undisputed dominant civilization of the New World.]
[Objective:]
[Control, annex, or firmly ally with 50% of the known human territories upon the continent.]
[Reward:]
[10 Legendary Gacha Tickets.]
[Additional Reward:]
[Unlock: System Feature - Continental Administration.]
Maximus stared at the window, reading the words over and over.
Ten Legendary Tickets. The sheer power contained within those tickets could theoretically alter the fabric of the universe. The gacha system had given him world-breaking abilities before, but ten at once? It was an intoxicating, dangerous amount of power.
But it was the objective that commanded his attention.
He looked away from the screen, his gaze piercing the darkness beyond his window, looking toward the east. Toward Nazarick.
He knew Ainz Ooal Gown was watching. The skeletal god was undoubtedly sitting in his tomb, paranoid, analyzing every Roman movement, trying to figure out how this empire fit into his cautious plans.
The Slane Theocracy was cowering in their temples, hoarding their World Items. The Baharuth Empire was frantically calculating their survival odds. Re-Estize was eating itself alive from the inside.
The chessboard was becoming crowded.
Maximus slowly reached out and pressed the glowing blue [ACCEPT] rune at the bottom of the quest window.
The window shattered into blue sparks.
Then, Maximus smiled. A genuine, terrifying smile of a man who had just decided the fate of millions.
"Very well," he whispered to the empty room.
He turned and walked purposefully toward the balcony. The night wind, colder now with the approaching winter, swept across the capital. Below him, Nova Roma glittered beneath the alien stars, safe within its invisible, invincible Aegis dome.
He rested his hands on the railing and raised his eyes toward the vast, dark sky.
"Let's see just how far this world can be pushed before it breaks."
Instantly, a faint, pulsing blue notification materialized at the edge of his vision.
[Absolute Victory activated. Objective locked. Reality parameters adjusting to ensure outcome.]
Maximus stopped breathing for a fraction of a second. He stared at the small, unassuming text.
He hadn't consciously cast it. He had merely made a declaration of intent with absolute, unwavering resolve. And the System had accepted it as his active objective. Reality itself was now quietly, violently shifting its tracks to ensure that Rome conquered half the world.
He slowly smiled. "Fascinating."
The notification vanished.
But as it did, a profound, chilling sensation washed over him.
Far beyond the borders of Rome. Far beyond the crumbling kingdoms of humanity, past the towering Erythia mountains, deep within the uncharted territories of the continent... something moved.
Something ancient.
Something that had slept through the rise and fall of petty human kingdoms, watching the world with indifferent, reptilian eyes.
And for the very first time since arriving in this world... Maximus felt it.
A presence. A massive, suffocating pressure pressing against the edges of his magical perception.
It wasn't an Ainz Ooal Gown. It wasn't the fanatic holy magic of the Theocracy.
It wasn't human.
It was something older. Something intrinsically tied to the fundamental magic of the world itself.
Maximus's smile completely disappeared. The air on the balcony felt heavy, charged with static electricity.
"System," he commanded, his voice dead flat.
[Yes, Host.]
"Identify that presence."
A long, agonizing pause stretched in the dark. The System, usually instantaneous in its omniscient analysis, hesitated.
Then, the text appeared.
[Error. Target is shielded by anomalous Wild Magic. Unable to determine specific entity parameters.]
Maximus's eyes narrowed into dangerous slits.
That answer was new. And he did not like it.
He looked toward the distant, jagged silhouette of the eastern mountains, his mind calculating a thousand different tactical responses. The Platinum Dragon Lord? Another surviving True Dragon? Or something worse?
"Finally," he whispered, his voice barely audible over the wind.
His right hand dropped down, resting heavily against the cold, familiar adamantine pommel of his sword.
"A worthy opponent."
High above Nova Roma, illuminated by the city's golden glow, the massive imperial eagle standard fluttered violently in the shifting wind.
The empire slept safely beneath its impenetrable shield.
But the Emperor did not sleep.
Because somewhere far beyond the known borders of the New World, the ancient powers of the continent had finally begun moving. And Rome had just attracted the attention of a god it could not immediately kill.
(A/N: its fast faced, I try to cover the other's POV, but ainz ooal gown, they started to plan to established a kingdom)
(Any thoughts on the story?)