Chương 27: Relocated

Joshua couldn't tell by face whom to choose, so he decided to just randomly pull out a soul into a cream-coloured room. It was designed as a small office, with his plastic cactus from his workplace and a picture of Princess playing with her toy as decorations. This wasn't a permanent thing, but a temporary idea turned into reality. He sat in his human form in a common office chair and let the soul out. It was a sixteen-ish-looking girl in a rather light summer outfit, but the clothes looked... glowing.

Upon magical inspection, they were enchanted to change into two other sets of clothing when their wearer wanted them to. It was fascinating and clever in design. They also held self-cleaning and even temperature-regulation enchantments. To fit it all onto one set was stunning, though Joshua wasn't an enchanter, so he could only compare it to what he had seen in Gaix's world. The short skirt and breezy shirt combination was rather neat, and he imagined Luna wearing them.

"Erm... hello?" the girl asked, her hands clutched in front of her as she frantically looked around.

"Where am I?" Josh realized that a few seconds had passed with him just casually looking at her, so he cleared his throat.

"Right... Sorry for the wait. I am your reincarnation officer. Please call me Henry." Josh smiled his best customer-service smile.

"So..."

"So..." the girl whimpered.

"I really died? Did Aoujin Behani also come through here? We... we were at the same..." She couldn't finish her sentence as her legs gave up, and she simply fell onto the rug.

"Now, now... you don't need to cry. If everything checks out and you help me, I might be able to find him." Joshua stood and helped her into the other seat.

"First of all... tell me your name, what world are you from, and what happened?" She accepted the tissue Joshua gave her and, after calming herself, started to speak.

"I am Menia Hato, age nineteen, and I was born and lived on the planet Áetlie Two." She started in a rather official way as she saw the man in front of her scribbling notes.

"Erm... Brustaria City."

"That is enough for the paperwork. Now tell me what happened." Menia told Josh about the celebration, the evil President who played with the lives of his citizens, and the god who came to make a game out of their survival. She told him about her boyfriend and cried as she spoke about her family. Josh checked inside the soul card and nodded.

"Thankfully, you are the only one from your family to perish, as no one else from them is on the list. As for this Aoujin Behani? Yes, I can see him."

"Is... is there a possibility for us not to lose our memories and be reborn as humans again, so we could find each other?" Menia asked, thankful for the man's answer. At least she could breathe a sigh of relief knowing that her family had not died.

"Well, you are lucky, as the god of this new realm you are being sent to does not want almost two hundred thousand babies, but people. So all that died on that day will be placed in the new world as they were."

"THANK YOU!" Menia burst into tears, happy ones now.

"Well, of course, you need to thank the god of the new realm." Josh shook his head.

"As for anything other than yourselves and your current belongings, nothing else is transferred, so..." Josh scratched the back of his head.

"It will take some time until you all have homes and such. I am sure the metal dragon god will help in his own way." Talking about himself was odd, but better this way. The girl would likely shudder next to him if she knew he was that god.

"Will you welcome everyone... one by one?" Menia asked, looking at the normal-looking guy.

"Well, I rather not. I might be immortal, but I have trillions of souls to work with. I will have a couple dozen people and tell them the situation. Any suggestions?" Josh asked.

"The best would be officers and, of course, the Hetoru." Menia nodded.

"Hetoru?" asked Josh.

"People in enchanted gear and strict military training... we treat them as heroes. They all have unique sets and nicknames, but I think they can easily be found if you can see them on your list. Can... you see them like you did with Aoujin?"

"Of course I can. I am a professional afterlife consultant." He gave her a happy Naruto thumbs-up.

"Now... this might sound weird, but you will be sent into a time freeze and sent to the new world with the others soon, okay?" Menia nodded. She accepted that there was no way back. Still, her family was fine, and her love would come with her. Joshua spent the next two days just speaking to all the policemen and the seven Hetoru who did not make it. He even spoke with this Aoujin, who took death surprisingly well. He came from a family where his father was a Hetoru, so he knew about life-or-death scenarios.

Still, the boy couldn't help but smile when he was told that he could reunite with his girlfriend. As for his mother, she was not on the list, and his father was off-planet during the incident. His only regret was the he could not strangle the President with his own hands… though he was not at all the only one in this mindset. - - - - - - - - - - - - Josh tried to concentrate the first three settlements roughly on one massive landmass.

The peninsula, which was shaped like a boxing glove and which he jokingly named the Balboa Peninsula, was quite massive, almost twice the size of Italy from Earth. At its middle, where the once-volcanic mountains were, Piur and his new clan were settling down. Not far beneath that lay Maurapia, where the river coming from the mountains passed through the city and continued into the sea.

So Josh decided to send the newcomers a bit further north, where the peninsula was thinnest, looking almost like the wrist part of the glove. Even here, the two edges of the land were at least three hundred kilometers apart. He found the best location. A massive lake, fed by a river, sat near the shore, only a mile from the closest bay. The surrounding area was richly forested, with plenty of animals and useful materials.

He even made sure to pull up a small cliff full of iron and copper ore, creating a ridiculously easy surface mine for the future settlement. Creating the settlement was not the issue, Joshua did not want it to be too modern. The people may change it later, but he wanted some cohesion inside his world. He made sure to use his divine mind and scan the people inside the card and he could see that many had their families. So he planned the cityscape with that in mind.

As for materials, he used sandstone, marble and granite along with yew as timber frames. This was not some lame medieval city, but a very similar style that Maurapia used. Whoever planned the houses in that city was smart. So Joshua simply used a good template. Housing complexes built in seconds with apartments for single people while in the outer circle family houses were made for those who came with their loved ones. In was organised but he made sure it was not perfect.

A too perfect cityscape looked lifeless so streets were not perfectly equal in lenght, parks were placed here and there, using the lake as one side for the city and the beach as the other. In the city center he build a government building, schools and all manner of other structures a city might need. He did not need to do it like in a city builder game as the people coming here would do their own midifications for sure. He even left a sizeable chunk of land in the city free for anything they would plan to build.

On the outskirts he built a few warehouses that could be repurposed …

"I dunno… oh shit food!" Joshua slapped his face and made a massive undergound storage facility with four entrances across the city. Inside it he packed it tight with long shelf life canned food, calory bricks and more.

"Food, water, sanitation done. Well, I think I done a good job. Unauthorized use of content: if you find this story on Amazon, report the violation. He did not simply drop everyone out into this land, however. Instead, he started with the officers and Hetoru, as well as the two late teenagers. Only the people who already knew about the situation were brought over first. His massive silver dragon form shone in the morning light as he casually sat on the ground, his tail curled around his legs.

"Welcome to New Terra," he spoke gently.

"I see you all managed to pass through here without issues." The Hateru walked in front of the policeman. Ironclad stood like a walking fortress in his silver-and-gunmetal armor, while Valkyrie's white-and-gold suit caught the sunlight. Blazewing's red armor was covered in orange flame decals, and Ghost's matte-black suit seemed to swallow the surrounding light. Thunderbolt's blue-and-yellow armor hummed faintly with contained mana, while Bulwark's dark-green armor carried an enormous hammer across his back.

Silver Fang stood at the end of the group, his polished silver armor marked with black wolf-like patterns.

"All right," Joshua said, looking over the group.

"I need you all to help prepare this place before everyone else arrives."

"Might I ask, Lord Joshua Steel, what do you mean by … prepare?" asked Bulwark.

"Simple, really. Every week five hundred people will come through a portal I make as sending almost two hundred thousand here in one go would be overwhelming. I expect you professionals to make a government of sort and get people in houses. Water is flowing into the houses and there is an underground food store enough for half a year for everyone. Still there is plenty of fish, wild game and edible plants all over." Joshua said in a commanding tone.

"I did all I could think of, but I am not a babysitter. Make this city your own. Also the lizardfolk on the southern mountain are friends so no fighting."

"And in return I guess you expect us to pray to you?" asked Blazewing with a not so happy smirk.

"Only if you want. This is my world that I created. As long as you don't try to ruin it, you may live peacefully." Josh could tell that other then Aoujin none of the Hetaru trusted him. They were all the pawns of a god, so a new one, however gracious at first sight was not something they easily trusted. They spoke with respect and bowed deep, but it was nothing more than survival instincts. No one was dumb enough to piss off a God. Only Aoujin was deeply thankful as he hugged Menia at the edge of the clear lake.

Josh decided that he helped enough, told the people to settle down and just left. No rules, no asking for prayer nor long divine speech. He still had two more cards containing a decent number of people from the same place. One was actually a sect... an entire martial arts sect, with seven thousand people stored in a single card. The other was... thankfully, also an entire place taken with its people. This one, however, was tricky, so he put it aside for now. He stored both cards away and checked the remaining ones.

These held random souls from various eras and locations. Only one card was unique, as it contained a single soul. A soul belonging to a semi-divine beast. He tucked these away for now as he had a great idea. There was a friend he planned to wisit for a long time now. Joshua was just about to use the soul shard of Gu Zhao to locate and teleport to him when he stopped and considered it.

"Nope. I need a proper gift." he shook his head and got back to Earth first.

"Felix!" Josh called and in mere moments the butler was on one knee practically buzzing to be called.

"Since you are fast, look up where can I buy premium vintage Chinese rice wine. You are coming with me."

"At once!" Felix literally used teleportation instead of going to his room.

"Aunka!" Felix walked towards the south wing. The tengu accountant rushed out of his room and bowed.

"Master, you finally need my assistance?"

"Indeed I do." nodded Joshua.

"Get me two hundred thousand pounds from the safe. Also are the castle's taxes handled?"

"Everything is in order." Bowed Aunka, his light blue suit glinting in the midday sun. He was gone only a minute and appeared with a dufflebag in hand.

"Here you go Lord Steel. Happy shopping." Felix arrived only a few seconds later a smile plastered on his face.

"I have found the perfect shop. It is located in Shaoxing. Should I handle the teleport?" Joshua nodded and gave the duffle bag to Felix who took it with a nod, stood beside him and snapped his fingers. - - - - - - - - - - - The shop was old but pristine and after Joshua told what he was interested in, the owner's eyes almost sparkled. The merchant led him down into the cellar, where rows of ancient clay jars rested beneath layers of dust and age.

At the very back stood one enormous jar, nearly as tall as a man, its surface darkened with time and its seal still unbroken. The old man placed a hand upon it reverently.

"This," he said, lowering his voice, "is not merely wine. This was sealed nearly eighty years ago, during one of the finest periods in the history of Shaoxing wine. It has never seen the light of day since. The winery that produced it no longer exists in its original form, and fewer and fewer jars from that era survive. Among collectors, a wine such as this is considered…" Joshua simply held up a hand and signaled for Felix who placed the duffle bag on the table near them and unzipped it.

"Cash," he said simply.

"And I take it." The merchant's mouth hung open. He glanced at the money, then at the enormous jar. He casually thummed through the stacks and took out a single bank note to check. After a short count in his head he nodded.

"Done." What the old merchant did not expect however that the thin butler simply lifted the jar and walked after the foreigner.

"Be careful on the stairs …" his fingers shook at the sight but decided not to question. Whoever these people were they payed handsomely. More then handsomely, so the least he can do is not ask. Back in the castle Joshua opened a portal to Gu Zhao's realm and nodded at Felix.

"I did not take you along before, so now you are coming with." The butler was so happy, he had fireworks going off inside his head. His cold demonic heart beat like a drum as he barely managed not to have a smile from ear to ear.

"Why of course master." - - - - - - - - - - - - Gu Zhao was amazed by what he had made. The World Seed he had received had turned his Mind Sea into a literal world that he could enter at any time, create almost anything within reason, and even bring items and people in and out of. It was a true internal world of his own. Floating islands, pagodas, an entire city? It was all done within mere moments after simply thinking about them.

Creating powerful items was possible too, though those took a serious amount of Qi to make. Anything that was just basic materials like wood, stone, paper, and more? Done the moment he willed them into existence. Even without the dozen-times boost he had gotten from Joshua Steel, he could have absolute freedom here. Now? He barely had to worry about the other young gods. From the bottom, he had shot up to the top thirty, and there were some who envied his fast ascension.

Still, there were rules in the god realm, and most were smart enough not to openly challenge him. He of course did not forget about his disciples who lived in the immortal realm. In fact, he simply pulled his entire sect into his new personal realm. It was insultingly easy. He was just finishing some light touches on his personal building when he felt something impossible. A god was entering his personal realm. To break in here would require an immense amount of power, and it went against the rules of Cloud City.

"I figured someone would come because I got too far up too fast, but not this soon." He pulled out his Eight Storm Blade and took on a fighting stance.

"Everyone, get to the shelter!" he shouted down his mountain, his voice amplified by Qi. Gu Zhao activated all three of his grand defense formations at once when he felt something inside him. The soul shard of Joshua was humming. He immediately dropped his formations and lowered his blade. His realm was not being broken into, but someone was gently pressing inward with a portal, so he allowed it to form. - - - - - - - - - -"And here I thought my newest friend would never come by."

Gu Zhao said, a smirk forming on his face.

"And you brought a new underling?" Joshua grinned.

"I felt a massive block. I almost feared that I wasn't welcome." He turned to his butler.

"He is Felix, my right hand, shall we say." The demon almost teared up from the praise. He made the wine jar float beside him and bowed.

"I am honored to meet Lord Steel's friend."

"A moment." Gu Zhao chuckled and used a message jade.

"The newcomer is a friend of mine. No need to hide."

"I see you still care deeply for your disciples." Josh nodded.

"I came bearing an offer."

"Oh, please." Gu Zhao shook his head.

"Let's not talk out here. I have great tea for you, but I see you brought something stronger."

"Just a little something." Josh motioned, and the human-sized wine jar gently floated toward Gu Zhao.

"I hope we can open it and give it a taste." The cultivator checked the dry paper and the age of the jar and couldn't help smiling.

"Decent vintage, I see. Come…" He waved them in, and soon all three of them were seated on soft cushions. Two young-looking cultivator girls arrived with tea and sweets, while Gu Zhao himself opened the jar with a quick motion and poured for all three of them.

"To brotherhood."

"To brotherhood." Joshua raised his cup and downed the first cup. It had a very rich flavour, strong but not at all harsh.

"So why has my brother from another world come by?" asked Gu Zhao.

"This is why." Joshua handed him a metal card. As soon as Gu Zhao's hand touched the card, he frowned.

"S-souls?"

"An entire sect." Joshua nodded.

"It was given to me by an eccentric friend who bet on my survival in the god-seed trial. I did not want to keep cultivators away in my world where there is no Qi, so I figured I would give them to you. I plan to free everyone, you see."

"A noble goal. Though the fact that someone just puts souls into cards..." Gu Zhao said, looking at the card as if it were a bloodied rag.

"worries me."

"Well, as much as I was able to gather, many gods use souls as currency. I'd rather avoid becoming one such god."

"You do that." Gu Zhao nodded seriously.

"My brotherhood can endure a lot, but this would be pushing the limit. I am glad you are still the same person from the trial."

"Well, let's hope power does not corrupt us, eh?" Joshua smirked.

"So... you say souls are a currency. Even though we are brothers, I know when a trade happens. What do you wish for it in return?"

"Training in swordsmanship." Joshua said with a casual shrug.

"Hah!" Gu Zhao burst out laughing.

"You DO need that, my brother. I am afraid to explain it... not to be rude, but yes. It would be my honour to teach you my very own sword style, Gold Moon Dance."

"Fancy." Joshua chuckled.

"Figured all martial arts had a special name." The rest of the day was spent telling stories about what had happened to them since the god-seed trial. Joshua and Felix left at midnight with a few gifts of their own. Josh even received a lovely flying sword and a martial manual so he wouldn't come unprepared next time they trained.