The group was repairing the Guardian Fortresses. It's been a week since they've arrived in Imperium and they haven't tried to find any city at the moment.
Souta decided to settle in this place. They will make this land their territory. The territory of their organization.
In the past week, Torkez discussed things related to the organization. He said that it was better for their organization to have a name and he suggested to Souta the name Astros. Souta didn't care about the name at all so he agreed to Torkez's suggestion.
There's no harm if he would follow his subordinate. They were here to support him and he could rely on them sometimes.
Souta also talked to Gragas. Gragas decided to join the Astros and he became the main weaponsmith of the organization. Well, even the weaponsmith of the Witch Clan couldn't compare to him so they became Gragas' subordinates.
Gragas became the Chief of the Military Arms Department.
Franklin was the Chief of the Noxious, the Assassin Corps of the Astros.
Isabella was the second-in-command of the Noxious and she was also the Chief of the Potioneer Department.
Torkez was the Chief of Finance, Research, and Secretary of the Leader. He was the third highest authority beside Souta and Alice.
Doranjan was the General of the Feral Corps, an army made up of pure monsters. The highest authority that could command monsters besides Souta was him.
Alice didn't take any position so she just became Souta's second-in-command.
As for the witches and Eilish's organization, Souta merged them into his own.
He already talked to Eilish about it. He recruited her but she said that she didn't want him to bound her so he didn't transplant any parasite to her body. But her subordinates weren't excluded from it.
Souta transplanted parasites to her subordinates and they became a member of the Astros. He could let Eilish roam even without a parasite as she was stronger than him. But these people were weaker than him so they had to follow his rules and words.
As for the witches, most of them became ordinary citizens. After all, not every witch was strong. Some of them were elderly, children, or just normal people.
Eilish took the role of the General of Mage Corps. People who wanted to join the Mage Corps will be under her rule and they will receive her training to become a suitable war mage.
The two elders had been given a high position too. Amanda asked Souta to form her own organization within Astros just like the Noxious and Souta gave his permission to her.
Amanda became the Chief of the Witch Corps. The Witch Corps was entirely made up of witches. It became the strongest group within Astros because of the presence of the two SS-rank experts.
There were still vacant positions but they could fill them up in the future after their organization grew larger.
The main party of the Astros was named Blood Corps tribute to Souta's in-game character. Alice, Eztein, Doranjan, Yuko, Torkez, Franklin, Isabella, Yenxa, and Amanda were the only member of the Blood Corps. Although some of them were leaders of a department, Souta still choose them.
The Blood Corps were people that he could bring in his expedition. If Souta wanted to go to a city, anyone suitable from the Blood Corps would accompany him. They were also fighters that could fight beside Souta and Souta was the only person that could command them.
...
Souta was in the training ground with Eilish. She was currently teaching him spells. He had been studying spells ever since she accepted his suggestion and Souta was working hard to properly cast a spell without relying on the system.
Currently, he was perfecting the tier 1 spells. Although he didn't need tier 1 spells, he still needs to study it as it was the foundation of higher tier spells. If he wanted to master tier 2 and above spells, he needed to master the lowest tier first.
Luckily, his memory was high and he could easily remember all the important details that she taught him.
"You're getting better and better. It won't be too long before you could instantly cast a tier 1 spell." Eilish praised him.
"It's nothing compared to the other people. There's still a lot of things that I need to learn." Souta shook his head.
"Yeah, after mastering the instantaneous casting you need to learn double-casting but I wonder how can your spells in battle..."
"All of my spells are spells that I've imprinted in my inner consciousness," Souta answered her. "Inner spells didn't need to manually build a magic circle as the magic circle is already in my inner consciousness. I just simply poured my energy into the magic circle to activate it. It's simple as that."
"But isn't that insane... Most of the mages could only imprint up to five magic circles but you have dozens of them. One wrong move in imprinting could destroy your inner consciousness. It will affect your body." Eilish said to him.
"That's what I was trying to know. Why I don't feel the burden of imprinting spells in my inner consciousness." Souta shrugged his shoulder as he acted as if he didn't know anything.
"Okay, that's it. After you learn the instantaneous casting of tier 1 spell, you can come to me and I will teach you double casting. Just don't forget to practice it at least four hours a day and you will get used to it soon."
"I understand." Souta nodded.
"So what are you planning to do? It's been a week since we've arrived in Imperium and you show no sign of leaving this place." Eilish asked.
"Hm... I will bring some people with me three days from now to find the nearest city. I just stayed here to recover but I should ask that question to you. You want to come badly to Great World but now that you've arrived here, what are you planning to do next by joining my organization?"
"Me? It's still too early for me. I'm feeling uncomfortable these days as my body hasn't adjusted to the mana density of this planet. It's too high and I felt like I'm being restrained."
"I see. I will not pry deeply but if you want to know something about this world, you can just ask me or Alice. Alice and I are folks of this planet so we know a lot of things here than any of you." Souta said before he turned around and exited the training ground.
...
On the next day...
The organization could function properly. With this, Souta planned his next move to go to the nearest city. Their current resources were limited and they need to find merchants that could supply them.
Souta chooses Alice and Eztein. Eilish will join too so there were four of them in total. She said that she wanted to come with him to explore the Great World that she could only read in books before.
"I thought that you didn't want to move," Souta said to Eilish.
"Yeah, but I'm also curious about the city."
"There's nothing much difference between the city here and in your homeworld. The only problem is that the ordinary people here are ten times stronger than the ordinary folks there."
"Oh? It's interesting. Do you think that there's a god in the city?"
"Sigh... Gods wouldn't show themselves easily. Even if you're living in this place, you can hardly see a god in your entire life."
"Alright, I still want to come with you."
"Fine, I understand. Just listen to my word. I don't want trouble to come at me. It's a different matter if I will take the initiative to go to the trouble."
Souta pinched the bridge of his nose. At least a shackled realm was going to accompany him in a city. Her strength was an assurance in an emergency situation.
"So... Boss, where are we going to depart?" Eztein asked as he joined the conversation.
"On the next next day," Souta replied to him.
"Oh, then I need to prepare too."
"Yeah, pack some potions that Isabella prepared. Also, some gold and silver ores. We need to exchange them for some coins." Souta said.
"Is there something I can help with?" Alice asked.
"Nothing. I don't have anything else to do too so I'm going to train before we depart." Souta replied.
"Then, I'm going to train too," Alice said in response.
"Come with me. We're going to increase our combat skills."
The two went to the training ground. They entered Saya's inner consciousness and trained their combat skills.
Two days had passed quickly...
Souta, Alice, Eztein, and Eilish had finished their preparation. They left after bidding their farewell to their comrades.
"Too bad. I actually want to come too." Franklin sighed. "I wanted to see the power level of the people of this world."
"That's the reason why our leader didn't choose you to accompany him," Torkez said to Franklin.
"You're too much. You're much more aggressive than monsters." Doranjan said.
