Just a slab of reinforced firewood, ringed with uneven stools and stone benches. But the map spread across its surface shimmered with mana-ink lines—some glowing red with heat routes, others flickering blue to indicate leyline threads. A flame rune pulsed in the corner, anchoring the chamber in Kael’s mana.
Rimuru bounced beside a chalkboard labeled in messy letters: TOWN IMPROVEMENT IDEAS.
The other half read:
- Underground Slime Tunnel Mail System
- Mobile Forge Cart with Built-in Soup Pot
- Public Bath (for Gobtae, mostly)
- Petting Zoo, but just Nyaro
Kael rubbed at his temples, forcing down a sigh.
“Can we maybe focus on the first half?”
Gobrinus looked up, pointer stick in hand like it made him an authority figure. “But Rimuru’s soup cart idea has morale potential.”
“I’d rather we have working granaries before we get hot lunch,” Kael said flatly.
Zelganna leaned forward, her armor creaking with the motion. “How many new buildings are we looking at?”
Kael gestured to the glowing map lines spread across the table. “I want Emberleaf divided into five districts over time: housing, training, commerce, research, and diplomacy.”
Nana clicked her tongue. “Diplomacy?”
Kael nodded once. “I’m going to bring in people who don’t owe us loyalty yet. I’d rather give them a space to feel heard before they carve one out by force.”
Primary constraints: limited labor, stone supply, and mana-insulation capacity.
Recommendation: prioritize housing and food stability before commerce or diplomacy.”
The words hovered in Kael’s mind like glowing script, sharp against the quiet of the council tent.
Kael turned toward the soot-stained Forge Wing representatives—three goblins still streaked with ash and inked glyphs from the morning’s work.
“I can get you more hands,” he said. “But I want elemental shielding on every major building. Especially Emberleaf Hall.”
One of the goblins raised his hand nervously. “What if the mana flux gets too hot, lord? The crystals are unstable outside of warded stone.”
Rimuru perked up immediately, her body bouncing once like she’d been waiting for the opening.
“I can squish mana crystals into semi-stable slime orbs!” she declared proudly. “They’ll hum when they get mad, so you’ll know when they’re about to—”
“Still no,” said everyone at the table in unison.
Rimuru deflated with a sulky wobble. “…You’re all cowards.”
Kael raised a hand, cutting through the bickering before it could spiral further.
“Let’s keep ideas flowing,” he said evenly. “But every team gets a leader. From now on, you report directly to Flame Council.”
He reached into his satchel and set four smooth black stones on the table. Each one glowed faintly with a distinct emblem: a flame over a shield, a flame shaped into wings, a flame inside a gear, and a flame over an open scroll.
“These mark your divisions,” Kael said.
“Ember Guard, Flame Scouts, Forge Wing, and Council Wing.”
One by one, they stepped forward.
Zelganna stepped forward first and claimed the shield-flame stone—the mark of the Ember Guard
Nana followed, taking the scroll-flame stone for the Council Wing
Gobrinus eagerly scooped up the gear-flame stone, emblem of the Forge Wing
Rimuru bounced up last, snagged the wing-flame stone of the Flame Scouts
Kael stepped back from the table, letting the glow of the stones cast light across their faces.
For a moment, the mismatched group looked less like soldiers or advisors and more like something rarer—founders.
“This isn’t about ruling,” Kael said, his voice steady. “It’s about building.”
They looked at him in silence, not as nobles or subjects, but as the ones who would help shape Emberleaf’s first true spine.
The council’s plans didn’t stay trapped in ink. By afternoon, they were already being dragged into the dirt.
The ground at the build site was uneven, scarred by old roots and shallow ditches.
The air carried the dry, dusty scent of stone being disturbed, but the place was alive with voices and motion.
Kael stood at the edge, sleeves rolled up, dirt already smudging his hands. No throne. No armor. Just a shovel, a blueprint, and sweat.
Gobrinus hopped onto a flat stone slab and unrolled a rough sketch, the parchment nearly tearing at the seams.
“Alright! Emberleaf Hall,” he announced proudly, stabbing at the lines with a stub of charcoal. “Central chamber here, planning alcove to the east, fire-channel ventilation ring underneath.”
Rimuru floated above his shoulder, peering down at the map. “You drew that upside down.”
“It’s upside down to you.”
“Because I’m the right way up.”
Kael grinned despite himself and stepped down into the trench where the foundation’s mana spine was being dug.
He crouched low, pressing one hand to the soil. Heat pooled at his palm as he called mana into focus.
A case of theft: this story is not rightfully on Amazon; if you spot it, report the violation.
The dirt vibrated faintly. Then—
Kael exhaled and pressed harder. A red pulse spread outward in a ripple, compressing and flattening the layer beneath.
The ground thudded once, then settled—firm, steady, ready to bear weight.
Kael straightened, brushing dust from his hand. “Solid enough for a hall?”
The dwarf foreman nearby squinted at the trench, then gave a short, approving nod. “Good start, lad. Flame-carved base next.”
Kael looked up just in time to see a group of goblin teens racing past, arms full of shovels and stone dust.
One tripped, spilling his bucket across the marked circle, and the others broke into laughter as they tried to help.
Another goblin darted over with a rune tile, grinning wide. “We’re gonna write our names under the floor!”
Kael’s mouth tugged into a smile. “Let ’em.”
Zelganna strode by with a massive support beam balanced on one shoulder, her steps steady as if the weight was nothing. She glanced at the goblins scrawling names in the dust and snorted.
“They’re not working because you told them to,” she said, adjusting the beam as she passed. “They’re working because they can see it now.”
Her voice carried like iron on stone—gruff, but proud.
Gobrinus crouched beside a shallow trench where Kael had traced a placeholder emblem into the dirt. His fingers tapped against his knees as he studied the lines.
“You want the new crest here?” he asked. “The helm-and-flame one?”
Kael hesitated. His gaze lingered on the sketch before he finally shook his head.
“Not yet.”
He dragged the edge of his boot through the dirt, reshaping the lines into something simpler—a rising ember, just a spark.
“Let them make it theirs first.”
Kael didn’t answer.
He just looked at the spark he’d drawn—small, imperfect, but real—and felt the weight of what it meant.
Nearby, Rimuru was already stuffing a hollow beam with one of her latest prototypes—a wobbling slime orb that glowed faintly.
“This,” she declared proudly, “is going to be a completely non-lethal, high-speed document delivery system. Guaranteed not to eat the letters.”
Nana passed by with a ledger under her arm, not slowing her stride. “If it explodes, you’re rebuilding this whole site yourself.”
Rimuru blinked, then muttered, “…Define explode.”
Kael couldn’t help but laugh.
It wasn’t the kind of laugh that echoed across battlefields.
It was the kind that built cities.
The workers nearby glanced up briefly at the sound, then went back to hauling beams and setting runes, but the energy in the air shifted. Lighter. More certain.
Some time had passed since Kael left the worksite, the shouts of goblins and the clang of beams fading behind him.
Emberleaf’s pulse had shifted from labor to learning, from stone to slate.
That path led him to the sagging school tent at the edge of the square. Its canvas drooped, patched more times than he could count, but the light spilling through the seams was warm, alive.
Inside, goblin and demi-human children bent over their lessons, scratching crooked letters onto wooden slates with stubby bits of charcoal.
Some marks were upside down, others little more than smudges, but the determination filled the air like fire waiting to catch.
Kael ducked through the patchwork curtain just as Rimuru seeped through the far wall like a blue ghost, humming smugly as if she had been invited.
Nana didn’t even look up when Kael entered.
She balanced a slate on one knee, correcting a goblin boy’s shaky sums with a burnt stick while, with her other hand, she stirred a clay pot of stew that bubbled faintly on a low rune-flame.
“I told you,” she said dryly, still marking out numbers, “if you’re here to hand out new swords, take them to the forge. I’ve got no use for weapons in here.”
Kael crouched beside one of the low desks near the front, a faint smile tugging at his mouth.
“I’m not here with swords,” he said. “I came to offer something else.”
That earned him a glance—just one sharp eye lifted from her stew and scribbles, measuring whether he was serious.
“You can’t offer what you don’t understand yet,” Nana said, tapping the boy’s slate with her stick before sending him back to his seat.
Kael didn’t move away. “Try me.”
Her brow furrowed, but she rose slowly and swept her hand to the rows of children bent over their crooked letters.
“These are my troops,” Nana said at last.
“And they’re hungry. For food, yes—but more than that. Hungry for learning. For a future where carrying a spear isn’t the only way to be useful.”
The stew simmered behind her, but her voice carried sharper heat.
Kael absorbed the numbers, his jaw tightening.
“You need a building,” Kael said. “Materials. Books. Teachers who won’t vanish when the next levy is called.”
Nana shook her head. “I need thinkers. Soil readers, trade scribes, mana-writers who don’t panic when ink shifts on the page. And I need a place where a goblin doesn’t have to stand on a chair just to be noticed.”
Rimuru raised a pseudopod high, her glow brightening. “Do I count? I can teach geometry, slime ethics, and… uh… small-scale war crimes.”
“No,” Kael and Nana said at the same time.
Rimuru slumped. “Figures.”
Kael straightened, stepping to the center of the tent. His boots pressed faintly into the worn dirt floor as he spoke.
“Then we build it,” he said.
“Not another hall. Not another garrison. Something older than either of those.”
He drew a circle in the dust with his heel. “The Scholar’s Hearth. A sanctuary. A school. A place that keeps growing, no matter who leads.”
Nana stared at him for a long moment, her eyes narrowing not with doubt but with calculation. Then, quietly, she handed him the stub of charcoal she’d been using.
“You take the first stroke,” she said. “After that, it belongs to them.”
Kael knelt and pressed the charcoal to the floor.
He didn’t draw a crown. Or a flame. Or even a weapon.
He sketched a simple, open eye. A mark of awareness. A symbol that said: awake.
The children leaned forward, whispering to each other, their slates forgotten. Even Rimuru tilted curiously, her glow softening.
For the first time, the school tent didn’t feel like a place patched together from scraps.
It felt like the beginning of something permanent.
Time slipped by in steady hours, the weight of meetings and decisions giving way to the hum of evening.
Emberleaf didn’t quiet when the sun fell—it shifted. Work songs turned to chatter, hammers to laughter, the smell of smoke to cooking spice.
Kael stepped onto the high path that curved above the central square, the stone beneath his boots still warm from the day’s sun.
Below, the village moved with its own rhythm—not gilded splendor, not ceremonial fire, but the steady pulse of life.
It wasn’t treasure that gleamed.
It wasn’t flame that blazed
It was people.
Zelganna’s voice carried first—low and commanding, echoing from the training yard.
Her recruits stumbled through drills, wooden blades clashing out of rhythm, but she barked with the patience of iron. When one slipped mid-swing, she didn’t scold. She corrected. And the rest adjusted with him.
It wasn’t discipline born of fear.
It was the beginning of unity.
Across the square, Gobrinus had claimed a stretch of garden wall as his personal map desk. Parchment sprawled across the stone, corners pinned by river pebbles.
A cluster of goblin teens crowded close, eyes wide as he sketched rough rivers and hills in quick, uneven charcoal strokes.
One of the students squinted. “Is Emberleaf supposed to look like… a chicken?”
Gobrinus paused, tilted his head, and frowned. “…A fierce chicken.”
The kids laughed, and somehow, the lesson stuck.
A few rooftops over, Rimuru balanced proudly atop a wooden post, surrounded by three smaller slimes and a confused beastkin boy.
She used fruit and gelatin cubes as teaching props, bouncing them around like game pieces.
“And when your affinities overlap,” she explained, “you make a boom-boom triangle. Observe.”
The cubes sparked, wobbled… then burst in a sticky little explosion that sent the boy scrambling back.
Rimuru clapped—well, the slime equivalent of clapping—looking entirely pleased with herself.
Kael kept walking, letting their laughter fade behind him.
He reached the highest wall overlooking the construction site of Emberleaf Hall. The foundation stones were already in place—etched with fresh sigils, sweat, and ash.
Some of the volunteers had scrawled their names beneath the first beams, a quiet claim that this city belonged to them too.
Kael remained silent, letting his gaze wander over the torchlit streets where children’s shouts still echoed, goblins hauled crates into the night, and demi-humans traded stories by the glow of the forges.
Beyond the titles of subject or soldier, they stood simply as people—architects of a legacy that might actually endure.
He drew in a slow breath, the night air warm with smoke and soil.
“I don’t need to rule,” Kael murmured, more to himself than anyone else. “I just need to make sure they know how to build without me.”
A soft squish sounded at his back. Rimuru leaned against him, her glow dimmed to a gentle blue.
“You’re still going to rule, though,” she said matter-of-factly. “Just… better.”
Kael’s lips tugged into a quiet smile.
The fire wasn’t just his anymore.
And that was the point.
Volition (Trational Fantasy, Multi POV, Post-Apocalyptic)
by ThatWeirdAuthorGuy
Peace ended in an eruption of light and fire, leaving them to survive in the ashes of a dying world.
For those with the volition to shape their destiny will lead the world of ash into a new age.
What to expect
* Multiple POV characters with their own thoughts and motivations of the journey they go on.*A sprawling post-apocalyptic fantasy story projected at over one million words total.* Every other chapter will have a drawn illustration by me of characters, scenes, fights, and more.
Don't miss out on this incredible story!