Holy Kingdom of Eldorado: Here Are the Facts.

Eldorado had known about the Undying King's plans for some time. He transformed his people into undead in an instant because he had been laying the groundwork for it.

Believing that they could retain a shred of dignity only by dying as humans rather than undead, we had no choice but to carry out the killings. A considerable number of our people are suffering psychological aftereffects as a result.

And all these lies originated on the forum. We will therefore designate the forum as evil from this point forward. Do not presume to question the will of the gods. We, too, are doing our best.

That's roughly what I heard, anyway? These bastards are trying to brand the forum as evil again lmao.

└Typical Holy Kingdom lmao.

└All they had to do was not mention the forum, but nope, they just had to ruin it lol.

└Doesn't look like people are buying all that, though?

└Yeah, the general mood was "What the fuck are they talking about?" Probably because the Holy Kingdom's reputation is shit.

└They're adding fuel to the fire all by themselves lol.

└If that was what happened, they'd have said so ages ago.

└Who'd believe that shit lol.

└Serves them right after all their swaggering about the will of the gods.

└Breaking news. Kadir issued a statement. The previous Hero chose suicide.

└??? What the hell is that about now?

└Didn't the previous Hero die together with the Undying King?

└Yeah, he did, but apparently it was effectively suicide.

└Holy shit... I heard the previous Hero was an incredibly good person.

└Did the Holy Kingdom pressure him? People have been saying lately that the clergy have no fucking faith.

└If that's true, there's going to be a riot.

└Not a riot. What are you going to do if they keep denying it to the bitter end?

└It'll be a different story if witnesses start coming forward.

└Whatever, upvote if you're happy the Holy Kingdom is fucked lmao.

└I'll start lmao.

└Honestly, this feels great! Those bastards call every little thing the will of the gods lol.

└The funniest part is they say the path is open to all believers, but won't even let you become a bishop unless you're from the Holy Kingdom lol.

└They're especially fucking discriminatory against demons. They treat them like terrorists.

The bait I'd unwittingly thrown out, the bait I'd expected to fizzle out after a day, had gone beyond becoming a topic of discussion in the real world and turned into a raging inferno. The vast majority of posts were attacking the Holy Kingdom. There wasn't a single good word about it.

What did Eldorado ever do wrong, you forum nerds?

Did they pressure neighboring countries in the name of the gods or something?

Did they brand innocent people heretics and torture them to death?

Did their so-called clergy go into the slums and murder people?

Did they admit they were too busy to pray?

Did they double a region's taxes because it didn't make donations?

Did they label sports a drug and get pelted with Molotov cocktails by fans?

Did they bash the forum at every opportunity, only to get caught with porn themselves?

Did they pass a law preventing people from other countries from rising to archbishop or higher?

Did they call the masses dogs and pigs, saying they'd soon forget?

Did they try to force together a federation to defeat the Demon King, only to get chewed out by the Empire?

And as if that wasn't enough, did they wreck the Vulcan Kingdom?

Did they turn refugees away during the Undying King crisis, claiming they were infected?

Did they experiment on humans when the undead caused a plague?

What on earth has Eldorado done to deserve all this ridicule? I honestly have no idea.

"Wow."

They were just thoroughly fucked-up bastards. Rotten to the core. They say stagnant water rots, but this had gone beyond rotting and turned into crude oil. No, at least oil was useful for something. This was just garbage.

'Every country has a dark side, but this is a bit much.'

That post made me understand at once why the Holy Kingdom had such a bad reputation. Especially the rule that people from other countries couldn't rise to archbishop or higher. They were openly declaring that they'd keep all the spoils for themselves. It was blatantly unfair.

'Can a religion really get this rotten?'

I hated God, but I didn't hate religion or its followers. Extremists put me off, but religious people had helped me when I was struggling, too. These people, though... they were more like corrupt politicians than religious leaders.

Unless time passed and they died off, or a rebellion broke out as someone had suggested, things would be hard to change.

'People are the same everywhere.'

Different world, same people, apparently. I watched the forum fill up with all kinds of jokes, then quietly closed it. It looked like it would be a long time before the part I wanted appeared. If all else failed, I'd ask Allfather.

'Anyway, declaring the forum evil? Seriously?'

What was this, military-style problem-solving? At least they seemed to have some brains, considering they weren't vowing to arrest me. Even if they tried, I was in the Forest of Four Seasons. They couldn't possibly catch me. I just had to get on with my own business.

"Cough! Cough! Ugh."

I coughed at the acrid smoke. The campfire had been too weak, so I'd added more wood, but I'd overdone it. I couldn't exactly take it back out, either, which left me in a bit of a bind.

'Time to start thinking about other ways to cook.'

Roasting food directly over the fire, cooking it on a cast-iron pan over the flames, and so on. Those methods were enough to live on, but they had a drawback. The fish that made up my staple diet were simply too big. Even without the heads, flipping them was a job in itself. That left some bits burned and others undercooked. It wasn't ideal.

'Would a brick oven be good for this?'

An oven would minimize the burned and undercooked spots. It would also let me do other things while the food cooked. Now that I'd decided to live here for a long time, an oven was practically a necessity.

'I'll try building one.'

I wasn't keen on asking the forum right now, but I knew just the registered user for the job. As it happened, I could get materials from him too. Two birds with one stone.

Hey. You there?

Passing Dwarf

Yeah, why?

You're actually awake for once?

Thought you'd be nursing a hangover.

Passing Dwarf

Didn't drink much yesterday.

What do you want, anyway?

Nothing major, just planning to build an oven.

I'll buy bricks at the auction house, but I'd like some tips from you.

Passing Dwarf

Being a dwarf doesn't mean I know how to make everything...

I specialize in metallurgy, you human.

Aren't all dwarves good with their hands?

Passing Dwarf

That's beside the point. This isn't my specialty.

I can get you a plate for the oven, though. Just tell me what you need.

Make it big enough to fit a fish comfortably.

You know how big they are, right?

Passing Dwarf

Okay, I'll make it. Give me a piece when you roast one in the oven later.

Okay. Oh, right.

Give me the barricades too.

Passing Dwarf

Forgot about those.

I'll send them with the iron plate.

Then I'd better get things ready before the dwarf sent them. I'd woken up at six this morning and spent thirty minutes on the forum. I usually ate breakfast at seven or seven-thirty, so I could build the oven until then. If it proved too difficult, I'd just cook breakfast on the iron plate. No problem.

SLAP! SLAP!

Three fish had been caught in the trap today. It seemed I caught three overnight and two at a time otherwise.

'No octopus this time, right?'

Even if it wasn't an octopus, I'd go on guard the instant I saw any other creature. Fortunately, there was nothing but fish. Humming, I headed back down with the fish-filled trap.

RUSTLE!

Then I heard rustling in the foliage. The moment I heard it, I readied my weapons and went on guard. After everything I'd been through, the movement came naturally.

"..."

But all I could hear was more rustling. I gradually relaxed my guard while staring in the direction of the sound.

'It's a little higher up, not near the ground... A bird?'

If it was a bird, though, I couldn't hear any wingbeats. Puzzled, I returned to the cave. Nothing else happened on the way.

SPLASH! SPLASH!

Supply was starting to exceed demand. I probably needed to buy a large metal tub. Unless it rained again, they'd all rot if I didn't have a tub to keep them alive in until then.

'That's a problem in its own right.'

The fish were too big. That had been a huge advantage at first, when I was short on food, but now that I had enough, the downsides were starting to show. Still, being able to eat my fill at every meal was too great a benefit to give up.

'Not that I can stop collecting them.'

I never knew when or how I might run short, so it was best to keep gathering food, just in case. After watching the fish swim happily in the metal tub, I moved away. Breakfast time was approaching. I ought to get at least some work done on the oven.

'But where should I put it?'

I'd run into an unexpected dilemma: where to install the oven. Inside the cave, space and smoke would be problems. Outside, there was the weather. After thinking it over and over, I decided to build it right up against the cave entrance. I made sure to account for rain in the design, though.

'Once the oven's finished, I'll put a tarp over it. I'll slope the waterproof covering so the water runs into the drainage channel.'

To fit a whole fish inside, I'd have to make the oven big, too. I accessed the auction house and checked for bricks of a suitable size. Bricks had been in use since ancient times, which might explain the wide variety available.

'First, level the ground.'

Building a single oven required all sorts of prep work. It looked like breakfast would have to be the usual.

'I'll just get the materials ready and stop there.'

A pile of bricks, a tarp, poles to secure the tarp, and so on. I stacked the supplies near the cave entrance and started preparing breakfast. Roundfur had woken up right on cue, too.

'I could put this iron plate in the oven, too.'

After another fish breakfast, I went straight to work on the oven. First, I made the ground as level as possible, then stacked the bricks neatly, keeping the size of the fish in mind. The crucial part was the chimney to let the smoke out. I wasn't going to smoke the food, so I built a passage that would let smoke escape while keeping out as much rain as possible.

'And then... how is an oven laid out again?'

I checked the forum now and then to see what ovens looked like. The auction house did sell them, but they were expensive, and I didn't know whether any would be the size I wanted. Besides, a boxy rectangle suited me better than a rounded shape. It would be easier to build, too.

'Considering the size of the fish, I'll need to make it fairly long.'

It didn't have to be tall, but it needed depth. Taking all of that into account, I finished it off with a chimney on top. Very nice.

'Perfect.'

I'd bought the stone slabs I'd installed from the auction house too, so there was no need to worry about those. But I wasn't done yet. I still needed what I'd asked the dwarf for. He'd said he'd make it, but it looked like I'd need to take the measurements myself.

(Photo of the entire oven)

(Photo of the oven opening being measured with a tape measure)

This should do, right?

Passing Dwarf

Pretty neat work.

Pack mud into the gaps between those bricks.

That'll stop heat escaping and help it get hotter.

Thanks for the tip.

Following the dwarf's advice, I gathered soil from nearby and mixed it into mud. It felt a little unpleasant, but I'd put up with anything for the oven.

"Kyuu?"

"Daddy's working."

Roundfur came up beside me, but I kept my attention on the oven. Curious about what I was doing, he plopped down to watch. He was so adorable I nearly hugged him, but I just managed to restrain myself.

Only after I'd applied all the mud was I finished. Well, technically I still needed to put up the tarp, but that could wait.

'Perfect. Absolutely perfect.'

Looking at the finished oven, I couldn't help smiling. Time to post it on the forum and show off. But when I opened the forum...

Eldorado declares: "We'll catch whoever spread the false information" lmao

A title caught my eye that I couldn't simply pass over. It was a top post, for the record. Wondering what kind of morons had said that, I clicked on it. It could have been clickbait—just some baseless rumor—so I had to check.

Eldorado declares: "We'll catch whoever spread the false information" lmao

Asked how they planned to catch him, they said they'd have an amicable discussion with the admin.

The reporter must use the forum too, because he pointed out that the guy was in the Forest of Four Seasons. They said that didn't matter lmao.

Even more shocking, they've apparently put together a tracking party to catch Grylls lmao.

What was this? Were they supplying the Forest of Four Seasons with survivors for me?