That idea wasn’t so bad. As long as he keeps leveling up his skills and upgrading them, Luke could help a lot of people without being close to them. However, they didn’t know if the person who was trying to help them now would turn evil and force them to do things that they won’t like in the future.

"I am not sure if it will work," Luke said. "The people from earth are troublesome in another sense as well."

Luke wouldn’t offer that to everyone, but he would force the troublemakers to join his camp if he had the chance. Instead of a quick death, some years of labor would be a more fitting punishment. In any case, Seirion went to talk with his friends on that settlement that didn’t move an inch from their spot. They had given up on their lives when they saw the flying fortress. They also had assumed that the dark elves that were fighting were just puppets of another overlord.

"Master, are you certain that you want to follow this path of leading others?" Nambra asked. "While I can some merits, there are many more demerits as well. The other overlords don’t follow this path and prefer to use monsters for a reason."

"I considered the other options, and while I am aware of the demerits, it is one the best options, to obtain power quickly," Luke explained. "Besides, it will be easier if I outsource the work since my goal is to free this world from the overlords."

"Well, I just mentioned that because I assumed that you would do better working with a smaller group," Nambra said.

"That certainly would be more comfortable for me," Luke said. "However, I can’t stay in my comfort zone forever."

The weight of so many lives certainly would burden him, but in the end, he was just being used, and he was using others. There was no need to think too much over that. While he hadn’t seen many people dying since the monsters arrived, countless people died. Luke just had to keep doing his best since he wasn’t a hero that could save everyone.

Regardless, Luke began to use Necromancy to increase his skeletons army, and he spent the whole time Seirion was talking with his friends. In the end, they showed up in front of Luke, saying that all of them were willing to follow him, even if they had to make that oath.

"Are you sure about that?" Luke asked. "You sure looked hesitant before.

"We need power to keep fighting to protect our world and our people, somehow, you can offer some power to us and the means to help our people, so everything else is pretty much meaningless," Seirion said.

Luke nodded. Things were going just as Shalia had planned, perhaps even more since she didn’t imagine that they could become followers of Luke like his tamed creatures. Still, it was hard to imagine that all of the others would accept his terms, but to her, it was a necessary sacrifice if they had to die.

Suddenly, Luke now had fifteen hundred dark elves as followers. Thanks to that, he began to wonder why the system was so weird. It was almost clear that it preferred overlords and people similar to them.

"So, what happened to the crystals of this area?" Luke asked. "You asked them about that, right?"

"Yes, I did," Seirion said. "According to the residents of this area, they disappeared as soon as we began to land. Somehow their masters knew that we would be able to win this fight that their minions couldn’t."

They decided to bail out, but it seemed a bit too hasty from Luke’s perspective. Things only began to improve when his friends decided to join the battle. In any case, he confirmed once again how much of a pain it was to fight enemies that could properly use their brain cells. Sometimes, they would show how cowardly they were, and they would escape without putting up much of a fight, and sometimes they would use other troublesome methods and cause him headaches.

"Anything else worth mentioning?" Luke asked.

"It seems that the people here received a messenger a few days ago that came from the north," Seirion said. "According to him, the northern area of the continent is swarming with monsters and they also saw some flying fortressesfortresses there."

"They aren’t fighting against each other?" Luke asked.

"No, but the monsters keep increasing in size and they attack the camps on their way, be of monsters or dark elves," Seirion replied.

"It is another coalition of overlords..." Shalia said.

"The possibility is high, but we can’t be sure yet," Luke said.

That was just Luke being cautious. He was also pretty sure that it was another coalition of enemies. However, they probably weren’t working together over resources. They either wanted to take over the dark elves’ world as soon as possible, or they wanted to prepare to wage war and attract the creature that created that crater. That was a courageous but reckless plan considering that they might be just preparing another round for that creature to get tons of experience again.

"Since they are targeting camps of dark elves, I suppose we only have one thing to do," Luke said.

"Conflict can no longer be avoided, but before that, can we at least try to evacuate the camps closer to those armies?" Seirion asked.

Luke considered that... The more followers he had, the better. The only problem was the fact that he would be exposing his fortress to the enemies. If they try to gang up on him, things will become nasty. Still, since it was for Shalia’s people, he didn’t have much of choice there... If he abandons them, they will only increase the power of those armies.

"Instead of that, I want to try something," Shalia said. "Wouldn’t we be able to keep our forms all the time if we become your followers?"