Writer's Note: This chapter is a flashback to around a billion years starring Arthur, and can be read in any order. It is Chapter VI of the full The Creation book.

For a long time, humans, monsters, robots, terrans and plasmatics have been living in harmony in this world. This planet… Planet Meex. The moment anything that isn’t a robot is born, they start a journey called ‘life’. The way to the end of it depends on how lucky they are, some may be gifted with loving parents and spoiled with belongings, wealth and presents. Others aren’t so lucky though, and are cursed with quite the opposite. Horrible parents, poverty, and a life full of bad occurrences. However, robots are different.

Robots are made to meet the criteria their fabricator desires, fulfill a task, excel to no limit at specific fields… People may claim that robots are blessed with ‘free will’, but is it truly free will when your limits and abilities are set from the start? No amount of magic will solve that, as it as with everything else in the world has a limit.

My fabrication, my… curse. The one that my creator dubbed ‘blessing’, is pseudo-immortality. My artificial soul is linked with precious, valuable and powerful artifacts that change with every generation. Living for billions of years, and witnessing everyone you know and love eventually die before your very eyes while your ‘expiration date’ doesn’t ever come… My creators made a protector and a ruler, but the person I can’t protect is myself, and I don’t rule this world anymore, for it no longer needs me… It has developed to become something that  can’t be beaten. They say that nothing is perfect, but this world? It’s… perfect, really. Too perfect. That’s why I’m so tired… Of this… Never ending nightmare…

Maybe I should explain this some more. This story begins a lot of years ago. The day I, ‘Arthur Gold’ was created… In a dark medieval lab, illuminated only by a single candle, there stood a royal scientist, using only the finest of materials. Royal rich gold, hard resistant tungsten and remaining aesthetics to give my body the look it has now.

“Alrighty… Looks like that does it for now. Heheh. Hopefully this’ll work…” Said the mysterious scientist, before starting the magic of what would start my story. Or, well, at least that’s what I believe happened. The mysterious royal scientist, a man covered in a thick lab coat while wearing a mask for protection against harm while also protecting their identity, put his hands on my chest, just a few seconds after, he was screaming in pain to the top of his lungs, glowing with an intensively bright aura that completely eliminated the darkness of the room. Alas, the deed was completed… He had created an artificial soul out of powerful albeit incredibly painful magic. I may not have seen this man’s face by myself, but my suspicions tell me this is a monster we’re talking about since they dominate magic this well.

...That’s as far as I think that bit of the story went, anyway, from this point forward it’s all from my very own eyes. As I opened my eyes and booted up, I looked at the man.

“I take it I’ve just been built, isn’t that right?” I examined my own body to get a grasp of what my appearance is, I even have a beard… Why? The man chuckled quite horribly, a laughter that would be burnt in my memory over how awful it was, “Quite indeed Mr Arthur Gold. You are my new and most precious invention! Your purpose in this world is quite simple, as a robot, I expect you to follow orders without complaints mhm?”

Unfortunately for me, I wasn’t able to decline due to my programming, but at the time I accepted without questions like a fool. “Yes sir. What is my duty?” I said to the lad. He answered so: “Mmm Mr Arthur Gold! The old king has passed away due to a rancid illness. As a robot made of the toughest materials and magic, you shall be the new ruler of this kingdom. A king, in other words. Yes indeed I can already see it before me, you will do a splendid job, as my amazing creation. Hahahaaa.” He held his hands together and poked each of his fingers against each other in a creepy way, but I didn’t really give it much importance. Not like I could do much, anyway. I stood up and looked him in the eyes. “Alright then, what’s the first thing I have to do?”

“Follow me, my little one. I shall show you the beginning of your life.” The man held my hand and dragged me out of the room, casting a fireball in his other hand to illuminate the area. We walked for what felt like minutes in a silent hallway that echoed each of our steps, yet neither he or I were feeling scared, not even uncomfortable or uneasy. Nonetheless, at the end of the hallway I was introduced to a great light. The light of the great sun.

In front of me, I could see a royal throne in a long room with windows giving us the view of a beautiful forest. The room was filled with royal red and gold carpets and golden candles. “This is your room, Mr Arthur! Wait here while I go tell our people about you… Nyeheheh…”

He wandered off and out of the room, and all I could do was sit on my throne and think about things. I can remember that at the time I didn't really question anything about me or the world, but I was programmed with knowledge yet filled with curiosity for more. It seems like I had some human abilities when it came to feelings and thinking about things. But nonetheless, my duty was still clear: I had to rule over people, and there was no way for me to disobey that, that was hard coded on me.

As I thought to myself I heard a thud from my side, curious, I glanced towards the sound to look at what happened. I spotted a small skunk who had just fallen inside the throne room, since there was nothing else to do, I got off my seat and approached it, getting on my knees to look at it closely.

“You okay buddy?” The skunk whimpered, it was just a little kit, its paw wounded. “Yikes. That doesn’t look so good, lemme see…” I scanned my database to know more about my own abilities, specifically magic.

From what I saw, I was a jack of all trades. I was better for combat and endurance, but I still had fair healing magic and some knowledge about handling every other object. I gently held the skunk’s paw and casted some minor healing magic, this strange sensation… I still can remember it to this day, I didn’t feel it a lot in my life, but it was something warm in my heart. And finally, the skunk was healed.

As soon as I finished, the skunk began to wag its tail and licked me. Embarrassingly smiling, I said, “Aw, looks like you’re doing better for sure.” I petted its head and it proceeded to nuzzle my hand, and right here and then the man came back yelling my name. “ARTHUR!!!” he exclaimed.

“Agh… Yes?” I picked up the skunk and held it in my hands as I looked in the distance to see what he was doing. “I’ve gotten everyone in this village informed about you, come now, the people need to meet you…” He then looked at the skunk in my hands with visible disgust. “Bah, do you need that little pest though? Kings have no need for such stinky animals.”

“I’ll be fine, let’s just get this over with.” Carrying the tiny skunk in my hands, I followed the man out of the throne room. We climbed a slightly ruined staircase which led us to a balcony… From there I could see a lot of different faces, villagers of all races in poor, dirty and worn clothing. Some were even barefoot, I instantly felt bad for them.

The man put his hands up as extended as he could, as if reaching for the sky. “Behold! Your new governor! The Great King Arthur Gold! Crafted from the most powerful of materials and blessed with powerful magic, he will lead our people for the following of thousands of generations! Now, bow before your king, my people! For I have created him!”

I awkwardly watched the villagers, as if they had no self respect for themselves, or maybe they were desperate for a leader… Either way, they all bowed down to me. I couldn’t watch it, so I told them “Hey, it’s okay, you don’t need to bow down… Although, I think I have a small idea of what’s going on over here.”

The man laughed. “YES! For I have installed all the necessary information of this world and what happened to the old king into that artificial brain of yours! That scumbag was a human, and met his expiration date eventually. But you, Mr King Arthur, are a robot! You’ll be this world’s god!”

“G-god?...” Being called a god disturbed me, which meant that my programmed emotions were working, although as I scanned my database, I quickly found out what was going on…

From the info I was given, which I don’t know for sure is correct mind you, the previous king was a dictator who put his wealth and his ‘valuable’ people above others, completely ballsing up whoever he deemed unimportant. How cruel that must be… ...So… These people… They’re bowing down to me not because they’re appreciating me, they’re doing so because they fear for their lives. They don’t want me to do anything bad to them, they want to please me to stay up to my standards… And… I don’t even need to think about it, I don’t want to do something so cruel to many people.

In that case, I’ll give my best to lead the people to a normal life full of peace and glory, where people won’t have to worry about… These oddities.

I must have a strong sense of justice to think like this… Oh well, it doesn’t really matter now…

This part of the story shouldn’t go on any longer. From all the hints, one should already know how this went.

Through hard work, I managed to lead these villagers into a better society. One free of a reign of terror, with better medicine, technology, social standards and a more joyful life.

To this day, I’m not sure what that mysterious masked man was thinking when he created me, I’m not sure if I lived up to his standards, or if he’s proud of me. I guess I’ll never know but, I guess I did a good job…

At least until the moment the Ultimate Artifact had to be made.

Let’s explain that day… About a year after I was made.

I was sitting on my throne, petting my skunk which was sleeping on my lap while purring. Then, disturbing my quiet moment with my pet skunk, HE arrived.

The masked man walked towards me, limping, and bleeding. I quickly took the skunk off me and gently placed it on the ground, and proceeded to rush towards him... “Hey! Are you okay?! What the hell just happened to you?!” I yelled, I genuinely wasn’t expecting him to arrive in a way like this one. Not at all. “Ahh… Mr… King Arthur…” He groaned in pain, yet still let out a creepy chuckle that filled me with a complete sense of nervousness. “I’ve done it, I’ve found a way to make sure you manage to stay alive for so long and keep this world perfect… Hahah…” He coughed out some blood.

Not understanding what he meant, I tried to heal him with my magic. “W-what are you talking about? What in the world could you possibly have found that left you like this?” However, he shoved me away. “What are you doing? I’m trying to…”. “Be quiet, Mr King Arthur. You may be a king, but you are still my creation. I was the one that made you, and I know you more than you know yourself!”

Left speechless, I just stared at him, not knowing what to do, my CPU couldn’t even process what was wrong with him, I couldn’t come up with any educated guesses or conclusions over what was going on with this man.

“Watch this, King Arthur! And make sure you don’t forget! Mark this in your memory forever, make sure to keep it where it’s not lost and DON’T EVER DELETE IT!”

The man used his nails to take off a cover from the wall, revealing a lever. His nails came off and his hands bled to no end. He then pulled it before I could stop him, even when I didn’t know what it was gonna do, my guts told me that something bad was gonna come out of it. And they were right, because… I’m not even sure if anyone could believe me if I mentioned what I saw, and what I was feeling. Because in the middle of the night, the entire castle was shaking violently, the bricks cracking and releasing debris everywhere, I held myself together to the ground, as my skunk woke up jumping, scared.

“Huh…? What do you need the castle to shake for? You’re just gonna get us killed or something!”

“THAT’S EXACTLY THE PLAN!”

“W-w-what…?”

Chunks of the castle started to come apart, and when I took a glance at one that was about to hit my skunk, I instantly rushed to stand above it, tanking the tough hit with my resistant magic and powerful body.

“Agh… You… You okay little lad?” It just looked at me with complete fear in its eyes, this poor little animal had no idea what was happening, and it’s not like I knew any better either. I didn’t know either…

Then… Without giving me any more time to process what was going on, I heard the loud sound of gears turning, bricks moving and shaking… The floor had opened to raise a platform holding a massive gadget. An oversized crystal. I extended my hand and aimed at the gadget, and tried to fire to destroy it, but alas, nothing came of it, not even a puff of smoke, it’s like I wasn’t able to perform this action at all. “...What?...” Blinking and confused, I then tried to take aim at the man, but it didn’t work either. Despite everything in my CPU telling me to end this right now.

He laughed, and slowly approached the device. “What a pity, Mr Arthur Gold! Sure, while I didn’t program you to obey every order of mine… I programmed you to not be able to harm me at all! So there’s nothing you can do about this all! Watch this event unfold before your very eyes, after all that’s all you can do!” He pressed the button, and the device charged a beam from the looks of it. A bright, eye piercing red light that blinked in quick intervals. Not only was I forced to not intervene, but my eyes were also being bothered by these barmy lights. God, damn!