The Systemic Lands

Chapter 78: Day 203 – Attack From the Front and Behind

I looked through my notebook as people got ready for the start of the day. I had spoken with people who had chosen skills and got their feedback on the skills and their respective costs. Nothing ground shaking or unexpected.

We plowed through the blue stones and finally reached the salty river just before mid-day. “Who is the person going with me?”

Ruth brought the woman forward and a man was behind her. I looked at Ruth. “They want to go together. But she is the one getting a skill.” Ruth leaned in. “They are in a relationship, please go with it.”

“Alright. Follow, I will be moving quickly. The rest of you can make camp here. I should be back before it gets too dark. Let’s move.” I set off at a light jog. The two followed me as I made my way upstream.

We entered the canyon and I just plowing my way through the blue floating rocks. I called a halt once I knew the salt spring with the level three monsters was up ahead. I had the two people wait here, no matter what and then went forward on my own.

I cleared out the nearby minions like before. I then unleashed my skill on the large floating purple rocks, not letting up. It died without a sonic attack. Thank goodness. I did not feel like getting blood over everything again.

I followed up in the same way as the large blue rocks emerged. Even when it used Aqua Sphere to defend, Acid Shot penetrated it a lot more easily than before. The nullification upgrade was doing good work.

I only had to duck out of the way of one pressurized stream. A bit close, but I managed it well enough. I finished the boss off and the minions. I then went back to the couple and had the woman claim the skill point as I picked up crystals. Once that was done, we jogged back to camp.

The next day we set off Northeast, passing through the gray floating rocks, and brown pig deadlands. We reached the cliffs in the evening. I called it a night.

The following day, I had the group hang way back. There was shovel used for latrine business, Bob had brought along. Why when things disappeared? I had no idea, but he still brought it and I wasn’t going to complain. I used that to dig a small ditch with a path for drainage. I then made it bigger with Acid Shot. I let the acid melt away and my energy recover. After that I got to work killing the bulbs and then the flowered bulb showed up.

It got off one Radiant Beam, which I ducked out of the way of into my prepared ditch, before I managed to finish it off. The sixth and last person claimed their skill. Unfortunately, it cost 100 energy for Radiant Beam, so he wasn’t able to use it unfortunately, but he got a lot of jealous looks. Yeah, it was a very nice attack skill. Still way to expensive for my tastes, Air Burst was the superior choice for mobility in my opinion.

We made it back to Purgatory late that evening. I made my way back to my house. I would cash in the crystals tomorrow morning. I just wanted to sleep and deal with everything tomorrow. Ruth had broken off to head back to her place while Tom slowly followed behind me, pulling the cart.

Three people stepped out of the shadows from around my home and blocked my way to the entrance of my home. Three men, middle aged, I didn’t recognize them, but they had iron equipment. My mind immediately went on full alert, and I slowly began to move my hands into position to counter them.

“Really?” I asked loudly, hoping to get a response and some information out of them.

“We heard you are the Champion. We kill you then we are in charge around here.”

“First, you need to issue a challenge and it is one on one. A group can’t be Champion.”

“Doesn’t matter. Rock Lance.”

“Wind Grip.”

“Fire Shot.”

Three unknown skills! “Aqua Sphere!” The moment I saw their hands gesturing, I started using my skill. A rock lance burst out of the ground but was swept to the side. The Fire Shot dispersed on the surface of my defense skill, same with Wind Grip. After the second it was up, I let the Aqua Sphere disperse.

“Acid Shot! Acid Shot! Acid Shot!” They clearly weren’t ready for their combo to fail and two of them took an Acid Shot to the chest, killing them near instantly. The third, the one who had been speaking, dived out of the way and avoided death.

“Rock-“ I was already rushing forward and slammed my shoulder into him. He went sprawling on the ground. Casting isn’t a free action and I had worked to edge out every bit of speed from my skills that I could. They clearly hadn’t been practicing enough.

“Acid Shot. Acid Shot.” I melted off his hands and he began to scream. A grass blade shot through the air and impacted the ground next to him. I looked at Tom.

“A bit late,” I said with a shake of my head. I was a bit disappointed in his slow reaction time.

“Sorry, just, wasn’t expecting things to happen so quickly.”

“Grab him and use his clothes to tie off his stumps,” I said. Guards came rushing over from the store pillars they had been guarding.

“What happened?” the Captain asked me.

“An ambush. Three skill users from another city. I am going to question him, let Tyrese and Ken know I will speak with them as soon as possible. Sweep the plaza for other people lurking, I doubt it is the case, but they might have left a watcher. Confirm identities and ask around to find out what these people were doing.”

“Yes, Champion.” He turned to leave.

“Wait. Also spread word to remain on high alert for now. I am sure Tyrese will issue other orders and the attack is probably over, but we can’t take chances. If they moved on Ken and Tyrese the city will fall into chaos.”

“Yes! Smith, the bell. Gonzo, alert Boss Tyrese to the situation. Harold, do the same for Elected Representative Ken. The rest of you assist Champion Michael in securing the prisoner.” The guards ran off as soon as he issued orders.

“Secure him?” I asked Tom.

“Yeah, but I don’t know how long he will last. No hands, no restoration. Guards please make sure no one disturbs me and give me quite a bit of space.” I got several affirmatives, and they formed a good sized perimeter, that would make it hard to overhear any answers I got from the prisoner. I went over to the man and knelt down next to his head. I put a thumb on one of his eyes. The other open eye darted to my face as he let out pained moans.

“It is over, you lost. Now you can go quickly and painlessly, or I can drag things out and make a mess.” I pushed down on his eye.

“I will talk! I will talk!”

“What city are you from?”

“City of Truth.”

“Where is it from here, what direction?”

“North, it is to the North.”

“Why target me?”

“Thought it would be easy to run this place with how things are set up. Truth is a mess.”

“Why is it a mess?”

“Hell man, it just is. Everyone and their mother are out for themselves. Whichever warlord is alive, rules the place, until they are killed and replaced. Better dead than stuck there.” Well that didn’t sound pleasant in the slightest.

“So, you ran away?”

“Yeah, me and my boys wanted to find someplace else. That didn’t work out.” He let out a choked sob.

“The skills, tell me about the dungeons.”

“Dungeons near the city. Everyone knows now after a couple people talked. There is the flower town and the slime pit.” I asked him about the monsters and the dungeons. I learned their location and how soon they were first cleared after the arrival.

I also learned about something incredibly interesting that I would need to take a look at once I visited the area. It was something new and quite scary, but new. I quickly made up my mind. I couldn’t let anyone else question the prisoner for now. It was also time to deal with an issue that had been festering for a while.

It wasn’t like me to hesitate. Now the time for hesitation had passed. It was the time to clean up all the messes that were lingering around me.

“Acid Shot.” I killed the man by melting his head, ending his suffering, and stood up. Tom came over.

“The cart is put away.” He looked at the slurry that used to be a person.

“Things are a mess. I need to get a shower and some sleep. Head on back and get some rest, I will deal with Tyrese and Ken and then turn in for the night.” Guards were pouring into the plaza, like an anthill had been kicked. Tyrese and Ken were making their way over as well and I let out a sigh. An assassination attempt was a big deal. I considered it a war declaration personally.

They wanted to assassinate me. ME! How dare they. The City of Truth was about to be the City of Salt and Brimstone. What the Romans did to Carthage would look like friendly BBQ compared to what I wanted to do right now.

“Michael what is going on? I heard assassination attempt?” Tyrese asked. Ken had arrived as well.

“Yes. Three people from the City of Truth to the North. All three had different skills.” Ken sucked in a breath and rubbed his face. Tyrese let out a long sigh.

“At least you beat them,” Tyrese said.

“They were the garbage from that city. It is rotating warlords over there. Strongest one stays in charge. Loser loses a head. This group lost their warlord. An upper tier group, used to be six, but they lost three and the rest were forced to leave or fight to the death. They decided to risk it and somehow stumbled upon Purgatory by crossing the slime swamp to the North. Then they found out about how we do things here and went to take me out. Either of you have any issues?”

“No, but the guards will be doing a full sweep,” Tyrese said.

“I will reach out to the Union and update them, issue a general warning to their teams to be careful in that direction,” Ken said.

“To lose skill holders, things must be bad. How is a city that close to us? I suspect you have a plan?” Tyrese asked.

“It is the past the swamp to the North. No one wants to travel through a swamp. There might be an easier route swinging East to the shadowlands and then to the North, but there is no guarantee, unless another group has checked that direction?” I asked.

“Floating red crystals with fire beam attacks. The group was forced to retreat,” Ken answered. Someone was paying attention to the exploration of this world. Probably his connections with the Union and Laura. Good to know.

“We have two options. The first option is to ignore the problem and hope they keep killing each other. The second option as I see it, is a pre-emptive attack to wipe out the city and reset it in its entirety. We can then take over after that.”

“Kill everyone there?” Ken asked.

“Yes, and control the store, starving what people remain to kill them off. We could deploy our own people to run things there, but managing two cities without a good way to travel between them? Not easy.”

“We can barely maintain Purgatory. If we try and expand, we will collapse. At least from my perspective,” Tyrese said.

“It would lead to issues in governance. We would need to redo how we handle things. This has to come after the election and there is a mandate to exterminate a city,” Ken sighed and rubbed his face.

“I am inclined to leave things be for now, but alert people to watch for outsiders. Offer a reward if they are reported,” Tyrese said.

“That can work,” Ken said. I was getting annoyed at their complacency.

“I think you are both missing the point. In a conflict between cities, attacking is far easier than defending. If they attack us, I can’t defend the city from guerrilla warfare. I can engage in guerrilla warfare, but I can’t defend against it.” There was silence for a minute after my statement as they processed the implications.

“It would be on you. Unless we declare an emergency and raise additional funds, but that would cause its own issues here, possibly a revolt or riot which would lead to more problems,” Tyrese said.

“I…I don’t have the confidence to suggest action or inaction, but if taxes are changed it will cause a large amount of unrest,” Ken said.

“Alright, then I will go myself and check out the situation. I would like an official declaration of war to be declared,” I said.

“Why something official?” Tyrese asked.

“Since it will put the people of this city on alert and make them aware of the issue. Hiding it will only lead to future problems. Also, I don’t want anyone coming and bothering me about what I am going to do in the future.” If I learned one thing from anime, is that if you do war crimes, they aren’t war crimes if the government backs you up.

“We can do that in a joint statement then, Ken?” Tyrese asked.

“That is fine. Let’s get it over with, but in the morning. I am sure people will have questions after all this excitement.”

“Before we turn in, question for Tyrese. I can’t let this linger any longer” They both paused and looked at me. “Ruth, you have been paying her to keep tabs on me.” He didn’t hesitate at all before responding, which was a bit surprising.

“Yes. Nothing about your abilities, but your mental state. I am concerned and there are other people that are concerned as well if you have mental issues.” I was not going to blow up and kill them. Remain calm Michael.

“You involved with this Ken?”

“Tyrese has kept me informed, but I haven’t done anything on my own.” I took a deep breath. Assassinations and now plotting against me. I closed both my hands in fists, and we stood there in silence for over a minute as I thought about how to handle this.

“I am upset with you Tyrese. That was something you shouldn’t have done. And if you try anything like this again, I will kill you. Do you understand what I am telling you?”

“Yes. I-“

“I don’t care for excuses or explanations, only actions. I don’t hire spies to report on either of you. I don’t ask where Ken gets his money or buries the bodies with his criminal empire. I don’t ask how you became the leader of the Red Dawn guards, Tyrese. That is because if I started poking you would not like that.”

“I warned you both once already. Apparently, that didn’t stick. So, if you were me, tell me what you would do right now?” There was more silence. I really didn’t want to have this conversation now, but it was past time that I dealt with it. The guard that had talked to me a while ago had told me about this. A betrayal of someone close to me, it hurt. Deeply.

I waited for two reasons. First, trying to think how to handle this without wrecking everything. Secondly, to make it harder to figure out how I had received this information. I owed the man a huge favor and was not about to throw him away.

“The way you act. How easily you kill people, it is concerning,” Ken finally spoke up. I looked at him and he flinched.

“You think this is a game? You think you can just call 911 if there is a criminal? A super powered criminal? If these three men had come for either of you, would you be alive?” There was more silence at that. I let out a long breath.