The Systemic Lands

Chapter 83: Day 210 (2) – Completely Unexpected

We made our way back to the dungeon entrance and camped nearby for the night. The bodies had already disappeared. I felt a cold breeze and went on edge, nothing. I was not afraid of the dark, but that blackness or void, was something else. It was a long and uneasy night.

The following day we made our way to the North entrance of the city. There was no one exiting to grind the flowers and gather crystals. I could only shake my head at that, since they were easier than slimes. Well, I did kill two large teams, they were probably in a panic and consolidating at the plaza. That would have been what I would have done in the face of an unknown threat.

We left the cart near the entrance, but between some buildings at a dead end in one of the many twisting roadways. We continued South through the city to the plaza. Ruth and Tom stayed back and took up positions in a building on the North road that led to the exit at the entrance to the plaza.

There was trash, blood, even a rotting corpse in one corner of the plaza. Five men armed with swords walked up to me. I could hear the sounds of screaming and moaning coming from several buildings. There were even people just going at it in the plaza itself like animals. I felt an irrational anger at all the hate that had been directed towards me.

This misery, this trash heap of humanity. That was what you got when someone without morals was in charge and had a warlord. I killed people to protect myself and survive. Also, for my benefit, but at least I didn’t kill people for pleasure or let things devolve into this mess. Really, was it so hard to clear out the trash and corpses at least? Just put them in buildings and they would disappear. At least that would help with the smell.

“Eh, a new face. One of Lord Naran’s?” One of the men asked.

“No. I am Champion Michael of the Triumvirate. I am here to meet with Lord Naran. Where is he?”

“Something like that would cost you-“ I tossed him a 50-point crystal.

“Hurry it up.” He looked at it for a moment, gulped and then looked back at me.

“He is in that building over there.” The man pointed.

“Good, you all best leave, unless you work for Lord Naran?”

“Nah, we are on the outs you see. Not part of the inner circle.”

“Then my advice is to do better and don’t be assholes.” I turned around and began walking towards the building. I heard the men quickly move away. Finally, my appearance was making inroads with people’s minds. Like a threat display they knew not to mess with me. There were two guards outside the building which had a reinforced door.

I should have known. Still, it didn’t hurt to ask. The guards were giving me looks, trying to decide what to do. “Call forth Lord Naran, Champion Michael of the Triumvirate is calling him out due to the declaration of war and the crime of letting this city fall to such a state.”

“You can’t get in to see-“ I wasn’t about to waste my time with nonsense. Acid Shot. The guard collapsed into an expanding pool of human slurry.

“Call forth Lord Naran. I will not ask a third time.” The remaining guard quickly rushed inside the building, and I turned and walked a short distance away, checking around me.

Two minutes later, Lord Naran and minions came out of his building. I could tell who he was by the cloak and armor he was wearing. He was also cleaner than his minions.

“You the asshole-“

“I am Champion Michael, of the Triumvirate. A declaration of war has been issued upon your city for attempted assassination and the plight of the people. I doubt you will surrender, so I won’t even bother to ask.”

“My men I sent to the dungeons?” Someone caught on quick. I decided to deal critical damage to his mind.

“All dead.”

“If I do surrender?” A ploy? Still, might as well answer. Not having to kill people would be a pain to deal with, but these were human scum. Of course, they would probably surrender to save their skins. I mentally sighed at that. Death was quick and easy, figuring things out, not so much.

“Honestly, no idea. If there was a trial, the sentence would be death due to the rape houses you have set up.” A scream echoed out with perfect timing to make my point. “I mean seriously. You couldn’t get more depraved and disgusting than this.” I noted he looked at the melted puddle that used to be one of his guards.

“I am trying, but this is what I inherited. I am not dying to some overpowered hero on a crusade. I surrender unilaterally, give up completely, and you can deal with this mess. If I am to die for the mess that fell in my lap, then I quit and do you what you want! Kill me!” He drew his sword during that speech and tossed it to the side. I really wasn’t expecting a surrender like that, so fast and without conditions. Was it a trap? His men looked at him in surprise and I looked at him.

“Very well. Anyone else want to fight?”

“If he isn’t going to be Lord, I am going to kill you and take charge. Screw you Naran, I always knew you were a coward! Get him!”

Acid Shot. Acid Shot. Acid Shot. Acid Shot. The four people who rushed me collapsed into expanding puddles of human slurry. The remaining people screamed in panic and ran away. Naran just let out a long sigh and buried his face in his hands.

“More brawns than brains. Well, you win, and you are now the new Lord of Truth.” I didn’t want to be Lord of this place! Take it back!

“Why aren’t you grinding out crystals to become stronger, if you are so smart?” I asked trying to understand what was going on around here.

“Um, well I thought I was strong enough. Can’t really leave if I don’t want people to betray me. Was hoping to skill up some trusted associates to actually control this place, but…that didn’t work out.” I killed them all.

“If I kill you then?”

“Then one of those brutes will be in charge as you clearly saw and this nightmare will finally be over.”

“How are you in charge but not running things?” I went straight to the heart of the matter.

“Because the true power are those blessed with skills. Like a council. The last Lord was a real piece of work and I got rid of him, but then I was stuck with some of his men. I got rid of the worst, but I couldn’t kill all of them. And if we all fought to the death, the remaining people would overwhelm my small team. So, compromise, I got put in charge, they got to do what they wanted, and I only got to make some decisions.”

“I couldn’t change anything either, idiots! Oh, but we need to relax. Don’t worry about the trash and dead bodies. You just manage the city so you clean them up. Bah! My only option was to fight and die or try to gather enough people on my end to push out and assassinate the assholes. Well, you just sped up the process and I can dump this in your lap. Screw this city! Screw everyone!” Wow, someone sure had a lot of feelings. He was even breathing heavily from his long rant.

“You could have hidden and fought back-“

“And died! People tried that. But one after another they died. I only became in charge by luck and desperation. After that I only kept the position, since the rest of the skill users knew that a fight would break out otherwise between them. So many pointless power plays. Fuck them, fuck this city! FUCK IT ALL!” He then burst into tears. It was really awkward watching a grown man cry.

I rubbed the back of my head unsure of what direction to go now. It kind of took the wind out of my sails when the leader of the enemy city just surrendered completely and burst into tears. That kind of visceral reaction wasn’t something easily faked unless he was a world class actor, and I didn’t recognize him from any media from back on Earth, so I was inclined to believe him. Now I had a choice to make.

“I don’t want to deal with this. Fix your city. No more rape, clear out the trash, and get things functioning. You don’t want me to come back. I know your face now.”

“Dammit. I am surrendering. I am not the city Lord anymore. If you appoint me, I am letting someone else take charge. I am done trying.” I didn’t want this mess either! I just wanted to tell someone to deal with it and threaten them. Time to try that and hope it would work.

“If I threatened to kill you?”

“Then my suffering will be over. Screw it, torture me to death. It can’t be worse than this pile of bullshit. I thought I could fix things before, but this place is a mess. You killed my main followers. Now, it will be even worse since I have no people to back me up. Let everyone fight it out, while I get out of here. Or just end it.” It felt weird that someone was calling my bluff of death and even escalating to torture. Tears were still coming down his face.

It was one thing to kill someone plotting against me in some way, but Naran here just rolled over and showed his belly. It also felt like I was doing him a favor by killing him, which just annoyed me. Also, if the timeline I had pieced together was right, the people who fled to Purgatory were his direct enemies. So, I couldn’t even blame him for the attempted assassination.

The only thing I could blame him for was this nightmare of city. The problem with blaming him for that, was he inherited the place and had a plan to gain control to fix things, but I wrecked it. I didn’t mind wrecking things, but once again it was a mitigating factor.

I tried to think what the Allies would do if Nazi Germany in the middle of WW2 was taken over by someone other than Hitler and then surrendered unconditionally. I tried to pull from my knowledge of history to help come to a decision, since those who don’t know, their history would be doomed to repeat it.

That example was the closest thing I could think of, since I had a hard time thinking of an example of a situation like this. Well, you need to hold those people responsible who committed crimes. But you also couldn’t put the screws to a place, otherwise it would collapse like Germany after WW1 and WW2. A power vacuum would just create future problems, which is why I wanted Naran to stay in charge and deal with the mess.

He was clearly letting me think all of this through as I stood there. I kept my eye out in case of an attack, but nothing came up. Everyone was clearly too afraid to do anything. Also, the pools of human slurry.

“If you leave with me, what do you expect to happen here?” I asked.

“It will probably dissolve into chaos and death and another person would become the Lord. Probably build up a group to fight you or something like that. Who knows, just pick the most horrible thing and that will be the most likely to happen. I am never coming back here one way or the other. I would rather die or be eaten by a monster.”

What a stupid mess. “Even then you were Lord of this city while all this was going on.”

“If I killed people without enough skill users supporting me, I would get stabbed in the back. That is how the last two Lords got replaced. The last guy wanted to practice cannibalism to eat meat.” I didn’t think this place could get any worse, but it did. It really was trying to check all the boxes. In fact, I think it didn’t leave a box unchecked of horrible things happening. Maybe some weird things with monsters, nope, let’s not find out if they-

“The previous Lord before him, tried to breed monsters and bring them into the city. Something about adapting to the environment. Tried all sorts of things including trying to have people mate-“

“Nope, I get it. Just nope. If you leave, who is going to take charge?” I asked. I was not even going there. All the boxes were officially checked. There was no way this place could get any worse.

“You killed some of them, but it is mob rule by the skill holders. I get to make some decisions, but the mob is the mob. You get some friends and climb to the top, but you can’t beat everyone who is a threat. I think five of them ran off.” He looked at the piles of goo. “Yep, I think five got away.”

Great five people to kill and then to set something up to fix this place.

“It won’t work. I know what you are thinking,” Naran said in a depressed tone. I let out a sigh. Of course my idea wouldn’t work.