The Systemic Lands

Chapter 88: Day 215 – Everyone Has Problems

It was late afternoon when we reached Purgatory. The entire trip had been subdued for the most part. I was emotionally exhausted. Tom was sad about Ruth splitting from our group. Naran didn’t feel comfortable enough to speak up and there was the upcoming talk he was going to have with Ken and Tyrese.

I still wasn’t sure how I wanted to handle him. It had been tempting to leave him to Ruth, but in the end, I was not about to let her get anything more from me.

“Tom, take the cart back to the building. I need to sort out Naran’s situation. We can deal with the crystals tomorrow.”

“Sure.”

“Thanks. Tom, I appreciate your help and deciding to stick with me.”

“No problem, Michael.” He took over the cart from Naran and I turned to the man who was looking around at Purgatory’s plaza. There were people observing but they kept their distance.

“Well, this is already way better than Truth. Judgement time?” Naran said quietly and I copied his volume.

“Judgement time.” He nodded at that. I talked with the Captain at the pillars and then went to the Meeting Chamber.

I had Naran take a seat on a bench and I took a seat at my table. Ken was the first to show up. I noted he had two guards with him. He noted Naran but walked straight towards me.

“Michael, news?”

“It is complicated. Very complicated and frustrating. Let’s wait for Tyrese.” He arrived a minute later.

“Is it over?” Tyrese asked.

“Complicated. I have brought ex-Lord Naran, the former leader of the city of Truth.” I gestured at the man. Both of them looked at him in surprise and then at me. I had probably become a lot more dangerous and capable in their eyes.

“I am going to let him explain everything that has happened up to my arrival in detail so you both can understand the cesspit that the city is. After that I will explain the actions that I and my team took.”

“Once that is over, we need to discuss Naran’s fate and our stance towards Truth. Naran?”

“Ah, yes. I arrived day 100 of Purgatory’s calendar. At that time Lord Shadow ruled the city.” I tuned him out as I heard all this before. Just keeping an ear open to make sure he didn’t change anything.

“Lord Garrett then took over. For some reason he had a fascination with monsters and had the idea of forming a tamed monster army under his command. He began to implement a series of experiments in an attempt to tame the monsters.” Naran then began to list things.

This was just one bit in an endless parade of horrors. He had made it clear how he had no idea how all it all started, since the chain of people taking control started before his arrival and no one spoke on it. By the time he had enough power, no one alive knew either.

With the clueless people showing up every ten days, they were used a fodder to appease a group of skill users that did whatever they wanted to the new arrivals. Only the most brutal and blood thirsty after a death match or two were brought in as a soldier, with the chance to earn a skill, and in turn given a chance to abuse others.

Naran admitted to everything he did to survive. Murder, assassination, experimentation at the behest of others, but all in the hope of ending the madness one day.

“I needed another 30 days until I had enough skill users empowered who supported me in order to take control. I had already assassinated two of the problem people, but I couldn’t act too quickly lest they figure out what I was doing.”

“I was only in charge as a figurehead for the most part. A compromise candidate. I didn’t-“

“Enough,” I said and Naran went quiet.

“That is…well, that was quite disturbing. I just…what the hell? I mean what the hell?!” Tyrese muttered.

“The thing with the woman and making her eat a monster. I feel sick,” Ken said while rubbing his temples. That was particularly gruesome. Eating monsters was a very bad idea.

I then explained my ambush of the two dungeon teams. I didn’t mention I had taken the skill points, but I knew that Tyrese and Ken figured out I had done so. If they couldn’t even figure that much out, well tough luck for them.

“I initially wanted to return here, gather around 20 people, secure the store, and lock down the entire city. Unfortunately, Ruth wanted to take matters into her own hands.” I stared at Tyrese.

“Ah, well, she might have sympathized with those women,” he finally said. I figured it was something like that. Still, not my problem.

“Well, after failing to subdue the rouge skill users in the city, she has decided to remain there to manage the situation and to pay off the debt she owed me for sticking around.”

“What a mess,” Ken muttered. “So, the war is over?”

“Depends. But I would say yes for sure. But probably yes. Ruth is capable enough and she can manage that place. If not, then a large group will need to be put together to control store and force a resolution,” I said.

“After what they have done, those people might drift back into society. We can’t let that happen. Can you recognize them?” Tyrese looked at Naran.

“Ah, yes,” he quickly said.

“We need him for anything else?” I asked.

“Just one question. What would you do if released?” Ken asked.

“Just live. Probably hunt monsters to earn crystals. Not much need for a dancer,” Naran replied. Ken nodded and a guard was called over to take him outside to wait.

“So,” I said with a sigh. I let the silence linger for a bit and to gather my thoughts. “I wanted to hear both of your opinions on what should be done before expressing mine.”

“I am worried about what condemning him will mean for the future. How much can he be judged?” Ken said.

“He was trapped. You believe him about not knowing about other cities?” Tyrese asked.

“It amazes me those assassins got through the swamp, but yes. If someone figured it out, they kept it to themselves to hold an advantage,” I said.

“Well, I have an idea. People like this, we can issue a debt contract. The reparations going to the social program that will need to be set up,” Ken said.

“Social program? Aren’t we helping new arrivals already?” I asked.

“Children. While pregnancies have declined since the timing of restorations to halt them in the first place was discovered. There were several pregnancies. We don’t have the crystals to perform any kind of operation safely, or make it a feasible option at the moment,” Ken said.

“So, you want to use a debt against him to figure something out?” I asked.

“A child will need at least 20 points a day for food and water and 1,000 points per year for clothes and such. Figure they have to reach 14 years of age to go out there and kill monsters. You are looking at least 115,000 points. Then they need a caretaker, school, housing, and the expenses quickly begin to add up.”

“How many children?” I asked.

“The first wave of births will hit 23,” Ken said. Another issue I didn’t want to deal with. Why did I have to be in charge? Oh, yeah. It was because I didn’t want anyone to tax me, but that came with a host of other problems like this.

“The tax is a sensitive subject, and we need to keep increasing the guard to match new arrivals,” Tyrese said.

“I don’t like charity by just throwing money at the problem. But those women were desperate and did what they did to survive,” I muttered.

“Since we are talking about issues like this, there is a request for a social health fund as well,” Ken said. Great more issues.

“Sorry to dump this on you, but if we are going to deal with problem issues, might as well get them all out of the way,” Tyrese said. Thanks for that, yep. Anymore, I swear there better not be, since I had issues to bring up as well. They probably knew I was planning to take a long trip out of the city in order to not have to deal with these things. Now that I was here in this room, I was stuck.

It was tempting to be quick and flippant and make a hasty decision just to get it over with, but that would only lead to more problems down the line. I wanted other people to solve these for me, not having to deal with it myself. Unfortunately, I was stuck dealing with the mess, which was this place. “What about the points for new people out of the 1/5 set aside from the tax revenue?”

“There is a bit of leeway there. But we have had one case where a restoration cost 11,000 points. The man was missing a kidney,” Ken said. “Also, we are providing small scale start up points for businesses or hunting monsters. Without that, then people would take a lot longer to get situated and being productive.”

The city was looking a lot more lively when I had shown up and I understood the economic need to inject starting points to get people on their feet. The initial 100 points was nowhere near enough.

“It will also give us an option to deal with crime in a way that isn’t executions,” Tyrese said.

“Aren’t we already fining people?” I asked. I thought this came up before when I approved the increase in admin staff to a total of a 1,000 point payroll for Ken.

“The fines go to the general fund and split there, but we want to increase them to bring in more money and handle more serious crimes like assault,” Ken replied.

“I can’t have my budget cut into anymore. My people want pay raises as well. So, I can’t take a bigger hit,” Tyrese said.

“You both appear to have put a lot of thought into this,” I replied. It was nice other people were thinking about how to make the situation better and not just plot. I guess they felt threatened by the work I was putting in so put in work themselves. This was a key reason I left these two men alive even with everything that had happened. Still, I wanted solutions that aligned with my goals, not just problems shoved in front of me.

“Well, I don’t just sit around all day. If nothing is done this entire place will just fall apart. I swear it is a new complaint every single hour of the day,” Ken muttered.

“So, the question then becomes, what is the estimated social cost, to what do we charge for crimes. That balance is going to be key,” I said.

“The issue is that anyone not a hunter will have a hard time paying. That is the only direction crystals are coming in, so the wealth in concentrated there and trickling down. A business owner wouldn’t have the capacity to pay a large fine,” Ken said. I thought over the matter.

“Tyrese?” I asked.

“I am staying out of the social stuff, which is Ken’s area for the most part. But we are effectively under martial law right now and would be even without the war. That can only go on for so long. Eventually people will snap. Even more so, since no one has families to lean on.”

“Give me a couple of minutes, I need to think.” They were both quiet as I thought about the long-term implications of everything they said. I knew whatever I said they would agree with me for the most part. That is one reason why I wanted them to speak first.

I wasn’t just a tiebreaker vote any more. I was the defacto ruler of this place after quashing their maneuvering to try and get rid of me in some manner. They appeared resigned to accept me being in charge, but if I pushed too much, I had no doubt they would go back to plotting. I didn’t want the plotting, but the problems in front of us weren’t simple either. I also knew I wasn’t the best decision maker.

Time to share more bad news. I got my note book out from my pack to reference the calculations I had done.

“Well since we are talking about problems. There are two big ones coming down the pipeline, right for us. The first is the city distribution and count compared to Earth.” I saw their confused looks on their faces.

“Truth is pulling from the western US and Canada. We are pulling from the eastern US based on who is being teleported into the city every 10 days. With young children, and really old people not showing up, that puts the eligible Earth population around 6 billion give or take, and there are anywhere from 50 to 1,000 cities.”

“I don’t get it,” Tyrese said. Ken was frowning but didn’t say anything.

“Ignoring Earth politics, cultures, and language differences which are minor issues compared to the hard math. It is the teleport rate from Earth. If we assume best case scenario of 1,000 cities pulling form Earth, that is a quarter million people every 10 days. That is 24,000 cycles, or 240,000 days. That is 666 years. If there are only 100 cities, then 6,666 years.”

“Then we look at the carrying capacity of the cities. How long can they support people? Not even that, how much room is there? At a certain point, people won’t be able to get to the store quick enough and the city will be packed to the limits. The higher tiers of the store might have a solution, but the city itself, is only 74 square kilometers.”

“We can probably hit a population density of 1,000. Which puts max occupancy of the city at 74,000 people. Even at 10,000 people per square kilometer, that is still only 740,000 people. Even if the crystal crisis is solved, there will eventually be a population crisis. Even more so with new children.”

“The second major issue.” Ken let out a soft groan and Tyrese sighed. “The power disparity. You mentioned people living in the city, to people hunting and how they can’t afford the same level of fines. We are going to eventually reach a power point, where there are extreme haves with all the power and wealth and the rest of the people will become the nameless masses competing for every possible scrap.”

“If I had to place a name for this type of power structure that will form. Unfortunately, it would be a cultivation power structure. Extreme inequality, where the people without power or talent are treated like trash. And the wealth gap becomes astronomical at each tier.”

“What about numbers, a complete revolt of the populace?” Tyrese asked.

“Would be unable to win. Neo Brasila and Truth just confirmed what I have suspected for a while about this place and how stats will shape things to come. A cultivation civilization gets even worse unfortunately.”