The Systemic Lands

Chapter 22: Day 32 – …To Rumble

I charged forward. The crowd tried to back up, but that was too slow. I swung the sword, careful to angle it properly and cut a man’s throat. He hadn’t even managed to bring up his club. Blood spurted out of his neck as he collapsed gurgling. No hesitation.

“KILL THEM ALL!” I screamed as loud as I could. I slammed my shield into the older woman standing nearby, shattering her face. She began screaming, gripping her blood-soaked face on the ground. I focused on advancing and cutting anyone down in front of me.

These people were afraid, weak, and not used to fighting for their lives. I cut another person across the back as they tried to flee. Smashed the shield into a young man forcing him to the ground where I stomped on his head, shattering his skull.

“Die!” I screamed as I thrust my sword into the head of a man who charged me. I yanked the blade free, and he collapsed dead on the ground.

“Your reign of terror ends here!” What reign of terror?! A man with a sword and shield advanced on me. He swung his blade at me, and I easily blocked the slash with my shield. I rushed forward and slammed into him. He stumbled back and I slammed into him again with my shield.

He stumbled and fell down. I stabbed down at his leg, and he screamed. I looked around and I noted four people closing from all around me. That was not good. I rushed forward past the fallen man. I reached a building and spun around with the building wall at my back.

“Well, which one of you wants to die first?” The four people chasing me paused. I took the moment of respite to look at the rest of the battle. Carlos’ men were pushing the other side back, but it hadn’t turned into a rout unfortunately.

Still, my initial charge had shattered their center. Carlos’ group had rushed in as well and was in danger of being flanked from two sides. It was one thing to play a game and know tactics, it was another to see it in person and try to keep your head.

“Die!” I screamed and feinted towards one of the men. He quickly backed up and I changed directions. I caught a woman off guard and left a deep gash across her arm.

She fell back. “Clara!” One of the men shouted. I rushed at him and slammed my shield into his body. He tumbled to the ground. I couldn’t follow up as I was forced to step back to avoid a man screaming and swinging his club wildly.

I waited for his next swing and blocked it with my shield. I then stabbed him in the gut. He collapsed to the ground, gripping his bleeding intestines, screaming in pain. There was so much screaming.

There was only one person still standing facing me and he panicked and ran away. “I am victorious!” I screamed and several people looked at my blood covered body. “Kill them all!”

It quickly turned into a rout. I cut down another two people fleeing before finally stopping. I made my way back to Carlos. He was out of breath and had his left arm was hanging by his side.

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“We won,” I said.

“We won. Kill the wounded, bring our wounded here. Don’t have the points for this shit.”

“Well I wont collect until day 40, so people can get healed up.” No need to rush things. Looking around at the blood, the death, I didn’t want to be here. I felt sick to my stomach. I forced back the bile threatening to come up. There was one older woman on the ground that looked like my grandmother. I shook my head and quickly looked away.

“Thanks. Need to do things a different way for the next group. This shit is so stupid.” I couldn’t agree more. At least were on the same wavelength about this, or I would have really begun questioning Carlos’ ability to run things.

“I thought you did great with the group that arrived, but what do I know.” I let out a long sigh.

“Killing assholes, that’s what.”

“I guess. Carl!” I called out. He rushed over to me.

“Kill anyone?” I asked.

“No, I watched the rear. It was a bit touch and go there, until you…shattered them.”

“A nice way to put it. Get my water bottle out of my pack.” He got it out. “Hold this.” I handed him my sword, forcing him to drop his club and he handed me the water bottle. I poured it all over my face. I then poured some water in my mouth and spat it out to the side.

“Come on, to the pillars.” I went over there and cashed in my points, putting me at 3,011 points. I bought a towel and refilled up my water. I began to strip and clean off my armor and sword. I discarded my shirt, pants, socks, and underwear and purchased new ones. I wiped myself down out there. I was left with 2,118 points when I was done.

I didn’t want to be covered in people blood and remains. I…I just felt unclean. I really wanted to get a warm shower, crawl up in bed, and read a good book. I didn’t have any of that, I was this close to crying. The only reason I didn’t was the need to project strength. I couldn’t be weak, weakness meant death.

Thinking about my points, I almost lost more than I made. That was annoying but I wasn’t going to complain. Just charge a lot more next time.

I took my pack back from Carl. I noted he cashed in his points after me. Smart man. I picked up my trash and carried it away to a building and dumped my trash in a back room. I left and made my way back to the plaza.

Carlos was healed up and people were throwing the bodies into empty buildings. “Need me for anything else?” I asked.

“No, we got things handled here.”

“Alright, you know where to find me.” I didn’t think mentioning my future price increase was a good idea right now. I could tell Carlos was stressed out. I smiled on the inside, glad it wasn’t my problem to sort out this mess and stop it from happening again.

“Well time to get back to the grind.”

“You just…you killed all those people, and you act like it was nothing,” Carl said. I kept walking and he followed. I let a moment of silence linger thinking about how to respond.

“I hate it. I hate every moment of shit like this. But if I didn’t intervene, it would be a lot worse. What do you think happens if someone like Carlos isn’t around?” Carl was silent, knowing the answer.

“People get scared, panic, and then they see Carlos in charge. Well, there is a good reason why I don’t run this shit show. For precisely these reasons. If I ran things, it would be far more brutal. I would probably skin my prisoners alive.”

“Then hold up their bodies for new arrivals to see. I would keep cracking down, until the people were shattered. But that would just lead to a revolution and a lot of resentment. So, I am forced to act to keep order. I don’t like the order, but I know I wouldn’t have the patience for anything as kind as Carlos is doing right now. Trust me, this is kindness since he isn’t having prisoners tortured.”

“As for the people I killed. They were sheep and got sheared. They could have just stayed and seen what would happen to idiots, but they wanted to be the idiots. Thinking it would be some kind of protest or some garbage like that. This isn’t America anymore where the police give hugs and kisses to rioters.”

“I wouldn’t say it is hugs and kisses,” Carl replied as I had become silent from my rant.

“Whatever. Non-lethal force. This is purgatory, where you either grind monsters or get ground down yourself.”

“You could have tried to talk to them.”

“You could have tried that as well. Why didn’t you step up?” I stopped walking and looked at him. He looked off to the side. “No answer?” He was silent.

I shook my head and began walking again. “I thought so. Talking would just push the problem to later. I tried to call out their leaders to offer a fight between them and me, but they didn’t take the bait. That would have stopped it from becoming a slaughter.”

“But no. People just had to have opinions. Well opinions are like assholes, everyone’s got one, but we don’t need them out in public. Idiots, all of them are idiots. You know why you didn’t speak up, because you want this all to be someone else’s problem. No one takes personal responsibility anymore. Oh, the government will bail me out. Oh, I will sue someone.”

“Useless, completely useless. If this happened two hundred years ago, we would be sending out groups to clear and scout monsters from all around the city. Instead, we are in here screwing each other over.” Ignoring what I had done at the start of all of this. Still, I wasn’t about to let a bit of hypocrisy slow me down.

“So, you want to change how things played out. Then go out there and kill thousands of slimes, then come here and kill lots of people to get strong and feared enough. Until then you don’t get an opinion on shit like this. You have to earn an opinion on how I do things.” I stopped ranting and was breathing heavily.

A couple of minutes later Carl finally spoke up. “Sorry about that. I didn’t realize how hard it was for you.”

“It is exhausting. It is all exhausting. Anyone who thinks killing is fun, needs their head checked. But the only way to keep the idiots in line is to have the biggest stick and the government isn’t here to smack people with its stick.” I let out a sigh. “Apology accepted. Sorry for ranting, just tired and stressed from the sheer stupidity I have to deal with.”

“Reminds me of something I read,” Carl said. I gave him a wave of my hand. “There are four people named Everybody, Somebody, Anybody and Nobody. There was an important job to be done and Everybody was sure that Somebody would do it. Anybody could have done it, but Nobody did it. Somebody got angry about that, because it was Everybody’s job. Everybody thought Anybody could do it, but Nobody realized that Everybody wouldn’t do it. It ended up that Everybody blamed Somebody when Nobody did what Anybody could have.”

“That was good. I need to remember the saying about lazy and clever officers.” At least he made me think about something else than what had happened, so point to Carl. Things were silent for a bit before Carl spoke up again.

“Any idea what Carlos is going to do?”

“Don’t know and don’t care. Unless it involves me, he can deal with the mess.” Minus a point for Carl for going back to this topic.

“So how many crystals today?”

“It isn’t even mid-day. At least 200. We can do that much at least.” We reached the forest and got to work.

I just felt tired, despite the restoration from the store. Today was incredibly depressing. But this was the path I had chosen. The path of the strongest, the path of blood. There was no other way to survive and control my own fate. If I didn’t have the person running the plaza in my corner, I would be a target.

There was no way I was going to accept taxes or nonsense like that being imposed on me. But I also couldn’t be in charge. That was why I was okay with Carlos. I knew in my heart, that if I ran things, I would just go to an extreme in sheer frustration when dealing with people.

I would get more and more aggravated until I made North Korea and Kim Jong-un look like a paradise and a cuddly teddy bear. I could imagine it now, breaking people as they arrived in torture facilities. Then sending out these broken people to fight monsters to earn crystals in order to live.

I wouldn’t even let them back in the city. They would have to trade crystals for supplies. People sneaking in and who disobeyed would be skinned alive with salt rubbed into their flesh. Their screams warming my heart and terrifying everyone else as they were forced to sleep outside the walls.

Yep, good thing I wasn’t the one running things. Since I would impose absolute order. The fact was, that I actually enjoyed learning about history. The villains in movies were tame for the most part. But in books and in actual history, the atrocities humans could do to each other was…extreme.

In a functional society, none of those things were needed. In this place, well it brought out the worst in me. That was why I wanted to focus on moving forward. Killing monsters, getting stronger, and leaving the bullshit human drama to others.

I smiled thinking how a politician would react to this place. Claiming a title that didn’t mean anything anymore. Expecting a police or military to support them when there was no such thing.

Still, I wouldn’t wish this place on anyone. Even criminals. Better to just die a clean death without torture. The only reason for such a thing was to invoke fear in others. I paused for a moment, not knowing my own answer on how far I would go if this situation happened again.

I wasn’t doing this every ten days or so, that was for sure. If I had to deal with an uprising again, even I didn’t know where I would take things. Just that I would send such a strong message to both the rioters and Carlos, that it was permanently etched into people’s heads and the story would be only told in whispers after a lot of alcohol in dark rooms.