“You know he is lying,” Michelle said as we lifted up from the Holy Kingdom of God.
“That is obvious. That Blessed Pope is more concerning that a box of snakes. But it still doesn’t make a difference,” I replied.
“It is about how much the other person offends you,” she said with a heavy sigh.
“You are absolutely correct. Queen Greystone, had her head up her ass. Blessed Pope Eritus actually thought things threw and was polite. He could be another Divine Empress and I wouldn’t care,” I casually replied. I wasn’t going around to the various factions to purge them of evil and take over. I was fathering information at best, poking them at worst.
If there was anything out there that could cause trouble, then it would make itself known fairly quickly. But so far nothing. It was also amusing to assign all the people sent along as emissaries to the sa room. By the ti word got back about what I had done to the Queen the Holy Kingdom would have found out through other thods.
I glanced out the bridge window as we kept heading West. It would take a while before we returned to any of the kingdoms or dropped the embassies off. I planned to spend at least several deeks flying and checking out higher level zones, without going back to New Kochi.
That was when I realized there was an issue. “Captain Francis, spin us about and prepare rapid transit to New Kochi,” I said with closed eyes.
“Yes, Emperor, bring us about, ascend at ten degrees, and increase acceleration. Sound travel alarm throughout the ship,” Captain Francis issued orders. So of the people sent along didn’t have stats. They wouldn’t survive a high energy zone, even inside the airship. Michelle gave a questioning look.
“Our passengers. They wouldn’t survive a high energy zone. So as much as it annoys , we will be polite and drop them off first. Make sure New Kochi is fine, and then start exploring the zones South of the new city,” I explained.
“I didn’t rember,” Michelle muttered.
“It isn’t sothing we normally worry about. Even the soldiers and other people we transported all had high enough base level stats. When they start exploding then we would know sothing is wrong, and while I may not mind killing people, these emissaries are nominally under my protection until we drop them off,” I said. Their death would reflect poorly on .
I might be an unrepentant mass murderer, but I wasn’t a casual murderer. I wanted the people I killed to be on purpose in so way. Not because I made a mistake about their strength. That would be incredibly embarrassing.
“It was my fault. I should have been aware,” Captain Francis said. It was nice of him to try and take responsibility, but it ultimately fell into my lap.
“It is my fault. But please co up with a check or sothing if we take on passengers in the future. While it doesn’t take many stats to survive in a high level zone, it does take so. As the airship pushes to even higher level zones, we need to be sure of the danger,” I replied.
“There is about 4 to 5 levels of survivability and 4 to 3 levels of comfort. If we want to one day push into level 7 zones with the airship, then we will need everyone to have stats equal to around level 4,” Michelle added.
“And level 10 would imply they would need to be as strong as currently,” I muttered.
“Or stronger. Maybe. That is sothing you would have to speak to Doctor Katz about. The ambient energy levels are sothing he has been looking at and taking readings for,” Michelle said.
“It depends if it is linear like the ambient energy, or exponential like the monsters, and the overlap, in terms of survivability,” I said while thinking over the issue.
“My guess it is linear for survivability, or it might even be less. I pay attention quite a bit to this issue with my summons. If people can reach level 6 combat, they shouldn’t have anything to worry about from the level of the environnt, unless it is really bad. The real issue would be monster difficulty and other factors like intelligence at the higher levels,” Michelle said.
This story has been stolen from Royal Road. If you read it on Amazon, please report it
“Fair. No more passengers in the future. We are going to lose a couple of days over this,” I replied, slightly annoyed at the oversight. I glanced to one side of the airship. At least we now had a second airboat. The Blessed Pope really knew how to wrangle by giving one on credit. The entire nation probably had human suffering hidden in the walls and the buildings, with how orderly it appeared, but I was no hero to right every wrong.
Having an evil empire of so kind would only make look better by comparison. Was I giving too much credit to the opinions of the masses? It was an issue I was thinking about as we increased speed on our flight back. Flying monsters would be a headache, but it would let fight a bit and test the airship. I knew that Captain Francis wanted to make sure the layers were still the sa for a larger airship.
As for caring about other people’s opinions, I was still incredibly high up in every poll Clarissa had arranged. Even my casual walkabouts, showed that people had a very high degree of respect for . Sothing any politician would die for. Normally only earned by actual dictators manipulating the outco. But these were actual opinion polls that had a proper thodology that Clarissa had done.
It was still the right path to help nip problems in the bud before they began. The Divine Empress was incredibly unpopular and her Empire could not handle any sort of stress, once a serious threat began to pressure her control. While there were other factors, like her being absent, it didn’t help that everyone ditched her the mont they thought she was no longer around.
I didn’t want everything to crumble with my absence and Clarissa was doing well enough. There was no need to check on the nations after this. If they attacked, there would be only three vectors of attack. Across the Rift splitting the Systemic Lands, which was being watched constantly and would need an air boat to even think about making the trip.
Then they could attack , which was both hilarious and impossible. It was just another word for suicide, except for the sword. But that wasn’t an imdiate concern. Finally, there was causing trouble in New Kochi. But that would be incredibly hard to pull off and the purpose of the city in the first place. None of the other nations, even if they all worked togeather could get more points than the current taxes supporting .
There was almost nothing and no one left. It was disappointing in a way. I had high hopes that at least one of the four nations I had trampled over in the Southwest area of the Systemic Lands would have had sothing more interesting. But it seed they had just been locked in infighting and hadn’t been able to get enough of an advantage over their neighbors to win.
The ntalities were wrong in my opinion. They weren’t willing to commit everything to winning. They were too cautious. Stuck in the sa modes of thought. There would be no Ritualist, or a surprising character from their nations as far as I could tell. Even the new King of Graystone, who would probably be killed in the near future, had sucked up his resentnt to bow his head.
That made my thoughts drift to the Divine Empress’s child, who was out there filled with resentnt. Even if he got a ta-point, it would not be enough to seriously threaten . The difference in stats was too imnse and there was no way to catch up. He would need two ta-points to even think about fighting on an even footing with .
It was a victory. That point in strategy gas, where all you had left was the clean-up. No enemy force could put forward enough troops to threaten you, but if you wanted to have victory over everything you had to spend another 100 turns slowly clearing out every nook and cranny. That was how I felt right now. I hadn’t forgotten about the stat levels of so of the emissaries due to the fact they weren’t important in the slightest.
Their existence, was absolutely inconsequential and had no bearing on my victory. “It is the end of an era,” I said out loud but softly.
“What was that?” Michelle asked.
“It is the end of the era of nations, and the start of the era of exploration. Just coming to terms, there are no more nations left within easy access. Unless there is a weird land bridge to another city that is hidden away in so corner. I doubt it, but it is possible. Even then, they would be no threat.”
“You were hoping for soone or sothing interesting?” Michelle asked, getting to the heart of the matter.
“For Alexander wept, for he had no nations left to conquer. There was a small part of , that was hoping for more cities, more challenges I would have to crush. I guess I have beco a blockhead,” I said.
“I feel the sa way,” Captain Francis spoke up. “Like we have circled the globe, now there are only the poles and dangerous areas left to explore. The Systemic Lands, feels smaller, now that there are no more nations to look at. But we might get surprised,” he said.
“Perhaps. So island city in the middle of the void, or more cities beyond the land here. But with how it looks like all towers are around the Systemic Lands, I doubt there are more nations out there. I could be wrong. Each Systemic Land on their own, the vote is to combine with another maybe. At least that would sort out the population, when it seems like there will be millennia left,” I explained.
I felt strangely disappointed. I had been expecting so kind of boss or sothing. So final challenge hidden away in the last city. I suppose that wasn’t to be the case.
Reviews
All reviews (0)