Chapter 348: The Emperor

Chapter 348: The Emperor

Jeong the First, Emperor of the World, Saint of the Everliving, and Eternal Leader of Mankind, stewed on his plain, wooden chair. He stared at recorded system text for the thousandth time.

[Baron Mason Nimitz, of House Mason, Patron of Nassau—has seized control of the Western Nexus. This marks the final stage of phase two.

A countdown to a period of system-enforced, zero player-to-player violence has begun, along with a universally accessible list of all surviving players, including their ranks and titles.

Further—all communication beacons will activate in three days. Biological imperatives will continue in phase three. World difficulty will increase. Planar activity will increase.

Congratulations on your ongoing survival. As ever, we are rooting for you.]

Jeong had saved the text and forced himself to read it constantly. A reminder of his failure to act quickly enough. His only real loss in the great game so far.

He listened in silence as his council droned on about the usual problems. The borderlands were requesting more players. They'd suffered more losses in the south and needed reinforcements, especially real killers.

There were never enough good players.

Jeong had mostly used up all those he was happy to discard. He'd probably have to send more civilians into The Crucible to convert them. They had more than enough civilians, though they were running out of Guildless, which meant he’d have to ask the guild leaders for help.

Players couldn’t force civilians to do much of anything. Only other civilians could. Jeong therefore had to at least work with some of them, and the several civilian guilds that had formed had considerable power.

Nothing in this new world annoyed Jeong more than the system’s protection of the cowards who’d chosen a civilian role. The worker drones of the new age. The disposable nothings with no ambition or imagination—content to accept the scraps given by players like Jeong.

Such people could be improved only through the Crucible—an early discovered, repeatable dungeon which could turn civilians into players. Of course most died in the attempt.

While it was technically repeatable, it changed with every group sent inside, so no one could be taught what to do. There were some...patterns, but ultimately one had to enter and learn on their own, or in a small group, dealing with whatever challenges the system came up with.

The ones who survived were usually impressive.

But civilians always had to be pressured to go in. This task was performed by the guilds through force or blackmail or promises of reward. Because after enough volunteers had failed and never returned home, it was quite difficult to convince the others they'd simply been sent off to fight on the borders without saying goodbye.

Jeong shut off his profile and sighed, tired of wallowing in his failure. His council was still droning on.

There was the spending of patron points, civilian points, which of the minor settlements would receive what rations. Who in the capitol would be promoted, rewarded, punished, moved up, moved down.

It was all so tedious.

"I meet Mason Nimitz in less than twenty-four hours." Jeong's quiet voice silenced the meeting. "Do any of you have any more information than the last time I asked?"

The dozen or so men and women around their rectangular table took turns exchanging words with their eyes.

Michael, Jeong's Minister of Truth, squirmed in his chair before answering.

"Unfortunately, your holiness, we have still found no way to this Western continent. Our furthest scout ships have not returned. Scrying remains the only..."

"I am perfectly aware of your inability to find it," Jeong said, in a rare rebuke of his competent assassin—a self-proclaimed former intelligence officer who looked so generic, and could speak so many languages, it wasn't clear which country he'd actually come from. The name ‘Michael’ was almost certainly fake. "I am chiefly asking if the Order has scried anything new."

"No, lord," said Erik Alberg, the stone-faced Swedish wizard, clearly not interested in elaborating.

Erik was Jeong’s Minister of Knowledge, and the defacto leader of the Arcane Order. He was a dangerous and useful man, but annoyingly precise and...unsociable. Jeong stared until the former scientist went on, his tone unchanged.

"My assessment remains," said Erik. "With this Mason Nimitz' title only as Baron, and my people's inability to find them, his settlement must be small."

"And my counter remains," said Michael, "that if this mystery settlement is small, how could they have enough powerful players to finish a Nexus?"

"Strength, obviously," Erik said, blue eyes carefully looking at no one. "We have seen many monstrous creatures in the West, but almost no settlements. It stands to reason the players who are alive are powerful. Our civilian Record Keepers say the same."

That the wizard leader was correct seemed painfully obvious to Jeong. But he'd begun to see Michael's inability to understand something more capable than himself was something of a character flaw.

"We have an army of players, my friends," he said, still pacing. "This game is not a sprint, as I’ve told you. Besides." He smiled. "Some powerful new players are welcome. We may no longer need to negotiate with the sea raiders, or the mountain orc tribes. Perhaps we can destroy the endless southern nests. Just think of all we may accomplish together."

"You expect this baron to join us?" his wife finally spoke.

"Of course, dear," Jeong said with complete confidence. "Why shouldn't he? If their settlements are so small, just imagine all the wealth, knowledge, and safety they will find with us."

"If they can even cross the distance," Erik said. "We may be able to do little more than speak with them, and even with..."

"I have no doubt," Jeong interrupted, "sooner or later this world will shrink. And who knows our friend's situation? He may have rivals. His people may be starving. He may be surrounded by monstrous foes. Most of you were my enemies once." Jeong smiled, putting a hand on Michael's shoulder. "Just look at us now. What is the English expression? Like peas in a pod."

"They may also have civilian pressures," said Wei. "If the beacons allow, Yasmeen and I should try and make contact with their civilian leaders. With your approval, that is, Your Worship."

"Of course." Jeong smiled, hopefully hiding his distaste for the man.

He had made a habit of killing upper class or former Korean or Chinese leadership, mostly out of principle. Unfortunately, he couldn't kill the civilians.

And he did like to keep the aging billionaire around to remind himself of the past. While competent, the man was also fundamentally a boot-licking sycophant, with no ambition to reach the pinnacle of power, merely hover close. It wasn't hard to see why he'd done well in his former life.

"Well." Jeong took a breath and glanced at the digital clock on his courtroom wall. "I won't keep you. But please return by three PM in full court dress. I'd like to rehearse the first communication, and I'd like you all to be present for it. Thank you."

His council stood and bowed or saluted in their own fashion, walking calmly for the doors to the palace proper. Jeong saw no reason to teach old dogs new tricks. He would wait for the new generations to teach a unified culture.

He caught his wife’s arm.

"I'd like you beside me. On first contact," he said. "A beautiful face to...offset my..."

"Seriousness," Yasmeen finished. Jeong smiled politely. Despite being a civilian, she truly was a delightful woman.

"Exactly so."

"Of course, my emperor," she said, bowing perfectly in the Korean style. After waiting to see if Jeong wanted something else, she turned to follow the others, leaving him alone with his thoughts.

For a moment he watched her curves, wondering how other men must feel. She was beautiful by any standard. But to Jeong she was only a flower, or a sunrise. He had no interest in sexual gratification and never had.

It hadn't bothered him before the great game. Then suddenly it had seemed a key flaw in the ultimate victory desired by the alien intelligence.

Until the god of life and death had come to him, that is. He had made everything clear. All that mattered was personal power. Becoming stronger than every other living thing. Becoming stronger than death itself. Than you could impose your vision on the world, adapting life entirely to you.

Jeong smiled as he opened his profile, eyes moving to his goals as he stared out a window and looked over his capital. It had maybe a hundred thousand souls now, all toiling away in their meaningless lives, all living at Jeong's whim. They were under his ‘protection’, officially. His to shape, his to use. The human soil with which he’d grow the future.

Jeong didn't know what arousal felt like. But he had to think the feeling that followed was close.