Chapter 160: Welcome to the Kingdom: Takeover

AN: This chapter is extra-extra-long! It's technically long enough to be two entire chapters, but I decided to keep it bundled together into just the one anyway. Hope you enjoy!

Carison stood on the sidewalk of a crowded, dirty street. He was right next to the crime scene he’d created, beating that drug dealer to near-death, and at this point, that man had woken up and run off, while Carison stood right where he was, waiting.

It only took a couple hours for them to come. A gang of around eight people, all heavyweights, obviously Classers, and obviously walking with purpose. And obviously walking directly toward Carison.

The people in the street parted the moment they noticed the gang of people, forming a clear path between them and their destination. Onlookers stared.

“Carison Aakbi?” the one in the front said with a disgusted look.

“That would be me.”

“We heard you’re beatin’ up on our men.”

“Mhm.”

“We don’t appreciate that.”

“I’m sure you don’t.”

“So what? You got some conflictin’ territory? You trying to take over?”

“No, not particularly.”

“Well you better get explainin’. Cause if you don’t, you’re in for a few hells of a beating.”

“Well, first off, I seriously doubt that. And second off, I don’t want to explain anything to you.”

The man laughed, looking back at his posse, who chuckled along with him. “What are you? Some kinda tough guy? Think you’re all strong cause you got a couple Levels? Lemme tell you somethin’. You’re gonna need a whole lot more than what you showed our dealer friend.”

“Good to know. But I will explain if you do something for me.”

The man shook his head. “I don’t think you know what kind of position you’re in. We don’t do things for you.”

“Take me to your leader.”

There was a moment of silence, before the man barked out a laugh. Then another. Then he broke out into a full-face smile. “Hey, fellas! He wants us to take him to Boss! What, you think we should do it? Just to be nice?”

The rest of the crowd laughed.

“Yeah, yeah,” one of them said, “I think we’ll be doing this guy quite a service!”

“Instead of being beaten to death, this guy wants to be skinned alive!”

The laughter subsided, and the man in front looked back to Carison. “Now I really don’t think you know what kind of situation you’re in, fancy man. I don’t think you want to be taken to Boss. I really don’t think you want that.”

“I think I know exactly what I want.”

“Hey man,” one of the lackeys laughed, putting a hand on the front man’s shoulder. “Maybe we should take the guy to Boss. Just to show him how stupid he is.”

“No, no,” the front man responded, shaking his head. “Sure, Boss’ll have him skinned. But then he’ll have us skinned, too, for wasting his time. He told us to do a job, we do the job.”

“Yeah, I’m gettin’ tired of talking,” another said. “Let’s beat his ass and get outta here.”

“I have an idea,” Carison said. “You guys like money, right? I’m a man of money. I have it, I make it, I love it. It’s my specialty.”

“So what, you gonna try to bribe us?”

“Let me just show you what I’m talking about, first.” Carison dug a hand into his pocket and pulled out a small sphere, not even large enough to fill his palm. Its etched brass exterior shined in the afternoon light. “This little Enchanted item is a wonder. All of the ingredients combined, a single one of them would cost…maybe…thirty-five silver to make.”

“Listen, dude. If you wanna convince Boss to let you live, you’re gonna need a lot more than thirty silver.”

“But that’s the beauty of it! Thirty-five silver for the ingredients. The economy isn’t about ingredients, though. It’s all run on labor. See, labor is the only thing you can generate on your own. If you want to get a material, you have to take it from somewhere. You have to take it from someone else, or take it from a place nobody else has thought to look. Eventually, materials run out. And then nobody can get anything. But labor, see, that’s something you can always do. As long as you have a body, you can do things. What you’re doing right now, right? This Boss guy is telling you to do something, and if you do it, he pays you. You don’t give him anything, you don’t take anything from anywhere else, you just…do it. And that’s the value of things like these.”

“Yeah, we do take something from someone. We take your life. Now listen. If you want us to even consider taking you to Boss, you better show us something that makes it worth his—and our—while. Some real coin. Cough it up.”

“I’m getting there. See, the materials cost thirty-five. But the labor required? Well, you need Enchanters. Plural. Several, all specced into different trees to get all of the Enchantments required to put this thing together. And to get it this small, you’re also going to need plain old mechanics. People skilled at tinkering with little, little gadgets. All of these people, doing their jobs. In the end, this single machine probably costs five gold.”

The man chuckled. “Well that’s a nice story. And five gold, now we’re getting to something we can actually negotiate about. But you’re still not there. Maybe throw in a few more of those things, and some hard coin to prove you mean business, and then maybe, maybe, Boss doesn’t skin you alive for disrespecting him. Because five gold? That’s chump change to Boss. Chump change. For a little fancy man like yourself, you fancy yourself an inventor, that buys you a house, new ingredients, maybe a new lab or whatever. But Boss doesn’t deal in single-digits. Even when it’s gold.”

“No, see, you’re still not focusing on the right element. It’s not about the money. It’s not about the materials. It’s not about what’s in my hand. It’s about what that thing does. And I promise, what this does will change your life. It’ll do so much more than five gold could ever do.”

The man rolled his eyes. “And what’s that?”

“Why don’t you see for yourself?”

Carison tossed the metal orb at the crowd of eight people after pressing its activation switch. The etchings lit up, and the man seemed to just begin to realize what was happening before it bonked against his chest.

Carison stood in front of a single-story house.

He looked over at the single surviving member of the group that’d confronted him. “This is the place, huh?”

“Y-y-yeah, man, just don’t, uh, can you just leave me, um…”

“Of course, you’re free to go. Fair exchange, right? You do something for me, and I let you live.”

He sprinted off.

Carison turned to the door of the house. There were people inside peeking at him through the windows. It was one of the few that was left intact after the attack on Carth, though Carison wasn’t sure if that was because it was spared during the initial assault, or because it was rebuilt afterward.

He walked up to the door. But before he could even raise his hand to knock, it swung open before him. A bald-headed man stood inside, glaring at him. “Where in the hells are our men?”

“Well, seven of them are dead.”

The man stared at him.

“Unfortunate how that happens, really. Though I’d wish you people wouldn’t keep acting so surprised when drug dealers go missing. It’s pretty common in your line of work, no? Risk of doing business and all that. Anyway, if you wouldn’t mind letting me inside.”

“How did they die?”

“I killed them. Obviously. You know, this would go by with much less wasted time—and fewer wasted lives—if you just let me talk to the people I want to talk to. I hope you’ve learned that lesson by now. But if you really want me to redemonstrate that lesson, I am completely comfortable using you as an example.”

“...”

“Here’s five silver,” Carison sighed, placing a pile of coins in the man’s hand. “Buy something for your family. It’s much better than them getting a couple gang members on their doorstep, explaining why daddy isn’t coming home.”

“I’m not supposed to let anyone in. Family rule.”

“Family rule? Why would you care about some ‘family’ when your life's on the line? I’m standing here, paying you to spare your own life. This is the best deal you’ll get. Don’t make me prove to you that I mean what I say.”

“...Alright, man, I get it,” the guy muttered. “Just…don’t cause trouble.”

“Sure.”

Carison walked inside, past the guard at the door, and through a living room with some beaten-up couches thrown haphazardly around a coffee table. Through a kitchen that was covered in grime and dirt and most likely insects and rodents, if one looked hard enough. Down a hallway and past a bathroom that had a horrible stench coming out of it. And through a door that led him into a bedroom-turned office—the mattress still pushed up into a corner, only partially out of the way.

A man in that ‘office’ was sitting on a couch, smoking a cigar. He was overweight and visibly greasy, and didn’t seem to notice Carison yet.

“I presume you are Boss?” Carison said.

The man looked over. “Who’re you?”

“I would like to make a deal. Mutually beneficial exchange between businesses.”

“I didn’t ask what you want. I asked who you are.”

“I am the man who has murdered seven of your men. And assaulted two more.”

That got his attention. The man, ‘Boss,’ snapped his head over at Carison. “...Okay. What do you want?”

**********

The scar-faced man glared at Jon. “My name is Emilio. Who are you, and what are you doing here?”

“My name is Jon Morn. And I just want to talk. Nothing serious.”

“Jon Morn.” The man laughed. “I have heard about you. What are you doing here?”

“Looking for a meeting.”

“About?”

“Becoming partners.”

He squinted. “Jon Morn. The healer. Missionary. Helping the poor, and the needy, and the hurt. You want to help us, the people who make people poor, and needy, and hurt?”

“Ostensibly.”

One of the guards stepped up to Jon. There were six total, lining the walls of the messy room full of random valuable goods. “Just tell the man what you want.”

“Well, Emilio, I currently represent the kingdom.”

“The kingdom? So you are here to…what? Put a stop to my business?”

“Quite the opposite. I would like to give your business a purpose.”

“How so?”

“...Tell me, Emilio, what do you do?”

Emilio just looked at Jon.

“Well, to start, what does your, uh, organization do? What do people pay you for?”

“Protection. We help people stay safe from monsters and criminals. Like mercenaries for hire. Guards around here don’t do much, so we step in.”

“Yeah,” another bodyguard leaning against a wall spoke up. “Just saved a guy from some big, high-Level Rat the other day. Prolly woulda—”

Emilio stopped him from speaking with a glare.

“I see. Protection. So, let’s say, robberies. You keep people safe from those?”

“Yes. They are fairly common around here. So they need that protection. Tell your friends at the kingdom that we provide a genuine service around here.”

“And what do you do? Personally.”

“I’m the organizer. I set the prices, I find the clients. I run this place.” He spread his hands. “Was that not obvious?”

“And these, uh,” Jon glanced around the room, at the jewels and paintings spread haphazardly around. “Decorations? Where did they come from?”

He shrugged. “Gifts. From my clients.”

Jon nodded. “Gifts. Do any of your employees get gifts?”

“Nah, man,” the same bodyguard said. “We ain’t allowed to ask for—”

Emilio shushed him, then turned back to Jon. “No. Now, what is this all about? I don’t want any kingdom officers coming down on us for just making our honest living.”

“As I said before, you are not in trouble with the law. I am not a soldier, or a guard. I am simply here to make you an offer.”

“Then cut to the chase. Tell me what you want.”

Jon approached the desk. A few of the bodyguards got antsy at his approach, reaching for their weapons, but Emilio held up a hand to stop them.

Bon stepped up to the desk, and pulled a pouch from his side. It was big—bigger than any other coinpurse would be—but it was also Enchanted with a lightweight Enchantment as well as a spatial one, meaning it could hold more than it looked, and what it held wouldn’t weigh you down. He detached it and set it down on the desk. The rattle of the money inside could be heard throughout the room.

“The offer the kingdom wants to give you is about this,” he said, and opened up the pouch, withdrawing one of the shining golden coins from within. “This gold coin, as well as the three thousand, nine hundred and ninety nine others, are for you.”

Instantly, mutterings spread throughout the room. The bodyguards leaned over to each other, whispering, “Four thousand. Thousand?! And gold? What in the hells is the kingdom doing?”

Emilio squinted at Jon. “Four thousand.”

“Four thousand.”

“For us.”

“For you. Specifically you, Emilio.”

He glanced around the room. “And what do I have to do?”

“The kingdom wants you gone. You take the money, and you leave. Forever.”

He sighed slowly. “I cannot just leave my business. What, would you have me go to some other town? Change my identity?”

“No, no. Leave the kingdom. Exiled.”

He leaned forward, a scowl reestablishing itself on his face. “Are you threatening me?”

“Of course not. I would never threaten someone. But the kingdom wishes for you to leave. Voluntarily. If you do not leave, they will not forcefully exile you or arrest you. They are simply offering a sum of money.”

“And that sum is four thousand gold.”

“Precisely.”

“Why?”

“Yeah, and, uh,” one of the bodyguards spoke up. “What happens with us?”

“Well, after you’re gone…” Jon looked around, “I take over.”

Emilio furrowed his eyebrows, turning his head as though trying to look at Jon from a different angle. “You. You’ll take over…my business? I’m sure you…understand what that means? What we do?”

“Fully. But as I said, I intend to give your business meaning. Purpose. Not just…senseless expansion. I want to help people.”

Emilio laughed. “And you’re willing to pay four thousand to do that? That is…certainly a sum. And certainly an ambition. Why?”

“The kingdom has needs. Needs for connections. Ones that you have. You and a few others. Rest assured that if you are not comfortable taking this deal, we can simply go somewhere else with it.”

“Hm. Well you might need to do that. Four thousand is a lot. But it is not something that cannot be made with a few years of income. And with expansion, we may get to the point where we are making four thousand—five thousand—every year. I cannot leave my business like that.”

“Hm. That’s a shame.” Jon reached out and grabbed the bag of coins, reattaching it to his belt. Though the one he’d taken out to show off was still in his hand. “Although I will be honest, I was kind of hoping you’d say no, personally.”

“Oh? Why’s that?”

“Yeah, you got an even bigger sum you’re hopin’ to give us?!” one of the bodyguards shouted, drawing some laughs from his buddies.

“No, no, nothing like that,” Jon gave a patient smile. He also toggled on his Spell, Infuse with the Elements. He chose his element, his duration, and the object he’d be infusing—the gold coin in his hand. It would have no obvious effect for now, but it would begin infusing. And the longer it infused, the more power would be given to the effect once activated.

“Then what is it?” Emilio said.

“I…” Jon searched for the right words, “don’t like you.”

Emilio laughed. “You do not like me? Why is that?”

Jon sighed, flipping the coin through his fingers. “I’ve asked you several times now to tell me what your business does for people. It provides protection, yes, yes, I know. And I know how it really makes its money. You provide protection from yourself. There isn’t enough out there to protect people from. The monsters are only so vicious, the crime rate only so high. But if the people who refuse to buy your protection…get robbed in the night? Get assaulted in the street? Get…murdered senselessly? The people suddenly want it, a lot more.”

Emilio just pursed his lips and stared at Jon, obviously not eager to incriminate himself.

“And, truthfully, I do not mind that. Well, in some cases. You see, some people have this weird idea. That…working for money, it can’t be moral. Any time you want a little more than is strictly necessary for you, it’s greed. That’s not true. Even if you’re hurting others, it can sometimes be good to do so for money. I mean, if you, say, hurt five people for the money that you turn around and use to help fifty, that’s a net positive for the world.”

Jon looked around at the room. They were all staring at him.

“Obviously, you don’t spend your money on charity. And, now, even then, that can be okay. Say, for example, you have a business that provides an in-need service. I mean, say you run a legitimate protection service. Renting out adventurers to help people on journeys through the wilderness, stuff like that. If you did that, and you charged a prohibitively expensive amount, so that a few people had to go without your services? And they die out in the forest? You’re effectively trading their lives for currency. But if you then go and, say, reinvest that money into your business? Better, higher-Level adventurers, higher wages for your staff, better gear, expansion into other towns? Well, how many lives are you going to save by offering better services to more people? If you do it right, running a business doesn’t have to be immoral. So I don’t disrespect you for robbing a few people to keep your business afloat.”

Emilio rubbed his chin, staring at Jon with a scowl.

“What I don’t like about you, Emilio, is that when you rob people, when you hurt others, when you take from the people around you…it all stays here. In this room.” Jon looked around himself. “You don’t even give it to your employees. I mean, how many of them have gone without a meal? How many have had to work extra to afford to live? To provide for their families?”

“I take care of my people,” Emilio said. Then he looked around at the bodyguards in the room. “Don’t I? I take care of you, right?”

A chorus of halfhearted “yeah”s came from them.

“It’s not about taking care of them,” Jon said. “It’s not about doing enough. It’s about…Well, okay, let’s get back to the point. I understand what your business does. I understand that you do have the potential to actually help people. However, that ‘you’ is plural. It’s talking about ‘you’ the group. The company. But ‘you’ the individual? ‘You,’ Emilio? I still fail to see what you do.”

“I already said. I run the place. I find clients, hire new employees. I keep this place alive.”

“Is there anything you do that someone else couldn’t? Really, what’s so special about you that makes it so that nobody else—not a single soul—could ever run this business as well as you do? Is there anything?”

Emilio’s scowl deepend, the scar morphing even more in its warpath across his face.

“I think he’s smart,” one of the bodyguards said. “He, I mean, he started this place up, right? He makes good decisions. He took the risk of doing all this in the first place. He was the first to do it, he was the one to fight off law enforcement on his own for a long time. He almost died a few times. I mean, he deserves something for all that, right?

“Deserve? There’s no such thing as ‘deserve.’ Not one Human being in this world deserves anything. Anything.”

“How are you sayin’ that?’ the same bodyguard said. “Aren’t you Jon Morn? The guy who’s always sayin’ everyone deserves everything you can give ‘em?”

“No, it’s not about them deserving something from you. It’s about you owing it to them. No amount of past work, no amount of identity, or reputation, or risk should ever earn you anything. It is only what you do. Now. If your continued existence doesn’t make life better for the people around you, then the only thing you deserve is death. If you are a drain on resources, if you make people unhappy, if you take without giving, you are not keeping up with what you owe. To everyone. To Humanity. He risked something in the past, so he should get things now? What a joke. How does giving him your rightfully-earned goods, your rightfully-stolen property, make the world better? It certainly doesn’t make the people you took it from happy. And it doesn’t make you any better-off, either. The only person it serves is him. And if he already has more than you, then he doesn’t need it as much as you do.”

Emilio stood up. “I don’t think I appreciate you talking like that in my estate.”

Jon looked at him and gave a slow blink. “Know what? You’re right. I overstepped my bounds, and for that, I sincerely apologize. My mistake, I allowed my emotions to get the better of me.”

“Yeah, you did. Get out.”

“Sure. But here, as a token of my apology.” Jon held up the gold coin that’d been in his hand the whole time. “And my respect to you. No hard feelings, didn’t mean to get all preachy on everyone. Just a habit of mine.”

The room laughed nervously, with Jon’s chuckle being the heartiest of them all. He walked up to the gold-trimmed desk, and placed it down on the table with a clack.

“Here you go. Know it’s not much, compared to what I was offering, but maybe you can buy yourself something with it. A big red ruby, to encrust something.”

Emilio snorted. “Okay. Consider yourself forgiven. Now leave.”

“Of course.” Jon stepped away, keeping Infuse with the Elements toggled on. It would only continue to infuse an item as long as he kept in contact with it, so it wasn’t making the infusion on the coin any stronger now that he’d let go, but for as long as he kept the Spell toggled—and had the Mana—the infusion itself still wouldn’t activate until the Spell toggled off.

So he turned and began walking away.

“Hey,” the bodyguard that’d been speaking to Jon called out to him.

“Hm?”

“You’re a healer, right? You work your, uh, miracles, right? Make people feel better?”

“Sure do.”

“Can you, uh, heal something for me? Just a little scratch on my finger. Though, since you do it for free, I may as well ask…”

“Sure,” Jon laughed, and he placed his hand on the man’s finger, activating his Spell.

“Hey, someone,” Emilio called out, “come throw this in a safe, or something.”

“Careful,” Jon called back, “that’s a lucky coin.”

“Lucky coin, huh?”

“Yep. Lots of good things happen when you hold onto it.”

“Hm,” Emilio grunted and picked the coin up, looking at it.

“You’re all done,” Jon nodded to the now-healed bodyguard. “But you want to see me do another of those miracles?”

“What?”

“Well, in a single instant, I’ll get rid of a plague.”

“A whole plague? I’ve heard you can do a lot, but that’s a bit much, right?”

Jon shook his head. “No, no, plagues are pretty common, if you know where to look. Watch, when I snap my fingers, I’ll make a blight on the world disappear.”

Jon snapped, and the coin burst into a massive inferno, right in Emilio’s hands.

AN: Next chapter, we'll be moving back to Arlan!