As we were pulling away, the crown I was holding vanished and a new message rang in my head.

Additional ruler tokens claimed!

I stared at my empty hand. “Huh.”

Kurt looked startled. “It was real? I just grabbed it as a flex.”

“I guess so?” I consulted my interface.

Ruler Interface

Subjects: 15/288

Vassals: 0/6

Point multiplier chance: 26.9*%

Subject tax percentage: 8.3*%

Message subjects: 3/3 uses remaining (resets daily)

“Yeah… I can have more followers now, more vassals, and the point multiplier chance went up a little bit.”

“Did you get his followers?” Kurt asked.

I shook my head. “No. I have the same number as before - Davi, John, and the handful I picked up as we’ve been talking with people.”

Davi visibly slumped in the driver’s seat. “Thank God. If you got his ruler token, he probably really is dead. I don’t think he’d give that up by choice.”

“I don’t even think you can.” I scrubbed at my forehead. “Nothing I’ve done has made the crown come off, and none of you have been able to touch it.”

“I seriously thought you were going to die out there,” Davi said. “I don’t like to say that I’m glad that someone is dead, but I’ve been waiting for him to appear in the cab and jump us.”

“The whole time Kurt and I were walking away, I was worried he’d attack again. I didn’t even think of him following us inside the truck. But… I think he really is…” I trailed off, staring at my bloodsplattered hands.

When I killed monsters, any fluids or viscera disappeared when the monster vanished. Fighting Carlton, I’d been poisoned, with all my senses blinded or confused. I hadn’t been able to see him, even as I’d stabbed him over and over like a horror-movie antagonist. The whole experience had felt kind of unreal.

The evidence coating my skin and clothing showed just how real it had been.

Byron put a hand my shoulder. “He deserved it.”

I nodded slowly. I didn’t regret killing him. He may not even have been the first person I’d killed. But… “It’s the first time I’ve ever killed someone on purpose.”

“If you hadn’t killed him, we’d all be dead,” Kurt said. He waved his hands over me as he spoke, Cleansing the dirt and blood off my skin. A waste of energy, but I didn’t object. “Hell, if they hadn’t believed that we had someone stronger than you, we’d all be dead.”

“He was a real piece of work,” John said. “We know he killed other people, stole things… He wasn’t on the side of the angels, that’s for sure.”

Davi snorted. “Even his abilities were freaking demonic. I don’t really know what he did at the end, but the rest of it… Poison, darkness, illusions… Didn’t he work at a grocery store? Where’d he get so chuuni?”

Byron shook his head. “You never work a minimum wage job? Customers are enough to drive anyone to the dark side. Seriously, Vince, what did he do at the end? You had me straight worried. It seemed way more effective than the stuff he tried earlier. Weird that he didn’t lead with it.”

“It was weird. Half my sensory input vanished, and 90% of the rest was lying to me. The only thing I really had was my sense of touch, and even that was kind of fucked up. I felt like I was underwater, upside down. If I hadn’t gotten him with the trident, I don’t think I could have done anything. What did it look like from the outside?”

Byron shrugged. “Not much. There was a bubble around him, a transparent barrier. Mostly we just saw what it did to you. You didn’t react to any of the noises the crowd made at all, and you were reeling around like a drunk. I guess that makes sense if you thought up was down and shit.”

I frowned. “All of Carlton’s other abilities were… you know, not weak, but not stronger than our strongest ones. That was on a completely different level.”

“He said something before he used it,” Kurt said. “‘Chosen World.’ The other people watching seemed to recognize that. They kept talking about a specialty. I thought they just meant he was fighting to his strengths, but they all kept using that same word. Is there anything in your ruler interface about specialties?”

“No.”

This tale has been unlawfully lifted without the author's consent. Report any appearances on Amazon.

“Could be something that happens when you get enough points?” Byron offered. “I’ve been wondering if there’d be anything special about getting twelve of ‘em.”

“That’s possible,” I said. “Something to ask around about.”

“Especially after we get to Albuquerque,” Davi said. “That’s something the military should be able to check easily. In the meantime, though, could someone else take the wheel? Even with the seat all the way forward, I really have to stretch to reach the gas pedal. Hey! Stop laughing. It’s not that funny.”

…

It took us another day to make it out of the city, long enough for a new monster to appear - the bugdeer we’d seen during the Trial.

We didn’t have to fight anyone else in Santa Fe. Some people were grateful I’d killed Carlton and others were angry, but no one wanted to face off against… well… me. And my imaginary boss, I guess.

Kurt’s grandstanding and showboating ensured that no one outside of my friend group realized how close I’d come to death… but I knew. I also now knew what it felt like to force a knife through a man’s back over and over until life left him. My dojo had tried to prepare us to act decisively if our lives were ever threatened, although we generally expected our opponents to have knives or bats, not swords. I guess it had worked, in a way, since I was here and Carlton wasn’t. But I’d prepared for the moment, not for the aftermath.

I didn’t regret Carlton’s death, but I could have done without the memory of causing it.

It didn’t bother me much during my waking hours, but sleep brought nightmares.

My thrashing bothered the other people sleeping and drew hushed whispers from the people on sentry duty.

“Should we wake him?”

“He needs rest.”

“Does that look restful to you?”

“No, but that’s how he’s been sleeping lately.”

“Wish we could get him a therapist.”

“Fat chance. Maybe there’s some kind of ability that would make him sleep?”

I didn’t like their focus and concern, but I didn’t know how to respond to it, either. It was easier to roll to my other side and pull the blanket up than engage in conversation.

We continued to creep southward, our progress slowed by hours at times to let huge packs of wostrich pass. We stopped in a small town 30 miles short of Albuquerque proper as we waited to find out what fresh hell they’d throw at us for the final three days of this twelveday. (The aliens were calling the sets of twelve-days “duodenaries,” a term that hardly rolled off the tongue.)

“First the Points Siphons, then the mandatory trial. Do you think they’ll throw dungeons at us?” Davi asked. “It has the right flavor, although I don’t know how they’d make us run them.”

“It’s going to be something, and we’re going to hate it,” said Byron grimly.

“Maybe it’ll just be another monster,” said John.

I shook my head. That didn’t seem likely. “Timestamp, Byron?”

My friend frowned at his wrist. “Something should have happened by now. I think this thing is slow. I feel like it gets off by a few more seconds every day. I don’t know much about clockwork, if there’s a way I can adjust that, or-”

Congratulations! If you’re hearing this, you’ve survived the first 31 days of the Earth Maffiyir!

A new element has been added to the game: Titans! Massive monsters will now appear periodically. Only a true champion will be able to defeat one alone; weaker competitors may need to band together. When Titans are defeated, special rewards will be generated. Be warned: if left unchecked, Titans will seek out and attempt to destroy beneficial buildings and structures.

Earth’s first Titan is newly generated for this Maffiyir, inspired by data gathered from our surveys of your planet.

Face the challenges before you to grow in strength and earn rewards. Good luck!

“Massive monsters?” Kurt asked. “Like that thing from the Mandatory Trial?”

“I don’t think so,” Byron said. “They said the Titan would be based on data gathered from surveys of our planet, and that didn’t look like anything from Earth.”

“It looked kind of like a praying mantis…” Everyone looked at me. I shook my head. “Well, just the arms, I guess. I’ve never heard of an Earth creature with an eardrum-bursting roar.”

“They didn’t say it was based on Earth animals, just data from surveys of Earth. Maybe it’s based on our mythology,” Davi said.

“What myth does the Trial monster remind you of?” I asked.

She hesitated. “I can’t think of any like that. But, to be fair, most of what I know about mythology comes from playing videogames. If it wasn’t in Hades or God of War, I probably don’t know about it.”

Kurt grimaced. “I’d give you a hard time for that if most of what I know about Japanese folklore and myth didn’t come from playing Okami.”

“It could be based on real animals too,” Byron said. “Hippos already kill tons of people. A mega-hippo would be terrifying.”

The surrounding landscape had slight hills, but with few buildings and plants, we could see for quite some distance. Davi had finally taken Flight, and used it briefly to ascend into the sky.

She landed with a shrug. “I don’t see anything nearby. I guess we just keep moving?”

We made it pretty far, another fifteen miles, before I noticed something strange.

“It’s really hot up ahead.”

“We’re in the desert, Vince,” Kurt said. “It’s all hot.”

“Not like this,” I said. “Wait. Is that… smoke?”