– 2 hours after the appearance of the pillars –
“Please, I’ll do anything! Name anything you want and it’s yours!” The fancily dressed man yelled through the intercom as the future king of the world slowly made it through the many rooms of his bunker. The first step in the king’s conquest of earth was to kill all former powerful figures, be they leaders or billionaires.
This particular billionaire was more prepared than most, or just unusually paranoid, but it didn’t matter. He was trying to stop a planet destroyer with defences that would barely work against a mere nuclear weapon. He was an interesting figure though. From what info the captured nano-chatte’s gathered, this man was controversial yet beloved. People described him as either a self made man, or an idiot who built his commercial empire on the back of his family's mine.
Normally, that would’ve made him a perfectly normal noble, but this world was so abnormal that someone as normal as him was special. This world had a little thing called ‘democracy’. Instead of being ruled by perfectly reasonable monarchs who were trained to do what they do, they were ruled by mobs and rioters. They called it ‘democracy’, the king called it ‘anarchy with extra steps’.
“Gotcha” I ripped open yet another door held closed with the pressure of seven thousand atmospheres. The billionaire was looking at me while shakily holding a gun. These people were nothing if not spiteful. I ripped apart their entire bunker and they still hoped that a simple firearm could stop me?
“N-Now hold on there. You don’t have to do anything. Just stay right there and let me speak.” I walked forward as he spoke. “What are you doing? Listen to me!” Ah, this was his final gamble. Appealing to his own authority. How… unexpectedly idiotic.
“What could you possibly have to offer me?” His money had no worth in this new world, and his power was miniscule, so he had nothing.
“Influence. Think of how many allies you’d gain with me on board. Even if you don’t think my influence could be useful, my money would be. I could buy out anyone.” Oh? That was a new one. His money might’ve been able to buy out the stupider people who adventured, and his old world fame would work well as an incentive for people to join whatever guild he would manage.
“You know, I would like a goon, and you certainly look like one.” He didn’t laugh at my joke, which soured my mood, but not to the extent of making me want to injure him. “Look, this whole ‘company’ thing sounds a lot like guilds, and that ‘rich people that aren’t nobility’ sounds like complicated nobility to me. I need both of those things to exist, so you’re now the proud noble sponsor behind the biggest guild on this planet.” He let go of the gun and knelt down, hiding his face with his greasy hair. His sweat which had been accumulating on his scalp poured down his forehead as his dandruff fell off like a light sprinkle of snow.
“O-Of course my lord! Anything you wish me to be.” I smiled. If their bravado shattered this easily, this planet might’ve actually been fun to conquer.
“Hello? Ian?” Anna said as I woke up from my power nap. The knights locked down the entire town. At first, we had a small chat, a debate of sorts. They firmly argued their position that our freedom is moot and that we should be grateful to be serving the former richest man alive and the king’s only advisor. We carefully rebutted them by explaining how they couldn’t do anything to hurt us.
AND THEN THEY THREATENED THE ENTIRE TOWN.
Call it blackmail or whatever, but they were going to kill the entire town if we didn’t comply with their demands. Normally, this wouldn’t be much of a problem. We get temporarily recruited, and then leave peacefully after quietly falling down the ranks. The key word there was ‘normally’. This wasn’t a normal situation, as I was already being blackmailed, and my blackmailer cared more about her freedom than the town.
“Yes?” I said while rebooting the nano-chatte.
“Have you decided yet?” She gave me a simple choice. Stay here, have a forth of the town die, and then be killed by the king of the world. Or go with her, and indirectly kill half of the town, but keep my life. The choice wasn’t a choice at all. It was a trolley problem where I was on one of the tracks.
“Yes.” I stayed silent for a second, thinking it over one last time. If I were to live, I could save more people in the future. My reputation would be tarnished no matter what I would do thanks to people blaming me for not stopping Anna from leaving. I would just need to wait until we leave town, get to a remote area, and then I would kill her and pretend like she forced me to do this. “I’m leaving with you.”
“Awesome! I’ve always dreamed that I could actually meet you, so I’m glad I didn’t have to get you killed before we had an opportunity to properly adventure.” Why did she have to bring that up? She just had to remind me of the control I had over my life before the pillars appeared. Being the chosen one wasn’t all it was cracked up to be.
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“What’s so good about me? Don’t tell me you had a parasocial relationship with me.” She looked down and hung her head in shame as her face went red, and then shot right back up and got right in my face.
“Look! You were like… the only person who streamed indie games that also had a tolerable voice. If I dare say, your voice is a tiny bit better than tolerable.” I chuckled a little before remembering what we needed to do next.
“Please tell me you have a plan of getting out of town other than fighting through the knights. And what about Sam and Chrisitan?” She rolled her eyes as I mentioned them and finally took a step backwards.
“Who cares about them? They’ll probably get themselves killed or be too much of a burden. The only thing we need is your power and my intellect. Also, I have a plan. Stop doubting me.” I waited for her to explain her plan while we just stood there, silent.
“Any day now.” I said as she straightened her back and cleared her throat right before I got too suspicious of her.
“Look, maybe I don’t have a precise plan–” The nano-chatte, who finally woke up, was immediately shaken into being fully awake by that statement, and interrupted her as soon as it physically could.
“Then what’s the purpose of having a plan? Do you primitives think there is a difference between improv and a rough plan? You might as well–” The nano-chatte never finished, as Anna cut him off.
“Stop with the names! What are you even on about? There is a clear difference between improv and a rough plan. Are you saying bullet points are useless?” Anna said.
“Yes! Objectively! Bullet points are inflexible yet not rigid. A poor mix between freedom and perfect planning.” I was sick of their babbling and shut off the nano-chatte’s speaker.
“Shut up! Just let her tell us her plan.” She smiled as I sided with her and I could feel the nano-chatte’s annoyance as they tried feeling as much of it so it would spread into my mind.
“We just use the weird teleporting beam of light thing you used to save me to get out, then change our identities, and finally go back to adventuring until we have enough money to retire.” God dammit… Her first step was impossible.
“Now, why do you think something that half melted me is remotely survivable by you?” I said. She goes to say something and then pauses, as if she was thinking about a way to make it work, but then hung her head in shame again.
“From what memories I could extract from my favourite primitive, you called yourself smart. What a joke.” The nano-chatte said after digging through my memory in a fraction of a second.
“Oh, shut up! The second half of my plan is fine.” Anna said.
“Anyone could’ve come up with that. Let me make a plan since we both know you aren’t going anywhere with whatever plan you come up with.” The nano-chatte said, already using its vast network of minds to come up with a plan. What was the end goal of the plan? I don’t think any of us knew. All we knew is that it ended with us outside of this town.
“No you don’t! Who do you trust more, Ian? A suit of armour, or your greatest fan.” I didn’t even need to think about this.
“Suit of armour.” She got even redder as she was ready to explode with anger at my instant dismissal of her.
“Ugh… Don’t you know what I could do to you?” I sigh as the nano-chatte adds the finishing touches to its plan.
“You would only snitch on me to the king if I done a major fuck up or ran away.” She raised her hand, almost as if to hit me for my audacity, but then calmed herself down.
“Just… listen to my revised plan. I’m a magician, I can learn spells. Teleportation is a spell. If you give me the suit of armour again and let me sneak into whatever library this town has, I could learn teleportation in a day or two, which you spend with… Sam or something.” I prayed the nano-chatte’s plan would be better, but when I felt their mental state, I could only feel despair at the scale of their plan, which likely meant that it was too convoluted for me to follow anyway.
“Fine, we’re going with her plan.” I said as I shot out my armour which stuck to her. “Don’t try killing her, nano-chatte. I know you think you’re better than her, but she’s a higher level than me, so don’t even try it.” They quickly ran away. I’m sure the nano-chatte learned their lesson and didn’t give her full access to our collective memory again. Who am I kidding? She would probably find out more about me anyway.