Ash’s POV
As we waited for Leo to come back with the information, I was stuck with the slightly awkward task of introducing Sophia to X. Duke’s introduction to Sophia had been rather easy, as at the end of the day, he didn’t really care all that much about her, so when he saw an 8 foot tall being of void and flame, he didn’t really think too much about it, and just accepted that Leo had an interesting looking wife, and the two of them just kinda fucked off into Leo’s shed to do some nerd bullshit.
X on the other hand, stood with his mouth slightly agape, as he took in the full abnormality that was Desire’s Flame. Currently, she was in her 5 foot form, wearing the outfit that Leo had made for her, and nibbling on a cookie that I had brought from a bakery I’d found before the riot ended our trip. The disparity between the casualness of her actions and the otherworldly nature of her appearance seemed to be especially jarring for him as he barely managed to utter,
“Um…Sorry but…what exactly are you madam? I’ve never seen one of your kind before.”
Sophia diverted her attention away from the baked good that I had given her for only the briefest of moments, responding, “I’m Leo’s wife, and seeing as I’m the only one, it makes sense that you’ve never seen one before.” She nodded in satisfaction at her own reasoning before returning her intention to the far more important matter at hand. X turned to me, his eyes asking a million questions all at once.
Taking pity on the poor boy, I answered his unspoken query. “This is Sophia, she’s a demon from a place called Hell. It’s really far away, and hard to describe, especially since I don’t really understand the full details myself. Just think of her as a normal person and you’ll be fine.”
X looked at me incredulously, exclaiming, “What the hell kind of ‘normal person’ can use space magic to create an inventory that they can live in?! That’s bullshit! I swear just being around her is affecting my mind somehow too! How the fuck do you even think straight when she’s here?” I’ve never seen him react so strongly to anything, though I suppose it’s perfectly understandable. While Leo and Duke make it look easy, Sophia definitely has a certain…presence about her that’s nearly impossible to ignore.
Just by being next to her, you can’t help but feel a certain sort of existential inferiority, an innate suppression that shows that no matter what room she walks into, she is the most powerful, the person in charge. It’s not something she does consciously, I’m pretty sure it’s just a side effect of being a Titled. And then there’s the fact that she’s basically the embodiment of Desire itself. Now for me, this tends to affect me in a very broad sense, stimulating various desires for things to eat, cool little trinkets I happen to have seen before, all the way up to things like the desire for companionship and familial attachment.
X on the other hand, is a fully functioning and healthy adult male. He doesn’t have that same kind of obsession that Duke experiences, and he’s not broken the way Leo is. From what I can tell, judging by the flushing in his cheeks and the constant fidgeting, the concept of Desire is affecting him rather differently than it affects me. A part of me can’t help but be annoyed at Sophia for this, but I know she can’t help it. She’s literally doing nothing but existing at the moment, and that state of existence is what’s causing these effects.
These two qualities combined make it perfectly reasonable that X would have a hard time adjusting to existing in the same space as Sophia in such a short period of time. Acknowledging this, I decided to try to cut him some slack and give him some helpful advice. “Look, I know that basically every instinct in your body is probably screaming at you to bend the knee and pledge yourself to her or whatever, but honestly? That’ll most likely only serve to piss off Leo. Need I remind you that the only way to get out of this place is if one of the two of them send you out? That means that if you piss off one of them, you’ll be stuck here with an angry Sophia as well as an angry Leo. Do you really think you could survive that kind of situation?”
Gradually, X seemed to calm down. It seemed as though the combination of Sophia’s semi divinity as well as the memory of Leo emotionlessly slaughtering hundreds of bandits was enough of a deterrent to keep him from doing anything stupid, and allowing him to get his mind back in order. As me and X grew silent, we watched as Duke seemed to be tinkering with some kind of spinning machine on the dining room table, and when Sophia finished her cookie, she walked over to him and the two of them started having a high-level conversation about ‘modifying outlet valves for higher mana efficiency’ and ‘shifting between high torque and high rotational frequency’, and some other stuff that just went way over my head.
As we watched, X called out, “So you’re the one who taught Leo about all that random stuff he talks about?”
We all grew silent as me, Sophia, and Duke all looked at each other and started giggling. Just the image of Leo trying to learn from someone else somehow seemed hilarious to me. Like, I know that there’s a lot of stuff that he doesn’t know, or doesn’t necessarily think about, which tends to lead to extremely funny screw ups. For example, that one time he used magic to completely set himself on fire in an attempt to learn how to fight while also burning everyone he came into contact with, but he forgot that fire still takes away air or something, which made it so that he almost suffocated himself. But everything that he doesn’t know, and everything that he doesn’t think about, he always seems to have a way of finding out for himself.
X was confused as to why we all just started laughing, but before he could question it, Sophia, who was bending over the table looking at the weird little machine that Duke was tinkering with, suddenly stood up with a radiant smile on her face, and shot out of the front door. I looked next to me and saw Xavier with a stunned look, as though the sheer beauty of that smile had struck his mind directly. A few moments later, Leo came through the door with a wry sort of smile on his face, holding Sophia in a princess carry, while she had an expression of contentment as she rested her head on his shoulder. Her previous air of innate superiority, as well as that little whisper that would sit in the back of your mind, egging on your desires, were gone, signifying that Leo had sealed her power with the lock enchantment.
“Yo” He called out, as though any of us could have possibly missed his entrance.
X responded, “You’re rather fortunate, your wife is…something else man.”
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To which Leo tilted his head in a manner that I recognized as him putting me directly in line with his blindfold’s field of vision, as he turned his attention to me. “Does he mean demon stuff, titled stuff, or just general sweetness? I genuinely can’t tell.”
I analyzed Xavier for a moment before replying, “I’d say it’s 75 ish% Titled stuff, 20 ish% demon stuff and the last 5 ish% specifically Aspect of Desire stuff.” To which Leo nodded and carried on, walking towards the couch and sitting down, setting Sophia on her usual seat, commonly referred to as his lap.
He then tilted his head, looking down at her face before saying, “There are too many people here for most games so go grab the cards real quick.”
“Yes Sir.” Sophia got up and flounced over to the shelf to look for where we put them. X’s eyes seemed to widen in confusion at the apparent relationship dynamic the two of them had, but I shook my head, signaling him not to think about it too much, and Leo leaned forward slightly, putting his hands on his chin, and donning a sort of serious vibe. His voice drained of all its former warmth, he sounded…emotionless. Almost bored. The same tone that he took on every time a serious conversation was about to take place.
“The Kingdom is not colluding with the bandits, because the bandits don’t exist in the first place.”
I tilted my head in confusion, “What do you mean the bandits don’t exist? You killed a bunch of them, remember?”
Leo shook his head. “Perhaps I phrased that wrong, the bandit Leaders specifically are not in fact bandits. They’re actually members of the Royal Guard, gathering citizens and leading them to committing acts of banditry.”
“But why? Why would they do that? How does that make any sort of sense?” I asked.
Leo sat back a little, letting Sophia hop back down on his lap, as he shuffled the cards and told us the full story.
“When this Kingdom was founded, it was originally a mining town. However, a town can’t survive with only miners, they still need to eat, they still need blacksmiths, construction guys, tailors, etc., so a few groups from the original town split off, forming the closest nearby towns, and trade was initiated between the various groups, with the mining town providing the currency, and the farm towns providing the goods. However, apparently, a side effect of the mountain possessing a large amount of Spectral Quartz is that it’s rather difficult for plant life to grow normally around here, which is why even the ‘nearby towns’ are still days away even by carriage. They had to go that far away for their crops to not experience any sort of side effects from the Spectral Quartz.”
“Wait,” I interjected, “Surrounding the Capital is a huge forest though? If Spectral Quartz really interferes with plant life, then why are there so many trees nearby?”
“It’s not that plants can’t grow, it’s that the Spectral Quartz…changes them. Apparently, one of the biggest problems with regards to nearby threats are monstrous trees that operate kind of like nature elementals. This ‘monsterification’ process is exactly what the original settlers of the Kingdom were trying to avoid with their crops apparently. However, in the closest 100 mile radius around the mountain, where the Capital now exists, apparently there have never been any plants, due to proximity to the Spectral Quartz. This means that in a 100 mile radius, there were no plants, which also meant that there were no herbivores. There were also a large number of people, which drew in a large number of carnivorous beasts and monsters. I think you can tell where I’m going with this line of reasoning.”
“The original settlers of the Kingdom faced frequent attacks and constantly fought off large packs of monsters.” X answered. “Why are you detailing the history of my Kingdom? This is common knowledge, and completely unrelated to your accusation that the Royal Guards have been moonlighting as bandit chiefs.”
Leo held up his hand to signal that he needed to be patient, and Sophia started dealing out cards for him, herself, me, and Duke. Due to the fact that X has never been here before, he doesn’t know the rules to any of our games, so he can’t really play along with us. Leo continued his story.
“The direct access to the Spectral Quartz mines made the maximum potential mana pools of the original settlers astronomical, and repeated battles against the local monsters forced them to realize that full potential. This means that after a decade or so of living here, the locals of this Kingdom have all been ridiculously powerful. This, in turn, meant that the majority of the populace could grow up in relative safety from outside threats. And so, between always having enough food from the sheer number of the surrounding farming towns, and the protection of the Capital, the population has been steadily increasing for thousands of years.
“Now, normally, this would be a good thing, however, something that the past generations of leaders failed to consider, is that population growth doesn’t increase linearly, but exponentially. For example, say you’re looking at the descendants of one particular person, in this case, we’ll say me. Neither Sophia nor I have any sort of living relatives in this world, so any potential kids that we have would be the first of their line. Now, let’s say that Sophia and I have two kids. Then when they grow up, each one of them has two kids, so now I have six descendants, my initial two kids and the four that they have combined. Then in another 30 years or so each one of those four kids each has two kids, so now I have 14 descendants. Rather than increasing two at a time, instead, the population of ‘Leo’s Descendants’ is more than doubling every generation right?”
X, Duke, and I all nodded, understanding his explanation, meanwhile Sophia shot Leo a coquettish look, as though hinting that she wanted to get started on increasing that population of ‘Leo’s Descendants’ soon.
“Well, the Capital’s population increased in this same way. Only instead of increasing from two to six, it increased from two million to over five million way faster than anyone anticipated. Now, as time has progressed, the Kingdom has repeatedly gathered or created more farming villages in order to support this increase in population, however…it’s not enough. In as little as 10 years, but definitely less than 50, the population of the Capital will have increased to the point where food supply simply can’t keep up with demand. The Kingdom is on the verge of total Famine.”
My body went cold at the thought. Millions of people, all doomed to starve to death, but… “I don’t get it, what does that have to do with the bandits? Why would they be attacking traveling merchants and farmers? Don’t they need as many of them as they can get?”
Leo shook his head. “A few more or less farmers won’t make any sort of actual difference Ash. What the kingdom needs right now is either thousands of more square miles of farmland, or…a million fewer mouths to feed. And of the two options, only one of those can be implemented within the next decade.”
Horrorstruck, I asked, “You mean…”
Leo nodded, “Yes, the Royal Family intends to incite a Civil War in an effort to curb the population. The bandit attacks are to get the people riled up at the Kingdom’s refusal to protect them. The riots were all coordinated by the Royal Family in order to fan up the flames of rebellion. In their plans, the Royal Family will publicly split into two groups. One will play the bad guys, and gradually make their rule more and more tyrannical, executing the citizens for even the slightest offense, and the high number of City Guards will become a terrorizing force of PeaceKeepers, turning themselves into the ‘villain’ of the story.
“The second group will then ‘escape’ from the Capital, and rally the nearby villages into an army in order to ‘liberate’ the Kingdom from tyrannical rule. By playing both sides, the Royal Family will then be able to control how many of each side end up dying, efficiently curbing their overwhelming population. During this period of war, special ‘Ration logistical corps’ will be formed on both sides, where large groups of people on both sides will be trained on how to take undeveloped plots of land and turn them into viable farms. Similarly, there will be several other small groups of people who, under the illusion that they’re learning this information for the sake of the warfront, will be learning other vital tasks.
“Then, once the total death toll reaches about one million people total, the ‘liberators’ will march on the Capital, reducing the population as much as they can in a truly massive final battle, and the ‘old tyrants’ will fall, and be publicly executed. After the war is over, the current farmland that all of the surrounding villages have will be more than enough to feed everyone, and all of the people trained in the ‘Ration logistical corps’ as well as the other groups of essential personnel, will be sent out to found even more villages, increasing the total amount of farmland, and increasing food production so that this problem won’t repeat itself for another few thousand years.”
I couldn’t believe what I was hearing. Sure, the problem sounded bad, but surely there were far better ways of solving it than straight up murdering millions of their own citizens!! This is absolutely ridiculous!! I couldn’t help but turn to X, whose face was full of outrage. I felt unbelievably sorry for him, he’s served the Kingdom loyally for his whole life, and behind his back, they were doing something so evil. I put my hand on his shoulder, stroking it with my thumb, letting him know that I was there to help. I then turned to Leo and asked, “So how do we stop them?”