Chapter 72

“You finally showed up,” Sunshine grumbled as I joined the group.

There was Artina, Akos, Mutex and also the winner of the Baronies. It was the first time I was seeing her in the group; normally, I almost always saw her only with Artina. Maybe Artina had being right in saying that she was shy.

“His answer was non-committal. I told you he wouldn’t come,” Artina said.

That surprised me. I hadn’t promised to join them? What exactly had I said then? Does that mean all that rush was for nothing? I could have avoided meeting, colliding, with Monty altogether if I hadn’t been in a rush?

I cursed myself for forgetting that as I threw the group a shy smile; I might not have promised but I still was embarrassed that I hadn’t managed to join them.

“You missed a very fine show, my friend,” Sunshine said joyfully, already forgetting the perceived slight I had committed. She must have enjoyed herself if she was in a such a high mood. “There was carnage, so much carnage.”

Of course there was.

“They were just uncoordinated,” Akos interjected. “They were all over the place, without a clear strategy in play.”

“Like I said, carnage,” Sunshine countered. “There’s no need for strategy in such a fight.”

“Group competition is meant to show how a group works together to subdue their opponents,” Mutex said.

But Sunshine was having none of it, “It doesn’t matter how they fight, what matters is who comes out victorious.”

After saying that, she threw me a look as if asking for support from me. And I just shrugged. It was true that I agreed with her whole heartedly, but I had just come from another debate and I wasn’t in the mood to join a new one. Even if it was about a topic I didn’t have issues talking about.

Her look quickly changed to one of betrayal, and I could have sworn I saw tears welling up in eyes as she looked away. Seriously!?

“See, even your comrade doesn’t agree with you on this,” Akos said, laughing as he said that.

“Where were you anyway?” Artina asked me.

Sunshine answered for me, her tone making it clear that she wasn’t pleased one bit, “The library.”

“I lost track of time,” I tried to argue, but even I knew that argument was weak. I could have easily asked Clare to alert me when the time for the group fight came. Why didn’t I ask Clare to do that?

“Of course you did.”

And it felt like she had stolen something from me with that statement, I just couldn’t figure out what.

She soon forgot all about the betrayal as she began recounting to me, in vivid detail and sometimes even play enacting the moves she had seen, on how the fight ran its course. We were soon interrupted when the group came to a stop in a gathering of people by one of the shops. From where I was, I couldn’t pick up on what was being discussed. Try as I might, I could only hear the hubbub of the conversation but not the details. I made to walk away, but I realized the rest of the group had somehow intermingled with the gathering and I was the only one left on the peripherals. I decided to wait them out.

Looking at the shop, it didn’t stand out from the rest of the others in the street and from where I was, I couldn’t get a look inside. I decided to look for its banner instead, Branton’s ViewRoom it said. Maybe it was time I got a look at one of the view screens, as they called them. Before I could even finish that thought, the group collectively emerged from the gathering.

How did they even synchronize that?

I choked it up to happenstance as we resumed our walk towards… wait, where are we heading? The street we currently were on wasn’t that familiar to me, and sadly, Choska didn’t have high-rise buildings that I could use for navigation.

“What was that all about?” I asked instead, and they all stared at me. “What? You guys left me on the outside. I didn’t hear anything.”

Artina shook her head as she said, “The king of Mbandaland was killed while on a hunting expedition.”

“By the prey? What kind of prey were they hunting?”

“No idiot,” Sunshine said as she bopped me on the side of my head. “By assassins.”

“Oh…” What if they had been hunting the assassins, then my question would have on point.

“Yeah. Elections to choose the new king will be held in two months-time.”

Elections, king. I didn’t think those two went hand in hand. Given, my political knowledge was lacking as I had tried my best not to get involved in politics in my previous life. So, maybe kings could be elected.

“Are they our neighbor?”

For the second time, they all stared at me like I had asked one of the most stupid questions one could ever ask.

It was Mutex who came to my aid. “No, it’s in a whole different continent.”

“Didn’t they choose their king just last year?” Akos asked.

“Yeah. That whole continent is obsessed with elections. How long will the new king last? If they keep killing their kings, will anyone even want to be their king anymore?”

This tale has been unlawfully lifted from Royal Road; report any instances of this story if found elsewhere.

“They should just become a full-on republic. Maybe then they will be able to keep their head of states alive for a while longer.”

I didn’t like where the conversation was heading to; at the same time, I was eager to hear what they had to say. It was a rare chance to learn a lot about the political environment in Mesily without actually participating, after all, there was enough people to keep the conversation going without me being involved. I liked that a lot.

“How is them going full republic going to solve the issue? No one knows why the king was killed, or the one before him. They never caught the culprits,” Artina said.

That seemed to somehow irk Akos. “I said maybe, didn’t I? Besides, their current form of governance isn’t any different from a true monarchy. They might have made the king an elected person, but still, the eligible persons are the same old nobles that ruled before. Nothing much has changed.”

“I heard that even non-nobles can be elected, as long as they have the necessary qualifications,” Mutex added.

“And what qualifications are those? Education, military service, land ownership… As far as I know, only nobles can qualify. It will take decades before a commoner will have attained enough qualifications to be considered for election.”

As the argument dragged on, it seemed like Akos was getting more and more riled up. I hadn’t known he felt that strongly towards republics. I thought that he and Monty might get along pretty well.

“Those qualifications are there for a reason,” Mutex said. “You can’t have someone who doesn’t know how to run a kingdom as the king. That would just be a recipe for disaster.”

“What about the qualifications for those who can vote? Are you going to say those are necessary too?”

Artina piped out at that, “Of course! You can’t have everyone voting. There is a lot of people who don’t understand what makes one qualified to run a kingdom.”

Mutex eagerly nodded at that, quickly adding, “Someone could talk big and the idiots would flock in numbers and vote for them without even knowing whether all that talk would be good for the kingdom or not. A certain level of literacy is necessary for these things.”

“The idea of a republic is to let people have a say in who rules them. All these qualifications limit the number of candidates and voters that can be. By the end of it all, it becomes no better than a monarchy.”

“Isn’t the whole point of going republic the pursuit of a better system of governance? I think if they are going to change something, they should go for something that is better.”

“Everyone should have a say in the issues that affect them, this way, a solution which suits the majority would be adopted, a solution which would likely be the most ideal considering the majority voted for it. These limits are akin to discrimination against the illiterate. Just because they didn’t go to school doesn’t mean they don’t have an idea of what’s best for them.”

“Think about it, would you want an unskilled healer treating you? Or do you go for the best?”

“I go for the one that I can afford.”

“You know what I mean.”

“But it still doesn’t explain the limitations on voters. Those for the king candidates I can somehow understand, but not for the voters.”

…

I could no longer follow what they were talking about. I turned to Sunshine on my side, who had somehow stayed out of the discussion, and asked, “How many forms of governance are there?”

“How many do you know of?” she asked instead.

I thought about it for a while. I knew a few forms from old earth, and if anyone had asked me before I left the library, I would have said only monarchies existed in the Realm of Mesily. But I had learnt a lot from the few minutes ever since we happened upon the gathering. Or had it become more than an hour? I decided to go with the safest option I could think of, hoping it wouldn’t backfire on me like before.

“Well, I know we are in a kingdom that’s run by a king, whose son will inherit after he dies,” I answered cautiously, after all, I wasn’t sure if that was really true. “Other than that, nothing.”

She stared at me with those big eyes of hers. Were they a tiny bit bigger? I couldn’t be sure unless I took a ruler to them.

“It’s like you have been living in a hole your whole life and suddenly, poof, you popped out,” she said, her hands mimicking a small explosion.

I just smiled awkwardly at her; saying anything might end up with me lying. It was hard to keep track of lies, and with my tendency to forget things, it would be even harder. Way harder.

“You are not exactly right. It’s a daughter that will inherit the throne,” she began, before getting this contemplative look, then smiled maniacally. “Unless she dies before the king, and without any heirs, then it will be a son.”

“I don’t understand,” I said, pushing away the thought that Sunshine might harbor murderous intent for the crown princess.

“In this kingdom, Thyatol, the first born child inherits the throne. Others go with the first born son; best son; best child. I don’t even know how they determine those. And there are some where the king, or queen, picks their favored child.”

“Favored child!?” I could already see the kind of disaster that kind of inheritance would bring forth. And Sunshine proved me right.

“Yes, and there’s often a lot of killing involved. That’s for the inherited monarchies. There are the elected monarchies which are divided into two: a noble class from which other nobles elect the one to lead them, or a noble class from which all the citizens vote on who to lead them. Then there are the republics. I don’t know much about those ones; they are usually found in the Undoni continent. That’s where Mbandaland is.”

“What about the empires?”

“Same as for kingdoms,” she said, then quickly added. “No, no. All empires are inherited, while some kingdoms have elected monarchies.”

“So there are no elected emperors or empresses?”

“Not that I know of. Around three centuries ago there was a kingdom that turned to elected monarchy, they became powerful and tried to overthrow their overruling emperor and failed miserably. The kingdom itself became lawless and any attempts to bring law and order, even from the empire, failed. Till to this day, it still exists. It’s called the Lawless Lands. What an apt name,” she laughed as she finished her statement.

“Is it part of this empire?”

“No, our neighbor. I plan on going there if I get knocked out of the Grand Competition early,” she said.

“Why?”

“To train. It’s got some of the highest Levelled individuals in the continent. At least that’s what the rumors say.”

“Don’t they participate in the competition?”

“I did say it was lawless, right? It’s even in its name.”

Just how lawless was it that they couldn’t even hold competitions. The Grand Competition was all about beating each up, I would have thought that that would be more to their liking, with all their lawlessness. Or what kind of lawless was it?

“Besides, to meet anyone from there, you would have to qualify for the Continentals. By then, the only competitors left are usually high leveled.”

“How high levelled?”

“Above Level 60. The second bottleneck.”

I had not heard about there being a second bottleneck. Did that mean there could be a third, fourth, maybe even higher? I was already experiencing the Level 40 bottleneck. I couldn’t figure out what the problem was; I had been gaining Attribute levels steadily, then all over sudden, nada.

“Hartie, in here,” I heard someone call out.

“What?” I asked as I looked around.

I was still in an unfamiliar street, and currently alone. It took me a few seconds of rampantly looking around to find where the others had holed up in.

While I was busy thinking about bottlenecks and wandering in the streets aimlessly, the others had gone into what I could only consider to be a dingy hotel. Because it was clearly dingy. There were flies, well, flying around and was that…?

Yap, dark smelly sewage water running by the hotel. I was sure it was waste water from cooking and washing utensils and what not. It had to be. How did this place exist? And while we were at it, why did they come here? We were allocated perfectly good healthy sanitary food at the Competitor’s Inn, there was no need at all to come to a place like this. Even in my previous life, I never ever ever, ate in a place like this. And I was poor then.

I looked at them, then perused the so called hotel again, and back at them. None of them seemed to understand that there was a problem, a very big one at that. I looked at the street, left and right, up and down, and came to a sad conclusion; there was no way I was going to be able to go back on my own.

I cursed them all as I braced myself and took the first step into hell.