A few days of eating square burgers later and I had calmed down immensely from my mental collapse on my first day in Ethia. Needless to say, I still wasn’t completely fine, but that was more due to the fact that I had tried to numb myself of any and all emotions.
I rationalized that the less I felt, the less pain would come with trying to maintain some semblance of mental normalcy. But besides that, the System had answered many of my questions since I became connected to it only a few days ago. I found out that the AI, collectively known as Judgement, had been created by scientists in Ethia in the midst of a world war between the six main continents. Their seventh, Poliar, like Earth’s Antarctica, was mostly uninhabited and therefore did not have any military might present. The other six continents were unlike Earth’s in that they were all collectively ruled by either an emperor or a king.
Instead of Europe, there was the Kingdom of Liones. In Asia’s place, the Luong Empire. For South Africa, the Empire of the Sun. South America housed the Primal Kingdom. Lastly, Australia became the Kingdom of Rain.
It seems that the Kingdom of Rain had ordered the assassination of a prince of the Primal Kingdom for snubbing an arranged marriage, and seeing as the attempt on the prince’s life was successful, they went to war. And dragged every other major power with them.
After Judgement had been activated and remotely took control of several nuclear weapons systems, it had threatened each country with mutually assured destruction unless they agreed to a peace treaty it set forth.
Thus, the life of living under the thumb of a sentient supercomputer started. I felt a tiny spark come from the chip on my temple and I clicked my teeth. Judgement apparently had some way of knowing when someone was thinking negatively about it, and used a small stimulus in order to change the owner’s thoughts to more positive ones.
For all it was, I found the AI to be pretty comfortable living under. That being said, I had only been in Ethia for a handful of days, but it was more than enough time to formulate an opinion of my own.
Bruce had been relatively helpful in my mental recovery, giving me someone to talk to on a consistent basis. I wasn’t sure if he was that nice or just trying to curry favor so I would choose the militaristic path, but it was helpful to me nonetheless.
And then there was Priya. Who I still couldn’t quite get a grasp on despite her being someone I interacted with every day. She was my caretaker, or at least, that’s what she called herself anyway.
She had toned down a bit on the seductive wear after our initial meeting, but not by much. To be honest, it kind of confused me, but then again I wasn’t going to try and discourage someone from wearing what they wanted to.
Through our talks, I learned that the princess was trying to lobby her father to release me, but without much success. She was quite upset that I had been in a cell, and not in a guest room since I never technically committed a crime willingly, but the king was having none of it. It seemed that the princess had something to gain from my release, so I made a mental note to take her actions with a bit of skepticism in the future.
Priya always shook her head at these discussions, noting that the princess was constantly doing things to spite her father, even while pleading in my case. While the thought of her support, feigned or otherwise, was a lot less reassuring after that revelation, I decided to let those thoughts be idle and not dwell too much on them.
She informed me that the princess didn't believe I was an evil person, and would stand by me when I stood trial against the king, with the jury consisting of the royal family. Whatever reassurance the glorified maid was supposed to give me, I had no idea, but I thought it was a nice gesture nonetheless.
I thought it was quite nice that people in royal jails had caretakers, although I suppose that if you flipped the coin, my caretaker could technically be called an interrogator. One who questioned me everyday about my life before I became a Fallen, and even offered to spoon feed me my soup on the second day of my incarceration. I wonder if I really looked that pathetic, to have given her enough reason for that.
I had given thought to my alleged, “psionic abilities,” but in the end I didn’t even know where to begin or how to activate it. It was more of a subconscious thing, but in the end achieved about the same. Which was to say: a steaming pile of nothing. Other than the nifty translation ability, but even that was made moot by the newly installed chip on my left temple.
Amidst my pondering, a knock came on my door, and without warning it slammed open, revealing two bodyguards and Bruce.
“Hey lad.” Bruce smiled at me. “Feeling any better today?” Bruce had visited me every day since I had been thrown into this cell, and besides Priya was my only source of conversation. Apparently on the day after my breakdown, he found me crying before I woke up, and his constant questioning after that was why I vowed to wake up earlier.
“It’s just the usual, Bruce.” I glanced at the two armed men out of the corners of my eyes and exhaled.
“I’m guessing that the fact you have two guns pointed at me is supposed to be a good thing?” Bruce looked to his left, and then his right before slapping the right guard upside the head.
“What was that for Captain Bruce!?” The right guard looked indignant but Bruce just gave him another slap.
“Who told you to point your weapons at him you smooth brain!? That’ll have the opposite effect that I want!” To the furious Bruce and the stupefied guard, I could only laugh. I tried to contain it at first, but it soon got away from me, and soon I had hidden my face from their view.
Not only to stifle my own laughter, but to hide the tears that had started to flow as well. I knew it. As soon as the thought of being happy comes into my head, I remember what my happiness used to be. I wiped my face on my shirt and looked up at the trio who were staring at me incredulously.
“Lad, I don’t know if anyone else would be laughing in your situation, but I think you might need a few more days before you come out of the cell."
I shook my head. Less time left to my own, self-destructive thoughts is what I need, actually. “I’m ready to leave. So Bruce, where do I go from here?”
---
“Beautiful, aren’t they? The royalty from the Metron family are all real lookers.” As Bruce guided me through the futuristic corridors, I glanced up to the varied portraits on the walls. They were all encased in a variety of neon light piping, which allowed the natural light coming in through the windows to illuminate the paintings. The walls themselves seemed as if they were made from metal blocks, and a brick-like pattern stretched from one end of the hallway to another.
You could be reading stolen content. Head to the original site for the genuine story.
“Is that a result of their lineage or plastic surgery?” I muttered, but Bruce just smiled at me. “It’s actually genetic surgery. Royalty tends to alter their fertilized eggs to suit their needs, and keep the babies looking like perfection itself. It doesn’t help that if you’re a world leader you get the surgery for free, but I digress.”
Both of the accompanying soldiers flanking my sides glanced at each other with distressed looks on their faces. “Captain, is it alright to be talking about royal business so openly like that?” The one on my left stated.
“Yeah, speaking of royal affairs to outsiders is strictly forbidden by the king.” The second one added. Bruce just looked back at the two, a look of irritation permeating his face. Instead of speaking, however, he just turned and walked hurriedly down the hall, eventually stopping at two large doors. Each door was gunmetal grey and had two halves of golden gears on them, so when both doors were closed as it currently was, it made a complete gear.
Bruce turned to give the soldiers another annoyed look before saying, “You know we’re on a tight schedule, right? We’re supposed to be inside in 30 seconds." Both guards' eyes widened, and they practically picked me up before running down the hall with me.
The left one muttered in between pants of exhaustion, “Fuck you Devin! This always happens when you speak to the Captain!”
While Devin fired back, “Can it Craig! We’re only in this position in the first place because you fucked up our mission last month!”
Both hauled me to the door in record pace, and then put down a more stupefied version of myself than they had picked up in the first place. Looking very satisfied with how his subordinates were gasping for breath, Bruce opened the doors to the throne room, revealing two long lines of nobles that lined a long, ornate blue carpet.
Most of them looked at me and were either disinterested, or had extreme interest, and to be honest it was the former that scared me more. ‘Those who feigned disinterest were good at playing politics.’ I remembered my mother’s advice from when I was convinced that I wanted to be the president of the United States.
The throne room itself was impressive, with a ceiling that towered over the people here like one in a chapel. The walls themselves were in the same make as the hallway we had just come from, only various weapons and armor adorned the walls. The throne itself followed the gear motif, and was littered with the things, including the headrest being in the shape of one. The man who sat there wasn’t exactly old, but he wasn’t young either. A silver crown with two smaller spikes on the side, and one larger spike in front sat on his head. His black beard had a bit of a ‘salt and pepper’ vibe going on, and had he any hair on his head I could only imagine it to follow the same pattern. He wore a dark blue robe with gold cuffs and a silver trim. A slim woman was standing next to him, and although her stature was short, she had a regal air about her. Her crown was even larger than the king's, although whether that was just in proportion to her head or not had yet to be determined. Her own violet robe was opened, revealing dark pants and a black blouse underneath.
“Kneel before your king!” The woman shouted, and the people adorning the blue runway carpet knelt, followed by Bruce and the two guards. Only I remained standing, with a perplexed King facing me.
“You dare-!” He got out before the woman walked over and rubbed his shoulder.
“Now, now, honey. He’s a Fallen. You should know better than to expect him to understand our society’s customs and traditions. Please walk forward young man.” The queen's words caused Bruce to sharply inhale, but I did as I was asked and walked up to the steps of the throne. The woman held her left hand up in front of her in a clenched fist, and then extended all five fingers. A board made of light appeared in front of her hand, and she waved her hand to the left before smiling at me.
“I’ve erected a sound barrier for us. Isn’t present day technology great? We use the latest Shizuka brand home products for the castle!” I was admittedly caught off guard by the sudden change in topics, as well as the woman’s overbearing friendliness.
Seeing the despondent look on my face, she muttered a small, “Oh,” in realization. “How rude of me, where are my manners.” She curtseyed to me, and smiled. “My name is Cindy Metron. Queen of the Metron Kingdom and wife to this grumpy man right here.” She leaned on her husband, who kept the scowl on his face from earlier.
Why is he still holding a grudge over me Falling into his daughter’s room? He might just be an ass by nature. Keeping my thoughts to myself, I took a step to the left so I was facing the queen, and knelt to her. “It is a pleasure to meet you Queen Metron. Please receive and express my heartfelt apologies to your husband for Falling into your daughter’s room. It was something I had little to no control over, but I’m sorry to see that your husband viewed it differently.”
The queen giggled while her husband continued stewing. “I am upset because you act like you’ve done nothing wrong, and that you’re a victim in all of this. Since your arrival, my daughter has been even more rebellious than before! Not to mention not even trying to respect our customs and refusing to kneel before the king of the domain in which you now reside. You have no excuses!”
As if your asinine relationship with your daughter is any of my fault. She probably couldn’t stand the fact that her father is such a prick. I could feel a seed of hatred begin to take root in my heart, but I played it cool on the surface. Once again, I addressed the queen, and ignored her male counterpart.
“Queen Metron, please relay my message to the king for me. I am going to be honest with you both. Right now I am a very scared man in an unfamiliar place, and at such a time I can only follow my instincts. Most of them are telling me to preserve myself, but the others are tugging at my mind and hinting that this world might not be real at all.” Both the queen and her husband gave me curious looks, so I elaborated.
“The thought occurred to me while I was in the jail cell…” I gave the king a look, and he averted his gaze, “that in my own world I could have suffered a stroke, seizure, or any number of medical emergencies that could have put me into a coma, and this could be my brain’s way of rationalizing all of that.” The queen cocked her head in thought while the king’s anger melted into confusion, then once more hardened into anger.
“So the reason you’ve decided not to follow any regulations or show the least bit of respect is because our world has the slim possibility of being fake?” I nodded in assent and the king scoffed.
“Such buffoonery. By your logic, your homeworld could have been fake as well. Why did you obey the rules there?” I hope I expressed in my eyes how dumb his question was before I decided to respond.
“Because my world was normal. My world didn’t have any crazy seven nations shit with fucking Shizuka tech that can erect personal sound barriers at will. There are no knights, no crazy latex caretakers for jail cells, and no royalty presuming to know how you operate before you even did anything.”
The king had the gall to laugh at my outburst, and waved to his wife. He waited until she was at his side to start. “I can’t believe you even have that attitude. Don’t you know that ‘normal’ is just a term used to denote the most frequent occurrences in life? Of course Ethia’s ‘normal’ is different from your own.” He whispered something to his wife, and she took out the hologram control pad once more.
“Hear me and rise, my subjects!” The barrier must have been dispersed as the surrounding people started to stir, eager to obey their king’s orders. The king stood, and held out his arms. “I was going to offer you a choice of placement, begrudgingly, be it a Paladin, a Knight, or a Bounty Hunter. But more than that, I don’t think I want you to serve the royalty directly with an attitude like that. By the name of Roger Metron III, I hereby declare this Fallen-”
“Stop!” A shrill cry came from behind the king’s chair and Priya walked in, and stood next to the queen.
“Who are you?” The king asked Priya, and she looked down at her own appearance.
“Ah, oops. Sorry dad, I forgot to disable the Kamo box before I came down. She tapped her watch, and in a ring of shimmering white light, her true form started to show itself.
The light started at her feet and moved upwards, revealing shapely midnight black legs in white shorts. Her midriff was exposed, and caramel skin peeked out from her corset, which also rose up farther, showing off her ample chest and exposed cleavage. Her face was revealed last, showing the same color skin as her torso, with purple irises, a sloped nose, and full lips, covered in dark blue lipstick.
“In the name of Princess Reya Metron, I would like this man to become my retainer!”