“Things normally happen this quickly?” I asked the guard captain who had followed me over to the clerk and he nodded.

“It is the standard legal process. There are two other judges that can intervene at any time,” he pointed out and I saw two judges sitting in the back watching the entire courtroom. No one else was being brought in as the two corpses were carried out.

“Seems, a bit harsh?” I asked, curious what the answer would be.

“If they had apologized or could pay the fine, they wouldn’t have been executed. Judge Washington didn’t have any leeway unfortunately. The guidelines in regards to criminal punishments is very limited and very strict. Not everyone can be the Avatar and be eternally imprisoned in the center of the city,” he said.

“There is no jail, like I have to go to?” I asked and he shook his head.

“Your change,” the clerk said, and I collected it.

“Follow me, and the jail is more of a cooling off area. For people who make a mistake like you, or who are apologetic. The one thing the courts can’t do is give lasting punishments. Well, they can, but all three judges have to agree and then it gets passed up to be reviewed,” the guard captain explained as his team led my guards to another room.

“And you are going to stay with me?” I asked.

“Yes actually. I have to ask you a series of questions. Same with the people who are with you. Just to make sure there is nothing else going on,” he replied. That made sense. If I was going to be executed, there was no need to find out if I was some kind of low-level criminal. Unfortunately, I hadn’t thought of making a cover story with my men.

“That is quite clever actually. I suppose Clarissa would think of implementing something like this,” I said with a smile.

“Are you claiming you are auditors?” the guard Captain asked and came to a stop. I noted he had given a hand signal to his men who spread out and put their hands on their weapons or got ready to make hand signs. We were in a hallway in the court building.

“No, I am a higher authority. Please don’t cause a commotion. I am going to release my camouflage of my stats,” I replied.

“Go ahead,” the guard captain said calmly, but I could tell he was slightly nervous. I released my concealing technique. There were several gasps. The guard captain took a step back in surprise.

“I am Emperor Michael,” I said and there was silence. After 15 seconds it was starting to get a bit awkward. “I am more than happy to have my identity and the identity of my guards confirmed, with the Imperial Army.”

“Yes, that would be appreciated, sir, uh Emperor,” the guard captain said.

“It is fine, you and your men are not in any trouble. I wanted to check that the justice system was working properly, and it is. If you escort us to the Imperial Palace, you can confirm my identity there,” I explained, since the guard captain seemed to be drawing up a mental blank on what to do.

“Very well, please come with me,” the guard captain said, and we left the building and began making our way through the streets.

“You get audited often?” I asked.

“It happens, and stories are passed around. Normally bribes and other such things are offered,” the guard captain said.

“I was more interested in getting a feel of how the city is doing since I had time to spend. You and your team are very efficient and deescalated things very well,” I replied.

“All part of the training. It does help that we have a wide latitude in dealing with troublemakers. Most people tend not to cause an issue like that pair you saw earlier,” he replied.

“Any suggestions? Feel free to speak your mind. You have the ear of the most powerful person in Purgatory until we get to the Imperial Palace,” I replied.

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“Things are quite good. I wouldn’t say no to a pay raise, but there are no complaints. The large team sizes of 6 people help quite a bit. Most groups aren’t larger than 4. Also, the locals and high level grinders know not to start anything, otherwise we dogpile them,” he replied and I nodded at that.

“No issues with the chain of command, new recruits, time off?” I asked.

“Everyone knows their job. The training is solid. Not many new recruits though. Getting a position like ours is not easy. It isn’t often that a spot opens up, and if one does, it goes to the general recruitment pool. Jobs are posted for 5 days, before coming down and applicants interviewed. Very high demand for any kind of government job,” he explained. His men had good discipline, not speaking or interrupting us.

“No issues with stronger people?” I asked.

“They have much better self-control and don’t get drunk as easily. We have different procedures if a suspect exceeds what we can handle. Maintaining distance, and attempting to deescalate while calling in more people. But to be frank sir, no one wants to deal with you getting involved,” he said.

“I do have a reputation, I suppose,” I replied.

“If I may be a bit bold, any chance of getting back to Earth or what did this?” he asked.

“I am not one for creating false hopes. Going back to Earth is unlikely. I can say it won’t happen any time soon if it ever does. Think decades not days. As for what did this, the Almighty System,” I said.

“Ah, yes, um, sir, uh, praise the Almighty System,” the guard captain quickly said.

“It is fine. I know a lot of people aren’t into the Power Church,” I replied with a smile.

“Just was never really religious,” he said. I just nodded as we made our way to the Imperial Palace. The soldiers on duty confirmed my identity.

“Thank you, Emperor Michael, and sorry for the inconvenience,” the guard captain said.

“Not at all. My time with you was quite informative. This is for you and your men, for being professionals and taking your time to show me around,” I pulled off my pouch of spending crystals. There was another 40,000 points worth in the pouch. I tossed it to the guard captain. He caught it and I turned around and went into the palace.

I made my way back to my suite of rooms, inside and then got a shower before changing into a comfortable robe. A servant brought in snacks for me to munch on, while I picked out a book from my shelf. There wasn’t a huge literature scene in Purgatory, and normally I wouldn’t bother, but I had time to kill until it was dawn.

Picking up a chip, I dipped it in the salsa while flipping through the book. It was a thirsty romance, which immediately turned me off and I set it aside. The title had been The Emperor And The Maid, which should have clued me to what type of book it was. Picking up my chips and dip, I began to walk around my suite of rooms.

It was dreadfully boring. Needing less sleep was great when I was out in the wilderness, but in the city, it just made things tedious in order to pass the time. There was no internet, tv, or other show to watch. I also didn’t have a full-time entertainer on staff, since I wasn’t in Purgatory all that much. I was itching to fight something and move about.

After a couple of minutes of mindlessly walking about, I forced myself to go to my office with my overly large desk. There was a stack of reports for the last 100 days. I began flipping through them one by one. It was mind numbing work.

Reading about various initiatives, budgets, research, and organizational issues that Clarissa approved of. Long term copies went to my desk, before being filed away. While there was a lot, it was more due to the timeframe, not the volume of reports.

It was like an e-mail inbox that I didn’t want to deal with. I should deal with it, but not looking over things wouldn’t cause an issue. Clarissa and my personal staff knew to bring anything up to me that was actually important. Most of the internal management in regards to how I wanted my personal life to be handled was already handled.

I had enough layers of bureaucracy between me and other people. Samantha was decent at her job at handling things the way I liked them to be handled. I finished skimming the reports. At least there were executive summaries attached to them. I put them in the outbound pile, where they would be taken away and kept of a certain length of time before being disposed of.

Clarissa had a whole department dedicated to long term records and marking down high-level summaries of information. There wasn’t a need for a long term record storage, and it was a security risk. While knowledge might be lost about what had happened, in minor matters, it wasn’t a huge deal compared to just having the records as a security risk in the first place.

Anything truly important like the budget, would be saved, so it could be tracked, and there were references long term to draw on. But something like the development plan for the city, from 5 years ago, wasn’t something that was needed. Sure it might be interesting to some historian in the future, but we had history books. And the information just wasn’t important enough.

It would also create weak points, like the layout of the Imperial Palace, and design considerations, in a place that could be accessed. While unlikely anything would happen because of that, there was no need to have such records, hence the disposal.

Becoming some kind of pack rat was all too tempting, but for continued operation of the government, written reports were only useful for their immediacy and to run things by higher ups, without calling a meeting.

There was a lot of waste in writing stuff up, only to have it destroyed later, but that was how things were designed to work. Any changes to standing orders or long-term projects were kept in specific files. There was only so much efficiency one could cram into a bureaucracy.