“You know he is lying,” Michelle said as we lifted up from the Holy Kingdom of God.

“That is obvious. That Blessed Pope is more concerning that a box of snakes. But it still doesn’t make a difference,” I replied.

“It is about how much the other person offends you,” she said with a heavy sigh.

“You are absolutely correct. Queen Greystone, had her head up her ass. Blessed Pope Emeritus actually thought things threw and was polite. He could be another Divine Empress and I wouldn’t care,” I casually replied. I wasn’t going around to the various factions to purge them of evil and take over. I was fathering information at best, poking them at worst.

If there was anything out there that could cause me trouble, then it would make itself known fairly quickly. But so far nothing. It was also amusing to assign all the people sent along as emissaries to the same room. By the time word got back about what I had done to the Queen the Holy Kingdom would have found out through other methods.

I glanced out the bridge window as we kept heading West. It would take a while before we returned to any of the kingdoms or dropped the embassies off. I planned to spend at least several deeks flying and checking out higher level zones, without going back to New Kochi.

That was when I realized there was an issue. “Captain Francis, spin us about and prepare rapid transit to New Kochi,” I said with closed eyes.

“Yes, Emperor, bring us about, ascend at ten degrees, and increase acceleration. Sound travel alarm throughout the ship,” Captain Francis issued orders. Some of the people sent along didn’t have stats. They wouldn’t survive a high energy zone, even inside the airship. Michelle gave me a questioning look.

“Our passengers. They wouldn’t survive a high energy zone. So as much as it annoys me, we will be polite and drop them off first. Make sure New Kochi is fine, and then start exploring the zones South of the new city,” I explained.

“I didn’t remember,” Michelle muttered.

“It isn’t something we normally worry about. Even the soldiers and other people we transported all had high enough base level stats. When they start exploding then we would know something is wrong, and while I may not mind killing people, these emissaries are nominally under my protection until we drop them off,” I said. Their death would reflect poorly on me.

I might be an unrepentant mass murderer, but I wasn’t a casual murderer. I wanted the people I killed to be on purpose in some way. Not because I made a mistake about their strength. That would be incredibly embarrassing.

“It was my fault. I should have been aware,” Captain Francis said. It was nice of him to try and take responsibility, but it ultimately fell into my lap.

“It is my fault. But please come up with a check or something if we take on passengers in the future. While it doesn’t take many stats to survive in a high level zone, it does take some. As the airship pushes to even higher level zones, we need to be sure of the danger,” I replied.

“There is about 4 to 5 levels of survivability and 4 to 3 levels of comfort. If we want to one day push into level 7 zones with the airship, then we will need everyone to have stats equal to around level 4,” Michelle added.

“And level 10 would imply they would need to be as strong as me currently,” I muttered.

“Or stronger. Maybe. That is something you would have to speak to Doctor Katz about. The ambient energy levels are something he has been looking at and taking readings for,” Michelle said.

“It depends if it is linear like the ambient energy, or exponential like the monsters, and the overlap, in terms of survivability,” I said while thinking over the issue.

“My guess it is linear for survivability, or it might even be less. I pay attention quite a bit to this issue with my summons. If people can reach level 6 combat, they shouldn’t have anything to worry about from the level of the environment, unless it is really bad. The real issue would be monster difficulty and other factors like intelligence at the higher levels,” Michelle said.

A case of theft: this story is not rightfully on Amazon; if you spot it, report the violation.

“Fair. No more passengers in the future. We are going to lose a couple of days over this,” I replied, slightly annoyed at the oversight. I glanced to one side of the airship. At least we now had a second airboat. The Blessed Pope really knew how to wrangle me by giving me one on credit. The entire nation probably had human suffering hidden in the walls and the buildings, with how orderly it appeared, but I was no hero to right every wrong.

Having an evil empire of some kind would only make me look better by comparison. Was I giving too much credit to the opinions of the masses? It was an issue I was thinking about as we increased speed on our flight back. Flying monsters would be a headache, but it would let me fight a bit and test the airship. I knew that Captain Francis wanted to make sure the layers were still the same for a larger airship.

As for caring about other people’s opinions, I was still incredibly high up in every poll Clarissa had arranged. Even my casual walkabouts, showed that people had a very high degree of respect for me. Something any politician would die for. Normally only earned by actual dictators manipulating the outcome. But these were actual opinion polls that had a proper methodology that Clarissa had done.

It was still the right path to help nip problems in the bud before they began. The Divine Empress was incredibly unpopular and her Empire could not handle any sort of stress, once a serious threat began to pressure her control. While there were other factors, like her being absent, it didn’t help that everyone ditched her the moment they thought she was no longer around.

I didn’t want everything to crumble with my absence and Clarissa was doing well enough. There was no need to check on the nations after this. If they attacked, there would be only three vectors of attack. Across the Rift splitting the Systemic Lands, which was being watched constantly and would need an air boat to even think about making the trip.

Then they could attack me, which was both hilarious and impossible. It was just another word for suicide, except for the sword. But that wasn’t an immediate concern. Finally, there was causing trouble in New Kochi. But that would be incredibly hard to pull off and the purpose of the city in the first place. None of the other nations, even if they all worked togeather could get more points than the current taxes supporting me.

There was almost nothing and no one left. It was disappointing in a way. I had high hopes that at least one of the four nations I had trampled over in the Southwest area of the Systemic Lands would have had something more interesting. But it seemed they had just been locked in infighting and hadn’t been able to get enough of an advantage over their neighbors to win.

The mentalities were wrong in my opinion. They weren’t willing to commit everything to winning. They were too cautious. Stuck in the same modes of thought. There would be no Ritualist, or a surprising character from their nations as far as I could tell. Even the new King of Graystone, who would probably be killed in the near future, had sucked up his resentment to bow his head.

That made my thoughts drift to the Divine Empress’s child, who was out there filled with resentment. Even if he got a meta-point, it would not be enough to seriously threaten me. The difference in stats was too immense and there was no way to catch up. He would need two meta-points to even think about fighting on an even footing with me.

It was a victory. That point in strategy games, where all you had left was the clean-up. No enemy force could put forward enough troops to threaten you, but if you wanted to have victory over everything you had to spend another 100 turns slowly clearing out every nook and cranny. That was how I felt right now. I hadn’t forgotten about the stat levels of some of the emissaries due to the fact they weren’t important in the slightest.

Their existence, was absolutely inconsequential and had no bearing on my victory. “It is the end of an era,” I said out loud but softly.

“What was that?” Michelle asked.

“It is the end of the era of nations, and the start of the era of exploration. Just coming to terms, there are no more nations left within easy access. Unless there is a weird land bridge to another city that is hidden away in some corner. I doubt it, but it is possible. Even then, they would be no threat.”

“You were hoping for someone or something interesting?” Michelle asked, getting to the heart of the matter.

“For Alexander wept, for he had no nations left to conquer. There was a small part of me, that was hoping for more cities, more challenges I would have to crush. I guess I have become a blockhead,” I said.

“I feel the same way,” Captain Francis spoke up. “Like we have circled the globe, now there are only the poles and dangerous areas left to explore. The Systemic Lands, feels smaller, now that there are no more nations to look at. But we might get surprised,” he said.

“Perhaps. Some island city in the middle of the void, or more cities beyond the land here. But with how it looks like all towers are around the Systemic Lands, I doubt there are more nations out there. I could be wrong. Each Systemic Land on their own, the vote is to combine with another maybe. At least that would sort out the population, when it seems like there will be millennia left,” I explained.

I felt strangely disappointed. I had been expecting some kind of boss or something. Some final challenge hidden away in the last city. I suppose that wasn’t to be the case.