“General.”, A pair of soldiers saluted as Avelina entered into the Council's meeting room.

She was Avelina Louisa Croy. A 'General' and one of the highest level people currently alive. One of the pioneers of this dark age and the self-styled guardian of civilization, despite the fact that she knew most, would refer to her as 'Warlord' at best and a 'Tyrant' at worst.

It saddened her to admit that they were mostly right.

Still, she never once regretted becoming one. In times like these, the people needed someone willing to make the painful and unpopular choices and force them through. The fact that there even was a city standing was proof that she had made the right choices.

t of her thoughts. One of the elected members of the council, a somewhat elderly man spoke up to her. Mister Smith, the biggest merchant in the city, “Must we start a conflict with the City of Johnson?”

“Yes.”, Her response was curt and firm, “President Johnson, as I have heard that he prefers to style himself”, A faint smile formed on her lips. She had to admit that as much of a fool this Johnson sounded was, calling himself a president and naming the town founded around him and his group after himself was an amusing joke. “Has been expanding towards our mines in the north-”

She glanced down at the large table, cut and engraved in such a way to mimic the terrain around their city. It was her little sweetheart, one of the few times that she had splurged her budget to get it made as good as she could. It was almost nice enough to let her ignore the voices of the five other elected council members who had perked up at her response.

“Miss Croy.”, Another tried, using her last name this time, “We, as the elected council, must demand that you make peace. After all, we agreed to sell the mining rights to King Johnson; Going to war over this is rather-”

“What.”, the aggravated general called out to them, “Finish that sentence. Spit it out.”

“War Hungry.”, A female voice filled in. Avelina slowly rose her head, letting her piercing blue eyes rest on the most influential member of the council. Miss Duhaime. She considered herself to be the voice of the people and always attempted to stifle Avelina’s control over any situation, “We understand that you have heavily invested into our metalwork and that the economic blow you would receive from this will be staggering, but this is for the good of the city.”

And that is what it came down to. They had sold the few Spellsteel mines that the city had been able to find for a large number of crops not because the city needed the food, but because they wanted to stifle her influence by attacking her coin purse. It was only natural, after all, she was the only one who held a position and seat on the council without having been elected in.

It was her city after all.

Months ago she had allowed the people to elect their own council after a blunder of the last one she appointed, but it seemed that had backfired. While the council was supposed to be a group of puppets they had gotten rather cocky and confident in their new positions as if they had forgotten who had allowed them to sit on it in the first place.

“My interests have nought to do with this, Councilwoman.”, she replied dryly. It was unclear how honest she was being, “We simply need the Spellsteel for our army given the activity of the other cities-”

“Who are in a frenzy after your tenfold burning.”, Another one sneered, interrupting her, “You made an enemy out of most of the cities around us with that idiotic mo-”

“Be silent.”, She barked out, interrupting the man, “The former city of Port Valens had been warned what their aid to the Red Ribbons would mean, do not blame me for acting on the threats that were made.”

“Either way!”, Duhain's voice cut through the argument in a way only a woman’s voice could, causing Avelina to lazily shift her attention to the woman, “We will not be marching to war, Miss Croy! We, as the council, have decided that we will not tolerate another one of your mad wars!”

As the woman was about to open his mouth again, Avelina’s patience finally snapped. She couldn’t believe that she had let herself be talked into this. Democracy was all fine and well when things were going well. When society was calm and peace was widespread. It didn’t work when you could barely feed and house your people and winter was knocking on your door. Then you needed someone willing to take unpopular actions.

“Fine. So be it.”, she seemingly relented. Lazily she trod over towards the largest chair in the room and let herself fall in it, letting out a deep sigh in the process, “Do know that I do not enjoy this.”

“What are you talking about, Gener-”, One of the other council members spoke up before being interrupted.

“Guards!”

Her voice rung out, causing a flash of panic to cross the faces of the council. As if they couldn’t believe what was going on even though she knew how they talked about her behind her back. Perhaps the fact that she had moles planted in their groups and businesses validated them calling her a tyrant, but she didn’t care. They might be considered good people, but she wouldn’t trust anyone who wasn’t herself further than she could throw them.

“This is outrageous, general or not. We are the elected representatives of the people-”, As she was about to fall into her rant about how she was overstepping her boundaries in her own city the guards streamed into the office. Calling them guards was honestly doing them a disservice. The 'guards' were simply soldiers part of the army who had the luck of getting an easy job that day. Keeping them as guards had been a rather obvious threat from Avelina, but it seemed that the council hadn’t expected her to actually act on it.

“Arrest the standing Council on grounds of treason.”, She declared with a wave of her hand. Strangely enough, her voice was strained, filled with exhaustion. There was no anger in her eyes, no madness. Most of the times when a tyrant spoke of ‘Not enjoying something’ they were lying, but in Avelina’s case, it seemed to hold true. In contrast to her apathy and disappointment, the guards who stepped into the office were smiling.

Broad muscles, proper armour that was even dyed, each of them looking like a proper soldier. The fact that they towered over everyone else in the room and had some of the meanest faces anyone could imagine was just a little side-effect of Avelina having rigged the guard rotation in favour of those who looked threatening. Still, the most unsettling thing was their smiles. They seemed excited about all of this, one of them was almost bending the baton that he was holding.

“You heard the General, lads.”, One of them spoke up in a gruff tone before the rest of the soldiers laughed with him. They had been looking forward to this after the Council had pushed them around so much and treated them like some servants.

For a moment Avelina felt inclined to interrupt the scene that was about to happen in front of her. Yet as she glanced at the panicked faces of the Council she steeled her heart. It was needed and they had forced her hands. The most she could do for them now was not avert her gaze and face the brutality that she had created with her own two hands.

Her men first reached one of the Councilmembers who hadn’t spoken up yet. Lok, the representatives of the farmers. He was a broad man, but despite his size prefered to shy away from conflict and combat. He was a good man as well. A lovely wife who could cook a great steak.

As the end of one of the guard’s spears slammed into his stomach, causing him to double over she realized that she most likely wouldn’t get to taste that steak again in the future. He wasn’t even resisting anymore at this point, yet another one raised his baton and slammed it against his jaw as Lok just raised his head after recovering from the smack against his stomach.

The blonde woman felt her stomach twist as heard and saw one of his teeth leave his mouth. The sickening crunch that his head made when it impacted against her war-table didn’t help her cope with it either. Still, she kept watching. It was only when two men picked him up again and she saw that the man was barely conscious and didn’t even have the strength to properly hold his head up that she raised her hand, causing a third guard to stop his blow in mid-air.

“Enough.”, Despite her inner disgust and turmoil, her eyes were akin to liquid pools of frost, “I assume that they have understood their mistakes.”

Her comment drew the laughter of her man and even she found a smile tugging at the corners of her lips. Yet the moment that she realized what she was doing, she froze up. Uncomfortable with the smile that had crept on her lips without her realizing. Uncomfortable with what it meant.

Finally, she dragged her gaze from Lok and started looking around. All across the room, a similar scene was playing out. From what it looked one of the councilmembers was barely breathing and another’s arm looked broken. The guards hard been rough with the council, partially because they and their fellow soldiers would have been the ones who would have been hurt if the Magisteel mines had actually been sold to that presidential bastard a city over and partially because Avelina didn’t have high moral standards when it came to who she recruited.

“So this is it-”, Miss Duhaine replied, a proud look on her face as she was being picked up by two guards, one of her eyes closed after having taken a baton to the face, “One action you don’t like and the knives come out.”

A hoarse laugh left the middle-aged woman’s lips, causing Avelina to pause. It was unsettling, to say the least, hearing someone who had just been clubbed over their head and stripped of their power laugh. She didn’t enjoy it. Enemies that she had defeated should be cursing her out, sobbing or begging for mercy.

This confidence unnerved her.

“I do what I must, miss Duhaime. We need that steel more than we need fair representation.”, she finally replied, her fingers clasping around the edge of her armrest as she bit her lower lip, “Without me, this place would have fallen four times over.”

“Fair.”, the woman admitted with a smile as she shook her head, “But we are civilized people, Miss Croy. We learned from our long past as humans. Look what dictators did to history, no matter their intentions.”

“So, you are saying you are defying me out of principle?”, The warlord spoke up from her chair, eyes narrowed and focused.

“Principle? No. Nothing as grand as that.”, Duhaine shook her head, “It is fear.”

“Take her away.”, the blonde swordsman replied, sounding tired as she subconsciously averted her gaze. She didn’t need to listen to the drivel of this coward who didn’t have the stomach to do what was needed.

“It isn’t as if I enjoy it.”, she once more repeated her mantra once more. To who she said it, she didn’t know anymore.

“Deny it as much as you want, but know that we aren’t alo-”, her words were cut short as rough hands gagged her and forcefully dragged her off. Avelina allowed herself to glance at the soldiers as they dragged the woman off and she found the one thing that she feared. They were laughing and smiling.

It unnerved her, but she couldn’t discipline those men.

Perhaps it was the irony of the mistakes that she had made. She had turned the army into one of the most efficient war machines on this side of the continent and she was confident in being able to crush any opposition, but she realized that by making such an army she had disregarded some important values.

These men were animals. Her animals, but animals nonetheless.

Still, she needed them. You didn’t keep people safe with politeness. She had seen a few cities and she considered herself to be a saint in comparison to them. At the very least no one was starving or, in the worst case, enslaved in the city to her knowledge. As much as she’d like the grain that came from the deal with President Johnson, she couldn’t afford to sell their metal. The fields around that city were more abundant than their own. She’d have needed to wage a war in the future, either way, to make sure that they didn’t become too strong.

This was just a convenient excuse.

After a few minutes of calming down, she decided that she might as well do some planning. With quite a bit of effort, she stood up and leaned over the table, her eyes drifting across the wooden map as she started to look for the best way to approach this entire situation and mess. After all, as much as she enjoyed laughing at the naming sense of the president, the reports she had about his army and general competency weren’t a joke.

“A drink, General?”, One of the servants called out to her as she snapped out of her focus. She slowly glanced up from the map and noticed the man offering her a glass of wine, flanked by one of her aides holding a stack of papers, Lauren.

“I felt like treating you, given that you became a pauper overnight.”, Lauren added with a smile, accepting a cup of wine himself and offering the other one to Avelina who huffed and took a large sip, enjoying the taste.

“After all, you didn’t even keep the council around for half the time you had bet on that you could hold yourself back from doing something to them.”, He shook his head and downed most of his drink in one go, “Honestly, sometimes I wonder if you don’t have too positive a mental image of your own temper.”

“Gambling is illegal in the army. I’ll be confiscating those earnings”, she replied with a smile causing the man to start bursting out in laughter, “Now, go get my staff we have a-”

It hit her out of nowhere. First, it was a wave of nausea, sending her eyes spinning. Her arms slowly began to tremble as she could feel herself bending forward. She attempted to place the cup of wine down on the table, yet missed completely, causing the piece of glasswork to tumble down the side of the table as she felt something strange in her mouth.

“Avelina?”, Lauren replied with a note of panic in his voice, standing up to support her.

Her eyes shot up towards the young man. Her mind was frozen. She hadn’t been sick since the start of the system, her body has changed into being something more. The System had done that to everyone who had grown strong enough. Perhaps she had finally crossed a line and her body was rebelling against the actions that her mind was taking. Stress.

The moment that she figured out the source of her troubles she felt better. She attempted to push herself up and steel herself. Attempted and failed. Her arms gave out under the weight of her body and the heavy cloak that was draped around her shoulders. With a painful crunch, she landed in the same spot that Lok had been shed his blood on.

“It-”, blood spluttered from her lips.

“Oh.”, She made an intelligent noise as she realized that she hadn’t been feeling bad due to the stress. Poison. Yeah. That made more sense. In the background, she could hear Lauren shouting, but she couldn’t hear what he was saying, no matter how much she tried to pay attention to his words.

And everything went white.