Freedom is a challenging thing to try and protect, as the act of protecting it is itself an act of the powerful to restrict the actions of those weaker. To overstep, would be to crush the very thing that I want for myself and my people.

Protecting the freedom of my people is much like holding a small delicate bird that wants to escape, all without crushing it to death.

As an example, I don’t want my people murdering each other, that means I have to strip away the ‘freedom to murder’ so to speak. There are many other ‘freedoms’ that I have no qualms about stripping, but I need to be careful with every step that I take, not to crush the unique culture and values of those who live under my power.

There are always compromises that must be made, limits that must be found, and some things that I despise must be allowed. If I limit, control, or destroy everything that doesn’t simply bow to me, I will create a world that I would myself despise. I need my people to respect my position, and my power, but that doesn’t mean that I want them to bow to me and change everything about themselves just to survive my wrath.

I must find a compromise with myself, and with those who I hold power over. This is something that I’m still figuring out.

The kids taken by the gang, as I’m calling them, aren’t quite as hurt as I’d worried at first. There are a few bruises and cuts that discolour their pallid expressions, but they’ve enough energy to groan and moan as they follow along.

Rather it’s the gang members themselves who are the most on edge. They know that they’re too weak to handle us, and while I’m sure that they’re hoping that their boss can deal with us, the sweat dripping off of them suggests that they understand how foolish that hope is.

So then, the question is what are we doing here?

We aren’t law enforcement, I’m acting guided by my own will and desire, and I’m intending on listening to Adler’s thoughts on the unfolding situation too.

Should I crush their gang, and recruit the survivors? Reinforce my position in the ruins, and use them to hunt for resources? Act like the police, or the welfare officers and simply keep them behaving as my own morals and values demand?

This entire thing is clearly just a short side quest from my current struggle with the Grand Council, and my studies on the surface. I know that I have a longer form of excursion coming up with my combat class. I only vaguely recall it, but Nel has been scheduling around it, and I’ll need to do something to ensure that nothing too egregious occurs in my absence.

Perhaps with reinforcement of my throne and the spell casting I can use through it, as well as other tools of its kind I can defend my cavern even while a universe away. I know there are mental Skills and adaptions that I need to consider, alongside the computer chip plan, that I have to extend my perception of reality allowing for more effective and accurate spell casting in such situations.

“Are you going to save us?” The reptilian girl asks, walking close to me to hide from the gang members who captured her.

“Perhaps.” I reply, not eager to overpromise when I don’t know the full situation. Still, I’m quite sure this little quest will be finished shortly.

The reason this little distraction is even worth my attention isn’t because of either the gang or the victims, but my response. There are two things that are heavy on my mind.

How do I treat smaller factions within my empire? These tribes that have a stable society that I’d rather let continue doing their own thing, up to things like the monarchies and republics that I want to eventually enfold into my empire. How much do I want to alter their systems, and how much do I want to let them continue as they are?

Secondly, is the Sedena problem. What do I want to do with murderous psychopaths that I can’t control or ‘fix’ with the soft touch therapy that I can accept?

“What do you want with us?” The largest of the group says, he’s a man covered in so much metal that I can’t see the skin underneath, but there is some fur squeezing out of the gaps between the metal plates.

The stench coming from him, is much like that of a dog, but I won’t complain. Without cleansing magic or enchantments, it only makes sense that people don’t have the same level of cleanliness as myself.

“Depends on what you get up to.” I say. “I’m not all that big on taking direct control over things, but if your group is behaving in a way that I find unacceptable, then I might just have to step in and reorganise things a little.”

“With or without killing people?” Adler asks.

“Depends on how messed up these people are.”

“Oh, if there’s killing, can I do it?” Sedena asks, “I’ve been a good girl, and I mean if they’re going to die anyway…”

“I’ll take it into consideration.” I reply with a long sigh.

This is just one situation, just one more problem to deal with. A distraction from the real problems in my life right now, but an example of the issues that will weigh heavy on my shoulders when I grow more powerful and start taking over more kingdoms and nations.

I need to decide what to do with people like Sedena. People who are truly, irredeemably beastly in a way that even I can’t deny. She takes pleasure from the act of causing others pain and suffering, and she has no want to change.

Considering her as a problem, the idea of manipulating her, changing her, or ‘fixing’ her becomes ever so tempting… but I can’t. Seeing just where that thinking goes, with the collars and the mistreatment of people that I observed from the Unified States, I don’t want to follow in that path.

I would have simply killed her if it was an option, but it’s not.

So, what will I do when it is a problem I can solve that easily? Will I simply kill anyone like her? What about kleptomaniacs? Is there something I can do to allow them life in my civilisation without causing others pain and suffering?

The best solution I can think of is throwing her into something like the matrix where she can live out her fantasies without causing others pain, but that’s not something I can employ until I’ve developed technology to a whole new level.

Walking into the entrance section of the gang’s hideout, I’m confronted with the other half of this problem.

There are a few people standing guard over the door towards the territory of what I’m currently calling a gang.

“Stop right there!” The first shouts at the sight of us, but I don’t even give him a moment. I lift him up and set him aside, his light mana form is so pitifully weak that he’s practically like a child. Their struggles and the mana friction prove their weakness and thankfully they’re smart enough to keep from starting a fight that they cannot win.

Brushing my hands, I step through the door while the terrified guards back away from me. Eshya and Vii seem to find the situation amusing, laughing between themselves, and even Adler has a small chuckle.

Inside the hideout is rather nice for what it is, the room is tall and wide, with a ceiling at least five metres tall painted over in a rather unusual mural with bleeding animals caught and dying in the grasping vines of some overwhelming plant. The walls are covered in coloured cloth strips with some sort of circular design drawn in the centre of each. Much nicer than I was expecting.

People wonder about, each with a differing sort of nature, from stones, to plants, to flesh and bone, then some which blend between, musclebound stone, and vines wrapping around skeletal forms. Each of them turn towards me, some reaching for weapons.

“Is your leader here?” I ask, “I never actually asked, but you have a leader, yes? If there is some sort of council here too, then I swear I’m going to have a fit. One person is easier to handle than ten.”

“You would be after me, then.” The leader is the strangest of the lot, rejecting the beauty standards of the elves, he doesn’t even try to imitate them. A round body made of a thousand stones bound together by thin strands of what looks like hair, rolls towards us. The one large eye, shifts within, always facing us no matter how the stone and hair moves around it.

“Senre, master of the wayward peoples.”

“Good, good. I’m Kyra.” I say stepping forwards. “Then as neighbours, I think it would be good to get an understanding of each other. I wouldn’t want there to be trouble between us.”

“I would! It’s been a while since I had a good fight.”

“Me too.” Sedena adds. “I want some more toys.”

I turn back to glare at them, but Eshya doesn’t have an ounce of shame, and the psychopath doesn’t much care either.

In theory, I have to agree with them. There’ll be no trouble if there’s no neighbours, and the violent solution is so much easier, but it’s best not to say that part out loud just yet.

“We can adjourn to more private chambers to discuss matters.” Senre says, rolling towards the back of the room.

“Before that, I would like to know what’s up with this.” I say waving to the injured students. There are situations that could justify their treatment, if they’re like Sedena for instance, I could forgive anything, even their murder, but without that explanation this just looks like a bunch of bandits kidnapping people.

“Yes, I suppose that could look rather bad.” He says looking at the pair. “These are troublemakers. They’ve stolen from us before, and they retreat to the surface before we can ever catch them. We were lucky this time.”

“Is that so?” I ask the students, still under guard.

They look chagrined, trying to disguise their own emotions rather poorly as they spew a long list of excuses. It seems that there was some justification at least, but there’s still no guarantee of who is right and who is wrong in this situation.

“He claims he owns everything in these ruins, how are we supposed to survive? Even scavenging, or hunting the beasts down here is stealing!” The lizard woman cries out in frustration, and I can sense some measure of desperate truth to her words.

“I’ll look into the matter. If you want, you can join my faction, and I’ll extend my protection, but understand that I have my own rules that you’ll have to follow.”

“Just don’t let them kill me.” She pleads.

“I’ll make sure of it.”

I reach out a hand and rest it on her shoulder, adding her sight to my growing collection before spreading my influence on the others with her. The truth is easier found through undeniable evidence, so if something happens within my sight, it’ll make my judgement in this matter much easier to deal with.

Placing my power on everyone in reach, I add them to my contact list as well.

“Eshya, Vii, Alo, Vice, stay here and make sure nothing happens to them while we’re gone.” I say firmly before following after the rolling stone eyeball.

~ ~ ~ ~ ~

Conversation with the man is all rather dry, their leader understands that he’s not powerful enough to face me, but at the same time he is unwilling to simply submit to me. He twists words around to his favour, but it’s also clear that he isn’t entirely lying about the trouble that the group were causing him.

The punishment that he was seeking for them was the removal of their hands, which actually isn’t as much of a punishment as it sounds.

It can be a bit of a bother to have your limbs returned, and could lead to you getting collared for wasting resources if you frequently seek assistance from the world above, or it’ll cost a small fortune down here, but you can still have your hands returned to you, unlike on Earth.

He allows for me to take the group with me so long as I take responsibility for any further issues they cause. That’ll be simple if I just throw them into the dungeon as they can’t easily return from there.

From both my discussion with the ball, and my observations through borrowed sight, I can see that this society is something of a mixed bag. I haven’t seen them doing anything particularly egregious that would cause me to step in and violently overthrow them, but at the same time they’re not perfectly aligned with my values either.

In the end, I sit on the problem, observing them for the moment while maintaining communication with their leader. Allowing people the freedom to maintain their own culture and values, so long as they aren’t completely contradictory to my personal values, is something that I want to embrace, even in the future, so this is something of a test run for me.

For the moment, I’ve gained a tentative trade agreement with them, since they hunt the ruins where our own hunters can’t fully reach, and we can get them some items that they can’t easily gain from the dungeon. Nel will have to go into detail with them later, but this limited agreement at least proves the potential of a diplomatic solution to any problems we have with each other.

This is still just a beginning, and I’m sure that there’ll be more issues between us in the future. The worst part of all is that I feel complacent.

Normally I’d just kill someone, clear out the corpse from the office and get things moving in a better direction. I did that with Orsa and the others who messed with me down here, I did it with Loekan, and I’d like to do it now, but I have no excuse.

They’re more than willing to come to a peaceful arrangement, and though it bothers me, I don’t want to go down the path of a mindless, violent conqueror. I need to learn how to win through peaceful means.

Doing all that I can to begin the long process to come, we set out to return back to the dungeon. Alo and Vice quickly take to the captured thieves, and they’re easily convinced to return with us to the underground world.

“This is where you guys live?” The scaled lizard asks, watching the horizon with a glowing wonder of our home city shining in her eyes, her allies, one a plant, the other a stone, are just as curious.

“This is the cavern that I rule over.” I explain, watching a massive monster swim through the underwater lake.

“So… you’re rich?” She asks, turning her gleaming eyes towards me.

“Somewhat.” I reply. “But if I can’t get my hunting grounds back then it won’t last long.”

Excitedly, my newest citizens take in their surroundings as we march on to the city. There is so much going on around me, so many people working hard to make a wonderful life for themselves here, but with our resources slowly running out, I know this growth can’t last forever.

My mind quickly returns to the matters that I should be focusing on. There are hunting grounds that I need to regain.

Without the use of gems and meat from the neighbouring caverns, we’re bleeding resources faster than we can replace them.

That said, I’m not particularly fond of figuring out how to make use of blackmail and politics to get what I want. It seems much easier just to get strong enough to force the Grand Council into full submission, even if it’s difficult to achieve.

There is still much that needs to be done before I can rest.

~ ~ ~ ~ ~

Stats and Skills

~Mana Form:

Current mana density: 30,092 / 60,892 units

Current mana volume: 14,957 / 30,266 shards

Mana volume at crystallisation density (Max. mana volume):

Kyra: 30,266 shards

Kyra’s armour: 20,777 shards

Kyra’s throne: 1,109,298 shards

~Forms

Mana Canon

-Annihilation Heart (Adapted)

-Blood Fuel (20,000 mana shards)

-Bone Magic Storage (40,000 mana shards)

-Nail Shifters (50,000 mana shards)

Dancer

-Flash Nerves (8,000 mana shards)

-Quick Perception Mind (Adapted)

-Burst Reflex Muscles (35,000 mana shards)

-Layered space Muscles (80,000 mana shards)

Turtle

-Rebinding Tissue (Adapted)

-Catalyst Sweat Glands (140,000 mana shards)

-Repulsive Skin (80,000 mana shards)

-Prehensile hair (10,000 mana shards)

-Fatty Tissue Blood Storage (100,000 mana shards)

Investigator

-Wide eyes (5,000 mana shards)

-Wide ears (5,000 mana shards)

-Sharp nose (5,000 mana shards)

Misc.

-Clean bowels (Adapted)

~Favourited Skills:

-Tag and Film

-Trapping

-Stealth

-Mana surge movement

-Annihilation defence

-Annihilation flame burst

-Annihilation net

-Eyes of an Empire