‎Accepting the system was always watching had been challenging at first, to the point birth rates were lower on Earth compared to before, and that was considering Guardians procreated more easily. There was always the feeling that the system was watching when you were making out with someone. Marzia and most women she knew felt awkward about it, even the most outgoing ones, though some obviously had a thing for it.

About a year after the Rift War, everyone got more or less used to it. By then, Marzia had control of Earth, including having negotiated for the invaders to leave. That caused her a loss in the short term, but she believed it to be worth it in the long term.

Earth took the feeling of safety and abundance similarly to how Americans took their strong economy after World War II. People didn't need to eat, Guardians required no sleep, and Earth was somewhat clean and safe. One in every five adult women became pregnant, Guardians foremost among them.

Newborns, they learned, didn't have the same benefit of not needing food that the Alliance had gifted humans when it arrived. That caused some inconveniences, but magic made it easy to deal with. For one, conjured water ensured no one was ever thirsty. While any conjured element dissipated after being inside a Guardian for a few seconds, commoners' biology had no such issue. Moreover, any random Guardian could build stuff faster and cheaper. Crops grew quickly and healthy. Diseases were swiftly treated.

That caused another problem: Guardians who settled and wanted to care for their families usually didn't like fighting as much, despite the added aggressiveness from becoming a Guardian.

The old saying that soft cultures bred weak people was proven both right and wrong. Right, because as rifts kept appearing throughout the world, there was a half-year period when the Guardians who just wanted to live life without worry were killed like flies. Wrong, because the pushback was almost instantaneous. They understood they had to fight for their families. That risking their lives to grow stronger today was better than doing the bare minimum only to die tomorrow—and their family with them.

Marzia had never seen such an outstanding argument for fatherly and motherly instincts. The Guardians started fighting like maddened wolves to protect their pack. For the next half-year, until everything stabilized again, Earth's Guardians went through a quick growth period.

Still, the losses had been enormous after the tutorial. On top of the conflict between humans, many rifts had counter-invaded Earth after being left unattended for too long. The Alliance's invaders also made it harder to deal with some rifts before they left.

So, when the Calamity arrived three years ago, only two billion remained on Earth. Of those, half a billion were commoners, including babies. The one-and-a-half billion Guardians were mostly F-ranks, one-tenth were E-ranks, and a few dozen were D-ranks.

Marzia kept following the numbers after they arrived on the front lines. Humans died a lot. The military taught them a lot, but they paid for it with blood.

Today, Earth had one hundred D-ranks in Samir, two hundred thousand E-ranks, and one hundred thousand F-ranks. La'sing had another five D-ranks. That was it. All that remained of the one-and-a-half billion Earth's Guardians.

They had not been ready for the Alliance, and it was even worse on the front lines.

The military machine mowed through them with enormous efficiency. You either grew stronger or died. Only slow and stupid people remained at F-rank. Or cowards. Still, Earth would theoretically come out stronger for it; how true that was remained to be seen.

Marzia didn't believe the price was worth it, but she tried not to think much about it. As with the system, it was just part of the life they learned to accept.

Not all was bad, though. One of the things Marzia immensely enjoyed in the military over old Earth was the prison. On Earth, people were known to get screwed in jail. In the Alliance's military, you lived in a Big Brother dystopia. The Guardian System wasn't only watching; it had the power to enforce its rules. Prisoners had considerably fewer rights than your average Guardian, somewhere midway between free citizens and rift dwellers.

So, despite being packed with a hundred people in a tiny white cube with not even space for every one of them to lie down on the ground, she didn't feel threatened. Even looking wrong at another prisoner was punished with a wave of pain. She also found thoughts of attacking anyone ended with pain. As for actually attacking...

She saw it happen once. One high elf called another a traitor, started pulling his arm back to punch...

...and was disintegrated by a mana beam.

That had happened two days ago, and Marzia still thought she could see the afterimage of the beam so white that it felt like it had cut through something in Reality. It didn't even look like an actual color. Maybe it hadn't been. Maybe her brain had merely interpreted it as white because she couldn't understand what she saw.

"I didn't expect to find you here," a male voice broke the cell's silence and cut through Marzia's thoughts.

Earth's Maiden turned to see one of the cube's white walls had turned transparent, revealing the endless white corridor of cells in the Detention Department. They were all transparent from the outside and filled with people, but those in the cells could only see through the wall-sized door facing the corridor when their jailers allowed it.

Wearing a black cultivator robe, Shen stood in the corridor beside a drow in armor made of green scales with black runes.

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Marzia didn't like Rayna. Whenever the drow looked at Marzia, it was as if she was seeing dirt on a house she had just cleaned. This time was no different.

Not that Shen was much better. He had that utilitarian way of looking at people that most C-ranks and even some D-rank Commanders on the front lines developed after a while. When looking at Marzia, he didn't see her. He saw a Sergeant, a tool to fulfill a purpose, a cog in the machine. She reckoned that it was slightly softer than he looked at most others, including the drow—maybe that's the source of her dislike for Marzia? Jealousy?—but not by much.

He was looking at her, so she replied with as much information as she should to let him understand why she was there. "First Lieutenant, I was made a Justicar before you arrived in Samir. I should investigate your Exemplary Brigade and stop any abuses. I should also outperform you. Instead, I assisted you in discovering the incoming Void Tide. Acting General Long Hei was very upset about it. He decided I should think about my mistakes for a couple of weeks."

Shen shook his head disapprovingly. "I don't claim to know how any A-rank thinks, but I believe that is why he put you there. You gave me the information about the Void Tide because you genuinely thought I was the best person to give it to. However, even now, you're saying what people want to hear instead of the cold truth—or what you believe to be the truth.

"You think you're here for your protection but assessed it would make the other prisoners upset and jealous, so you chose your words carefully and crafted a better-accepted story. You know that that personality trait would make people believe you informed me for personal gain, for politics. It placed you in danger, especially in the chaos of the Bounty targets.

"Yet, even knowing all that, you didn't change. You believe the Acting General was endorsing your attitude by protecting you like your controlling father might've done in the past. You are wrong. You would not be punished if the Acting General just meant to protect you. That would be against military regulations. You're reading too much politics in a straight-up punishment. You're meant to rethink your ways."

Marzia smiled weakly. She had considered those points, of course, but she would've done things like the Acting General did to protect someone. It was much more straightforward and less costly than any alternative.

Guessing her thoughts here was easy, considering how every C-rank she met could tell when she was lying. Still, Shen had a C-rank mind to her D-rank but never displayed the skills required for diplomacy or even proper leadership. Marzia couldn't believe he had developed them so quickly. Not enough to surpass her. She had ruled over Earth for years now, including dealing with alien invaders. She knew how people thought. Nothing she had ever seen suggested A-ranks were that different.

It irked her to hear him talk about the father he had killed, but it was good riddance, so whatever.

Shen sighed. "But your outlook on the world is part of your Path already, isn't it? I suppose that is for the best. That is, after all, the reason I came. System, I'm conscripting Prisoner Marzia Martino as expert help for my current mission. Teleport her to me."

Marzia instantly turned into light motes and then materialized outside. The sudden shift of position made her dazed for a few moments.

‎ ‎

| Rank Update: Military Prisoner → Conditionally Released Sergeant

‎ ‎

The conscription didn't surprise her. Of course, he had come here to use her like a tool. As she had assessed, he had become a military man through and through.

What surprised her was that her political expertise, which he said had gotten her punished, was needed for a military mission on the front lines—right after he said she was reading too much in a straight-up punishment.

"You two are the only Maidens in Samir," Shen said. "Martino, can you think of any other person in this Node with political skills? Their rank doesn't matter."

Unfortunately, Marzia could.

Usually, she would never say that bastard's name. She knew little about him, but he had upset her too much. But this was no usual situation, and Shen wasn't just anyone.

Marzia breathed politics, but she also knew the limits of mere words in a world where the strongest fist made the rules. She disliked several things Shen did, but accepting them and supporting him was humanity's lifeline. Unlike him, she cared for their survival.

Even if helping him assisted people she hated, she had to do it. Not because of the military rules but because she couldn't afford to upset humanity's lifeline.

Marzia replied, "While deployed as a Justicar, I noticed a suspicious figure. He can smoothly navigate Samir, and I don't think it's just because he has some sort of special identity. He knows what to say and when to say it; he did it multiple times to go against me. Two examples: once, I told multiple Brigade Commanders that they could profit from following your footsteps. He always appeared and counter-argued the right way. Another time, he convinced my Battalion Commander to disobey a direct order during a deployment, which caused him to be executed for treason. Almost everyone almost died because the Battalion Commander made us explore a place too dangerous for us. Everyone survived, though."

"Controlled manipulation with no collateral damage," Shen assessed. "Textbook undercover operations to get rid of hazardous Guardians. Also called traitor-fugitive prevention ops."

Marzia had never heard about that, but it explained a few of the things she had seen. "It doesn't explain why he helped your Brigade, Commander."

Shen shrugged. "Samir's troops were never meant to win the competition against the Exemplary Brigade, but we couldn't win without assistance. We are too few. That's my guess, at least. I would also bet on a third party having their own goals."

What Marzia hated the most about the response was that she couldn't tell how genuine Shen was. There were no signs of him either being truthful or lying. Her instincts told her he was hiding something, but experience told her not to trust instincts she couldn't fully understand. You couldn't trust even yourself when Laws were involved, and your Path only contained Concepts. Who knew how another Guardian's Path warped Reality?

The second thing she hated the most was feeling used. She had been assigned to an impossible mission. But she dealt with that better; it was common in politics, and since arriving in Samir, she didn't know what it meant to be on top.

"What is his name?" Shen asked.

"Lieutenant Specialist Taeral Miavalur, Commander."

Shen raised an eyebrow. "Oh? He was following us when we were cleaning the mobile fortresses. Intriguing. System, can I conscript Taeral Miavalur?" He paused. "Good. Teleport him to me."

Light flashed out, and the high elf that had been a thorn to Marzia's side appeared in the corridor. He looked surprised at being suddenly moved and even more shocked at being near Shen.

"Welcome onboard, Lieutenant," Shen said with a predatory smile. "I was led to believe you can help me convince even B-ranks with a Bounty on their heads to willingly give themselves up to capture. Let's get right to it. System, teleport us to this fortress' entrance."

Marzia was astonished as the teleportation light enveloped her. Sure, she didn't believe B-rank minds were that above hers. But to convince someone with that much power not to resist capture?

She smiled. Even if she failed, she would see that annoying guy do his best and learn from him.

That should be fun.