Slumrat Rising

Radz Sung’s poker face was justly legendary. Even so, he couldn’t quite restrain a certain crinkling at the corners of his eyes and a subconscious throbbing of the veins on his temple.

“I do always like more power. It’s never free, though.” The old man’s voice remained mild as milk. Things hadn’t quite risen to the level of actual strong emotion.

“Oh yeah, you could potentially be out… I want to say as much as twenty, or even thirty thousand wen.” Truth nodded. “Well, I guess there isn’t really an upper limit, it really depends on how you want to scale things.”

“As much as that, huh?” Radz sat deeper into his buttery soft leather armchair, which might not have cost twenty thousand wen, but did cost eight thousand. The sofa in the living room, now, that was a twenty thousand wen item.

“I’m converting food, shelter and labor costs into wen and guessing. You might be able to do it cheaper. More expensive might be a better option, but like I said, up to you.”

“Recruiting people?”

“Children. Consider it an alternative form of eating them.” Truth’s smile was quite warm. Radz didn’t find it particularly reassuring.

“Raising a child costs considerably more than twenty thousand wen, young man. As you may well learn.”

“Nah.”

“Don’t think money is going to be a thing by the time I do have kids.”

That got the old man shaking his head. “I know why you think that, but you are wrong. The mechanism of currency doesn’t rely on cosmic rays. Like fire and steel. Having magic makes it easier to use, but you can have them without it.”

“Sure. So how many cans of beans will twenty wen buy you when farms are barely functional, wagons don’t work anymore, and everyone with an open aperture is in agony? On the other hand, I do have this machete-” Truth waved an empty hand “that I beat out of a bit of carriage door panel and sharpened on a brick. Twenty wen or machete- which is the better trade for the bean-seller?”

“Ah, but that only applies in a situation where there are only two people. What about two thousand people? Or twenty thousand? How many cans of beans is a person expected to carry around with them?” Radz smiled. “You will be shocked how quickly large groups form up. It’s cold out there alone. Having a medium of exchange just makes sense.”

Truth nodded slowly at that. His evaluation on how bad things would get was pretty different from the old man’s, but on the other hand, organizing people was this old timer’s full time job. One he had likely been doing since long before Truth was born.

“Well, that does take us back to my suggestion.”

“The kids. Instead of having them sew clothes, you think I should adopt them?”

“Adoption seems a bit much.” Truth shrugged. “I was thinking enlistment.”

That got a slow nod. “Level zeros, trained from youth to serve the clan loyally. Cheap to train, because we won’t be spending any cultivation resources on them. Purely physical conditioning, hand to hand combat, cold weapons, that sort of thing. Some education, I suppose, so they can be used a bit more flexibly on the battlefield.”

“They need to be able to read and write, at the very least, so they can receive orders and send reports.” Truth nodded along with him.

“It’s been suggested before. Why are you suggesting it now?”

“Because I don’t have a plan.”

Another long pause. “Could you elaborate on that?”

“I don’t have a plan. There is no big scheme. I just know the collapse is coming, so I’m trying to make things fall in a way I like. So I’m going around and making adjustments. Feeding someone, killing someone, fixing a road, it’s all the same to me. I think that my world will be a better place with a few tens of thousands of trained, fit, literate, level zeros running around in Jeon, and I don’t particularly care who they work for.”

Truth shrugged.

“Even if who they work for does not meet your moral standards?”

Truth had to laugh at that one. “I’m testing a theory on how to motivate people. I’m hoping the Sung Clan can be my… I don’t know, call it the positive outcome model. Do what I’m suggesting and good things happen for your clan.”

“Well, this little branch of it, anyway.” Radz waved his hand.

“Sure.”

“And the negative model?”

“Find people who are screwing over these denizen kids and kill them in remarkably colorful, unpleasant ways. Repeat until I run out of pricks or behavior improves and I get my fit, literate Level Zeros. I strongly suspect I will have to kill everyone.”

Radz snorted. “You don’t think fear of death is enough motivation?”

“Compared to a rich prick having to endure the humiliation of doing what they are told? No. Based on available evidence, even when you kill them, they don’t believe they really are going to die.”

“The carrot and the stick.”

“I guess. I really am just experimenting here. No plan, remember?” Truth shrugged “Incidentally, I do see the hypocrisy of my “positive model.”

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“Burning people alive is a pretty clear threat of death, yes.” The old man half smiled. Even the half smile didn’t half reach his eyes.

“Nah, that ain’t the threat.”

“No?”

“No, it’s the nailing you to the floor bit.”

That got the old man thinking again. “Power loss.”

“Exactly. You aren’t scared of death, because you don’t believe you really can die. You can imagine it in an intellectual sort of way, but it’s not true to you in here.” Truth tapped his heart. “You could, however, imagine losing your power. You have done it to others, often enough. People who thought they were untouchable.”

“And you, young man? Do you think that you are untouchable?”

“Wanna fuck around and find out?”

Truth leaned back in his chair. Incisive wasn’t going off, but he was quite certain that a stack of decently high level hitters were, by now, barely one room over. Forces would have converged on the mansion, far enough back not to alarm him, but able to rush in at a moment’s notice and trap him like a wasp in a jar.

“You think I won’t? Given that you don’t think I fear death.”

“I think you fear expense, though. How much are you willing to spend on this project? What, exactly, is your budget for this particular operation? In lives, if not cans of beans?”

“Oh, for you? Not unlimited, but very high. Hell Prince.”

Truth rolled his eyes. “You know Starbrite made that up, right?”

“Yes, of course. But meeting you, I do see their point. This has been an interesting conversation. If you do survive, I will consider your arguments.”

“Nah, your successor will get them off the recording. Hey future buddy, gonna learn from this?”

Several things happened almost at the same time. Radz crushed a charm that had been hidden in the heel of his shoe, covering him in a thick, glassy barrier. Sniper fire came through the open doors to the garden, finger long needles ripping through the air. The wall of the room exploded inwards, as a heavy squad mouse-holed the mansion and entered the room grenades first.

But the barest fraction of a second before that all happened, Truth moved.

The needles from the sniper ripped apart the back of the leather armchair, fist sized holes appearing and continuing straight down and into the floor. The dust and rubble from the wall was drifting in almost slow motion, as the explosive charms flew forward. Truth already had his needler in hand.

The fangs of Incisive lashed out. One needle after another found the incoming charms, and prematurely detonated them. Flashbangs and tarpits went off, staggering the incoming squad. Truth could see the defensive spells going off around the soldiers- spell armor, wards, personal defensive charms, all deploying to keep them upright and fighting.

Truth reached the old man, and rather than try to grab him, he flung the old man’s chair, with him still in it, towards the open window. While the sniper’s line of sight was momentarily blocked and the squaddies were shaking off the explosives, Truth called out the Tongue. Needler in his left hand, sword in his right, he got stuck in.

He moved like a writhing serpent. The sword was up, resting on his right shoulder, then his whole body twisted down and left, his knees bending deep as the sword whipped off his shoulder. The whole weight and strength of his endlessly refined body riding a razor’s edge. Cutting through the thin armor between neck and chin to take the first head.

Then from the crouch, a one handed lunge, slipping between armor plates. Letting the angelic bane destroy a life thirty five years in the making. Level Three cultivation would have made this soldier a person of some status almost anywhere. Not here. Not in the shattered seconds while the dust from the wall was still crossing the room, before it had even time to start falling.

Truth recovered from the lunge and ripped a trio of needles into the eye of a soldier trying to find him in the dust. The soldier was wearing goggles- enchanted, alchemically formulated glass. Perfect for protecting eyes from casual impacts, sudden lights and for finding hidden enemies. Not capable of stopping the Fangs of Botis. Tack, Tack, CRACK. Then the needle was through and the inside of the soldier’s helmet was stained with gore.

Before the hollowed out skull could even begin falling towards the floor, Truth had whipped the Tongue up into the groin of another soldier, severing the arteries in their legs before a quick jab to their throat gave them a permanent tracheostomy. The needler shifted over and found a patch of unprotected neck on yet another soldier. It took five rounds to sever the spine- even with Truth’s aim, there were a lot of things moving through the air right now. Nothing strange about a needle getting knocked off course.

The squad died in seconds. They were level three and four, brilliantly trained, superbly equipped. They might not have been the equal of the Starbrite PMC, but they were as good as anyone without the System could hope to be.

They weren’t remotely enough.

By the time Radz Sung had fallen out of the sniper’s line of sight, the room was completely empty. Truth had vanished from everyone’s perception.

Radz looked down at his front, feeling something was dreadfully wrong. Four needles were sticking out of his stomach and chest, roughly where his apertures should be. He screamed in terror, then pain, as he felt some of them start to collapse. Truth had shot before he had deployed the charm.

Truth was moving quickly to get clear of the mansion. As he moved, he took a peek out the window. It was as he guessed- the street was barricaded by layers of cops, teams of Sung Clan security were flying in on carpets and fire birds, blinding bright lanterns were floating over the neighborhood, banishing any concealing shadows.

He shook his head. A provocation, then an even more expensive reaction. All this cost more than one wen. He could kick off a slaughter here, if he wanted. Really cost them in lives and material. But so what if he did? How would he benefit? How would anyone? He found the kitchen and raided the fridge instead.

He smiled beatifically. The icebox was enormous. You could fit two entire adults in there. And the freezer was stocked generously with beautifully marbled beef. He emptied the whole thing into his spatial ring, not neglecting the crisper drawers or the cheese cubby either. There was an extensive wine selection too, but he skipped that. He didn’t want that stuff even to sell later.

Anything else worth taking? He looked around and couldn’t really think of anything. Then he slapped his forehead. He was stealing raw ingredients, not finished dishes. He didn’t have the first idea how to cook. He therefore helped himself to a couple of cutting boards, the knife block, the spice rack, all the oils, vinegars and sauces, salt and pepper, and a selection of a half dozen cookbooks that appeared to be there mostly to support the aesthetics of the kitchen.

He would have raided the library too, but it didn’t seem wise to hang around in there.

“Squad Three, moving to Green Two.” “Squad Four, moving to Blue Two.”

Looks like they were sweeping the house. Well, he was done here. Trying to walk past the guards sounded like an annoying drain on his energy, so he just popped open a window and jumped out. There were guards outside, of course, as well as spell dogs running everywhere. More soldiers poured in by the second.

He smiled and jogged off, slipping between the gaps in their awareness. Feeling the pressure of their hunt and weaving between the areas with the fewest eyes directed towards them. A quick step to the wall. A quick jump over the wall into the next yard. Then he did it again, and was two houses over. Then again, and again.

Then he was gone. Like a rat in the walls of the world.

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