Dark Fate, Chapter 97 (Patreon)

Chapter 97 – Six Months On

Two months after the end of the pirate attack, we were finally ready for the first immigrants to start coming to Ceres. We hadn’t been idle in that time, of course. The construction work was still ongoing, but it had passed the point to where people could start moving in.

Finding people who wanted to move to space wasn’t a problem. After all, people had been dreaming of shit like that for decades, even before magic or technology had made it even remotely possible. Being able to go out into the solar system, and actually start building up new worlds? That was huge!

Obviously, the first ‘colonists’ we had were those who were going to join our military, and their families, but industry was right behind them. Magic made a lot of things that were normally impossible possible, but it wasn’t all-powerful. You still needed people to run machines, and do other work involved with industry.

Still, automation and magic really reduced the number of people you needed for a functioning industrial base. Since we were building the Kingdom of Ceres literally from the ground up, with all the stuff that the System could provide, we were able to start from the idea that people only needed to work if they actually wanted to work. We could actually build a post-scarcity society!

The basic necessities of life (food, water, shelter) would be provided by the state. Between the water conjuration equipment and the hydroponic gardens, not to mention magic items that allowed you to literally create rations in a pinch, there was no excuse for doing otherwise. It wouldn’t be the fanciest or the best, but it would be enough that no one would be starving in my kingdom. If you wanted more than the Basic Living Arrangement, then work was available, and you could buy what you wanted to make your life better.

Funnily enough, when people heard that, they were even more excited to come to space. Especially people from poorer areas. The Kingdom started swelling fast enough that we started needing to make new colonies. Which was fine. I had already laid claim to the entire outer solar system, but claims that only existed on a map were not as strong as actually having settlements in the region.

Thankfully, the System actually had templates for colonization kits, depending on the kind of world you were going for. I started offering loans, with reasonable rates, which would allow my new citizens to head out to the various moons and asteroids out in the system, and start a new settlement. Of course, the contracts all made sure to state that they’d be part of the Kingdom of Ceres, and would have to follow all the kingdom’s rules, and all that. However, provided a few basic things were taken care of, people who started up a settlement could do whatever they wanted in those settlements.

That wasn’t me trying to be egalitarian, or a benevolent dictator, or any of that. No, it was pure pragmatism. There were always going to be people who wanted to be the biggest fish in a small pond, or get that feeling of superiority you receive when people are bowing and scraping before you. There were going to be people who wanted to run things according to their own twisted views of whatever religion they claimed to be part of. Trying to force them all into the same box was never going to cause anything but headaches.

No, instead, I gave them a simple set of things they could and could not do, and everything else was up to them. If they broke those simple rules, well, the System would enslave them and notify me of their new status, so I could properly fix things. That was the beauty of having System contracts. Everyone in the Kingdom of Ceres was given full citizenship by contract, and, by contract, people needed to offer the contract to young adults once they reached the age of consent.

Of course, there was always a way to redress grievances, and call for change, if that was something the people wanted. I was still working on the court system, but magic that forced people to tell the truth helped to cut down on some of the shenanigans. If people wanted to challenge my leadership? Well, I had an arena set up, where they could actually challenge me. The winner got the crown, and all the loser’s possessions, and the loser got to see if reincarnation was actually a thing.

So far, twenty-nine people had challenged me for the crown, all of them former soldiers of different governments on Earth. All of them had skills, and would have been deadly combatants against any other foe. I, however, was a cheating existence, and so they never really stood a chance. Still, it did provide me with a steady supply of XP, for which I was thankful.

That was all to the good. I had a kingdom on the rise, and System contracts made me comfortable that any fraud or espionage would be at a low level, and easy enough to control. My military was already growing, and I was going to need to build a military academy or something similar before too long, to support it. I’d already had to purchase some trainers from the Minion Market to act as drill sergeants for the new recruits.

But not everything was coming up roses. The nations down on Earth were not exactly thrilled with me. It wasn’t that I was the new kid on the block. New nations rose and fell often enough that it was rarely something to talk about, unless it was next door. No, the reason they didn’t care for me was due to the fact that they couldn’t control me.

If a minor state rose up on Earth, then the major powers (the US, China, and others) would be able to bring military and economic pressures to force that country into one of their camps, and punish them if they didn’t act according to the will of their ‘patron’. I was based on Ceres, and there wasn’t a military on Earth that could touch me. I could shoot down ICBMs or shuttles long before they got into range. The pirate ships that had been disabled were without engines, and people would be reverse-engineering them for a while. The US had a bit of a jump on that, thanks to me selling the kovald ship to Boeing, but even so, they hadn’t had time to fully reverse-engineer the ship, and build something that could be used to mount an invasion. So, militarily there wasn’t anything that the major powers could do to me.

As for economic pressures? We didn’t need their trade networks. Our tech base was at a higher level, thanks to the System, and we were already doing asteroid mining and building ships in space. Soon, I was going to build my first actual space station, out by Jupiter, to help defend the gas mining operations that were going to be set up. And I could sell things through the System Shop, instead of relying on international trade.

That wasn’t our only revenue stream, either! My fighters were on a scouting mission, flying through the asteroid belt to investigate why one region just suddenly became far more densely populated, when they discovered, of all things, a space-based dungeon! It was a kind of field dungeon, but obviously the System allowed the dungeon to change things to their own whims. And they were some whims!

The dungeon specialized in ship-to-ship combat, where you needed to fly through a densely-packed asteroid field, while enemy fighters flew after you, attempting to shoot you down. That was unusual, from what I’d read, but not out of the ordinary. The crazy thing was the ship that the dungeon used to chase pilots: round orbs with hexagonal solar panels on either side.

Clearly, there was some ‘cultural contamination’ going on here. Obviously, the dungeon had been exposed to old sci-fi movies at some point. The question was how. Unfortunately, there was no simple way of testing that. The dungeon wasn’t communicating, except through laser blasts, and I wasn’t hotshot enough of a pilot to go and test whether my ‘Dungeon Foe’ title would apply to ships I flew in, as well as me.

Since risking my neck over just a little curiosity was out of the question, and I didn’t have enough time to fully devote to learning the nuances of the fighters I had on hand, I was forced to look elsewhere for places to train. My dungeon in the compound on Earth still offered some challenges, but there was a limit to how much it could do, even if I ran it alone. I needed to find a new dungeon to get XP at. One that wasn’t reliant vehicular combat.

Or, I could pull a page out of a book series I read, where the protagonist had her own space-based empire, and take my frustration out on assholes who wouldn’t be missed. Even after the Apocalypse, there were plenty of people who, for one reason or another, were still thought that blowing up innocent people was a great way to make their voices heard. Only, now the System awarded them with XP for all their kills!

I’d need to travel in secret, of course. Even if I was doing the world a favor by taking out the trash, that didn’t mean that flaunting my military might would win me any friends. Oh, it might win me some PR in the short term, but it would only spur the major powers on to try and match my military, if only so that they could defend themselves if I ran out of terrorists to stomp. And not all terrorist shitbags lived in third world countries, where I could just swoop in, blow stuff up, and leave the Americans to take the blame.

Fortunately for me, the easiest targets were in third world countries, and I could just blow shit up, and let everyone believe that the Americans did it. Even if the US denied the attacks, they’d done so many hits on terrorists that they had officially denied over the years that no one would believe them, so long as there wasn’t proof of what had happened. Which meant I could play a little.

At Level 30, I was probably one of the highest-leveled former-humans around at this point. There were definite bottlenecks in XP, as you went up, where you had to keep finding stronger and stronger foes to level up at any appreciable speed, or you were stuck just grinding, which was every bit as dull as it sounded, except that you couldn’t let boredom get to you, or you’d make a mistake that would get you killed. And trying to remain vigilant when the local monsters have trouble hurting you, much less actually threatening your life, is harder than it sounds. You simply can’t remain on full alert too long, or you start slipping, and then people start dying.

However, one thing that made dealing with a grind easier is when you found a particular type of target you were perfectly happy to go on killing, forever. Or, at least, for extended periods of time. Those kinds of targets made the grind more of an actual pleasure, rather than an exercise in repetitive boredom. The kills just felt better when it was someone worth killing on the other end of the knife.

Which is why I was whistling as I packed my gear, and made my way to my personal shuttle, my girls and guards surrounding me. It was time for a royal visit to a terrorist training camp. Of course, I couldn’t show up without bringing any gifts, but the only gift I had, that I was willing to give them, was a painful death. But I was sure that, once the soon-to-be terrorists tried it, they wouldn’t be able to voice any objections.