Law of Consequences- Chapter 10 (Patreon)

Chapter 10- Not the Only One

The room got quiet after that. I lingered for a moment before looking at Casper and saying, “We should probably have a discussion.”

I could see the nervousness on his face, but I suppose that was to be expected. Eventually, he nodded and replied, "I suppose you're right."

She stood up, and I grabbed his arm. For a moment, he looked as though he was going to try to pull back, but I said, "I just want to take us somewhere where we can speak more privately."

The fear in his eyes increased, but he nodded again.

Blink body

Suddenly, we were on the roof of the Sheriff’s office. I smiled as I looked around. It was so much prettier than before; the city was growing all around us. The building itself was 20 or more times larger than it had been when I first came here. No, scratch that, it had to be more like 100 times larger. Then again, my family was growing. The building now housed not just my wives and children, but also the majority of the deputies and clerks, along with their families in many cases.

"Still, I couldn’t help but have fond memories of when this was where the only bathtub was." I looked around and shook my head. "It’s amazing how far we’ve come."

A moment of silence followed before Casper asked me, "Are you speaking to me?"

I smiled. "You know I’m only reminiscing."

He sighed and said, "I suppose it’s different for you, or was then when I came here. I came to an already established city. There was a sheriff before me and I was only coming in to take over after him. Little did I know that Sheriff and City Lord were the same thing."

I chuckled. "I certainly understood how that confusion occurred."

"So, let me just ask you, are you from Earth?"

He nodded. "Yeah, I was living in Boston. I was about to have a surgery when literally the most gorgeous woman I’ve ever seen showed up and told me that I was about to die. Part of me didn’t want to take her seriously, of course, but well..."

I nodded, chuckling to myself. "Sativa can be quite convincing, can’t she?"

"For sure, but I won’t bore you with the details. That’s how I ended up in Olimero. Looking back on it, I can’t really complain. My life wasn’t exactly what I wanted it to be on earth. Here, I got well more than one beautiful wife. I have a city that is growing, and sure, I had to keep my head down and avoid the gangs, but for the most part, it’s been a pretty good life."

I smiled. "So, let me ask you something. If you had the chance to go back, would you?"

He didn’t say anything for a minute and I was content to stand there in silence. "If you’d asked me that a couple months ago, I would’ve said 'hell no'. Now, I guess a lot depends on what happens with you. I couldn’t leave my wives, so I’m sort of stuck here, and if Sativa was right, I’d already be dead back on earth."

I rubbed my chin with my thumb and forefinger. "I wasn’t asking the right question. Maybe, I'll turn and look at him again. Let me ask it this way: are you willing to fight for your life?"

I appreciated there wasn’t any pause in his response. "Absolutely," he said.

"I suppose we need to figure out just how strong you are."

He shook his head. "Nowhere near as strong as you."

I grinned as I said, "I already knew that, but that wasn’t the point. Can you just share your stats with me?"

He nodded, and a moment later, his stat sheet popped up.

Strength: 48

Agility: 22

Durability: 18
 Magic: 0

I took a look at it, doing my best to keep from shaking my head. Really, he hadn’t made very much progress at all since arriving in Olimero.

I must not have done a very good job of hiding my thoughts, because he asked, "Is it really that bad?"

"Yeah, pretty much it is, but the good news is, I know a lot more about how to fix it now. How do you feel about a little bit of exercise?"

He groaned, but I waved my hand as though to say, "Don't worry about it." Yes, of course he was going to need to work hard. He would have to work harder than he had ever worked before in his life. But that didn’t mean that I wanted to scare him right now. This was more about me getting to know him as a person.

"So, tell me a little bit about your family."

He grew quiet for a moment. "I had three wives, Sherry, Tosha and Simone. Simone didn’t make it with us out of the city, though."

My hand on his shoulder. "I’m sorry, man. I can’t even begin to understand how that would feel. Most everything that I do every day is about taking care of my wives. What about your kids?"

"I have six daughters. My wives pushed for more, but it was really all I felt like I could handle. Somewhere downstairs people seem to be taking very good care of them. Sherry kept trying to stay by me during the negotiations, with passion stating for the kids."

"Know what you mean, man. I have some of my wives who treat me like I’m the biggest child, and others take care of the kids. Really, it actually works out like that. That I was ever expected. In some ways, it’s really nice to be able to talk to someone for whom all of this isn’t exactly..." I paused for a moment as I tried to think of the right word.

He cut me off when he said, "Natural?"

I nodded and smiled. He got it. This world wasn’t, well, it didn’t follow the rules of earth. That didn’t make it wrong, it didn’t make it unnatural. It just made it different.

"So, tell me about your kids."

That got him talking for sure. Before long, one of the clerks had brought up a table and drinks, and the two of us were sitting down, sipping on some warm tea in his case, or cold ale in my case. As we reminisced about life; first life on earth and then life here in Olimero. It was a good time, and honestly if we didn’t have an army of undead monsters creeping ever closer, I would have been inclined to take the next week off and just get to know him and his family better.

When I asked him about the other humans, he had a grim expression on his face.

"None of the other Sheriffs survived. They either couldn’t learn how to manage the gangs or they couldn’t handle All-America. For the life of me, I'll never understand why Sativa doesn’t ask how people feel about monster girls before bringing them here."

That got me laughing for sure. It was a definite oversight, but in the scope of things that Sativa had shamed, or screwed up, that was probably one of the smallest. I didn’t burden him with my suspicions about the fact that such evil was running around my city, as some human-elf hybrid, either pretending amnesia or truly suffering from it.

Instead of laughing, if possible, the expression on his face got even darker. He told me about how the gangs had started taking humans hostage instead of simply killing them. It made sense from a morbid perspective. If they killed the sheriff, Sativa simply brought a new one. But as long as the current sheriff was alive, Sativa couldn’t bring anyone. Casper told me that she thought the gangs had started doing something with the Sheriffs. At first, she felt like they’d been holding them hostage, but there were rumors that they were experimenting on them.

If I hadn’t hated One Direction and the other gangs before, that was all the impetus that I needed. Unfortunately, my plate was full, so the other humans would have to handle themselves for a while. But the time of reckoning would come.

As the sun was setting, my wives wanted to make sure that everything was going well. I sent them a quick mental reassurance, but knew that eventually it was time to end this pleasant little conversation.

Casper helped with that when he asked, "Do you think we really have any kind of chance?"

I shrugged, not because I wasn’t confident, but because the question really didn’t have any meaning. I turned it back on him as I asked, "Is there really any choice?"

He sighed. "I suppose not."

"But to answer your question, yes, I do think we have a chance. I’m going to need to do some scouting and find out just how strong some of the higher undead are, but I can deal with a million of those skeletons from what I’ve seen. And don’t underestimate the power of my wives, or the forces that we’ve built here."

"And did you really mean what you said down below? Will you help us restore our cities?"

"If that’s what you want, of course. You work with me and I’ll work with you."

He held out his hand as though to shake. It wasn't the most common of exchanges on Olimero. The orcs had their own version of it, but it was more clasping one another’s forearms. I grabbed his hand, looked him in the eye, shook it, and said, "You got my word on it."

With that, I felt like the world shifted around me. The notification popped up in front of me.

Your universal concept blended with the aspect of infinity has set a path for you. The system does not give quests to S ranked beings and since you are already exercising an aspect of infinity this applies to you as well. What the system does is clarify the path you are already set to take. This should benefit you as it shows how your thoughts and actions are working.

Current path:

1. Defeat Undead Threat

2. Bring Westerton under your control.

3. Bring Centrum Under your control.

4. Remove the influence of any outside S or higher ranked beings from Olimero- Old Scratch

5. Come to terms with the founding S ranked beings of Olimero.

6. Restore Sativa

7. Restore the faithful lords who follow you as vassals.

8. Free any humans from the gangs

9. End the influence and power of the gangs in Olimero.

I chuckled. Was that all I had to do? Good thing I was thinking small. It left out a few of my more personal crisis but I couldn’t argue with the fact that the system had pegged me correctly. I didn’t even know it when I started, but this was pretty much my intention. Now, one thing at a time.

I found it interesting that the system took for granted that the vassal relationship with the outposts in the Untamed Lands was going to work out. I didn’t know if that was the system reassuring me or if it was my own over-confidence being demonstrated.

Either way, it was time to head downstairs. I had some wives who needed attention.