[MA] 122. Tamed Qilin (Patreon)

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[A/N: Weeeeeee're baaaaaaack!

How do I do this again?

1/3 chapters for this week. Next chapter on Wednesday. More info on this post, in case you haven't read it yet.]

The Primordials ruled over all existence with their overwhelming power and technology. They could literally turn any dream into a reality if they wanted. To be a Primordial was to have the ultimate freedom; they treated the multiverse as their playground, and rightfully so.

That's how Sharendil was born and raised. She obeyed her people's rules and none else—rules that only limited what she could do to other Primordials. If any Primordial wanted, they could just start destroying the Alliance, with no adverse consequences.

Fortunately for the pitiful Alliance, it had nothing they wanted, and they took no pleasure in killing ants. Therefore, they stayed in their home galaxy and let the insects in the rest of the multiverse live however they wanted.

Well, kind of.

The Song of Remembrance was about to be performed in the Alliance for their sins... but that was neither here nor there.

Long ago, Sharendil had been selected as the next Maiden. To become a Maiden was to be given the Voice of a Rising Star. It was a great honor in itself, even more so because to have a Voice was to join the Choir.

Unfortunately, surviving the Choir as an active participant required self-control that the average Dhar didn't have due to their upbringing. Even more unfortunate was that Yornolar's preferred way of teaching self-control was by having her obey many rules created by the pitiful Alliance, plus some rules of his own.

She was obeying the rules of ants!

One such rule she had to obey was not killing anyone. She could usually work around that, but another rule was no threatening, blackmailing, torturing, or doing almost anything, really, to any Titled Alliance member unless attacked first. The ant she was pursuing was, unfortunately, a Titled ant.

She hated all of that with every fiber of her being, but she hated herself more for deciding she would give her target one year. The weeks she had spent there were enough to almost turn her crazy.

Those ants' culture was pathetic, their technology was pitiful, and their arrogance...

Oh, the arrogance! They called themselves gods! They had done so to her face! Hers!

The gall!

To make things even worse—if that was possible—she would need to keep studying their inferior culture—if you could call it culture at all. She simply didn't understand why the ant had killed her.

She had done the ant a favor by killing the bugs that were manipulating it, revealed how some of the manipulations were happening, then offered it a way to achieve its goal of traveling to another continent. It should've basked her in glory and gratitude, just as the Alliance should always do to the Primordials. Yet, both were obviously incapable of that.

She was angry, but Yonolar had taught her the patience to try again.

So she willed it and shrank, then a new human shell appeared around her. She was still beyond the sight of everyone in the room though. She turned her body and appeared above Italy.

"Give me a new identity, a local one," she ordered the System Admin.

She would try another approach.

= - = - =

"Oh my God, oh my God, oh my God," Alicia said. She was panicking beside Shen. They were under a viaduct after Shen had escaped at maximum speed. Sirens could be heard everywhere. "They are dead. They are fucking dead. The President of the United States of fucking America was killed in front of me, and I did nothing to stop it."

"Assumptions and expectations can cause that," Shen said. "You never thought it would happen, so you had no idea how to react when it did."

She crouched and grabbed her head. "What am I going to do? What's going to happen to the US? Fuck, what the fuck is going on in this fucking world?"

Shen pressed "send" on his smartphone. He had just revealed he had killed the President's murderer and would leave the country out of fear of retaliation due to the circumstances.

Then he crushed his smartphone and threw it away. He didn't completely believe Dyson, who had claimed there was something wrong with his smartphone, but he knew it could be tracked.

"I can bring you to Mexico or Canada before I leave for Italy if you want," Shen said. "Or you can come with me."

"What?" she snapped her head to look at him. "No, I'm coming with you."

"Then let's go," he said and approached to grab her. "I hope you like salty water."

= - = - =

It took Alicia a lot of complaining to have Shen develop a way to bring her more comfortably. After testing a few things, they ended with a chair tied to his back. Alicia sat on it with her back to his and was further bound to not fall down. They agreed he would do the running, and he took care to not spend more stamina than he could recover.

He could still run faster than a bullet forever despite the extra weight.

He felt like a tamed qilin being ridden, but they were friends. She wanted to come, and he appreciated her presence. So he tried to ignore the discomfort.

They went to Canada first. He had decided against going from the US straight to Europe in case something went wrong.

At first, Alicia had to visit smartphone stores to check their maps, as she had also got ridden of her phone to prevent being tracked. She had said it was stupid for him not to just steal a smartphone, but he didn't want to use his power to oppress the innocent in any way. It might be silly, but it was in the small things that one got used to abusing their power.

When they checked the news in the smartphone stores, it only said they were being investigated, but not that they were wanted. Shen didn't believe a word.

They lucked out in a tourist information center, where they got a physical map and reached the border of Canada without issue. On the way, Alicia also used her charms to beg people to print her maps for the rest of the way. It worked.

Shen ran on water through the few miles between some Canadian islands first.

Running on water was common enough for cultivators that it was the first cool thing children did when they got fast enough—and Shen had been very jealous of that. Likewise, modern Earth people had started having fun with that as soon as the first F-ranks arrived. There were many online videos showing people running on lakes.

The ten-mile journey between Ellesmere Island and Greenland was a little more challenging than a lake. The sea wasn't still water, and he had to deal with waves of multiple sizes. After some trial and error, he concluded it was best to just use small waves as ramps that made him leave the "ground" for a few moments; it was fun. Then came the tall waves which he could jump over.

He used his spear to deal with the single wave too tall for him to avoid. A powerful thrust, a twist of his pulse, and rotating his arm correctly created a corridor that let him go through without feeling like he had struck a wall at three thousand feet per second; that would've hurt.

When Shen reached the Denmark Strait that separated Greenland from Iceland, they stopped to look at the endless ocean ahead.

"Are we really doing this?" Alicia asked.

"Yes," Shen said and turned his back to her. "Let's go."

= - = - =

The standard tutorial was something out of a fairy tale.

Marzia walked the halls of the enormous, gigantic crystal palace that might as well have come out of a Disney movie or maybe a fantasy game. It was beautiful, made of bright colors, with lots of crystal and expensive objects everywhere.

Beings of different races, mostly fairies, elves, and treefolk, walked the halls with her, going everywhere. Only a few fellow Pioneers had come with her to the tutorial, but the place was bursting with alien activity. It seemed like some bigshot had died, complicating things for everyone.

She climbed the palace's stairs and reached the second story. Minutes later, she found the room she was looking for. Though she had never been allowed in the second story before, she knew some visiting dignitaries were staying there.

It was impossible to miss the door to the room she had been summoned to because it was made of yellow crystal that shone like a sun. She was confident she would've been blinded if she had only G resistance. At E+, it still annoyed her, but she approached and touched the door.

It opened by itself, revealing a relatively small round room with seven seats that looked like wooden thrones.

Six were occupied, and the most beautiful elf Marzia had ever seen—the only one she had with dark skin in the palace—commanded the girl's attention at a glance.

The elf wore black scaled armor and a dark red cloak that looked both practical and regal. Her boots and gauntlets had inlaid metal for better defense and offense, and instead of a helmet, she wore a silver tiara with a white stone in the center.

If that palace had a queen, Marzia would bet all her money that elf was it.

The other five were noteworthy in different ways.

One was a pile of white goo that seemed to be eternally melting without decreasing the being's size or dirtying its surroundings. A lizard wearing a suit was drinking something from a teacup. An owl taller than any human stood on its chair. A big, red orc wearing the most badass dark and silver plate armor she had ever seen sat opposite the dark elf. And finally, a wisp floated above its seat.

Marzia would've Inspected them if she hadn't learned in the tutorial that it was impolite. Really, the Pioneer Tutorial seemed intended on just creating bloodthirsty warriors and nothing else. Everyone should've been forced to take the regular tutorial.

"Greetings to the Human Rising Star," the lizard said. It had a high-pitched male voice. He jabbered like a hyperactive child, but the system translation made it intelligible. "I have put on human clothes for rapport. Does it work?"

Marzia nodded. "Yes, it does, esteemed dignitary." In the Alliance, that was the proper way of greeting unknown people that likely had some significance. "You have me at a disadvantage. My ignorance makes me unaware of your identities."

"We're Observers," the lizard replied and pointed at the empty chair. "Take a seat; this will take a while."

"Observers?" the girl asked while sitting.

"We're here to guarantee humans won't exterminate themselves with their new power," the lizard said. The gorgeous elf snickered but said nothing. The lizard glanced at her in fear rather than annoyance. After a few seconds, when the elf said nothing, he continued, "Such extermination is unfortunately about to happen, although they are using their old power for that."

"Maidens appearing straight from the Pioneer Tutorial are rare," the wisp said with a soft female voice, "but when it happens, we don't usually instruct them until they leave the standard tutorial. Unfortunately, we predict that over ninety-five percent of Earth's population will die unless you intervene."

Marzia started sweating cold but didn't understand where they were going. "What?"

"A race's leaders can issue Decrees," the wisp explained. "Humanity has no B-ranks or stronger, so you're its sole leader. There's a wide range of things you must be taught, which is the Observatory's secondary job. We'll teach you after you leave the standard tutorial, but this is urgent."

"You must Decree all non-magic weaponry be banned," the lizard said. "That will—"

"That will be the end of your race," the elf interjected. Her voice was like a goddess speaking from the heavens. It was silky and stirred something in Marzia's very soul.

The orc grunted, clearly upset at the elf's interruption, but said nothing. Everyone else—at least those who had facial expressions—looked afraid.

"Sorry?" Marzia said after she recovered from being exposed to such a godly voice.

"These people don't understand what it means to grow up weak in a universe that sees you as an inferior being," the elf said. "Get rid of the big guns, but leave some way for the ordinary people to defend themselves from Guardians. That's all I'll say on the subject."

There was a long moment of silence before the lizard cleared his throat and said, "Well, you see, humans used atomic bombs seven times already, and we determined—"

"What?!" Marzia yelled, standing up in shock.

"Yes, yes, and they are about to use even more," the lizard continued. "We determined they are about to destroy themselves soon. So we came to suggest you ban non-magic guns..." He looked to the elf. "...that can lead to significant life loss. Nuclear, biological, and chemical weapons should be enough. If the Drow Maiden allows it, I would like to suggest banning anything above a thousand pounds of TNT just to be safe."

"I'm not here to allow or disallow anything," the elf, apparently the Drow Maiden, said. "I have already said too much. You were elected the Speaker, and I'll respect it."

"Sorry," Marzia said. "You said seven atomic bombs were used already? Why? Where?"

"We can't reveal more than that," the lizard said. "Not until the standard tutorial is over. And unfortunately, now that you have been informed, you can't give up on it. Now, please, let me teach you how to issue the Decree I suggested."

Marzia suddenly felt she had bitten way more than she could chew. She was sixteen years old. She was in no way prepared to deal with a nuclear Armageddon, much less to have a say on how to avoid it!

So she listened to the Observers and did as instructed.

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