[MA] 159. How Could Anyone Say Otherwise? (Patreon)

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[A/N: 1/2 chapters I owe you. I now owe you 1 chapter. Next chapter on Saturday.]

Sai walked hand-to-hand with his sister with a deep frown. Shen's ultimatum felt wrong. Wrong, and twisted, and... expected, in hindsight.

Shen was a xianxia cultivator in real life. Sai had read about cultivator rigidness in some stories and liked Shen's self-proclaimed honor—backed by his attitudes—in the tutorial. Yet, Sai now realized that, deep down, he had also hoped for Shen to be a bit more... malleable when it came to people on his side.

Most xianxia novels were about becoming the big bad wolf in a dog-eat-dog world. And after the main characters accomplished it, they became benevolent tyrants—benevolent toward those on their side and tyrants toward everyone else. That had been Sai's subconscious expectations despite Shen's previous actions.

Unfortunately, they proved false in the worst way possible.

Thinking back to simpler days, the kind of clan Shen was building had two paths to reach the same end in the stories. At times, they were around to be obnoxious against the protagonists and thus justly destroyed. At other times, they helped the protagonist but were destroyed by the evil people, whom the protagonist and reader proceeded to hate and whose blood they wanted.

If Sai were the main character in a xianxia story, this would be the moment when Shen killed his mother for going against the rules, and Sai planned his vendetta. Would the cultivator go as far as that if his mother merely refused to leave? Did Sai even want to stay after Shen treated them like that?

What did Sai want?

His goal in the tutorial had been to get into the world's strongest clan to protect his family. Now, it became apparent that the clan would not defend his family—at least not until he proved more valuable than a random guard. Should he try to climb through the ranks, focusing on the long term, or leave it searching for a more family-friendly group?

"Are we leaving the scary man, elder brother?" Ananya asked timidly, fear evident in her voice.

Were they?

"I don't know," he replied sincerely.

Regardless of his decision about his clan membership status, Sai would need to seek other forms of protection for his mother and sister at once. That much was clear. Should he leave a literal war zone and bring them somewhere safer? Then again, what sort of protection could he give them if he left now and was later hunted down as a deserter?

Sai passed by countless people as he moved toward the front desks. They looked either weak or cunning. He wouldn't trust them to give him water in the desert. During his month going through the Bounties back in India, he had seen people doing inhuman things to others just because they thought their power allowed them to do so.

So how could he trust the Guardians protecting the underground area with the lives of his loved ones?

He only stopped clenching Ananya's hand when she complained about it but kept walking firmly toward his mother—whom he also wasn't sure he could trust.

Maybe that was the worst of it all. It was somewhat easy to accept Shen was kind of a prick that cared for rules more than he did for people. But it made no sense for his mother to want to put Ananya through the suffering brought by Shen's aura again.

She was his mother, his leader, and his mentor. She was supposed to be the better of the two.

And yet...

Sai shook his head. He wouldn't let a single mistake taint the image he had of his mother or diminish the respect he felt for her.

He would talk to her, then decide what to do.

= - = - =

Pihu followed Lieutenant Basher, who led her to a different table. She was supposed to be trained by the very young man she had ordered to go to sleep, so they were relocating.

That ended up being great for her primary goal: gathering information. She strolled purposefully slow—to Basher's annoyance—while focusing on her surroundings. Sometimes, she even stopped to better listen to what people were saying and watch how the visitors were treated.

She hadn't had the best impressions after seeing dangerous-looking people carrying rifles on the ground. Seeing a man's car get crushed while the driver got impaled on flying metal spikes hadn't helped. And having the camp's supreme leader make her girl scream in terror had made things even worse.

Yet, here she saw the opposite of fear and terror.

The camp's volunteers treated people humanly and understood different circumstances. The lack of a language barrier made things simpler on that front, too, as almost nothing was lost on the translation magic affecting the whole world. They explained things clearly and calmly, even if some of the newcomers' questions were pretty stupid in Pihu's opinion—someone, for instance, had asked if volunteers could have sex.

In general, she also liked what she saw on the newcomers' side. They were receptive to the rules and eager to help in any way they could. They understood that some things like privacy were being temporarily removed so other things could happen faster and more efficiently.

Everyone was united against humanity's common enemy.

Well, almost everyone.

As Pihu walked, she saw a girl yell very loudly. It felt like she wanted to ensure everyone in a kilometer radius would hear her complaints. She wasn't happy about waiting seven hours in line after traveling for an entire day to get to the camp. The front desk calmly said they could do nothing, but after she kept insisting, a Guardian in plate armor stepped up and told her to shut up and obey the rules or else. She paled and complied.

Pihu disapproved of the girls' attitude but also disliked what she saw as the camp's troops resorting to violence too quickly. The girl had been intimidated into silence by the very people she came to help and were supposed to protect the world. At the very least, it was a very sad state of affairs.

Those soldiers were fortunate they hadn't tried any of that on Pihu, or she would show them!

With that diversion resolved, she kept walking. Things looked bright again until she saw people slowly getting away from a table. A muscular young man in a black gym suit was standing in front of it, talking to a bored-looking old man sitting by it.

Pihu slowed down to watch.

"...proper channels," the old man said, acting like someone who had repeated the same thing to the same person thousands of times. The young man's frown deepened. "The way to complain or request rank reevaluation is through our APP. If you don't have a smartphone, you can ask for—"

"This is the last time I warn you," the annoyed newcomer interrupted, talking slowly and firmly. "I will be a general." A strange type of gray distortion appeared around him. He looked hazy through it, though his voice was still clear. "The only reason I accepted being disregarded until now is that I would have to kill countless innocents to carve a way to this place. But now that I'm being heard, I'll accept nothing less than what a man of my power rightfully deserves. If you insist on being obnoxious, I'll have no choice but to unleash my full power on your so-called war camp to show you the error of your ways."

A female in a blue magic robe stepped up then. Pihu could swear the girl appeared out of nowhere. Could these people be invisible all around her?

"Sir, this is a military organization, and it has rules that must be obeyed by everyone who chooses to stay," she snarled. "Cease your complaints and conform with the norms or leave."

The gray distortion around him got darker, making it harder to see him. "This is your last warning," he said slowly as if talking to an unruly child. "Stop being arrogant and understand I'm just doing what's best for you. I'm strong, and the strong now rule this world."

There was no vocal reply. Instead, fifteen people in medieval or fantasy clothes suddenly appeared mid-air—so, yes, people could turn invisible now.

A strong bout of wind blew against Pihu, pushing her into the already expecting Lieutenant's arms. The man turned and started running without a word. Pihu understood a magic battle was no place for her, but she still struggled to see what was happening.

"Stay still," Kasher complained. She ignored him.

Kasher wasn't the only one running away. The annoyed old attendant had been pushed out by the sudden wind but landed on his feet and kept escaping. Everyone around the young man was fleeing for their lives except the flying people and some who stayed on the ground and created multiple misformed circles around the offender, looking ready for battle. Confused newcomers were carried by people like Kasher.

The Lieutenant moved fast. Pihu was quickly too far to hear what was being said, but the gray distortion around the power-hungry youngster kept getting darker. When Kasher finally stopped running and put Pihu on the ground, the distortion was almost black, and the youngster couldn't even be seen anymore.

Between the flying people and those in the circles on the ground, less than fifty remained within a three-hundred-meter range. When the last escapee moved past that threshold, the very earth rose and created a dome around what Pihu guessed would turn into a brawl.

Indeed, a moment later, she heard muffled explosions and shouts and felt the ground tremble, though no one around seemed worried about it anymore.

"Why didn't you attack him as soon as he started using that magic?" Pihu asked. "I saw a man get attacked on sight just because he was trying to jump the line!"

That was very curious. Those people had acted quickly and decisively to stop that driver. She disagreed with that brutal way of doing things—they could have tried to talk to or apprehend him first!—and wondered whether things had improved.

"Feng Shen," Lieutenant Basher replied with a neutral voice, though his words were dripping with sarcasm, "the natural disaster, murderer supreme, our great leader, has determined that he doesn't like when other people kill innocents; he has exclusive rights on that. But he's also very picky on who he considers innocent—only those on his side. The lives of everyone in the camp come first, so any invader must be stopped at all costs. But the uncountable people queueing to help humankind against alien invaders are just unfortunate collateral damage—like the people he tortures by accident with his aura. Just an inconvenient happenstance of life."

Pihu squinted her eyes. She liked being safe, but not when the cost was potentially other people's lives. Were they fighting for humankind's survival or their private group's? What if they had to sacrifice everyone outside to protect the few inside? That was absurd!

"Oh, but it's better this way," Kasher continued. Pihu's reaction seemed to give him the validation he needed to keep talking. His neutral tone was now filled with venom. "Can't you see it? We have already been selected by our new god. We are the Chosen few and owe nothing to the unfortunate Late Arrivals. It's their bad luck that they weren't here earlier, maybe the will of the very universe; who are we to go against providence itself? It's much wiser to use our manpower strength to defend the manpower itself instead of everyone outside because we need the men to protect Earth. Of course, we decided by ourselves that we are more valuable than everyone else in the world we're supposedly trying to save, but how could anyone say otherwise?"

Pihu opened her mouth to tell Basher that he was right—and maybe use that to convince him to see the light on his vengeance plan—but she heard a familiar voice before she could say anything.

"That settles it," Sai said from behind her. "Mom, you're going underground. Take care of Ananya for a moment."

Pihu turned in time to see her boy release Ananya's hand and turn into a blur, moving toward the earth dome. He went through it as if it was empty air, leaving a somewhat comical human-sized hole in it.

"Mama, the elder brother is angry," Ananya said and hugged Pihu. "He hurt my hand. I'm scared."

Pihu patted her girl's head and started whispering calming words to her while thinking—

Before she could even begin to think anything, Sai appeared, coming from the hole as if nothing had happened. Yet, the sound coming from the inside had all but disappeared.

"Mom," her boy said firmly and seriously, looking Pihu in the eyes. His shoulders seemed so large. She had never felt he looked so much like his father. "I know you're smarter than me, but just this once, please trust me. Stay underground with Ananya. We can decide anything else after we win this war."

[A/N: Someone commented things are going too smoothly for Shen.

That's mostly on purpose (though some things, like Marzia's action, are more organic; I discover them as I write). After being thrown on random stuff repeatedly, he can finally plan for something and get some support. And we get to see what he can do in a different situation.

Don't worry though; I don't plan on letting things grow boring.

On a related note, I miss some reactions to Marzia's laws, but we'll see where I can fit it without slowing the pacing even further. I think most if not all relationship POVs are done for now.

Let's progress with the Rift War! \o/]

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