The Systemic Lands (Dark Progressive LITRPG)

We stood there on the top of the airship tower glaring at each other. The anger and broken trust was immense. "You think you can run all of this?" Clarissa asked while glaring at me.

"With a military government yes," I countered.

She let out a scoff at that. "People would rebel and die. In the end it would become the Dragon Empire," she replied. "The level of corruption would sky rocket. Or you would have massive infighting between factions you would need to manage. You can't just expect to shout out demands and people to follow them."

"And your way is much better?" I demanded.

"One person at our weakest point. If the sphere never happened, your mother would not have been kidnapped," Clarissa countered. I had to use all my self-control not to kill her where she stood.

"And now I am compromised. There is one big difference between us. I can have a government without you, but you can't have a government without me," I snarled back.

"I would say it is the other way around. Your personal power is immense, and you are unbeatable, but at a certain point you can't just kill people to create an enduring governmental structure. You want to remove me, then all the work for the past decade, waisted. And before you claim I am hungry for power, I would like to quit and retire. But there is just no way for that happen."

There was silence after that rant, and she was breathing heavily. The silence stretched out. I viewed this as a betrayal of the trust I had put in Clarissa's ability to manage the situation in the various cities. She trusted I had the strength to take any challenger.

For most other issues I wouldn't make a fuss, but this was my mother. A family member had shown up here in the Systemic Lands and had been taken hostage. It was beyond aggravating. The sheer rage I felt was hard to put into words. How could such a failure even happen?

While I knew we were arguing in circles, I was just so mad that I didn't care. I turned and walked to the edge of the tower, looking out over the city. I wasn't so much as focused on the city, but if I kept looking at Clarissa, I was probably going to do something I would regret.

It was unfair to blame her for everything, but this happened under her watch. Looking out over the city and the people working and living here, showed she accomplished a lot. Taking a deep breath I considered the issue again, but my rage just boiled up.

A one off failure of the government did not necessarily indicate that there was a problem with how things were run. It spoke more to the exceptional circumstances. Having a knee jerk reaction wouldn't be productive. I knew all of that, but this wasn't a small issue in my mind.

I turned back to Clarissa. "How was it timed so perfectly?" I asked. That was bothering me.

"Jacob most likely. He had access to quite a bit of information. With his knowledge and power, it would be easy to do what he did. Besides us, he was the third most powerful person in the government," Clarissa explained and I nodded. I was trying to calm down, but it was hard.

"We have map rooms. How are we not able to find him?" I asked.

"There are anti-tracking techniques. With an airship and his knowledge of how tracking works, he could easily use an astrolabe to hide his exact position," Clarissa answered. I closed my eyes and took another deep breath to suppress my immense rage.

"And we can't pinpoint the location of such a disturbance?" I asked.

"It is being worked on, but that involves communication between cities. The number of terrorist attacks has rapidly increased. The cities that were lost to the sphere don't have the personnel needed. That was why I was out of the city, trying to stabilize and fix things," Clarissa countered. I didn't respond and just turned away once more.

After a few minutes of thinking on the situation, I turned back around. "Any of my personnel guard in the city still alive?" I asked.

"They were all killed in the attack," Clarissa responded.

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"Don't we have summoners?" I demanded.

"Jacob is high combat level 5 with his knowledge of energy. Your personal guards were at high combat level 4, maybe low combat level 5 at best. But it is knowledge of esoteric techniques and uses of energy that couldn't be countered when he attacked. He is the lynchpin for whomever is acting behind the scenes. There was no better person to compromise than him," Clarissa explained.

"He is watched constantly?" I asked and Clarissa shook her head.

"No. Not for a while. His research has been checked, but he has not been under constant monitoring," she said. I knew that and had signed off on it, but I wanted to confirm. I had made a mistake there. We had all made a mistake. I turned back to look out at the city and let the silence linger.

Clarissa walked over and stood next to me looking out over the city. "I am sorry I let things get so bad," she quietly said to me. I didn't respond. I didn't have the words to respond. I had buried all thoughts of my family and home deep in my heart. There was nothing there, at least I had thought so.

Now I was put in a position, where my mother would be killed. I couldn't negotiate. What would even be the request? If anything she would be used as bait to trap and kill me. Just like we had planned with the Divine Empress and her child. There was no other point to having a hostage except that.

Her arrival couldn't have been foreseen either. There had been procedures put in place, but they hadn't been enough. The devil really was in the details. If I had been recalled to Purgatory, all of this could have been prevented.

Now I was in an impossible situation. "I am sorry for shouting at you," I finally said. I was mature enough to know that I had been incredibly out of line with Clarissa. I still blamed her, but infighting wouldn't help anything. Restructuring the government at this time would also lead to a disaster.

As much as I hated it, Clarissa was necessary. Sure, things could run and work without her, but it would be a house of cards, easily broken. The problems would only get worse, and I would just get angrier over failures and missteps.

It was easy to self-reflect, when there wasn't this much pressure. When there was a path forward. Now, I was in deep waters with hidden danger all around. One thing I knew for sure was that Clarissa had not betrayed me. There was no proof this wasn't a trap set up by her, but I couldn't believe that she would seek to remove me.

I let out a long sigh and looked upwards. I wiped my eyes which were moist. I hadn't been this emotional in a long time. "If you are planning to betray me, I will leave," I said out loud.

"I don't plan on doing that." She nudged me on the side. "Teamwork, right." I let out a soft half hearted chuckle at that.

"Yeah, teamwork. I hate problems like this, no easy solution," I muttered.

"Welcome to being all powerful. No one wants to fight you anymore," Clarissa said.

"The treasury?" I asked.

"Secure. The procedures in place made sure nothing was stolen. An audit is being done, but I am not worried about any kind of theft." I nodded at this. No one was going to do to me what I did to the Divine Empress.

I felt a touch of sympathy for her. A super powered terrorist was a nightmare to deal with. Once their strength and knowledge was high enough, it was impossible to just kill them. "I got lucky, no one checked the map building when I stole the Divine Empress' treasury," I said.

"It is the little things that are overlooked that create huge problems. We can track and verify people, but there is only so much that can be done. And then people innovate in some way," Clarissa replied, and I nodded.

"So, teamwork. We need to be proactive. But apparently, I am the only one able to beat Jacob," I replied.

"Unfortunately, yes. They are going to attempt to trap and kill you," Clarissa said.

"I realized that. I don't think they can win," I replied.

"Even with a meta-point that we suspect was used on Jacob?" Clarissa asked back. I considered that issue and then shook my head.

"There are probably severe limitations, otherwise I would have been targeted first. For now we need to track him down."

"I have put everything I can on finding him, but it will take time and with his skills, it will be hard. His knowledge is second to none," Clarissa replied. It was incredibly annoying that I had been put in such a position. Annoying was probably too polite to describe how things currently stood.

"There is also the sphere," I muttered.

"You think there might be something happening there as well?" Clarissa asked.

"Summoning has issues around the impacted area giving independent confirmation of the problem. If it becomes active in some way, we will be in trouble. The research Jacob was doing?" I asked.

"I have a team out looking into that right now," Clarissa said. I turned to look at her and she looked back at me. She really was incredibly capable. I regretted losing my temper at her, but it was just frustrating I couldn't fight my way through the problems in front of me.

The fact she was working to cover every angle was impressive and us standing on this tower talking wasn't helping anything but my mood at the moment. But I wasn't ready to end our conversation just yet. "I won't be restructuring the government, you can keep your position," I replied, defeated.

Clarissa didn't gloat or say anything. She knew that it wasn't a win for anyone. It was just recognizing reality. The entire situation had me off kilter in a way I didn't know how to deal with. Not since Naran's death had I felt such emotional pressure. Whomever had done this was smart. Much smarter than I gave them credit for.

Instead of attacking me directly, they were going for me mentally. Attacks from all directions. For a moment I just wished I could hand off these problems to someone else. But I was that someone else.