Ryu continued his impromptu therapy of kicking rocks around in a cartoonish fit, until he eventually exhausted his frustration and took a seat on the ground. Moments later, he heard small footsteps in the rubble. It was the little girl from before.

“S-sir are you okay?” said the girl.

Ryu sighed and began to get up, and, oddly from his point of view, the girl flinched, taking a step back as she did so. Ryu: Child Flincher. He didn’t like the title, and he didn’t like to think he was the cause of someone’s distress, even though that someone was just a series of ones and zeroes.

In his head Dot had already begun working on a solution, but this wasn’t a simple problem with a single solution. People were unpredictable. Minutes passed, and whether it was Ryu or Dot who would identify the root of the problem was impossible for Ryu to know - whatever Dot was thinking he was thinking, and vice versa.

Ryu walked in circles, continuing to sort his thoughts until he- they’d, found it. He stopped his pacing in front of a tipped over lawn chair. Why there was a white lawn chair and table here of all places, he didn’t care to ask. He could feel the eyes on him. Waiting for him to make his move. He leaned down and grasped the chair, hauling it back up.

”We WILL rebuild!”

Ryu held his fist in the air, a symbol of strength; however, his somewhat scrawny arms did anything but prove his conviction. He’d have to do some work on his image if he was going to be their new leader.

“What?!” shouted a voice in the crowd. “You travellers are the reason the kingdom was-”

“THIS IS NOT A DEMOCRACY!” said Ryu, setting stage one of his plan into action.

Ryu turned his back to the crowd. There was meant to be screaming and fangirling, women throwing themselves at him as he took his rightful place on the podium. With those three words he was meant to ascend from his status as a beta to an alpha! What kind of game would deny a man that? Who would dare to develop something so treacherous?

[kkaw#2001 wants to chat]

“Wait a second, I got a call,” said Ryu, accepting Kana’s chat request.

“Hey,” said Kana. “How’s it going?”

“Err…” Ryu looked back at the crowd, and found them to be oddly obedient. Good. “I’m good. I’m looking for a new job though.”

“Oh?” Kana’s voice hinted at her curiousity. “When did you lose your last one?”

“Uh, a couple days ago. Anyway how are you?”

Ryu took another peak at the crowd. Still waiting. Perhaps things weren’t completely hopeless, is how Ryu was beginning to feel.

“You should’ve said earlier. Do you want a job?”

“Huh?”

“I don’t think my mum will mind. But it really depends if you’re okay with running errands for her? Her last assistant just quit and she’s kinda tired of hiring people.”

Ryu’s heartbeat sped up. This was it. His ticket. Buy one, get one free. A job, a chance to get closer to Kana, and also a chance to get into her mother’s good books. Wait, that was one more than two, which meant it was three. It was unheard of. Buy one, get two free.

“I’ll do it!” said Ryu.

“Cool, I’ll ask my mum and tell you how it goes. She’ll probably wanna meet you before saying yes though.”

“Yeah that’s fine.”

There was a moment of silence and Ryu thought the conversation would be over, but Kana quelled that thought.

“I’m like halfway through a quest at the moment, but there’s a dungeon I wanted to try out. Would you like to do it with me? I don’t like partying up with strangers.”

In only a few days the number of women in Ryu’s life had doubled if not more. Needless to say, he was more than willing for that number to keep climbing.

“When do you wanna do it?” said Ryu, taking the lead. “I can head there now or meetup with you first.”

“It’s outside Rayden, but I don’t have time to do it today. I’ll send you a message next time I’m online. Today I just want to get this quest done.”

“Yeah, yeah, that’s fine…” Ryu played it cool, despite the fact he had no clue where Rayden was. “Anytime.”

It was fine, Ryu told himself. He’d just find out where Rayden was and teleport there… except he couldn’t because he’d never been there. Perhaps a warp portal- and then Ryu realised all methods of transportation were almost certainly gone and all his hopes and dreams were crushed.

In the background Ryu heard Kana say, “bye,” before she ended the chat.

Ryu swallowed his frustrations and turned around. This was a crucial time. Not the time to be kicking the ground.

“We WILL rebuild!” said Ryu, repeating his goal. It was important that his people know his goals.

“We can’t rebuild Sanctuary!”

There would always be naysayers, haters, flamers, people who’s only goal in life was to crush the hopes and dreams of others. Ryu wasn’t immune them, but he knew them well. They to had been burned, had their hopes crushed. A good leader could look past this on the road to their own vision.

“What the fuck has Dot been reading…” mumbled Ryu, off to the side.

A good leader knew best.

“We’re not going to. We’re going to build something new, something better, and we’ll call it....”

Ryu was not that leader, but he could pretend to be.

“A new sanctuary?” whispered someone, as Ryu thought.

Dot had only given Ryu the barebones, but like the pencil sketches of one of his waifu’s, there was room for some imagination on his part.

“Yes! We will call it... ” Ryu put his hands together, and drew the outline of a rainbow as he spoke. “New Sanctuary.”

“That sucks!” shouted voices in the crowd.

The mother from earlier covered her daughter's ears.

“HOW MANY TIMES MUST I TELL YOU?! THIS IS NOT A DEMOCRACY!”

Ryu scouted through the crowd for a subject of interest. His eyes landed on a girl, roughly his age in appearance. Of course, her appearance was not a factor in his decision, regardless of whether or not he had a thing for fair skinned blondes.

“You! You’re now my deputy!”

The girl tilted her head.

“Secretary!”

It tilted some more.

“Assistant!”

“Ohhhh, no thanks,” said the girl, nodding side to side.

Resistance. He would find a way to overcome it before a rebellion could sprout, after all, his plan required complete and utter obedience.