Joseph VII

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The first thing they did after the battle was over was count the dead.

Figuring that out ended up being easier than they’d expected. Everyone had kept a decent count on their population, and the numbers were small enough that if they missed someone then they could just ask around to find out who was missing.

Meixiu had brought an army slowly built up from five villages, totaling 143 people. Of those, only 105 survived. Domenic had brought an army of 119 soldiers, of whom 98 survived. Out of Joseph’s original population of about 106 people, only eleven died, but that was from his entire population, not just his army. In total, about 70 people died, give or take. The lands around Joseph’s fortress was the bloodiest battlefield in the world.

They’d spent the next four days burying bodies.

Technically, they’d solved their food problems for the short term. Just not in the way that anyone would have wanted to.

Meixiu’s army had suffered most of its losses during the final battle, and its leadership had been gutted. Domenic’s army had lost much less people, but was the most hostile, its people one wrong move away from turning against them, the only thing stopping them being the knowledge there were other God-Kings out there that would try to conquer them instead. Joseph’s people had taken the least losses, but had the smallest starting population—there were more people in one of those armies than in his entire village. They were starved and exhausted, but (somehow) victorious. Normally, after all that had happened, these people would be unable to get along. But in the end, everyone agreed on one thing.

Everyone was tired of war.

Once the battle was declared over, everyone that could went home. Meixiu disbanded her army for now, telling them to each go back to their homes. Domenic’s army disbanded on its own, with only a few staying behind to better figure out where they stood with Joseph and Meixiu. Joseph’s own people celebrated—they didn’t have the food available for another feast, but they had beer and dancing and cheer and that more than made up for it.

Farmers put down their spears to return to the fields. An uneasy peace settled over the river, between nearly a dozen different people.

By complete accident, Joseph was suddenly in charge of ten cities, with a population of over eight hundred, making him suddenly the most powerful ruler in the world.

If he had been a warmonger, this would have been terrifying. An unstoppable force rolling over their enemies, getting exponentially bigger with each conquest.

That said, if he had been a warmonger, he’d have never ended up in that position in the first place.

There were other issues as well, of course. The land around Joseph’s fortress had been host to eight times the amount of people it could host for two months. The lands around it were sucked dry of any and all resources, leaving behind a practically barren landscape. People had suffered, and the land had suffered with it.

But the war was over. And everyone could take solace in that.

--

“Oh, how the mighty have fallen,” Joseph mocked, entering Domenic’s prison.

The prison started getting built after they captured Meixiu. They needed somewhere to hold immortals without subjecting them to the table. So instead of using the old meeting building, he had instead commissioned his ‘masons’ (nobody had any specific jobs in the village, so he just grabbed a couple people who knew how to make bricks) to make a new prison.

The structure was a small, mudbrick room buried about ten feet underground. There was enough room to pace, along with a table and bed (really more of a cot), but just building the thing was difficult enough. Besides, Domenic didn’t deserve a massive room anyway. The entrance was a simple hole with a ladder that led down into the room, just for that added bit of difficulty, and there was a carved rock set in the center that they could use to tie up Domenic when necessary.

Of course, Joseph knew that even this prison wasn’t foolproof. He’d set up a schedule for guards at the entrance, along with a rotating set of people (including all the local God-Kings) who would visit once every eight hours. Escaping from the prison would take time no matter what, so the goal for now was to just not give Domenic enough time to make any escape attempts in the first place.

“Joseph,” Domenic scowled. “Come to mock this fallen lord?”

“Yes. Hah.”

If anything, Domenic’s scowl deepened. “I did not expect this level of pettiness from you. But then again, I suppose I should have. I see now, that you are nothing more than a conceited, petty usurper, playing at king until your betters can finally take back their rightful place on the throne.”

Joseph couldn’t help but raise an eyebrow. “You have some nerve to sit in my prison, after getting overthrown by your own people, to call me conceited. You are aware of the situation you’re in right now, yeah?”

“A temporary setback,” the dethroned king waved away the issue. “I am immortal—”

“The only reason you’re not dead right now is because we don’t know where your soul-orb-thing is. If we did, you’d be long dead by now.”

For the first time in the conversation, Domenic’s mask broke, his eyes portraying true fear. But just as quickly it was back up, a thunderous scowl forming on the man’s face.

“YOU DARE!” he roared. “You dare speak this way to me! Domenic, King of Nuova Napoli!? The King who is destined to rule this world, who will ascend to the heavens and become a god?! You, a mere peasant, a King who has no idea how to treat his subjects, a puny little turtle who could do nothing but hole up in his shell while others fought for him!? You are pathetic, a worm meant to be crushed underneath my boot! I may be inconvenienced now, but know this, little turtle!” Getting right into Joseph’s face, he snarled, “I. Will. Return!”

Joseph clapped politely. “Quite the speech! I’d give it a 7/10. A bit stereotypical, but the energy makes up for it!”

“I will kill you. Slowly.”

“And I’ll start taking you seriously once you’re not trapped in a pit.”

--

Joseph grunted as he climbed out of Domenic’s pit, the man trapped in the prison beneath the city.

Patting off his tunic, he got prepared to continue with his duties, only to pause as he saw Kaiden awkwardly waiting for him.

“Hey, Joseph, can I talk to you about something?”

The King in question frowned internally, but nodded. He was a bit worried—the last time Kaiden wanted to talk, he tried to convince Joseph to kill him in a futile attempt to save the rest of the city. He hoped that wouldn’t be the case this time.

“Okay, so I was thinking,” Kaiden began slowly. “I… When we were fighting that war, I did a lot of things. Like, uh, pretending to be Meixiu, or leading the army at the end. But I think I, I mean I didn’t like doing that, you know, but it had to be done, right? So I did it. But now that the war is over, those things don’t have to be done anymore, and I didn’t like doing them, so…” he took a deep breath. “I don’t think I want to be a king anymore.”

Joseph blinked, startled. “What? Why?”

“Well, I just… I didn’t like it. I never wanted to be King. I’m not comfortable telling people what to do, and I don’t like the idea of being responsible for so many people. I mean, back when this all started, I ran away from my problems instead of facing them. And I don’t know right now whether I’d do it again if I were in that position, but I know I don’t want to be in that situation in the first place ever again. So, I don’t like to lead, and I don’t like to rule, and I don’t like being King. So I want to quit.”

“…You do know this isn’t just a simple career change, right? If you do this, it’s possible you may never be able to become king again, right?”

“I know that. But my answer hasn’t changed.”

Joseph stared at him for a long moment, before sighing with a slight smile. “Alright, alright. I get it. This’ll make things a bit harder for now, but we’ll figure it out one way or another. So, congrats, I guess? You’re the first person in the world to retire from being King.”

Kaiden didn’t say anything else. He didn’t need to—the look of relief on his face was enough.

“Take it easy, kid. You deserve it.”

--

“How are you holding up?”

Meixiu glanced at him from where she was leaning on the outside of the walls, before turning to stare back out over the fields.

Joseph sighed, before roughly sitting down next to her. Despite himself, he couldn’t help but smile, reveling in the mere action of stepping outside the city for the first time in two months.

The people were hard at work in the fields. Most of the fields were destroyed or trampled during the war, so they needed to start work immediately on fixing them if they wanted to be ready for the next harvest. Though even with all that, they still would probably have issues for a while—all of the local wildlife was gutted by the invading armies, so any foraging would have to be put on hold for a while. It was a depressing thought, that they’d still have to ration for the next few months, if not years. At least they now had a safety net in the other city’s surpluses.

The two of them stayed there for a while, before Meixiu eventually broke the silence.

“You know, I never learned what the name of your city is.”

Joseph blinked, startled by the non-sequitur. Still, he answered truthfully. “That’s because it doesn’t have a name.”

“What?” she asked incredulously. “What do you mean it doesn’t have a name?”

“Well, I never thought it needed one? Everyone just called it ‘the village’ or ‘home.’ There was no need to give it a name.”

“Well, now it’s just one city among many. It’ll need a name to differentiate itself. Have you given it any thought?”

Joseph snorted, amused at the idea. He’d barely given thought to anything beyond his immediate survival in the past few weeks, much less something as frivolous as the name of his city. Still, he humored her, thinking back to the mural on his bedroom wall. “Hm… Something to do with the sun, I think? You have any ideas?”

Meixiu scoffed. “The naming of your home is a personal thing. Don’t go throwing away your responsibilities so easily—otherwise, someone else might steal them when you aren’t looking.”

“I’d think the first duty a King should learn is delegation.”

“And I’d think a King would be creative enough to name his own capital.”

“Heh, touché.” Joseph sighed, letting his head fall to his chest. “Are you sure you’re good?”

Meixiu was silent once again. He was about to drop it for now, before he saw he turn to look at him.

“I…” she muttered, “I will be.”

Joseph smiled tiredly. “That’s all I ask.”

They fell into silence once more, the two of them staring out into the fields.

Eventually, Meixiu broke the silence once again.

“What are you going to do about Domenic’s cities?”

Joseph groaned, letting his head drop into his chest. “Ugh, don’t remind me. That’s an administrative nightmare, and I don’t even have any paper to record things on! The next few weeks are going to be a mess figuring that out.”

“You could always give them to Kaiden. His home city is closer, after all,” she suggested.

“While that is an… idea…” Joseph admitted, privately thinking that Kaiden would fail miserably at managing four cities, much less the one he already dealt with, “it doesn’t matter either way. Kaiden surrendered control of his city to me earlier. I’m not going to dump three more into his lap after that.”

Meixiu turned to look at him, blinking owlishly. “He what? Why would he do that!?”

“Because he doesn’t want to be King…? Not everyone wants to rule, you know. He’s young—let him focus on what he likes. His future isn’t set in stone yet.”

Meixiu had an odd look on her face. “Do you really think that’s a good idea? Doesn’t that leave you with another city to deal with?”

“Leave US with another city to deal with, you mean. We’re the only two rulers left in our little group, remember?”

“I… yes.”

“Bah!” he scoffed, standing up. “Don’t worry about it, we’ll be fine! These people have been living here for decades! They know what they’re doing. We’re just trying to smooth things along, that’s all.”

Meixiu didn’t look convinced, but she also looked less lost, so that was a good thing at least. With one more reassuring smile, Joseph began walking back to the city, going to ask Hsekiu about how the funeral rights were going.

However, he ended up getting waylaid part of the way there.

“Hey,” Gamila stopped him, grabbing onto his arm. “Can I talk to you for a minute?”

Joseph tried to keep the sigh off of his features. What was with everyone wanting to talk with him? Did he look like a therapist to these people!?

“Fine,” he told her, before wincing at his tone. “Sorry, I’m here to talk if you need me.”

Gamila gave him an odd look, but thankfully didn’t push. “I wanted to talk to you about Meixiu,” she told him, crossing her arms.

Joseph couldn’t help but raise an eyebrow, startled by her aggressive tone. “What about?”

“You can’t really be okay with this, can you?” Gamila asked, narrowing her eyes at Joseph. “Meixiu came here to kill you. To conquer your city and kill your people. The only reason things ended up like this was due to pure luck. You can’t tell me you’re just going to let that go, right?”

The King paused for a moment, considering. Truth be told, there was a large part of him that didn’t like Meixiu. That wanted to mock her like he had mocked Domenic, taunting her for failing to kill him. She’d wronged him, or at least attempted to, and yeah, he wasn’t okay with that.

However…

“I am angry at her. I know that, in another life, we’d be enemies.” He turned to face Gamila fully, noticing how she tensed up as he did. ‘So, you’d choose Meixiu over me. I suppose I shouldn’t be surprised.’ “But the thing is, I’m not. I have issues with Meixiu, and that will likely not change for a long, long time. But I’d rather have her as an ally than an enemy. The only thing she’s hurt is my pride—in fact, if she hadn’t appeared when she did, it’s possible I never would have managed to win in the end. At this point, her intentions are irrelevant—she’s now my ally, and we’re both still alive. Nothing else matters.”

Gamila squinted suspiciously at him for a long moment, before nodding slowly. “Alright, I’ll believe you. For now. But if you ever betray Meixiu…”

“If you think I’d betray her, then you really don’t know me well at all,” Joseph scoffed in return. “I gave my word. And I don’t intend to let my word become worthless.”

--

The people of the desert were a hardy bunch. They suffered and starved. They lived and died according to the whims of the river. But the river was calm, and the soil fertile, and so the people congregated along its banks. Soon nomads began to forget their roots, settling down forever. Soon, cities began cropping up along that desert river. Soon, the God-Kings descended.

And the desert people built marvels—cities and towns, walls and farms, spears and slings. The people flourished, and the population grew.

It was the most developed place in the world. It was the bloodiest place in the world.

But now the blood had run dry, and ‘stability’ had fallen over the chaos that preceded it. A new King had risen, ruling over more people than any other in the world. Along that desert river, the world’s first true ‘Kingdom’ had formed.

The desert was a hot and brutal place, filled with hidden dangers around every corner. But brutality is not devoid of kindness, and even hidden dangers can be surmounted.

And so, night fell over the city of Sun’s Rest.

9,945 God-Kings Remaining.