Empathy isn’t always an easy thing to feel for those who would harm you. It’s much easier to simply look at such a person as a villain that must be defeated, something evil that deserves any cruelty that they might suffer. Even trying to understand them, there’s often roadblocks that form when you can’t truly get into their heads or figure out their motives.

Loekan is a stranger to me, he fought for dominance, but I engaged him in that same fight without much in the way of hesitation. His kingdom was chaotic and basic, almost tribalistic but expanding to an unreasonable population only possible because of how dangerous the man himself was.

Would single ruler tribes on Earth have been more successful if we had access to mana and magic, allowing the tribe leader to be even more powerful than the masses he rules over? No rebellion could overthrow Loekan, his own people were never strong enough to overthrow him.

Yet, for all his authoritarian tendencies—another similarity between us—he tended to gardens in his own home. Not some poison garden to use against his enemies, but flowers and all sorts of other plants that only seem to exist for aesthetic purposes. He was a person, complex in ways that I’ll never know.

Did he have people that he loved? Was he fighting for a dream of something better, or just for his own satisfaction?

Right now, the gremlins looking to unsettle the peace in my home, are all dreaming wonderous things, imagining what their lives could be like if they just sat on my throne, wielding my power. With a clear understanding of their thoughts, it’s impossible to misunderstand them.

They’re greedy, selfish, and more than a little stupid, but they’re not some awful, objective evil. They’re not at all concerned about the outcomes of their little terrorist attack, but not because they enjoy watching others suffer. I’m just not sure they can even really conceive the pain that they’ll cause others.

I know they don’t represent everyone that I’ve encountered so far, I’m sure that I’ve killed people far worse than them, but there were also others far less cruel. Before I even get to the ground floor of my tower, the group of gremlin bombers encounter a problem.

“Well, what do we have here?” Red says, backed up by a group of soldiers. Her smile is far from inviting, but rather than properly cruel, it looks to me like it’s measured. A mask of a kind. The sort we all wear when we’re forced into an unpleasant task.

“They’re here to bomb the tower.” Eshya informs Red, her steps taking her far ahead of me. Really, her talent with movement techniques is truly unreasonable and just a little bit unfair… says me, who just learned how to read people’s minds.

“Oh?” Red moves fast, and the gremlins don’t stand a chance of stopping her as she steals the dense magical artifact from them. The stone is dangerous, I know that well enough, and even Red has trouble holding it from the density of the mana. The tenacious little idiots must have put some serious effort into carrying the thing.

“Let me.” I say, taking the stone from her and bleeding the mana out of it. If it starts turning into magic, I’ll disrupt it with some annihilation magic, but for now there’s no reason to waste fine mana.

“So, are we doing another live broadcast execution?” Red asks me, her smile cruel and vicious, but still only skin deep. Eshya doesn’t copy her, tilting her head as she looks down at the pitiful little idiots already cowering on the ground.

“Perhaps,” I admit, kneeling by the gremlin that was leading the terrorist operation. “First, let’s find out who was really behind this.”

“I didn’t do nothing.” The little man screeches, cowering lower. He’s truly not as smart as the average human, I can hear it from his thoughts, but I know that given time to grow and a decent education he’d easily become smarter than most humans on earth.

“Who gave you this? Who told you to use it against us?” I ask him simple questions, feeling around in his mind for the answers. Foggy images float through my mind, along with the desperate excuses he’s trying to come up with to save himself.

Is mind reading super helpful? Is it super powerful? Honestly, it doesn’t really feel like it. Red was already onto these guys before I saw them, and it was only luck that I was looking at these gremlins at the right time to read their intentions in the first place.

This mindreading ability is an adaption to my ‘Eye’s of an Empire’ Skill, but it really doesn’t seem that much more practical when compared to the spying network that I already have set up with the Skill. There’s aspects improved, but it’s not a big change to how I go about my life.

This is just one more step down the road of power. At the moment, I need to set a tag on a person to make it work, though old tags still function, and people can remove my tags with the right Skills. Then on top of that, I need to be paying close attention to a person to make this new mindreading trick function, and even now, sifting through the gremlins mind I can’t get everything I want from him.

If I didn’t get a peak at what Skills others have, I might consider it more powerful than it is, but President Braun and the Queen of the Arch Monarchy are both graced with Skills that make this seem just another junk Skill. They have countless abilities that can let them stand toe to toe with my strongest spells with relative ease and low cost, their stealth and spying abilities aren’t at all lacking either.

This new mind reading adaption for my Skill doesn’t bring me anywhere near power parity with them, and it certainly doesn’t make me overpowered. Not yet, at least.

The most powerful beings in existence seem to diversify their skillsets rather than relying on a single powerful trick, abilities that really should be overpowered are countered by other abilities that are themselves overpowered. The cycle of increasingly powerful magics and Skills goes on until people start eating suns and throwing planets at each other.

All the way up to the god-like being who snaps whole galaxies out of existence. Limited mind reading really isn’t all that powerful, as much as my human sensibilities are telling me that it should be.

All that aside, the thoughts that I sense from the little gremlin aren’t quite so easily understood. It’s not that he’s hiding anything from me, but the person behind this was hiding things from him.

“You might try speaking while you still can.” Red threatens the little idiot, stepping on his leg and only backing off when I wave at her. Even then she grumbles about it.

“I think I’ve got it.” I say, rubbing at my temple, “Just got to figure a few things out…”

“Ah, so we are in time.” Leon says, coming to a stop beside us, Iris hanging off of his shoulder like a little pet. The moving shadow moves through dimensions that I can’t fully understand.

“We noticed that this was going down, and we know the perpetrator behind it.” He explains, “I hope that you’re not too unforgiving in your judgment of these gremlins, they were used by someone more insidious.”

“I figured as much.” I reply, nodding. The revelation isn’t a surprise to any of us. “But what are you doing here? Spying on us, are you?”

“I am watching you.” He explains like it’s the most sensible thing in the world. “You’re still ridiculously dangerous, and I do not trust you. That aside, I couldn’t just sit around when I noticed this plot, I don’t want more war and violence.”

“Ah, well in any case, can you lead the way or do I have to find this culprit myself?” I ask.

“I’ll take you to him.” Leon says. “You should thank Iris for this, she’s the one who found out about this.”

“Thank you, Iris.” I say nodding my head towards her. “You’ve helped us greatly with this.”

She doesn’t seem particularly happy with the praise, but at least she’s helping us.

“What do we do with these rats?” Red asks, glaring down at the gremlins. Eshya stands by her side, resting her hand on her swords hilt, I know that she’s ready to kill, but I’m also well aware that she doesn’t enjoy dealing with things like this.

“Bring them with us.” I say, falling into step behind Leon as he leads us away. Adler and Nel stay behind, while Vii hovers in the air above us watching everything around us for traps.

“We should kill them.” Red says, pushing the gremlins ahead of us. Eshya nods quite seriously in agreement.

I don’t disagree with the pragmatic reasoning behind her statement. These people were quite willing to kill me and my family just to get a better life for themselves, and that’s not something I can be encouraging.

By natures rules, violence and power are the true king makers, and these idiots just want to win the game. The same one that I’m playing, the same one that we can’t ever escape, and there is no reason for me to let them live for this act of cruelty against me and mine.

Still, it’s not what I want.

Tear them limb from limb and give them to the rest, show them the fate of traitors.

I instigate the violent thought, the voice that I’ve used to survive when the situation turns to utter shit. This time I stay in control, the voice just a silly little thing.

I don’t want to be beholden to natures rules, and here in this cavern where I am most powerful, I can change things. Just a little bit. I don’t need to slaughter these gremlins, I can find another answer.

I want to show Red that we can do things differently. She showed us the cruelty of the natural world when we crash landed into that hell hole of a world, she let us fight and die to prove that we deserve to survive. Through it all she wanted what was best for us, taking effort to help us stand on our own.

I promised myself back then that I’d show her a world where her pragmatic cruelty isn’t needed, where we can throw off the rules of nature and live without all of this violence. Can I live up to that promise, or am I just giving in?

“Not yet.” I say to Red, and she only grunts in response, kicking the gremlins onwards.

Eshya, meanwhile notices something about me, I can feel her mind turning towards thoughts of me, though I don’t press to pry open her thoughts. She steps in beside me, her expression deadly serious.

“They were going to kill us.” Eshya says. “Nel and our unborn kids, and all the rest of us.”

“I know.” I reply, taking a deep breath and trying to come up with an answer for the questions she’s not asking.

“We’re not better than them.” She says, startling me as I try to understand what she’s trying to say to me. “We’re not better than them. Today we’re stronger, we won, and we will win against whoever sent them to our doorstep, but we aren’t better.

“Fighting is everything. Force is everything. If we show them mercy, they will not reciprocate it when we are weak. If we want to survive, then we can’t start thinking that we deserve our place at the top. We’re only here because we’re better at killing than those who stand against us.” She explains, and I nod slowly in agreement. Most of her points are the simple pragmatic truth. These gremlins, as soon as they had the slightest chance to seize power, they used to it to try and kill us.

I don’t think I can ever trust them, and letting them live only wastes food that others could be eating, fills homes that others could live in. Why should they get all of this, when there are countless others in this world that I could be giving an opportunity to.

“I want a forgiving world.” I say. The hard road beneath me is pitted in places and damaged from the war, but the faces of most on the street are joyous. Smiles abound, and while there is frustration and anger, it isn’t quite as prevalent. “I want to forge a forgiving world. A place where natures rules do not apply, and where we can have peace without having to worry that things will turn violent. I want a world where these gremlins can live, but where they’re powerless to harm us.”

“So long as you leave me out of it, then go ahead and build whatever horror house you want.” Red says with a chuckle. “Most leaders with an aspiration end up building their own little fantasy worlds, but most end up tearing them down when they turn into blood baths.”

I shudder, not at her words, but the thoughts that float through her mind. Memories of history lessons that I’ve never taken. My imagination fills in the gaps, and while it doesn’t fully temper my egotistical dream, I can’t help but question myself again. I’ll fail in building the comfortable world that I want. I’ll fail in making a utopia, just like every other idiot that’s tried it.

I need to focus on the reality before me, instead. My people need food, water, shelter, safety, and education. I can get back to dreaming up a perfect world once I have all of that secured.

“So long as you don’t lock me up in a tower away from all the fighting, you can make whatever you want.” Eshya says. “But try not to get your hopes up about fixing these murderous little morons, okay?”

“I know.” I reply easily, accepting their judgement. It doesn’t kill my dreams, my hopes for something better, but I do need to delay and focus on something a little more grounded.

That said, I don’t ever want to let Eshya fully travel down the same path as Red. I do appreciate them both for what they are, but I don’t want to see Eshya so casually allowing innocent people to suffer and die before her. I’d rather see her smiling as she enjoys a slice of cake, or a fun game. I won’t keep her from fighting when she wants to, but I do wish that she’d find more things that she could invest herself in, maybe we could set aside a day for proper dancing? We have rooms that could substitute for ball rooms and more than a few people I can trust to join us for such an event.

“How’s that guild going?” Red asks Leon.

“The slayers are rather hesitant at the idea, but I do have a few groups interested.” Leon says, still focusing into the distance where our suspect is no doubt hiding. I don’t doubt that we’ll catch them and tear them apart, so my anxiety is running rather quiet at the moment.

“What’s this?” I ask, interjecting myself into the conversation. “Another guild, and you’re leading it?”

“Sounds like a headache to me.” Eshya says with a groan.

“Just something that I’ve been working on.” Leon says without turning towards me. Iris on his shoulder twists around in a strange way and my translator tells me that it’s the rough equivalent of giving me the bird. Rather courageous while hanging off of someone else’s shoulder.

“I want Slayers to have representation in leadership. They’re the most powerful group apart from some nobles and armies, and yet they’re expected to fight and die without anyone to speak for them? I just think that a proper guild would help us get better conditions and support from people like yourself.”

“Well, fair enough.” I reply with a shrug. “With Khet dead because of that whole teleporter in my throne room thing, I was concerned that the interest in guilds would start dying.”

“I haven’t seen anything to suggest that’s happening.” He says.

“No, I haven’t either.” I reply. Matter of fact, people have been more than eagerly forming all sorts of groups and knitting circles. It’s more than I can keep up with, but it’s good to see.

Ahead of us, deep within the gremlin district of the city, lies a bar. Worn wooden signs hang from older stone, various scratchings covering the old wood showing that this is not some new establishment.

Inside, I can see all sorts of gremlins enjoying each other’s company, they drink, and talk, and some even play games, gambling odds and ends back and forth. It’s ratty, dingy, and messy, but I don’t see any horrible murders or anything going on inside, and no one’s thinking any particularly cruel thoughts from what I can read of their minds.

There is however an outlier.

A man who I’ve not tagged with any of my abilities, who stands over by the bar speaking with some gremlins that hang off of his every word. He wears a long cloak and talks excitedly with quick and snappy words, expressing himself as much with his tone of voice and the movement of his arms as with his words.

“Now, if he’s anything like what I’m expecting, he’ll be impossible to capture.” Leon says as we approach the door. “The best that we can hope to do is to put him down before he can do anymore damage.”

“Oh, I can do that.” Eshya says happily enough as we push through the doors.

Leon snaps to look at the man at the bar, and Eshya is already off with her sword unsheathed. Before she can even reach the man, Red’s knife is buried in his chest.

The cloaked figure turns towards us in surprise, but that’s not what worries me. The magic inside of him stirs up violently, he’s trying to feed all of his mana into another violent spell. I swear there was some reason that every other person wasn’t suicide bombing us, but it seems as though it’s an increasingly common tactic of late.

Eshya’s sword thrusts into his chest, her magic exploding him into little chunks, but that isn’t quite enough to fully scatter the magic forming in the rest of him. A follow up casting of my annihilation magic puts an end to the threat.

“I think that deals with that.” Eshya says, turning to face me while dripping chunks. Her smile isn’t masking anything, rather she just seems relieved.

The gremlins around us turn to look at us in shock and horror, covered in the blood of the man that was drinking with them just a second ago.

“Nothing to see here folks.” I say, pulling Eshya out the door. “That idiot was just setting bombs all over the place.”

That apparently doesn’t answer any of their questions.

“There’s a lesson for you.” Red says, “Don’t scheme about killing people, and you won’t end up as chunks on the wall.”

“A good life lesson that.” The gremlin at the bar shrugs, looking over at the rest of his clientele. He’s already wiping out his cups, and the rest of the gremlins quickly just shrug it off when they realise that we’re not going to murder them too.

“Yeah, let’s figure out how to keep this from happening again.” I say, rubbing the bloody chunks from my hair.

~ ~ ~ ~ ~

Stats and Skills

~Mana Form:

Current mana density: 39,325 / 60,892 units

Current mana volume: 19,546 / 30,266 shards

Mana volume at crystallisation density (Max. mana volume):

Kyra: 30,266 shards

Kyra’s armour: 20,777 shards

Kyra’s throne: 1,109,298 shards

~Forms

Mana Canon

-Annihilation Heart (Adapted)

-Blood Fuel (20,000 mana shards)

-Bone Magic Storage (40,000 mana shards)

-Nail Shifters (50,000 mana shards)

Dancer

-Flash Nerves (8,000 mana shards)

-Quick Perception Mind (Adapted)

-Burst Reflex Muscles (35,000 mana shards)

-Layered space Muscles (80,000 mana shards)

Turtle

-Rebinding Tissue (Adapted)

-Catalyst Sweat Glands (140,000 mana shards)

-Repulsive Skin (80,000 mana shards)

-Prehensile hair (10,000 mana shards)

-Fatty Tissue Blood Storage (100,000 mana shards)

Investigator

-Wide eyes (5,000 mana shards)

-Wide ears (5,000 mana shards)

-Sharp nose (5,000 mana shards)

Misc.

-Clean bowels (Adapted)

~Favourited Skills:

Magic:

-Annihilation Magic (Customised)

-Fire Magic (Functional)

-Space magic (Broken)

-Force magic (Functional)

-Ice magic (Broken)

-Wind magic (Broken)

Movement:

-Hand-to-hand casting (Functional)

-Mana surge movement (Functional)

-Stealth (Functional)

Senses:

-Eyes of an Empire (Customised)

-Combat Awareness (Functional)

-Watchmen (Functional)

-Hidden bug (Mastered)

-De-tagging (Mastered)

-Anti-stealth sight (Mastered)

Special:

-Spirit Transformation (Broken)

-Conformity (Broken)

-Training mana form (Functional)