Monroe

Chapter Four Hundred and Ten. Humans gonna human.

Bob rubbed the back of his neck, feeling a headache coming on.

"That's a good thing, right?" He asked.

"The people that live there sure seem to be happy about it," Alex replied with a shrug and a grin. "It's crazy how plants adapt to active mana, using it for both nutrients and water. Las Vegas is a freaking oasis now! And the effects are spreading out pretty steadily, which is both awesome and a little bit terrifying, you know? Like, you think people were going nuts about climate change before? Man, they're absolutely losing their shit! There are a lot of theories going around out there, but one of the most prevalent ones that have any data behind it is that the System has some sort of built-in ecological protocol, which sort of makes sense, right? The whole point of the thing is to make sure mana keeps moving around, and even the little bit that plants and animals use is better than nothing, right? So the theory is that we're going to see continued ecological growth until the planet reaches maximum capacity."

"That makes sense, I guess," Bob agreed.

The few habitable planets they'd discovered had been covered in plant and animal life.

"The greenies are almost all ecstatic, at least the really dedicated ones, you know? They got together pretty early on, set themselves up as 'the green circle,' and they've been offering help for anyone who wants to become a Druid or a Warden or whatever. They're competing against the Endless, though, and those guys are fanatical. I mean, you'd think the forty-k guys would be the worst, but the Endless don't do anything but delve as much as they possibly can."

Bob nodded approvingly. "As they should," he agreed.

"Yeah, well, not everyone is quite that hardcore, although the United Chruch of the System is pretty close," Alex continued. "There was a bit of societal upheaval when you were here before, but honestly it has kind of gotten a lot worse," he shook his head. "Like, I have my job, at least for now," he glanced over at the other guard, whose name tag read 'L. Ryan,' before continuing. "But a lot of people don't. I mean, do you know how huge the medical industry was? I mean, not just doctors and nurses, but the companies that made drugs, not just prescription drugs, but like aspirin and band-aids? The System basically put them all out of work. Almost every nurse and doctor took a healing path, and we actually have more healers than we need, which is a little insane, you know? I didn't think I'd have that much competition for a slot in a delving group, but it turns out that there was a veritable horde of nurses right on my heels, and boy oh boy did they catch up. We're actually exporting them to Thayland, where they don't have as many people interested in it." He paused for a moment, taking a deep breath. "I think that might have something to do with the fact that almost none of them are actually religious. I know that healing was basically a Church of the Light thing over there, but we have that whole meme 'We don't do that here,' going on."

"I tried to change that mindset, but I think I only really got through to the Endless," Bob agreed. "But having a lot of healers can't be a bad thing. I remember waiting in the emergency room for hours," he shook his head. "With magic, that shouldn't be a problem anymore."

"It's not," Alex assured him. "You can walk into your local Walgreens and the person working there will be a healer."

Bob shook his head. He'd managed to avoid being hurt too badly, at least before getting blown up and tossed into Thayland, and he usually just popped a few ibuprofen or aspirin, depending on what hurt and how. It was almost jarring to realize that he hadn't popped a pill of any kind for years.

"The economy is all sorts of messed up," Alex continued. "I mean, mana crystals became the new global currency overnight, at the same time that every other currency became worthless, which was a huge shock, but now that we can replicate part of that by having people donate their mana, as well as just having them charge mana crystals with their mana, it's become more of a mana and mana crystal economy, you know? It's like, Mana Crystals are hundred dollar bills, and ten mana is like a penny? Meals cost a quarter, a hotel room, for regular, tier five or six people, costs like five bucks. People are still trying to work out, but the people who delve as often as they can? They're starting to get rich." He grinned. "Except the Endless, they donate all the crystals they don't need for leveling up and keeping their towers going to whatever group local to them that grows food. When I finish up with Darpa, I'm definitely going to join the Endless."

"It would be a good fit for you, I think," Bob agreed.

"Better than any of the other guilds," Alex nodded. "None of the others really gel with me, you know? The one with a bunch of DoD guys would probably be the only other place I'd fit in, but the only thing I have in common with most of them is a security clearance."

"I'm guessing guilds are becoming a thing?" Bob asked.

He'd sort of wondered if that would happen. Thayland tended to have people grouped up in service to a noble house, or they were friends under the aegis of the Adventurers Guild.

Earth, on the other hand, had decades of MMORPGs to pull from, experience-wise, and when you took the almost video game-like elements of the System into consideration, he'd thought that people would band together along the same lines.

"Yep, big time," Alex agreed. "Pretty much everyone who is a serious delver is in a guild. I mean, we can't be," he gestured to himself, Jackson, Ryan, and Herrara, "because we get our slots through our jobs, but anyone who has to register and wait for a slot is. Anyway, that's what the world has been up to while you've been gone, more or less. Show me the pictures of the dinosaur people!"

Kellan flew through the sky, his wings carrying him over the world that he had finally, fully, claimed as his by right.

It felt good to fly, to feel the wind across his scales, to see his domain with his own eyes.

It also offered the opportunity to allow him to ponder without having his thoughts interrupted by the endless minutiae of ruling a planet.

He was currently thinking about the ribbon of steel and stone beneath him. He was actually following it as it ran along the coast, linking one settlement with another.

When he'd been approached about constructing an elevated railway, he'd been intrigued. Given sound arguments, he'd agreed to fund the endeavor, despite it's foreign nature.

Kellan had been fascinated by the infrastructure he'd discovered on Earth, marveling at how some, if not all, of the nations there managed to encourage such wonderfully productive citizens. He'd been determined to add not just as many of the people as he could grab but also the methodology of producing the environment that gave rise to them to his hoard.

He'd spoken to dozens of people who claimed to be experts on the subject, as well as read hundreds of books, and the overall conclusion was that people would work themselves into the ground as long as there was a reward waiting for them. The idea of 'weekends' and 'vacations' hadn't been part of the Kingdom of Greenwold, but Kellan had decided that with his acquisition of the rest of the planet, his new empire would introduce them.

The argument for the railway that connected all of the settlements together had been that it reduced the costs of transporting people and materials to such negligible levels that people would travel more, which would encourage more trade between the cities, which would encourage even more travel, the cycle ever repeating, all the while they worked ever more diligently so that they could take part in it.

The young woman who had proposed it now held a charter allowing her to select up to one hundred square miles of unimproved land, laying claim to it to establish her own Noble house. She also held a two percent stake in the railway, the annual profits of which were not inconsiderable. His own stake, which was ten percent, of course, had generated over eight million crystals during the first full year of operation.

He was currently considering how best to deal with the United Nations, who had taken umbrage at his incentives, which, to be fair, had been explicitly designed to entice the people from Earth who had come fill the Dungeons on Thayland that immigrating permanently would be their best choice.

He began to glide down as his keen eyes noticed the railway reaching the largest coastal city on the continent. This was the 'rail hub' where the tracks expanded out into a deliciously complex series of offsets, allowing locomotives to pull their loads into the station, then hook up to freshly loaded cars and continue on with bare minutes required for the switch.

One of the keys, he'd been told and had confirmed by reading, to a successful rail system was that the trains absolutely had to run on time. People would waste their time on any number of frivolous, even pointless, pursuits, but few things angered them more than being forced to wait.

He shifted into his humanoid form while he was still thousands of feet above the city and had shrouded himself from sight during his descent with an application of Elemental Air and Elemental Water.

While his natural form was the grandest, most majestic visage that anyone could hope to ever lay eyes upon, it sometimes overawed his subjects. When he wanted to gather information, it was easier to avoid supplication and adoration.

Landing behind a two-story building at the edge of the city, he extended his senses, ensuring that he hadn't been seen, before releasing his spell and stepping into an alley, heading toward the street.

It was necessary to ensure he'd been hidden, because, as it turned out, cats had truly excellent senses.

And Felixville was absolutely filled with cats.

There were some people from Earth who were willing to accept a draconian government, but many of them were not. In order to encourage them to come to Thayland and delve his Dungeons, he'd publically encouraged them to name, design, and build the settlements around the Dungeons according to their own tastes.

Humans from Earth shouldn't, he'd learned, be allowed to name things, as evidenced by such settlements as 'TownyMcTownTon,' and 'AssEndOfNowhere-stan.'

He'd been initially pleased with Felixville. The first time he'd flown over it, he'd found it to be well ordered, with obvious care having gone into its initial construction to account for the regular rains that fell, with streets and underground tunnels providing more than ample capacity for draining water down to the harbor.

No, it hadn't been until he'd visited again, nearly six months later, to inspect the progress on the rail station's construction that he'd realized what had happened.

The group of people who had settled in Felixville had been adherents of the Endless but hadn't wanted to become summoners. They had, however, been heavily indoctrinated in the teachings of Ani, who was firmly convinced that Bob was a messianic figure.

To a person, they had all brought their pet cats with them.

To be fair, they had been responsible pet owners. They simply hadn't realized what tiering up their beloved feline overlords would entail.

By the time they realized that they would need to neuter their pets by procedure or spell or blessing every time they reincarnated, it was too late.

In what Kellan had come to learn was typical American fashion, they'd gone all in on their mistake, celebrating it. The evidence of which was now directly in front of him as he reached the main boulevard that led from the harbor to rail station.

A statue, twenty feet tall, showed Robert Whitman down on one knee, with Monroe sitting primly at his side. The statue's expression was kind and hopeful as it extended a hand that held a chunk of meat out to an adorable kitten that was tentatively reaching out an oversized paw in cautious, yet optimistic, exploration.

The plaque beneath it was the worst.

"Give me your tired, your poor, your huddled masses yearning to pet kitty! The wretched catless of your teeming shore, send these lost souls, with no guidance from their overlords to me, for here all buildings will have a kitty door!"

He sighed as he paused as a calico walked in front of him, herding her brood of kittens towards a butcher shop where a trough, set at cat level, ran along the front of the shop.

Felixville simultaneously represented everything that was wrong with humans from Earth, as well as showcasing their very best. People who wanted to live here were required to have the familiar skill, and if they didn't already have a cat for a familiar, they would be sat down in the 'pit of judgment,' where the people of the town would bring their familiars, and their attendant kittens, and allow the supplicant an opportunity to be chosen by their very own feline overlord.

It shouldn't have worked. Someone should have called them out on it. People should have gotten tired of having to contribute the Mana Crystals that they earned with their blood and sweat toward keeping the feline population, which outnumbered the humans by about five to one, fed. Surely, he'd thought when he'd first learned of it, they'd get tired of having cat shit everywhere!

But no, they'd thought ahead. Every building had a two-foot-wide ring of sand around it, and the town paid for dozens of people with the Control Earth spell to drop the leavings down into the sewers, which had been specifically designed to accommodate the litter boxes.

Walking around the statue and heading toward the station, he slowed his pace and started listening to the conversations around him. Time had passed, as it was wont to do, and he wanted to get a feeling for how these people were feeling about the prospect of having to return home.

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