SWNOVELXO Chapter 1: Prologue
Prism.
A city divided in two classes.
The elites and wealthy, living in the highest districts known as "topside". Besides being completely protected in arcane runic arrays from roaming hordes of beasts, they would also harvest the magic from the whole region and centralize it to power their own facilities.
The poor and uneducated, living in the lower districts, known as "undercity". They held nothing to their names and lived in the 'green fog', gas corrupted with arcane waste. Outlaws, black markets and all sorts of profane activities were common in the undercity.
Topside and Undercity were two sides of the same coin. Without one, the other would not exist. Without topside subsidizing the undercity and what little infrastructure there was, the undercity would crumble in years, if not months. And without the undercity, prism would not survive as a whole, succumbing to the wasteland tribes of barbarians or worse still, monstrous creatures that had genetically evolved to terrific length. It must be said that 99% of Prism inhabitants lived in the undercity.
Still, there was an undeniable frontier, one that could not be crossed. To go from the undercity to the topside, you needed the approval of one of the seven major noble families of topside, or be accompanied by a noble heir. The seven major noble families held power in the council, each house having a permanent siege in the law-making and executive power: Rienfield House, Sacred House, Thornfield House, Steelguard House, Ironford House, Huntingwood House and Duclair House. The only other way to become a topside citizen was to accumulate enough merits or wealth to get a "gold-rank citizenship". But none of the two were easy to get.
Going from topside to the undercity, however, was far more common. Petty criminals, debt owners, or fallen nobles...Anything that was out of the ordinary, in the bad sense, would be discarded and exiled to the [Undercity].
Arcane waste, under the form of green gas, also created a toxic fog throughout the Undercity, limiting life expectancy and eating at the vitality of those who had not developped enough immunity.
Most of them came from the Magic Court, owned by the Duclair House, an academy of noble mages who possessed affinity with the arcane. They could cast spells, summon elemental creatures or even carve runic arrays depending on their school of magic. And the strongest ones of them belonged to the Duclair House.
Lawful on appearance, they actually held all sorts of experiments in their Magic Court, including some on living beings. The project was simple enough, create hybrid monsters to face the hordes threatening the survival of Prism.
The victorian settings of the city were unsettling, but I had come to accept them.
For an undercity "rat", I happened to be quite knowledgeable about the economy, politics and even system of power of Prism. Better still, I knew more about the wastelands than those possessing power in the topside council. After all, I had played the game "Prism" before. Little did I know, for I would reincarnate in this world.
However, most of that knowledge was of little use here, in the undercity.
Not only the timeline was off by 30 years in the future, life and survival in the undercity required strength, rather than wisdom.
Surely, I could try and rise to topside, but even if I did, there was no way I would be able to gain the approval of the xenophobic pure-blood council members. In other words, I was doomed, and even if the undercity did not kill me, the odds of wasteland barbarians or monsters doing so were high.
"What are we to do, Greem?", a young man in his early twenties shouted
In front of us, there was a "ghoul". Though it was kneeling on the ground, a bullet hole in its thigh. Despite the pain, it was holding its knife with trembling hands.
I had lost myself in thoughts right there. We were in a combat, after all.
With a swift movement, my hands reached my back and unsheathed a short sword.
*SPLASH*
[You have killed a [Level 2 Ghoul]. You have gained 20 EXP]