Wrath of the Extra

After fueling my god-complex, I ran a quick errand, meeting with Leviticus at the Interrealm Hub to ensure the 'confidential' part of the deal was kept.

It was. The Excursion Pass is untraceable. The uber-rich don't cut corners, but I'm still surprised she got this on such short notice.

I pick up the camping gear stashed at my dorm and take a portal to the Free Empire's capital, Columbia.

From there, a few hours by carriage till I reach an airport on the western side of the walled city. Capital folks are as obnoxious and pompous as ever. And the impoverished on the western outskirts are hardly a step up.

Five hundred Gold for an airship ticket to the Central Plains is highway robbery, but to be fair, no one really ever goes to the Central Plains. It's nothing but a small dent in my new stolen fortune anyway.

Ascending the wall's elevator, I watch the entire dreidel-shaped city unfold before me.

It's mesmerising.

Onion-like layers. Massive glass towers and great chiseled lumps of marble buildings in the central core. Only the best for the 1% who live there.

A ring of mixed residential and commercial areas of modest appearance for the midborns. Modest sizes, modestly clean, for modest people. Complacent is all they are. Just as the upper classes designed.

The final and largest ring: miles upon miles of high-density buildings to house the tens of millions of lowborns. Roads cut through the stone in mesmerizing patterns like branching veins, thick arteries, or an obnoxious maze.

Most of the major cities are more or less designed in the same way. It's less about efficiency, more about ensuring the stratification of society.

Nobles get the best, midborns get to serve the nobles, and in exchange, obtain a passable life.

The lowborn are treated like cattle and kept as far away from the nobility. Perpetually working just to make the minimum to survive. It keeps them pacified.

I can almost see Shacktown from here. Once, the closest thing to home. In the deepest, darkest crevice of the city is that vile slum that makes the Hells look like a 5-star vacation.

If your entire impoverished kind is too busy fighting for themselves, they'll never even get the chance to unite and fight their true enemy: the upper class.

As a transfused Soul, my take on democracy becomes quite a conflict.

On one hand, I yearn to become a democrat. A corrupt but somewhat functional democracy was my entire life. It feels natural to want to uplift the masses enough for them to stand on their own two feet.

On the other hand, I care not for such idealism.

I just want to see this city burn. I want the walls to fall, and for the hordes of Corrupted to wash over these creatures like a great flood. For Humanity to turn in on itself, crushing itself under the weight of all its conquests.

The Cabal funds democratic revolutionaries among the lows—but not every man is equal. This is the aristocratic slogan, and unlike my previous world, it holds sizeable merit.

The noble class holds all the power because they are Favored. Their Souls have been unlocked. They grow beyond the normal limits of man by absorbing Souls.

And the lowborns can't fight without the power of being Favored. It's quite simple. I can't even mass-produce guns to arm them—gunpowder simply doesn't exist in this world. More accurately, potassium nitrate has been deleted. If I were to make a gun, it would have to be fueled by Essence, which would require a Favored to utilize.

I don't know what creates a Favored. I don't know how to get the lowborns enough power to revolt. I don't even truly know if democracy is righteous in this world. After all, Humanity has done quite well for itself under the aristocracy.

They have conquered the Seven Realms and now turn their eyes to fight against the bane of the entire Seven, the Corrupted, and reclaim the lands those mindless monsters have taken for a millennium.

Basic logic does nothing to dissuade my desire for revenge; all of Humanity must be purged. That's final. Aiding democracy would be a means to that end.

If a noble and a lowborn procreate, the child will be Favored. Maybe not the most genetically gifted Favored, but still, they'll at least have a chance.

The other non-Human races either have small populations or similar hierarchical, eugenics-based societal systems. But since the Hero's Subjugation of the Realms, they're just as weak as the Human lowborns.

I was born an incredibly illegal bastard in the union of a Human noble and a non-Favored Sullied. Despite being 75% Human and physically identical to a Human, the only reason I feel any sliver of kinship to Humanity is from my Soul's previous, alternative life. My current facade is meaningless.

I can't remember their faces.

I only remember their crumpled bodies. The blood. The singular, lifeless, grey-hazel eye of my mother.

The anger from that day is fresh in my mind. Always.

The city fades to white as the lift goes above the clouds, and with it, my internal expositional monologue evaporates.

The changing air pressure popped my ears. The air is light and frigid, but as a superhuman Favored, despite my low E-rank, these changes are negligible at best.

The doors open. Attendants escort me along a metal ramp and onto the large hovering airship.

Unlike blimps on old Earth, these airships are made with a soulstone-polyester composite. This material has a near-zero rate of helium leakage, allowing it to stay suspended in the air indefinitely. It also allows for more elaborate and spacious designs. The largest airship in the Free Empire's fleet, Man's Oculus, is as long as Columbia's radius.

This airship, however, is far more humble. I'm shown to my quarters, a simple one-person bed and bathroom reminiscent of a hotel room.

Now all I need to do is wait.

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Holy fuck I'm bored.