SL: Chapter 722 – Day 5,914 Part 2 – We Will Be With You Shortly

“You broke it,” Michelle said with a heavy sigh. It had been five minutes since I had completed the vote. I only got one mental impression when I touched the golden pillar.

Contacting Support Initiated

That was it. Nothing else, no other options. “So…how long are we waiting for?” Young Michael asked.

“It hasn’t been a minute, give it some time,” I said.

“Of course there would be no support. It should have been obvious from the start,” Clarissa muttered. “Too easy. Foolish.”

“Well that was anti-climatic,” Michelle added on while each second dragged on and nothing happened. Another minute passed. I checked the message was still the same.

“Perhaps they are experiencing higher than average call volumes,” Clarissa said. I couldn’t help but let out a chuckle at that. Young Michael just looked confused.

“So, it is broken?” he asked.

“Well, we are here, best to wait for a full day before leaving. Then head to another tower to the Northeast,” I said while thinking about the map. That was the nearest one.

“That would take about a day of travel. While I won’t say this is a big waste of time. It is a big waste of time,” Clarissa said.

“Nothing good,” Michelle said, and I rolled my eyes.

“Well waiting at least a day isn’t that bad,” Young Michael said. We all looked at him. “Um, that is just what I think.”

“It is fine. No need to be embarrassed. I screwed up,” I replied. Four minutes with no response. I should have honestly known this was going to happen. Get a touch of information and then completely stonewalled. That was a classic. Like getting to the top of the tower, learning there was a vote, but not having enough votes. Getting enough votes and then picking the one option everyone would gravitate towards.

Asking what we thought about this place was a classic pastime. It was the one thing we all had in common outside of politics, race, religion, and any other baggage we might have carried over from Earth.

“You know, I was secretly thinking there would be an underground tower, since they sunk into the ground,” Michelle said. We then all looked at her. “What? This place is the absolute worst. I scouted out a couple of towers with monsters.”

“When? Recently?” I asked.

“Before you cleared some of the easier ones. I was curious if they were as bad as you said. And yeah, they are awful, from what I could tell,” she replied.

“Then you thought we would have another tower, really?” Clarissa asked.

“Any change?” Young Michael asked me. I checked the pillar again and shook my head. He went over and put his hands on it and frowned. “I am getting nothing. Not even saying who has this vote,” he replied.

“Congratulations, you broke it,” Clarissa said.

“You bought it,” Michelle then added. These two were a hoot. A regular comedy act.

“We voted togeather, we share the blame togeather,” I replied. Both of them rolled their eyes at that.

“Maybe it is just waiting for the Avatar to walk over, or something,” Young Michael said. He really did say the dumbest things sometimes. I knew he was trying to be helpful, but he didn’t have our experiences or references of Earth.

“You mean roll over, while being the most annoying thing in existence. It would make sense if she was making us wait,” I muttered.

“So did you just mess up this tower, or could they all be messed up?” Michelle asked.

“All of them. They are all messed up,” Clarissa replied.

“Really, not even a shred of hope?” I asked.

“This place drained it all dry. And after seeing this nonsense, it was beaten to death, melted, and then shipped off into the rainbow dimension to who knows where,” she replied.

“Um, everyone,” Young Michael said and we all turned towards him. A large golden golem had appeared. Silently and without any kind of warning. Very angular, like it was made of diamonds. There was no head just seven floating golden metallic looking diamonds floating above like a crown. Young Michael quickly moved back and I stepped forwards.

“Hello. I am Michael, I requested support. Where does the exit portal lead?” I asked.

DESIGNATE TARGET

That’s when it hit me like a sack of bricks to the head. We had all thought it meant customer support or something like that. A very bad assumption on our part. It meant combat support.

“The Sword of Ascalon that has received multiple meta-points and can vote,” I conveyed as best as I could through energy. If I was getting combat support, might as well deal with something that was very annoying.

SEARCHING

No one dared to say anything or make a move. From what I could tell, this golem had a lot of energy. Like a lot. The only thing with more that I had seen was the sphere. Support was calling in the Almighty System’s bouncer or henchman. It then disappeared in a contained flash of golden light.

“Michael was right, we just had to wait a bit,” Young Michael said with a grin.

“Combat support…not customer support or people trapped in hell support. I need to step away for a moment,” Clarissa said and began walking back towards the airship, letting off a muffled scream.

“Um, is she going to be okay?” Young Michael asked.

“She is just experiencing a bit of frustration at the moment. If the Almighty System had such a thing, why did we have to fight the sphere?” I asked.

“I don’t know, why?” he asked, still not getting it.

“It means the Almighty System is messing with us. Why send people to go take it out, when it had a super golem in reserve somewhere?” I asked.

“Oh. So, she is upset that you guys weren’t able to use it before,” he said.

“Something like that. Just think on it,” I told him.

“Level 10?” Michelle asked.

“It looks like a level 10 monster, it has the energy I would expect of one at least,” I replied.

“That’s it?” Young Michael asked.

“Well, hopefully it will take out the sword,” I replied.

“A shame we don’t have more high level people to act as scouts for the various zones. Would have been nice to know where the sword was hiding,” Clarissa said with a sigh.

“Well at least I sent that System Golem after something annoying,” I said.

“System Golem works. Golden and angular. But it was more like a box with limbs than a golem,” Michelle said.

“Regardless, it will handle the sword issue. We just aren’t going to get any questions answered unfortunately. I also think bringing something like that back is a good idea,” I replied.

“I am more confused about the delay. Why did it take several minutes? Did the system have to count up the votes?” Clarissa pointed out. That was a very good question and we all stood there in silence trying to come up with an explanation.

“The only answer is something convoluted, or with time,” I said.

“Convoluted?” Young Michael asked.

“Like the Almighty System had to get the golem out of storage and turn it on. Which was why there was delay. But anyone who can get the votes, why would they need combat support?” I asked.

“Competing cities or nations. It is basically declaring victory. Unleash a super monster on your enemies,” Clarissa said.

“Which is kind of pointless if you already have the votes, since you are clearly strong enough. This place isn’t big enough to easily miss people if you are out to get them,” I replied.

“Or it could be just big enough. We played cat and mouse with the Divine Empress for quite a while,” Clarissa replied.

“Like everything from the System, it hands stuff out, but nothing of value ever comes easily,” I muttered. The last thing I needed was combat support. I had enough combat power. What I wanted was answers. I looked back at the golden pillar and felt deeply disappointed.

It wasn’t not getting something useful. It was the slight hope I had that was mercilessly crushed by the Almighty System. There were only two options to really vote on left and after the debacle of the System Golem, I was much more hesitant.

“You think this is all a trap? Like trusting in democracy, this voting stuff, when we should be out killing stuff instead?” I asked.

“It wasn’t something bad. But we didn’t expect that kind of twist either. What if all the outcomes are twisted?” Clarissa said. She understood my concern. I might have been able to beat that System Golem in combat, but everyone else nearby would have struggled to survive depending on the scale of attacks it unleashed. Also, if the Almighty System decided to help its minion out, things could easily become dangerous for me.

While the sword was the only real threat, the Almighty System still ranked above me, far above me. It might have some weaknesses the sphere exploited, but I wasn’t able to do something like that. I didn’t have the knowledge or the ability.

“Don’t overthink it. We just overlooked a possibility, but it wasn’t a lie,” Michelle said. That was true, but it made me concerned that our guesses were so far off the mark. We weren’t even close in what the vote would be and then in the one option we did vote for the result was completely unexpected. Both the delay and the eventual result.

“And it wasn’t bad, like the store,” Young Michael added. He really was just a tag along, but he deserved to be here. Both for surviving and being born in the Systemic Land. His viewpoint was completely different to ours. If anything he was alien in his mindset, since he had grown up in my Empire and not on Earth.

“So, what are we voting on next?” I asked. It was probably going to be the public ranking option, but I wanted to double check first.

“The public ranking is the only safe option I believe. I don’t see how that can go wrong,” Clarissa said.

“Wait, what if it creates a tournament? Teleports top contenders to an arena. It would take the sword away from wherever it is hiding, saving it, and then I am stuck there,” I replied.

“That…is a definite possibility,” Michelle said. We all looked at the golden pillar much more nervously now.

“The exit portal is a portal, not a teleport. So, we could look through first,” Clarissa said. That was also a possibility. But that seemed too easy and too simple. All of it felt like one big trap. Democracy was a lie, the vote was rigged. I wanted to put up my own options to a vote. Like giving me a meta-point or actually answering some questions.

It was even worse, since I had to be the one to vote. There were no other alternatives.