ALL NOVEL Change In Leader – Chapter 251
Out in the second circle of Wolf’s Rest, Ben is moping around. This doesn’t really pin down a time frame because that has been his default state ever since fleeing what was technically “his” town. The tutorial settlement having been taken over in all but name by a group of older men who believed the pre-system government would have their military rolling down the road any time now. An idea that was generally supported as the system doesn’t seem to have overly messed up physics as people had understood it to work.
Many even believed that the reason no one had arrived yet was that they were out helping others who needed it more. After all, the council was taking care of things perfectly fine. No one, not Ben, not Ace, and certainly not the council knew the truth. The pre-system government was built upon the elderly. Every position, barring a few rare places had people who were well on in years.
Now, the system didn’t just go and cull people over a certain age like some kind of dystopian novel. Rather, the older you are, the less likely you are to survive. Every country had lost a majority of their top officials. There were a few military types out there trying to pull things together and it might have worked if the system was just placing people down randomly.
Not even Ally knew about one specific quirk of this system. It was designed to disrupt all local power blocks. The original True Immortal didn’t particularly care about this, but the original developer of the system had gone through a rough transition from a system that didn’t even move people around at all. So to say the True Immortal who developed it had a bit of a bias would be an understatement.
However, despite not knowing any of this, Ace was planning for this exact situation. Why? Because he believed in the saying, “Hope for the best, plan for the worst”. Though somewhat ironically, both the best and the worst situations were likely exactly that. Ace doubted that any pre-system governments would have been able to handle this situation. On the other hand, without any of the support structures from said governments, the world was likely going to devolve to a more “warring state” sort of order.
Part of his plans involved Ben and getting him out of office, as it were. More than that, he wanted the lady who had known Ben from before the system to take over. While Ace now saw Ben as too fragile, that one lady who had known him before the system was holding things together. More than that, from what Ace had heard from his spies, she was dealing with the stress in a healthy manner. Doctor even spent some time analyzing things and gave her situation a thumbs up and believed she would be a stable ruler.
Sure, Ben had some good ideas and once no longer so stressed would be a useful adviser, but that was the most he would be worth from now on. The only problem with that is the lady is dead set on putting that crown right back on Ben. This was honestly almost enough for Ace to disqualify her for the position, except there wasn’t anyone better not from Wolf’s Rest.
This left Ace with some rather sneaky and/or nasty options to get his way. A big problem for him because he had noticed things slipping. He would really like to blame this on the Barrais as they clearly had at the very least been on the grayer side of the spectrum, but he couldn’t. Ace had simply started throwing out pre-system morals in exchange for expediency.
Not that Ace felt any of his decisions had been bad. Some could even be seen as vitally necessary, such as hiding the dungeons aura. The problem was that he didn’t want to rule over a feudal society and yet that was the easiest way to handle things. Even the system was pushing things in that direction by requiring only a single person be in charge of a place. Councils are just a joke when one person can unilaterally decide everything if they want to.
Over a few weeks, Ace struggled with his own world view as his various people slowly put the plan into place. Here he was, saying he wanted to make a better world and yet acting like some exotic fruit seller making sure the government next door is friendly to their goals. Then everything was set up and all that was required was for him to set it in motion.
Ace looked up from his desk and laughed. He knew that what he just realized was a common trap of many a reluctant dictator. The idea that once you’re in power, you can fix things. Once you are in control, people will do what you say and all previous decisions can be redone. Without hesitation, he told the person waiting in front of him to set everything in motion.
Over the next week, accidents started to happen around Ben. Not big things, in fact they were quite minor. All it would take is a little bit of leadership and Ben was their leader, right? It wouldn’t matter if a certain lady was away at the time, right?
So after that week of niggling little things that shouldn’t have even been that, a certain lady was more than a little steamed. Maybe if this had happened a month ago and maybe if Ben had at least tried it wouldn’t have been a problem. Hell, even if Ben had simply called on one of Ace’s people to help it would have been all right, after all, Ace had stationed a person nearby in case they needed anything.
Ben didn’t even bother telling someone in his retinue. The lady was less than happy, though a little suspicious that so much was happening. Except all over the outer ring, people were facing similar problems. It seems that a certain pre-system building technique was to blame.
This wasn’t even a lie. The pre-system method of building a house so that it would completely block off the outside doesn’t really work for a normal house. With magic around, the elements are a little more insistent on getting into places. It wasn’t even pests doing it, but rather the wind, water, and earth itself that was getting in.
The only thing is that it would be a bit of a lie to say the house they were staying in used that style. In fact, there weren’t originally that many places built in that style at all. After all, you can’t exactly expect a weather tight house when building what are basically fancy log cabins. Though something like that isn’t enough to prevent Ace from getting his way.
It did however make the lady think about the place upriver. She knew that some of these problems had been cropping up in the buildings up river, but neither Ben nor the council had managed to figure out the source. Yet here, in a completely new town, she was able to make use of a few people to figure out what the problem was. All it took was some effort and to actually look into how the world worked now.
The thing is, they had been having these problems up river since the start so it isn’t like the council had been in charge at that point. Ben was entirely responsible for the problems not being figured out. This, of course, forgets the fact that up river they didn’t have easy access to the information required to figure this out.
In fact, the only reason Ace’s people had known about this is extensive testing that was done when building up the inner ring. Multiple houses were constructed and torn down to figure this and many other things out. A certain lady, of course, had no clue about this wrinkle or the fact that the people from Ace that helped had guided her towards the correct answer.
Could this backfire on Ace if it was found out? Yes. Very much so. However, the thing Ace trusted in more than her, was the other people living in the inner ring with him. That and the fact that even if she wanted to try and fight Wolf’s Rest, it wouldn’t be her that won.
But none of that mattered at the moment. Instead, what mattered was the fact that while the lady still trusted Ben, she no longer trusted him to lead. In fact, she had started to doubt if he ever could lead or if he might have just been the most charismatic person in the room when a leader was decided.
She still held out for another few days before she showed up in Ace’s office. With a sour face she informs him that, “Ben can’t continue being the leader up river.”
Ace folds his fingers together in front of himself on his desk, “And I’m sure you already know that I thought that ever since he got here.”
She sighs, “Are you really going to go all ‘I told you so’ on me over this?”
Ace shakes his head, “I don’t care about that right now. The problem is getting someone everyone will follow and unless you’re volunteering, no one else here can handle it.”
She recoils a little, “I don’t think I’m”
Ace interrupts her, “Do you really think so little of my people? Do you think we’re blind?”
She stammers, but Ace doesn’t let her speak, “You have been in charge already! Ever since Ben stopped leading, it was you who took the reins! If we put you in charge, the only thing that will change is you’ll be officially in charge.”
She backs up, “But I’m sure there has to be someone else?”
Ace laughs, “Which one? Like I said, we’ve been watching your group ever since you arrived. Yes, Ben would have had the easiest time getting the others to do things, but you aren’t the only person there. Not a single one of them even lifted a finger to figure out what the problem was, let alone try and fix it. So tell me, who else could step up besides you?”
With that, she could only give in and agree. So with that out the way things sped along and early the next morning everyone that had come down with Ben were gathered up in the dining room of their house. Ace and Jim were standing in front of them all with Ben to one side and the lady to the other.
Ace stepped forward, “You’ve all been informed about what is going to happen, do any of you have any disagreements?”
None of the others even bothered looking up from whatever they were doing so Ace stepped back and pushed Ben forward.
Ben looks up at them, “...“
Ace nudges him and Ben sighs, “I’m not a leader. I don’t want this anymore! I don’t, I don’t know what happened. Before this happened, I was always the leader, always the person in charge. Why doesn’t things work out anymore? Before this all, I could lead a group of a hundred people and things would just work. Now? It all falls apart.
“This isn’t fun anymore! Why did things change? People aren’t different, so why doesn’t anything work anymore? Whatever, since this isn’t working I’m passing on my position to my childhood friend. She’s been doing all the boring stuff around here already so she should be fine enough.”
Jim rolls his eyes, but pays attention to the lady, making sure she accepts the system prompt. Once she does, he turns to the other people, but they weren’t alerted to the change. He smiles, “Good, it looks like we were able to hide the change in leadership. I’m uncertain that would work if the change in leadership was forced in some way, but thankfully that wasn’t the case here.”
Ace nods and turns to the lady, “Anyway, I’m sort of embarrassed to admit this, but I don’t think I’ve ever caught your name. You never really had a chance to introduce yourself and while I could have had my people figure it out, I felt it important that you be the one to do the introduction.”
The lady sighs, “So Ben never even bothered to say my actual name? I know you’ve been meeting with him often enough before this. Whatever, I should have really noticed it before this, but I did always seem to be ‘the childhood friend’ and not an actual person. I hate saying this, but here we are, I guess.”
Ben tries to speak up, but she glares him down, “No. I’ve followed you for long enough to recognize how things work around you. Maybe if you had been more serious in abdicating your position. But no, you had to talk about how it wasn’t fun anymore. The whole leader thing wasn’t ever something you were serious about, was it?”
Ben frowns, “Why would it be something to be serious about? A leader should just lead.”
The lady sighs again, “I thought so. You were never a leader. I ignored this for so long and maybe if the system had never come you would have settled into some CEO position with your parent’s influence. Now though? The world ended and your family’s riches from investing in IT mean nothing now.”
She shakes her head, “Leading isn’t supposed to be a fun pastime! It is a tough job and I’m going to actually do it. All that boring stuff? That is what real leadership is about.”
She turns to Ace and bows deeply, “Let me introduce myself. Ace, as the leader of Wolf’s Rest, I, Melonie Bennett, the new leader of the tutorial settlement just upriver would like to formally greet you.”