The Thirst of Reltia
Barely a day after the water control order went out, the citizens of Reltia gathered en masse in the plaza.
What they were doing was not a protest. The citizens already knew that the five thousand who had demonstrated the day before had been slaughtered as if they had simply evaporated. Too terrified of me to even consider rising up, they knelt in the square and begged for forgiveness, pleading desperately that I share out the drinking water.
Someone had died of thirst.
A full day of water rationing, and already a corpse. The citizens shoved the body forward and begged for water.
Something about it felt wrong.
Even in a desert, a death by thirst after a single day of controlled water was strange.
The shaman Enas investigated the body and came back to report.
"The man who died of thirst was a slave. His master had already been denying him water for roughly a week."
"So he didn't die because I cut off the water supply."
"Correct. And yet the citizens are convinced that the Heavenly Demon's water control is what killed him. They know nothing of the real circumstances."
"Someone is stirring them up. Insolent. Thoroughly insolent. Bring me that slave's master."
"Yes, Heavenly Demon."
In less than two hours, the slave's owner was seized by members of the Heavenly Demon Cult and dragged into the palace. It was further proof that I held the city in a complete grip. Of course I did — I had posted cultists around the outskirts to cut off any escape, and a simple barrier had already sealed off any spatial-transfer scrolls.
"Heavenly Demon! P-please, spare me!"
The man couldn't even meet my eyes. He pressed his forehead to the floor. I sat in an ornate chair and looked down at him.
"Why did you do it?"
I cut straight to the point. Fortunately, the slave owner was not entirely without sense.
"I-I only did what I was told! I was paid!"
"Paid by whom?"
"I… I don't know. The man had his face covered with a mask. He came at dawn, gave me money, and told me only that the slave would soon die of thirst and that I should make sure people found out."
I stared at him. Cold sweat dripped onto the floor. From the look of him, he wasn't lying.
"Enas. What do you make of this?"
I asked the shaman standing respectfully at my side. Enas was weak in combat. The spells she knew were few — little more than commanding desert wolves and treating the fever-stricken. Purely by force of arms, Ersia would outmatch her.
What Enas did have was a sharp political instinct. She also had a hunger for power, a quick mind, and enough competence that she had held the palace together in my absence.
"It seems the wealthy of Reltia are playing games. They're stirring people up little by little. They believe that if every citizen of Reltia rises, they can drag the Heavenly Demon down."
"Pigs, dragging me down?"
"Pigs never know they are pigs. And they will be thinking this: that you cannot possibly slaughter every last one of them."
Reltia's population was roughly three hundred thousand.
Kill even half of them and the city's strength would snap. Yesterday's massacre of five thousand had already been a serious blow by urban standards. Population was labor, after all.
"These vermin are becoming a nuisance. Should I just kill them all?"
"Heavenly Demon. The pigs are merely ignorant. Remove the agitators, and the pigs will grasp their situation soon enough."
"Then seize the wealthy… no. There's no need to send the cultists. Enas! Tell the pigs this: they are to catch the wealthy themselves and bring them in. Until those men are delivered, I will not grant a single drop of water!"
"Understood. And this man?"
I looked at the man still trembling on the floor in prostration, wringing his wrinkled hands and repeating the same plea for his life.
"Cut off his head and limbs and hang him in the plaza."
"Yes. All shall be as the Heavenly Demon wills."
"Aaaargh! Heavenly Demon! Just once! Show me mercy just once! Spare me! My fortune — I'll offer up everything I own!"
The man was dragged out by the cultists, still screaming.
"Ridiculous. A pig has no fortune. Your fortune was mine to begin with."
"Wise words. Everything in Reltia belongs to the Heavenly Demon."
Enas's words were pleasant to hear. I knew it was flattery and still couldn't bring myself to resent it. Soft tone, gentle voice, praising me — how was I supposed to hate that?
I reached out, caught Enas's clothes, and pulled them aside. Her voluptuous body was laid bare. Meaningless red patterns were drawn across her pale skin. The soft tips of her slightly drooping breasts were already stiff, and between her thighs a thick thatch of ash-grey pubic hair — the same color as the hair on her head — covered her sex. I parted the hair and found her. Moisture clung to the bright pink folds.
"And you belong to me as well."
"Yes. For the Heavenly Demon, I would do anything."
"Is that so? Then climb on top of me first."
"Yes, Heavenly Demon. Haaah…!"
The desert is merciless.
The scorching sun of the Scorpion Desert, in particular, ranks among the harshest in the entire western region of Atlantis. Go without water in a place like this and you die of thirst within a week.
To desert people, water was life itself. That was why no ruler, no matter who they were, dared to toy freely with the desert's water. One misstep and you made enemies of every desert dweller, and your grip on power would crumble. Even Reltia's previous master had never attempted anything so absurd as a water control order.
Desert people denied water grow angry. The anger piles up. It keeps piling up.
The Heavenly Demon's water control.
Someone had already died of thirst for lack of water.
Mouths went bone-dry. Even saliva stopped coming. A crushing thirst tormented the desert people. Those who could no longer bear it drank their own urine. Others drank the blood of their livestock.
The crowd prostrating before the palace only grew larger.
And then something else came along to pour oil on their rage.
Discrimination.
Certain people walked into the palace and drank their fill. They were the families of the beauties taken into the Heavenly Demon's harem. The Heavenly Demon liked women, and any beauty was dragged into the harem without question or hesitation. Married women were no exception.
The women of Reltia dreamed of entering the harem. Offering their bodies to the Heavenly Demon made life easy. They could drink the clean water of the oasis freely, taste rare dishes and fruits the desert never saw, and receive no small sum of money every month. Their families received certain benefits as well.
Today, as on every other day, the families of the harem women went into the palace and came back out with cool, refreshed faces. Not a trace of thirst on them.
The anger piled higher.
Higher and higher still.
The tipping point had long since passed.
It should have exploded. The rage should have burst, weapons should have been seized, and they should have charged the palace. They should have poured their hatred onto the Heavenly Demon and drunk the water of life to kill this hateful thirst.
But in reality, not a single person let the anger out. Everyone who had exploded in rage and raised a hand against the Heavenly Demon was dead. Their families and friends were dead too.
The citizens of Reltia looked at the hill beside the palace and trembled with fear. That hill was made of human corpses.
The Heavenly Demon killed without hesitation. A thousand dead, and he would not so much as blink. Every citizen of Reltia knew he was the kind of man who would massacre the entire city and then yawn in perfect calm.
The Heavenly Demon was exactly what his name claimed — a demon come down from the heavens.
Then a man opened the palace gates and walked forward. Dressed in the black of the Heavenly Demon Cult, he raised his voice to the citizens still prostrate before the palace.
"I bring the words of the Heavenly Demon. Open your ears and listen carefully."
The man drew a paper from his robes. In a booming voice he read out the names written on it.
"One hundred and twenty-seven in total! Seize these people and bring them to the palace! When all one hundred and twenty-seven have been gathered, the water of the oasis will flow through Reltia!"
The cultist pinned the list of one hundred and twenty-seven names to the palace wall and went back inside.
The citizens of Reltia, who until that moment had remained pressed to the ground, surged to their feet. Their eyes shone like those of starving beasts.
Their rage finally erupted. Only the direction of that rage was not toward the Heavenly Demon.
"Grab them! Grab those bastards!"
"If we just hand these ones over — water! We can drink water!"
"I know where that son of a bitch is!"
"What are you standing around for?! Go catch them already!"
"Barakos is ours!"
"You lot take Belliman!"
In less than three hours, one hundred and twenty-seven wealthy men and rebels had been seized by the citizens and delivered to the palace.
About twenty of them were seriously injured — beaten by the crowd. Not a single one was dead.
"Enas. Tell the pigs to wait in the plaza."
"Yes, Heavenly Demon."
I walked up to the middle-aged man standing at the front. Thick brows, a well-groomed beard. A clean face — a handsome man, by any measure.
"Barun. I know you were the ringleader. I also know you joined hands with the rebels. Spill everything you know. Do that, and I'll kill you cleanly."
"Heavenly Demon. You have no right to be master of this Reltia! For the sake of the desert itself, you must disappear!"
I flicked a fingernail. A blade of black sword-qi flew and sheared off Barun's right ear. A wet slap as the ear hit the floor — and still Barun's eyes did not waver.
"Arrogant bastard. Still don't understand your position? You're already finished. The only choices left to you are to give up the rebels' information and die easy, or cling to some worthless sense of honor and die in agony. Those two. Nothing else."
"Heh. You will never open my mouth. And soon enough Karok will march back with his army and kill you."
That was why Barun had not taken his own life the moment he was caught. He believed Karok would return, kill me, and seize dominion over Sector 5146 — the Scorpion Desert.
"Heavenly Demon! No matter what you do, you will never break our spirit or our honor!"
"Honor? Please. All you ever wanted was money and power. Fine. I'll leave you for last and work over the others first."
"A waste of time. These men don't know Karok's precise information. I alone know the accurate details."
"…I was going to do this the easy way. You're making it a nuisance."
I drew a mirror from my inventory.
Mirror Tunnel.
An object that allowed instantaneous spatial travel to whatever lay on the other side of the glass.
"For you, death no longer exists. Regret that choice while you suffer for eternity in Living Hell."
I shoved them into Living Hell.