An Unbound Soul

I never imagined I'd think such a thing, but I was missing my many years of boredom from back when I wasn't allowed in dungeons. Ever since, things had been moving far too quickly. Now we had Maximilian ambling around unchecked, the System and Law infecting newborns on Earth, a repelled invasion attempt with the looming possibility of a direct attack on the System, and now Harry had casually announced that their portal generator would be ready next week. I'd known they were building it, but even so, I hadn't had the brainpower to spare to consider what would happen when they finished it.

A portal generator that could, conceivably, lead elsewhere.

Humans from our pair of worlds had last interbred tens of thousands of years ago. This world had a relatively short known history, albeit I didn't know how much of that was on account of it repeatedly blowing itself up. But Earth had billions of years of fossil record. They certainly had a stronger claim to being the originals than this world did.

If humans had evolved on Earth, how had they been transplanted to other planets? Despite conspiracy theories to the contrary, I was reasonably certain Earth hadn't had any advanced civilization ten thousand years ago that had managed to up and vanish without leaving any evidence behind.

It wasn't that long ago that I was merely concerned with little things, like accidentally being responsible for the brainwashing of everyone on Earth. Now we were questioning the origins of humanity and the nature of the universe. Or universes.

ding

I paused, mid-step on my way home from the institute. I sure as heck hadn't done anything to earn me any levels in the preceding few minutes, which meant the message had a high probability of being interesting. I was starting to think of 'interesting' as a curse word.

Connection lost

I flipped on [Mana Sight]. It worked fine, as did every other skill I tried. But the System had adapted its shards to function without a connection, so that didn't mean that the horrifying possibility behind that message had been ruled out.

The way everyone else on the street were sporting vague looks of confusion didn't help my anxiety, either. I made an attempt to open my skill shop.

Skill shop unavailable until connection restored

So, direct attack on the System it was.

Was it too much to ask to just go delving with Cluma? Heck, even the delving wasn't important. Right now, I'd happily settle for a quiet evening of cuddles. I didn't want to have to deal with interesting.

Ignoring how it looked to the other bystanders, I dropped to the floor and activated [Redistribute], shifting myself to the ark's entranceway.

"Don't say I didn't warn you," I complained to the doors, which were as inanimate and closed as always. "Well? What happened? What can I do to help?"

ding

Administrative notification: Multiple operational errors have occurred.

Working...

Was that a direct answer? Getting any sort of message was hopeful, but I still had no idea what had happened in there.

I felt a tingle as Serlv poked her copy of my finger, but there was no extra information I could give her, and if the System was going to talk at me, I'd rather wait here. I wrote as much on a sheet of paper and used [Inventory] to teleport it to her. She huffed out a cone of ice, but still settled back down, apparently content to leave it to me.

ding

Administrative notification: Unable to complete self diagnostic.

Warning: Administrator unavailable, appointing new administrator.

Error: Administrative access locked.

Error: Incompatible directives.

Working...

So it had a directive to appoint an administrator in the event of an emergency, and another one that banned it from appointing administrators? Sometimes, I had to forgive the System for its bouts of confusion.

Also, what good would an administrator be if Earth had just blown it up? There was no-one here who stood a hope of rebuilding it.

ding

Administrative notification: A quorum of privileged users may now perform administrative operations.

"Okay, I'll admit it. That was a good solution," I told the door, trying to remember the list of names on the privileged user list. Me, Krana and Serlv were on there, and there weren't more than five names in total, so the three of us would form quorum.

That required me to fetch them, of course. Yay for letting Serlv keep a finger.

She opened one eye as I teleported.

"So soon? You suggested you would investigate yourself."

"Did you not just get the administrative notifications?" I asked.

"Indeed I did not. What notifications?"

Weird. Was that because the notifications had been directed at me personally, because the disrupted connection prevented it from sending messages long range, or was it eaten by the Law?

The Law could prove a massive hindrance, if we needed teamwork to perform administrative actions and it was filtering stuff.

"The System sent a message that it was experiencing errors, and that privileged users can now perform administrative actions as long as more than half of us agree. Me, you and Kranakellicium are more than half."

"Oh? So you can pronounce his full name."

"That's not the most important thing to focus on right now! The three of us should visit the ark and see if we can fix whatever just happened."

"And what did just happen?"

"I have no idea!"

Serlv snorted, showering me with ice.

"You do not know, but you do suspect. Kranakellicium is on his way. Explain while we wait."

She'd called him? When and how? I doubted they had the same sort of soul bond as me and not-Blobby.

I double-checked with [Soul Perception], but no. There was no sign of them playing swap with bits of their souls. Maybe a dragon skill or enchanted item.

"Obviously, I suspect it's Earth's fault somehow. I know the System made portals to Earth to keep its connection there. My best guess is that they pushed something through the portals that damaged the System."

"Who? The humans you are dealing with, or the monsters that launched the attack of plagued animals?"

Could I say humans? From Kari's reaction, the Law didn't safeguard the System, so saying humans was probably safe.

"The humans. They view the System encroachment of Earth as a threat, and while previously they were taking a wait-and-see attitude, there has recently been a change of leadership. I don't have proof it was them, but it's my best guess."

"Do they not know of the danger their actions pose to this world?" rumbled Serlv.

The floor rumbled too, on account of Krana bursting through it. What was the point of passageways if he never bothered with them?

"Let us survey the damage," he said, grabbing me with a claw.

"Wait. I can teleport myself!" I complained, feeling the nausea already building up as he and Serlv jumped from the window of their cavern.

"It is best we stick together," answered Serlv.

Great. I closed my eyes and focused on keeping my insides inside as the pair of dragons flew west towards the ark. Thankfully, they were as fast as ever, and it wasn't too long until my shaky legs were back on solid ground.

Alas, the door was still closed.

"You asked for a quorum of privileged users, and now you have it. Please open up?" I tried.

The door remained closed.

"Oh, for goodness' sake! Do we seriously need to play this game every single time? Do you get off on making life as inconvenient as possible for everyone else, just because you're stuck as a door? You feel the need to flex that one tiny bit of power that you have? We're here to help, so bloody open up!"

Serlv and Krana looked at me weirdly.

The door opened.

Serlv and Krana continued to look at me weirdly. "I feel that should not have worked," opined Serlv carefully.

"Don't question it. Let's just get in there and see what the damage is."

Despite looking very much like they wanted to question it, the pair of shrunken dragons held their tongues and followed me towards the System's control chamber.

"Oh... Crap..." I muttered as soon as I was close enough for [Mana Sight] to peer into the System's chamber below.

The dragons didn't question me, presumably able to see the damage for themselves through their own skills.

A bomb had obviously gone off in there. From the debris, I'd guess one had been pushed through one of the portals; everything had been blasted away from that point. The portals were still open, though, and the destruction wasn't complete. Perhaps the bomb had been small, but more likely the System was highly resilient thanks to the materials it was made from and all the enchantments slapped on it.

I could see why the System may have suffered multiple operational errors, though...

What I couldn't see was any way of fixing it. It was broken, and rather thoroughly so at that. My skills still worked, as would everyone else's, but we could no longer change class or buy new skills. I was uncertain if we'd be able to level, but given that levelling skills brought new knowledge, I felt it was unlikely.

Would newborns get a System shard at all?

We had Earth's problem in reverse. We had our abilities now, but over time the population would shift towards one that had no System aid. Nowhere near as bad as if everyone had lost their skills immediately, but without new farmers, how long until the food ran out?

... Or perhaps there would be problems before then. Even if we still had our skills, what about the System's effects on things that didn't have their own shards? Would potions and enchantments still work? Would houses suddenly lose their carpentry skill boost and fall over?

My status still showed the twenty-four boost to my stats from my rings. I didn't feel any weaker or slower. They seemed to still be working. A promising start. This was an emergency, but not an everyone is dying right now emergency.

I looked around, wondering why Serlv and Krana had fallen silent, only to see a pair of blank faces and empty eyes. I'd never seen the Law take the memories of a dragon, but from my view with [Soul Perception], it couldn't be anything else. They were trying to process the scale of the damage a human had done, but were simply not allowed.

Serlv seemed to be taking it a lot worse than Krana. Her stillness belayed the thrashing of her chains as they desperately tried to contain... something.

I'd watched people struggle against the Law on multiple occasions, and it never went well. A flash of energy from the chains was all it took to wipe memories, warp minds and bring someone back under control. Serlv was a rank five dragon, half the age of Erryn herself. She'd watched centaurs be murdered, only believing my vague explanations of 'monsters' because of the Law. Now this, and she knew the consequences as well as me. She knew humans did it. The Law would insist they only tried to protect themselves and had no idea of the consequences to us. Again, to anyone permitted the full use of their own mind, such an explanation would be a pile of crap. She should be angry. Incredibly so.

A chain cracked. So did her soul.

"Calm down!" I exclaimed, and she spun around to stare at me, the rage unmistakable in her eyes. "We can... I dunno, but we haven't even tried to fix it yet."

My interruption seemed to give the Law a foothold, and the rage faded, leaving her blank once more. That had been close. Could sufficiently strong emotions break the Law? But her soul had broken with it. That was not a good trade-off.

With a lack of any other options, I pressed a hand against the control crystal. It responded, but in a rather lacklustre fashion. There was no sign of the incomprehensible universe of information from my previous visits. There were lists of skills and classes, but they were only a fraction of the length they should be. Even my own class was missing. Likewise, there was a list of connected entities, but it only contained three entries.

I blinked as I realised I'd miscounted; there were four. How did I...

And then there were three again. A memory stirred of the short-lived Earthen dungeon cores; the System's attempts to build a dungeon on Earth. Even in this broken state, it was still going? I briefly considered whether someone on Earth had discovered the pile of dead dungeon cores and found they could use them in the same way as monster cores. Given that the System had lost its connection to everyone outside of this facility, the cores must be right at the exit point of a portal, if they were on Earth. How many would there be by now? Enough that Earth no longer felt the need to trade? They wouldn't have relied on the System continuing to produce more after this bombing. In fact, the way that it was may well convince them their first attack had been insufficient and lead to a second.

Then my first task was obvious; figure out how to use my administrative powers to get the System to stop. Or close the portals. Or move them right next to each other, so that anything pushed through one ended up back on Earth. Or shove a decay bomb through.

There were options. Things I could do that wouldn't fix the situation, but that would at least improve it. I just needed to take it one step at a time.