Arthur and Benjamin told us that we should hurry up and attend the vote counting. They said it would leave a bad impression if I stayed on my side after the speech I had given. It seemed like they were confident about me winning against Wilson. To be honest, I wasn't that confident myself; what I did was basically a huge gamble, and it turned out... well, I guess, considering the reaction of the people.
But no matter how big of an uproar I may have caused with my speech, I still doubted its reasons. Whether it was merely due to me harboring such arrogant and confident behavior toward both my audience and future leader colleagues, as well as my bold statements and authoritative stance, or if it was due to the sincerity and plans I had enumerated in my speech.
Acknowledging my friends' point, I pressed Kal to walk back to the area where the stage was. After one or two minutes of marching, we could hear a shallow voice in the distance. It was a man giving orders to students.
"You, from group 2, go help David and Maria count the number of votes for candidate 4, please."
"Yes, sir, I'm on it."
The leader had also appointed mature and older teens to take charge of groups of students to speed up the counting process.
"Damn, they sure are organized as hell," remarked Kal, in surprise.
"You didn't think the kids in our school could be this smart and efficient, huh?" responded Arthur.
"Honestly, yes. I mean, what was I supposed to expect of them?" retorted Kal.
"Ah, yeah, I forgot your goddamn tendency to always look down on other people!" snapped Arthur.
"I don't even look down on them. Heck, I don't need nor care to do so; they're far too low for me to do such a thing anyway," countered Kal.
"You truly are a piece of shit, you know that?" replied Arthur with murderous intent.
"Hahaha," they both laughed like mad demons.
"Why are the two of them laughing when they're supposed to be in the middle of an argument?" asked the worried Benjamin.
"Come on, you know them better than that, Benjamin. They are just having a normal discussion right now. How did you even come up with 'they're arguing'? That's just their average conversation. Haha, you should know by now," explained Aiden while giggling.
"Oh, you're right. They do indeed always fight like this for fun," acknowledged Benjamin.
Upon reaching their destination, they all settled down at a plastic table, sitting on wooden chairs from the now-rampaged cafeteria. We waited for the vote counting to be done. Despite our initial annoyance at being told that we would need to wait for hours before it ended, we were relieved to hear an opposite announcement only 50 minutes later. They were already done.
"Jeez, that was fast—much faster than I expected. Weren't we told to wait until dawn?" exclaimed Arthur.
"They only said a few hours. Why the fuck would it take so long as to last until dawn?" said Kal in a fake-angry tone.
"Don't get angry. Chill. I just asked."
"Well, don't bother asking anything anymore now."
...
Kal is a funny guy, although he may sometimes appear rude to others, which would be true, but that's because he is wearing a mask, like me. He hides his true self from others because he fears people won't accept him, so he acts differently than he actually is.
I know that because I unintentionally saw Kal's true self once, and that's the main reason why I trust him so much. Kal's just a broken man, and I'm here for him. But before I could wander off further and deeper into my thoughts, I was interrupted by a girl's voice speaking into a mic.
"Hu-huh, hum... s-so, please everyone.. listen to me, we-we're done with counting the votes, s-so we will announce the number of votes now! P-please can everyone approach the stage and tell those behind them to do the same if they haven't heard, t-thank you," said the clumsy girl on the mic.
"Gosh, who's the bastard that put a shy girl on stage and tasked her to talk in front of everyone?" wondered Kal aloud.
"Haha, you still always get mad whenever you see a pretty girl being treated poorly," added Arthur.
"Why? Is it a bad thing? And whether or not the person is pretty, I don't care. It just doesn't sit right with me for an innocent person to be forced to do such a thing. And yeah, she most definitely was forced to do this, so am I wrong?"
"No..."
After the tiny girl left the stage, a few other people got up, 11 to be exact. They seemed like the ones who would be counting the votes. Each one of them must have been assigned to count a specific candidate, which would indeed make the entire thing much faster.
"Hi again, everyone. As Carla said, we've finished counting every single vote for each candidate, except Kal since he said he'd be on Aiden's side and didn't want people to vote for him," said the man who seemed to be the leader of the whole management team.
"That's good," said Kal aloud, making many people chuckle.
"Let's not waste time any further. We will officially declare the number of votes for each candidate from lowest to highest."
Following this sentence, one girl among the group of 10 people who were behind the leader approached the front of the stage to speak up.
"Last place, number of votes: 9 [candidate-6]."
Some people started laughing, mocking Alex's poor number of followers. They didn't expect a candidate to have such a bad outcome, even if he was the least voted for.
The girl returned to the group, and at the same time, a man went to where she had been standing before.
"Eighth place, number of votes: 18 [candidate-7]."
And it went on and on like that.
"Seventh place, number of votes: 27 [candidate-8]."
"Sixth place, number of votes: 28 [candidate-9]."
"Fifth place, number of votes: 31 [candidate-10]."
"Fourth place, number of votes: 34 [candidate-4]."
"Third place, number of votes: 41 [candidate-3]."
Now that it was time to announce the results for second place, people knew that the person whose name was not announced would be in first place and therefore chosen as their leader.
The two last people marched slowly together to the front of the stage, as if making the suspense last would make things any better for Wilson, who was sweating all over.
"Now for the final announcement, we will directly announce the number of votes for the first-place candidate, and then his name. The second place one will be announced last."
A cheerful ambiance took over the entire area, resting below the mighty stage. Clap after clap, the sound of unfaltering yells and praise, lowered down second by second, turned into a loud silence. The anxiousness and nervousness of the people were palpable, as they realized they would have to be under the authority of a single man, a man that was perhaps younger than them. But there was no turning back, and the sound of a voice quieted any unneeded thoughts that the students and young adults could have had.
"With a number of votes of... 2689, the first place is... Aiden Glain."
Loud cheers rang out again, and praise spread all over the place. Aiden Glain had done it; he had gained an assured dominion and grasp over 2689 people. He, who was unknown to all of them, had become the most powerful figure out of more than 4000 people. He couldn't disappoint them.
"Second place is Wilson Ygnir, with over 1200 votes," announced the leader of the management group, concluding the voting event.
"I knew it, Aiden! I knew you'd be chosen!" shouted Kal in candid happiness.
"Congrats, bro!" x2 from both Arthur and Benjamin.
"We knew you'd make it."
"True, I never once doubted your win."
"Chill out; no need to make such a fuss over me winning. There's still much to do before we can cry out victory," declared Aiden in his great wisdom.
And before anyone could think of what to do next, a huge message window appeared in front of their pop-up screens, saying this:
"Hello again; this is a message from your God. If you are seeing this, I assume the leader selection must have ended. Thus, you all should now carry on with the mission of finding shelter and building a fortress where your leader will reside along with his followers. You now have three months to train your bodies, create a new kingdom, find supplies to stay alive, and discover some of this new world's basic knowledge.''
He paused, then continued talking.
''By the way, for anyone fearing that people could betray the leader and kill him, or perhaps even start a full-on rebellion against him despite him being a good leader, you shall not worry; we have preventions against that. Every single person who voted for their leader will be assigned a new rank with the title ''Follower'' of the leader they've voted for, and they will automatically join that leader's faction, over which he has total control over. He will be able to change its name, create ranks, and appoint them to people however he wants, in order to create a perfect society."
"Also, you will be branded as a member of the leader you voted for, so remember this: if you betray him, you'll be qualified as a traitor by the system, and it will be up to the leader to choose what to do with you. By the way, the elected leader of another region nearby was killed. Actually, all of the other leader candidates from this region were. It was done by a few dangerous individuals who were hidden among the students, but they've already been taken care of now. Hence, there are many people without any suitable leader in their region, so I'll give them the possibility to join Aiden's faction along with all of the other leader candidates in your region. They will be given a record of every single one of your speeches so they can make the right decision. That will be all. Try your best to survive and grow stronger before the first Well of Ascension ceremony. Good luck, mortals."
This final message signaled the start of our new adventure, and it looked exciting yet dreadful at the same time. The seamless confusion that had originally vanished slowly regained the hearts of the people. But they should not fear, as their leader is here for them.
Aiden went up the stage once more to make a short speech about what they were going to do. He made public his decision to temporarily assign a high rank to 10 trustworthy people. Kal, although a sub-leader, was one of them. In fact, both sub-leaders Clark Yugilson and Jammes Lyzgak joined his faction. Thus, both their followers merged into Aiden's faction.
Indeed, the god hadn't told them that leader candidates who didn't win the selection would be able to willingly choose to be under the chosen leader. With Kal, that made three sub-leaders working under Aiden. After that, he chose seven other individuals who all had distinct abilities, be it maturity or intelligence in some needed areas, or two men who were very strong and who had been famous throughout the whole school for their crazy loyalty and hatred toward bullies. Aiden only chose the most trustworthy and useful people.
After this was done, every leader and sub-leader went their separate ways to find their stronghold. Well, not exactly all people. Some people first had to go back home to get some stuff, while others had to do different unsaid activities before. To those people, their respective leaders told them that they would be communicated the location of where they had gone during the time the followers had left the team.
With the new 'Clan' or 'Faction' function, leaders, sub-leaders, and supporters could communicate as if they were talking on the phone. As a matter of fact, it was better since it worked forever without the need to recharge the battery or even connect to 4G. The sad part was that although they could send messages to each other with it, it was the only thing they could do aside from looking at their 'stat window'.
Everyone's phone was mysteriously taken away too, and now it truly seemed like the world wanted technology to not interfere with people's adventures. Aiden, followed by over two thousand people, walked without stopping to an area that was quite far away. It was a plain with a big castle in the middle of the plain's hills. It may have been over 24 kilometers away, but the reward would be worth it. The castle had long been abandoned since the medieval age, so they would have no trouble moving in.
They walked for 6 hours...
And during those six hours of treacherous marching, all of those who followed Aiden, and Aiden himself, realized with bafflement how their surroundings had been transformed as well. The cities, villages, tall buildings, houses, schools, supermarkets—all gone. All were replaced with new habitats instead...
Lots of weird caves of various sizes.
New mystical-looking forests, which weren't there prior to the world's revolution.
New plains and huge mountains and cliffs.
And right as they arrived at their destination, they came to the conclusion that their new life would truly change in all aspects. People looked at each other in disbelief and utter wonder. The castle had grown ten times larger than before, and that was just the main castle. Surrounding it were many houses and bridges crossing to other areas, leading to other streets, and there were also ramparts and trenches. Over time, the work and dedication of Aiden's people would surely make this place even bigger and turn it into an impenetrable fortress. They had struck gold!