All along, the options in the system's quest page were in a gray and inactive state, thus I inferred that it would only be activated when the events in the game walkthrough began.
I have been waiting for the main storyline to start for a very long time but I didn't expect it to offer me two choices at this point.
But after giving it some thought, it was something to be expected.
In this world named Eich, which consisted of countless dimensions combined together, the species on it were innumerable.
This world and its greatest piece of land is named after its creator, Goddess Eich, but somehow, there are no traces of her in this world. It is believed that due to the exhaustion from creating this world, she fell into a state of eternal sleep. However, before she went to sleep, she had left all the responsibilities for managing the world to her two daughters.
Goddess Astrya, the Guardian Goddess of Order and Daybreak, she created the High Elves, Metal Dragon tribes, Angels, Titans and similar Golden races.
Goddess Cynthia, the Dictator of Chaos and Night, she created Demons, Elementals Dragons, Blood tribes, the Elemental tribes and other Sulfur races.
The two Goddesses represent the two main factions, which the Gods and countless other races belong to. The elder sister, Astrya, hoped for all races to be bathed under the warm sunlight and believed that each race should be attributed a certain role by the Gods and walk the path decided for them. She believed in hierarchy and her creations tended towards order and kindness.
As for Cynthia, she hoped that her creation could metamorphose through competition. As the creator, she tried not to interfere excessively and did not enforce her own rules upon her people.
For mortals, the difference in beliefs may only be a verbal argument but for the true gods who are the incarnation of those concepts, a clash in beliefs means questioning the meaning behind the other's existence, thus both parties would naturally explode into a battle.
The two Goddesses, equally strong, fought each other to the point of exhaustion and went into a long rest. Their creations then continued their endless war for them. After the Golden Race and Sulfur Race went extinct due to war, the Moon Elves, representing the Silver Race, and the fallen Giants, representing the Mercury Race, continued their battle.
The war had never stopped ever since its inception.
Whenever the Order managed to suppress the Chaos, the onset of a relatively stable Order era started. On the other hand, whenever the Chaos managed to claim superiority, anarchy was spread and a chaotic era began. A change in era was accompanied by the rise and fall of countless races.
Currently, it was considered the Iron era belonging to the Order faction, otherwise known as the Age of the Mortals. The previous dominant species, the
Order and Chaos fighting and taking over each other's position has always been the main motivation of the Eich continent. My Codex of Law, being recognized by the Origin of Order, has become a part of it as well. Thus, many other Holy Knights, who belong to the same Order faction have come forward to learn it.
From my view, there is nothing incredible about it. Within Order exists Chaos and even for the leading races of the Chaos faction, the Devils and Undead, the strict power hierarchy and the superior and underling relationship, isn't it also a special kind of Order?
In my eyes, it is about which side you choose. It is a simple question of deciding whether you want to mingle with the Gods of Order or the Gods of Chaos.
If I choose to allow Ann to inaugurate as the new City Lord, I would have to take on the role of a senior and a teacher. Then, as planned, I would gain a new physical body and start again from scratch. Such a decision is sided towards the Order faction.
After all, living humans are the backbones of the Order faction no matter how you look at it.
On the other hand, if I were to choose to become the City Lord myself, the system would restore my powers back to the moment when I was at my peak. However, a SemiGod Lich, no matter how you look at it, is a King of the Undead, a true leader of the Chaos faction.
This may look like a normal choosing process, but it is an important choice that will determine the road I walk on from now.
"Hey, what is there to hesitate about? Walking on a road that I walked on before? I choose… Epic mission, Revival of the Phoenix. I want to come back to life!"
That's right, my previous experiences have proven that brute force alone won't resolve the problem. The bunch of idiots from the Chaos faction lack order and live as they please. The internal conflicts would never end as long as they are alive and they are destined to never accomplish any great things. With this knowledge, why would I still commit the same mistakes? Besides, without a proper body, a Lich can only reach the level of a SemiGod.
Yup, yup, it definitely isn't because undead are unable to taste delicious food, can't date, can't enjoy the pleasures of the physical body. I don't want to be an undead!
"Fine, let Ann become the City Lord, I will give her a hand. Come to think of it, her full name is Annie, right? Though you used to call her Ann in the past, didn't you?"
"Ann is, after all, just a nickname. Furthermore, it could be used for both sexes. Margaret helped me come up with it. Actually, I've always thought that Annie Han had a nice ring to it but somehow she ended up with Margaret's surname."
"Annie Layde, huh?"
Somehow, I felt that this name was somehow familiar.
"Da!" With a snap of a finger, a large book with black cover opened up and the pages flipped continuously until it finally stopped on a colourful page.
There was a picture of a mature woman with a heroic aura looking into the distance with a sword in her hands. Her entire body screamed of fiery red. Her scarlet battle robe had an embroidery of a phoenix on it and her vermilion sword generated a field of inferno. It was obvious that it was the Blessing of the Phoenix that belongs to the idiot in front of me.
"The Fire Phoenix of the East, Annie Layde. The Great Commander of the Alliance against Demons on the East defence line. The hero who personally killed the Dark Warrior Emperor Roland Mist."
You teacher and student must have a grudge against me! How deep is your hatred!
The student is going to kill me in the future despite me going through so much just to change the future. Furthermore, the father had already killed me once! Am I really going to get chopped by the Blessing of the Phoenix once again?
Killing me once wasn't enough and just when I finally changed the future, am I destined to be killed once more?
No wonder, I thought it was weird how Ann was my nemesis. So, the one who fate chose to get rid of me is you rascal!
"Don't dream of it! You bunch of bastards, get out! Incantation of Law: Expel!"
Unable to suppress the howling in my heart, I used all my power in the spell.
After the sacred light of Order scattered, somehow, the SemiGod Adam got ejected out of the room, confused.
"Pah!"
He landed heavily on his butt. Immediately afterwards, a book struck him squarely on his face.
The words on the book have been translated and Adam, who had received secret martial arts manuals from Roland in the past, read it out slowly.
"Sunflower Bible? What is this? 'To practice this sacred art, direct your knife to castrate'?"
"Go and learn this, I think it is suitable for a ball-less person like you!"
———–
It wasn't the first time that the lad got me this angry. He has probably even gotten used to getting thrown out. After rubbing his bottom, he simply walked away.
After he left, I fell into a state of confusion. What was fate? Just what kind of a life did it plan out for me? Have I really been destined to become a Demon King since birth, and furthermore, a Demon King with a tendency for suicide? After grooming Adam into a hero who killed me, do I have to groom another hero who 'used' to kill me?
"If I didn't come here, Annie wouldn't have met Adam and thus, wouldn't receive Adam's inheritance, the Blessing of the Phoenix. So, I am the reason for their meeting? Has the crusade against me been already decided since long ago? Or am I fated to be hunted down by the wielder of the Blessing of the Phoenix, whether it is Adam or Annie."
A pity that my study of the patterns of cause and effects are a mess and I didn't even try to learn divination. But then again, such a deep philosophical question about cause and effect, it would be weird if I could make sense out of it.
"Forget it, I should stop thinking about it. I have already decided on my goal, so let me ponder about it after finishing my quest."
Since this problem can't be resolved by thinking, then I shan't think about it. This has always been one of my strong points. The most important thing for now is to finish my current quest and come back to life!
Thus, after thinking over it for a moment, I pressed the bell on my table.
"Call the heads of the 4 Halls to come to meet me."
Initially, I created the court to judge sinners and earn myself those Evil Points. Wouldn't I be abandoning my primary objective if I were to tire myself over this?
So I built an organization whose system and mechanism allows it to be self-sufficient, thereby allowing me to spare the effort and focusing it on other pursuits.
Sulfur Mountain City's judicial system was created by me personally. Following the other world's model of splitting up the authority of the judicial system using the principles of checks and balances, I divided the judicial system into 4 independent blocs.
Firstly, it would be the Supreme Court, the dominant bloc of the judicial system. I am the head of this bloc, giving me the power to approve the passing of new laws and leaving me with the final say in the judging of criminals, effectively making me the big boss of the entire judicial system.
The 4 subsidiaries under the Supreme Court are the organs and backbone of the entire judicial system.
The Hall of Enforcement - Responsible for the enforcement of criminals and maintaining order. Yup, it plays the role of the villain, maintaining discipline through patrols, managing those street peddlers and such; all of the troublesome jobs are under them.
As for the Town Order Security Army, shortened as Town Security, it is one of their subsidiaries. Different from the security team in the other world whose main targets are street peddlers; the Dark Elf Knights encountered all sort of criminals, making their jobs similar to the responsibilities of a police.
Their head would be the tall and buff masked man in front of me — Tauren Xueti Edta.
Yes, it is that perverted Tauren Xueti, who likes to go nude running…
Name: Xueti Edta/ Race:Tauren
Job: LV60 Warrior/ LV20 Justice Knight/ LV7 Guard of Order (Total LV87, Fighting Power Evaluation: Legend, 2nd Job Advanced Great Warrior)
Title: Guardian of Steel
Fortunately, perhaps it was to imitate the silver-masked Wumianzhe, in order to show that they had given up their individuality to deliver the law impartially; my judicial team have all decided to wear masks. Otherwise, I really wouldn't know how to face this 'being the head of the Hall of Enforcement, yet landing in jail for soiling social values' underling of mine.
Luckily… Every time he goes out to enjoy his 'hobby', he consciously tries to hide his identity. Even when he is surrounded and bashed up by the Town Security due to nude running, even when he is thrown into the dark prison, he had never used his Power of Law and exposed his identity as a law enforcer.
The second subsidiary would be the rarely seen Hall of Law.
Hall of Law - They are a department that specially analyses the law and the legislation, but at the same time, they are also the location for job advancement for Law Incantationers, Justice Knights and Judgementors. The minimum requirement for job advancement into a law job is at least a gold rank. Although it is not well known to outsider, this hall is actually the strongest among the 4.
But these strong people serve as the rookie judges that are mainly responsible for the primary hearing. Through encountering more cases and judging them, they are refining their understanding towards the Power of Law.
Under my system, only those who earned the recognition of the Origin of Codex and succeeded in their job advancement to become a part of the judiciary can have the authority to judge others individually. Thus, unknown to most people even the weakest of those seemingly gentle scholars are at least a gold-rank.
Their leader is an old scholar, who is on the verge of sleeping in front me, the High Elf Kale Diya, one of the politicians from the country of
Name: Kale Diya/ Race: High Elf
Job: LV60 Mage/ LV30 Guardian of Knowledge/ LV10 Guardian of Law/ LV5 Law Incantationer (Total LV115, Fighting Power Evaluation: Worldly Saint, 3rd Job Advanced Mage)
Hall of Legislation - Its name may seem awe-inspiring, but once the role of writing new laws and governing it was thrown to the other departments, the responsibilities remaining mainly included doing the logistics and helping keep the subordinates of other departments in check. For example, for a meeting for the approval of a new law, it would contact the other departments and help out to gather the proposals for the law and such.
As a logistics department, the Hall of Legislation doesn't need many strong people. What it needs the most was the flexibility and attentiveness in getting things done. Thus, a large portion of its members are rookies in probation or female law enforcers, who are unwilling to step onto the front lines.
Their head — Lilith Milan… Yes that Frenzied Wild Lily, the Moving Obscenity…
I can't help but feel relieved that our judicial team had decided to put on mask and gave up on their individuality, otherwise I really wouldn't know how to face these two comrades of mine from the Gentlemen Alliance and the endless despise from the citizens.
I even questioned myself countless time where exactly did things go wrong for these two perverts to climb up the ranks ending up as the top brass of the judicial system…
Alright, let's not talk about these depressing matters.
Last but not least, the Hall of Judgement. It might sound very mighty, but when the responsibility for the primary hearing has been left to the Hall of Law and the final verdict is dependent on the Supreme Court, what is left, is merely all kinds of appeals. Once the Town Security finds someone they are unable to deal with that is when they strike.
Responding to complaints, defending the defendant, finding the true culprit and capturing the criminals are part of their job scope. This is the kind of troublesome job that gets on people's nerves, and somehow their nerves are especially easy to get on. So, the hall is also known as the Hall of Quarreling and Hall of Fighting.
One thing worth mentioning is that the Sulfur Mountain City's prison is under their jurisdiction and before the Town Security was built up, they were the only fighting power of the judicial system on the surface and of course… If we were to measure their internal battle power, they can be safely said to be the second from the back, just slightly stronger than the Hall of Legislation, which is in charge of logistics.
Their head, Kelvin, is an ideal role model for Holy Knights. Middle-class power, a stable personality and average looks. What is unique about him is how ordinary he is, his strength is how ordinary he is, and his weakness is still how ordinary he is, but in the judicial system's top brass, he is the rare to come by normal person…
I don't know why, at this point, sadness seems to well up… Why don't I have more people that are normal in the midst of my judicial system? Why do I have so many perverts! Is it because I am a pervert myself?!
Cough cough, back to the topic…
These 4 Halls and 1 Court became the outline of the entire Sulfur Mountain City's judicial system. It also serves as the cornerstone to its stability. Once everything is put in place, all which is left for me to do every day is to go to court and earn some points.
Since, I have decided to help Annie become the next City Lord and stabilize her position, then the 4 Halls and 1 Court under my possession must start moving.
"The reason why I gathered you all today is to prepare for the future."