Apocalypse Redux

Chapter 178: The Greatest Test a Man can Face

“Reason for Summoning? I work with monsters and I have to do other things during work time than summoning for power gain.” Isaac narrated along as he filled out yet another question on the damn “I voluntarily and solemnly swear to not behave like an utter imbecile when summoning” form.

Normally, he’d have just filled the damn thing out and been done with it, but this was not a normal situation. He wasn’t sitting down at a random available place in a government office, using a random available surface to write on, he was in the lobby of one of Berlin’s Bürgerbüros, an agency that dealt with handling passport and personal ID applications and the like.

But because the “I voluntarily and solemnly swear to not behave like an utter imbecile when summoning” form, or “Intelligent Summoning Pledge”, as it was formally known, was voluntary, the government had pulled out all the stops to make the process as easy as possible … on some levels.

First, the very public persona of “Isaac Thoma, researcher and fighter extraordinaire” would be filling out the very first form in full view of reporters to demonstrate that yes, it was possible to reach a high Level of strength without being an imbecile.

Secondly, one of the biggest bureaucratical centers in the city had been cleared out to minimize the wait time by providing a large number of people waiting to only help with the ISP form. Of course, taking away a major hub of bureaucracy from most of the population was causing no end of problems, but who cared about that?

Thirdly, there was a massive propaganda effort being undertaken to get as many people to sign as possible because those who did so were incredibly unlikely to cause trouble related to loose monsters in the future. In addition, making the whole thing a voluntary action meant that no one was complaining about civil liberties being stripped away, which would have one hundred percent happened if the same sensible restrictions had been imposed directly.

People were still complaining about the voluntary pledge, but those were mostly the same kinds of people who complained about having to wear masks during a pandemic or being denied service at a restaurant for neither being vaccinated nor having a negative test.

Now if only the damn thing hadn’t been written in the most complicated way possible …

“Reason for not using public summoning spaces? Those spaces are shared and I summon at a very high level.

“Is your basis for judging a monster’s strength provided by a trusted source such as an accredited university, research institute, or other such institution? Yes.”

“Is your basis for judging if your strength is sufficient to beat a monster a similar source as the above question? If not, write in. No. I judge my strength based on my experience as a [System] researcher and my having already seen them before.”

It was at this point that the police officer who had to stand watch and verify the veracity of the information filled out on the form was correct let out a bored sigh. It might even have gone unnoticed if he hadn’t jolted bolt upright immediately afterward, hand flying up to cover his mouth as he stared around guiltily.

Isaac glanced up and dryly commented, “If I’m filling out a form devised by the monster that is German bureaucracy, you can stand there and bear witness to my sacrifice.”

That earned him a few chuckles, and he waited until it was over so he could keep narrating.

“Has any monster you have summoned ever caused death or damage to property that is not yours? Yes. During research parts of the university, summoning rooms have taken slight damage.”

“Have you ever summoned under circumstances other than the ones outlined above?” Isaac sighed softly, causing everyone around him to stiffen “Yes. I have summoned monsters as part of my job at the university, to classify them.”

By punctuating each explanation with a period rather than a comma, he separated the statements, so each was assessed separately. Yes, he had summoned monsters free from the ISP’s parameters in the other timeline, so that rang true, and the second statement was also true. If he’d only used a period there, it would have looked odd, but he’d made sure to always use one when it could be. It wasn’t his fault the cop would misread that as the only time him having summoned unclassified monsters having been at work.

Isaac wished that he could have just written no, but just as the other timeline counted for purposes of “I know this is safe”, it also counted for this.

He continued to fill out the form until he reached the end.

“Optional question: why do you seek to grow in power?”

Before answering, he turned around and looked at the crowd behind him, the reporters ready to riddle him with questions the instant he seemed to be done. He met the gazes of those who didn’t turn away when he looked at them, then stared straight into the lens of a nearby camera.

“I level because the world has changed because it has become a dangerous place. I want to level so that when something happens, I can help. Nothing more, nothing less, I just want to make sure that nothing catastrophic happens.”

And then, he filled out the final part of the form. The moment that was done, he ramped his information defenses all the way up. He’d reduced it to make it easier for people other than those who specialized in truth-telling to detect the veracity of the form while not letting them catch onto his deeper secrets.

He handed the form off to one of the office workers and turned back to the reporters once more.

“Dr. Thoma, how bad do you think the [System] situation is going to get?”

Sheesh, come right out with it, why don’t you?

“It’ll get as bad as we let it.” Isaac said “But it could get very bad, so we need to be prepared.”

“How much of a difference can one man make, just based on power?”

Another odd question, though it could easily be construed as being an insult.

“When the [System] is involved, a lot. I’m a trainer with a legendary [Class] who’s already trained countless people in the military and law enforcement, making them considerably stronger than they were before. Guildmaster Seon in South Korea made the second-ever [Raid Boss] kill a success last week pass without a single casualty practically single-handedly. Kill without a nuke, that is.” Isaac said.

“What is your opinion on South Kore summoning a [Raid Boss]?” the next question came.

“It’s fine.” Isaac shrugged “They warned people ahead of time, as per the treaty of Seoul, had appropriate defenses in place. [Raid Bosses] are incredibly powerful, but that doesn’t make it impossible to take them down and profit from them without immense damage or massive casualties. The only reason there are different rules for them is that they’re so incredibly destructive and durable that when one gets loose, the response usually involves a nuclear warhead, which is why there’s an international treaty allowing anyone and everyone to deploy a nuclear strike onto a rogue [Raid Boss].”

“Don’t you think you’re being a bit blasé about the danger involved?”

“Nothing was damaged other than vehicles, gear, and fortifications, and the battleground was torn up. I’d say that everyone involved was fully aware of the danger and acted accordingly.” Isaac pointed out.

“But how does that apply to you?” the reporter pressed and Isaac had to suppress a wolfish smile.

“I helped work out an optimal strategy, as well as figuring out what level of defense was needed. I thought that was public knowledge?”

And it was publicly available knowledge, just not something that showed up on the first page of search results when someone googled his name. The reporter was now getting the stink-eye from several of his colleagues. Couldn’t have happened to a nicer guy.

But of course, the next few questions were all about the second [Raid Boss] to be properly killed rather than having been nuked. The US Army had been responsible for a few of those, checking if these monsters could even die to nuclear warheads, and had then proceeded to summon a few more just to get a few pictures of the monster before blowing them sky-high.

However there were two creatures that had died to nukes not because it had been intended that way, but due to the fact that they’d been summoned in flagrant violation of the treaty of Seoul. Incidentally, by the time the missiles had hit, both [Raid Bosses] had already finished killing their summoners and were rampaging.

“Are there any plans to summon [Raid Bosses] by you or your team?”

“Yes, but they’re still being worked on and when we finally do it, we’ll have more precautions in place than even the Hunters in Seoul did,” Isaac said.

“Isn’t that a bit premature?”

Isaac sighed “We’ve always taken safety very seriously. There’ve been more incidents with people tripping over dead monsters than them being injured in a fight when we could prepare for it, so anytime outside Events.”

“And in Events?”

“Two broken arms, one broken leg, seven cuts serious enough that they needed medical attention, a few scrapes, and one bloody nose from someone more attention to their cellphone than the stairs and falling. That’s all that happened across all four Events.” Isaac said, “I’m not counting the Wendigo here because we didn’t summon it, we just helped take it down for good.”

Several more questions involving various amounts of stupidity were asked but eventually, he was able to leave and practically ran away the instant he was out of sight.

Then, he was finally free to check his phone. Any disasters would have no doubt resulted in him getting a call or even showing up on the TV in the corner of the room where he’d filled out the form. But he could easily have missed a text on a lesser disaster.

And that was exactly what had happened, sort of. He’d heard about Arthur’s new [Class] soon after he’d gotten it, but he’d had to deal with the whole ISP situation first, planning to head to Camelot soon afterward.

Now though, something had apparently happened, so he would head straight there.

Isaac took off, [Continent Strider] warping the world around him to speed up his travel, letting him reach the ocean in mere minutes. He hopped in and kept going, easily breaking the world record for the fastest swim across the British Channel.

Once he reached Dover, he burst out of the water, shifting back from [Shark’s Body] in midair, then casually walked over to the passport office. The man hadn’t seen him emerge from the water, so he threw Isaac an odd look. Normally, people showed up here on a ferry and drove past this office in their car.

“Purpose of visit?”

“Visiting friends.”

“And how did you get here? Where’s your car?”

“I don’t have one, I swam,” Isaac said.

The clearly very bored border control officer properly looked at the passport for the first time, inspecting it beyond merely making sure that the person whose picture lay within was the same as the person who’d given him the passport. When he put two and two together, he just nodded and thanked Isaac for being so considerate as to not enter the country illegally. The barely suppressed chuckles undercut the gesture somewhat, and when Isaac started laughing, the guard joined in as well.

But with that done, he once more burst into motion. Onwards to Camelot.