Back in Camp, everything was as hectic as it could be: the soldiers instructing every survivor to stay in line past the trenches, the survivors trying to get a glimpse of the military building past them, and rumors circulating among the people about the colossal man in power armor—assumed to be the alien commander.
Trying to organize the whole scene as soon as possible, Sergeant Elena Skarn dictated the first order of business to be assigning survivors to the ruined houses for temporary shelters, before providing quick fixes or tents right from the spare Wartopian gear that Adam summoned. However, none of this would be enough in the long or short run.
Shelters—proper ones—needed to be constructed from strong materials that could ward off the cold of the coming winter, and sadly, that wasn't a thing in Springhead, not with the scorched lands extending every bit of the land.
Luckily, Sharp suggested using a hospital building that was somewhat spared by the dragon's fire. However, it had no windows, and most insulation was ruined, but with quick fix-ups, it could house the members of the population who were unable to join the construction efforts.
As for construction, the best option for now was to build Civilian Unit blocks, cubic housing units that could be put together to expand into larger units, as shown in the survival videogame of Wartopia, using silicate-based materials and reinforced metal.
While Adam suggested simply fixing the existing houses that were already around, Elena protested greatly, saying that it would take an awfully long time to just repair them, and it would spread the population too thin in case of an emergency. Also, the Crawler construction vehicle was better at making new buildings with speed and precision than at fixing old ones.
This set the order of work: Get the people settled, finish up the Crawler, start printing houses with silicate bricks, metal, and concrete, then make capital.
But there was yet another problem Adam had to deal with, and he was tying her to a chair in his Command Center; her name was Yuki Nakamura.
Now, here's what was known about her: Yuki was a BIT student, a biorobotics major, 22 years old. She awakened along with most other students when Professor Hendrick told all his students to circulate the runic artifacts they had, and she has a thing with Sharp. She's also claimed that her Senses skill is at level 11.
"Wrong, I awakened before that." Not bothered by her situation, Yuki corrected Adam's information about her, which he had just assembled in a note from Megan's testimony.
"When?" Megan stepped ahead, a bit annoyed by Yuki's attitude.
"That night you were rescued." Yuki replied nonchalantly, "I was on the rescue team, you're welcome."
"You picked a runic item? What type?" Adam asked with interest, his head thinking of runes.
"I didn't." Yuki shrugged before turning towards Captain Creed, who was still staring at her through his armor's reflective visor, and it seemed as if she was meeting his eyes.
Opposite her, Adam, Kave, and Megan exchanged looks.
"You didn't awaken with a Runic item?" Adam asked, before pointing at the band she was wearing on her arm, "That's a Skulker's band, if I'm not mistaken. They usually carry the Chameleon Rune."
Yuki let out a tired sigh as she rolled her eyes, before speaking: "That's Candice's. I was just interested in runes when they were calculating the artifacts, so I didn't tell anyone I was awakened, but I know for sure I awakened the night I slept with Sharp."
The trio heard that and remained silent, each analyzing Yuki's claims with a serious face, their thoughts in sync without any of them speaking.
There were two ways to awaken the System so far: the orthodox way to attune to a Rune, and the unorthodox way to sleep with a Wartopian summon. The latter method was proven twice: with Kave and Elena, and now with Yuki and Sharp.
There was a theory that Kave had the Chameleon rune cloak nearby when he awakened while sleeping with Elena, but now Yuki confirmed the other possibility. It could also mean that since the Wartopians were made by Adam's Puppeteer Rune, they possessed some Runic qualities, the nature of which no human had any full grasp on just yet.
But that wasn't the issue at hand, compared to the fact that Yuki knew Adam's secret: he was a summoner, and the Wartopians were his summons. Just from the top of his head, this presented two colossal issues for Adam.
First, he was the main weakness of his faction if he was exposed. Anyone wanting to get rid of his army and summons would simply target him, and to deter that, the Wartopians might lock him up just to protect him, which would limit his freedom.
Second, Adam's political power amounted to more than just him, but to every summon he had. If he were exposed as a summoner, the first argument many of the survivors would make would be that since he was summoning them—and unless he started enforcing his opinion with the mentality of "Might makes Right"—his summons would be seen as mere puppets, and any hopes of controlling a survivor faction with his puppets as political weight would diminish.
But as Adam's expression twisted into a complicated frown, Yuki spoke up:
"I can hear the gears of your head turning."
Adam's frown shifted as his brows pushed up and his head tilted. "Not much," he said, "I'm simply deciding your fate."
His words were ominous, but he said them quite casually, enough for Megan to glance at him for a moment.
"Good. I was also thinking," Yuki said, appearing rather comfortable, "I assume everyone you summoned still answers to you, right?"
Her question, which seemed more like a realization, had Adam pause a bit before nodding. "More or less."
"How did you know I summoned them in the first place?" He asked, choosing not to deny it.
"I sensed it. I sense... stuff." Yuki replied, adding a shrug to her statement.
Megan turned to Adam with a look that he easily translated as: "Yeah, she's always like that."
"Is it a power?" He asked before slowly approaching her, "A secret rune or something?"
Yuki still followed him with her eyes, not blinking, but still replied with the same level of honesty:
"It is called the Sage skill. It amplifies other skills, especially my Senses skill. Filters too much raw data but gives so much information it feels like..." Yuki replied, but seemed to be struggling to find the right words.
"Oh!" Adam felt taken aback, hearing about the Sage skill from Yuki, "It feels like you want to hit yourself against something heavy just to make it stop burning brain cells."
"You knew?" It was finally Yuki's turn to be surprised, "You too have it, huh?"
Adam confirmed it with a single nod, now having something to relate to Yuki with.
"It is harder for me." She spoke, her surprise fading as soon as it formed, "I am not good with emotions; they were always shallow and short-lived thoughts. The Sage keeps them, though."
Adam nodded, also hearing the voice of the Sage skill in his mind, speaking to him in the second person more often than not. Still, he learned to crowd it up with other thoughts, as for Yuki...
"From what you're saying, I understand you have ASPD?" Adam asked after letting the Sage calculate the answer, to which Yuki nodded.
"Arlington South Police Department?" Kave asked, but he cried, "Ouch!" as his ear was flicked from behind.
"Antisocial Personality Disorder," Megan said after causing Kave's right ear to go red.
"Like a Psychopath?" Kave asked, still rubbing his ear, "Sharp is like that, too, right?"
Adam and Megan felt a bit awkward at Kave's use of the term, but it seemed Yuki was rather okay with it, so they didn't dwell on it.
"Close." She replied, not giving more insight than that.
"Well, whatever your situation is, I can't simply let you go now." Adam turned to Yuki, who seemed rather understanding of his situation, "So instead of forcing something on you, would you agree to be recruited as a Man-at-Arms?"
Yet rather than replying with a yes or no, Yuki decided to skip to the only subject she was interested in: "Sharp."
"What about him?" Megan asked.
"Does he have his own agency?" She asked, her eyes still fixed on Adam, "Does he have thoughts about me, or was it just you controlling him this whole time?"
Adam thought of how to answer her, but he chose to shrug and pulled the chair opposite hers to sit.
"What do you think?" He asked, looking her right in the eyes, "What does your Sage tell you?"
She stared back at him, beautiful yet unsettling, but after half a minute of stares and silence, she shook her head.
"Sharp is different." She said as it seemed she contemplated her answer, "He's linked to you, but the links are different from the others." She then glanced at Captain Creed, who was still standing like a statue all this time, "This guy's link is different—deeper, more direct."
"Links, huh?" Adam asked before turning to Kave, "What was your Senses level again?"
"Level 8." Kave replied.
"Do you also sense links like her?"
"I feel tingles when you perform rune magic, nothing bothersome though."
Adam weighed what he heard and nodded, more to assure his own thoughts before facing Yuki:
"Sharp's thoughts about you are his own. My influence on my summons doesn't extend past the fact that they see me as Commander. They wouldn't throw their lives away if I asked them to, unless their loyalty demanded it. Others, like Captain Creed here, feel like they outrank me, even though I summoned him." Adam told her how his summons functioned.
"You sure it's okay to tell her all that?" Megan asked.
"We'll see," Adam replied, apparently planning something.
"If I work under you, will it be okay for me to date Sharp?" Yuki asked.
"Unless he has a different opinion about it, I am not one to stand in the way of love." Adam shrugged with a cool smile, "The problem here is: how do I trust you, and what can you bring to the table?"
"Trust?" Yuki tilted her head and pondered for a while, "I guess I have to earn that somehow. Very well, I'll solve a problem for you. Consider it what I would bring to the table as well."
"I'm all ears." Adam said.
"From the looks of it, you are susceptible to your involvement with your sci-fi army being revealed, especially since they are popular in fiction." She said and observed his expressions.
"You are right." He nodded.
"Put me in information control. I can fabricate a narrative that keeps you as the face of the Wartopians and keeps everyone away from the fact that you are a summoner." She said this as if she were going to perform a magic trick.
"And how is that?" Adam asked.
"By telling the truth." Yuki replied flatly with a straight face, "Not the whole truth, just the parts that put you in the limelight without making the others go crazy. Your summoning is based on a rune, right?"
"Right." Adam nodded.
"We won't say that. As far as we know, summoning runes do not work that way." She said and put on a smile, "You built a device or made something extraordinary that can reach the multiverse through the Rifts. Say you are a mad scientist who can do all manner of crazy machines, and you somehow, accidentally, became able to reach the Wartopia universe."
"It feels lazy, to be honest." Kave scratched his head.
"Assuming that your friend has real Wartopian technology, people who are even well-versed in science, like Professor Hendrick, wouldn't know what's going on easily. He was debating the other day with Ivan on how your laser pistols work." Yuki replied.
"Heh!" Adam let out a single laugh before asking, "So you want me to act like some tech wizard rather than a justiciar?"
"Is it hard?" She asked.
"On the contrary." He replied with a proud shrug, "I am already a tech wizard."
"Then it is as good as any. You aren't just a summoner; they aren't just summons. You are a guy who opened a path through the Rift to the Universe of Wartopia, which is not a lie. As for the details, we just scramble some lies around and make the other party do the effort of putting them together like some sort of conspiracy theory. If you do that, the whole perspective will shift."
Adam and the others looked at Yuki, both mesmerized and terrified by her genius. Adam turned to Captain Creed, who had witnessed this whole scene, and judged Yuki by his Golden Fiery Eyes. Creed nodded to Adam, indicating that Yuki was not lying or trying to deceive him.
With that, Adam personally removed Yuki's bindings and helped her up. He needed a schemer on his side, and what better than someone whose empathy and emotions were a bit on the shallow side?
"Welcome aboard, Ms. Yuki." Adam shook her hand, "Information control is yours."
"Thank you, Commander." She looked at him before taking her hand off his, apparently bothered by being touched. She then spoke: "Let's make you into the Wizard of Oz."
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