Blacksmith vs. the System

As I followed Eleanor, I did my best to ignore the giant question about having something called calming field over every single town. I failed. Somehow, it nauseated me worse than that horrible flight experience.

I tried to ignore it, but failed. Something was bubbling inside me. For the first time, I wanted to feel like raging. Worse, now that I knew that there was something to look for, I could feel that anger draining out of me slowly. The weaker my anger got, the smoother the draining had become. Soon, even though I knew what to look for, I couldn't identify the effect.

I couldn't handle the idea.

"Actually, do you mind if I go kill a few monsters? It'll calm me better," I managed to squeeze between my clenched teeth.

"I understand the feeling. Go ahead. I'll be at the Broken Tankard," Eleanor said.

I nodded thankfully before I turned and started walking away. The darkness, I welcomed as I moved away from the town, ignoring the road, which was safer — but not safe — as I cut directly toward the nearest woodland.

It was one of the hunting areas maintained for the low-leveled people, with an hourly access fee. At least, during the day.

It was too unpredictable during the night. Exactly what I needed. I wanted to destroy things without being observed by anyone. For the first time in my life, I wanted to lash out and destroy. The more I thought about it, the more I realized that it was the reason for my state, obediently sending applications to the new research groups without taking initiative.

One of the guards shook his hand. "Hey, buddy. You can't come here during the night —" he started.

I just threw him a gold coin. An abject waste of money, but I didn't want to talk with him. With my hands shaking with anger, I didn't know how he would react.

"Alright, but if you have any problem, I didn't see you," the guard said as he put the coin into his bag before walking away.

I ignored that as I delved into the forest, my blade dancing to cut and skewer any monster that was stupid enough to come close. I moved deeper and deeper, killing more and more. It didn't make me any less angry, but gave me a sense of control, enough that I could start processing my anger.

While the idea that I might have wasted three years of my life was a horrible realization, it wasn't the reason for my rage.

Not even close.

I was furious, because having a calming field effect going on constantly was nothing less than a true disaster. Of course, there were many reasons it was a horrible disaster, like potential impact on brain chemistry, but on those, I didn't know enough to make a judgment call.

I could only make a certain judgment from the perspective of a sociologist. And, that judgment was clear.

It was a disaster, which had the potential to be worse than the Calamity itself.

Though, I was glad that I didn't have to tell someone else about that. I doubted that I could realistically convey the significance of it to someone that was not an expert. And even then, it wouldn't be a simple conversation.

In a way, stress was like gravity. Without it, thinking that we would be jumping happily was a good dream. In reality, our bodies would turn into malformed abominations with countless defects, because every little biological function we had depended on gravity to shape it.

Stress had some function for our minds and the society.

Just like gravity, there were many harmful effects caused by stress. Chronic health problems, impact on productivity, leading social conflicts, aggressions, damaging relationships, burnouts, and many other effects that would take too long to list…

Yet, it was a proven fact that stress, in moderate doses, was a critical aspect of motivation. It sharpened focus and drove the individuals to become better. From a certain point of view, it was also the reason most successful people had been maladjusted — a list that included me, if I were to be honest.

It drove people to adapt, grow, and innovate in unpredictable ways. Without that drive, people could still push themselves and excel, but they rarely became exceptional. In a way, it generated excellent accountants and gym teachers, but not many true scientists or record breaking athletes.

That alone explained why most people didn't even think of pushing the limits of the System but obediently followed the easiest path to improvement.

Of course, fighting constantly against monsters was a stressful activity, but it didn't make people innovate. Too much stress impacts creativity in a completely opposite manner, stifling it and forcing people to stick to their traditions and habits even more. Especially habits like killing more monsters to get stronger, which was an obvious choice.

It didn't exactly happen like that for me … but then, I could hardly call myself a normal, well-adjusted human being. I was the reason my psychologist had been able to send her child through college without student loans.

"I hate it," I growled as I destroyed another monster. "We are dealing with a magical disaster and literal monsters, yet we're still our worst enemy."

I wasn't exaggerating. Just by stopping people from experimenting, those calming fields might have killed more people than the first wave of Calamity. A massacre of grand scale.

That alone would have been horrible enough. But, there were many other critical functions of stress in society. For example, it played an incredible role in social bonding. Stress drew people together, both seeking comfort of the group, and trying to overcome the challenges together.

Yet, people had been living in relative, forced calm, then went out to fight against monsters to get an enhanced dose of stress, not just from the fact that they were fighting for their lives, but it was likely that they also suffered withdrawal effects from leaving the calming field, at least to a level similar to trying to quit smoking.

Which meant, any group that worked together had turned even more close knit and loyal. A good thing during a fight, as people weren't afraid of being abandoned by their fellow fighters. But a horrible thing from a societal perspective.

"Codependent" was a word that people loved to throw around, but it was a dangerous thing. It made people stay in cults that drained their money and linger in abusive relationships until it killed them.

In our current situation, codependent was an understatement —

"Fuck, that explains why everyone follows people with Charisma like lost puppies," I growled even as I punched the nearest tree, leaving a deep indent. It didn't break my gauntleted hand. I wish it did. Not only had people turned more loyal, but Charisma was probably able to replicate that effect, at least partially.

Which meant that anyone with Charisma was essentially microdosing people constantly when they had been struggling with addiction symptoms.

Combined, it was even more devastating than ordinary. It meant, every guild was some kind of a frat house on steroids, led by what was essentially a cult leader.

It also explained one of the biggest questions I had, the strong drift on social values and ethics. While I had some theories, I had always been weirded out by how quickly a world built on the idea of freedom and individuality — at least, to some degree — had been able to regress back to medieval principles in less than three years.

The peace fields presented a much better explanation.

I reacted that badly, because I had already studied the concept before Cataclysm.

The idea of artificially adjusting people's emotions and drives to create a 'better' society wasn't exactly a new idea. The CIA had famously experimented on the impact of the drugs, not to mention many famous science fiction books examined the concept as a thought experiment.

Of course, as a famous sociologist that could actually model impacts of such concepts, I had sufficient access to some of the studies that hadn't been revealed to the public yet. People often underestimated the number of contingencies that the government had for any kind of an emergency, from disease outbreaks to a sudden nuclear attack.

Ironically, even the Cataclysm was prepared for … technically. A total collapse of electrical infrastructure along with a hostile invasion sufficiently fit the theme. Of course, it didn't help even a bit when the Cataclysm hit, because, ultimately, those plans needed to be implemented on time.

However, they weren't the only ones that commissioned such studies. There were many eccentric rich people that tried to solve every problem the world had through their sheer genius. Of course, those genius ideas were often one-liners like building a huge underwater city before leaving the 'easy' part to the experts.

I remembered it, because I had been harassed by a particularly annoying one years ago. It was called Horizon Institute, and they had been obsessive enough to harass me for a month, offering me a frankly ludicrous amount of money to work for their genius founder.

But, no money was worth working for a bunch of crazy people, especially since I had been more than comfortable with my finances thanks to a few peripheral projects I had done for tech companies. A few startups had paid in shares, which then appreciated more than I expected, freeing me from the necessity to indulge them.

It was particularly satisfying to throw the gold watch they had given me as an apology to the garbage. It had been less satisfying when I actually went and paid for a replica to be made when the dean started to nag me about upsetting important donors.

"Those were the days," I muttered even as I continued to kill, going deeper and deeper into the forest, letting my anger drain out of me while I let my skill lead me. In a way, it was like Meditation.

A very violent variant.

I continued, spending some more time before I started to walk back. "It is ironic that the conspiracies about chem-trails had suddenly turned real," I said, but my chuckle sounded dark even to my ears.

Not a surprise, considering what would happen if I tried to convince people about my conclusions. I didn't know if the peace fields were some kind of intentional conspiracy to somehow manipulate humanity, or if it was something they used simply because it helped people in power. Ultimately, it didn't matter.

It took decades of fighting to limit tobacco usage, where the industry lied, cheated, bribed, used legal troubles, and that had been only one recreational industry. Trying to convince the people that were actually fashioning themselves as feudal city lords and medieval nobles that one of the fundamental aspects of their power was harmful…

There was only one question about what would happen if I tried. Would I be treated as a madman and dismissed, or quietly assassinated?

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