Bonus Chapter 0.1 – Prelude – Form 111-C

“Ticket 48,843!” called Kairon.

In an unending large chamber, thousands of beings waited. A myriad of races, levels of power, and states of dress. Some strong, others weak. It didn’t matter. Only the ticket did.

Each second, a dozen teleportation circles flashed intermittently. Fresh traffic exited, stale traffic entered.

But no matter the stature, every entrant stepped in and made their way to the ticket lines. Twisted, arching pathways that traversed the stone jungle loosely called The Atrium.

“Oh for system’s sake,” he muttered. “Ticket 48,843!” he shouted again. The magic symbols nearest him lit, echoing his voice throughout the massive waiting area.

In the distance, a mountain of a man stood.

“I bear ticket 48,843.” Kairon just made the words out with the hearing infused scripture at his side.

He wore a set of golden armor that flexed and bulged. Each piece gleamed in a way that made his already impossibly large chest seem even more so.

Most impressive, however, was the six-foot sword strapped to his back. A tool of destruction incarnate.

The clerk couldn’t care less about any of that nonsense. Instead, his eyes searched for one thing.

He found it clasped in the figure’s left gauntlet. A tiny scrap of yellow paper. The ticket.

With heavy footsteps, the lumbering giant made his way through rows of seats.

“Watch yourself!” hissed a spindly man in a purple cloak.

“Go around!” barked a stocky man in armor.

“Oversized giant! Don’t they have special lines for brutes like you?”

The man stopped and peered down, towering form going perfectly still. The stark white of The Atrium made his divine appearance seem unnaturally real. As if he was the only true existence in this room, and everything else was a simulation.

“I am Adrian World Breaker. Move,” came a deep, bottomless voice.

That one proclamation was enough. Apologies were grumbled and seats squeaked as they shifted in order to make a path. When Adrian World Breaker said move, you moved.

***

“Please, sit, sit.”

Stepping into Kairon’s afforded cubicle, the massive form that was Adrian sat in a gray plastic chair. His tall stature stuck out more than a meter above the flimsy cubicle walls.

While The Bureau was very specific in what furnishing was deemed acceptable, they knew their clientele varied greatly. Despite their appearance, the tiny office chairs were nearly indestructible. The enchanted material didn’t even shake as the demigod sat upon it.

Unfortunately, the same couldn’t be said for Kairon’s belongings. Nearly half of his neatly organized desktop toppled over from the quaking. Pencils, magi-calculators, and apparatus-a-plenty clattered to the floor.

More than several shouted complaints came from the clerks with adjoining spaces. Many now staring at their entire setups in disarray.

“Don’t… worry about that. I’ll clean it later,” he muttered. “Anyway, just a moment… let me pull up your file here…” Agile fingers typed, querying the system database until it identified the identity.

“Here we go! Adrian World Breaker. Oh! Why, thank you Mr. World Breaker for being a platinum realm member. Truly, your patronage means the world to all of us here at The Bureau.”

The warrior stared back flatly.

Before Kairon could continue, something in the man’s gaze stopped him. Kairon prided himself on knowing when his clients needed a little something extra to help their day. This was one of those times.

“Mr. World Breaker, how is your day going? You seem… Distraught.”

“My neighbor, Langmore Sea Bearer, advanced their divine rights. The increase in water was so profound it flooded an entire realm. My realm. Every soul drowned. Not because they couldn’t swim or fly. Because there was so much water everything was crushed from the sheer weight. From the elders, to the parents, and the children. All that’s left of friends and memories is water.”

“Ah. I’m terribly sorry to hear that.”

“It is fine. I broke his world. Langmore Sea Bearer now lives in a desert. The only thing he bears is sand.”

Pausing, Kairon licked the inside of his mouth. He leaned back, studying the deity speculatively.

“It sounds like you’ve had a tough day.”

“Yes.”

“Tell you what. I’ll help you out here. How does that sound?”

Adrian World Breaker did not look convinced. Kairon noticed this too. That didn’t bother him. Overachieving was his specialty.

He coughed lightly. “So… Let’s see here.”

A flashing orange icon came up on the man’s bio.

This narrative has been purloined without the author’s approval. Report any appearances on Amazon.

“Ah hah. I assume you’re here due to this… Hmm. Mandatory tax flag. Form 111-C filed with a higher than expected tribute rate. Not the worst problem to have.”

Adrian brightened.

He hesitated, clicking his tongue. “Also not the best.”

Adrian darkened.

“Never fear! Let’s see what we can do…”

Golden light flashed in Adrian’s eyes, causing wards hidden in the ceiling tiles to come to life, ebbing off the divine magic with the pressure of something even more powerful. The system.

The clerk didn’t even look up. “None of that. Let me see what I can do. You just enjoy the accommodations for a moment.”

Several minutes later…

“I see…Mr. World Breaker, when you were first registered, and by this I mean when you originally integrated into The System, what was your classification?”

He thought. “Mortal. That’s what the notification said.”

“And now?”

“I break worlds.”

“Right, right. But what did the new notification refer to you as? The one that flagged you and made you come in here?”

“Enhanced demi divine human.”

“And if I were a simpler man, who just wanted to know what you still were at your core. Without all the fancy wish-wash…?”

“… A human.”

Kairon clapped. “Exactly! Now, I need to stress I’m not suggesting anything,” he gave a meaningful look at the golden sigil in the corner. The same one that every cubicle had floating inside of it.

“But, hypothetically, if you were to submit a racial class inquiry, the system would have to evaluate if enhanced human was still accurate. And, if it deemed that it was in fact not…”

“The rate changes?”

“Well now Mr. World Breaker, you sound like a clerk.”