Upon the Flying Ship: Rewritten Records of the Illiterate Author

Chapter 9

"Guys! Guys!" He stood in the middle of a hallway. "Look, the most recent rulers died very soon after they became rulers, right? There must be a curse on the 'ruler' position on the DSS!"

Word spreads quickly, and even quicker in tight quarters. Soon, everybody knew about the curse, and nobody wanted to be ruler anymore.

"Really? A silly rumor about a curse and suddenly nobody wants to be ruler anymore?" Bellarmine stood at the podium.

"Hey! You aren't going for the position either!"

"It would mess with my life as a performer! I wouldn't have any time for the stage!"

Sure, that would have been a perfectly good reason at any other time. But now, everybody was convinced that she was also afraid of the curse and just didn't want to show it.

"What if it's real?" Pteppic looked at his knife. "I mean, Liblie died pretty quickly after becoming Ruler. Then Kota. Nobody wants to test the theory, because it just might be the truth!"

"Oh, not you too, Ptep!"

"I'm just saying, it isn't the stupidest idea that people could have. I just might be inclined to agree..."

"You know it's not the only rumor, right?" Mieron butted into the conversation.

Bella raised her eyebrows. "And what is the other one?"

"Something along the lines of 'there are ill-inclined people from the other side of a globe-"

"What globe?"

"Someone said the earth is a gigantic sphere."

"I mean... We know the continent is on a curve. It's visible from above, but to say that there's more? I don't even know..."

"Whatever. The rumor continues with 'and those people are infiltrating everywhere and they want to start a war.' Last time we stopped, at East West South 'Leans, I had to explain to a bunch of citizens that West 'Leans is not planning a war, and when we stopped in South South East 'Leans, Cactus told me that she told a bunch of people that Northleans was only fighting within itself, and that it doesn't have any resources to fight with other countries.

A day later, Surrus sent a letter to Fyeuin, asking the fire Mage to help out.

Fyeuin came almost immediately, trailing smoke as she shot up towards the ship.

"Where'd you learn to do that?" Surrus asked.

"The Ice Queen told me about this thing called a 'racket' - because it creates a huge racket, and burns stuff to shoot itself up to the moon."

"There have been people on the moon?!"

"According to her. Anyway, I do the same thing, but I don't have to burn anything."

"Neat. Now, I need you to either fish up a good, willing ruler, or fix the situation somehow otherwise."

Fyeuin picked the second option after realizing that there were no willing rulers, but hours later after writing out convincing essays that the curse wasn't real, gave up.

Mieron poked his head through her mirror. "You know, a lot of people would want to be ruler if not for the curse. Not sure whether you needed the information, but I thought it could be helpful."

That was an idea. No, it was an idea, and not only that, a great idea! Now she just had to convince the council that it was a great idea.

Her first words at the next council meeting were "Let's give everyone the power!"