"Inspector Scott!" a SOPO colleague calls to me just as I am settling into my office, "You need to come to HQ's entrance now. Something serious is going down."
I nod tiredly and get up from my chair. From the battle at Charlie Mountain to the infirmary and now back to work at the office. It really never ends. A sick feeling slowly curdles in my stomach, as I keep my eyes looking forward. Concentrate on work. Don't let anyone see you cry. You're better than that.
Everyday, I wake up in my just recently paid off apartment, drive to SOPO HQ in my new car, check into my office to review my duties for the day then go to meet Tensei and Rose to prepare them for their contest against St Clair and Nicholas. On some days, just to shake things up, I check in with the Senior Inspector to report on my progress.
Meaningless days spent doing meaningless things. My life passing through an endless grey fog.
Its strange, I live in one of the most crowded cities in the world. I spend my day interacting with people I both like and dislike. I work long hours and hardly have any time to myself. But it always ends the same way. When the night falls and the terror begins. The terror of shutting off the lights of my bedroom and knowing that in the darkness, I am completely alone. That if I died in my sleep no one would know or care.
The only person who would bother about my demise would be Hartley, filing in a report saying that Irene Scott had passed away and a vacant slot for the rank of Inspector had opened up. Then my file would be closed and the name of Irene Scott will vanish into history, unremembered. The end.
Then I wake up in the morning, prepare for work and the cycle starts all over again. But one day the cycle broke, when Hartley called me into his office and told me I was going undercover at Unity Academy.
When planning my undercover identity at the Academy, Hartley had the bright idea of identifying me as a divorcee despite the fact I had never married. He claimed that it would explain why I was still single despite my age. I went along with it at the time, but at the back of my mind I just wanted to scream at Hartley, "Yes, I am a Christmas Cake. Deal with it."
Then I realized that the only person who had to deal with my status as a Christmas Cake was myself. I was sore about the whole thing because of my own hang ups. My friends were all getting married or had gotten married already. They had kept moving onward in their lives, while I was perpetually stuck, running on the spot.
The only consolation was that I had gotten very good at running on the spot. My career was in a far better position compared to where my friends were. And from the size of my apartment and its location, I was confident that my paycheck was larger than theirs as well. My reputation as one of the most powerful SOPO officers was secure. I might have been left behind by my friends, but so what? I was arguably in a better place than they were. I basically persuaded myself to stop caring about this issue.
But just running on the spot was no longer good enough. I had thought that I was strong, but recent events have shown me that I was nothing before true powerhouses. At the von Amsterg mansion, Yvonne St Clair could have easily defeated me if she was not so preoccupied with Nicholas's safety. Master Chance is several times more powerful than I am. And at the building site, Gallant played with me as if I was nothing.
My hard work over the years meant nothing before them. Power is power. They had it. And I didn't.
But all that didn't matter, because I had finally found someone who could keep the darkness at bay. Someone who would keep me company at night.
I put these stray thoughts out of my mind and head towards the entrance where I hear commotion building up. Several officers stand by the barred doors of the entrance, weapons at the ready. I look out of the windows and see a large group of ORPO nuisances standing outside our HQ jeering at us and openly carrying their weapons in breach of the Council's ruling.
"What's going on?" I ask one of the guards on duty.
"Archmage Naiberg managed to capture Gallant and brought him here." the guard tells me, "ORPO found out and they have been gathering at the entrance ever since."
"How come I didn't know about this?" I demand. I had a score to settle with Gallant and was looking forward to questioning him about his various connections throughout The City.
The guard replies, "The Archmage brought Gallant in by helicopter and he has been detained in the lockup ever since. It looks like the Senior Inspector wanted to keep this quiet as well."
I frown. There is no reason to keep quiet about the capture of a criminal as notorious as Gallant. Just as ORPO has no justification for showing up at our doorstep because of Gallant. Unless he was telling the truth when claiming that the P5 was protecting him. Then it made sense. ORPO was here to cause trouble using Gallant's arrest as an excuse. Archmage Naiberg had unknowingly opened a can of worms when he brought Gallant here.
My mood immediately sours at the thought of Naiberg, and by extension his daughter. The prodigy. The youngest officer to ever wear gold braid. Who everybody is saying will be the strongest SOPO officer ever. My apprentice in magic.
My rival in love.
Sera should be here with me, facing off against ORPO. But no, she abandoned me, saying that she had to stand guard over Tensei at the Hospital after he collapsed in the pit once Gallant had escaped. I am not a fool. Neither am I blind. Tensei has gotten himself involved with Sera as well. My own apprentice, betraying me with my lover. The very thought of it sends suppressed fury travelling up my spine. I had finally found someone to hold, and my own apprentice wants to steal him away.
But all that pales before the humiliation I felt when Tensei openly dismissed the beating I received from Gallant in favor of his concern over Rose. After I had saved his life and given myself to him.
A sudden crashing noise snaps me out of my thoughts and I see a pair of ORPO mech suits smashing the front door down with their axes. The guards quickly back up and assume defensive positions. With the entrance clear, the ORPO thugs march into the reception area and at their head is the world's worst excuse for a police officer.
"Commander Hernandez." I address the rat standing before me, "I hope you have a good explanation for this."
Hernandez casts a superfluous glance at me while puffing on his vile cigar. "You're not the Senior Inspector." he says, "I'm not interested in talking with you."
I grit my teeth at this insult and reply as politely as I can, "I am the most senior officer here. And you and your men are trespassing. Explain yourselves."
Hernandez sneers, "Looks like SOPO hands out gold braid to anybody these days. Anyway, we're here to investigate a kidnapping."
"What kidnapping?" I ask, keeping my face and tone neutral.
"Daffyd Gallant." Hernandez smiles, "A little bird told me that he had been kidnapped by you guys. Bad mistake. ORPO is always watching Inspector."
My mouth tightens into a line and I curse inwardly. Its about Gallant alright, and he was telling the truth about SOPO not being allowed to detain him.
Hernandez makes an extravagant gesture at his men and declares, "Search this dump. I want no stone left unturned."
I summon my spirit sword and the rest of the SOPO officers assemble in battle formation beside me. We blaze our spirit cores in unison in a show of strength against Hernandez's mob. The lot of them are just mundanes, no match for any of us.
Several ORPO mech suits push their way forward and interpose themselves between us and Hernandez. The ORPO Commander laughs harshly and his men follow suit. The laugh spreads from the reception area, to outside the HQ and to the entire block around the building. A wave of jeering laughter sweeps forward from all around us. I glance out of the window again and to my shock see several antiquated tanks rolling up towards the HQ as Hernandez's henchmen close in from all sides.
"Like them?" Hernandez asks smugly, "Surplus kit courtesy of the P5."
"You want to kill us." I hiss, "This is not about Gallant at all."
"You shouldn't have tried to get rid of ORPO." Hernandez says flatly, this time deadly serious, "You shouldn't have helped the Host to take over our turf. Now its time to pay the price."
"Where's Hartley?" I whisper urgently to the officer beside me.
"I think he's in the detention wing with the Archmage." comes the answer.
Damn it. There is no one here to lead us or summon help from RAU. Letting Hernandez's thugs in is also out of the question. Not only would it irreparably damage SOPO's credibility, once Hernandez finds Gallant in the lockup, he would have the excuse to detain all of us with the backing of the P5.
"Coward!" I taunt Hernandez, hoping to rally the spirits of my colleagues, "Where were you when we were fighting the Alpha One?"
Hernandez's smug voice responds, "Getting the tanks out of storage. Would be a shame to send them back there without actually doing anything with them." Another nasty laugh comes from the ORPO side at this jab.
Tensei, Rose and Sera are safe in the hospital while I am here about to get into a fight for my life. My own Commander is absent. We barely have any officers left after the Alpha One slaughtered us at Charlie Mountain. Its so unfair. Why can't anyone be by my side? Why do I have to face everything alone?
Why can't someone just be kind to me?
"Are you letting us in or not?" Hernandez demands.
"No." I say.
No. I will not let Hernandez in.
No. I will not surrender.
No. I will not die here.
No. I will never give up Tensei.
"Attack!" Hernandez shouts and the mech suits charge forward.
What's mine is mine. My pride as a member of SOPO. My devotion to justice and the law. Most importantly of all, the boy that I have claimed. Those are things that will never change. That I will never give up on.
Until my final breath.
You should feel thankful to MC u old hag...you got your whistle wet and this is the thanks he gets? You damn ingrate!
You even got virgin D that wasn't even intended for u ya damn dairy cow!
Most importantly of all, the boy that I have claimed
I know that most of the readers are probably guys that are like "Yea!" at this... but she's a full-on adult "claiming" a child, no? Isn't he still a teenager? Even the wording betrays that she doesn't quite see him as an equal. He's not the "man that she claimed" but the boy.
I wrote this while sleep-deprived and on a lot of caffeine. Let's just say it was very wrong, please see Tool boxers reply for a more accurate read of the chapter. Also, sorry author-san, I failed you
Not quite sure how I feel about Irene's obsessiveness with Tensei.
On one hand, this novel has no grand ambitions about being philosophical or commenting on the nature of society as a whole, and it would make sense that, meta-textually, Irene's bitterness over not being married by 26 (and therefore being a 'Christmas cake') is never questioned.
On the other hand, even made clear that this world is a crazy world where one of two unempathetic deities wants to have a man impregnate 3 women and die, thereby forcing the world into a longstanding proxy war, Irene's internalized sexism comes off feeling somewhat lazy.
Now, just to make it clear, I'm not saying "I think you shouldn't have written Irene as she is, because sexism is bad and we should never ever depict in any way shape or form." The above is wrong, because while sexism is very much a bad thing, a refusal to depict it is less a way to put a stop to it and more a way to deny reality by sanitizing it out of fiction.
I am however, saying that I think it feels lazy because (and maybe this is just me), you seem to have been putting an awful lot of effort into making this world seem like one that if not egalitarian at least less inclined to treat it's women differently than it's men. About as many women as men occupy roles of power in your novel, no differences between men and women when it comes to how proficient they can become at magic exist so far and no character so far in the novel (at least as far as I recall) has really acted in anyway that could be construed as sexist (except maybe our dear transmigrator insistence in calling Irene big Tits, but not only does this seem to be borne more out of apathy than anything else, T presumably also comes from our world, so his views on this topic aren't really relevant to the world he currently occupies).
So to have Irene, one of many women in this novel who occupy a position of power, suddenly come out and start saying that she feels hollow because she is an unmarried adult woman is pretty jarring. And this becomes more so true when she compares advancing in her career and obtaining a more powerful position in her society as walking in place when compared to her friends who are married but have achieved less successful careers.
And I think a big part of why this bothers me especially is that she very clearly has internalized these feelings. She doesn't make any mention of others saying this to her, or even of her married friends saying that she has achieved less than them. She just makes clear that she thinks she has achieved less than them. And this kind of internalized sexism doesn't really happen in a world that seems to give no merit to what s*x someone is.
Just to make myself clear, I'm not questioning her desire to be married, that is perfectly normal and ok, I am questioning the implied reason for this desire as being out of place though.
And that I think is what my feeling of annoyance boils down to, not the fact that Irene's feelings of hollowness seem to be motivated by a sexist atmosphere, but just how out of place such sexism in this novel is in the first place.
Now, just to make it clear, the above critique is not meant to be me going "and that's why this novel is bad!" In fact, I think that as far as Serial web novels are concerned, your novel is actually pretty close to some of the most interesting I've read and I only level this criticism in some vain hope that it will cause you to reevaluate your work and improve as I writer. I'm not doing this because I'm up in arms about what you've written and expect you to change it. For how long this post is, 'your failing' (as I consider it) is really of little significance or issue in the grand scheme of your novel. I do this only because I think your writing can improve and I would very much love to see a novel I'm very fond of becoming better.
Tl;dr: Irene, a powerful woman, feeling hollow because she doesn't have a man in her life, feels like an out of place excuse to have her fall head over heels for Tensei.
I think you are a bit blinded by your initial take on the situation and ignored the rest of the chapter. I don't really see sexism, just someone whose fragile world was broken when the Transmigrator entered and the only life line she was able to grab onto was Tensei.
In the beginning of the chapter, we can see that Irene has been stuck doing a long, monotonous, tiring job for a while, and she has the fear of being alone and forgotten.
"I nod tiredly and get up from my chair. From the battle at Charlie Mountain to the infirmary and now back to work at the office. It really never ends... Meaningless days spent doing meaningless things... The terror of shutting off the lights of my bedroom and knowing that in the darkness, I am completely alone. That if I died in my sleep no one would know or care... Then my file would be closed and the name of Irene Scott will vanish into history, unremembered. The end."
Next, we get to the part about Irene being a "Christmas cake" (which is she one) and her friends marrying. She sees her current position of continuous, repetitious, and lonely nothingness of a job as being "stuck in one spot running", while she sees her fellow co-workers, who are in a similar position to her, marrying and escaping from this position. Which could possibly deem them to her as no longer friends, since they left her behind and all alone. She tries to relieve this dreadful thought of being trapped in this position by escaping in her own fragile world.
"My friends were all getting married or had gotten married already. They had kept moving onward in their lives, while I was perpetually stuck, running on the spot... The only consolation was that I had gotten very good at running on the spot... I might have been left behind by my friends, but so what? I was arguably in a better place than they were. I basically persuaded myself to stop caring about this issue."
Then of course, this fragile world is shattered by the introduction of the Transmigrator and the other powerful people.
"But just running on the spot was no longer good enough. I had thought that I was strong, but recent events have shown me that I was nothing before true powerhouses... My hard work over the years meant nothing before them. Power is power. They had it. And I didn't. "
And the life line she grabbed onto before facing the dreadful reality of her situation was Tensei.
"But all that didn't matter, because I had finally found someone who could keep the darkness at bay. Someone who would keep me company at night."
This makes it pretty reasonable for her to be so obsessive over Tensei (plus Tensei's MC aura helps as well). She isn't hollow because she doesn't have a man in her life. She's hollow because she doesn't have any real goals to strive for which is indicative to the position forced upon her by the world itself, a mere stepping stone in the story. But with the world flying off the tracks, maybe she'll be able to find herself a real goal, die an uneventful death, or "Big tit going yandere mode" as Kirokikaze said lol.
@Toolboxer
I feel like a complete idiot rn. I'm just going to start this by saying that saying I likely owe Awekslear and apology, I vastly misread the chapter and came to what was basically an awful and unflattering read of his chapter and Irene as a character. But yeah, rereading the chapter with far more sleep and far less rockstar in my system (I'd just come back from an emergency at work that basically turned my weekend 6-hour shift into a crazy 14-hour shift), I think you're right in saying that Irene is really just a super lonely person.
This is normally the point where I'd say "but..." because I'm a sore loser and can't take being corrected lying down, but I'm not thick faced enough to try to even try and play this flop off. I will however*, say that I don't really think she's hollow because she doesn't have any goals to strive for as a result of fate making her a stepping stone. She just comes off as a really lonely person.
Like, she seems to actually value her career success and does have goals she strives for, it's just that what she values the most and upholds as her chief goal, companionship, has so far eluded her. And that, fills her with sadness.
But** yeah, AweksLear, if you end up reading this, I'm sorry that I temporarily became an angry SJW back there and I'm grateful that Toolboxer was there to DESTROY my argument with FACTS AND LOGIC***
*Ha, I may not use 'but', but (lol) I still have 'however', however (lol lol) despicable using it may be.
**Ha, you actually thought someone as despicable as me would not fo back on my promise and add a 'but' anyway? NAIVE!
***Jokes aside, this was not meant to be a jab at SJW, I'm very much a leftist liberal shill and are a champion for equality, as can be seen from my very misguided, but well-intentioned first comment.
P.S. I considered deleting my first comment but thought that would be a disservice to you for taking your time to reply. And editing my comment beyond saying "I'm an idiot, read the replies for details" felt like it would leave your and my reply without context. So, I live the original comment most as is above.
@lithit It is no trouble at all. If anything I am rather pleased that a fictional creation can rouse such a response from the readers.
Oh boy! Big tit going yandere mode? sh*t about to happen. Although there's to many sh*t already.