500th Time Reborn, A World Only Known By Women: The Karma System

I looked around me, but everything was in shambles. The white marble pavilion that had been on the massive balcony was smashed to bits. Thankfully, I was just as good at putting things back together as I was blowing them apart.

Still, I waited to pull in magic, pressing two fingers to my lips and closing my eyes. That kiss had been like touching the purest light, and something had changed. I just wished that it was under a different circumstance.

I opened my eyes to look around at the mess again, and let out a long sigh, then pulled in magic. As I did, I used it to slowly put everything back together, and the six marble columns reformed, and then the grass regrew.

Once I was done with that, wings burst from my back and lifted me back up to the room I had smashed Xena through. As I flew into the room and landed, the hole in the wall and everything else started to put itself back together, but something was bothering me as I looked around at the damage that was minimal at best.

Xena had not used her Entropic magic when I attacked her, but why? She could have easily turned this castle into ruins if she wanted, but Xena never activated it. This building should have been in ruins, but it was still standing.

I walked back to the throne room where Tallia was sitting with Melrose, Kira, and Mishal. Melrose's eyes went big, and she looked like she was about to jump up, but Tallia put a hand on her arm. I guess she still had some PTSD from being hung out the window.

"Galio is calmed down now and will act properly this time, right?" Tallia asked, giving me a look, and I nodded as the wall formed back behind me.

"Yes. I have got my anger under control, but I will not apologize for hanging her out of the window. She insults Eliza when the Queen clearly has no clue what is going on outside of her own walls. I am sorry that I made a mess of your court, but you had a snake that needed to be removed," I said as I walked over to the group of chairs the women were sitting on.

"Yes, I can see that I might have made some hasty comments," Melrose said, but that was it.

Hasty comments? This woman had marked me as a traitor before even meeting me. That was hasty.

"Galio, come sit down beside me," Tallia warned me, and I sighed, coming over to take a seat beside her. It was a good idea to talk with her when I did these things, especially when it came to situations like this.

"I am coming," I said and sat down beside her. Tallia reached over and took one of my hands in hers, squeezing it. I looked up at her, and she was giving me a look that said to keep my mouth shut.

"The two of you seem very close," Melrose said as she looked down at our hands.

"I am just holding Galio in place so I can stop him from saying anything that is going to make this more trouble than it already is. Now, can you please explain to Galio why there is such strife between the Peekaan and the Easterners? I do not want to hear anything but the exact problem, no opinions, got it?" Tallia asked, narrowing her eyes at Melrose, and the dark-skinned woman nodded.

"We do not like how lazy the Easterners are. They close up shop twice a day to take naps, and there is never a schedule. You have to understand that the Peekaan all wake up early and then work from first light until the sun is high up above. When we come back from fishing, half the dock hands aren't around, and we end up doing most of the work ourselves. Then we go to buy from the shops, and half of them are closed with no sign to say when they are coming back!" Melrose explained, getting heated at the end.

I just sat there for a bit and let that all soak in. It was reasonable for them to despise the Easterners, but there had to be more than this.

"So, they just take breaks whenever they want? Why don't they have scheduled breaks then?" I asked in confusion, and Melrose sighed.

"This is why so many of them leave the city because we ask them to change, but they say they can't pick when they are tired. There are many ways that they could fix this problem, but they choose not to. This has made us salty, to say the least, and now the other Peekaans are starting to get tired of it. It is a delicate balance, but tensions between our two people are worse than ever. It is to the point where we are trying to decide if we don't just do the other jobs ourselves and kick them out of the city. It might sound harsh, but we are tired of them not doing anything to help the betterment of our city," Melrose explained, and I nodded.

​ "I am sorry that I came in guns hot, but from what I had seen of the Easterners, they seemed like good people," I said, thumbing my chin.

"They are good people. What the Queen is not adding is that the Peekaan insult anyone that can't do something as good as them," Mishal said, and both Kira and Melrose turned glares at her, but Mishal just crossed her arms. "Will you tell them that it is different?"

"Yes. I will admit that we do tend to look down on others, but that has nothing to do with the Easterners that had no desire to change! They just complain about how things are so bad for them, but they won't do the simple things that we ask!" Melrose snapped, and Tallia put up her hand.