My Class is Null, But I Always Get the Best Outcome

They hadn’t even finished their drinks.

Kai and Sera were still sitting at the same café table, the Juno broadcast barely off the screen, when Sera’s phone vibrated again. She looked down at it. "...Another one."

Kai sighed. "They’re announcing these fast."

"Looks like every city is reaching the end around the same time." She turned the phone around so he could read it.

Authority Candidate Confirmed

City: Kalem

Authority Holder

[Zuri Valasia]

[Level 51]

[Epic Class — Dictator]

Kai stared at the word. "...Excuse me?"

Sera lowered the phone slowly. "...Yeah."

Kai blinked again, like rereading it might change what it said. "...No."

The café’s television switched over to the live report before either of them could say anything else, the Juno banner still fading off the corner of the screen.

Kai muttered, "We just watched a Peacemaker build something that looks like a dictatorship."

"And now we get an actual Dictator," Sera said. "Five minutes later."

"I’m not emotionally prepared for this."

She replied quietly, "Neither am I."

...

The reporter began, and images of Kalem filled the screen.

Kai folded his arms. "So..."

"When does the oppression start?"

Sera snorted. "Give her five minutes."

Kai kept his eyes on the screen, arms still crossed. "I’m expecting speeches."

"Military."

"Secret police."

"Towers."

Sera nodded along with each one. "Me too."

Instead, the broadcast showed a public park. Children chasing each other around a fountain. Street musicians playing something upbeat near a row of open-air market stalls. A dog stealing a piece of bread off a cart while the vendor pretended not to notice.

Kai waited a beat. "...Okay."

"Maybe they’re showing the before."

The reporter smiled at the camera. "No."

"This was filmed this morning."

Kai looked at Sera. Sera looked at Kai. Neither of them said anything for a long moment.

"That’s not what a Dictator’s city looks like," Kai finally said.

"Apparently it is now," Sera said. "Ours, anyway."

...

The broadcast shifted to a simple wooden stage. No palace behind it. No grand hall, no military parade, not even a guard standing off to the side.

A young woman stepped onto the stage in ordinary clothes. No crown. No elaborate uniform. No jewelry beyond a plain ring on one hand. Just a notebook tucked under her arm. She smiled, a little nervous. "Morning, everyone."

Someone in the crowd immediately raised a hand. "I don’t like your housing proposal."

Kai braced, waiting for guards to step forward. None did.

Zuri smiled instead. "Okay."

"Tell me why."

The man spent nearly three minutes explaining, and the broadcast let him finish every word of it. Zuri wrote notes the entire time, pen moving steadily.

Then she nodded. "...You’re right."

"We missed that."

"We’ll change it."

Kai blinked. "...Wait."

Another woman raised her hand from further back. "The farming district has the same issue."

Zuri wrote more notes without hesitation. "We’ll change that too."

Kai slowly turned toward Sera. "...Where’s the dictatorship?"

Sera whispered, "...I don’t know."

"This is supposed to be the opposite of a town meeting."

"I know what it’s supposed to be, Kai."

...

The reporter continued over the footage. "Zuri’s Epic Class..."

"...Dictator..."

"...grants absolute authority over any organization she officially leads."

Kai nodded slowly. "There it is."

"But..." The reporter smiled. "Since becoming Authority Holder, she has voluntarily refused to use that authority."

Every proposal, discussed publicly. Major decisions requiring citizen meetings. Independent review committees approving spending before it went anywhere. Even military expansion requiring open debate first.

Kai stared at the screen. "...She literally has the power to overrule everyone in that room."

Sera nodded. "...And instead..."

"She keeps asking."

Kai rubbed his forehead with the heel of his hand. "My brain hurts."

"You said that about Elish two minutes ago."

"It’s a different kind of hurt."

...

The reporter’s next question came from off-camera. "Many people have asked why someone with the Dictator Class refuses to rule like one."

Zuri laughed, easy and unguarded. "I’ve seen the forums."

The crowd laughed with her. She went on. "My class already gives me too much authority."

"If I rely on it..."

"I’ll eventually stop listening."

"So..."

"I need people willing to tell me no."

The stage went quiet for a second, the crowd letting that sit.

The reporter pressed. "But you could force your decisions through."

"I could."

"...Which is exactly why I shouldn’t."

Kai set his cup down slowly, like he needed both hands free to think. "...That’s..."

Sera finished for him, quiet. "...unexpected."

The interview kept going. An advisor stepped up beside Zuri and interrupted without ceremony. "I still think your transportation plan is terrible."

Zuri smiled at him. "I agree."

"So help me make it less terrible."

The room laughed. Kai didn’t. He was still working through everything he’d just watched. "She just agreed her own plan was bad. On camera. In front of everyone."

"That’s the part that’s bothering you?" Sera asked. "Not the fact she has a class built for total control and she’s using it to run a suggestion box?"

"That’s bothering me too. I’ve got a list now, and it’s growing fast."

...

Another montage rolled across the screen, and this one had nothing to do with military parades either. Citizens repairing roads together, sleeves rolled up, no uniforms in sight. Hunters volunteering to teach children basic combat safety in a schoolyard. Neighborhood meetings held in what looked like someone’s converted living room. Open budget discussions posted publicly, line by line. Public construction projects put to a vote before a single brick was laid.

Everywhere, people participating like it was simply expected of them.

The statistics followed. Crime: down. Economic growth: steady. Education: improving. Monster response: excellent. Volunteer participation: record high. Public trust: ninety-five percent.

Kai blinked at the number. "...Ninety-five?"

Sera checked it twice like it might correct itself. "...Higher than Juno."

"Juno we watched five minutes ago."

"That Juno."

Kai let out a long breath. "I don’t understand anything anymore."

Sera laughed. "I was waiting for that."

Kai counted on his fingers, mostly to have something to do with his hands. "First broadcast."

"Peacemaker."

"Built something that looks like a dictatorship."

"Second broadcast."

"Dictator."

"Built something that looks like a town meeting."

"Same sitting. Same coffee. Not even cold yet."

Sera glanced at his cup. "It’s definitely cold."

"That’s not the point, Sera."

"I know. I just wanted to see if you’d notice."

...

Kai stared out the café window for a while, watching people cross the street without any particular urgency. "...Our classes really don’t define us."

Sera smiled. "I’ve been saying that."

"I believed it," Kai said. "I just didn’t think it’d be this obvious, twice, back to back."

He looked back at the broadcast, still playing quietly on the screen. "You know what’s strange?"

"What?"

"I think both cities genuinely believe they’re protecting people."

Sera considered that. "They just define protection differently."

Kai nodded. "Elish protects people by making sure everyone moves together."

"And Zuri?"

"...By making sure everyone has a voice."

Sera tilted her head. "So..."

"Which one’s right?"

Kai was quiet for several seconds, turning his cup slowly on the table. "...I don’t think that’s the right question."

Sera raised an eyebrow. "What is?"

Kai watched the footage of Kalem’s citizens arguing with each other on-screen, Zuri still listening, still smiling, still writing everything down. "The real question is what happens when both of them are tested."

"Tested how?"

"I don’t know yet," Kai admitted. "A crisis. A war. Something that doesn’t leave room for a town meeting or a review committee. Juno’s system works because it moves fast and doesn’t ask twice. Kalem’s works because it asks everyone and waits for the answer." He paused. "I don’t know which one survives the day it can’t afford to do either."

Sera was quiet for a moment. "Maybe neither does."

"That’s not comforting."

"You didn’t ask for comforting. You asked what happens."

Kai managed a small, tired smile. "Fair."

The café fell quiet around them for a while, the broadcast still running low in the background, forgotten. Outside, Mythal continued its ordinary day, merchants calling out prices, hunters moving toward the gates, nothing about the street suggesting that anywhere else in the world, two people they’d never met were reshaping their cities in two very different images, within minutes of each other.

Kai finally spoke again. "Somewhere, a Peacemaker is building order through unity."

Sera nodded. "And somewhere else, a Dictator is building trust through restraint."

"Neither matches their class."

"Neither matches what we expected."

Kai turned his cup once more, watching the last of his drink settle. "I don’t think anyone can really understand another Authority Holder," he said, "not until they’re standing across from one."

Sera didn’t answer right away. She just looked at him, like she was filing the thought away somewhere it might matter later. "You think that’s coming?" she asked.

Kai looked out at the street one more time, at the calm, ordinary rhythm of a city that had no idea how large the world had just become, twice, in under ten minutes. "...I think it might be."