23 Deviant (1)

After enduring for more than ten seconds, seeing that no one came forward, Keiko's hand pushed the table and stood up, ready to go personally to stop them. But just when she stood up, she was grabbed by Seol-Hyun Ae and heard her ask, with a solemn voice, "Keiko-chan, what are you going to do?! Are you going to help those two women?"

Keiko stared at Seol-Hyun Ae with disbelief in her eyes and said, "Isn't it obvious?"

"Of course not!" Seol-Hyun Ae tightened Keiko's arm, and the force made Keiko's brows furrow. "Didn't you see the collar on their necks? They are Deviants! If you help them, it will only cause you trouble. Do you want to jeopardize your future for them?"

Keiko was stunned. Then, she carefully observed the mother and daughter outside the window again. This time, she found that they were indeed wearing what looked like a collar around their necks.

Collar marker? Deviant? She had never heard of the words before, but she had a guess in her heart. The so-called deviants were probably people who had changed their faction.

Because of the huge changes in their mindset, they had changed from one camp to another.

The collar was probably a marker used to identify such people so that everyone could see their identities at a glance. Maybe there are other functions, but without checking the information, Keiko couldn't find out more.

"Keiko, don't tell me you don't know how troublesome it is to have a relationship with a deviant?! We are soldiers, and we need to be firm, otherwise, the punishment in the army will be even more terrible. It's not easy for you to reach the rank of second lieutenant. Just because of a stranger, do you want to be expelled from the army and become a vagabond?" Seol-Hyun Ae saw Keiko's sudden sense of justice and felt a bad premonition, and hurriedly continued to persuade.

But... Could it be that people who have changed their faction were allowed to be treated like this? What did they do to deserve to be bullied like this? Keiko couldn't understand it.

She squeezed the edge of the table with both hands, and she fell into an extreme struggle in her heart.

Although she had done her best to be cautious and low-profile after waking up in this new era, her nature made her subconsciously act when she saw injustice in front of her. Although she didn't seem to realize it herself, she was actually quite righteous and really cared for others. If not, she wouldn't have joined a dangerous occupation like SAT after she retired from the Army.

"I know you are actually kind, but this is not the time to exercise your sense of self-righteousness. You calm down and sit down first," Seol-Hyun Ae's words continued. Seol-Hyun Ae pressed her seat back again.

Seeing that she sat down without resistance, Seol-Hyun Ae breathed a sigh of relief and said in a joking tone.

"You really scared me to death. When did you have such a sense of justice? It stands to reason that you should be more disciplined than I am. Why are you so reckless? I didn't even make a move. Could it be that you are actually more of a Neutral Good person than me?"

Hearing this, Keiko suddenly got goosebumps. Thinking about it carefully, her words and actions just now were indeed beyond the common sense of what a lawful neutral would do.

Lawful neutral, in any case, lawful first. They will strictly abide by the laws, regulations, disciplines, and general morals of society. The second is their own values, good or evil, but the boundaries are not obvious.

The simplest and most extreme example is when a lawful neutral soldier, due to a mission, needs to shoot an innocent child. If the superior's order contradicted their own view of good and evil, the soldier would eventually choose to execute the order. Such a person didn't care about good and evil, and always placed the law above all judgment. This was a lawful neutral alignment.

There are strict disciplinary rules in the army, one of which states that no soldier should be involved with deviants; otherwise, there would be severe punishment for the violators.

This is an iron law, but Keiko ignored this iron law and acted according to her own values, which made Seol-Hyun Ae very surprised.

In fact, what Seol-Hyun Ae didn't know was that Keiko didn't know anything about this rule, so whether it was an action that deviated from her alignment or not, so far the conclusion couldn't be drawn yet.

Seol-Hyun Ae herself was a person from the Neutral Good faction. Generally speaking, their own values ​​were above the disciplinary rules. However, it didn't mean that Seol-Hyun Ae would wantonly ignore the rules and regulations. When the degree of benefit and harm was very clear to see, they would inevitably seek to avoid harm, otherwise, it would only show that they were just immature people.

Although it was divided into nine factions, it was not as simple as cutting a cake. People in each camp had individual differences and various biases. In fact, there was a more detailed indicator for alignment division, which was called the alignment deviation value.

For example, if you drew a straight line between lawful and chaotic, in the center of the line was a neutral alignment where the value was set to 0, and the law and chaos at both ends were set to 30, where the lawful was set as a positive value on the right side of the neutral point, and chaos was set as a negative value on the left side of the neutral point.

The more neutral, the closer the value is to 0. Between ±10, it was judged as a neutral camp, +10 to +30 was a lawful camp, and -10 to -30 was a chaotic faction. It applied to Good and Evil as well.

The data of this deviation value is an important reference standard for describing a person's personality.

For example, Seol-Hyun Ae, on the scale of Law-Chaos, she was a Neutral with a +9 value, and on the scale of Good-Evil, she leaned toward Good at a +13 value. So, it could be said that she barely fitted into Neutral Good Camp, which was preferable to a military career.

Keiko had only just found out that there was such a refined standard for deciding alignment, and she still didn't know about her detailed values.

Keiko sat at the table, biting her lower lips and watching the scene of violence outside anxiously.

If she was in the past, she would have already gone there to kick the two violent men in the ass.

But now, she was hesitating, struggling fiercely inside. For the first time in her life, her sense of justice was at odds with practical stakes.

Sensing Keiko's inner struggle, Seol-Hyun Ae tried to talk to her to ease her emotions, saying, "Actually, this kind of thing doesn't happen every day, but there are quite a few. These deviants usually live in their own living space and operate in a limited area. I don't know why these two deviants appeared in the downtown area today. How unlucky… Actually—" Seol-Hyun Ae stopped abruptly and panicked, "Hey, Keiko! Keiko, come back here!"