Somehow, Living Life in Another World is Wrong, as I Expected Ch. 12.4 (Patreon)

When a so-called 'smart person' is denied, they usually go into a fit of rage. This is not me exaggerating for the sake of pessimism, nor is it me projecting my own miserable flaws onto the masses. In fact, most ordinary people won’t even realize that the genius in the room is angry. True intellectuals are usually intelligent enough to keep that venom entirely to themselves, locking it safely behind polite smiles and measured breaths.

See, the fundamental issue with incredibly smart people is their absolute, unshakeable belief that they are fundamentally correct. They operate under the baseline assumption that they know vastly more than whoever they’re speaking to - which, let's be honest, is usually true. This breeds an underlying arrogance that is, in some pragmatic aspects, not entirely unwarranted. 

However, when you puncture that bubble of intellectual supremacy with a blunt 'no', it inevitably leads to them harboring a deep, simmering resentment. They view defiance not as a difference of opinion, but as an insult to their supreme logic, causing a long-standing, often completely one-sided feud.

Inevitably, the poor fool who dared to utter the word ‘no’ to the smart person will become the target of some convoluted, calculated revenge somewhere down the line. And the kicker? That retaliation will come even if the decision to refuse was objectively the right call to begin with.

Why, you may ask?

Because people, at their core, are incredibly petty creatures. And that inherent human pettiness is only magnified tenfold in people who physically cannot stop their brains from over-analyzing everything. They will obsessively twist and turn whatever reasoning or justification the other person might have possessed. They’ll warp the narrative until, in their own minds, every action taken by the world was a deliberate slight against them. Such cyclical, self-victimizing thinking is incredibly toxic. I would know. I’ve fallen prey to those exact same shadowy, spiraling thoughts more times than I care to count.

So, what is the dividing line? What is the difference between an ordinary, cynical guy like me and a genuinely 'smart' person?

I learned the hard way when I needed to force myself to think things through rationally. I had to accept the harsh truth that not everyone is actively conspiring against me. Every single person has their own exhausting agenda, their own daily battles, and those agendas do not necessarily intersect with my own miserable troubles. That is to say, just because an action does not actively benefit me, doesn't mean it was designed to harm me.

The world is not a strict zero-sum game. Both parties can actually benefit from a compromise, or at least walk away ensuring that nobody else takes collateral damage. This is the safe route. This is logical. Someone who is genuinely, functionally smart will eventually realize this basic truth of social economics, usually once they get over the initial sting of being denied.

But what happens when the person I was talking to was undoubtedly a genius, but fundamentally not a person?

I know exactly how a smart human would act. I can predict the passive-aggressiveness, the subtle digs, the cold shoulder. But I have absolutely no idea what a smart Witch would act like. A being that exists outside the boundaries of human morality and time. So, to that end, when the ancient, pale Witch sitting across from me finally replied to my blunt rejection, I had entirely cleared my mind of any expectations.

That lack of expectation didn’t make her eventual reply any less baffling.

…

“That’s a shame.” Echidna sighed.

It wasn't a sigh of frustration, nor the sharp exhale of a bruised ego. It was a soft, airy sound, like the rustle of dry leaves in a graveyard. Her porcelain-white fingers delicately traced the rim of her teacup, seemingly unbothered by my utter lack of cooperation, “But nonetheless expected, knowing what I know about you.”

I narrowed my eyes. The Witch of Greed just calmly sat there, framed against an artificially perfect sky, a small, serene smile resting on her dark lips. I had told myself I didn’t expect anything from her, and yet the casual, almost breezy manner in which she simply accepted my absolute refusal was setting off klaxons in my head. There was no twitch in her brow, no tightening of her jaw. Just that bottomless, obsidian gaze staring right through me.

There had to be another ploy here. A hidden hook buried in the bait.

But since she was sitting in absolute silence, waiting for my counter-move in this bizarre psychological chess match, I figured I might as well test the waters and try to get the hell out of here.

“Right.” I said, keeping my tone as flat and dismissive as possible. I pushed myself slightly back from the unnaturally smooth table, “If that’s all you wanted, can you let me leave already? I have homicidal rabbits to avoid.”

“Alright.”

The answer came instantly. Smooth, agreeable, and entirely too easy.

Wait for it… I thought, my muscles tensing as the synthetic wind brushed past us. Here comes the catch.

Echidna tilted her head, her white hair spilling over her dark dress. The innocent smile on her face sharpened into something incredibly, dangerously curious.

“But don’t you want to know more about your Authority?”

…Shit. 

I kept my face as carefully blank as a freshly wiped chalkboard, but internally, I was already throwing in the towel. She got me there. She had dangled the one piece of bait I couldn't simply turn my nose up at and walk away from.

I was curious. Incredibly, dangerously curious about the Authority of Greed that had somehow taken root inside me. It was an ability that defied all common sense - my Authority allowed me to forcibly absorb the memories of individuals, stripping them of their hard-earned skills, their intimate knowledge, and their very life experiences. It was a terrifyingly powerful tool. But that power came tethered to a horrifying anchor of a downside. Every time I used it, I ran the very real, visceral risk of having my target’s residual ego flood my mind, drowning out my own personality until 'Hachiman Hikigaya' completely ceased to exist.

Because of that existential threat, I had made the conscious, ironclad decision never to use it again. Not after what happened. Not after I nearly lost my grip on the reins of my own sanity, my own inherent, twisting greed threatening to consume me whole when fighting against the Archbishop of Gluttony. The weight of those foreign thoughts still occasionally clawed at the edges of my consciousness.

Why was I the one to receive it? What did it truly mean for me?

Those were the two glaring, neon-lit questions that I had never been able to resolve. And now, the literal origin point of those answers - the very incarnation of Greed - was sitting right in front of me.

See, the Witch Factors, from which these Authorities are born, are named directly after their progenitors. It wasn't a simple case of 'anyone who stumbles upon a Witch Factor automatically becomes a Witch.' No, the historical causality was entirely reversed: 'the Witches naturally possessed the Witch Factors.' There were scattered, chilling references to these beings littered throughout history. Priestella, for instance, was an entire sprawling metropolis constructed for the sole, desperate purpose of acting as a cage to trap a previous Witch.

The Witch Factors, therefore, weren't just stagnant historical artifacts. They were some sort of transferable, parasitic power that could jump and bind themselves to specific individuals long after their original hosts were dead and buried.

So why did the Witch Factor of Greed choose me?

Surely the original owner of it would be able to answer that singular question.

And looking at her smiling face, I knew for a fact that this was the conclusion Echidna wanted me to arrive at.

Begrudgingly, I gave a small nod, stopping myself from shifting any more in my seat. The wood beneath me felt like a cage, albeit a very comfortable one. Echidna gave a pleased little chuckle, and continued, “There it is. Now, if you really want to know, we’re going to have to make a deal-”

“If you needed a deal, you would have needed to ask before dragging me in here.” I cut her off, my patience wearing paper-thin, “Since this is a dream, nothing physical can be transferred over. If you wanted knowledge, you would have already gotten it when reading my mind.” I crossed my arms, staring her down. “Therefore, I can conclude that you’re just some bitch trying to play games. Let’s skip all that and just get on with it already.”

Echidna pouted, a gesture that looked entirely too practiced for a centuries-old entity, and waved a hand dismissively through the air. “Aw! You’re no fun, are you? At the very least Subaru didn’t think twice when he accepted my deal...”

I mentally filed that away. I was definitely going to have words with Natsuki later on. If he was running around signing away his soul or whatever to a Witch, he was going to hear exactly what I thought about his decision-making skills.

“Then again, I can’t really be too mad at my cute little successor, can I?” Echidna’s pout vanished as quickly as it had appeared, replaced by a sharp, predatory smile. “You really are such a fascinating man, considering you don’t even have the original Witch Factor of Greed.”

“What are you talking about?”

“I meant what I said. See, this is what’s so fascinating about you.” Echidna leaned back, watching me as if I were a particularly curious specimen under a microscope, “Unlike Subaru, you’ve no intention of finding more trouble, and yet you keep doing so! Never in my life would I have thought to use the concepts of both Gluttony and Greed against one another, and here you are, already having done so without having blinked!”

“That whole bit with that Regulus Corneas guy being erased by the Whale’s fog, then?” I furrowed my eyebrows at that.

“Yes!” Echidna leaned forward so suddenly, with such sudden, manic intensity, that I instinctively had to back away, the legs of my wooden chair scraping harshly against the floor.

Her previous veneer of a calm, collected aristocrat vanished in a heartbeat. Her obsidian eyes were wide, practically glowing with a feverish, academic ecstasy, “You just don’t realize how-how utterly unique of a death you consigned him to! Had it not been for Subaru and your own memories, I would not have even realized the ramifications of such an event!”

I stayed quiet as she worked herself up into a frenzy. It was deeply unsettling. It was like watching a perfectly sculpted porcelain doll suddenly start twitching and ranting about quantum mechanics. She was practically vibrating with the sheer thrill of a solved equation, completely ignoring the horrific human - or inhuman - cost of that solution. This was what she meant when she called us monsters of logic, though her flavor of it was decidedly more unhinged.

“The Whale’s fog functions by erasing objects from history itself.” Echidna began to lecture, her pale hands gesturing animatedly, shaping the concepts in the air between us, “Normally, this is done by expunging their existences from the Od Laguna itself. Histories, lives, entire bloodlines that would have been born, gone in an instant. It is the same functionality by which the Books of Wisdom function, where they would read the Od Laguna to know the past, present, and future.”

“But what happens to objects, entities, and powers that exist outside of the Od Laguna?” The Witch challenged, her voice rising in pitch, entirely consumed by her own rhetorical question, “That are completely alien to the world itself? Even then, isn’t that quite of a misnomer? By their existence on this world, they are already recorded within the history of the Od Laguna. Their existences written down in the Corridor of Memories, their abilities still following certain rules that this world adheres to. So what happens when this incongruence is put to the test?”

She paused, breathing heavily, though whether she actually needed oxygen or was just mimicking the biological response to excitement was anyone's guess. She stared at me, pinning me to my seat with the sheer weight of her gaze.

“You, Hikigaya-kun, are the answer.”

A shiver, cold and sharp as a razor, slid down my spine.

“Through you, both Authorities achieved their goals.” She explained, her voice dropping into a reverent, awe-struck whisper, “The complete erasure of Regulus Corneas from the world, including his Authority of Greed. While simultaneously, the preservation of the wielder of the Authority of Greed!”

My breath hitched. A paradox. Two absolute, world-bending rules crashing into each other, with my miserable existence caught right at the epicenter of the collision.

“The functionalities, aspects, and perceptions that the world knew about the Authority of Greed, stripped away!” Echidna declared, throwing her arms wide as if welcoming a miracle, “And in its place, a new Witch Factor of Greed was born. Not my Greed, and not completely yours, either. A Greed born from the very thing that killed the original in the first place: the White Whale.”

…Motherfucker.

…