Somehow, Living Life in Another World is Wrong, as I Expected Ch. 13.1 (Patreon)

Do you know the saying ‘Curiosity killed the cat’? Chances are, you most certainly do. Perhaps, you have even heard it more times than you could possibly count.

It is, after all, an old expression, one that warns people of the dangers of prying where they have no business prying. People, however, often seem to forget the second part of the phrase, 'Satisfaction brought it back’.

You see, for a long time, I believed that ignorance was, indeed, bliss. I believed that not asking questions and simply leaving well enough alone was the best course of action if one wished to survive. Logically, uncovering the truth about the disastrous affair behind this entire miserable situation should have broken me.

I, for example, know now the truth about Mathers, the Court Mage I had more or less trusted up until this point. He had plotted, with his entire being, to enact a ritualistic resurrection of the Witch of Greed. I know that there is an endless horde of killer rabbits just beyond these halls, waiting to carve us all up. I even know the truth of the source of the Authority living within me; a newly born Witch Factor, an abomination created through the circumstances of erasing one 'Regulus Corneas' using the White Whale’s mist.

That is a sheer volume of existential dread that would shatter any normal person’s sanity. I should be a trembling wreck, hyperventilating in the corner of this freezing stone corridor.

Instead, however, I feel rather...relieved.

It’s a terrifying realization. 

The endless, gnawing hunger that had always been in the back of my mind - the thing I had fought so desperately to suppress since Natsuki informed me about my role in the Archbishop’s murder - is gone. It has been decapitated and tossed aside like the disgusting thing it is, exposed to the harsh sunlight. This is a horrible realization to come to, but as I look upon the truth, I feel an overwhelming sense of calm wash over me.

Echidna had, in that fabricated utopia of hers, called us both monsters of logic. I had despised that name, mostly because she was undeniably correct. My Greed wasn't a thirst for gold, political power, or some grand, heroic destiny. It wasn't even the product of having an Authority, amusingly enough. No, it was a feeling that I had long since felt, ever since I had been shunted away as a social pariah.

The desperate, hoarding need to know. To understand. The Witch Factor of Greed did not instill within me these thoughts and feelings, only amplified what was already there. And then used that amplification to twist my own desires into a want to feed.

Now that I possess that knowledge, I can physically feel it. The unbearable itch of curiosity has been scratched, and I have been granted understanding. I know now what has always driven me, and that understanding lifts the hunger that I had been hiding in the recesses of my mind. My Greed purred contently, like a cat that had found its way onto its human's lap.

The world has not changed, though. I still have homicidal Mabeasts to avoid and a vindictive Court Mage to inevitably bury. 

What has changed, is that I now know where on the board I stand.

...Ha. I've done more with less.

…

I exhaled, the white mist of my breath instantly snatched away by the biting wind. Emilia had already charged ahead into the swirling blizzard, her silver hair whipping wildly as she shouted for Natsuki. 

When I emerged from the stone corridor, there were significantly more people than I had initially expected. There were some people that I vaguely recognized as from Arlam village, the small settlement in the Mathers territory. Others were demi-humans, sporting the various appendages that marked them as such. Most, if not all of those ones, looked shabby in comparison to the ones from Arlam. And that's putting things lightly.

They were likely the residents of the Sanctuary, as demi-humans were not seen favorably in the Kingdom of Lugunica. For whatever reason, they were seen as lesser beings compared to humans. Even Argyle was not exempt from this, as many of the nobility sneered down at the catboy. The only reason it wasn't as publicly seen as others was because of Argyle's position as the Blue.

Even I had once been subject to such discrimination. My eyes made it look like I was some sort of fish demi-human, and caused me no small amount of harassment.

Oh wait, that happened before I came to this world. My mistake.

Jokes aside, I never could figure out just what had prompted the hatred here. Even before the Demi-Human War, the divide between humans and demi-humans was still wide enough to form a canyon. It's a topic I'd have to get back to researching once we were done here, if only because I didn't want another civil war happening in my lifetime.

Later, though. I'd deal with it later.

"Hikigaya!" Natsuki spotted me, his face lighting up with that irritatingly persistent optimism, "You good to go? Beako's waiting on you!"

Romanée-Conti and 'Garf' - I still didn't know his actual name, dammit - were standing off to the side, whatever they had done to prepare seemingly completed. I certainly didn't see anything out of the ordinary, but it was a trap for a reason. I'd likely see it soon enough.

I walked past Emilia, who was currently berating Natsuki for leaving her in the dark as I spoke, "I'm fine. Let's just get this over with before we all freeze to death." I smoothly came to a halt next to the diminutive Great Spirit, who scoffed in response.

"See that you don't slow me down, in fact. Remember, you just need to open a portal large enough to thin the fabric of reality. I will handle casting Al Shamak."

"Yeah, yeah. Thin reality, don't break it. Got it." I raised my hand, focusing on the familiar, invisible fabric of space that my gate could manipulate. The mana flowed easier now, likely a parting gift from my forced tea party with Echidna.

Felt and Karsten were not here yet. Rom was busy with the various villagers, acting as a living wall as everyone else shuffled around nervously. Most of them were shivering, as they only had a handful of furs covering them from the cold. They could have gone inside the...I suppose it's the tomb of the Witch of Greed, isn't it? They could have, but curiously, none of them even made the motion of doing so.

Well, I wouldn't want them to meet that damned Witch anyway, so it was good. Not good that they might freeze to death if we took any longer.

There was movement in the treeline. I wasn’t the only one that snapped to attention, nor was I the only one that maintained that position when it was revealed that it wasn’t the Great Rabbit.

The two maids, battered and beaten, accompanied by a despondent looking Mathers.

Mathers looked less like the formidable Court Mage who had pulled the kingdom’s strings and more like a discarded, waterlogged puppet. His vibrant makeup was smeared across his pale face, and his heterochromatic eyes were completely hollow. In his trembling hands, he clutched a pile of charred, smoking ash.

Motherfucker, was that the Book of Wisdom that Natsuki talked about? Well, it used to be, looks like.

"Master Roswaal..." Ram’s voice was raspy, her breathing ragged as she supported most of the Margrave's dead weight. Her maid uniform was torn and singed around the hem, but her eyes held a fierce, unwavering resolve. Rem walked alongside her, her morningstar tucked away, looking equally exhausted yet grimly satisfied.

"It's...over." Mathers rasped, his voice entirely devoid of its usual sing-song cadence. He didn't even look up at us, "The path...is dark. The future...erased..."

"Look who finally decided to join the party." I muttered, not bothering to hide the venom in my voice. Seeing the man who had casually arranged for everyone's demise reduced to a pathetic, whimpering wreck ought to have brought me some deep satisfaction. Instead, it just made me feel dirty. He was so utterly dependent on a written script that the moment the paper burned, his entire soul shattered into useless glass. 

What an absolute joke of a person.

"Roswaal!" Emilia gasped, taking a step toward him, but Natsuki placed a hand on her shoulder, stopping her.

Right, Natsuki hasn't told her anything, so she wouldn't have known that Mathers had planned this all out.

"We don't have time to hold his hand!" Natsuki shouted over the howling wind, his eyes hard as he forcefully steered Emilia away from the broken Margrave. For all his usual buffoonery, the guy at least knew how to prioritize a crisis. He shot a quick, grim nod to the two exhausted maids, "Rem, Ram, get him behind Rom and the villagers. Keep them safe."

Emilia looked like she wanted to argue, her amethyst eyes darting between the pitiful state of her sponsor and the sudden, iron-clad authority in her knight’s voice. But whatever she saw in Natsuki’s expression made her swallow her protests.

Good. We really didn't need a tearful reunion right now. Especially not when my paranoia was still screaming about the loose ends. Mathers' grand script was ashes, yes, but the actors he had hired were still unaccounted for.

Fucking Granhiert.

"Cap'n!" The boy named Garf suddenly bellowed, pointing a clawed finger toward the distant treeline, "They're 'ere!"

The first one I saw was Felt. Unharmed, but rapidly running with her Blessing. And while she tried to hide it, I could tell that she was absolutely terrified. I resisted the urge to portal her next to me.

Not when Karsten was similarly making her way towards us rapidly. The duchess, compared to Felt, was much calmer. This wasn't the first time she had fought the Great Rabbit. The mabeast hive mind, as mindless as it may seem to everyone, still had a degree of survival instincts. They would hunt down those that couldn't fight back, but would disengage if they met too much resistance.

It was part of the reason, perhaps, why it hadn't been killed already. Everytime that it encountered a being that could wipe it out, it just ran away - or at least a couple of the mass did.

However, this intelligence was only to the extent of animal intelligence. The Rabbit clearly didn't recognize that Karsten was the one that had driven them off that one time. It thought that her running away was a sign of weakness, as any predator would.

And so, the endless white tide chased them right into our waiting jaws.

A writhing, squealing carpet of white fur and crimson eyes that devoured the very ground it hopped across. The sheer volume of the Great Mabeast was staggering, a nightmare given the form of an old British joke.

"Now! Do it now!" Natsuki roared, his voice cutting through the unnatural screeching of the horde.

The first thing that happened, over the screams of terror from the civilians, was the deafening sound of earth being broken. The ground ruptured as Felt and Karsten leapt over, a massive pit, well over five meters deep. Walls of solid rock lifted up on the sides, preventing any of the hivemind from going around. A singular funnel that forced the Rabbit into where we wanted them. 

Looks like those two worked fast - or maybe more time had passed than I had realized? No time to think about it.

The tide of Rabbits didn't hesitate to pour into the hole, and as I watched, a headache started to form. I didn't so much as see it happen, just that I knew that it did. More Rabbits were now in the pit than had originally been there, in less than a few seconds. Already, the mass was gaining height, and the rate it was going, it would take just half a minute before they overflowed.

We couldn't let that happen.

I shoved my hands forward, zeroing in on the invisible fabric of space that my gate could manipulate. Beatrice had been incredibly vague earlier, merely instructing me to open a portal large enough so that reality would be thinner, reducing the power she needed to use. But understanding the core mechanics of a portal was well within my capabilities.

I pulled. The air in front of me groaned, a sound like tearing metal, before a localized spatial anomaly ripped open in the center of the clearing. It was a jagged, yawning wound in the world, humming with an unstable, terrifying frequency. Unlike my regular portals that ended somewhere, this was nothing more than a hole in space time.

"Hmph. You are adequate enough for the task, I suppose," Beatrice declared, stepping in front of the spatial wound. Her twin drills bounced as she raised her small hands, her face a mask of absolute concentration.

She had complained earlier that dealing with that annoying Archbishop had forced her to use too much power, making it too strenuous to cast Al Shamak without my assistance. Now, with the dimensional barrier weakened by my portal, the Great Spirit drew upon her profound connection to yin magic.

"Al Shamak!" Beatrice shouted.

For the second time, existence ceased to exist.

And this time, so did the Great Rabbit.

…