Somehow, Living Life in Another World is Wrong, as I Expected Ch. 13.2 (Patreon)

Infamy. For most of my life, I have known infamy. Maybe not in the sense that people were willing to kill me - or maybe they did, remembering how they looked. Even then, even after my efforts to make myself as infamous as possible inside my own school, apathy was much, much better.

I would rather that people have no opinion on myself, as that is opinion enough. A person that doesn’t know about trash on the ground is inherently less malicious than one that does know about it and refuses to do anything about it. To know is to suffer the consequences of knowing.

Fame, the complete opposite of infamy, is the other side of the coin. Much like how hate and love are bound together, philosophically of course, so too are the public’s opinion on anything they can learn about. A celebrity could be dearly beloved by everyone, only to get into some minor scandal and suddenly, everyone always hated them.

To me, that is one of the worst things that could happen.

Fallen angels are considered pitiful creatures because they had already reached their peak, only to fall, destined to never reach the heights they had once had. Redemption arcs are common tropes, true. Tell me though, how often does that actually happen? A good person that does evil, then redeems themselves is not common at all.

Why? Because the end all of it is that they just ended up where they started. Their ‘redemption’ is that the net ‘goodness’ that happened is zero. Whatever they have done to fall to ‘evil’ will always stain them. The people that remembered the first time that person had been ‘good’ would always remember the time when they betrayed that goodness.

Betrayal of that magnitude will never be forgotten.

Conversely, a being that has always been evil turning to good is such a common trope that I could list all of the ones I know and we’d still be barely scratching the surface of it. Hell, we have a fucking Archbishop working with us right now.

Infamy and fame work like that. An infamous individual that does a public good will be lauded as a saint, simply because expectations were buried beneath the dirt to begin with. If a known delinquent picks up a stray kitten, people wipe away a tear and praise his hidden heart of gold. But if the student council president forgets to recycle an aluminum can, they're instantly written off as a hypocrite hiding a rotten soul.

Unfortunately, in my quest to make sure I was as inconspicuous as possible, a good chunk of Lugunica didn’t know who I was, apart from some guy that made decent weapons and knew a bit more than normal. Once word comes out about what happened here, my name is going to be known. Felt and Rom’s names as well.

Those two were somewhat infamous before I arrived in Lugunica. Small-time thieves that stole to survive, a common occurrence for the slums. What made them known was Rom’s size - and his former occupation - as well as Felt’s Divine Blessing. Mix those up, and you have some pretty recognizable individuals.

Not even my hiring of them could get rid of the reputation they had built. The knights I know may have been willing to overlook the transgressions, as they were wont to do with the poverty, but their victims would not. Sure, those victims may have been rich fucks that wouldn’t have batted an eye at the money that had been stolen. That didn’t matter when the problem was their pride being hurt from being pickpocketed.

So yes, you may have understood by now that Felt and Rom, with their tangential assistance in helping us take down the Archbishop of Lust and the Great Rabbit, will be seen as the underdogs that had risen up as mere pickpockets into national heroes. Maybe not to the same effect as the camps of both Karsten and Emilia’s camps - and if I knew the former, she would also be promoting Natsuki out of a sense of pride.

That didn’t matter.

Just their association was enough to redeem their reputations.

And that would inevitably bring myself up to further scrutiny. Me, who made certain to have no outstanding reputation beforehand. What I’m saying is, I’m set to become famous without having become infamous first. 

That meant, one scandal will invariably turn the public perception against me forever. Knowing myself, it’s bound to happen sooner rather than later.

…I’ll be honest, Hachiman, you fucked up.

…

“Emilia-san, may I speak with you?” Karsten spoke for the both of us as we approached, “You as well, Natsuki-san.”

“Crusch-san, of course!” Emilia brightly smiled, and though I could see the hints of innocence I had noticed way back when, whatever she had been through had clearly put some steel in her. I couldn’t help but approve. She was a Royal Candidate, after all.

Natsuki, on the other hand, was practically buzzing with post-victory adrenaline. The guy stood with his hands on his hips, flashing a wide, obnoxious grin that completely ignored the smoking ruins and the traumatized villagers just a few meters away. He looked at the pathetic, weeping lump of Roswaal L. Mathers sitting in the snow and then back to us, entirely missing the suffocating tension in the air.

"Man, what a day, right?" Natsuki let out an exaggerated sigh, wiping imaginary sweat from his brow, "But hey, all's well that ends well!"

I stared at him. Was he being serious right now? I knew the guy was painfully idealistic, but this was a new level of willful ignorance.

"Natsuki." Karsten began, her voice carrying the smooth, heavy authority of a military commander, "While your optimism is...commendable, this is not a time for celebration. What happened here is a triumph, yes, but the political fallout of Margrave Mathers' actions will be catastrophic."

Natsuki blinked, his grin faltering, "Political fallout? Wait, what do you mean? Roswaal was the one doing all the shady stuff! We stopped him. If anything, Emilia-tan should get a medal for putting up with him!"

I almost groaned out loud. God, he really didn't get it. He looked at the world like it was a manga. Bad guy does bad thing, good guys beat bad guy, good guys get cheered. He completely failed to grasp the societal machinery churning in the background.

"It doesn't work like that, Natsuki." I interjected, not hiding my own annoyance, "Mathers isn't just some random villain of the week. He's the Court Mage. More importantly, he is Emilia's sole political backer. He funded her, housed her, and legitimized her entry into the Royal Selection."

"Yeah, but she didn't know!" Natsuki argued, stepping forward protectively, his voice rising in volume, "She's innocent! Anyone with half a brain can see she had nothing to do with this Witch Cult garbage!"

"And the fucking public doesn't have half a brain between all of them." I rolled my eyes at him just to prove a point.

"They don't operate on evidence or justice, Natsuki." I continued, adjusting the collar of my coat against the biting, frosty wind that was quickly starting to peter out, "They operate on fear and confirmation bias. To the average citizen, Emilia was already a walking nightmare simply because of how she looks. Now? Her primary financial backer and sole sponsor was caught actively summoning Mabeasts and colluding with the Cult."

"Roswaal was doing what?" Emilia looked shocked.

I stopped. The biting wind suddenly felt a lot less cold than the absolute, freezing silence that descended upon our little group. I blinked, looking from the genuinely horrified expression on the half-elf's face to the suddenly pale, sweating visage of her self-appointed knight.

Natsuki swallowed hard, instinctively taking a half-step back as Emilia’s gaze slowly turned toward him.

"You still haven't told her." I stated. It wasn't a question.

"I-I was going to!" Natsuki stammered, raising his hands in a frantic, placating gesture, "But, I mean, look at everything that was happening! The Rabbit, the Archbishop, the trials...Emilia-tan had enough on her plate! I didn't want to break her heart right before she had to save the day!"

Unbelievable. He really was treating this like a light novel script. Hide the dark truth from the pure heroine so she can smile brightly at the end. It was a sickeningly familiar brand of arrogance - assuming you have the right to carry everyone else's burdens by keeping them comfortably ignorant.

"Natsuki-san." Karsten cut in, her tone dropping a few degrees to something dangerously sharp, "Shielding your candidate from the treason of her own sponsor is nothing short of negligence."

"Crusch-san...please. Tell me exactly what Roswaal did." Emilia didn't yell, nor did she cry. Surprising.

Karsten obliged as I took stock of our options. 

Frankly speaking, Emilia’s chances of winning the Royal Selection was well below zero. That was before Mathers decided to fuck everything over, and before Natsuki became involved. I mean, seriously, I doubt that the public would ever have voted for her, especially when she didn’t even have an ideology that people could back.

Yes, I knew of her goals to cure the other elves of Elior Forest. It actually hadn’t taken too much effort to find out, as she was more than forthcoming the one time I had asked her about it. Except, how does that translate to getting people to vote for you?

Karsten had national pride on her side. Hoshin had massive economic power she could bring to the country. Barielle had…I don’t know what was good about her. No, wait, she appealed to the weirdos that wanted to get stepped on.

Assuming that the still unknown fifth candidate had a better platform than ‘help me help my people’, Emilia had zero chance of winning. Natsuki could have tipped things, true. But that was only true had he done everything by himself.

As it stands, the glory and public goodwill that had been generated was now shared between three camps. And of those three camps, the one that benefited the most was most definitely Karsten’s.

Karsten knew this. I knew this. Mathers likely knew this. Everyone that wasn’t Emilia and Natsuki knew this.

However, all was not lost.

This was, after all, still politics. The world isn’t a zero sum game that someone has to lose just because the other guy won. No, both sides can always benefit. I was in the same boat as Emilia, funnily enough, only in the exact other direction.

I didn’t want fame. I had no need for it. Yet I got it regardless. Unlike other people that were famous, however, I did not have the political clout to shield me in case someone else got jealous. Emilia will become even more infamous once everything gets inevitably leaked, and once it did, her own shield would have been the cause.

Trying to do anything by ourselves was an exercise in futility. Neither of us would survive. And for me, that meant that Felt and Rom would have to once more fend for themselves.

Unacceptable. Knowing those two, they’d survive, yes. That didn’t say anything about living. When I first met those two, they were happy living in squalid conditions that would make a germaphobe die of a fear induced heart attack. It’s a fucking miracle that the both of them didn’t die from an infection years and years ago from how dirty Rom’s place was.

The less said about Felt’s ‘home’ the better.

I have a responsibility to those two, as much as I may try to deny it at times. I won’t be failing due to the actions of some shithead that tried to fuck with me. Even if that guy was Mathers.

The only solution, for both myself and Emilia’s camp, was simple. If you don’t know how to fix a pipe, you call a plumber. We couldn’t win on our own. I couldn’t keep myself safe from the political fallout, and Emilia couldn’t become the ruler of the kingdom. 

Therefore, we have to find someone that can. Thankfully, that person was right here, and of the same mind as I.

Karsten was the frontrunner for the Royal Selection, nobody could deny that. If she wanted, she could crush - pun intended - Emilia’s camp into nothing. Except she was a noble that held onto that familiar noblesse oblige that she had grown up with, and her own pride would refuse to stoop so low as to repay Natsuki’s deeds with such an act.

Yes, in order to win the seat of a monarch and achieve all of our goals, the solution was to form the backbone of democracy.

A political coalition.

Ironic, isn’t it?

…