Somehow, Living Life in Another World is Wrong, as I Expected Ch. 13.4 (Patreon)

To err is human, to forgive is divine. Well, I’m not forgiving, and the error (usually) wasn’t mine. That hasn’t stopped me from dwelling on every single thing that could have been in my life. Usually it happens when I was in bed, trying to sleep off whatever bullshit I found myself involved in.

Don’t tell me I’m different in that regard, whoever the hell is listening to my thoughts. I know for a fact that every soul out there has been stuck on what if scenarios at some point in their lives. It is the nature of every decision capable mind to think about what would have happened had they chosen differently.

It’s why I’m, admittedly, as I am.

I cannot help but think about everything that has gone wrong with my life, the decisions that have led me up to this point. The actions I should have taken, so that I wouldn’t be in this mess to begin with. And yet, that’s the sticking point to all of this - actions I should have taken?

I’m not some omniscient being that could predict every little thing that my actions would result in. Hachiman Hikigaya is as human as human can get, and as such, the knock on effects of my presence, the flaps of the butterfly’s wings, would forever be unknown to me.

For example, what would have Karsten done against the White Whale, had I not been here? Not to toot my own horn, but I will say that I did quite a lot against the damn thing. Would Karsten have been able to kill it, without me? Or, would she have gone after it in the first place?

These are questions I don’t have answers to. Maybe Natsuki does, but he’s certainly not telling. Nor would I ask him, seeing as it may prove disastrous for whatever mechanism prevented him from outright saying he has clairvoyance.

Regardless, all of my actions have had some side effects on the world. Nothing in any world exists in a vacuum.

Which is why, for all that that Witch tried to freak me out with what she had said to me, I could only take it on the chin and hold my ground.

Why didn’t I freak out? Why wasn’t I going into more of a monologue about the origins of my Authority? Before now, of course.

Well, it’s simple. It’s already done. There is no use crying over spilt milk, and all that.

From my perspective, I’ve had this thing since the very first day of my arrival in this world. However, I haven’t actually used it, not until I attempted to use it against Romanée-Conti. Even then, I wasn’t able to do so. For all intents and purposes, regardless of when I actually got the damn thing, there is barely any hint that I had it in the first place.

I knew myself. During that time that I barely had anything, I would have used it. I would have rationalized myself into thinking that the Authority of Greed is mine and mine alone - no, that’s wrong. Because I had already thought of it as mine long before Natsuki arrived in Lugunica, even if I had only received it after he did so.

The flow of time from one point to another should be linear, and in my perspective, it was. Only when the hand of the author decides to retcon a part of the story will it change. Small, minor things were ones that would never even be acknowledged as being changed. But the bigger plot points, plot holes, those ones need to be addressed.

So, what I’m asking, now that I know to ask, is why didn’t I use my Authority back then, if I actually had it?

I don’t know. 

I don’t have a satisfying answer other than I don’t know. There is no rhyme or reason for my lack of action in that department. I can’t remember what my thought process was, during that time either. As if a…fog…was over my memories back then.

Timeline’s fucked, is what I’m trying to get at.

And that timeline fuckery somehow ended up with me and Karsten standing in front of the Council of Wise Men, giving a report.

Dammit, I just wanted to find a way to get back home!

…

“That is certainly…” Miklotov McMahon was staring at us with no small amount of shock. The representative of the Council was old, very old. Around the same age as Wilhelm, if I recall. His graying hair had grown past his shoulders, and his beard was long enough that it wasn’t hard to picture him as the headmaster of a certain school.

The book version, not the movie version. McMahon was known as fairly soft-spoken, so I doubt he’d be going around ‘calmly’ asking a kid if he put his name in a fancy cup.

Anyway, the man was considered as one of the better politicians in power. Particularly because he was actually relatively competent at his job. McMahon was smart, patient, and wasn’t corrupt. That’s more than you can say about ninety-nine percent of politicians in my day and age.

What made him only a ‘better’ politician and not a ‘good’ politician is the lack of timeliness. Despite the Council being the main governing body of Lugunica, they were notoriously slow on the uptake. Poverty, rampant cultists, and generally any law that requires approval goes through them, except that they take a hell of a time for anything to get done.

Approvals, triple checking of the wording of the law proper, all of which would take weeks, if not months. Such a slow, bureaucratic process that I thought would only exist in my modern world, was apparently also a facet of an absolute monarchy.

But it wasn’t an absolute monarchy, was it? For whatever reason, the kingdom of Lugunica functioned as a constitutional monarchy, as evidenced by the fact that the Council was in power before the deaths of the royal family. The monarch didn’t have that much power, all things considered, compared to McMahon’s Council.

It made sense, in a twisted way. A king is just a figurehead. The real power always sits in the boring meeting rooms.

"That is certainly...a lot to process." Miklotov finally finished his sentence. He leaned back in his ornate chair. The wood creaked. It was the only sound in the massive, vaulted room.

The air in here sucked. It was thick with the smell of old paper, floor wax, and some kind of floral incense that was doing a terrible job of hiding the smell of nervous sweat. My sweat, mostly. But looking around the semi-circle of desks, a few of the other Wise Men looked just as shiny.

Karsten stood next to me.

Her posture was flawless. Back straight, chin up, looking every bit the pristine military duchess she was. I just wanted to find a chair. My boots were still stiff from the freezing snow back at the Sanctuary, and my shoulder ached with a dull, throbbing rhythm. I turned my head to look towards a certain man as he scoffed.

Bordeaux Zergev  was perhaps the complete opposite of McMahon. Where McMahon was soft-spoken, Zergev was loud and frank. I appreciated his sternness, at times, but he was also annoyingly stubborn. A veteran of the Demi-Human War, the man was very much prejudiced against demi-humans. Including a certain knight of Karsten’s.

Also, where McMahon had a full head of hair, Zergev was completely bald. Can’t forget about that detail.

Both Karsten and I were of the same opinion of the man; he was a good Council member, but the policies that he wanted to push - the ones that discriminated against demi-humans - would not stand. We both personally disliked the man, but were still willing to hear him out.

“Are you joking?” Zergev asked rhetorically, “I can understand the White Whale - we still have the damn thing’s head to display - but the Great Rabbit? The Sword Saint was sent out explicitly to deal with it and the Black Serpent. Unless you have proof that that half-elf and foreigner did what you said they did?”

“Is the word of a duchess not enough, councilman?” Karsten’s tone was frosty. A chill went down my spine with how cold it was, and yet Zergev weathered it without batting an eye.

“Of course not.” Zergev looked in my direction with a hint of disgust, “Especially when you’re also claiming that three Archbishops had been fought and neutralized. One of them with some no-name blacksmith’s assistance.”

Half of your armory came from my shop, buddy. I wanted to say it. I didn’t. Look at that self-control ladies and gentlemen.

“And you’re accusing Margrave Mathers of high treason, for colluding with the likes of the Bowel Hunter. Put together, all I can see is a bunch of brats vying to put down one of the kingdom’s most important people to gain an edge in the Royal Selection.”

“Bordeaux, that’s enough.” McMahon tried to placate the other man, raising a hand while sporting furrowed eyebrows. It wasn’t enough, as Zergev brushed off the Council’s representative.

“Come off it, Miklotov! You have to admit that this is ridiculous. For all of these to happen, in such a short time? All of them benefitting Duchess Karsten’s camp and popularity? You have to realize that something must be afoot.” He was looking at me while he said the last part. Asshole.

He wasn’t wrong though.

It really is insane that this all happened within the span of time that Natsuki got involved. If anyone else other than Karsten were to say this all happened, the Council would have had them ordered for a medical check up. That Karsten was the one vouching for it all gave it some credibility that the Council couldn’t just dismiss.

“Hikigaya, if you would?” Karsten gestured to me, and I nodded.

Thankfully, we had planned for this scenario. I opened a portal directly to a small storage area I had set up in my shop. Carefully, and without disturbing the cloth I had wrapped around it, I procured the Book of Wisdom that Mathers had been clutching. It was burnt, but none could deny that it looked very much like a Cultist’s Gospel.

It was a pain in the ass to separate from the catatonic Mathers, and it was even more of a headache to deal with the superstitions that touching a Gospel would turn you into a Cultist, but whatever.

What’s done was done, and I carefully handed over the bound tome to Zergev, who looked at it with confusion.

He didn't want to touch it at first. You could see the hesitation in his eyes. A man who hates demi-humans usually has a healthy fear of Witch Cult artifacts, too. But his stubborn pride won out. He snatched the charred book from my hands.

The moment his fingers brushed the blackened, flaking cover, the tension in the room spiked. The smell of burnt paper and stale magic wafted up. It wasn't exactly pleasant.

"This..." Zergev muttered. His booming voice suddenly sounded very thin, "This is a Gospel."

"Close." I said, shrugging, "It's a Book of Wisdom. Or what's left of it."

I kept my posture relaxed. I didn't smile. Gloating just makes you look guilty, and right now, we needed to look like the only sane people in the kingdom.

"Margrave Mathers was following its script." Karsten added. Her voice was steady, "It dictated his actions. He funded Emilia's campaign, but he also orchestrated the attacks on his own domain to force a specific outcome. Possibly also including the attack by the White Whale itself."

Without Astrea here, there’s nobody else that would have caught Karsten’s little embellishment. Not when everyone assumed that she was incapable of lying. She wasn’t. She was very capable of lying to suit her needs, cause if she wasn’t, she wouldn’t be good at politics now, would she?

Zergev stared at the ruined book like it was a venomous snake. His thick fingers actually trembled. The silence in the chamber was absolute. You could hear a pin drop against the polished stone floor.

"High treason," McMahon finally breathed. The grandfatherly facade vanished entirely. His eyes were cold, calculating the sheer scale of the disaster. "If this is true, Duchess...the political fallout will be a nightmare. Mathers is our Court Mage. He holds the titles for fire, wind, and earth magic. To arrest him leaves a massive gap in our military deterrence."

"Which is exactly why we aren't just dropping a crisis on your lap." Karsten replied, "We are providing the solution." She placed her hands behind her back in a military stance.

"Mathers is compromised." She continued, her voice ringing clear across the semi-circle of desks, "But the kingdom cannot afford to show weakness. We propose an immediate counterbalance. My associate here, Hikigaya, was instrumental in eliminating the Great Rabbit. The Great Spirit of Yin herself acknowledged his capabilities."

I kept my hands shoved deep in my pockets. My face was a mask of tired indifference. Inside, my headache flared up.

"We are formally submitting his name for the vacant title of Black." Karsten declared.

Zergev’s head snapped up, his bald scalp practically gleaming under the magic lamps, "A no-name foreigner? For the highest magical honor in Lugunica? This is absurd!"

"A foreigner who just handed you the proof of your Court Mage's betrayal." I cut in. My voice was flat and dead, "I don't care about your fancy titles. I care about hazard pay. But if you want to keep the citizens from panicking when Mathers goes down, you need a weapon to point back at the public. I'm it."

It was a complete scam. I just opened portals. But politicians don't care about how the magic works. They care about holding a winning hand.

"Of course, if you would prefer, Natsuki could be the one getting the honor for the slaying of the Great Rabbit." I nodded, almost placatingly, "Woulnd't you say that he deserves a significant portion of the credit, Karsten? If it weren't for him, we wouldn't have known about the Rabbit in the first place."

From the corner of my eye, Zergev jerked as if struck. Karsten did an impressive job of keeping the smirk off her face as she nodded in approval.

"Yes, of course he was. In fact, I would I am also recommending that he be formally inducted as a knight of the kingdom for his bravery against impossible odds. Surely Emilia-"

"Alright, alright!" Zergev slammed his fist down, a vein almost visible on his forehead, "You've made your damn point!"

"Let's all calm down, everyone." McMahon coughed politely, "Duchess Karsten, and...blacksmith? Blacksmith Hikigaya. Please, the both of you are dismissed for now. Myself and the others have much to discuss."

…

A/N: They ain’t quite human, ‘least they’re not to my eyes; 

One sip of this and I’ll give them the shock of their lives;

Sorry, it was stuck in my head.