Somehow, Living Life in Another World is Wrong, as I Expected Ch. 14.1 (Patreon)

Sleep. It is a function of all living beings that cannot be avoided. Nobody truly knows why either - why some processes only work when the body is sleeping. As in, why can’t they work when you’re awake? Scientists would ponder, and explain that hormones, or brain patterns, or whatever the hell else activates when the body is no longer in motion.

And again, I ask, why?

Why does the body, a living, breathing organism, need sleep to survive? Why did creatures with fully formed survival instincts evolve to have a state where you are completely vulnerable? For millions of years of evolution, shutting down your consciousness meant becoming easy prey for whatever had sharp teeth and wandered out of the dark. Yet nature decided that the risk was worth it. It mandated unconsciousness, forcing us to surrender a third of our lives to a blank void just to keep the machine running.

I can’t begin to think of the reasons. It is so far beyond my level of understanding, as modern as my education may be. Those are the types of questions that graduate students would stay up all week just to answer. Only to collapse in the middle of it cause you still need sleep.

Fortunately, I’m not a graduate student.

Unfortunately, I am something much worse.

Gainfully employed.

Well, I say gainfully, but I really damn well hate my boss. He always demands shitty hours, barely gives me time off, and when I do get time off, I get dragged into his messes anyway. The pay is pretty bad too, since, while enough to survive, it’s a far cry from the comfortable suburban life I used to live back home.

Also, I hate him.

Also, also, I am my own boss.

Also, also, also, I hate myself.

What was I talking about?

Right, sleep.

Can you tell I’m running low on it?

…

“Boss, you look like shit.” Felt was, as always, blunt. Normally, I’d snark back, but I don’t have the energy, will, or brain-think to muster a comeback.

It has been two days since we came back from the Mathers’ territory. One day since the Council decided that yes, we were, in fact, telling the truth. They had privately confirmed to Karsten that the title of Black would be mine within the month, much to Karsten’s delight.

It has also been too damn long since I could get a decent night’s sleep.

With everything that had gone on, I had a backlog of everything and the kitchen sink. Bills, orders, making sure my network of informants were paid - all of which had been pushed until I had time to think. That time, apparently, was the moment I returned to my shop.

Cause, surprise-surprise, people want to get paid.

Basically, I have done nothing but be busy since I got back. I couldn’t even sleep, as the almost neurotic need to make sure all my ducks were in order kept me up at night.

Hachiman, Hachiman, why didn’t you leave this to Felt or Rom? Couldn’t they have done it?

Yes, they could’ve. But getting those two to do anything with the numbers I was usually dealing with was like pulling teeth. No, pulling teeth would be easier. Maybe like punching a boulder with my bare fists? Riding up a skyscraper on a motorbike? Something like that.

What I am saying is, I am tired.

Well, I have no one to blame but myself. Nobody told me I had to start up an information network, and yet here I am, doing my best to keep things running smoothly.

I have never wished for a can of MAX as much as I have right now.

Felt stood across the counter with her arms crossed, her crimson eyes heavily judging my slumped posture. I finally responded to her, after thinking about it very hard.

"Hn."

Felt kicked the wooden counter. Not hard enough to break it, but enough to rattle the inkwell, "Is that even a word? You're going to die standing up, and I'm not digging the grave."

I rubbed my eyes. They felt like someone had rubbed sandpaper over them. I looked down at the ledger in front of me. The numbers were just blurry black smudges.

"I'm not dying." I grumbled. My voice sounded like gravel, "I'm just experiencing a severe lack of modernization. And caffeine."

"Whatever that is," a deep voice rumbled from the back room.

Old man Rom ducked under the doorframe. He walked over and set a chipped ceramic mug on the counter next to my papers. The dark liquid inside was practically boiling. It smelled like roasted dirt and bad decisions.

"Drink," Rom said, "It'll keep you awake. Or kill you. Either way, you stop looking like a corpse."

I stared at the mug. Desperation makes you do stupid things. I grabbed it and took a careful sip. It tasted exactly like it smelled, burning all the way down to my stomach, but it jolted my brain just enough to clear the fog.

"Thanks." I muttered, setting the mug down.

"So," Felt leaned forward, resting her chin on her hands, "What's the actual plan, boss? Word on the street is already movin’, something about you and that Karsten chick?”

I rolled my eyes. Yes, I knew about the rumors. Yes, it was from my own information network. Yes, I have her endorsement to become what amounts to be one of the most recognized mages in the country. No, that does not mean she and I are going to get together.

Seriously, I get the thought process that there can’t be a platonic relationship between a man and a woman, but I thought that that was only a product of modern media, not the rumor mill of an entire damn city!

This also means I need to nip this in the bud before Karsten - or worse, Argyle - hears about it. I can practically hear the sound of my own death-to-stabbing just thinking about it.

“Just don’t pay attention to those, will you? I thought you were better than that.”

Felt raised an eyebrow, her grin way too sharp for comfort, "People are talking, boss. They're saying you're moving up in the world. From a nobody blacksmith to a duchess's lapdog."

"Not a lapdog." I groaned, leaning my forehead against the cool wood of the counter, "A contractor. There is a legal difference, even if the result looks identical."

"Right, right. A high-class contractor who gets special meetings with the Council." Felt tapped her fingers against the wood, rolling her eyes. She quickly changed her tone though, as she asked, "So, when do we get our cut of the royal treasury?"

The grin on her face was terrifyingly familiar.

Damned Archbishop really got into my head.

"When you start paying your share of the shop rent, which is never."

Rom let out a low rumble that might have been a laugh. He crossed his massive arms and leaned against the doorway.

"The girl's got a point, though." Rom said, "Word travels fast in the slums. Folks are starting to look at us differently. Not just stray thieves anymore."

He wasn't wrong. Climbing out of the mud means people start paying attention to where your feet are. And in politics, attention is just another word for a target. Unfortunately, that would mean that the cover that Felt and Rom had - despite their association with me, and my subsequent association with the knights of the kingdom - would now be completely gone.

It was a useful cover, all things considered. See, you can’t really look at Rom and not immediately think ‘oh yeah, this guy’s definitely involved in something shady’, and that’s not me being discriminatory either. Rom, for all that he’s a decent person as a whole, is also a complete fucking shithead.

Drunk on his ass, known for fencing illegal goods, has been involved with at least half of the criminals in the entire damn city. He has had that reputation, to the point where even those uninvolved in the criminal underworld knew him. Except, for whatever reason, the knights still haven’t arrested him.

That sort of slippery bastard, with a reputation to boot, was not so easily forgotten about. Even if he had technically turned over a leaf by working with me ‘legally’.

And he had been taking care of Felt far, far longer than I had arrived in Lugunica. Both of them, the Dynamic Duo of Big Guy and Small Child, they had the respect, if begrudgingly, of the criminal elements in the city.

Now, that is about to change.

Felt stopped tapping her fingers. She frowned, the sharp edge of her grin flattening out into something a lot more serious, "You're saying people are gonna expect us to act respectable now? Gross."

"Pretty much." I sighed, letting my hands drop back to the scarred wooden counter, "Instead of a couple of low-level fixers operating out of a sketchy back-alley smithy, we're the public-facing contractors of a politically backed coalition. The slum lords aren't going to like the competition, and the nobles aren't going to like the precedent."

"Right. Which means our little oasis of being ignored is officially dead." I grabbed the ceramic mug of terrible not-coffee and took another grim sip, letting the bitter heat scorch my tongue, "Which brings me back to my original, highly prioritized goal for today."

Felt tilted her head, narrowing her crimson eyes, "Which is?"

"Sleeping for eighteen hours straight, locking the front door, and pretending the kingdom of Lugunica doesn't exist. After finishing the payroll."

Fun fact, I had to do all of that manually. As in, counting each damn payroll down to the last copper, because most of the people in my network don’t have a bank account.

Kill me already.

"Good luck with that, boss." Felt snorted, turning around as she tossed a hand in the air.

And then my luck decided to hit me across the head with a baseball bat. The front door to my shop opened, and I could hear the bell go off. I breathed in as I could feel my headache start to reach the back of my eyeballs.

Karsten stepped into the shop, her boots clicking sharply against the plank flooring. She wasn't wearing her full military coat today, just a simpler, dark tunic that probably cost more than everything in my inventory combined. Behind her stood Wilhelm and Argyle. The former gave me a sort-of knowing smile, while the latter glowered at me.

Shit, they know.

Felt immediately straightened up, dropping her playful slouch. Even Rom shifted his massive weight, his expression hardening into something defensive.

"Karsten," I rasped, not bothering to stand up, "If you're here to give me more paperwork about the Black title, I'm going to throw myself through that window."

"Good morning to you too, Hikigaya-kun." Crusch said, her tone carrying that crisp, infuriatingly polite authority. She glanced at the chipped mug of whatever it was on my desk, her nose twitching ever so slightly at the smell, "I see you are recovering well from the Council meeting."

"I was recovering by trying to pass out." I muttered, rubbing the bridge of my nose, "What does the government want with me now? Did the Council decide that black is too depressing of a color for a mage title?"

"No." Crusch stepped closer to the counter, her green eyes scanning the chaotic stacks of ledgers and receipts, "The Council is currently occupied scrambling to figure out how to quietly handle Margrave Mathers' absence without throwing the entire eastern territory into a panic. Which, incidentally, brings me here."

"Oh joy. More political fallout."

Fucking Mathers.

"We need to discuss the transition of power in the Mathers domain." She continued smoothly, ignoring my dry tone. "And your official public appearance as the newly appointed Black. The nobles are already whispering. Some believe you are a secret weapon of the Karsten house; others think you are a dangerous wildcard that needs to be neutralized."

"Let's go with the second one." I offered, "It sounds much better for my sleep schedule."

"Unfortunately, you have proven too competent to be ignored." Crusch replied with a faint, wry smile, "Which means you cannot hide in this back-alley smithy forever. The public wants a face to associate with the victory at the Sanctuary. They want to see the man who helped break the curse and eliminate the Whale and the Rabbit."

The answer to whether I could drown myself in my mug was ‘no’. Not because I wouldn’t be able to fit my nose in it, but because Argyle would probably be able to keep me alive out of spite.

I let out a long, exhausted sigh, letting my head drop back down onto the wooden counter with a dull thud.

"I hate this country."

"I'm sure you do, Hikigaya-kun."

…