Somehow, Living Life in Another World is Wrong, as I Expected Ch. 16.2 (Patreon)

Humanity had to be the most frustrating species ever allowed to live. You could give humans food, shelter, and a reasonable chance of dying peacefully in their beds, and somebody would immediately start looking for a cliff to jump off. Eventually, they'd invent a rope that let them do it twice. Other people would pay to use the rope. There would be a waiver, which meant someone had considered the possibility of death carefully enough to make sure it wasn't his problem.

I'd never understood why aliens in movies kept invading Earth. Five minutes of observation should have been enough to make them reconsider. Somewhere, a human was strapping himself to an engine to find out how fast he could go before something important came off. Somewhere else, another was watching the footage and deciding he could beat the record. All an invading fleet needed to do was park behind the moon and wait. Give us a few more attempts. Someone was bound to get it right.

Except that was where humanity became irritating.

We kept surviving. Worse, we got better at it.

A machine would kill someone, and people would investigate, identify the fault, and build another one. They'd add a warning label, perhaps a seat belt, then climb back inside. Sometimes they even made it safer. Given enough time, the thing that had originally required a volunteer with questionable judgment became something a mother used to take her children to school. The children would complain about being bored.

Imagine explaining that to an alien. Yes, a crash at that speed would probably kill everyone inside. Yes, there were thousands of them moving in opposite directions. We'd painted a line between them. What more did it want?

And somehow it worked often enough that I considered the morning commute a normal part of life. My main concern had been whether I'd get a seat.

Then there was medicine. Having established that cutting somebody open was generally bad for his health, we'd found circumstances where it helped. You could lie down in a room, allow a stranger to remove something from inside you, and pay him afterward because you felt better. I still suspected an alien watching surgery for the first time would have called for armed assistance before anyone finished explaining the consent form.

The really aggravating part was that I wanted those people to exist. If something went wrong inside me, I wanted a competent surgeon, preferably one who'd slept recently. I would've preferred to complain without having to admit how much I relied on them.

An alien researcher would've had a miserable time with us. It would keep checking its figures, wondering how there were more of us this year when we'd spent the previous one doing all that. It could watch us discover flight, assume we'd learned something about the dangers of falling, and then find people jumping out of perfectly functional aircraft. On purpose. For their birthdays.

At least the xenomorph had the decency to behave consistently. You could put “will try to kill you” in the report and go home. A human might try to kill you, feed you, ask whether you were single, or complain that your spaceship didn't have anywhere to charge his phone. Try explaining the phone charger to your superiors. They sent you to assess a possible threat, and now you're looking for an adapter.

I'd thought a world with monsters might encourage better judgment. With everything that could kill you in Lugunica, I'd expected people to be a little more reluctant to risk their lives for fun. Yet people still traveled, fought, built towns, and looked at enormous animals with claws before asking how much luggage they could carry. Somebody had been the first to approach a ground dragon with a harness. Somebody else had watched him do it and started calculating delivery times.

You could almost understand it when survival was involved. If you were hungry enough, you'd try things. I could also understand wanting a large animal to carry your belongings when the alternative was carrying them yourself. But humans kept going after they'd solved the immediate problem. Once the dragon was pulling the wagon, someone wanted to know whether it could pull two. Then whether it could go faster. Eventually, they'd start racing them. I'd want to know how many riders got trampled. They'd want to know who won.

People lived within traveling distance of things that could eat them and still found reasons to be annoyed about the weather. I couldn't even call the arrangement unsuccessful. My shop depended on it.

That last part was particularly unfair. I could spend all afternoon pointing out what was wrong with these people. By evening, they'd still be doing whatever they wanted, and I'd have wasted an afternoon. The species was doing fine. Their children would grow up watching them do this and presumably decide it was fine. My parents had managed to raise me, so clearly there was some room for improvement.

I'd been imagining an alien watching all this, increasingly desperate for somebody to explain what the hell was going on, when it occurred to me that I'd already spent years doing exactly that.

I was the alien.

There might have been a biological argument for it too. I doubted a blood test would produce entirely reassuring results after being dropped into a world with magic, and I wasn't volunteering to find out. But that wasn't why I felt so out of place. I was apparently the only person alive who could look at a dangerous situation and conclude that we should try having fewer of those.

Everyone else wanted to know whether they could win.

Thinking back to my discussions with Karsten did little to improve my opinion. She could make serving the kingdom sound perfectly reasonable, right up until I remembered that I was the one expected to do it. I needed to ask how often she actually expected me to be available. Knowing my luck, she'd say whenever the kingdom needed me and consider that an answer.

I looked at Hoshin again. She wanted to rule this country. She'd traveled here and entered the Royal Selection because she actually wanted the job, and Juukulius had agreed to help her get it. I wondered whether either of them ever woke up regretting that decision. Judging by how comfortable they looked in my shop, today had been fine.

I was the only sane person in the room.

Possibly the world.

Naturally, they were all looking at me as though I was the difficult one.

…

Hoshin waited until Juukulius had finished making himself welcome, then turned back to me, “Well, I suppose that's enough trouble over one word. There is somethin' else I'd like to talk about.”

“I thought you might eventually get around to it.”

“Oh, I meant what I said about Julius.” She glanced up at her knight, who looked entirely too comfortable with how the visit was going, “But yes, there's a reason I wanted to meet ya myself.”

I settled back in my chair. Felt had stopped finding things to do behind the counter, and Rom had his cup halfway to his mouth. Apparently, everyone had been waiting for this. I was going to start charging admission if my afternoons kept providing them with entertainment.

Hoshin rested her hands in her lap, “You've made the Royal Selection rather difficult for me.”

“I've been busy.”

“I noticed. The White Whale, the business with the Witch Cult, everything people have been sayin' since. Quite a lot to hear about someone I hadn't even met.” She spoke without much irritation, which made me suspect she'd already spent hers elsewhere, “I've had people ask me what I make of Crusch's chances. In conversations that were supposed to be about mine.”

“That's impolite.”

“Terribly.” Her smile lingered for a moment before she continued, “A while ago, I was fairly happy with where I stood. Now? I'd put my chances below Priscilla Barielle's. Of all people.”

I raised an eyebrow, “So what?”

Hoshin paused. Beside the counter, Felt pressed her lips together.

“It's a race,” I said, “Winner takes all, loser eats dirt. You knew that when you entered.”

“I did. And I don't want to lose.” She met my eyes without any sign that I'd offended her, “Which is why I'm here, instead of complainin' about it to Julius again.”

Juukulius maintained his composure. If that was his idea of a normal day's work, perhaps I'd been unfair about how easy he made everything look. Having to reassure your employer that she could become queen sounded exhausting. I'd have started asking which country by the third conversation.

“People hear my name and think of a greedy merchant,” Hoshin went on, “They're right about that. I have a great deal already, and I still want more. I entered because I want to win the whole thing, Hikigaya-san. I'd rather be honest about that than have ya wonder when I'm goin' to ask for somethin'.”

I wasn't sure telling me in advance would improve the experience. Still, it was easier to listen to than a speech about the good of the kingdom. Karsten had enough sincerity to make those unpleasant, and hearing one from a merchant would've had me checking what I'd agreed to pay for at the end.

“All right,” I said, “What do you want?”

“Crusch and Emilia have an arrangement, don't they? A little coalition. I'd like us to talk about includin' a third.”

My hand stopped on the arm of the chair.

The hunt was public knowledge. People were supposed to know who'd been involved. An agreement to keep working together afterward was something else, and hearing her bring it up so casually annoyed me more than I wanted to show. I hadn't even settled my own duties with Karsten yet. Hoshin was already discussing changes to the arrangement as though somebody had sent her a copy.

“Who told you about that?”

“Would it help if I said I'd guessed?”

“It'd help me decide how much of the rest of this to believe.”

She accepted that with a small inclination of her head, “Then let's say I make an effort to know what the people I'm competin' with are doin'. I'd be a poor merchant if I waited until everyone else knew.”

Felt looked as though she approved. Of course she did. I could tell her to mind her own business, but Hoshin would probably explain how this qualified.

“People are talkin' about both camps already,” Hoshin continued, “Keep workin' together and they'll keep hearin' the same two names. Another success, another reason to remember ya. Meanwhile, I have to get their attention before I can tell them why they ought to support me.”

“The Selection's a popularity contest,” I said.

“It certainly helps to be popular.”

There were people with actual power whose opinions mattered rather more than those of the man repeating the Whale story over his third drink. But even they had to consider what everyone else was saying. Being able to point at a dead monster made for a persuasive introduction. You could ask whether somebody had the experience to rule, and someone would ask where you'd been while the Whale was alive. Good luck bringing the discussion back to your concerns about tax collection after that.

Hoshin could promise whatever she liked. People had something to talk about that had already happened, and she was having trouble getting a word in.

“So you'd like your name attached to ours.”

“I'd like to give people a reason to say it.” She leaned forward a little, “Three camps. Mine, Crusch's, and Emilia's. We agree on what we're willing to help each other with, and we keep that agreement until the fifth candidate is found.”

“And how long is that supposed to take?”

“I wish I knew. But however long it is, we can make use of it. If one camp takes somethin' on, the others help where they can. People, supplies, introductions. We make sure the support gets acknowledged, and we all get a share of the attention.”

She had that part ready. Naturally. I'd been trying to get through a chapter of a novel, while she'd apparently come prepared to divide up the credit for things nobody had done yet.

“And then?” I asked.

“Then we look at where we've got to.” Hoshin held my gaze, “If we've spent that time workin' together, the people supportin' us will have reasons to keep doin' it. Anyone considerin' Barielle will have to ask what she'd give them that they couldn't get through us. And the fifth candidate will be startin' with whatever they brought along, while we've already had time to make ourselves useful.”

“I'm sure they'll appreciate the welcome.”

“They're welcome to compete.” She said it pleasantly enough, “But if we do this properly, we can push both of 'em out of contention. That leaves three of us to settle things between ourselves. I'd rather face two rivals than four, and I imagine Crusch and Emilia would like those odds too.”

I watched her for a moment. She let me, apparently content that she'd made an offer worth considering. Juukulius stood beside her chair, giving me no indication whether he thought she'd persuaded me. Astrea had gone quiet too.

Complete bullshit.

The irritating part was that the proposal made enough sense to survive being explained to somebody else. There were advantages to sharing resources. Barielle would have a harder time dealing with three camps helping one another, and the missing candidate could arrive to discover that most of the people worth approaching had already made commitments. Hoshin wasn't inventing those benefits. She just had a much better idea of who would still be able to compete once they'd finished collecting them.

Karsten's camp had real political strength. Connections, standing, people who would answer when she called and expect to be heard when they called her. With Mathers out of the picture, Emilia had lost the person who could have supplied that sort of backing. The attention she'd earned mattered, but being spoken about wasn't the same as having people willing to commit themselves to your cause.

Hoshin knew that. She'd just spent several minutes explaining how much attention mattered while offering to provide everything needed to make use of it.

Emilia needed an introduction? Hoshin could arrange one. Needed supplies, someone to handle the arrangements, a way to reach people who hadn't already decided what they thought of her? Hoshin had people for that too. Very helpful people, presumably. I could already imagine Natsuki being relieved to have somebody take care of a problem he hadn't known how to solve.

Then the next problem would go through the same people. So would the next meeting. A supporter who needed something would remember who'd actually arranged it last time and ask them again. Emilia could be at every event, have her name on every announcement, and still find that everyone was waiting for Hoshin to tell them what happened next.

Karsten had enough of her own organization to avoid that. Emilia didn't.

Three equal camps. Certainly. They could write the word down as many times as they liked.

By the time the agreement ended, Barielle and the fifth candidate would have been shut out, while Emilia would've spent months helping Hoshin establish herself as the person who could get things done. Nobody had to ask her to withdraw. They could keep inviting her to meetings and thanking her for her contribution while the actual contest came down to Hoshin and Karsten.

I could hardly expect Hoshin to suggest a plan that improved Emilia's chances at her own expense. But she could at least have spared me the part where this was supposed to leave three viable candidates. I had enough arithmetic to run a shop.

I shifted forward, deciding which part of that I wanted her to answer first.

“Of course, since you're representin' Crusch here,” Hoshin began.

“I'm not representing-”

“Emilia's camp ought to hear the offer too, shouldn't they?” Her attention moved past my shoulder, “It'd hardly be fair to discuss all this without 'em.”

I turned as the door opened.

Mimi Pearlbaton came through first, both hands closed around Natsuki's wrist. The Iron Fang's vice captain was clearly pleased with herself. Natsuki was more occupied with getting his other hand off the doorframe before she pulled the rest of him away from it.

“Mimi's got him!”

“I can walk!” Natsuki stumbled over the threshold, caught himself, and looked down at her hands, “You can let go now!”

She did. He took an unnecessary step backward, then steadied himself while she turned to Hoshin for what I assumed would be praise for completing her assignment. I looked between them. Hoshin had apparently arranged for the other participant before she'd even finished explaining why there ought to be one.

Felt moved a stool out of Natsuki's path. Rom picked up his cup again.

“Hikigaya?” Natsuki looked from me to Hoshin, then to the two knights, “What the hell did I just walk into?”

For a moment, I felt less alone. He'd taken one look at the situation and recognized that something was wrong. Perhaps there was still hope for people from our world.

Then Hoshin greeted him, and he came farther into the shop to hear what she wanted.

Of course he did. The door was right behind him, but apparently asking what the hell was going on was merely how he prepared to get involved.

I settled back in my chair. Humanity had found another completely avoidable problem and was already making room for everyone.

The only sane person present had been trying to read a book.

…

A/N: I SWEAR ITS THE RIGHT DATE I SWEAR I SWEAR I SWEAR