By the Grace of the Gods (LN) - Volume 15 - Chapter 14

Chapter 9, Episode 23: Bag of Tricks

From my mother’s face, her mask of surprise split down the middle, magical energy swirled like dust disturbed by the wind. She became someone I didn’t recognize. In the next breath, I cut down my father and spun, running my Light-magic-coated blade through the other things wearing the skin of my old coworkers. Tabuchi alone avoided the sword with an ethereal movement, and backed up to the door.

“Why?” it asked, Tabuchi’s familiar voice replaced by an ancient growl. None of Tabuchi’s friendship remained in its eyes, an icy glare now in its place.

The illusion had shown me release from my old company, respect and camaraderie from my colleagues, and the parents I’d long lost. Its tactic was apparently to project illusions that mirrored its target’s desires. To be honest, I might have fallen for it if I’d experienced that before I’d spent much time in this world.

“Why didn’t the illusion work?”

“It did,” I told the monster. “Everything I could see and hear and smell was just as I remembered them. Astounding, really.” It was all the more irritating because of how lifelike the illusions were. Having the monster wield my dead mother’s image like a puppet wasn’t a fun experience, to say the least.

Sensing my anger, the thing wearing Tabuchi’s form cringed, then vanished. The world was painted over, the restaurant fading away to reveal a dim, stone-built corridor. Even the smells of food and drink had disappeared into the familiar, damp air of the Sea of Trees.

“The illusion’s not totally broken,” I noted. Even though I was presumably seeing what the interior of the manor really looked like, I was still in my old body and the sword still appeared to be a briefcase. My mind was clear, though. There wouldn’t be an issue for me to wield my sword without seeing it, when I knew its shape so well.

This manor was initially built for the first village leader of Korumi, who was a relative to the lord of the area. It was a sizable residence from the beginning, because it included functional areas like file storage and gathering halls. Later, at the height of the kingdom’s attempt to deforest the Sea of Trees, the manor was lent out as a base of operations, which came with the addition of barracks and warehouses being built around it. As the forest fought back, though, they had to downsize the base until it became what it is now—an expansive estate with the original house in its central courtyard—the lair of the monster that lurked here.

“I thought you’d take me right to you if I played along...” I spat, choosing not to dwell on my mistake anymore. According to my research, this corridor led directly to the courtyard. As soon as I took a step forward, the world shifted again—to the interior of my old office. Of course, the monster’s going to fight back. But what does it hope to accomplish by—

“Takebayashi!”

“You...” I groaned.

Speak of the devil, it was my old department head. “Is that how you greet your boss?!” I didn’t even feel a hint of nostalgia with him. In my previous life, I might have apologized for my attitude. Now, I was just staring at the guy, whose temper boiled in the blink of an eye. He shrieked like a heated kettle, his oily bald head glistening and his gut jiggling with every boom of his voice... Why was the illusion so unnecessarily detailed? “What are you looking at, you useless maggot! Stop dicking around and get to work!” he shrieked, dropping a fat stack of papers on my desk from out of nowhere. Per usual, there was enough to guarantee I’d work unpaid late into the night. “I said, stop dicking around! Get in your chair and—” his command was cut short with a squelchy yelp as I instinctively slugged him in the gut when he tried to force me down into my chair. He crumpled to the ground.

“How did you strike...?” the same gravelly voice asked before the department head vanished and the world shifted again—the hallway of my old office just outside the break room. Through its open doors, I could see a pair of young female employees.

“Ugh. I’m exhausted. Takebayashi needs to get off our backs.”

“Facts! Don’t be talking smack when you got no idea what it takes to keep our faces and nails fire. At least the greasy department head keeps his mouth shut about it.”

“Say it, girl. Doing makeup right takes time. What’s wrong with touching it up at the office once in a while?”

Now I remembered. This was after I’d finally said something to them about it. I’d never said that makeup itself was the problem, just that it was unprofessional to wear such heavy makeup at the office. And taking a few minutes to fix their makeup was one thing, but they’d only spend thirty minutes at their desks before going to fix their makeup for two hours. Even when they’d return, the cycle continued after another thirty minutes until the end of the work day.

“This is totally a hostile work environment,” one of the girls continued. “You think we can sue and fire his ass?”

“Ooh, that’d be lit!”

More calmly than I thought I could, I stepped up behind the cackling girls and decapitated them. “Get a grip.”

“Why...?” the two severed heads asked, their voices overlapping...before everything faded away.

I was the one who wanted to ask why. The monster wasn’t attacking me, nor was he trying to incapacitate me somehow. With Tabuchi and Mom, I could chalk it up to the monster trying to lure me into a pleasant illusion, but the other two illusions had been nothing but a reminder of irritating moments in my previous life. They were just annoying at worst. It was eerie that I couldn’t figure out why he was showing me these.

Suddenly, the department head and a group of the nepo babies materialized.

“Hey, get this done too! By tomorrow morning!” shrieked the department head.

“Yeesh, he’s getting chewed out again. How old is he? How pathetic is it that he’s almost forty and stuck this low on the ladder. He spent all those years without learning jack. That’s what happens when you just do what you’re told.”

“How’s it worth living like that? Couldn’t be me.”

“I know. What if we taught him to min-max like us? We’re going to inherit our parents’ companies sooner or later. It’ll take our genius to make that bump on a log functional.”

“Nah, bro. That’d be a waste of time. Boomers are stuck in the last century, anyway. If we’re going to go through the trouble of coaching someone, we have to get a good return on that investment. Some washed-up boomer just isn’t worth it.”

“You’re a waste of oxygen! You wannabe financial bros never lift a finger around here!” I shouted.

As painful memories flooded back to my mind, Undead sprouted like mushrooms from the floor, walls, and ceiling. The world around me rapidly flickered as each memory replayed.

“Teacher! I’d rather work alone than pair up with Ryoma!”

“You’re a disease. Your existence alone makes the life of everyone around you so much worse. Why can’t you understand that?”

“There are so many people who damage their health and quit this job. How come you hardly take time off? I bet you’re not doing your fair share, passing the buck to your team all day. That’s just unfair, don’t you think? I expect your output to triple, starting this month.”

“Mister Takebayashi? We received a call from one of your neighbors. Can you come down to the station with us?”

“You think you deserved to—what? Talk to people like you’re their equal? Know your place.”

“Why don’t you just kill yourself?”

“Ryoma. People need failure. It builds character. It strengthens the body and mind. That’s why, as your teacher, I will never think you’re good enough. No matter how hard you work, and no matter how good your grades are. It hurts me more than it hurts you, but I need to crush your spirit now. This is true compassion. Naturally, you understand, don’t you?”

Memories were flickering in and out so fast that they were beginning to blend together, turning into a maelstrom of verbal abuse with no context. Although I understood the words being hurled at me, it soon seemed futile to try to comprehend the meaning behind them.

Suddenly, I was over it. “Shut up,” I spat, cutting down silhouette after silhouette closing in on me—one, two, three, four... There was no need to put names to their faces. Before they could utter any words, I sliced through enemy after enemy. Casting a web of magical detection and physical energy in all directions, I began to hone in on the movements of my enemies and the path of my blade. Sound began to fade away.

I never particularly enjoyed swinging a blade. It didn’t do me any good in my previous life because I was too busy with school or work. In fact, some people even mocked me for it—I was too old to play with swords, or something. Still, I kept up my training until my death because I could focus on the movements. The dojo was the only place I could leave the stress of life behind. Long story short, the sword was my escape.

I was on autopilot now, my body moving sharper than ever. The feeling of lethargy that had been creeping up my body since I walked into that first illusion was now gone.

“How?!”

“How can you move?!”

“You could never do this before!”

Screams of all vocal tones echoed, as if countless elders, children, and women were crying out—but I could tell they all belonged to the monster. With that last shout, I finally caught on. The series of painful memories wasn’t to simply irritate me. Every aggravating illusion had been a replay of my own memories. Even in the beginning, while he took liberties with the details to appease my desires, the building blocks were all from real memories. In order to project these illusions, the monster had to be reading my memories, and maybe even my thoughts. If the monster had seen all my memories from my previous life, it made sense that it expected me not to fight back. No matter how angry I’d been, I’d never used violence unless I thought someone’s life was on the line. I wasn’t even sure if I’d ever had so much as a clever comeback to the countless nasty comments I’d received in that life. When the department head gave me an unreasonably high workload, I shut up and did it. When girls talked behind my back in the break room, I quietly walked away. Everyone else must have thought I’d never raise my hand to them, no matter how much they berated me. Just like any of them, I was willing to bet, the monster thought I’d be helpless in the face of those memories.

Am I wrong? 

The monster groaned.

“Sounds like I’m right!” I declared, and the world around me shifted again. Now, I stood in the dojo at the house I grew up in. As soon as my dad appeared in the center of the space wearing his gi, he swung at me with his wooden sword—the same movement I made to cut the illusion of my mother in half a few minutes ago.

I parried it instantly, but dad quickly stepped forward and tried to swing the pommel into my throat. Pivoting a half-step back, I shifted to stand parallel to his extended arm, thrusting my sword at his neck—just to have him knock it off course at the last moment.

“How annoying,” I muttered. Dad’s illusion moved just like he did in my memories, using the same forms and movements that had been drilled into me.

“Is that the best you can do?” dad said while our swords clashed, his voice dripping with disappointment. More than ever, I vividly remembered this moment in my past. Then, dad grew taller— No, then I became a kid again, holding my own wooden sword and wearing my own gi, just like I did back then. Glimpses of dad’s face told me so clearly that he only trained me out of a sense of obligation—it was a perfect mask of annoyance. Considering how accurate the illusions had been so far, I wondered if the disappointment in his voice and annoyance on his face were unedited details from my memory.

“You recreated it too well,” I said.

I caught his blade aimed for my heart and twirled it away before sliding my own sword up to its neck—and severed it, though there was no physical resistance of flesh and bone. Dad faded away. He’d only dominated me in the dojo when I was a kid. If the illusion had completely recreated both of our skills from the time, dad’s illusion would have knocked me out before I could even get a chance to notice what his face looked like or what he’d said. I’d trained for over twenty years after his death, though, and now I’d lived through real, life-and-death combat. Once I got over the subconscious hesitation to fight him, he wasn’t much of a threat as long as I kept a calm head.

“Now... You’ve gotten on my nerves enough. Show me your face!” Pouring all the physical energy I could into my blade, I swung through the wall of the dojo. The illusion shattered into reality. Before me stood a door that should lead to the core of the manor. I could have peeked through the deep gash across the door, but that wasn’t necessary because it loudly swung open.

A courtyard lay beyond the door, and an ancient figure—practically a skeleton—stood in the center of a cadre of Undead bearing familiar and unfamiliar faces.