Min-Maxing My TRPG Build in Another World - Volume 2 - Chapter 4

Henderson Scale 0.1

Henderson Scale 0.1

A derailing event that has no impact on the overarching story.

However, some small tangents can lead to bigger ones as the Henderson Scale spirals out of control...

Elisa was very sad and miserable. Her throat hurt from screaming, her eyes burned from crying, and she could barely feel her arms and legs due to her tantrum—but none of that could hold a candle to her melancholy.

Up until now, Elisa had never seen her wishes go unfulfilled. She would have understood if her wish was a bad one. Both her mama and papa were very kind, but they always scolded her when she did something wrong.

But this time, she could only wallow in her sadness and confusion. She wanted her papa to pat her head. She wanted her mama to squeeze her tight when she went to bed. She wanted to stay with her brother Heinz and his wife Mina, she wanted to play with the twins Michael and Hans, and she wanted them to help her get up on Holter’s back. She wanted to see everyone in the village.

Was that so wrong?

Unable to understand, Elisa simply cried. Liquid emotion flowed from her eyes for so long that she wondered if she was going to run empty. The everyday life that she’d thought would go on forever was crumbling, and it was so, so scary. Angry and upset and frustrated, she couldn’t stop crying.

Elisa was happy that her beloved brother Erich was coming with her. She liked it when he hugged her and said that he’d always stay by her side to protect her...but he could do that at home too. Rather, she had been happy because they were home.

All Elisa wanted was to live in her happy household with her kind brother to take care of her. She hated the college. She hated the red-robed lady that said strange things too. She didn’t care about magic. She didn’t want to live in a bigger, nicer house if it meant leaving home. All the cute clothes and tasty frozen treats in the world wouldn’t want to make her leave.

The only thing Elisa ever asked for was to live happily with the people she loved. She wanted to live in their beautiful little house. Her father was strong and kind; her mother was pretty and made yummy food; her brothers were funny and fun to play with; and she’d even gotten a new older sister who knew everything about fashion. Elisa had been happy.

What was more, she didn’t want to leave behind all the friends that lived with her. The cute red lizard that lived in their stove always watched over the house and warmed Elisa up on cold nights. The big black puppy that came to their yard was a good boy who caught all the scary bugs and rats; whenever Elisa was home alone, he let her play with his big, bushy tail. The tiny, gentle girl in the corner of her room and the kind old man with snow-white hair listened to her stories for as long as she could talk.

Elisa didn’t want to say goodbye to them either. They had been so kind to her.

The little girl’s perspective was small and narrow: her kind family and friends were essentially her entire world. To be ripped away from them was akin to slicing up her soul and whisking each piece to a faraway land, never to be seen again.

It didn’t matter how much she loved the brother that was to accompany her. It didn’t matter that she’d been interested in the city ever since her father had told her stories about it. It didn’t matter that she finally had a chance to ride a pretty stagecoach. She didn’t want to go.

Alas, no matter how hard Elisa kicked or screamed, the day of departure arrived. Nothing could assuage her: not the beautiful clothes her mother had sewn her, nor her favorite ice candies, nor even Mina’s hairpiece that she’d been given as a present.

“Elisa, it’s okay. I’m right here with you.”

Being picked up by her beloved brother usually made her feel so delighted, yet today all she could feel was dread. He was trying to take her someplace that she didn’t want to go.

“No! Mr. Brother, I don’t wanna. I like here.”

Elisa had never realized before that it was so scary for her feet not to touch the ground. Despite her wishes, the exit to the home she thought she’d never leave fast approached.

“This is for your sake.” Erich’s stiff voice rang hollow as he spoke more to himself than to his sister.

Elisa had heard those same words ad nauseam over the last few days; once again they reared their ugly heads. She tightened her grip on her brother’s new travel clothes. The sturdy linen was rough and hurt her face, but the warmth on the other side was all she had left in her world.

If all this really was for her sake, why was everyone doing something that made her so unhappy? Elisa could not grasp it.

“I promise to make it so you can come back here one day. Has Mr. Brother ever lied to you?”

The little girl could do nothing but cling to her brother and the promise he made.

[Tips] Fairies and spirits reside on a different plane of existence from fleshy mortals. Still, they are ever present despite their invisibility.

Seeing their youngest daughter cry surrounded by luggage, the family said their farewells with deep-seated shame.

Hanna wrapped her daughter’s fingers around a bag of her favorite baked treats. Mina, the most recent addition to their family, took her well-worn hairpiece and pushed it into the girl’s hair, knowing that Elisa had loved how pretty it was.

Heinz, the eldest son, wrapped Elisa up in a splendid cape so that she wouldn’t get cold on her long journey. Michael and Hans handed her a full bag of her favorite fruits that they’d gathered from their local woods.

Johannes draped a necklace blessed by the God of Travels around his youngest’s neck. He’d gone to the church and pleaded the bishop for it; one look at the silver plate fashioned to resemble a staff and boots was enough to tell that it had cost a hefty sum.

The charm had been granted power with a miracle. Any other traveler would have been ecstatic to receive such a gift, but the tears of a young girl cared not for such utility. Elisa clung to their legs, then the door, and then the fence in a desperate attempt to stay home, but at long last her brother managed to whisk her into the majestic carriage.

All that remained was a lonely family cursing their own powerlessness and a perplexed methuselah who watched them with curiosity.

“Well, worry not, I shall use my family name to protect her to the best of my ability. She is my official disciple and all.”

The magus truly could not comprehend them. She could not fathom what principle had brought tears to the parents’ eyes, and the emotions of the brothers as they watched their siblings depart eluded her. Naturally so, as methuselah were made this way. Emotion had all but abandoned them, and their physical senses were dull. Surely, it all served to prevent the gradual erosion of self in the muddy stream of eternal life.

Mortal or otherwise, all sentient beings were in constant flux—emotions took new shapes by the time they even registered consciously. Methuselah could hardly care about anything outside of the one interest that held firm on their souls.

In practice, this meant Agrippina could not make sense of familial love. Not to say that her own parents had abused her, of course. Perhaps one could argue that ferrying their newborn daughter across the world for a century was some form of mistreatment, but the evergreen knowledge she’d gained on her journey gleamed sharply in her mind to this day. As trade deals went, she considered it a win.

However, not once on their long excursion did she share a fatherly or motherly moment with her parents. They had never placed her on their laps like the children they’d seen on their travels; for her part, the thought of holding hands had never once crossed her mind. It went without saying that sleeping by her parents’ side was unthinkable.

Their conversations never betrayed the manners of aristocracy: although they shared the unreserved frankness allowed between kin, their interactions were a far cry from any sensation of loving warmth.

Being the connoisseur of literature that she was, Agrippina had both a psychological understanding of the concept and an appreciation for it in fiction. Yet the emotion remained foreign to her own inner life. To try and think of a familial moment that she’d shared with her parents...took much deliberation; she could only drag up a few words of wisdom.

“Hide the dagger of knowledge in your mind always. This alone is your final resort; it is a weapon that no one can ever rob you of.”

Agrippina’s father had crammed her head full of all sorts of things about magic, cantrips, politics, economics... When he taught her anything, this was the maxim that accompanied it. She knew not whether he’d come up with it himself or inherited it from someone else, but these words alone had been engraved so deeply that she remembered them even now.

On second thought, perhaps this knowledge itself was its own kind of sentiment. Normally, nobles did not raise their own children—they could and did hire learned scholars to live with them and teach their progeny in their stead.

The du Stahl estate’s fortune had been deemed “unappraisable” by the crown. Her father had clearly had the resources to buy an expert tutor to accompany them on their endless journey.

Yet Sir Stahl elected to educate his daughter personally. Not once did he let any others influence her mind.

How peculiar. It would seem I had already experienced a story of parental love, and quite intimately at that, Agrippina thought as she watched the family send their children off. In which case, perhaps the knowledge she would bestow upon the brother and sister would one day become emotion in its own right.

“I swear: I shall turn her into a splendid magus.”

No matter how small or niche the finding, it was always a joy to learn something new. Powerful sentiment arising from a situation like this was obvious to her and the world both, yet that did not take away from the fun of discovery.

Agrippina left the family to contemplate the subtle humor of her parting words as she retreated to her carriage. She activated a spell and the wheels began turning.

Finally, it was time for her long-awaited return. Her twenty-some-odd years of travel were coming to an end at last. To realize something new on such a joyous day was surely a sign: the trip home was bound to be full of wonderful discoveries.

The deadpan magus pushed her elation down; in place of a smile, she puffed a single cloud of smoke.

[Tips] In order to shrug off the chains of eternal life, many methuselah fill the deep recesses of their minds with fleeting, hedonistic thoughts.