Min-Maxing My TRPG Build in Another World - Volume 4 - Chapter 1

Early Winter of the Thirteenth Year

Cleanup

The time following the climax wherein players manage all the clerical tasks that follow battle. PCs tend to their wounds, and severely damaged characters roll to see if their injuries prove fatal.

Some GMs give this phase its own scene, while others simply take the results and move along to the conclusion.

For some time, a single thought had dominated Agrippina du Stahl’s mind: He’s late. He’s clearly much too late.

Finally, though, her patience was rewarded: the amusing boy she’d picked up had come home with a tale delightful enough to exceed her wildest dreams. She’d sent him off on a whim back in the months of autumn, and had made it a point not to spoil the experience with far-sight or a familiar. But for the boy to embroil himself in a once-in-a-lifetime donnybrook...well, suffice it to say that his offerings were more than enough for her to excuse his tardiness with a smile.

Indeed, the first heiress to the Stahl Barony looked at her weary manservant on the brink of collapse and smiled.

“This is no laughing matter,” Erich said.

“And what do you suggest I do if not laugh?”

Agrippina had covered her lips as was proper for any self-respecting genteel lady, but the wide, showy sneer was not something a single hand could conceal. It took no magic on her part to radiate waves of dark energy—an all-too-fitting expression, by the boy’s private estimation.

The master of the house nonchalantly lay on her couch, and her indentured servant sat on the chair across from her with the babbling waterworks factory he called a sister dangling from his neck. Without context, the scene was confusion incarnate; with it, it wasn’t much better. The boy had raced ahead of the encroaching winter on his trip south; this chaotic reception drew a long sigh out of him.

He didn’t particularly mind his sister. Abandoning a child so attached to him for over a month only to come home with terrible wounds—albeit fully healed—was sure to provoke this sort of response. Rather, he was proud of how much she’d grown: her feet remained firmly planted on the ground as she snuggled up against him.

Erich’s distaste stemmed solely from the rotten heart of the mastermind pulling all the strings. It was midday, but Agrippina lacked the decency to change out of her nightwear or so much as sit upright. As she read the letter he’d brought and listened to his story, she took her time digesting the circumstances in utter bliss, breaking out into the laughter of a bemused theatergoer.

Having lived through all this agony, however, Erich was left in awe at how sweet an expression she dared to make in the face of his ordeal.

Methuselah, as a whole, were a hedonistic people. They sought pleasures to dim the existential suffering of eternity at best, and concocted diabolical schemes to create them at worst. To them, this was just the way of things; unending life was simply that taxing on the soul.

Among methuselah, there were some high-minded individuals who led chaste lives in their youths, but such commitment to morality could not last. Cracks formed within a century, the abrasion grew harsher after two, and after three hundred years any fixation on virtue totally crumbled. The grindstone of time was too rough for the spongy psyche to bear.

Even the most striking stimulation dulled into habit after overuse, plunging into the terrible realm of the ordinary. Like the forgotten passions of a couple fallen out of love, aging methuselah began to tire of existence.

One could hardly blame them. Lesser creatures rushed through life too quickly for them: yesterday’s newborn was today’s adult, fated to die by the day after tomorrow. Surrounded by an ever-changing gallery of faces, they waded through a nightmare world gilded by the illusion of progress despite its inherent stagnation. The only constant was their fellow immortals. To ask such sorry beings to live lives bound by integrity was too much. They guarded their fragile selves with shells of debauchery.

Of course, as with anything, pleasure was finite. Still, the methuselah had long since decided that to seek it was a much, much more palatable alternative to a permanent malaise, gradually turning the sufferer into a shiftless sack of flesh.

They knew the fates of those who had come before. When sentience awoke to see first light, primordial methuselah had searched for comfort and prosperity in a world devoid of diversions. Now, those same individuals walked the land on little more than inertia, reduced to living displays of the horror that came with loss of purpose.

So the methuselah turned to hedonism—to the rejection of past and future for the joy of the present. Legends of methuselah of yore causing mayhem on a global scale for the sake of momentary relief had not arisen from thin air. Agrippina had inherited the sickness of her ancestors, which she enjoyed to the fullest extent.

Agrippina’s favorite pastime could be boiled down to an addiction to stories. She had always been a lover of books: narratives staved off encroaching boredom, and the injection of new ideas served to hone her mind to even greater degrees of precision. Spending her time steeped in meaning helped her fight nihilism’s event horizon.

Yet one day, epiphany struck: the lives of men were but performances on a stage. Among the many books Agrippina read were memoirs, recollections, and biographies—including some that had met the terrible fate of censure—of people who had taken the world by storm. Lives preserved in a solution of text and pickled in bound paper offered her soul a layer of intrigue that originated beyond her earthly vessel. Emotions that had withered away in her own heart could be resurrected by using someone else as a conduit.

If so, the crooked methuselah realized, then to watch others flounder through their lives was sure to be the highest form of entertainment. During her stint in the College library and her roadside trek to nowhere in particular, dealing with other people had been too much of a hassle for the hermit to bite the bullet. But now the affairs of others were more accessible than ever before.

The results of her bet pleased her greatly. Bored, she’d sent Erich along on an errand thinking, I’m sure I can count on this boy to find some way to amuse me. While it would be patently false for her to claim disinterest in the details of a god that earthly beings had exiled from public consciousness, the tome only accounted for half the reason she’d made her request.

Lo and behold, Agrippina’s every expectation had been surpassed.

Her servant had managed to win the book from an infamously ill-tempered scrivener with an exhilarating tale to boot. Feige had asked Erich to turn his misfortune into a proper saga from the story’s first telling; she would have surely done the same had the boy made the mistake of oversharing. Her love of books was unparalleled, after all.

“Ahh,” Agrippina sighed. “It has been too long since I’ve laughed like this... In fact, I’ve laughed so much that I’m feeling rather parched. Brew me a cup of the usual, would you?”

“...As you wish.” Erich swallowed back the bitter criticism he could not voice and rose from his seat.

Knowing well that anything he said would only fuel further amusement, he elected to shut his mouth and do his tasks. He scooped up his sister with one hand to make sure her legs wouldn’t drag and disappeared into the kitchen. The downcast cloud that hung over his head was more than a boy his age ought to bear.

“Now then...” Agrippina sipped on her freshly made tea, letting her favorite flavor wet her dried throat. She pulled up one of the letters she’d been given: the one in which Feige had deferred all ownership of the Compendium of Forgotten Divine Rites to Erich.

The box holding the book in question was already on Agrippina’s lap. The key had been laid beside it, and in many ways it was only natural for the ultimate goal of this entire mission to end up in the master’s hands.

One issue remained outstanding: the initial order had been for Erich to purchase the tome on her behalf, and so far, she had only given him fare for travel. Yet regardless of the circumstances, it was difficult for a servant to break accepted conduct.

“I’ve no doubt an average cretin in my position would deprive you of this book, citing the original order,” Agrippina stated. “But I shan’t deny my own servant’s labors in the name of avarice.”

The personification of wickedness broke character and waved around the paper in an unfathomable moment of honor. But of course, this was by no means for charity’s sake.

Agrippina was a magus—a Daybreak magus—to her core: her only thought was, I’m sure this will prove far more exciting. She was searching for fun, the well-being of others be damned—a scoundrel to the core as well.

“So, I shall give you three choices.”

The methuselah raised three fingers, each with an accompanying dot of light hovering above. As her mana flowed into the first, the amorphous blob took the form of letters.

“First, I can offer to nullify three years of Elisa’s tuition, room, and board. In essence, I’d be purchasing the compendium for, oh, roughly seventy-five drachmae.”

The boy’s hand stopped in the middle of patting his crying sister’s head.

So easy to read, the scoundrel thought with a sneer. Tipped off by her detestable smile, Erich quickly resumed consoling Elisa. Unfortunately for him, his peasant upbringing had left him weak to large sums of money.

Perhaps I should have him treat himself to something extravagant one of these days. As one strand of her thoughts strayed to dabble in nonconsensual gentrification, the others moved on to reshaping the second ball of light.

“Second, I can raise your standing to that of Elisa’s—a proper apprentice. You would be freed from your chores, afforded time for serious study, and given the opportunity to attain some semblance of social stature.”

Again, the funds that would obviously be needed to fuel such a thing caused the boy’s hands to jitter. Still, he managed to avoid freezing up this time through sheer force of will.

Such a reaction was not unfounded. To officially enroll a student in the College required mountains of paperwork, not to mention the absurdity of a mere researcher taking on a second concurrent disciple—a servant, at that! Getting her way would be an unthinkable demonstration of brute force, and the money and time she would need to spend pulling strings from the shadows easily outstripped the expenses of her first offer.

Worst of all, Lady Leizniz already had eyes on him. If that sickly wraith in the dean’s seat caught wind of their plan, she was sure to offer to take him under her wing instead. That would be a failure of catastrophic proportions, so any move Agrippina made would need to be done quickly. The time limit was sure to inflate the costs of her ploy to an even more legendary total sum.

Barring a handful of issues, though, this was an attractive proposition. The boy had hitherto only been able to pick up small bits of knowledge in idle moments, and full-time commitment to learning was sure to bring massive gains of power with it. On top of that, the support system cadre membership offered was convenient beyond belief, and the social might that came with a magus’s title was difficult to ignore.

“Lastly, I can buy this tome for fifty drachmae.”

The final blob of light snaked into the number fifty. While not as impactful as the two proposals that had preceded it, this was a massive allotment. Fifty drachmae without any strings attached could balloon into far greater riches depending on how it was used.

He could invest it, start a business, or send it home to have his family help earn Elisa’s tuition. Erich’s memories of bygone days maximizing profits at a trading firm caused something in his mind to stir.

However, the greatest issue was that, unlike the first two options, all the risk lay with him. The details determining whether his fortune would grow or shrink would become his sole responsibility as soon as the money exchanged hands. Those who engaged in trade did so constantly searching to gain more value than they paid for. While the potential return was big, the effort required to attain it made the risk and reward difficult to weigh.

“Anyhow,” Agrippina said casually, “I don’t ask that you answer anytime soon. Take your time to brood—even you mensch can make time for that, can’t you?”

The young methuselah’s sinister smile made her condescending racism feel cute in comparison. Alas, the fleeting mensch could not muster the vigor to say anything in return.

[Tips] Although the nobility enjoy great privileges, there is always a bigger fish. Even peers of equal standing can pose a threat once banded together, so unconventional actions are strictly forbidden to retain the delicate balance of power. To push through with one’s ludicrous schemes requires considerable wealth and authority; the names of those who do ring out in high society as the true rulers of the political sphere.

Dear Mother and Father, are you faring well amidst the hustle and bustle of winter preparations? I’ve just returned from the doctor’s, but the knot in my stomach may warrant a second visit.

Jokes aside, I wished that the world would quit introducing more baffling events while I was still reeling from the last.

I had no grudge with Elisa: it was my own fault for making my baby sister worry. Our tight schedule and lack of funds had left me unable to buy her anything nice as a souvenir—the options in Wustrow were frankly lacking, but I digress—so I wasn’t going to complain about her clinging to me for the next few days. Carrying her around like a princess wherever I went was the least I could do to make it up to her.

But I had zero clue which of the three rewards from the madam I was to pick.

Subtracting the current year, three years of Elisa’s tuition and living expenses would give us two whole solar orbits of headway; in the best case, my sister might even win her independence with that time.

According to Mika, the average magus took around five years to graduate from being a student. However, this was the average for mensch with typical mana levels, and immortal races that matured slowly or those that were simply unaffected by age often took longer. Still, our family’s little princess was basically a mensch in physical terms, and I was sure she was a budding genius, so three years seemed like a reasonable estimate.

On top of that, three years without expenses would give me more opportunity to earn extra coin, effectively extending the amount of time I could cover Elisa’s tuition. Near the end of that period, I’d be a legal adult, meaning my sources of income would expand to include official work as an adventurer. Not only would I be able to make money more efficiently, but I’d be one step closer to fulfilling my promise to Margit.

That said, the second option was tempting in its own right, especially now that I’d experienced the limits of what a lone blade could do for me. Not to say that sword-based builds as a whole had hit a wall, of course; I mean to say that in my specific case, there were issues with how I’d paired magic and swordplay.

I maintained that min-maxed martial abilities offered a beautiful path to uncontested power in a vacuum. As a fully specced swordsman, I could cleave through armor like hot butter and dig my razored edge into the most formless of geists and souls, culminating in the apex of skill: a god-felling cut.

However, I’d split my resources into swordplay and magic, and between the two, arcane arts progressed more quickly.

At present, I was confident in saying I would be hard-pressed to lose a one-on-one fight. Hybrid Sword Arts was at VII: Virtuoso, where only Scales VIII and IX lay above; my traits had all been carefully selected to reinforce my strengths.

On the magical end, I had the Independent Processing to simultaneously command a fleet of Unseen Hands, and my mutant homebrew magic let me disable living enemies in a burst of light and sound. If worse came to worst, I had an absolute defense in my space-bending barrier. Looking at my character sheet caused me to marvel at just how much of a royal pain I was to kill.

Yet even with all that and an adept debuffer at my side, the two of us had been one step—no, half a step—from dying. Further, I was still light-years away from being as unfathomably broken as the lowlife in front of me.

The bottleneck for both of these issues was my lack of radical new ideas and my overreliance on physical attacks. Making a sword go beyond the bounds of physical reality took far too many experience points. Even now, knocking on IX: Divine territory came with a nausea-inducing price tag, and the ability to cut down shapeless concepts lay even beyond that.

Magic offered a slightly cheaper path. Although messing with souls and phenomena and the like remained a feat for true masters, I wouldn’t have to ever relive my struggles against the undead. Readying an arsenal of new options for such foes would be relatively inexpensive in comparison.

I could develop auxiliary equipment that directly added to my firepower, shore up weaknesses with mutative spells to lengthen my reach, or even pivot away from my arcane swordsman build to focus on creating a thaumaturgic I-Win button.

...Of course, this was all predicated on the assumption that the little guy upstairs had what it took to be a researcher at all.

In this genre, so to speak, the classics saw main characters walk into magical academies and show off raw power they didn’t quite understand with flash and flourish to win the approval of others. Whether the display happened at an entrance exam or during a quick spar was irrelevant; by blowing away an opponent with ease, they were instantly transformed into objects of worship and respect, placed at the top of the social—if not systemic—pecking order.

Alas, the Imperial College was an institute of learning, and “Dunno how, but I did a thing!” did not fly. Despite its fantasy facade, this world was curiously modern in its outlook—no doubt thanks to the wanton contributions of my predecessors and the absence of religious hegemony. If I wanted to become a top-tier magus, I would need to distill my own abilities into the realm of theory, capturing the essence of my ideas in essay form for others to scrutinize. I’d thought that the eccentric notes Mika always took seemed like a lot of work, but she had merely been doing the bare minimum to claw her way to the beginning of a magus’s journey.

Studying and writing treatises while preparing to set off on an adventure would need a truly unimaginable amount of time and resources. The nonnegotiable detours I would need to take—at minimum, I’d need to upgrade my palatial speech before I got anywhere near a lectern—did little to solve my overarching problems.

Lady Agrippina had said she would make me her student; she had not said anything about paying for me.

Honestly, what was wrong with this woman? This whole venture seemed like it would cost several times my theoretical tuition, and she was willing to dish out the former but would leave me to dry on the latter. What kind of meager existence did she want me to live? Was I to be some Classical Chinese peasant, farming scraps of food to eat by day and studying for the civil service exam by night? She’d probably relish in my financial distress with a wine glass in hand, the witch.

“I understand... May I put Elisa to bed?”

“Feel free,” Lady Agrippina said. “Tuck her in before she breaks that neck of yours.”

Whether I was to pay or be paid, I decided to put off my money troubles for another time. Trying to decide on anything when my brain was all mushy was a sure ticket to disaster. Besides, Elisa had cried herself to sleep, and leaving her like this was just as bad for her as it was for my neck.

Fighting the urge to go to bed myself, I laid my sister onto her soft covers and wished her good night.

[Tips] Like many universities on Earth, ranks beyond that of student at the Imperial College are gatekept by the standing professoriat. Some prodigies rise to research positions after two years; others lose all hope when they see children generations younger than them attain professorship. The College is more than a garden for mad scientists: it is a melting pot of people from all across the spectrum of talent.

“Now then,” Lady Agrippina said joyfully. “It’s finally time.”

By the time I returned, she’d brought in a short work desk from gods-know-where and slammed down the treasure box on top—and by treasure, I mean none other than the Compendium of Forgotten Divine Rites I’d handed her moments ago.

“Is there any need for me to accompany you as you open it?” I asked.

“What?” she scoffed. “Surely you must be curious to see what your prize for overcoming an extraordinary challenge amounts to.”

Pen and paper had been readied alongside it, perhaps for the madam to jot down notes on what she was to read. Both her hands were enveloped in a lattice of glowing mystic circles—as per usual, her magic was too adroit for me to comprehend—that safeguarded the skin like a pair of gloves. The innumerable strands of light weaving in and out looked like she’d covered her fingers in earthworms. It was—and I am being as generous as I can when I say this—patently vile.

“Madam, I would advise you to consider why the tome was so thoroughly sealed when it passed into my hands in the first place.”

“I’m sure it won’t be an issue so long as we don’t peek in with our bare eyes. Does it truly not pique your interest? I’m shocked that you managed to refrain from opening it before arriving.”

“Madam, I would advise you to consider the full-strength barriers shrouding both your hands. Would you not mock any other magus for their lack of cool had you seen them cast this spell?”

“Oh, please. This is but a safeguard for the book itself. I wouldn’t want to sully such a rare find with the dirt of my fingers, you know?”

A normal barrier would do just fine for that, you bald-faced liar...

Regardless of my true thoughts, a servant such as I could not voice them, nor could I escape the situation after my liege had so kindly readied a seat for me. Perhaps I could have slinked off had she only prepared a chair, but the table had a steaming cup of tea on it that hadn’t been there when I’d left.

“Hm?” I mumbled. A small box had been left beside the teacup. The wool-covered parcel with carefully rounded corners was of considerable quality, but it lacked a logo. The quiet rejection of ostentation packed in this masterwork was proof enough that it had come from a high-end store somewhere in Berylin.

“Take it,” Lady Agrippina said. “Consider it a gift for an engrossing story well told. Put it on, will you?”

“Uh...” I opened the container to find a monocle. It was the same make as the madam’s: just a bit of glass rimmed with metal meant to sit in one’s eye socket.

“Used as it may be, it hasn’t a speck of dust on it. It ought to still be more than functional.”

“Are you sure? This must have been costly...”

“What more worth will it have than a stone in an alleyway if it sits around unused?”

No matter her logic, I was a regular person who considered silver quarters just as far out of reach as gold coins; I felt like I was dealing with something more than I was due. Also, my eyes didn’t sit very deep on account of my Mother’s Son trait; I was worried it might slip off.

Yet as soon as I brought the monocle up to my eye, it snapped into place. I shook my head back and forth, but it clung tightly to my skin and didn’t even get close to budging; in fact, I couldn’t even feel the coolness of the metal itself.

However, when I tried to remove it, it fell into my hand without any resistance. I accidentally brushed against the lens, owing to my unfamiliarity with eyewear, but that too failed to leave any marks.

...How much cutting-edge technology is loaded in this tiny thing?

“Come, we’re about to begin,” Lady Agrippina said. “Forget the details and put it on already.”

I did as she commanded and the madam began to rub her hands together—a mannerism I found particularly occidental—as if she were about to dig into a gourmet dish. She inserted the key with awesome gravity and opened the latch.

Its breathtaking presence was the same as always.

However, I wasn’t taken by the same revulsion as when I’d first laid eyes on it. I could see an evil something akin to black miasma or an infinite bundle of formless appendages wrap around the book. I saw things that I’d never seen before. Upon squinting, the wriggling worms around Lady Agrippina’s hands slowly gained definition: most of it was composed of magical formulae, but...was that scripture sandwiched in between?

“I see,” she hummed. “My hopes had been high, but this truly is the real deal. Even with great alterations to the text, even in a language unknown to the original...to think it would be this impressive.”

Encased in the oxymoron of holy magic, the madam’s fingers ran across the book’s cover. As she did, strands of her protective layer frayed and scattered. An equal or perhaps greater number of the same came to replace their lost comrades, but seeing my fears substantiated did little to ease my anxiety.

I knew this thing would curse me just by touching it. Locked up as it had been, I patted myself on the back for having lugged this thing back in my knapsack.

Although Lady Agrippina stood the tome upright to spare me from facing its text, pure dread began flooding out as soon as she cracked it open, leaving me little time to appreciate her consideration.

There was nothing behind me. I knew there wasn’t, but I could feel something creeping up. The tingling hallucination of that same something brushing against my skin caused me to grab myself in reflex, but all I felt were the goosebumps forming underneath my clothes.

Faint sounds tickled my senses—or perhaps they weren’t sounds at all. All at once, like a whispering voice and a swarm of buzzing insects, the slimy noise rushed through a packed crowd to crawl into my ear.

As the whispering encroached farther into my inner ear, they gained vigor, and with it, meaning. My mind began to curl around notions not meant to be thought...until a frightful, world-shattering howl shocked me back to reality. The shriek heralded ruin: it was like broken glass being rubbed together beside an oilless machine running itself into the ground. This violation of mind was accompanied by a short burst of will that I’d grown used to in the past few days.

Getting a hold of my thoughts, I realized that my hands were no longer cradling myself, but a sword: unhindered by any sheath, the black steel of the Craving Blade appeared in my arms.

It shouted messages laden with warnings and threats at the tome, whittling away at the miasma it had spilt. At once, Lady Agrippina took note of the new arrival of malicious energy and looked up from the text with a raised eyebrow.

“Huh,” she said.

That was it.

My employer immediately returned her attention to the book and sat quietly for some time. Her immersed gaze stared holes into the first page, but she herself didn’t move a muscle.

How long had this gone on? The steaming red tea had long since gone cold, and even the pot it had been poured from was devoid of warmth by the time she finished pondering the contents of the first page.

Satisfied with her understanding, Lady Agrippina slowly reached for her monocle. For the first time, I saw the light jade of her heterochromous eye unobstructed by anything. Behind glass, it had appeared like the leaves of a willow filtering a gentle sun; now I witnessed the true hue that crept below.

The green was not the product of an excess in pigment, but of some precipitate ceaselessly churning around and around in the rippling surface of her iris. A disturbingly alien glimmer squirmed in her eye as it made off with the meaning concealed in the words it read. Where I expected the gentle arc of an eyeball, I found a lake choked with algae, tides surging from the corrosive gasses shooting up from the muddy bed. Eventually, the sublime horror of watching her outstripped that which I felt from the tome itself, and I turned away.

“I’d done a bit of digging when I noticed that presence around you, and I knew you’d bring me something fascinating,” Lady Agrippina said. “Well, we shall save that for another time.”

She closed the book with a thump, followed by a creaking hinge and the click of a lock. Then I heard a quiet clack of metal, likely from reequipping her eyepiece. She ordered me to look up, and I did so to see her taking a drag from the pipe she ordinarily summoned.

The madam rested one arm on the couch’s armrest and wearily puffed a cloud of smoke. It seemed that the tome had been enough to drain even her.

“A compelling read, that one. I’ll need to make a legitimate effort to study the text... Anyhow, the preamble was—”

“I’m fine, thank you!” I thrust out my hands to cut her off both verbally and physically.

For whatever reason, Lady Agrippina was wide eyed with surprise. After another puff or two from her pipe, she quietly said, “And here I had thought you’d ask to know after it was all done.”

“I’ve learned when to fold my hand,” I said.

Sure, I’d brought countless tales of adventure to life in my time, but I’d walked in the shoes of just as many unarmed—not to say that arms would help—investigators snooping around foreign lands overrun with fear. I knew. Some things were meant to stay unknown. The perverse corners of my heart whispered to me that that knowledge would open new avenues of strength—that it would give me access to pages my current blessing wouldn’t even let me look at.

All my training as an investigator cried out with the hammer of experience in hand: get a grip! it shouted, driving nails into my unrestrained curiosity.

My cacodaemoniacal inner voice likely wasn’t wrong, but as was often the case with these sorts of systems, the tradeoff was sure to be greater than the reward. If nothing else, the mythical and magical in these tales had always made me stop and ask, “Do we really need this?”

I had Elisa, Margit, and now Mika counting on me; I couldn’t afford to lose this character sheet, for their sakes. I wasn’t about to let myself lose all that made me me on the inside while retaining this fleshy shell.

“Oh,” Lady Agrippina mumbled, “what a shame.”

I internally flipped her remorseless villainy the bird and used my finest manners to put in a request for a short leave.

[Tips] The sanity of those who achieve great things constantly comes under question, and perhaps nothing demonstrates this principle more than the various traits and skills that cannot be imagined—let alone acquired—without delving into madness.

This is a clear warning from the gods to their mortal subjects that they are better off without such knowledge.

Setting out on a journey is hard, but getting back is just as bad. Aside from unpacking, long trips come with laundry to clean—instantaneously with magic, but still—and a giant backlog of chores that accumulate while you’re away. Any souvenirs need to be distributed to those who treat you well in daily life, and letters of gratitude are in order for those who treated you well during the vacation.

In my case, my souvenirs didn’t amount to much. Being placed in between the imperial capital and the true North, the “local” foods of the region hadn’t been all that different from Berylinian cuisine. I’d brought back baked goods made from acorn flour, but any noble would think twice if offered food this shabby.

I handed my large bag of pastries to the Krahenschanze clerks I’d befriended, and they accepted my meager gift with smiles on their faces. Sitting here at the front desk meant they had to be of considerable stature, but they were bighearted folks who recognized that I’d strained my scant wallet in a show of thanks.

They didn’t voice a single complaint; in fact, they gave me a small bag of hard candies in return, blurring the lines as to why I’d showed up in the first place. Well, whatever, the inclination to spoil children was but a facet of adulthood.

Speaking of, my visit to Lady Leizniz’s to report my safe return added another tally on the chalkboard of memories I’d do my best to erase from memory and writing. If nothing else, I would never come to understand the values of a ghastly spirit passionately screaming, “Being able to tell that you’re cross-dressing at a glance is its own form of perfection!”

After a day of running around the capital, Elisa was finally beginning to calm down from the separation anxiety and shock of hearing that I’d been wounded. As I put her to bed, the first snow set in on the region, and with it came a summons from Lady Agrippina.

No matter the era and no matter the culture, unsavory talks were to begin only after the little ones were safe in the land of dreams.

“Now then...”

I returned from Elisa’s bedroom to find that my liege had changed out of her thin pajamas in the short time I’d been away and into a proper gown, complete with a monocle. However, the glassware adorning the greener eye was not the same as her usual eyepiece.

The madam’s standard monocle was unembellished, but this one had an intricate pattern—wait, were those letters?—of fine gold wire that gave off powerful waves of arcane energy.

On my first night back, something equally as ineffably fearsome as the cursed compendium had surfaced in her eye; as the keeper of that chromatic nightmare, I was sure the gold and glass had some sort of deeper meaning.

“Show me,” she commanded.

I didn’t need to waste time asking what she meant. For the umpteenth time since I’d returned, I let out a sad, tired sigh and said, “Come.”

My order spanned all of a single syllable, but the intent contained within was definite. Imbued with meaning, my voice soaked into the fabric of reality, completing the mission it had been entrusted with.

There was no dramatic production; like a coin knocked off the table subsequently clattering on the floor, the sword that had appeared in my hand had always been a mere inevitability. Despite its heft, the Craving Blade stuck to my being was sickeningly comfortable in the hand.

Just in case, I’d bet on one-in-a-million odds and had tried throwing it away a few times on the way home. Of course, it had shown back up beside me like a haunted doll every time. On top of that, last night it had popped up of its own volition and did the same when I uttered a single word; it was comical how unfunny the situation was.

“My... How grand. No bend in space-time, no distortion of matter, and it isn’t even physically parasitic, yet it responds to your voice all the same.”

Lady Agrippina showed no surprise at the Craving Blade’s manifestation. While there was no room to doubt her irredeemable character, seeing her leap straight to thinking aloud reminded me of her great academic genius. Rather, I supposed it was that same talent that had kept this laboratory—or more aptly, this lounge—untouched in the two decades she’d been gone.

“That was practically a miracle,” she said.

“A miracle?”

I wanted to point out that an unholy relic that pleaded at my pillowside for me to use it night in and night out didn’t deserve to be described in such splendid terms, but I knew that wasn’t what she meant. The madam was talking of miracles in the sense of those techniques listed in the Faith category—the sacred powers of gods.

Deities were keepers of the physical realm, responsible for revising and retouching the world. Tasked with the burden of preventing life and culture from backpedaling, they alone had the authority to skip stitches in the quilt of existence without breaking the rules. Despite having their own limitations and quarrels, none could refute that the sanctity of their strength was far out of our reach.

“...You’re telling me this abominable sword is using miracles?”

I couldn’t understand what she was trying to say. Perhaps she’d meant to say “curses” instead. Ow, hey, quit squeezing my brain with your complaints! Maybe it’s finally time to pick up a mental barrier...

“Yes, miracles. I sense no mystic discharge, no physical irregularities, and the world itself hasn’t bothered to punish it with the cost of breaking its rules. Leaping through space clearly defies common logic, so to avoid penalty for such feats is clear indication that the phenomenon is considered ‘natural’ in some way—thus, a miracle.”

The scum of the earth wore the cool expression of a real scientist as she explained. Her firm gaze and confident tone made it clear she was not toying with me as she so often did.

“Magic, no matter how expertly woven, is an affront to the natural order.”

She flicked her pointer finger up and a point of light emerged at the tip.

“A simple speck of illumination is hardly worthy of being dubbed magic, but even so, it is the product of forcefully bending the universe to my will. There are unavoidable points of incongruence, and there will remain evidence of my tampering once finished.”

The orb leapt forth, drawing a gentle arc with its trail. Suddenly, it stopped, and just as I thought it would turn around, it shot upward and exploded. Once it was gone, it left behind a spiky bubble like one might see in a comic book; clearly, Lady Agrippina had exaggerated its aftereffects to make her point.

Magecraft as a whole was the process of invoking articles from the lawbook of reality and reshaping them to suit one’s needs. Long ago, when she’d pushed me into taking my first sorcerous steps, this master of mine had likened it to skipping a stitch in the large, intricate work of knitting we lived in.

How ingenious a metaphor that had been.

As the crochet hook pierces the surface, the uneven spacing warps its neighboring thread, and the unoccupied space left behind will remain to catch a discerning eye. No matter how carefully a mage composes their spells, evidence of their work is sure to remain.

“With meticulous diligence our traceable prints may approach invisibility. Alas, to cross that bound is a futile hope, and even this pitiful example no better than a piece of flint will create a trail in its wake. Consider a glass of salt water: you may dilute its flavor to be undetectable, but that does nothing to remove the solute in any real sense.”

Apparently, the open seams caused by our meddling were impossible to cover up with more arcane trickery. It was much the same as how wiping down a foggy window with a dry cloth did little to clear all the droplets, and any attempt would simply leave more marks of where the cloth had been used.

No matter how neatly the strokes had been made, a gentle breath revealed all the marks on the glass. In the same vein, hiding evidence of magic with more magic was a difficult, fruitless task.

“On the other hand, miracles are corrections to the current state of things. The gods are allotted short windows in which to edit the original blueprints of reality, such that their desired outcomes are and have always been.”

While miracles also effectively bent reality to someone’s will, the heavens could reknit the chunk of space-time over which they presided from scratch to blend into the overall artistry. When the divine chose to engage in needlework, they had no need for dyes to change the color, nor shears to change the shape.

“This is one of the fundamental demarcations we magia use to discriminate between magic and miracle. Otherwise, I’m sure the unheavenly races would have simply classified the gods as users of some advanced form of magic, unworthy of being venerated as superior beings.”

Breezing by the fact that her seemingly respectful statement would likely drive clergymen to pull up their sleeves in preparation for a crusade, Lady Agrippina pointed her outstretched finger at the Craving Blade.

“In summary, that sword is using miracles by the strictest definition of the word.”

“I see...”

“Otherwise, I can only discern that it is immeasurably old...and that it likely lacks the capacity to feed on your soul or sanity or what-have-you.”

You’re a liar! I was on the cusp of shouting back at her, but the green twinkle gazing my way had a mysterious persuasiveness to it. I only realized this now that I could see mana a bit more clearly, but there was something unnerving about her left eye...

Still, I couldn’t rid myself of the instinctive disbelief in the back of my mind and ended up staring at the Craving Blade. Its fuligin sheen refused all the light flooding into the atelier, and the sight of it alone was enough to breed doubt in the words of a first-rate methuselah researcher.

Suddenly, I heard the sound of shifting cloth as Lady Agrippina reached for the handle. Her pointer finger barely brushed against it, and...

“That, and...I see that it is as loyal as I suspected.”

A small font of blood gushed. That tiny bit of contact had made her finger explode, stripping away enough flesh to expose the bone beneath.

“Wha— Hey?!”

“Ouch... My, it’s been some time since I last drew blood. Tearing through all my repellant fields—seriously, what’s wrong with this thing?”

Despite the severity of her injury, Lady Agrippina was sucking on her finger, making no more fuss than someone dealing with a hangnail.

No way in hell is that enough to heal you! Also, you sounded like you had a hunch this was going to happen, so why in the gods’ name did you try it?!

“What?” she asked. “Experimentation is important. Besides, I wouldn’t want to bottle up my curiosity and let it cloud my mind later on.”

I felt like I finally grasped why the methuselah population was so small relative to their capabilities. I definitely recognized the trope of a group who valued their inquisitive nature over life itself. Their fertility rates were low too, so it was no wonder they couldn’t multiply when all their brightest minds were busy doing stuff like this.

“Anyhow,” the madam went on, “it seems convenient, so why not take advantage of it? You won’t have to lug it around, and you can exploit its recall properties to use it as an infinite projectile.”

“Actually, madam,” I said, “I experimented with the same idea, but the blade complained. Said that was no way to use a sword.”

“What? How obnoxious.”

For once, I had to agree with her.

Lady Agrippina pulled her finger out of her mouth, and the bleeding had already stopped. That said, I was caught a bit off guard: I’d thought it would have been completely healed by the time she was done.

“I can more or less tell what you’re thinking, but I’m not as well versed in bodily magicks as you might think. Ah, but I did spend a spell delving into neurological magecraft when I had little else to do.”

The baffling thought process needed to fiddle with the mind out of boredom really highlighted how aloof never-ending life-forms could be. Knowing the brain to be the control tower of thought and applying external stimuli to see the reactions like there was no other logical progression was something I would be out of my depth to comment on.

“Come to think of it,” she added, “couldn’t you inflict awful injuries if you tricked your enemies into taking this sword in hand? Perhaps it is as outstanding a trap as it is a weapon.”

If it was already throwing fits about being thrown, I couldn’t help but have a sinking feeling about what would happen to me if I tried something like that.

Loyalty may have made for a better blade, but I would need to test the limits of its devotion at some point. If I ever lost grip of it in the heat of battle, I wouldn’t want an ally to have their hands detonate because they were trying to do me a solid; there was only so much one could laugh off over a pint at the pub.

That said, if it had pierced the madam’s defensive means—what amounted to the world’s most overkill rubber gloves—then the Craving Blade might have had some kind of power to dispel magic. If it could repel or disperse spells that targeted it, then I could rely on it to shield me as a last resort.

Er, wait. Looking back, it hadn’t been able to nullify Mika’s final tactic of converting spiderwebs into wires. Relying on it so wholly probably wasn’t a good idea.

The difficulty of setting up proper tests was part of what made cursed items such a hassle to deal with. It whined for me to carry it with me wherever I went, but carrying the damned thing presented risk in and of itself. Plus, if it really did employ miracles, handing it over to a church was going to do nothing to impede it.

“Mm, this hurts more than I anticipated. I’m off to the iatrurge’s, so you’re free for the night.”

Lady Agrippina had been staring down her wound and had toughed it out for a while, but at last she grew weary of it and got up to leave the atelier. She walked out on her own two legs, making it clear that she wasn’t bluffing about the pain; complex magic like teleportation was easy to bungle if one wasn’t superbly focused.

Evidently, that monster in a human frame wasn’t totally invincible. Her relatively inadequate defenses were the silver lining in a hopeless situation.

You may question why I immediately began analyzing her strengths under the assumption of combat, but I had archived her in my mind as an enemy as opposed to a connection ages ago. I hadn’t forgotten my original oath to make this villain cry uncle; so far I’d made few promises more grave.

I propped up the Craving Blade against the couch and stretched out on it without reserve—the boss lady wasn’t here, after all. Her taste for luxury lived up to my expectations, and the pillowy cushioning was softer than my own bedding back home. Mm, so bourgeois...

The madam’s introduction of yet another difficult decision wove more chaotic knots into the tangled skein of my future. I’d received my blessing to do as I willed, but the diverging stairways leading up to my goals turned choosing a path into a serious challenge—a struggle stemming from privilege to be sure, but rejecting all but one future was arduous.

“Not to mention I have this to worry about...”

I activated my blessing and opened up my skill tree. No matter how user-friendly the interface was, the labyrinthine web was too elaborate to navigate in battle; I hadn’t found the time to explore when we’d been deep inside the ichor maze.

I glanced at my stock of experience points. This too only added fuel to my burning befuddlement.

While not quite outstripping whatever first blood bonus had accompanied my first major quest, I had earned nearly as much as I had at the daemonic mansion.

This didn’t surprise me: I’d plowed through encounter after encounter, culminating in a major boss fight to clear out a proper dungeon. I’d expected as much for my accomplishments, and my inflated treasury was enough to draft up more than a few dubiously balanced ideas.

Unfortunately...I couldn’t make any decision lightly with the road ahead so uncertain.

For example, if I were to change course to become a magus, I would need more than a few scholarly skills to get by. Curiously, I didn’t need to explicitly invest in skills to feel comfortable with things I’d been familiar with in my past life, but the rigorous study of wizardry wasn’t quite the same as the bachelor’s in liberal arts I’d finished at a middling university.

Hiking up my proficiency in the palatial tongue would be a given, and the specialized field would necessitate even more add-ons as expensive as they were niche. Fixing my lowborn accent to not offend social superiors was a must, and I’d need to be able to pen cryptograms like the one Sir Feige had written at a moment’s notice.

The cost of acquiring both sides of literary ability would pile up quickly, and I doubted I’d be able to resist the urge to pick up extras like Intuitive Reading or Speed Reading. Rough estimates for the basics put my total at over half my current reserve.

You may wonder what the big deal was over a bunch of dumb letters, but writing was and had been akin to magic—it had been a privilege of the haves since time immemorial. The nobility of Earth had enjoyed power specifically because of their literacy, and the monks endowed with the gift of writing were the freest to interpret their sacrosanct texts.

Words on paper allowed one to skip rungs on the social ladder; something so impactful had to have a complementary price. Rather, the systems wherein guns and maces ruled the land had offered written language at too much of a bargain.

Furthermore, I’d want a better Memory to make my studies and social endeavors smoother, and a higher Mana Capacity was a requirement for both experiments and practical demonstrations.

But with that said...it was pretty cheap, all things considered. Normal people had to spend years of their lives to amass these kinds of skills and traits. I could do the same at the press of a button; that was markedly unfair, even if I did have to risk my life to do so. Seeing countless sleepless nights of study boiled down to the same value as a few seconds of life-or-death combat really put into perspective how callous the world was.

I’d felt this gut-wrenching feeling before, but where? Oh, of course: this was the same emotion that arose when one came home with an annual bonus only to be met with end-of-year expenses like health insurance waiting a little ways ahead—the same as looking at a juicy balance in one’s bank account knowing that none of it was free to actually use.

Argh, this is so frustrating! I could feel my intestines tying themselves into a knot. I couldn’t deny being at least somewhat enamored by the idea of being a magus. I mean, I’d be a magus for crying out loud! I wouldn’t be some nobody chanting spells, but a recognized scholar! There wasn’t a person alive who didn’t want to hear the words, “Excuse me, Professor.”

Uh...maybe that was a bit off the mark, but whatever.

Regardless, I had amassed enough to bring one of Dexterity or Hybrid Sword Arts to Scale IX and have a bit of pocket change left over. Part of the goal I’d set for myself when planning out my final build was now within reach, and the ambition that realization sparked was difficult to contain. I know I’d talked about recognizing the limits of a lone blade, but my long commitment to the craft had left me fixated on the idea.

Crap. As soon as I began thinking about swords, the troublemaker at my feet started spewing toxic waves, begging to be used. No one said anything about swinging you around this very instant. Besides, my add-ons are all for one-handed swords, so I’m really not equipped to handle a zweihander.

As I shook the thoughts out of my brain, my earring jingled. The crisp, dainty chime evoked the same feeling as a certain someone’s whispers; with it came a phantom scent that tickled my nostalgic sentiment. A familiar tingle lapped at my tailbone, slowly traveling up my spine to caress my brain.

“Yeah...I know.”

I had left my hometown behind with a promise that I would end my servitude within five years, all to play out the role of a cool brother protecting his baby sister. My initial impetus was all the purpose I needed. Besides, the burning passion for the adventures I’d spent a lifetime drowning in had yet to flicker away in this new world. Not even the most painful, agonizing moments of facing my own end could curb my yearning for more.

I had thrown myself into the jaws of death to save Elisa from kidnappers, fended off a daemonic surprise attack while I was resting, and walked on a knife’s edge to take down the powerful ogre in the dilapidated manor. I had shouldered a duty to carry Helga’s memory in the deepest corners of my heart; I had fought tooth and nail to drag myself out of an ichor maze with a sworn friend by my side. Every single episode had been traumatic in its own right, and I’d internally vowed to renounce mortal combat forever after each.

Yet my mind wandered to when I’d rescued Charlotte and won a fey knife that shone brightest when I was at my most desperate; to her last remnant which twinkled back at me to this day; to how Mika and I had cheered when we’d heard the bounty for the bandits we’d rounded up. The moment of fulfillment as I felled an insurmountable foe to conquer an ichor maze was blindingly bright in my memory. Every single one of these cherished events had come with unparalleled joy.

The emotion was the same as, and yet altogether different from, the pen-and-paper adventures I’d shared with my dear colleagues a world away. This new-made joy reeked of blood and iron, but it was just as unforgettable as what we had shared through scribbled notes, clattering dice, and fits of hysterical laughter.

I wasn’t wishing for something as moronic as cheap thrills, nor was I stupid enough to deny the value in a quiet life. My parents now and my parents then had taught me how precious a thing peaceful days could be.

“But...I just can’t give up on it.”

When all was said and done, my adventures had been fun—even if death grazed the bridge of my nose, even if despair nipped at my ankles on my path through hell. I’d only done this twice, and both times had been short enough to fit in a single session, but as idiotic as it was, I looked back on those experiences with deep adoration.

Sharing supper at a happy dinner table, hooting and hollering at a bar, and leaning against another’s shoulder for a muted chat were all occasions to treasure; yet the heat of quixotic life had already permeated my being. It was incredible how excited I became after the fact when, while searching for an exit to the ichor maze, I’d cussed out the brain-dead GM for their godsawful balance, swearing to never engage with their work again.

At first, this longing felt like something I’d left behind somewhere in the deep past, but it sat so very right in my soul. Like a weight dropping straight into my heart, I caught the feeling and accepted it without resistance. Chewing on it, I found it to contain the same flavor as the walk to the train station after a completed session, full of friendly chatter.

It’s over, but there’s always next time; there’ll be a next time because it’s over.

I think I was just a fool, fated to spend the rest of my life griping about life-threatening perils and fondly reminiscing as soon as the danger had passed. I knew that the felt-lined table of adventure required a steep buy-in: I was betting my own life. But even then, I knew I’d push all my chips to the center as soon as the next session began.

“Hah,” I chuckled in realization. “I’m the same as them.”

Sixty flat drachmae wasn’t enough to retire for life, but anyone else would have taken it to improve their quality of life and treat themselves to a small splurge. Yet here I was, with my sister’s future and my own wanderlust the only things on my mind—it was plain as day that I wasn’t in a position to be judging Lady Agrippina or Lady Leizniz.

And in that case, I would see this through to the end.

Besides, if I really ended up wanting the prestige, I could always come back after I was done having fun. Lady Leizniz had once grumbled about the geezers she had to teach, so the College probably didn’t have an age limit.

There was only one thing left to do. I peered into the sheets of data and dove into my own world.

“I wonder what I should take next...”

[Tips] Traits applied via this blessing cannot trigger major changes in the user’s personality.