Min-Maxing My TRPG Build in Another World - Volume 4 - Chapter SS2

Permanence and Peppermint

Cut, arrange, and bite. Take care to produce no noise, to not let the tiniest morsel of food stick out, nor to allow your cheeks to puff—the act of eating is an exercise in restraint. Chew silently and swallow much the same, finishing off with an elegant smile.

How much meaning did these dispassionate actions carry to a woman who would not die in the face of hunger and thirst? Apathy swelled beneath Agrippina du Stahl’s dainty smile; such were the wandering thoughts of a detached methuselah after one hundred and fifty years of life.

Interpersonal relationships were a must in society, no matter how tiresome Agrippina found them. Every so often, she found herself sharing a meal with one of her contacts at the College or a noble who had ties to her parents back home. It all tied back to eliminating further bothers: she may have been a lazy homebody of the highest degree, but she had wherewithal enough to make small efforts against future trouble. When the situation arose, she was willing to partake in a meal at an acquaintance’s residence or play the part of a good pen pal.

Agrippina’s usual diligence made the blunder from twenty years prior all the more painful. She had thought her preparations flawless from how she’d managed to keep the librarians at bay while burrowing in their vault of books, but hadn’t been able to predict an outburst of raw fury from the dean of her own cadre. If she had, she wouldn’t have been exiled to two decades of time that even she considered unproductive.

“Mm,” she said. “This is scrumptious, Count Witt. Your specially reared beef is preceded by its immaculate reputation, and yet I am surprised by how wonderful it tastes every time I visit.”

“Receiving such high praise from someone of your caliber may mean the flattery of the rabble has some substance yet, Lady Stahl. Perhaps I shall package some meat for your father back home to sample.”

“I am sure he would be delighted.”

The methuselah’s countless strands of thought divided up the burden of her ill will, and one in particular effortlessly produced political niceties devoid of any true affection. The man before her was but a weapon: one of her benefactors with ties to the Kingdom of Seine. Keeping his loyalties to the Kingdom strong was part of serving her own interests.

Still, she found this whole affair curious. She had grown tired of the stimulation running across her tongue within a decade of coming of age, and hadn’t given the realm of flavor much thought ever since. Hers was a fountain of life that never dried, but this was proof enough that epicurean taste and full stomachs could not provide eternal delight so long as she remained within the realm of the conscious.

Agrippina couldn’t comprehend why this man went to such lengths for his cows: he prepared specialized diets and spent all hours of the day planning around them, not to mention his constant use of a mountain of grain large enough to sustain several farming families and then some. All his work only amounted to beef that tasted better than other beef.

While she would not deny that the gustatory reactions of her taste buds were sending signals of rich flavor to her brain, the cognitive effect produced only impacted one of her many parallel psyches. Compared to that of lesser races, her ego was a leviathan unknowable—too gargantuan for something so simple to sate.

That said, some of her own kind found the act of eating amusing enough that they constricted all of their thoughts into a single strand to immerse themselves in the realm of taste; truly, the world was vast. Whatever the case may be elsewhere, Agrippina successfully gave her lip service and safely completed her mission. With her tedious yet important chores done, she left the manor behind her.

“Welcome back, madam. Shall we head straight home?”

“Yes, let us be off.”

The sun had long since set and the moon hung high in the stars. A familiar carriage and manservant dressed in proper butler’s attire awaited her just outside the mansion’s front gate. The brother of Agrippina’s ticket back to Berylin showed no signs of weariness at his long wait for her.

Thinking back, their meeting was also a rather peculiar thing. The methuselah had traveled with a caravan to some remote village for their business, only to stumble across a changeling who came with a brother who seemed legitimately useful. What were the odds of that?

Subordinates that could be trusted to perform their duties to a tee were few and far between. Although her family only had the lowly rank of a barony, they were so immensely wealthy that their influence rivaled the royal crown; naturally, all of their help were the cream of the crop. She had come to scarcely rely on anyone after mastering the mystic arts, but the presence of a reliable retainer was always a convenience.

“...If I may be so forward, madam.”

“Hm? What is it?”

After returning to her atelier and having the boy fetch a comfortable set of nightwear, Agrippina had been ready to crawl into her beloved hammock. Just then, her servant came up to her with a small stick in his hand.

He was holding out a lollipop; the young Erich from Konigstuhl had a fittingly inexpensive piece of candy in hand. Although it would sell highly abroad, the sugar produced in the Empire’s satellite states made such treats a common sight among even the poorest children who had any concept of fiscal planning.

It was a standard snack: melted sugar had been combined with vinegar or some other flavoring and then hardened around a stick. The magus knew not why the boy had offered it, but she had no particular reason to refuse, and stuck it into her mouth.

Agrippina’s eyes went wide. The cheap peppermint-infused lollipop was so delicious that she couldn’t help but devote a handful of her consciousnesses to it. The fruit sorbet that she’d eaten for dessert had still not been enough to wash away the heavy aftertaste of her supper, and the lingering oils made the refreshing mint all the more pleasing. Not even the brilliant methuselah could have predicted something worth pennies at most would be the first food to truly strike her fancy in decades.

“Dinner seemed to have left a bad taste in your mouth,” the boy explained.

He went on to elaborate that he had bought it only because Elisa had wanted them to match earlier in the day; from his nonchalance, Agrippina surmised that this flavor was considered a bog-standard palate cleanser. And, since it was so common, her servant had offered it to her after picking up on the minute signs of displeasure that seeped through her aristocratic poker face.

New discoveries come at every age, I suppose. Agrippina’s expression did not change as she pulled the candy out of her mouth and said, “I see. Thank you.”

The cheap flavor of mint and the jagged edges forming in her mouth heralded the end. If she rolled her tongue around it a few more times, it would shrink again, and eventually disappear...

Just like the hurried lives of mortals.

They, too, remained by her side for a short while—lifetimes that amounted to momentary stimulation. By and large, they were as forgettable as the meal she’d partaken in tonight; but now and again, they produced waves that would ripple on as pleasant echoes in her memory.

As Agrippina watched her servant clean up the busywork that followed an outing, she toyed with the lollipop in her mouth, savoring it to the last.

[Tips] Starving cannot directly cause death for a methuselah.