Min-Maxing My TRPG Build in Another World - Volume 7 - Chapter 6

Climax

Climax

Just because it is always in reach does not mean the sword must be swung, the wand must be waved, or the bomb must be detonated. There exists a time and place in TRPGs where situations can be resolved with negotiations of a more verbal bent. In the wide world of role-playing games, some systems are entirely built around a foundation of bootlicking.

But player beware: if the GM who art in heaven deems a peaceful solution too boring, then the penalty may be withheld experience when all is said and done.

Funny how I’ve been a servant, but I don’t know if I’d call any job I’ve ever done before now in either life “part of the service industry,” given how commonplace it is to make a living that way, I thought while sweeping the floors.

Memories floated to the surface of one’s attention at the most unpredictable times: today, the realization came as we closed up the Snoozing Kitten after the evening rush. I’d always thought that service jobs looked tough, even from the customer’s perspective; maybe I’d unconsciously been avoiding them all this time.

The realization was followed by another: this routine of peeling veggies, taking orders, reporting to the missus or her husband, and clearing tables was part of a massive shared tradition. That I hadn’t ever participated in something so commonplace left me with a funny feeling.

I might have “served” Lady Agrippina, but that had been a very different experience. All I’d done then was prepare tables according to codes of etiquette—certainly not the same as waiting them. Plus, the only person I’d been serving was my employer, making it a stretch to call it customer-facing.

More fundamentally, servants were invisible in high society. Serious blunders aside, the idea of a steward trying to please a guest was silly: that was the host’s job. We menials might have waited upon a visitor’s every need, but that was a process that did not ask us to consciously think. At most, we were to dispose of shattered dinnerware so as not to sour the mood, or whisper into a genteel ear if there was news to be shared; any more would be uninvited advice. Good manners dictated that a retainer’s duty was to be as air.

Oh how different a regular tavern was.

Keeping a cheery grin was the bare minimum expected of me as I guided new customers through our house specialties and memorized our regulars’ favorite items. The work was simple, sure, but boy was it tough. I found it incredibly funny that this epiphany had only just now set in after a full season of work.

Nearly twenty days had passed since I’d cut down the stone lantern like a knotted chain to forcibly untangle the Heilbronn visit.

In the end, we hadn’t been able to meet with the boss of the Familie, Stefano Heilbronn—though not because my flashy move hadn’t been enough to rerail the conversation. Rather, he’d been out visiting his subordinates on a morale-boosting tour. I could only assume Manfred had elected not to say that to begin with because protesting a slight on his friend was more important to him than relaying information.

Figuring that it wouldn’t be worth waiting for someone who wasn’t slated to return anytime soon—that we hadn’t forced them to recall him was likely an act of Baldur concession—we’d decided to dissolve for the day.

Lessons about making plans ahead of time aside, messengers had subsequently been passed back and forth to keep my feat of swordsmanship from being forgotten in vain. Evidently, my valiant effort had been enough to draw the Heilbronn leader’s interest: he’d gone from not wanting to meet to arranging a conference himself.

What was even better, this wasn’t a one-on-one where he could flip the script after the fact; he’d gone to the trouble of organizing everyone involved. That was to say, of course, everyone but the prime suspects: the Exilrat.

Yet the Familie’s ears were sharp, and it seemed news of my connection to Clan Laurentius and the fabled “Saint Fidelio” had reached them. Not wanting to get sloppy around players as big as them, the meeting had been postponed until the ogre’s clan returned from their outing.

I hadn’t been too keen on letting the mob boss call all the shots at first, but on second thought, I felt like it would be best to involve as many people as possible if I was to confront two major faction leaders. It was also proof that they’d already mentally filed me away under “Dangerous—Do Not Touch.” Including someone I was on relatively friendly terms with would keep me from letting loose with the most tried-and-true solution.

As it turned out, both taking down a talented mage without leaving an opportunity to counter and pulling the stunt to silence the bickering at the Heilbronn gate had made my threat level weigh heavy on the two clan masters’ minds.

All that remained was for the Exilrat to take the hint, and I would be free to enjoy my beginner adventures in peace.

“Kid.”

I was wiping down the floors with a hum when my ears perked up to a voice akin to meowing. Yet with my newly acquired skill in bubastisian, it registered as the low, gruff tones of the inn’s old master, who’d come out in his apron with a strung bird still in hand. I’d seen Margit cleanly pluck and gut the fowl not too long ago when I’d popped into the back; it was probably going into the pot to become tomorrow’s main course.

“Yes, sir? Do you need something?”

Not only was Mister Adham an immigrant, but he was the old-fashioned sort: his Rhinian wasn’t very good. Anything he said outside his native tongue—an ethnic language spoken in the Southern Continent—invariably came out blocky. I’d decided dipping into my experience stock for a skill to understand him was worth it, just to not struggle in everyday conversation.

The missus had helped teach me, but brute-forcing my mensch ears and vocal cords to adapt to the feline language had been a serious struggle. Even now that I could communicate, it felt bizarre to speak in a way that sounded like I was trying to get in the good graces of a roadside cat.

Speaking of which, I’d been disappointed to learn that learning bubastisian did not give me the ability to converse with real cats—though that seemed fair given the theories that cats only meowed at us because humans lacked the means to communicate via scent or posture.

Regardless, I didn’t regret my decision: Marsheim was home to a sizable population of bubastisian immigrants, and having to ask the missus to interpret every time her father needed something from me would’ve been too inconvenient anyway.

Let me clarify that I hadn’t done this just to wow people into thinking I was cultured for being able to talk to all sorts of people in their native tongue. That was absolutely, positively not it.

“We’re missing some stuff. The last shipment had damage. Go to the night market and buy more.”

The man tossed me a small pouch without warning. I could feel a few coins and a memo inside: opening it up, I was met with a shopping list of a handful of herbs, all vital for the Sleeping Kitten’s signature taste. The supplier must have gotten lazy; whoever it was, they were in for a proper hissing out tomorrow.

Oh, come to think of it, the courier this morning had been the new guy. He’d only recently gotten used to his post, and that had evidently gone to his head: I’d already heard Mister Adham grumble something about how he’d need to straighten the boy out.

“Understood,” I said. “I’ll be back in an hour.”

Berylin had been a multicultural city, but the high immigration rate on the frontier had left Marsheim far more diverse. I ran into peoples I’d never even heard of on a weekly basis, and that meant the nightlife had developed to the point of whole markets not opening until the sun was down.

Vampires and other groups that shared their weakness to the sun were a prime demographic, and hardworking merchants were there to meet their demand. Though the day and night shifts didn’t quite add up to twenty-four-hour service, it was nice to be able to get almost anything at almost any time of day.

I wiped my hands with the rag hanging off my apron and put up my cleaning supplies before heading out. The streets were worn, but the bit in front of the inn remained spotless. I stepped into the darkness and took in a delightful breath of the summer night.

Soon, the Empire’s pleasantly dry summer would come to a close. Back in Japan, I would have found myself on a park bench with a cigarette and a can of coffee at this time of year, listening to the chirping bugs herald a new season.

The main chirping insect in Rhine was the cricket, which was active in the summertime: here, autumn felt near when their chorus ended. I’d heard that the nobility customarily enjoyed their cries, with silver pieces being tossed about for particularly sonorous specimens, but it needed no clarification that Lady Agrippina hadn’t been interested enough to make me raise the critters.

In hindsight, she hadn’t been much for entertainment. Although she was picky with her choice of pipe stuffing, neither music nor cuisine could sway her; at most, she had a passing interest in wines. Her attention for all things not literature was so borderline nonexistent that the only occasions I’d ever been sent off on her hobbyist errands were the occasional times when she’d caught wind of a rare tome. Perhaps she hadn’t been as tedious a master to serve as I’d thought.

At the Association the other day, I’d caught a glimpse of a quest for an unwilted specimen of a flower I’d never even heard of, apparently only found at the peak of a specific mountain—all just to go in a garden, mind you. There had been another asking for some foreign bird because its songs were “suitable for a refined palate.” This was why the rich needed eating...

Hey, wait. I needed to put my internal evaluations back in their place: the occasional book hunts had been way too difficult to compare. I couldn’t let myself forget the Compendium of Forgotten Divine Rites incident—certainly the psychosorcerous trauma of it all wasn’t going to forget about me.

I supposed it didn’t matter either way...because I didn’t have much time to spend thinking about luxuries nowadays. Done with my shopping, I’d used the spare change on some snacks for me and Margit and ducked into an alley for a shortcut home—when a bad feeling zipped across my neck.

How many times does this make since moving? I’m getting awfully tired of this routine.

Tropes mandated that sleuthing and bargaining were ever to be followed by minor encounters for a change of pace, but it sure did feel like the GM was running out of material. I almost felt as though I’d made connections in such unexpectedly high places that fate was trying to shoehorn more conflict in, as if to make up for my dodging an all-out climactic battle. I knew that was just my TRPG-addicted brain seeing patterns in clouds, but I couldn’t help but tire of the routine.

They say the world is simpler than it seems, that everyone goes along without that much thought—but even so, couldn’t they at least entertain me with a twist?

Reacting to the ill intent at my back, my Lightning Reflexes naturally kicked into gear as I ducked my neck down in slow motion.

Out of the corner of my eye, I could see a cord snap taut right above me. Steel wire was a classic tool of the trade; it hadn’t suited my style, but I knew many noble domestics liked it as a quiet way of cleaning up.

I bounced back up before the sound of the snapping line could finish ringing, sending a full-throttle headbutt right into the figure behind me. The trick was to straighten my neck so that the length of my spine could be a straight ram for the springs that were my legs; I’d hit harder than by swinging my forehead, and got to aim right for the jaw to boot. Sir Lambert had taught me that headbutting someone’s face was a good way to get cut up by flying teeth.

The blow was a sensory swirl: forceful feedback, lukewarm blood, and an ear-grating scream. In this dilated instant, I could even make out individual teeth as they flew through the air...and one of the pearly fragments was suspiciously long.

As soon as realization struck, I grabbed the fey karambit with an Unseen Hand and slipped it into my real one. Immediately, I slashed into the neck I’d left open with my upward strike.

“Ack?!”

I’d cut away from me to avoid the subsequent spurt, but the droplet on my finger told me my technique was still far from perfect. Yet it also told me something else: the blood was cold. Cold blood was pumped only by historical inertia—the remnant of a curse on those who knew warmth only in the nectar of others’ blood.

A vampire? Another rarity.

The light remained in the assassin’s eyes even as he stumbled over with a hand on his neck. But with another presence on the rooftop above, I had to reach for the closest shield I could.

“Glub...”

“Whoa?!”

Their clothes flapping in the wind as they pounced, they weren’t even worth comparing to my arachne companion; yet the claws that swiped down did, in fact, manage to split straight through bone.

Not mine, of course. Not only had the poor fellow failed to catch me off guard, but he’d gotten his neck sliced and used as a human shield too.

Ew, gross, I thought as I dodged his splattering brain matter. Before the second assassin could withdraw their hand, I kicked the first one’s back to pin the pair against the opposite wall; as I did, I grabbed the blubbering man’s sword and pulled it out of its sheath.

Huh. Another vampire. Yet vampiric as they were, their regeneration was sluggish. They weren’t just recently turned, but thralls whose masters had been stingy with their blood. Unable to source their own nectar, these men were mere hoodlums.

While it seemed like vampires could multiply endlessly at first glance, the creation of powerful children weakened the parent proportionally. An imperfect touch in the balancing process could leave their fledgling kin with blood thinner than watered-down beer.

I’d once read historical accounts citing how the first Erstreich’s vassals—famed for having brought down citadels alone in the Empire’s foundational years—had been offered vampirism as a reward for their service. That was to say, felling an entire castle was about what one had to do in order to receive the gift of undeath. These two-bits were the exception to the rule, turned by someone whom any good imperial citizen could only describe as a bloodsucker.

Still, they had attained strength and agility far beyond that of most humanfolk for their troubles, not to mention mostly impervious immortality. I supposed there would always be someone out there willing to sign up for mass-produced power, as half-assed as it was.

But as was plain to see, an unremarkable vampire lost motor function at the mere cut of a neck or crumpled up in pain just from having slammed into a wall. They were nothing more than third-rate goods.

It would be an insult to even compare them to the masked nobleman I’d once squared off with. If I’d severed the neck whole, sure—but just a cut? I expected any self-respecting undead to mount a counterattack posthaste.

Not that I’m complaining, though.

They wouldn’t die no matter how badly I roughed them up: could there be anything more convenient?

“Auuugh?!”

“Glub... Blub...”

Since they were already lined up so beautifully, I used my stolen sword to skewer them both against the wall. I paid no heed to the chipping steel—though I did feel sorry for the owner of the building I was defacing—as I ground the blade as deep as I could. This wouldn’t kill, after all; it just hurt.

Better still, the fact that they couldn’t die presented the perfect opportunity to have them sing me a little tune. Most people would already be gone by this point: internal damage was pretty much a death sentence without iatrurgy or miracles. In a world where an open wound ordinarily led to fatal infection, these fellows represented the easiest captives I could ever take.

Honestly, it almost felt like mortality was the easy way out. Even a superspecimen like the masked noble must have been in pain while he trucked through the damage, and that level of endurance could only be built up by suffering through hell and back. Mentally speaking, that sounded worse than any trauma that could come with death.

“Thank you for your patronage,” I said. “But I must say, you were awfully conspicuous. What had you in such a rush?”

I recognized the men’s faces. They’d belonged to a group of three who’d dropped by the Snoozing Kitten in the evening, sipping on booze with their dinners. Margit had been in charge of their table, so I hadn’t gotten a chance to notice they were vampires, but I distinctly remembered that they’d sat in silence without the faintest hint of small talk.

I guess she was right. My pursuers hadn’t dared attack in the saint’s inn. Yet I’d been right to stay on my toes, as their fear of retribution had dissipated the second I’d left the front door.

To rewind a bit, I’d planned on moving us out so as not to bring our troubles to the Snoozing Kitten. The missus had caught on to the scent of brewing trouble, though, and forced us to stay: “Don’t be a stranger,” she’d said. “No fool would be caught dead causing a scene here.”

I had to offer my thanks to the God of Cycles for blessing me with gracious connections. Thanks to the missus’s offer, I was well rested and had an easy way of streamlining any avenues of enemy attack.

...Oh, I almost forgot. Party of three.

“There you are.”

“Wha— Wait, whoooaaa?!”

Sensing a hidden presence was more Margit’s specialty than mine, so I resorted to groping around in the dark with a swarm of Unseen Hands. The great thing about tactile feedback was that it shored up magic’s traditional weakness by allowing me to focus on things outside my line of sight. Waving my Hands around until I felt something was a convenient makeshift radar.

The Hand I’d sent to scour the rooftops had snagged on someone, so I yanked them off...and a thin woman wrapped in a cloak came barreling down from above.

Figuring that the pattern might repeat, I let her fall unimpeded. As expected, she contorted into a funny little acrobatic pose but retained her grip on life. While I would have caught Miss Celia any day of the week, that mercy was off the table for a crew of vampires after my head—especially when I was already tired of dealing with the back-alley muggings.

“That makes three mouths ready to talk, but...”

I had a slight inconvenience. I could clean up the alleyway with magic, but how the hell was I going to drag back three bloody bodies without getting the guards on my tail?

[Tips] Vampires are famously resistant to death, but at times, mere decapitation is enough to end the lowest of thralls.

“Again, they make a mockery of themselves.”

Crunch. Unable to bear the violence of the fingers around it, a cup crumpled; those nearby drew one step back in fear. I couldn’t blame them. A solid vessel of metal had just been crushed in pure fury—the thought of what would’ve happened if one’s skull had been there instead was enough to make anyone balk.

“They never change—not since the day I first came to Marsheim. Those scheming rats...”

However, the display of rage before me filled me with more joy than anything else: here was a person enraged for my sake. Nothing could be harder to come by, save only for a friend to entrust one’s life to.

“They must think they’re clever. But they know nothing: nothing of valor, and nothing of violence. They don’t even know that schemes can only be drafted after the balance of power has been scaled and weighed.”

To liken the woman’s grip to that of a vise would be a disservice to her awesome strength. The crushed cup twisted farther in her hand, and the spilling liquor mixed with blue blood as it dribbled to the floor. Make no mistake: that wasn’t the result of a jagged edge, but of the woman’s own nails digging into her hand—a mere cup could never hope to draw blood from Laurentius of the Gargantuan tribe.

Three days after my run-in with the vampires, Clan Laurentius had returned from their campaign to much fanfare—proudly hoisting the head of a stamping drake. That hadn’t been their original goal, but the beast’s rampage had impeded them on the road, leaving them with no choice but to bring it down.

Stamping drakes might not classify as true dragons, but the flightless monsters were still seven meters long—twelve, including the tail—at the very minimum. From the artist’s renditions I’d seen in books, they looked like iguanas that had been scaled up and made more menacing.

They were on the gentler end, with some domesticated breeds being employed to tow freight. Even so, they remained a force to be reckoned with when it was time to mate; when the season came around, there were always stories of wild individual specimens down near roadways.

And so, I found myself attending the celebration of the second dragon-slayer in Marsheim...only to absolutely kill the mood.

To excuse myself, I hadn’t intended to break the news in a place like this. Unfortunately, Miss Laurentius had noticed I had something to say, and had badgered me into spitting it out. Honestly, it was a wonder how quickly I’d lost my ability to keep a poker face. I needed to whip myself back into shape before the madam could torment me for my ineptitude.

“The weak have every right to plot the downfall of the strong,” the ogre went on. “I will never deny that. But to underestimate and belittle, to pester with worthless conspiracies, to get in the way of a warrior’s training—I won’t stand it. I can’t imagine you’re enjoying this, are you?”

Here I was, begging for help in navigating the interclan argument I’d set off, and yet Miss Laurentius was getting angry as if they’d personally slighted her. All this, for me: we might have shared a duel and a drink, but this was the truest proof that she acknowledged my strength as the real thing.

“Well, yes. The hitmen were all so trivial that I was more annoyed than excited to face them.”

Scuffles weren’t all that bad when I got to unleash my full strength against a worthy opponent, but brushing off the rabble day in, day out honestly wasn’t very fun. Worse still, whoever was sending these assassins was clearly making light of me, and that thought soured my mood further. I must’ve backed them into a corner, considering how they’d unveiled their trump card, but even that had just been more assassins without even a rear guard. They had to be taking me for a damned fool.

Manhandling goons whom I could take down while sleepwalking wasn’t enough to instill any sense of victory in me. Some people found joy in any win, no matter how small, but I personally found it more of a chore than picking aphids off homegrown vegetables.

Frankly, I wanted to kick and scream. I’m having fun as a beginner adventurer. Fuck off!

That was all I wanted: not an apology nor money to prove they were sorry, but for them to plainly, simply fuck right off.

“I can imagine. Those fools mistake themselves. Politics are fine, and scurrying in the darkness has its time and place—but only against a foe whose life you can truly threaten. Who would ever mind a colony of ants building their fortress by the foot of her house?” The ogre’s analogy truly bared her values for the world to see. “Ants should choose their foes as ants do. It is almost adorable to watch them earnestly march their meager scraps back to their home.”

“They could pose a threat if they’re white ants,” I offered.

“If only they had the brains to play the part of termites, then,” she said. “The fools mistake themselves for hornets.”

At the end of the day, schemes were only ever scary when enacted by someone who posed a threat. To an ogre who could march headfirst into any of the three other clans and delete them outright, such underhanded plotting wasn’t worth her fear.

Fully geared and armed with her weapons of choice, Miss Laurentius would be a walking tank ready to bulldoze anything in her path. I doubted even magic could slow her down: ogre internals were built to shrug off average poisons without so much as a sneeze. That was to say nothing of dirks and daggers—such means of resistance would be lucky to help her trim her fingernails.

I had no doubt an ogre warrior honored in her clan with an epithet had some answer to spellcasters. Not only could I make out a two-in-one poison resistor and detector embedded in her ring, but the armor she’d been wearing upon her return had shown clear signs of supernatural protection. Most likely it’d been blessed by the shamans of one of her tribe’s gods.

Hers was a people more fond of honest duels than arcane trickery: it followed that she’d be ready to shrug off unromantic spells so as to force a test of martial mastery.

As a poor little mensch, I was less resilient to poisons and attacks in my sleep, so I couldn’t quite match the confidence backed by her Godzillan capabilities.

“I suppose they’re due for a lesson,” Miss Laurentius said. “I wouldn’t want to face Lauren’s wrath for letting this go uncorrected.”

Hurling the broken mug out of sight, the ogre rose, lapping up the blood on her palm. The lethargy that had possessed her when we’d first met was gone: her once-listless eyes had regained their vigor, shining as brightly as when she’d doused herself and solicited a rematch.

Here stood a warrior—the same warrior that had once slumbered underneath a drunken stupor. I could only wonder: how would I fare if I faced her newly polished self?

“If word reaches her that pointless worldly affairs had gotten in the way of your path to mastery, I can see her coming just to cut me down in anger. Dying in battle is one thing, but I would rather not have such a pitiful tale inscribed on my tombstone.”

From what I could tell, this last adventure had completely revitalized her—not in terms of skill, but of mentality, as if all her jaded attitude had been washed away. If our bout had given her the momentum to move forward, I could ask for nothing more.

“Allow me to help,” she said. “The rats scurrying in the ceiling have enjoyed themselves long enough. Now is the time to put them in their place.”

“Thank you very much.”

“But, well...” Before she could reach down to wipe the remaining blood onto her pants, I offered up a handkerchief—my servile instincts were as alive as ever—and she took it with a bashful tone. “I’d like to be...compensated.”

I knew very well that I was asking a lot of her, and I obviously wasn’t going to make her work for free. Our gold coins were usually buried underground for safekeeping, but I’d pulled some out with a portal to serve as payment.

“But of course,” I said. “I’m asking for a service. It’s only right that I pay you for it.”

“Then I’ll take you up on that offer.”

Yet in spite of her verbal agreement, the ogre’s blue skin grew bluer still and she shyly scratched at her cheek. I tilted my head. This was strikingly out of character for the gallant woman, and it took a long beat of pause before she spoke up again, eyes still averted.

“I, well... I’d like to ask you to spar with me every now and again—and not a word of this to Lauren.”

“Oh... That’s all?”

“You should know your worth and hold your head high. Few could ever hope to best me in all of Marsheim. It’s just, well, thoughtless dueling could lead to...breaches of custom, I’ll say.”

While I didn’t know why she wanted to keep our sparring under wraps, it seemed reasonable to me that an ogre would want for opportunities to go all out, even with dummy weapons. To that end, the deal also gave me a good way of keeping my skills sharp, so I felt like I was almost benefiting too much to call it repayment.

But I supposed it was all to do with this “custom.” Maybe it was some local tradition that couldn’t be shared with outsiders like me.

“If that’s all, then I’d be happy to,” I answered.

“There he goes again...” Cheeks red, Margit broke her silent sipping to grumble at my side.

Wait, huh? Was that a mistake? I glanced a wordless question her way, but all that I received back was a sour stare.

Her pouty “Stop going around stringing women along” did nothing to clarify what she meant. I hadn’t made any promises to a woman; I’d only made an oath to a warrior.

“I’m glad we could reach an agreement,” Miss Laurentius said at last. “I took a good look at myself recently, and I realized that I need to strive for greater heights, even if the path upward is treacherous.”

Huh? Sure, mock fights could still produce injuries, but I’d seen her shrug off dislocated fingers after one night of drinking. What did a behemoth of physicality like her have to worry about?

Alas, I knew nothing at the time: nothing about the tradition of spit trades, and not even about the equation of woman and warrior in ogre culture. And most of all, I had no way of imagining that her drive for improvement was only the surface layer hiding ulterior motives beneath.

If she could be so lucky, one day Miss Lauren might discover our bouts and set off to kill her, no holds barred.

[Tips] The difficulty of finding opponents that can match an ogre in a fair fight oftentimes leads them to take good rivals as spouses.

The Heilbronn Familie already felt like a yakuza gang, but the head of the clan seemed like he’d taken on all the marks of the stereotype while still in utero.

“Well, well, well. So you’re the Stonecutter, eh? Manfred ain’t the type to talk another guy up, but...yeah, I see it. You ain’t bad.”

Stefano Heilbronn was the current Heilbronn leader. According to what I’d uncovered leading up to this conference, he was a real fighter: he’d risen to power by beating his uncle Brunilde to death and taking his spot at the top.

The usurper was a gargantuan man even among audhumbla, towering past two and a half meters. Any taller, and he could match the ten-foot pole so beloved by tabletop gamers.

Of note was his twisted left horn, giving him the plainly descriptive title of Gnarled Stefano. Personally, I wanted to butt in and mention that there had to have been better options—his pecs looked like he could crush a barrel in between them, for the gods’ sake—but the epithets that stuck in this world tended to be the ones that could be confirmed at first sight.

“Not bad at all,” he went on. “And here I thought Laurentius just had a thing for babies or something.”

“Crass, even for an insult,” Miss Laurentius snapped. “Do you want to be stuffed with herbs and served like steak?”

The scene of the meeting was a private room at the Golden Mane, chosen for its neutrality. Pleased to have riled someone up with his boorish joke, the audhumbla filled the space with laughter.

Personally, I’d been surprised to learn that the Golden Mane’s status as the premier inn for adventurers afforded it checks against the city’s clans. Not only had the facility’s operators demanded that each clan choose a single representative to enter, but they’d even dared to limit each participant to one bodyguard in the building—and everyone here was obeying. It was plain to see the sway they held.

As a result, Margit was on standby in the next room over. While it was terrifying to think that they were treating us on par with the other clans...she was still in position to help if push came to shove, so I decided not to point it out. Acknowledging that an inn with power enough to boss around the major clans had pegged us as more than somebody’s plus-ones was too much to handle; for now, I would focus entirely on getting through the talks without incident.

“Your gut can’t handle me, Two-Swords! Besides, can you blame me? Hard to imagine anything but a sheltered Goody Two-shoes when I’m hearing about some kid called Goldilocks.”

“You have a point. I haven’t lost enough self-respect to consider you a meal,” Miss Laurentius said calmly. “Anyway, I take it you’ve realized your error?”

“Sure. Kid still looks like a Goldilocks, though.”

Damn. It seemed like that nickname really was making the rounds. I was much more fond of the cooler “Stonecutter” for its apparent strength; I wondered whether there wasn’t some way to make that the default instead.

“Excuse me, Carcass Splitter... I hate to interrupt your fun...but can we get this over with?”

“Don’t you ever call me that again, Smokestack. Next time I’ll rip your spine right out of your body before you can even light your little candles.”

“My pipe, not candles... You really never learn...”

Apparently wrongly remembered by others as a producer of incense, Nanna Baldur Snorrison was solely responsible for keeping the muscle mass per capita of this room from shattering all upper bounds. Frail as death, the woman sat with the same lingering fragrance and terrible complexion she’d worn on our first meeting; as before, her people had kindly carried in a large hookah for her to bubble on.

As an aside, the title of “Carcass Splitter” she’d brought up referenced how the young mob boss had brutalized his own uncle. Evidently, epithets were not only doled out for good deeds.

Funnily enough, Stefano’s reputation as a hawkish fighter was actually built on top of a history as a moderate reformist—at least, according to what I’d heard from Miss Laurentius. Though the Heilbronns were still infamous in Ende Erde as traditional gangsters, their recent carriage was that of upstanding gentlemen compared to their style under Stefano’s late uncle. Brunilde had been a tyrant, unafraid to rule by force: his protection racket for shops and corner-workers had been intense, and he’d boasted a reputation for killing any underling that rubbed him the wrong way.

With Stefano’s rise to power came a significant improvement in internal discipline—hard to imagine, I know—and a general mellowing of the entire group. The induction rituals no longer included civilian murder, and punishments within the clan had been reduced to light beatings that didn’t break the offender’s bones.

That wasn’t exactly good, but improvement was improvement, I supposed. Yet even these reforms drew criticism from some who thought the group had become “too soft,” so it was easy to imagine the struggle of trying to keep a grip on them all.

A young gangster bringing down his despotic uncle to prioritize the stability of his turf, joined by an outside friend in Manfred the Tongue-Splitter... The whole thing just sounded like a Showa-era yakuza flick. Stefano was reportedly a master of the war hammer, but I really wished someone would hand him a shirosaya katana for his next scrap—I could see the dramatic annihilation now.

“All right, all right. Let’s get to business.”

Finally finished laughing, Stefano took his seat and his demeanor completely shifted. Gone was the local ringleader guffawing at the pub; he had presence befitting a mob boss who’d tamed rowdy adventurers to build his legacy.

“Didn’t see this one coming,” he went on. “No mistaking it: they’re the Exilrat’s.”

“And if I recall...they belong to ‘Zwei’...”

Despite the grandiose start to the meeting, the actual information being shared was pretty set in stone—the Exilrat’s crimes were too apparent not to notice.

I already had testimonies from both the Heilbronn and the Baldur members who’d jumped us, including information from a high-ranking officer. In either case, it was clear that the two groups had been keeping an eye on me without making extermination a clan-wide policy.

Climbing up the chain, I was met only with denial of any explicit orders to kill. I was confident in these claims; they’d both put them in writing with a pact of blood.

Naturally, they’d gone off to conduct their own investigations, but had come up short when trying to find the source of their phony hits. As a result, the deciding piece of evidence had been the “surprise guests” I’d brought along today.

“Speaking of which,” Miss Laurentius said, turning to me, “where in the world did you learn to preserve a half-dead vampire?”

“Every man has his secrets.” I punctuated my cool answer with a sip of tea—Ooh, wait, this is good—only for everyone else to eye me like I was some kind of freak. How rude of them.

All I’d done was take them back to the Snoozing Kitten, where the missus had given me permission to pinch some incense ash from her husband’s altar to the Sun God. One good rub on my guests’ faces had been enough to cancel out their vampiric strength.

Divine power dwelt in the residue of worship. My best bet would’ve been blessed water, but even the slightest connections could lead to consecration: the rag used to wipe down a shrine, the ashes of incense, and flowers that once adorned an altar could all be imbued with varying levels of heavenly power, depending on the faith of those who used them.

Vampires had swindled the Father, earning Him a long lecture from His wife: His grudge ran so deep that vampiric hatred was coded into His rituals. Even the cold ashes of a stick of fragrance were enough to impede their powers.

Soot from an ordinary shrine would have given them a few blisters at most, but mine was no ordinary shrine: it was one kept by a saint beloved throughout the land. The effects had been exceptional. Third-rate or not, any vampire would have been able to heal by now, yet my captives were still stuck writhing, only barely clinging to life.

Furthermore, one threat to dump all the ash I had on them had sufficed to wish away their loyalty to whoever had turned them. It was comedic how quick they’d been to divulge. The only real challenge had been storage: I’d kept them locked away in a warehouse until today, but it had taken a lot out of me to avoid slimming them down for my own convenience.

“Hey, I won’t pry,” the audhumbla said. “Makes this all go smoother, so no skin off my back. Tying vampires up in the sun till they talk is long and boring.”

“I wouldn’t mind taking them off your hands, though... Their ashes make for useful catalysts, you know...”

“Those are bargaining chips,” the ogre cut in. “And I won’t stand idly by if you intend to pilfer well-earned glory.”

“Don’t be so heated... All I said was that I wouldn’t mind taking them...”

Ignoring the fact that this brutal conversation was coming from the same people who’d just looked at me like I was the savage, all three clan leaders quickly came to an agreement to mount a joint threat against the Exilrat.

They were going to squeeze the tent-people for all the money and influence they could under the guise of reparations for hijacking their names, and I had no mind to stop them. Frankly, I didn’t care whether they used the situation to promote their own interests so long as my problems got solved along the way.

In retrospect, I was glad that the Exilrat had blundered so terribly. Had they not tried to hide themselves behind a convoluted series of proxies, I wouldn’t have been able to rope the Baldurs and Heilbronns into supporting me. The slight on their reputations and the possibility of profit were the only things that could justify their involvement when a misstep could lead to a citywide turf war.

Having Clan Laurentius on my side might theoretically have been enough, but I was happy to take advantage of anything that tipped the odds in my favor. Bigger backers meant more intimidation, and that was my best shot at being left alone.

“So we’ll need to drag the Exilrat out to settle the score,” Stefano said.

“But...those hermits never leave their tents...”

“I know. I almost lost my shit when they didn’t even send a stand-in the last time I called. They’ve got too much nerve for a bunch of rats in tattered rags.”

“They’ll probably make us meet outside the city again...or complain about how many people we bring... They’re going to have so many demands...”

“You’d think the ones who’d set things off would own up to what they’d started, but yeah. I bet they’re thinking it’ll be easier to ‘iron out’ any disagreements if we’re right in their headquarters.”

On top of being a group full of mysteries, the Exilrat were extremely cautious, as one might expect from what were essentially the managers of the city’s destitute. But I hadn’t thought they’d even dance around their dealings with the other clans.

In essence, the agreement to file a joint complaint was hitting an impasse in trying to decide who would draw the short straw of actually representing the coalition. Preparing a neutral setting for the meeting like we’d done this time would be ideal, but that didn’t mean anything if the person we had gripes with refused to show up to anything that wasn’t on their home turf.

Unfortunately for me, neither Stefano nor Nanna cared quite enough to risk an all-out confrontation.

“Then I will go. They’ll have to listen if we take the conversation to them.”

“Huh?”

Everyone turned to Miss Laurentius, who’d offered herself up like she was volunteering for a grocery run. Unfazed, she took a sip of tea and recoiled with an unexpectedly cute, “Ah, hot,” but the rest of us were shocked.

This was not the disposition of someone who’d just agreed to march into enemy territory to air our collective grievances. I should know—my last visit had ended horribly. Even if the meeting went through, the prospect of turning the entirety of the slums against me sounded like a nightmare.

“What? It isn’t such a big deal. In a cramped tent, it would be all too easy to slaughter everyone in reach. My presence alone should be enough to check any idiotic ideas. I’d like to see how much they can bark in my presence,” the ogre said with a hearty laugh. “But that said...Erich. You are the spark who set off this fire.”

Gently blowing on her tea, she cast me a sideways stare with her golden eyes. Though the fault lay with the instigators, I was aware that I’d been the one to turn this into a whole debacle by fighting back; I wasn’t going to run from my responsibility for my own mess.

Besides, what could be more intimidating than turning two swords into three?

“Of course. I’ll be accompanying you.”

“Excellent—that’s all I can ask. Then it’s settled. Does this work for the two of you?”

The pair of miscreant leaders nodded at her emphatic declaration. As for me, I was fine with anything at this point if she was going to help me close this annoying chapter.

And so, the plan rolled into motion...

[Tips] Though the clans of Marsheim seem to coordinate just enough with each other to avoid all-out war, their meetings are irregular and their arrangements unclear.

Shielded from the putrid rot of the outside world, I found myself thinking of this perfumed tent as an alternate dimension. I supposed, metaphorically speaking, it kind of was. The alien writing lining the interior reminded me of monastic inscriptions; perhaps this was the scripture of a god chased out of its homeland.

The clamor that lay beyond these walls was nonexistent within; any noise made here would similarly fail to leak. Even trying to slip out a Voice Transfer ended without connection, meaning the room was isolated in every conceivable sense.

We were in just another unassuming tent lining the shantytown the Exilrat called home. It was unbelievable that a place like this could exist when it was surrounded by a melting pot of poverty and chaos where ragged paupers wallowed in the smell of the open sewer.

Standing here in full armor, joined by an ogre dressed much the same, and facing off against thirteen figures in tattered robes was too surreal for my mind to really accept.

Legend had it that the Exilrat was run by a council of thirteen, and lo and behold, one threatening invitation later, I found myself welcomed by just that many hosts. If the rest of the rumors were also true, then none of these councillors had names or positions—they were distinguished only by a code number. Looking at them now, the only differences I could spot between them were those of stature.

“What insolent attire.”

The raspy, warbly, androgynous voice that called out to us was likely the work of whatever godly miracle pervaded the tent’s interior. Further proof could be found on their faces, or lack thereof: the inside of our hosts’ hoods were darker than the deepest cave, divulging not the slightest feature despite the candles glowing at their sides.

I couldn’t even hazard a guess at species, let alone gender. By my estimate, this level of potency could only be achieved because of how rigidly this space was sectioned off from the outside; a foreign deity unaligned with the Rhinian pantheon couldn’t hope to command miracles so mighty under our gods’ noses. No wonder they were so opposed to leaving their hermitage.

All I could perceive was that, out of the circle of seated figures surrounding us, the voice came from the figure dead ahead.

“Insolent how?” Miss Laurentius scoffed. “We are adventurers—mandated by the gods to win peace through might. How can you disapprove of our armor when this is our most earnest attire?”

The ogre took a seat on the floor, one knee defiantly raised in spite of the hostility in the air. She was covered from head to toe in leather and pelts, just like Miss Lauren had been in my memory. At her hip were two swords, no less menacing for their sheaths. Her collar was tactically exposed, giving her neck and shoulders ample room to maneuver for her flashy two-handed style. Yet while she bared skin, the taut blue muscles knew nothing of temptation; they exuded an aura of pure strength.

Even encircled by a shady mob, the ogre refused to yield an inch.

“I don’t remember doing anything to be slandered as insolent by cowards who hide behind veils and hired guards. I am an ogre: I came into this world on a battlefield, and I intend to be buried wearing my armor. If you want to protest my choice of dress, then I will take that as an insult to the whole of the Gargantuan tribe—no, to all ogres.”

Her posture was not just arrogance: with one knee raised, her left hand planted on the ground, and her weight shifted forward, she was signaling that she was ready to fight at any moment. Even on the ground, she towered over most of the people present, and her massive frame delivered a threat that needed not be spoken: “Make a fool of me, and you will die where you stand.”

I had no doubt she’d do it. To be thought weak was a death sentence for any adventurer, as I’d learned this summer.

“...But, then, why does the boy at your side have a weapon and armor? We can hardly call this a discussion with participants like this.”

The central councillor had fallen silent, and the person to their right filled in. Considering how they’d been sitting near to the center and were now running the conversation, I suspected this was our “Zwei” trying to follow up after the leader Eins withdrew from the conversation.

This was the person who’d used me to chip at the Heilbronn Familie and Baldur Clan for their own gain; the vampire who exerted their influence through mass-produced drones.

What a pathetic soul. I could make out a quiver in their voice through the miraculous filter.

They were desperate to find some kind of fault with us, if only to save face after we’d sent their bloodied thralls back as couriers when we’d accepted their invitation. We were the ones rudely interfering with the negotiation process; without the moral high ground, they wouldn’t have any justification to try and draw concessions from us.

“Hmph,” the ogre said. “More worthless quibbling. He is Erich, a swordsman worthy of my respect—and the victim of your never-ending harassment. He has endured your pestering without losing himself to rage, and you dare question why he has come dressed as a sincere adventurer?”

At every turn, Miss Laurentius snapped back without missing a beat. They’d already failed to refute her claim that armor was the garb of the trade, leaving them with no room to grumble.

I doubted they would have listened had I been the one to make these points; her being an ogre was key. Their kind truly did hold battle-ready gear in the highest regard, and none of the Exilrat councillors dared tread on her cultural traditions. Supplementing that with the oft-forgotten origin of adventuring was a beautiful twist of oration.

It would seem that the ogre tendency to speak loftily before battle empowered their sneering too. Perhaps I ought to ask for a lesson in taunting sometime.

But for now, it was my turn to take advantage of the opening she’d provided. I breathed in, the inhalation setting off a cascade of skills and traits.

“First, I ask that you pardon me for speaking plainly despite my inexperience.”

I concentrated on putting more force behind my ordinarily proper speech, and the Nightingale’s Resonance trait I’d picked up last winter activated alongside my Lingering Timbre. Together, they bolstered my newly acquired Beckoning Command to ring clear throughout the tent.

Unfortunately for me, my run-ins with big shots didn’t look to be stopping anytime soon, nor did my entanglement with undercity dealings; I’d figured the investment would be warranted. The skill whittled away at my targets’ resistance in Negotiation and killed the conversational momentum for anyone disagreeing with me. It was also uninterruptible—put in tabletop terms, it could bypass skills that would reduce social damage taken.

High AC might honestly do more to intimidate a low-level enemy, but advanced sessions were rife with characters overbuilt to counteract player agency. Mitigating damage was just the start: some enemies could force fumbles or outright retroactively undo an attack.

Naturally, circumventing counterplay was the next step in my progression. Right now, I was dealing with the faces of organized crime in Marsheim; I had no qualms about paying steep costs to ensure I wouldn’t hit a brick wall going forward. Sadly for me, the small fry I’d swatted away until now hadn’t been worth much experience, and I’d broken the proverbial piggy bank to make my purchase.

Truth be told, I wished I’d been able to afford Absolute Charisma on top of what I had now. Alas, I wasn’t in a position to be reaching for a trait so rare that only some of the Empire’s founding heroes seemed to have had it. It was a wonderful thing that would improve impressions and draw attention from any and every person whose path I crossed...but aiming for the latest and greatest without reason was one of my worst habits. Honestly, I was already investing in more than I needed to be an adventurer.

I’d also found add-ons to shore up my Oozing Gravitas so I wouldn’t need to actively be in a diplomatic setting for me to silently pressure someone. This had been a lot of shopping, but I’d probably make back my principal so long as I overcame today’s confrontation.

At least, I hoped so. If not, that would throw off my plans by a lot... My dreams of human teleportation grew ever more unreachable.

Returning to the matter at hand, with my niceties said, I had no more need for humility. Humility was only a virtue in my old world: standing one’s ground was the only way to get by here, especially in this line of work.

So I was going to come off strong. Not because I had a powerful insurer by my side, but because an adventurer without the guts to fight was as good as dead—because the airs we put on were all we had.

“Tell me... What world do you come from where an attempt on someone’s life can be written off with a plain ‘I didn’t know’?”

Unwritten as the rule was, employers were ever responsible for their charges. If “They acted on their own!” and “My secretary did it!” worked as valid excuses, then there would be far fewer scenic positions for the owning class to luxuriate in.

“I’m sorry to say, but the constant attempts on my life have been terribly vexing. I’m not here for excuses or apologies, though—I merely want to offer a binary proposal.” My logic was simple. “I assume you began by nitpicking at our ensembles in service of drawing out some kind of compromise. But let me make myself clear. Apologize or die—these are your choices.”

Wasn’t I generous for not following up attempted murder with murder of my own? They even got to choose: say sorry and fuck off, or have the Baldurs and Heilbronns line the streets with their people’s heads.

I didn’t mind either way. Mystic communication or not, my arachne scout keeping watch outside had a better sixth sense than anyone I knew; any help the councillors called for wouldn’t arrive until I’d already cut down half of them.

And besides...

“Well put! Go on, choose, you unnamed scarecrows—unless you’d rather test your luck against a swordsman crazed enough to best me in combat. If so, I have no reservations about offering what little support I can to turn one sword into three.”

...Miss Laurentius would take care of the other half.

The only question then would be how many we’d end up mowing down in total. If their forces were well disciplined, then we might need to slaughter something like forty percent of them before they truly fizzled out; but on the other hand, that also meant one day of hard work could cause the whole organization to collapse and disappear. Whoever remained would pose little threat, and the void would be filled by opportunists disloyal to the current leadership, or rival clans and gangs currently suppressed by the Exilrat—the whole thing would naturally dissolve away.

But the end result was the same either way. I was happy to let them bow down and apologize so we could go our separate ways; if not, I was equally ready to make sure they’d never bother anyone again.

Miss Laurentius’s declaration and my Overwhelming Grin filtered through a Scale IX Hybrid Sword Arts left no room for any weaseling. Silence tinged with frustration set upon the room, until the central figure eventually looked around to their peers.

After a moment, they hung their head low.

And so came the contract drafted up at the three-clan meeting. It laid all fault for this string of attacks on the Exilrat and included a long list of provisions to prevent escalation. Much of the document was unimportant minutiae about reparations that I had no mind to get into, but the most vital line came at the very end.

The Exilrat shall hereupon cease contact of any form with Erich of Konigstuhl and the personal connections thereof.

Although this contract wasn’t as absolute as those upheld by gods and nobles, any breach offered an excuse for the other major clans to muster up a coalition of small-to-mid-scale clans to go to town. The agreement held no less weight than any other.

They would do well to obey the terms, lest the tent grounds turn into a sea of fire.

When all was said and done, violence was the final determiner. Ahh. Nice and simple.

“Very good.” I nodded as the thirteenth seal of blood was pressed onto the paper. The only thing left to do now was to mete out punishment to those who’d directly participated in the attacks. I suggested that I settle the score personally, but the councillor I had pegged as Zwei had something else in mind.

“I will deal with the matter on my end—please, there’s no need for you to assist. I can assure you this was not the Exilrat’s intention, and truly hope you can understand that the whole issue was the work of a few rogue actors.”

The speaker’s panic was so poorly veiled that it came through in spades despite divine protection, confirming they were Zwei. If their inability to keep their subordinates in line was the source of this ordeal, then it followed that they’d need to make things right by their own hand to save what little face they could.

Whether those subordinates really had acted on their own was of little concern to me. I was used to seeing the powerful push blame onto their lackeys; at this point, it registered as nothing more than scenery so long as it wasn’t affecting me.

Some part of me did want to go around personally thanking the idiots who’d wasted my time with fruitless random encounters, but I wasn’t so hungry for vengeance that I needed to bring down the blade myself. The vampiric councillor was going to be busy defending their position in the coming days, and anything I could do to add to their workload seemed fine to me, so I accepted.

And that was that. I had my peaceful days back, I’d gotten a bit of apology money out of the other two clans, and my growing reputation around town would get a big boost—outside the Exilrat, that is.

But as a whole...that hadn’t been very satisfying. I felt like I’d just been sent on a meaningless side quest in some cut-and-pasted console game.

“Shouldn’t you be happy enough to come home alive with one less nuisance to bother you? I myself am looking forward to walking the alleys without having one hand on my dagger.”

Margit tried to cheer me up after I exited the tent, but there remained a layer of muck on my mind.

“I know... But this isn’t the kind of adventuring I had in mind. Backroom deals were never part of my dreams.”

As I stared off at Miss Laurentius’s men clamoring over her safe return, Margit hopped onto her usual spot around my neck. She was wearing her finest stealth wear today, and I didn’t so much as hear a flap of cloth as she landed. Just in case, she’d also thoroughly bathed to erase as much smell as possible, depriving me of another sense to perceive her by.

“In that case...” Yet even as a darkened veil hid away most of her features, I could plainly see that her eyes drooped as mischievously as ever. “Shall I make you forget all these unwanted memories?”

I knew my actions hadn’t protected her. This childhood companion of mine was every bit my equal, and ours was not a relationship of one-sided safeguarding. But my outburst of temper and subsequent effort had been for her, and it was pretty embarrassing that she knew that.

“How will you make me forget?” I asked.

“Oh, let me see. How about...a night of celebratory drinking?” She pointed, adding, “It doesn’t appear we have any choice.”

I followed her finger to see that Miss Laurentius’s party was already starting to celebrate. Even the big boss-lady herself seemed to be having fun; she must have been really happy with today’s result.

“You have a point. I don’t think we’ll be getting away from that.”

“With any luck, they’ll serve us a banquet’s worth of quality wine.”

“Don’t pass out on me, will you?”

“Oh? Aren’t you going to carry me to bed? That’s my favorite part of tying one on.”

I guess I can’t say no to that. I chuckled.

A few days later, six vials of ash and six canines arrived in the mail. I wasn’t interested in keeping macabre trophies, though, and I tossed them out the window under a full moon.

To some, pulling strings in the shadows to avoid a climactic boss fight was the pinnacle of beauty; to me, it was a lot of work for not a lot of excitement.

Yet when I asked myself how many people would have died in the name of that excitement—what with all the factions involved—the only numbers I could imagine came dyed in deep red. For my two cents, this was about as good a conclusion as I could’ve hoped for. Had this been a campaign, of course, I would’ve been complaining over ramen on the way home about how the GM should’ve cut some of the side characters to prioritize the climax—but that was neither here nor there.

Nameless ash sprinkled into the night and melted into moonlight. A fittingly boring end to a boring tribulation.

[Tips] The Exilrat clan was originally founded to network immigrants, but has now grown to include everyone from vagrants to gangsters. Some would say that it is home to all those who lack a true place of their own.

The tent grounds they’ve built outside the city serve as their main hub, but their roots have spread into forgotten districts within Marsheim’s walls. Though rumor has it they are led by a council, few are privy to the whole picture of their internal workings.