Min-Maxing My TRPG Build in Another World - Volume 9 - Chapter 1

Early Spring of the Sixteenth Year

The PCs’ Base of Activities

In fantasy systems, it can be inconvenient for PCs to constantly be moving around from place to place, so many players eventually settle into some kind of central stomping ground. It’s always amusing to watch the PCs scramble to react as the GM unveils to the players that something unsavory is brewing “close to home.” Of course, some PCs, especially those with less sociable backstories or more mercenary settings, may choose to pack their bags and move somewhere more favorable. It is a test of the GM’s mettle to see how they can tie down such rootless adventurers.

As I wrapped up my letter with its usual formal salutations, something struck me—the letters of famous people in the past had a way of ending up on display for all to read.

The Trialist Empire of Rhine had a higher urban population than its neighboring states, and maybe because of this, it had a high literacy rate. Even well-off farming households—ones like mine, which were a smidge above the average—often sent relatives mail with seasonal greetings and the like. Because of this, it was possible to say that acumen with the written word was part of our national character.

Of course, this trait extended to the noble class too. Public letters were treated with much care, their senders making sure to affix beautiful wax seals imprinted with their family crest. However, recipients often were so taken by the presentation and aesthetics of the penmanship inside that they often broke from common courtesy and kept the letters for preservation’s sake—to the sender’s chagrin, were they ever to find out.

As the years passed by, letters sent between nobles ended up kept for safekeeping at the Imperial Archives, the Imperial Library, and the College stacks. Whereas most common folk used cheap paper, nobles used high-quality stuff that could weather the passage of time.

I had vague memories of letters in my old world from the Meiji Restoration or the Heian period being re-translated into modern Japanese. One example were letters from Date Masamune. He scribbled his letters without much care for beauty and would end them with a postscript that said “Burn after reading”—an ironic message that people centuries later could still read. I supposed it was the price one always paid for fame.

At any rate, as I finished up my own letter, I looked at some of the blank space at the bottom and thought, Maybe I should include my own “please burn after reading” postscript. It’s a bit late coming considering how many letters I’ve sent.

“Hmm, nah. I’m probably overthinking it.”

I smiled to myself, cleaned the ink off the nib of my quill, and folded the letter.

This was a personal letter, not some public announcement, and I wasn’t famous or anything; I was just your run-of-the-mill adventurer. My rank was rising at a respectable enough rate, yes, but it wasn’t as if I was worthy of having my letter kept for posterity.

I still felt a pang of sympathy for those whose inner thoughts were put up for display. A long love letter sent from the battlefield from the Emperor of Creation to his wife now sat framed and hung up in the imperial palace.

To make things worse, the courier had been captured, and it had never reached its recipient. The letter had been discovered centuries after the Emperor’s passing; no one even thought about getting rid of it—rather they were overjoyed that the person in question wasn’t there to veto the suggestion to keep it.

If it were me? I would probably turn into a wraith so I could set it ablaze in person.

"Now then, to the matter at hand.”

I finished the letter off with a simple glue seal and snapped my fingers. It was time to bring out some of my fanciest paper and wax, exclusively for noble recipients, from my magic box. I kept it fully stocked at all times; one never knew when the situation might demand a smart-looking letter to someone with pull. It was far too nice to be used for my family; to be honest, this paper had only ever seen one recipient.

It was finally time to make a request of my former employer.

“Why is it that when a deadline’s close, it’s always easier to do anything but what you actually need to?”

It had been a little while since we had returned from the ichor maze of the cursed cedar, and the delicate spring weather had finally reached Marsheim. I imagined that the farmers were bustling about, prepping the fields and dealing with their livestock by now. My own family were no exception, no doubt.

"Ugh, how do I even start this? I can't just write my usual seasonal greeting and cap it off with, ‘P.S., I was summoned by the Association manager,’ can I?”

Our party—although Siegfried still fiercely denied that that was what we were—had emerged from that allergenic hell with enough scabs to put all visits to the baths on hold a while longer. Rest and healing, however, would have to wait a while for me; Marsheim, ever a harsh mistress, welcomed me home with a new crisis.

It’s not that we’d bungled something at some critical juncture during the long haul of our quest. We had followed up afterward with the villagers; no deadly pollen rain had descended upon the canton. The worst they'd had to say was that a few bored farmers occupied themselves with idle bets on whether we’d been eaten by wolves or woken a bear early.

The problem at hand was the summons that I had received from the Association manager after handing in a report announcing our safe return. It was a formal message that requested my personal presence. It wasn’t a little, “Hey, I need to see you,” called out from across the room—no, she went to all the effort to package it into a letter. If that wasn’t enough to tell me it was heavy business, it had her own personal seal and was stamped in such a way that I knew she had her own copy just in case.

This most serious of serious letters was the sort of thing that the government would keep for fifty years just as insurance—it was a cursed thing, oozing menace. I wasn’t sure what the standard for official letters from the Adventurers’ Association was, but the grandiose nature of the packaging told me that it was not an invitation to a tea party.

If it had been a meeting telling me that they were going to help line up a few good gigs for their rising star, or if it had been advice for reaching the next rank, then I was certain it would have come from the lovely ladies at reception.

In all honesty, the whole thing stunk—and no mere eggy whiff that you could pinch your nose and ignore, but a rippling, roiling, nearly-living funk that crept up in your airways and made a home there: the kind of stink I’d happily light a stick of thermite to clear, given the chance.

Any joy at making it home mostly intact had slipped my mind in an instant, but when I considered just how fishy the original request for this mission had been, the hints had been there all along.

The people of Zeufar hadn’t been in all that much trouble. To top it off', the local lords whom the margrave was, to put it lightly, not getting on with were at the heart of the matter. I had totally forgotten that my conduct once I got back to town could screw me just as badly as any misstep in the heat of

I mean, come on, it was two whole months ago! We'd fought for our lives through a brutal gauntlet while the year came and went. I couldn’t be blamed for forgetting one or two things.

I had won the little bet I’d made with Siegfried and got the whole gang to go to Marsheim’s second-best bathhouse; afterwards we had some amazing food and drink. We’d earned it, for all the hell we’d been through. We’d cleared a long-haul megadungeon in a single foray, knocking out more encounters than I could rightly tally up. It’d be weirder for someone to actually remember the original hook that had gotten them involved to begin with!

Come after me if you want, but consider for a moment a familiar hypothetical: New Year’s has come and gone, and you’ve been grinding through a mountain of work the whole time. In the middle of it all, you were sent some super important task, but it’s not due until May—is that really going to be the first thing on your mind once you’re out from under your backlog? Do you honestly believe you’re even going to remember that it’s there until suddenly the deadline’s breathing down your neck? If you’re the kind of superbeing that genuinely functions like that, go ahead and cast the first stone.

We always said that the adventure only ends when you get home, but in this case I had an even rougher time of it after I was safe in my bed.

Hold on... No, sometimes unpacking your bags, washing your dirty laundry, and handing out souvenirs could prove more tiring than the trip itself. Maybe this was a kind of offshoot of that.

The terrible nature of the situation had sent me doom spiraling, but I found my hand writing out beautiful letters upon the page. My years spent in indenture had left me with something worth crowing about, evidently. Then again, this paper cost as much as a year’s earnings from housebound jobs back home; I literally couldn't afford to screw up.

After wringing my brain and wrangling with my thoughts, the final result I had hit upon was an embarrassing cry for help.

I didn’t have the bandwidth for this right now. If I had a better information network in Marsheim, or if I could pull in a favor from some ofher major player, then that would be best, but I had no other options.

I mean, more than half of my connections column in Marsheim was made up of people I’d beaten up or threatened to achieve my current stability.

There was Clan Laurentius, but half had muscles for brains and the other half were her ardent followers. Mister Fidelio was the most reliable, but he had distanced himself from matters of politics or governance; even if I only came to him for pointers, I doubted it would lead to an ideal fix. There was one woman in town in particular who probably had some pretty choice dirt for me, but I really didn’t want to get involved any deeper with her business than necessary. It didn’t matter how profitable her operation was; you couldn't trust anyone who couldn’t abide by a commandment as straightforward as "never get high on your own supply.” I was best off letting her nonsense come to my doorstep, as it had a way of doing regardless.

All I wanted was to live a normal adventuring life! I didn’t want all this cloak and dagger Great Game business that didn’t even leave you the energy to chat about it with your friends in the cafe afterwards—I wanted a heroic tale where the unforgivable villain gets put to trial for his wicked misdeeds in the

The Baldur Clan’s affairs were an object lesson in the adage “the dose makes the poison.” Their involvement was like aconite—the slightest bit too much, and it turned from cure to killer.

I had the extreme fortune of being reborn into a fantasy world—ignoring the worldly difficulties and simple economic upkeep of this world that made me want to cry—and for my purposes, I wanted to preserve what joy and whimsy at the prospect of living here I had left. I’d never be happy winning my fame as an assassin or a two-bit gangster.

That wasn’t to say that I hated playing these roles back at the table. But that wasn’t what I wanted from this life. Our party was a little bit unbalanced, but here we were—a team of fledgling adventurers, back from a successful campaign. I was absolutely against any misstep that would lead me into the pit of darkness or trapped in the world of upper-crust society.

That meant I needed to use any measure at my disposal. The most ideal means of escaping an unideal situation hinged on a clear view of the situation. If I could do that, then I could then choose whether to put up a fight or distance myself from the matter at hand.

Sure, it meant I might have to cope with a vicious verbal drubbing from my old employer, but a bitter medicine is easier to take you when you know the side effects beforehand.

I wrote the letter while my Independent Processing made sure there were no spelling errors or phrases that were unacceptable for a noble’s eyes. I wanted to give myself a pat on the back for choosing to divide up my processing capabilities instead of merely speeding them up. Independent Processing wasn’t simple multitasking—I had many thoughts running simultaneously, which could stop me before I even made even the tiniest of mistakes.

You needed a high base mental capacity in order to start getting Traits that poked around in philosophically troubling territory; the particular talent tree I’d chosen had ended up benefiting me beyond what I could have foreseen.

Right, this looks good. My penmanship hadn’t gotten rusty since the end of my term of service. I lifted up the letter and began to weave a formula to magically seal it.

This was no fancy postage stamp. The paper I had used was specially crafted so that I could use a spell to compress two pages into one, which meant even a magical layman such as myself could easily transfigure it into a paper canary.

All that was left to do was open a little portal with space-time magic and send it off to Lady Agrippina. Naturally I hadn’t received privileges to open a portal right into her workshop, but I was permitted my own personal box—more than enough for the occasional letter. It only took a moment for the letter to arrive.

The problem was whether the esteemed and extremely busy count thaumapalatine would be in her workshop or not.

This issue really hinged on luck. Her occasional letters to me laid bare, in unflinching detail, the unbearable weight of peerless beauty, talent, and skill; she was, at any given moment, run ragged with all manner of demands 011 her time and attention. Her role included upkeep of Ubiorum county, her public duties in the College, and the work that came with being a professor—namely aeroship development. No matter how talented she was, her workload was more than cause enough to cry uncle, not least because if she worked herself to death, odds were good that her contributions would be considered so vital that the Empire would commit copious resources towards dragging her back from the grave just to pick up where she left off.

There were many tasks that she had to complete in person, and so even if she had returned home just at this moment, it would be luck that decided when my reply would arrive.

Elisa wasn’t allowed to open my personal mailbox either, so all I could do was pray for a swift reply.

As I inwardly begged, come on, don’t give me a dud roll, Lady Agrippina’s reply came with astounding speed.

As my former employer’s beloved butterfly-shaped paper came fluttering out of the crack in the fabric of space, I could almost hear the GM announce, “If you don’t follow this, then the story’s not gonna progress,” as they kindly brought some of the PCs back together again. As my fingers touched the butterfly, it elegantly folded out into a single piece of paper. The letter was only one word long: “Come.” Below was a written formula that would allow me to warp to her workshop by simply passing my own magic through it.

Typical... After I spent all that time composing my letter in palatial style...

I held the churn of my mixed feelings steady and let out a deep sigh as I fixed up my appearance, then headed over.

[Tips] People are forgetful creatures, no matter how much they try to combat their nature with memos and notes. It isn’t rare for a player to completely forget about a previous story thread if a campaign has grown overly complex.

Lady Agrippina’s various titles had multiplied in the time that I had left—Count Ubiorum, professor in the School of Daybreak’s Leizniz cadre, chief of various research programs—but the atmosphere in her peaceful, greenhouse-like workshop was the same as ever. As was the way that my former employer splayed out upon her beloved couch.

Her easy demeanor despite the slew of unimaginably brutal tasks pushed past merely “awe-inspiring” to legitimately terror-inducing. She should at least have some trace of dark circles under her eyes; it might have been endearing if some outward trace of exhaustion showed through a little hastily applied makeup. Her perfection freaked me out.

“Apologies for the intrusion. Erich of Kongistuhl humbly announces his presence before you.”

“Welcome, retainer of mine.”

I dropped to my knee with more delicacy and precision than I had before.

“Ah, of course; you’re an adventurer now.”

Unlike before, I wasn’t standing here as her servant. I was no longer of a station that permitted easy communication; I needed to behave properly before a noble of the Empire.

“How has the past year been?”

“Much has come and gone that I did not expect; however, if I may deign to say so, the past days have proven pleasant enough.”

My humble speech came out—I couldn't rid myself of it, even when I was sure no one was watching. She had been strict in this regard—she wasn’t the son of person who would allow their servant to light up their pipe in someone else’s office just because they could do it at their boss’s.

“You may be at ease."

“By your honored permission.”

However, even if it was tiring, this whole formal song and dance was a necessary element in changing the atmosphere of the room.

Without all the decorum, if she let slip one of her usual wholly out of pocket manic insights, I doubt I could stop myself from voicing some of the thoughts I had kept a tight lock on around her in turn. Lady Agrippina was rather relaxed in her personal space, so I didn’t want to cause a scene by accidentally saying something snide. Embarrassing either of us could cost me my head, and that was a transformation I wasn’t ready for.

Now that I had received her permission, I sat down with some ease on the chair before her...and then realized something important.

This is her oblique way of asking me to make tea.

It didn’t take a big leap of logic to assume that Lady Agrippina’s idea of being “at ease” was for me to return to how our relationship was before I quit. To be honest, I much preferred interacting with her in that familiar way. I wasn't used to treading on eggshells around her.

I knew exactly what to do; I sent my Unseen Hands into the kitchen to begin preparing the tea, not bothering to get up. It seemed that everything was still in the same place as before, so I managed to get everything done without Farsight by simply adding on the capacity to sense what I was touching.

The loaded tea tray floated into the room—I knew internally that they were being carried, but it still looked kind of supernatural—and I took the cups with my flesh and blood hands, handing one to the lethargic madam still lazing upon the couch.

She took the piping cup of black tea and brought it to her lips with all the elegance in the world. I could sense mana roll off of her as she ran all sorts of tests to check the tea for mundane and magical hazards, all before it was even close enough for a sip. Regular poisons had no effect on her, but her temperament left her unable to let down her guard in front of anything or anyone. I thought I must be suffering from some kind of mental illness to find relief in seeing this side of her unchanged.

“Mm, not bad."

I inwardly breathed a sigh of relief. Thank goodness, I haven’t lost my ability to impress the mada—ahem, my former employer—anymore.

During the final stretch of our stay in the ichor maze, our supplies of black tea had run dry, and we’d been forced to improvise with what was available. On top of that, the Snoozing Kitten tended to hand out rather strong brews to travelers. I was a bit worried that my nose for the way she liked it had dulled under such external pressure.

“I’m rather relieved to see that you’re as capable as ever, Erich."

“I suppose I can’t so easily forget the senses I developed under you. After all, your standards were rather high.”

"Indeed they are. Aren’t you happy you were in the employ of someone who could train you so well?”

My jab had been so easily rebuffed. It reaffirmed at that moment that I was no match for her.

It had been a year since we last met, and I realized what it meant to be unaging. If she had been a regular mensch, she would have been far more worn and ragged.

Hold on. Something was diff erent—her tobacco. She was famed as someone who enjoyed a smoke, so it made sense that she would be using one of the many pipes that she had been gifted since parting with her old one. The protective enchantment hadn’t been applied with as much care as the one that had been given to me, so there were some visible scratches and soot stains.

Most likely, she used one pipe at a few nighttime gatherings before throwing it out and moving on to the next. The pressures of her work hadn't pushed her down to a level that concerned me, but the toll on her was visible now.

If a pipe wasn’t adjusted to deal with enchanted tobacco, the effects of the magic would cause it to degrade far faster than usual. You needed to replace the wooden part of pipes used to smoke tobacco made from nightshade—in other words, to her, these pipes, too, were to be tossed after one use.

The pipe I had received from Lady Agrippina was made from ebony and designed with long-term use in mind. Fully metal pipes got too hot and were far too conductive; they weren’t ideal for times when you wanted a good, long smoke.

It was clear to me that she had imbued this pipe with a protective formula to prevent all damage; she’d meant to use it for a long time. It stood in stark contrast to these disposable things she was keeping in rotation now.

“You’re capable enough that I wouldn’t complain if you offered to return to my service, you know.”

"I’m...currently holed up in a comfy library, reading all the books I could desire. Would such a metaphor suffice, Count Ubiorum?”

"If so, then I won’t force your hand.”

My former employer tapped her pipe to empty its spent contents into an ashtray. It was quite the unusual sight—I supposed that she hadn't magically enlarged the inside like she had with mine. Among the pipes she had received, none had taken her fancy as much.

I was rather surprised with the strength of the tobacco she was currently smoking. Even from the scent of the secondhand smoke, I could tell that it had been intensively enriched with copious spellcraft. I was sure that Lady Agrippina would be fine, considering it was her own concoction, but if she let me have a puff' I was sure the noxious fumes would knock me out then and there.

"I would like to present to you a small gift—some small proof that adventuring is no laughing matter.”

I presented my gift, something to appease her before we got onto the real matter.

We had split the spoils from the ichor maze; this was the piece that I had gotten permission to take—the research diary of the herbalist who had tried to revive the sacred cedar.

Lady Agrippina’s love for books went beyond any mere bibliophile’s. It didn’t matter the genre or content, whether it was entertainment, an old diary, or even someone’s thesis—she would read them all with gusto.

Unfortunately, this diary- cu w - research log was a bit too meandering to be published as a paper—it made sense, considering they were her own personal notes—but I thought she would enjoy it as a simple read. It ended with the herbalist’s own gruesome death, so it could be read as a horror story written in an intimate style. Those sentences, only growing more troubled as the impending deadline set by the cruel villain drew ever closer, bore an aura horrible enough to cause Kaya’s face to lose all color when I asked if she wanted to use it for her own research.

“An old diary, I see. Whose is it?”

“An herbalist whose end was cruel and bitter enough to form an ichor maze. It was written back when the local lords of Marsheim were vying for hegemony, before they started calling the old city Altheim.”

"I see.”

She flicked through its pages and, seemingly happy with it, drew out a slip that could be exchanged for payment.

“Cedrus sancta, indeed. Quite interesting. How’s two hundred?”

It was a souvenir, but I hadn’t specified if it was a gift or not, so Lady Agrippina quickly told me how much she was willing to part with for it. She wasn’t stingy with money; I was always happy to do business with her in the long run.

It would make for fifty drachmae per head. I was sure that Siegfried, who had almost been burned to a crisp to save his partner, would be overjoyed. We’d walked away with a hefty pile of loot, but unfortunately it was all items that would either be difficult to convert into cash or that the party wanted to use for their own sake. It was nice to get a little hard cash out of it.

“More than enough. I am sure my fellows will be happy to receive it.”

“You’re sharing? A generous one, you are.”

“An adventurer’s party gets stronger with equal growth. It is a unit that functions as a greater whole.”

“My, you are having fun.”

Hell yeah I am. It was true that I was slagging off the crooked DM all throughout our trip in the ichor maze, but time heals all wounds, as they say—it’s become a fond memory now.

Well, if someone asked me if I’d do it all again I’d have to give it a hard pass. For an Imperial citizen, losing out on your baths and tea is worse than having needles stuck under your nails.

“And now you’ve come crying to me in my inbox now because some dark shadow looms over your jolly adventuring life?”

"It is exactly as you say.”

Lady Agrippina nodded at me, bidding me me to wait a moment and let out a plume of smoke as she stared up into the middle distance. It was an act common to methuselah; while not forgetful, they sometimes needed more time than most to sort through their memories for anything precise. Maybe it was the uncanny nature of this act that made regular mortals keep them at arm’s length—even though they took a while to get there, they were able to recall things that a regular person would have long since forgotten. I doubted anyone liked being at such a disadvantage.

“There we go, I’ve remembered. After you said you were bound for Marsheim, I allowed myself a little peek into Maxine Mia Rehmann’s affairs. She is the illegitimate child of the former margrave, Otto Liudolf Liutgard von Mars-Baden. Apparently she’s quite the formidable one; her reputation holds up. She’s done well keeping her little fiefdom civil and orderly.”

Gods above, this woman scares me. She did all this digging just because her former servant was moving in? She’d gone awfully deep.

“She is the current Margrave Marsheim’s older sister’s child. The former margrave was deeply in love with her mother—though you ought to note that this is not public knowledge.”

“Your research skills are incredible.”

The information networks of nobles terrified me. From the outside, it looked like Lady Agrippina was just chilling out on the sofa having a smoke, but she was drawing information from her brain that had come from somewhere that would take a whole season to ride to.

More importantly, my theory about the Association manager was right. I felt even less compelled to get entangled in her business now.

"In all honesty, I have not done anything so untoward to warrant being called in, so I am rather concerned about her desire to meet with me face-to-face. I believe that my rising to amber-orange was quite unusual.”

“And as you stated, you are concerned that you may be forced into shady work dealing with local lords who are kicking each other’s shins under the table."

"Fortunately there is time before the summons, but I can’t sit still with the concern.”

I would have preferred if I was being called in for a telling off. That way I could mentally prepare for what I knew was coming and even think about how to appease her. What I feared the most was an appointment with the higher-ups about something I couldn’t even begin to fathom with time to worry in between. It was kind of like having your work day interrupted by the manager and having more work put on your desk without even a word of warning. At any rate, the unknowns made it all the more troubling.

I wouldn’t have minded if this had been a regular, seasonal check-in with her, but it could be anything from a little bonus for my good work or a punishment dressed up as a promotion, where I would be posted at a new branch in a country miles away that I’d never heard of. The more I started to worry, the more horrible outcomes started to form in my mind.

"This is a common tactic among people like her. One misstep and you’ll end up as the margrave’s dog.”

“You...think so?”

“You’re a valuable asset; even I would prefer it if you worked for me. Of course they want you. Their financial situation at present is frankly not great.”

“Really?”

I couldn’t help but express my surprise. Marsheim and the surrounding region were the front lines against our neighbors; the Empire took their needs seriously. It didn’t make sense to me for them to be suffering financially. Marsheim was fed by import taxes from the Mauser River and various trade routes that passed through—I would have thought that the margrave’s coffers were quite well stocked. No matter how greedy his subordinates might be for pensions, no matter how much costs went aside to military measures to maintain the peace, financial instability didn’t seem likely in my eyes.

"They don't have enough people, higher-ranking folk in particular—the sorts who could act as officers on the front line. They can just about make do in times of peace, but there are many who are only outwardly subservient to the margrave. These possible turncoats are making it hard to run things.”

Lady Agrippina explained that this was merely a working theory extrapolated from the available information, but it seemed like the appeasement policy against the bigwigs and other powerful local lords had failed. Their reasoning came from emotion, not logic, and they continued to sneer at the Empire as they refused to comply.

The proof was in the pudding—social order in Marsheim was barely holding on. It hadn’t yet reached a point of no return—nobody was going to cut off their neighbor’s hand for a shot at their wristwatch just yet—but it would be an understatement to say that crooks like Jonas Baltlinden brazenly assaulting carriages loaded with land tax was the sort of thing that flew far below the Empire’s standards.

Marsheim wasn’t united, and the situation was only growing worse for lack of a coordinated effort to build control. If lower-class nobles like knights and barons had done their job of keeping the peace, then things wouldn’t have gotten this bad. I suspected that the government had been willing to take the hit to their purses if it meant that they could put off resolving its own internal issues; nobody wanted to be the one to kick off a civil war, regardless of how desperately the local power structure needed pruning.

"If you ask me, the previous Margrave Marsheim should have brought a swift and permanent end to their problem. This all happened because these local strongarms—this lot who used to have control—have deepened their roots through strategic marriages.”

“You’re saying he was soft?”

“As a fluffy bunny. Even if he had asked to increase his personnel by five times the amount he had, in a demotion-led reshuffle, that wouldn't even amount to half as soft.”

Oof now that’s soft. And I like soft things, usually.

"If it were me, I would dispose of everyone within five generations—basically their great-great-grandparents and everyone descended therein. That or I would instill in their education system an affinity for the Empire—no matter how distantly they may be related to the ones who had caused the trouble.”

“You’re saying if they’re educated, they won’t forget the history?”

“Yes. Ridiculous, isn’t it? Five hundred years on from the founding, in the heart of the continent where the first few squabbling veterans thought to cooperate, the Empire still welcomes new blood, and the bonds of the nation hold fast. So why does this handful of fools in the farthest reaches think they can spend their days moaning about independence?”

"I don’t think tribalist attitudes can be explained away with logic. I suppose it’s partly the Empire’s fault for not educating them that they are part of the Empire.”

The pages of history are lined with countless countries who let tens of thousands of their people die for the sake of a few months or years of prolonged independence. Just as the former Yugoslavia didn’t last long, a nation-state was sure to fall apart if the people in it couldn’t at least pretend to have some kind of shared identity.

Even in Japan, a small island nation whose people were overwhelmingly from one place, people liked to purport the differences inherent in their prefecture. I doubted that forcing a homogenized, unitary ideology on a landlocked nation was an easy task.

In that sense, I couldn’t help but quake in awe at the might of the Emperor of Creation and the three Imperial generations that followed. It must have been a mighty feat to bring such a multiracial and multiethnic group together, instill within them the identity of the model Imperial subject, and ensure that the nation didn’t fall to pieces after all this time.

"Indeed. Financially speaking, they’re scraping in the dirt at the bottom of the ladder. The moment they started scrabbling to acquire useful pieces like yourself to array against each other, they laid the groundwork for their collapse. If you wish to simply enjoy your adventures, I would suggest moving to the north, or perhaps the east.”

“Apologies, but I’ve developed quite the fondness for the place.”

“You don’t wish to move; I see. Then you’d best be prepared to pay what you’re worth in recompense to those who’d own you.”

"I do not wish to borrow your might; I merely hoped I could receive some advice.”

Lady Agrippina let out a groan before tapping her pipe once more on the ashtray. Was she always so uncouth when smoking? I remember her being a bit more reined.

“Here. Take this.”

After some thought, Lady Agrippina snapped her fingers and revealed a single piece of paper. It was a little dirty, made out of a rough material with the expectation it would be thrown away, and upon it was a job request for an adventurer issued by the Department of Lost Writing Retrieval.

In the good name of all the gods above! She actually did it! She didn’t use her position as Count Ubiorum to pull together a little task force—no, she wrangled the creation of an official governmental department, all to keep her to-read pile stocked!

“W-Wow, you’ve gone to some impressive lengths to keep your appetite sated—and in the emperor’s name, no less.”

"I suppose I did. I convinced them with the help of the College’s librarians. I got the Imperial Library involved to make it all the more convincing, and now we have a pleasant little budget all to ourselves. A little reward for all the backbreaking work I’ve been doing is in order, no?”

How am I meant to respond to someone who creates a government-approved department with all the ease of a tired-out businesswoman buying herself a new piece of jewelry?!l was sure that the department would be pretty above board and only do what they were made for, but I would put a bet on future generations assuming that the Department of Lost Writing Retrieval was a secret intelligence agency.

“We’re giving it a trial run in Berylin for now, but I’ll make sure you get approval out in Marsheim.”

“I’m glad to hear it’s going so well...”

"Now then, wait just a second.”

Lady Agrippina completely ignored my dumbfounded expression and scribbled out a few pages with some official requests. Each of them bore the Department of Lost Writing Retrieval’s stamp and explicitly requested that I search for a number of legendary tomes that were said to lay in the west.

“The Pseudepigrapha of Exilia, Apocryphal Rites of the Sun God, Psalms to Beckon in the Apocalypse... All of these are from the Age of Gods. Aren’t some of these rumored to not even exist?”

Each of these were texts tomes that existed only in urban legends.

The Pseudepigrapha of Exilia was a stone tablet inscribed with a divine message imparted long before the Age of Gods, claiming that mensch would one day reign supreme over all others. The Apocryphal Rites of the Sun God was a portion of Sun God scriptures which didn't exist in the main temple even as a copy of a copy of a copy. As its name suggested, it was of dubious authenticity. As for the Psalms to Beckon in the Apocalypse, it was a copper scroll inscribed by a blind great magus which contained details, passed down by an outer god, which told of how to destroy the very world. It was said to be even more strange and mysterious than the Compendium of Forgotten Divine Rites.

She was asking me to search for these with all the seriousness in the world. If I could, I’d introduce her to the rowdy lot who chalked up all sorts of calamities to Nostradamus’s predictions and spent all their days bemoaning the state of the world.

“But they are said to exist. If you find them, I would like you to bring them to me.”

"I suppose I can understand why...”

I wasn’t without my own collector’s vices. If someone dug up a first-edition copy of a certain cosmic horror investigation TRPG, or the premier dungeon-crawling TRPG in its signature red box, then I couldn’t rightly say no.

"If you show her this, then you can implicitly let her know that you’re a little busy and someone else is currently using you right now. I think it’s a little less aggressive than showing an Imperial ring.”

"Thank you. I’ll use it graciously.”

"I won’t lie and say that I’m not keen to get them. Each would fetch you five thousand drachmae, minimum. Search well.”

I was truly thankful for the job, but I just didn’t know how to respond to her easy disposition in posing such a bone-chilling request. It was important to remember that if this woman was asking me to fetch them, then that meant that she was certain, at least to a degree, that they did in fact exist. Why else would she suggest the reward price up front?

I thought that I should probably get started on the search now that she had got me involved in this wild book chase, but each and every one of them was looking to be a major pain in the backside...

“You were the one who chose the life of an adventurer, with all its freedoms and responsibilities. Don’t forget you chose to turn down my request, so make sure to give me a good show. As your former boss, the least I can do is pay for your dance costume.” She smiled and added, “Now then, there's nothing more pitiful to watch than a show where the actor’s heart isn’t in it.”

She didn’t even bother to hide that she derived some sort of deranged joy out of my discomfort, greedily devouring the sight of me squirming. Despite everything that had happened since I left, this utterly demonic side of her hadn’t changed.

With the worry that I might have taken myself out of the frying pan and into the fire, I departed from my former employer and returned to Marsheim.

Now, I won’t go into the details surrounding this, but I received quite the angry letter from Elisa, who was at a lecture at the time. She asked why I hadn’t stayed just a little bit longer, and I was forced to reflect on the brotherly responsibilities I had accidentally managed to shirk...

[Tips] The Department of Lost Writing Retrieval is an official government body established under Count Agrippina von Ubiorum. It was founded with the aim of securing lost writings, rare tomes, and documents with anthropological value.

Due to the breadth of its remit, later generations would hold their own conspiracy theories that it was cover for the Empire’s intelligence network.