Chapter 617 - Overthrowing the Tyrants X (Patreon)

I woke up in a cold bed, in a small room.

Ugh.

Another day I had to go to work. It was less than halfway through the week. Two days down, four to go before the weekend, where I’d get two blessed days off.

I thought I was mentally tough. I thought I was ready for all challenges. I’d worked my ass off for years on a farm, just to survive! But farming for survival, on my own land with my own family, was a far cry from the sheer drudgery that was working as a [Scribe]. Well… the work was fine, it was having a boss and a schedule and being on time and…

I was glad I had my [Oath]. My idle musings on murdering all my coworkers and getting out of here would remain just that - idle. The way the smallest amount of power went to some people’s head, my god…

And the meetings. Ah fuck, we had a bunch of meetings today, didn’t we? Salab loved the sound of his own voice, and I couldn’t dodge Olthor there. Fuck Olthor, he was the worst. All that, and I couldn’t tell them to piss off to their face, nooooo, Rabbit was a meek little [Scribe].

I was rearranging my big list of jobs I wanted to try out at some point. Anything that had a vague whiff of ‘company politics’ was going right out the window. Unless Iona or someone was the boss, that’d be fine. 

Speaking of Iona… I missed her. Deeply. Her absence was like a toothache that couldn’t be treated, a gaping hole that devoured and wouldn’t be filled. I’d taken to writing some poetry, mostly angsty ‘I miss and love you’ stuff. I was going to practically bury Iona under it. Fenrir and Auri would be harder… the first due to how much I’d need to write, and Auri would just burn right through it all. Like trying to drown a fish. 

It all perfectly fit in my cover to boot! I had clear marriage tattoos, and hiding them was a non-starter for me. I was vague about what happened, and however terrible my coworkers were, they had enough grace to not pry.

All of us had survived the cataclysm. All of us had scars. All of us had lost most of the people we knew. There was a rough 8 year window around the time the world blew up that was off-limits, by unspoken truce. Even Thurinthel, the insatiable [Gossip] - it was literally her class - wouldn’t bring up anything from that time period. Everything before or after was fair game - everything - but she wasn’t touching the cataclysm.

Speaking of Auri, I woke up to level notifications!

[*ding!* Congratulations! [The Elaine] has leveled up to level 1513 -> 1514! +200 Strength, +200 Dexterity, +800 Speed, +800 Vitality, +2000 Mana, +10000 Mana Regen, +4000 Magic Power, +4000 Magic Control from your Class per level! +1 Strength, +1 Dexterity, +1 Speed, +1 Vitality, +1 Mana, +1 Mana Regeneration, +1 Magic Power, +1 Magic Control for being Chimera (Elvenoid)! +1 Mana, +1 Mana Regen from your Element per level!]

[*ding!* Congratulations! [Dawnbringer] leveled up! 1472 -> 1473. +256 Strength, +256 Dexterity, +256 Speed, +256 Vitality, +4096 Magic Power, +4096 Magic Control, +4096 Mana, +4096 Mana Regeneration from your Class per level! +1 Strength, +1 Dexterity, +1 Speed, +1 Vitality, +1 Mana, +1 Mana Regeneration, +1 Magic Power, +1 Magic Control for being Chimera (Elvenoid) per level! +1 Mana Regeneration, +1 Strength from your Element per level!]

[*ding!* Congratulations! [Sage of Eternity] leveled up! 1449 -> 1450. +2048 Magic Power, +2048 Magic Control, +1024 Mana, +1024 Mana Regeneration from your Class per level! +1 Strength, +1 Dexterity, +1 Speed, +1 Vitality, +1 Mana, +1 Mana Regeneration, +1 Magic Power, +1 Magic Control for being Chimera (Elvenoid) per level! +1 Mana, +1 Magic Power from your Element per level!]

Auri was busy! I was a little worried about her, and I doubted I’d ever not worry. She was my companion, my best friend. How could I not worry about her? Every notification was a signal, a message, that she was busy and productive. I loved it when reports trickled in a few days later, a version of her exploits shared. They had no idea it was a phoenix, and those were only for the reports we got! I was simply left to wonder when I got levels from her, and no reports ever arrived. We had a lot to catch up on one day. 

I was tempted to just [Teleport] around and instantly do my entire morning routine, but no. That’d be revealing I was far more powerful than I was letting on. Powerful enough to make people uncomfortable. My first class and element was too obvious. Couldn’t hide my Celestial eyes forever, and the levels involved made hiding my level and class impossible. It’d just attract attention.

My Radiance class I’d passed off as being a dead end, only occasionally using a spark of Radiance here and there to light things on fire. Which meant no flying, which suuuuuucked even more.

And my last class was a [Reading] class, with document storage, reading, perfect memory, and a tiny, tiny [Teleportation] skill. Like, “I can move a piece of paper around in the same room”  strong, not “teleport trees across miles”. To be fair, I didn’t think I could move an entire tree in a single go several miles… but each part was true.

The things I did for the sake of my cover… the fact that I could quit anytime and just go back to normal was the only thing that made it bearable. 

Enough griping!

I got out of bed, and only long training and discipline had me making it again. It was such a pain… it was easier to leave it open and just drop right back into it again when the day was over, but I also knew slacking on it would have me slack on other things, and if I let my occasionally-stupid brain take over like that, I’d end up a complete hermit.

I changed into pants and a shirt, which was all sorts of weird at first. They didn’t do tunics here, and when in Edhallond, do as the elves. [Scribe] Rabbit would want to fit in, and I had to admit, after the initial weirdness, I settled in nicely. Naturally, with a bit of a taste for the nicer clothes, but everyone was allowed hobbies and vices. After settling in, I realized a fundamental truth about elven clothing: 

My ass looked great in them.

I had a mirror in my room, which led to all sorts of entertaining thoughts. A glance out the window suggested a clear and sunny day, although being deep in the archives, I wouldn’t get to enjoy any of it. I swear Fenrir had to be flying around, unseasonal thunderstorms kept rolling in at random times. I still had no fucking idea how the wyvern did it, and even Iona, despite being able to see his skills, didn’t see anything that explained it.

I left my small room, leading to the second room of the apartment. A small kitchen-living room combo, leading to the last room, a small bathroom. Nevermind that almost the entire apartment building was empty and abandoned, nevermind that numerous much larger, much more luxurious suites were available. The prick of a [Landlord] wanted to rent them out for the price he’d eventually get once the city filled up in a couple of generations, and was perfectly happy getting no money now. The contracts tended to be long, given the Immortals involved, and he didn’t want anyone nabbing a fancy room now for a low price, then just staying there for the next six centuries.

Prick.

I could see the appeal of wanting to get in early and become massively wealthy, but I believed there was a big difference between Orthus wanting to keep the land for itself as a community/government entity, and a private individual doing the same. At least the commute was super easy, just a short walk down the block. Part of me wondered about the ethics of slipping various slumlord’s names to Nina. I rarely took responsibility for the actions of others… but it was feeling a little too murderous for my tastes. Perhaps a broader conversation on [Landlords] in general… then again, that tended to be the nobility in most parts of the world, and… I spun the rest of the thought off into [Luminary Mind].

I got to the kitchen, and studied the runes on the cupboards again, trying to see if I’d missed any trick to them. They were nice. My milk and cream were just right there, practically out in the open, and not decaying a hair. A wrapped piece of raw fish didn’t smell at all, and it’d been left out on the counter all night long. Not a single bug had been seen in the entire building, and I was including my ability to look inside of walls. I imagined it was someone’s aura though, and not a specific enchantment. Either way, it was neat. I did like living in a place with a ton of overlapping auras.

Like… I didn’t have to do laundry. At all. My clothes were permanently clean and fresh, smelling slightly of lilacs and roses. Thank you, past-me, for modifying my sweat! Thank you, whoever had a broad cleaning aura! Small spills just vanished, which was a bit of a shame for the five-second rule and small sweets, but that wasn’t an issue for me. I was faster than gravity, even if I skipped just [Teleporting] it back onto its plate. I’d sliced a bunch of pears last night for lunch, and they hadn’t oxidized a bit! 

Why did the System have stupid limitations on how many classes and skills I could have? JUST LET ME HAVE THEM ALL! Blah.

I was contributing to the auras myself twice over. My ‘everyone heals much faster, and instantly when they call my name’ aura was practically unnoticed, given I was keeping up a full-sphere ‘instantly heal everyone of all injuries’ skill combo going. Because I could. Fuck people dying when I could change that.

I was aware there was some cognitive dissonance going on, and it was going to get worse as Arachne’s plot to overthrow the dictators came to fruition, but that was a future-me problem. Future-me was going to hate past-me. 

I fried up breakfast, cooking up extra for lunch. It entertained me endlessly to see the little bits of smoke wisping up over my breakfast.

Smoke and mirrors. The unofficial creed of the Sentinels, my whole job here was smoke and mirrors. There was no risk thinking about it in the privacy of my own mind.

I packed up two lunches - one spicy with extras, the other more plain - and briskly walked out of the place, wanting to hit the park before work. I didn’t have a nice stick yet, I was thinking of acquiring one, but there were a number of movement-meditation exercises I’d gotten from the giant’s monastery that didn’t require a staff. In the early morning light, a soft carpet of dew sparkling like a million gems, I peacefully went through the exercises. A way to center and ground myself. I’d initially started off rejecting the New Remus Empire in my mind during my morning meditation, but rapidly dropped the practice and did it during lunch instead. It was so easy to be angry at things, it was like anger and rage completely hijacked the brain, and I could tell I was getting into maladaptive thinking patterns. Not at all helpful when the goal was inner peace. 

“Fuck!” My peaceful meditation was broken when the sun hit my eyes. I didn’t need to shade them to tell I was going to be late. Again.

Fuck fuck FUCK! I swore to myself as I briskly walked the rest of the way to work, somehow managing to end up late in spite of having an eight minute commute. Seriously, how!?

I mean… I knew how. I didn’t really want to go, there were more interesting things to distract me, and it wasn’t like I had the impetus of life and death prodding me along. Doing paperwork just didn’t have the same gravitas. I slipped in through the front door, tossed one of my marked lunches in the breakroom, stuffed the other into my belt - yay squashed sandwich - and tried to slip to the filing room without being seen.

“Rabbit!” Salab shouted at me. The elf was almost unique. A single rhino horn in the middle of his head, instead of the usual pair of horns where most elves had them. It gave his head a conical look, and I’d noticed a number of other elves doing a double-take when they first saw him. It was an unfortunate look. Like a good, meek [Scribe] Rabbit I froze at my boss’s displeased tone, mentally rolling my eyes. “What have I said about being late? That’s twice already this week! You can’t keep doing this.”

Hunched shoulders, eyes down, hands clasped behind my back.

Ciriel, remind me that it’s a bad idea to mouth off to my boss. I asked the Goddess of Healing

It’s a bad idea to mouth off to the person you’re spying on, yeah. Ciriel cheekily agreed. I think Iona’s totally fine with you mouthing off to her though. Just saying, we all know who the real boss is.

I mentally blew a raspberry in Ciriel’s direction, wondering at how surreal my life was sometimes. I was in a mostly deserted elf city, fantastic magic at my fingertips, then working as a [Scribe] while handling petty politics and blowing raspberries to gods.

Gods and knowledge were so odd at times. I noticed that Ciriel never mentioned anything her other followers were up to, or other stuff she could’ve gotten from them. By the same note, she claimed she never said anything about me to them, nevermind how many devotees she had in Edhallond alone. I sent her a big chunk of my current mana in prayer… totally not a bribe. I just wasn’t using it, and Ciriel could use it. Maybe just a little bit of a bribe. Shame [Persistent Casting] wasn’t [Persistent Prayer], I’d totally grab a skill to continuously give Ciriel my spare mana.

If I had the damn skill slots! System, why do you torture me so!?

“Well?” Salab crossed his arms. Fuck! Right! I was in the middle of a conversation! Not even [Luminary Mind] could spare me from the utter drudgery that was office work and talking with my boss.

“Sorry boss! It’s my fault. Got lost on the way over. I’d like to say it won’t happen again, but, uh… yeah sorry I’ll stay a bit later to make it up.”

Salab wasn’t convinced, narrowing his eyes at me.

“Listen Rabbit, you do good work, but this is starting to become a serious problem. You can’t just keep showing up late! You need to consider your priorities, and…”

He went on and on and on, and my old problem of not being able to focus on things came back with a vicious vengeance. I tried my old trick of cycling through different thoughts in [Luminary Mind] to pay some sort of attention, cheating a little with my perfect memory in [Astral Archives], but there was a world of difference between being able to perfectly recall a conversation, and paying attention. I didn’t have all sorts of social skills, nevermind [Everywoman] leveling up.

And Salab could tell. 

More yelling. I put on an appropriate face, trying to mix a few different emotions, nodding along, while just waiting for him to be done. Seriously, I’d been three minutes late, and he was taking almost ten to yell at me over it! It was wildly inefficient! How could he not see the problem!?

“I need a report on the state of the archives by lunch, it’s urgent. Top priority. Alright, you’ve wasted enough time, get going. ” Salab ordered. I scurried off like a good little [Scribe], secretly glad that I was actively getting revenge the entire time.

I mentally scanned through the building, doing a small roll call. Everyone was here, which was great! The pickup point deep under the building was empty, another one of Arachne’s agents having picked up the papers I’d placed there, Olthor was being his usual lazy self up in his private office, and I made it to the archive room in time for Thurinthel to sniff at me.

“You’re late.” The elf said.

“Yeah… Salab turned being three minutes late into fifteen.” I complained, openly rolling my eyes. I immediately moved to the latest stack of paperwork, pushing my stats to the correct amount. My eyes started to blur as I rapidly read each page, already walking to the proper cabinet to store the papers in. At the same time, I was also getting the report Salab asked for composed. 

It was expected that all of us could do the work of a dozen people, that was simply the baseline standard. Yay the System?

“Ugh. He would. It’s like he thinks if he’s not talking for a minute, everyone will realize how little work he actually does.” She commiserated with me. “Like, yeah, we get it you’re the Big Boss, how lucky we all are that you’re micromanaging all of us. Oh! Olthor went home last night with a girl and a guy! He’s pretending to be oblivious to the marks all over his neck, but come on, nobody’s that unaware. He’s totally just flaunting that he’s getting laid in front of everyone, but like, that’s not exactly impressive, you know? With his level, at his age? It’s pathetic. Speaking of! A couple in the 512 is fighting, and it looks like it’s going to get ugly. I’m totally pretty enough, I’m going to ‘accidentally’ bump into him tomorrow night and shoot my shot, you know? Might be my chance. Want to be my winggal? I’ll buy the drinks! We can go…”

Thurinthel, by the grace of the gods and a full class dedicated to it, managed to get a full day’s worth of non-stop gossip in only three hours. It was a bit much, but at the same time, fairly harmless. Didn’t even grate on my ears, although there was so much of it. I rapidly walked back and forth, properly filing the paperwork where it belonged - nevermind if I was trying, I could [Teleport] it all to the right spot in seconds - while spying my little heart out.

I could read virtually everything inside the building, and read it I did. It helped that I was all caught up, and only needed to get the ‘morning news’ so to speak. A few more towns had agreed to join the New Remus Empire as tributaries. There was a proposal about raising [Auxiliaries] that Arachne would love, but it was on Salab’s desk, so I couldn’t touch it for now. I just had to hope it was going to end up near Olthor at some point.

It was best to only move documents that multiple people had seen, but Arachne left it up to my judgement. Olthor, in spite of our minimal contact, had immediately pissed me off something fierce, and I was shamelessly framing him. 

Procurement request for arms? Olthor signed off on it, put it in his ‘done’ pile, and the moment a second piece of paper landed on it, I [Teleported] it from his third-floor office directly down to the pickup point. At no point did the papers come close to me. It was possible that I was throwing wrenches in the works. After all, I sent Arachne the paperwork saying “8000 spears to Ithil, signed off on”, meanwhile that paper was getting ‘lost’ in the organization, and the spears were unlikely to make it to Ithil in the first place.

Eh. Arachne was smart, she’d figure it out. Frankly, I was shocked that nobody had seemingly noticed the tiny output relative to the input Olthor had, and the sheer number of ‘missing documents’ should alert someone! Well, Thurinthel had sort of noticed, mostly gossiping that Olthor was clearly slacking off, we barely got anything from him down here, and wasn’t that such a shame…

The hours passed by as usual. I was looking forward to lunch.

“... mangos for sale. She’ll only be around for a few days though, so you’ll have to hurry.”

My head whipped around so fast I should’ve broken my neck. I twisted the rest of my body around so it wouldn’t be quite so obvious that my neck was non-standard, and quickly reviewed my memories of what Thurinthel had been saying.

“Hang on, say that bit about the mangos again…” I asked. She smirked at me. Smirked!

“You are way too easy to read.” She teased. “Just need to say that word to completely distract you.” 

My heart fell.

“No mangos?” I asked.

“Yes, there are mangos. As I was saying…”

Mangos! FUCK YEAH!

Okay, maybe I was as transparent as a shallow, clear pond to Thurinthel, but we were coworkers in the same room. Olthor started to move, and I kept careful track of him with [The World Around Me] as he went down to the breakroom, and… yes, the bastard stole my lunch. Again.

The prick scurried back to the office with his lunch and my lunch. ‘Because you’re a human, what are you going to do about it?’ was his answer when I asked him about it last week. I watched carefully as he took the first bite. He chewed, swallowed, and took a second bite before the spices hit him.

And oh, how they hit him. His face went red, he screamed, gagged and spat, and sweat started to pour off his face. He grabbed his drink and downed it all, then shivered as the water made it worse.

Ha! Amateur! Milk was the right answer, and we didn’t have any!

I’d debated spiking the sandwich with a strong laxative as well. After some debate and soul searching, I decided not to. A combination of the overlapping auras of Edhallond mostly making them not work - my own healing had some minor aspects around digestion and constipation, but it did allow for minor remedies when needed - the sheer escalation involved, and fundamentally, it was harm. Too much harm on a prank.

Sure, there was the argument that he deserved it. That he wouldn’t get hurt if he hadn’t stolen my food, if he hadn’t been stealing my food for weeks now. But like… I knew exactly what I was doing. I knew I was sabotaging it, and that he’d take it. The amount of laxatives I’d need to use to get a dramatic effect would easily be considered harmful, and it wasn’t worth it.

Seeing him rolling around in agony, thumping on his desk to try and get some relief? That was totally worth it. There was no actual harm… assuming he wasn’t allergic or something. Which my healing would immediately obviate.

“Something funny?” Thurinthel asked. Crap! I was grinning too much. This was something I could explain though.

“Olthor’s been stealing my lunch. I put an extra spicy one in the breakroom today, while bringing my own with me.” I patted my… I wanted to call it a sandwich, but it didn’t really qualify anymore. “I suspect he’s getting his just desserts right now.”

Thurinthel grinned at me.

“Rabbit! I didn’t know you had so much bite in you! Wait, if it’s almost lunch, don’t we have a meeting with Salab?”

I rolled my eyes.

“Oh yeah. Another one that could’ve just been a simple message, want to bet?”

“No bet! That’s a sucker’s bet! I’m not taking it.” She said.

I finished the last flourish on the report Salab wanted. It was thick, he better be happy about it.

We made our way over to the meeting room, Olthor still in visible agony. Ha! Healing didn’t change taste, sucker!

“Rabbit, good. Sorry about asking you for the report, I don’t need it anymore. Can you refill the coffee for everyone, then get me a cup?” Salab asked as we walked in.

Oh - for fucks sake! I spent ages on that report! I was not the office coffee lady! Everyone treated me like one though, requesting that I refill it for them, bring them cups, seriously, could we burn the whole place down? The work was fine, it was everyone else.

I was in the middle of handling it when I spotted a tiny, sneaky flame working its way through the building.

Auri!?