Somehow, Living Life in Another World is Wrong, as I Expected Ch. 8.2

There are few things I can claim to love. MAX Coffee, even if I haven’t managed to drink any since coming to Lugunica. My sister, Komachi. My cat, Kamakura. Above all else (maybe, maybe not above MAX) is sleep.

Sleep as a basic need for all conscious beings has been a constant for survival. Not just as a constant for humans, it is a basic, universal constant that all living beings need sleep, even in another world. 

Take, for example, being awake for more than a day. Just that one day of sleeplessness is capable of inhibiting the basic decision making of any individual. Two days? You might as well flip a coin on whether someone is going to make a smart decision or not.

What I’m saying is that those people that brag about going sleepless for several nights in a row are dumb idiots. Don’t they understand that in order to facilitate basic functionality in any society, they first need to make sure that they themselves are functioning correctly? An offset circadian rhythm is just the least damage that can be done, and even then, it is already a difficult thing to correct.

All that to mean one thing: sleep, and time to sleep, should not be considered a luxury, as was the case in my world. A person should be allotted time to sleep in, in order to get their mandatory six to eight hours of sleep everyday, not up late at night doing overtime, or homework, or being pestered by their still single teacher to go out for ramen.

What? I should count video games in that? Ha. Good joke.

Anyway, people say that sleep is for the weak, right? That implies that they think that sleeping is something to be scorned, to be disgusted by when a person could be doing something more productive. Well, let me say screw that! If sleep is for the weak, then count me as the weakest person there is!

I could argue that by sleeping, I am being the most productive person out there! Don’t they know that I am refreshing my thoughts and resting my tired body from a hard day’s work?!

Hey, Hachiman, why exactly are you even ranting about this? If sleep is so good, shouldn’t you be sleeping still?

Good point, Hachiman. See, the problem with that is that I can’t sleep.

Alright, Hachiman, I’ll bite. Why can’t you sleep?

See, I think I’m going to be too busy killing whoever’s making that damn racket downstairs!

…

I grumbled as I headed downstairs. The clang of metal and wood, two distinct voices arguing over something or the other. Honestly, I couldn’t care less. The combination of a lack of decent sleep and hunger from not eating dinner was getting to me, I knew. I was tired, irritated, and these two bozos weren’t helping any.

And by these two, I meant my two ‘employees’.

“Boss!” I barely held myself up as a veritable blonde rocket slammed into my midsection, “See Old Man?! I told you that Karsten chick was telling the truth!”

“Oi, brat, what would you have done if I was injured? Pay for my medical fees?” I started grinding my knuckle into Felt’s temple, ignoring her cries of mercy, “Like you’d have any actual money left from buying every damn merchant’s stock of milk!”

“OW! I’ll have you know that it’s better than that swill you call coffee, asshat!” I pressed into her head just a tad harder at that slight. As if this damned brat knew anything about coffee!

“Knock it off you two.” An amused Rom came lumbering out, carrying a crate through the door, “Hikigaya, good to see you. Thought you were going to sleep in, if what Karsten said was anything to go by.”

I clicked my tongue as I let go of Felt, who then proceeded to try and hit me with her fists. I quite literally held her at arm’s length, “You think I can sleep when you’re making this much noise? This early in the morning?”

“What can I say Hikigaya, “ Rom gave me a wry smirk, “You’re the one that wanted to be a blacksmith. Not our fault that it’s disturbing your beauty sleep.”

“If I didn’t know any better, I’d say that you were making noise just to make me as old and wrinkly as your ass.” I scoffed, though even I was willing to say that it lacked any real heat in it. I even stopped holding back Felt as her faux anger melted away.

It wasn’t like I didn’t know why they did it, either. They were obviously capable of doing things quietly - they have been over the years. Rom was likely not the real culprit in the noise, however, he always did have a soft spot for his adopted daughter.

“...” I was quiet as Felt stumbled forward, hugging my midsection once more. It was no less strong as when she did so earlier. The difference?

I couldn’t ignore the wet spot forming just where her eyes would be.

“...You came back.” My hand found itself patting her head as the shorter girl hiccuped, “When…when we didn’t hear back from you guys, I- we thought-”

“Stupid brat.” I rubbed circles around her back as she continued to sob, “It was only one day. I’d like to think you’d give me more than a day before you wrote me off as dead.”

That elicited a garbled laugh out of her, “Yeah, shoulda known you Boss. Always the damn cockroach.”

I stayed quiet even as the shop was filled with the sound of crying laughter.

…

Rom eventually made his way over to me and clamped down on my shoulder. It would have been comical with how comparatively smaller I was, had it not been from the relief I could see peering through his features.

“You have no idea just how much Felt was worried.” I raised an eyebrow as I stared at him. Sending a pointed look to where Felt had gone - into the back rooms in order to clean herself up - I couldn’t help but snort derisively.

“Really?” I drawled out, “I didn’t notice.”

“Shut up with the sarcasm for a moment, Hikigaya.” Rom sat down with an audible thud, a small glare directed at me, “The kid couldn’t sleep the entire night, you know? Kept up everyone in that pretty boy’s mansion with her damned pacing.”

“Seriously? I don’t have to pay anyone any compensation, do I?” Internally I was already dreading the answer. For one, if I did have to pay for anything Felt might have done, it would likely take me a couple of months just to recoup the losses. However, that also meant that I wouldn’t have to deal with being in the bad graces of Astrea clan servants that had lost sleep.

I refused to let myself be the black company executive that doesn’t think about the repercussions of the actions, thank you very much.

For a moment, Rom was quiet. I took that time to mentally tally up every bit of gold I would need to pay off Astrea when he snorted, “Nah, I was only slightly exaggerating. Pretty boy himself didn’t sleep the entire night, and none of the staff wanted to leave him alone with Felt.”

“What, did they think I sent you two over there to seduce him or something?”

“Seeing how those two talked? I wouldn’t blame them for believing that.”

“...No shit, really?”

This sounded like some bad TV drama. Actually, yes, now that I think about it, it really did seem like the plot to some shitty TV drama, only with the roles reversed! Instead of bad boy meets good girl, I had somehow inadvertently made a royal knight meet a delinquent brat!

Wait, that’s just a shoujo manga. Nevermind, I thought I had made something original. Yet again, I was proven wrong.

“Yep.” Rom nodded sagely, “Just so you know, if Astrea tries anything Felt doesn’t want, I’m beating the shit outta him.”

“You’d have to get to him before Felt does first.”

“It’s the principle of the matter, you know?”

“Fair enough.”

“I feel like you two are talking about me.” Just then, Felt had apparently managed to compose herself enough that, when she walked in, it wasn’t obvious at all that she’d been crying just minutes prior.

“Nothing to concern yourself about.” I, of course, immediately denied everything. Watching her closely, I could see that she had narrowed her eyes. Damn, she was onto us. Quick, I need a topic change-

“You two, tell me, do you remember why I sent you over to Astrea in the first place?”

The both of them sent me confused looks as I asked that question. Truth be told, I needed the answer as much as I needed a distraction, so two birds with one stone, I suppose.

“You alright boss?” Normally, I doubt that Felt would be as concerned as she made it out to be, but I guess my line of questioning, randomly at that, must have worried her a bit, “You didn’t hit your head too hard when fighting those guys, right?”

“Just answer the question.” I muttered, “Please.”

Rom was now looking at me with similar concern, “Karsten told us that she didn’t have the Blue heal you to full just to teach you a lesson, but I didn’t think that that would include memory loss.”

“Felt. Rom.” Strength that I didn’t feel was projected into my voice, “Answer the damn question.”

“...There was a shipment that needed to be delivered, and you wanted us to deliver it personally cause you couldn’t be bothered to portal it yourself.” Felt crossed her arms as she visibly fought the desire to do something. Maybe drag Argyle out and make him heal me or something.

The thing was, her answer was what I had expected.

I distinctly remember that very same conversation. Where I had ordered them to bring Astrea’s order to their estate. None of us were under any false pretenses as to the real reason as to what I was going to be doing, however. In fact, in preparation of the worst case scenario, I had spoken to Astrea himself, asking him to take both Rom and Felt into his house, if it ever happened.

All of that was in line with Felt’s admittedly short answer. None of that was contradictory.

Except, it should be, according to Natsuki.

An Archbishop had supposedly targeted my shop. Whether it was by coincidence or malice, they would enter my shop, and kill anyone inside it. That very same Archbishop was the one I had killed, deleted by the Whale’s fog. Had it truly meant to happen, then I had no doubts as to what my preparations would have been.

Part of that would have been sending Felt and Rom over to the safest place in Lugunica - right next to Astrea.

More than that, I would have informed the Sword Saint about an Archbishop roaming around the capital. I would not have simply asked him to give Rom and Felt a home; he would have done so without my asking.

Or maybe I would have.

It’s difficult to say just what I could have done differently when that entire timeline might as well not exist outside of Natsuki’s head. However, that didn’t mean that everything was lost to the sands of timelessness.

See, I remember talking to Astrea. I remember telling him about Felt and Rom. I also remember talking to him about the shipment.

The question is: why would I ever talk to him about that?

Astrea was always good with his word. He would always deliver with whatever payment that was due, even earlier in some instances. More than, the payment he promised never needed following up. So why would I - someone who hated extra steps, who despised the very notion of additional small talk - go out of my way to speak with him directly about an ordinary batch of deliveries?

Even if I had wanted to make sure he knew Rom and Felt would be dropping by, a simple note would have sufficed. A messenger pigeon, if I were feeling especially archaic.

So why?

It didn’t make sense to me. Until a chilling thought came to the forefront.

That I didn’t actually talk to Astrea about that. 

It felt absolutely incorrect. Wrong. I knew myself enough to be certain that that was the only other thing we talked about.

And that’s exactly why I realized that was where whatever esoteric magic of the Whale’s fog had, had failed.

See, magic still needed power. And for something as drastic as changing the timeline of an entire world, that required a lot of power. The Whale was strong, but even I doubted it could change every single minute detail of every moment of every life on the planet. There was just feasibly no way of doing so, unless it held a literal infinite well of power.

Considering it got killed, then I was certain it was not some omnipotent god-king of time.

No, it was more likely that whatever power it held was directed towards the wide sweeping changes across the world. Changes that I couldn’t possibly even know about, let alone experience. Meanwhile, the smaller ones - say a conversation between two individuals about a person that has been deleted - would merely be recontextualized into a different conversation.

 It was, after all, easier to edit the contents of a conversation than to find a way to make sure that that conversation never happened.

But now the question was how did nobody think of it before, the mechanics of how the Whale’s fog worked on the micro-macro stage? The answer was far simpler: nobody knew the right question to ask.

How could they, when the subject of that conversation would never have existed in their eyes? Before Natsuki, there was nobody that could remember anything pertaining to the Whale’s victims.

…Fuck it, once everything’s settled down, I needed to talk to Natsuki again. I needed to wring every bit of information I could out of him.

I can’t be caught off guard like this, not if I wanted to call myself an info broker anyway.

…