I Have Some Free Time in the Isekai Kingdom so I'll Sojourn the Capital~! (Tyr)

[VeraC]

September 20th, OE 102
Citadel City, Perindor
Perindor Citadel City Square

With a week of freetime, between making repairs and adjustments to Setsugekka and Ganonia, along with Heidel and her knights planning the next step of action, Laura was given freedom to move about the city as she pleased. It was almost surreal, despite the fierce conflict yesterday, the people were seemingly unfazed by the happenings, going about their daily lives without a fear in the world. The city streets were bustling with activity, market stalls doing business as usual, neighbors talking in the streets, children playing around the city square, some troubledoers messing about the fountain.

If she took the time, she could finally begin to appreciate the architecture of the city, stone buildings topped with brick roofs that gave an ancient vibe to the city, almost as if she had stepped in a time machine into the past thousands of years. Horse-drawn carriages and carts rolled along the brick roads, the clop of the horses' hooves making an ever so enjoyable sound. As she neared closer to the City Square, the smell of fresh-baked goods and charcoal-grilled meats wafted their way to her nose; an enjoyable smell should one not let it stain their clothes.

Maybe Laura would find it unreal, given the state of the world and the threats that loomed on the horizon. There was a strange disconnect between reality and these people; were they oblivious to the war? Was it some kind of blissful ignorance?

“It's truly interesting, isn’t it?”

From behind Laura, the voice of a young man came into earshot. As she turned around to find the source of the voice, she would be met with a tall man, adorned in black and white robes that featured an elegant golden trim. His gray hair gave off a sheen on the afternoon sun that almost turned it silver, his deep blue eyes giving a sense of clarity to the man’s figure. In his arms were a collection of books and scrolls, their titles on the spine written in a language foreign to Laura.

“‘How is it that they’re able to remain calm in such a situation?’ Is what you’re thinking, correct?”

The man gave a friendly smile.

“Ah, let me introduce myself. I’m Seifer, you can think of me as a pursuer of knowledge. You’re one of the otherworlders, right? I’ve been meaning to meet you.”

His voice held an almost childlike excitement to it, like a librarian who had found a rare limited 1st edition book.

“If you have some time, would you mind having a chat?”

He kept a smile on his face and held his breath in anticipation for the foxgirl’s response, hoping for a positive one.

 

[Tyran]

As Laura explored Perindor there was only one thing she could compare it to: It really was just like the childhood fantasies of the little children in Maake she could distantly remember as half-faded memories. Right down to the picturesque society that lived on without a care in the world despite fighting happening right in their own doorsteps.

In a way, it was just like home, and she loved exploring it. Finally, something other than the empty space and cold, metal, artificial structures she had seen for the past five years. Or the rubble and remains of a world that once was she had seen before that.

Laura twirled on her feet and grinned in greeting at Seifer. "Well, you're half-right.... quarter-right?" She snorted. "Some degree of right between not at all and being dead on." She concluded that line of thought with a shrug. "It's not the first time I've seen a peaceful society while the world rages around them, so that's not what I'm wondering about, but rather what is it a result of. Last time the false peace was brought about by a careful false narrative and control of information - and a lot of secret war crimes of course. Can't really say I understand where it's coming from here."

She looked at Seifer curiously, and gestured towards his stack of books with a snicker. "But that aside, do you go everywhere with those props or did you specifically prepare them for this?"

 

[VeraC]

“These books? They’re ancient texts dating back to before the Giant War. A friend found them in a store and I just had to pick them up.”

Seifer listened intently to Laura, nodding his head with every sentence she said. He placed his hand on his chin, or well he would, were his hands not full of books, in momentary contemplation.

“The result…”

He repeated Laura’s words while in thought.

“The answer may vary from person to person, but it wouldn’t be wrong to say the result is from the actions of the Grand Reine these past two-thousand years. Come, let’s have a seat. These books are getting heavy.”

He chuckled at the plight of his own situation, moving to a nearby bench and taking a seat, resting the books on his lap.

“Let’s pose a question: If someone held control of a world for two-thousand years, how do you think that world would turn out? Would it become a tyranny where poverty was the norm amongst the plebians, with only the nobles and oligarchs living a luxurious lifestyle? Would it become an ideal utopia where the people are capable of self-governing and respect each others’ existence? Some other idea?”

He would wait for Laura to give her response before continuing.

“Well let’s look at the Grand Reine and Crescentia then. The decorated Chevalier of the five legendary heroes of the Anti-Giant war. Both during and after the war she was one of the major rallying voices who both helped fight the Giants, as well as lead the rebuilding effort after the war. She’s managed to hold peace across a multicultural land for two thousand years, balancing and negotiating the power and diplomacy between the different city-states that compose Crescentia.”

One might think the man was simply raving about the Grand Reine and how great she was. However his tone and facial expressions didn’t quite match up in the positive light of the ruler of Crescentia.

“Many respect her for what she’s done, but if it sounds too good to be true, you’re as wise as I thought.”

His face dropped and became serious, almost in a dark-tone.

“There are those who fear her as well. The Grand Reine has her Regis Knights, peacekeepers of Crescentia who act as her representatives in various matters of the Kingdom. They’re the only ones of the Kingdom who have lived for as long as she has, and are far stronger than any other knight or soldier of this land. There is also her authority. The divine blessing granted by Aberon; the power to move minds and shake hearts. An all powerful skill that makes it impossible for those even with the strongest wills to refuse her orders. One might call it mind-control, hypnosis, or any other selection of words, but it is perhaps the scariest part of her. That said, I’ve never seen her use it, but there are those who think that we’ve been under her spell the entire time.”

A bold conspiracy theory to say the least. It was a brief history lesson, but he seemed indifferent on his opinion of the woman. Laura would have to form her own judgments about her.

“If you don’t mind me asking, what happened to that society? Did the conflict deescalate? Did their world shatter around them?”

His face returned to that of curiosity, interesting in learning more about the foxgirl.

 

[Tyran]

"It would be some other idea. It wouldn't become a tyranny like you describe, the poor would rise up before two thousand years and eat the rich as it were. I've always been fond of that saying by the by." Laura flashed a grin at Seifer. "But I do not think it would become an ideal utopia either. How could the people learn self-governing if someone is holding the reins of the world that tightly for that long? And if they aren't holding the reins tightly enough for people to self-govern can you really say that they control it?"

Laura ended her point with a shrug before falling silent as Seifer continued his explanation, though she did not just sit idly on the bench. She idly swung her legs back and forth as she looked around them at the surrounding scenery. Her gaze did snap back to Seifer with a highly entertained look on her face the moment he called her wise. Though it did eventually shift into pensive and contemplative.

"So they decided to fight mind controlling giants with mind controlling women controlling giant machines?" Laura asked, though it seemed she was entertained by the thought despite its dubious morality. "That is amazing in so many different ways."

"And that society was destroyed by a herald of the world's end. Did you know that the herald of the end of the world was a pink meatball? The religious texts left that tidbit out." Laura added as an almost afterthought, an idle vacant smile on her face. There was a moment of silence before Laura opened her mouth again.

"But all that aside, are you one of the giant followers that yesterday's guests were leaders of?" She was peering curiously at Seifer, curious to see how the man would react to such a brazen accusation.

 

[VeraC]

"There is a sort of ironic hypocrisy, you could say."

He smiled and continued.

“The Giants rebelled against God and tried to usurp him from his throne, wanting to seize control of mankind. Aberon bestowed the world with Messiahs who would fight the Giants and seal them away. Man rallied to both sides, wanting to support the old or bring in the new. It’s difficult to say which side was justified or which side was ‘right’ and ‘wrong’; such arbitrary constructs are pointless when it's the winner of war who writes the books.”

He brushed his hand through his silver hair, pushing it back and away from his face as he tilted his head to the sky.

"A pink meatball huh… sounds like quite the conundrum!"

He tried to make light of an otherwise horrendous explanation, speaking with a smile, yet some sort of emptiness was buried deep within.

“I would be quite bold to talk to one of the otherworlders as a supporter of the giants.”

He smiled and turned to look at Laura.

“But in truth I’m a supporter of neither. The Grand Reine and the Giants are more or less two sides of the same coin, hardly a meaningful conflict.”

He gave a sigh. He knew better than anyone else, there were far more worrying disasters in the foreseeable future.

“But another question, and I’d like the truth. Do you think if that society rallied all together and fought the herald of the end, would it have been enough for them to emerge victorious?”

His tone shifted to a more serious one, contrastive to his tone a moment ago.

 

[Tyran]

Laura burst out laughing. A laughter straight from her gut, and wild enough that she was slapping her knee - though that likely was just her usual theatrics. "Oh absolutely not! But that has more to do with the question itself, it was worded in a wrong way." Calming down some, she rubbed out the tears in her eyes, and the laughter eventually died out as well, leaving behind a wide grin. "The society in question was just a tiny island nation in the whole world, even if every person picked up the blade it would've helped little. The whole world was comprised of hundreds of nations each at each other's throats in a neverending conflict. The island nation's strategy was solid for that world, have a small elite force that kept the neighboring nations too busy at each other's throats to attack us. All we had to do was copious amounts of war crimes and implicate the other nations for them!"

Laura smiled wistfully, and stared off into the distance. "Think of every city, town and village here slaughtering one another in a giant free for all and you get a pretty good idea of what it was like, that world would never have banded together after that state of the world was artificially induced and kept for so long." Her gaze shifted to Seifer's eyes. "But if the fragile peace hadn't been broken, I do not think I would be here. That hypothetical world would have survived."

With that, Laura physically waved that topic away, with even her tail joining in on the gesture, doing a wave to the side sharp enough to be considered more of a slash than a wave.

"As for the other topics, talking to one of us otherworlders as you call us as a giant supporter would make a lot of sense. Undermine their beliefs and dedication to the 'cause', turn them against the current order and all that jazz. So don't think you're safe just yet!" She emphasized the point by both playfully wagging a finger at him and giving him a wink.

"But, far as I - an otherworlder that has been here for two days - can tell, your argument that Giants and Heidel are two sides of the same coin is a big pile of dung, nothing more. While just how bad exactly the giants were may be up to debate it doesn't really seem to be up to debate that giants were slaving despots, yeah? Even this one weirdo fellow that got dragged here with the rest of us was definitely in the boat that them coming back is major bad news so that's pretty clear cut. Meanwhile whether Heidel is or ain't mind controlling everyone is up to debate in the first place. She certainly hasn't done anything like that to me, all that she dragged me from nowhere to fight her war for her that she didn't prepare for at all so that she could sacrifice my pounds of flesh instead of her own soldiers'."

Weirdly enough, Laura's tone when talking about Heidel dragging her to the meat grinder was quite clearly wildly approving, and even warm and - if one were inclined to stretch things - fond.

"Even if she is mind controlling everyone here and making all of you subservient to her will she's frankly doing a terrible job at it. If you do that, you don't let people talk or even think about the possibility that you're doing that - and before you claim that it could be allowed for subtlety reasons if you're going for the subtle reason you ought to just stop them from thinking about that possibility at all."

Laura shrugged. "So either Heidel isn't mind controlling everyone here or she's terrible at it. Either way, you're better off with her than the giants. Sure she's been terrible about preparing for the chaos that's going to happen now but at least she did the pragmatic move of dragging in foreigners that have actually seen conflict. If nothing else, she's the devil you know and I'm pretty certain giants would be much better at this whole mind control business - if for no other reason than the fact that there are many of them and only one Heidel."

 

[VeraC]

“Yes, that is a point.”

He nodded in agreement with Laura’s talking.

“Mankind is always exceptionally skilled at going at each other’s throats when bigger threats are on the rise.”

He placed his finger upon his chin and looked up.

“Perhaps if nothing else, Heidel and the five heroes excelled at banding together what humanity remained in their struggle against the Giants. Surely during that time there were power struggles in who would lead humanity, how territories would be divided after the war, among other headache-inducing politics that somehow, the five heroes managed to seize the reins of.”

He smiled.

“Then again, Divine Providence can be a highly effective argument!”

Perhaps the times were different nowadays, but in a time where Aberon was more relevant in their history, such ideas weren’t so farfetched.

All said and done, he laughed at Laura’s accusation, matching her tone and expression.

“You may be disappointed, but whether I’m in Heidel’s camp or the Giants’ has no effect in that regard. I merely state the knowledge I’ve learned, rumors I’ve heard, books I’ve read. Some may be facts, some may be fiction. What you, or anyone else does with that knowledge is up to them to decide. I have no desire in changing one’s opinions or perspectives. I enjoy listening to others' opinions and seeing how similar or different they are from my own. I am a seeker of knowledge after all! It would be all too boring if the world had the same mind and opinion.”

He smirked and rubbed his nose in pride of his own character.

“But in your short time you have formed your opinions no doubt. There may be truth in that Heidel wouldn't let us think about mind-control of she was truly mind-controlling us all. But maybe she let's us think that so suspicion doesn't arise? Maybe she's terrible, maybe she's good enough to make herself look terrible. It's a silly thought to be sure. But who knows what that woman is truly thinking?”

He relaxed back, looking down at his books, wiping off some remaining dust with his hand.

“It would be nice to see mankind continue for another two thousand years.”

He looked up to the blue sky, with the occasional cloud drifting across the endless blue space. His mind began to roam and slowly began to space off. His tone grew somber and his body began to slouch in the chair. It was a relaxing afternoon for him; he only wondered how long these days would last.

 

[Tyran]

Laura gave Seifer an amused look. "That would simply make her incompetent." But there were more important things than Heidel's possible mind control conspiracy theory. There was no way Laura could leave Seifer's statement on himself unribbed. "But you certainly think highly of yourself, don't you? Are you sure that a 'nosy bastard' isn't a more fitting title than a 'seeker of knowledge'? It'd certainly be less pretentious if nothing else!"

She shook her head, and looked at the bustle of life around them, the people going on with their days, the merchants peddling their wares, all of it. Whether she was scanning for something specific or just taking the alien scene in only she knew. Only for her attention to snap back to Seifer, surprised - perhaps even ambushed - by the sudden solemnity.

For a moment the somber silence stayed with the two, as Laura looked at a customer haggling with a merchant for the meat's price, her head tilting left and right, with the corners of her mouth twitching upwards with irregular rhythm. Eventually, she turned back to Seifer with a challenging grin.

"That depends on how it continues. If I was asked - which no one ever does, not that that ever stops me - eternal slavery and being the subject of constant mindtwiddling is no way to live at all. What does survival even matter at that point? Better to die off than to exist in such a miserable state." Her voice started in its usual lighthearted tone with a splash of amusement, but, one word at a time it was replaced with contempt and derision until only they were left.

Laura's scoff only made her thoughts on the matter even clearer.

"Most people already live their entire lives chained down, prisoners of chains they don't even realize turn them into prisoners. But at least they still can choose to break free of them if they'd just. Wake. Up."

Her entire body turned towards Seifer. "Which is why I will stay true to myself and eviscerate anyone who threatens to take away the freedom for us to be ourselves, like these giants I've heard about, if it is in my power to do so, or die in the attempt." Laura declared, smiling an almost painfully wide and bright smile beaming with childlike innocence. The smile was radiating - literally so, as above Laura's brow there was a halo made with a small application of Od, framing the smile perfected with hours of training with light.

 

[VeraC]

“I’d argue I got the best sniffer in all of Crescentia!”

Seifer flared his nostrils and snorted with a proud look on his face, playing along with Laura’s verbal jabs. Though his attitude changed quickly from affable to serious.

“Sometimes one has to be nosy in order to seek what they desire.”

He lowered his voice and leaned into Laura, his eyes locking with Laura’s.

“I can’t imagine one like you hasn’t stuck her nose where it didn’t belong.”

He gave a suspicious yet playful smile at the foxgirl. After his playing around though, he sat and listened attentively at Laura’s statements of slavery and freedom, truly pure ideals that held her up. It was enjoyable to hear, such a strong-willed woman was rare.

“Indeed. The five heroes were smart enough to rebel against the Giants before they managed to grasp all of mankind. Though it's quite a shame, and a wonder what happened to those who weren’t fortunate enough to be far away enough from the Giant’s initial conquest. Would they hate man for not fighting back sooner? Blame those in power who succumbed to the Giants’ words and promises? Or was the Giants’ move so swift, in a single wave they managed to dominate the minds of man before they could even react so harshly? The beginnings of the ‘war’ still remain a mystery, even to this day. Not that there’s much information on the initial seizing of power, Kusanagi is to thank for that, having sundered the world in two and decimated the entire northern half of Crescentia.”

Seifer seemed to fall into a long tangent, the man simply speaking what came to mind, his thoughts connecting to topics that slowly grew distant from the original point.

“Oh, right! Slavery!”

He finally snapped back to the discussion.

“Would you choose death even if there was the chance of rebellion later on?”

Seifer asked the woman.

“It’s as you say, If people realized the chains that bound them, and struggled to break free, they could, no? Perhaps the Giants are simply that powerful. Mind control that even the strongest will wouldn’t be able to recognize. Quite a terrifying thought.”

He briefly made a scary face as if he was telling a story.

“But it is good that you hold such determination within you. It will surely be your greatest asset against the Giants.”

Words of encouragement and a genuine smile adorned the man’s face. It had been an enjoyable afternoon for him, finding someone to hold such interesting discussions with. That said, day was beginning to turn to night and it was almost time for him to be on his way. Before he left, he waited to hear Laura’s thoughts.

 

[Tyran]

Laura's smile widened. "Death." The reply came instantly, and with no hesitation. "What is the point of selling yourself out only to continue to live in misery? Such a ridiculous, stupid thing to do." She shook her head. "I will live as myself and die as myself, squeezing out every single shard and shred of entertainment and amusement as possible." She scoffed. "Our lives are already so short even at their longest, what is the point of continuing them only to live in slavery, in utter boredom and misery after having betrayed yourself?" The grin returned, accompanied by a short, mocking laughter. "Only those that have wasted their lives, those with regrets, would do something like that."

Laura hopped off the seat, smiling cheerfully. "Well, this was an entertaining excursion! You have been given a brief, scary - and oh so spooky - window into this outsider's head and I was given something more interesting than just people watching. Off you go to write this down somewhere or to report this to your overlords for whatever dastardly plan you can cook up out of this conversation, whichever you end up doing is of no concern of mine."

She eyed the stack of books and documents Seifer had brought with him for a moment, contemplating whether to yoink one of them or not, before shrugging the thought away. Probably not anything that would interest her. "I'll go bother someone, poke them repeatedly, maybe make illusionary wasp or two for general chaos. Toodles!"

Waving goodbye, she turned her back to Seifer and went on her way to continue explore the city into the night. The smile slid off her like water off a duck's back. Enjoyable though it had been, he'd have to ask about this Seifer, just to be sure.