36

Chapter 36: Evaluating the futureNotes:

It´s been a while. The kidnapper A. Nxiety that held me hostage in his basement was arrested yesterday and I was finally able to finish this chapter. /s

Emilia-tan has tought us all to be thankful rather than remorseful so I say:

Thank you for being patient! You guys are the best <3< p>

Also check out chapter 34! I added a cool illustration to it :)

EDIT: 333 Kudos!

EDIT2: 13.000 Hits!

(See the end of the chapter for more notes.)

Chapter Text

Chapter 36

Crusch had found her resolve again, but she had still no idea how to address the visibly wounded and fatigued royal candidate in front of her. Should she offer the services of one of her healers? Or maybe new clothes to replace the dirtied, tattered rags that clung to Tanya´s body? Because they were rivals for the throne she was not obligated to help her out, but the good will that she could earn by doing so could be worth it. It might even strengthen the image of her upstanding and chivalrous persona in the eyes of her followers.

No. It could be misinterpreted as patronizing or condescending. Possibly offending her greatest opponent in the royal selection was not a good idea at the moment. She would not comment on Tanya´s disastrous appearance and pretend as if she looked as presentable as at the tea party.

"Lady Tanya, would you mind escorting us to the place of battle. As a duchess of this country I am rather invested in what is happening to the land and would like to take a look."

A mere excuse that was easy to see through. Still, Tanya nodded as if expecting to hear that before she turned to the blue-haired maid and commanded:

"Then let us ride back in the coach so I can rest my back a bit. Come with me Subaru. It will be faster this way."

The way she said it made it seem like a completely normal request, but a nagging feeling at the back of her head told Crusch that something more was at play here. While the way over to the remains of the whale would take a few minutes on foot, Tanya had flown the distance in barely a couple of seconds. Did she want privacy? What for? And why did she need to be alone with Subaru of all people for a moment?

Maybe she was becoming too paranoid. The winds of truth had blown around Tanya; even if they seemed a bit more hesitant than normal. Either she had told half-truths or important information had been left out. Well, she often felt that way around Tanya in general; not unlike a certain merchant princess from Kararagi.

Subaru... that name hadn't rung any bells for her until now. Wasn't this the boy who Lady Emilia had begged to be healed by Felix? If she remembered correctly then he had a damaged gate which could only be fully treated by her knight. The stress and excitement from the whale hunt must have seriously messed with her attention to forgot him like that.

To be honest Crusch had only agreed to the deal, because she hadn't managed to secure any other alliance with the rival camps. Priscilla was too proud for a treaty and Anastasia had this suspicious glint in her eyes like she would stab you in the back at the most opportune moment.

Compared to these two and the veteran child soldier, Emilia was painfully open and honest. Those were traits that were highly valued by Crusch as well, but she knew the limits of "niceness" in a political environment. Meanwhile the half-elf would never utilize underhanded methods out of fear for being further shunned as dishonourable and traitorous due to her heritage. In that sense she was the ideal business partner.

Crusch was violently ripped from her musing by the wave of disgusting odour that assaulted her nose. They had arrived at the crash site and now had the opportunity to admire the bloody work that Tanya had carved into the dead flesh of the titanic creature.

(Image is not entirely accurate btw.)

While its body was mostly unrecognizable it was still undeniably the White Whale. The thing had been a terrible monster, but she shuddered to imagine how it must have felt when it died. Huge chunks of his skin were melted or burned away. Deep cuts littered its body and the blood flowed freely into a humongous puddle beneath it. Multiple people would be able to bath in it if any citizen of Lugnica had been crazy enough to soak themselves in such a vile substance.

The remains of its one visible eye were a fleshy ruin that she really didn't want to expect any further than she had to. While she had seen her fare share of death and suffering it was never a pleasant experience. Poor Felix wouldn't have the stomach for it as well.

Looking over the disfigured carcass she nodded sagely to keep up her wise and collected appearance. Her inspection was complete and she had all the information she needed. Tanya von Degurechaff was dangerous. Highly dangerous in fact. More so than she could have ever imagined.

But Tanya was still human and all mortal creatures had flaws. Even the strongest would have a weak point somewhere. By the Od, the so called gods who flaunted with their power and influence were probably the most flawed beings of them all!

Whatever it was that could bring Tanya to her knees she needed to find it and find it fast. Magic was obviously her strong suit. Light magic from the looks, but she would consult a few experts on that later. Meant that that she was weaker in close range? No, obviously the White Whale had been attacked by a sword multiple times so that couldn't be the case. If she could find some way to nullify magic though...

Perhaps she should organize a friendly spar against more human opponents to test Tanya´s pure skill with an unenchanted blade. The sword demon, Wilhelm van Astrea, could doubtlessly put up a fight despite his age if Tanya were to be deprived of her more long-ranged attack options.

Just as she was beginning to put a plan into action Wilhelm took the initiative and approached her greatest rival.

The old man knelt down on a relatively untainted piece of grass and bowed his head to the unperturbed looking blonde girl who had defeated the monster. With a voice full of gratefulness he spoke the words that Crusch knew came directly from his heart.

"Thank you Lady Degurechaff. My name is Wilhelm Trias and I thank you from the bottom of my soul. For avenging my wife and slaying this beast I will be forever in your debt. Its suffering brings joy to my old heart."

"There is no need. I am honoured that you feel the desire to thank me, but what I did was more of a accident really. In truth, I hadn't meant to kill the beast, but I got too carried away in the act and used more force than necessary."

Incredible, this girl was arguing that she hadn't meant to kill with her awesome display of power and she was not even lying! What would have a killing blow from her looked like? Crusch unnoticeably shivered at the image of what else this monster in human skin was capable of.

"I also do not deserve the sole credit of defeating the White Whale. This boy, Subaru Natsuki was integral in forming the plan that lead to its undoing. Without him I would have most likely not succeeded."

Subaru sheepishly rubbed the back of his head. Was this some sort of game?

"There lies incredible potential in him. So much in fact, that even I would dread to take him on should he be able to further polish his skills."

How? Was her Divine Protection failing her? Impossible! This meagre boy with nasty eyes and uncouth behaviour could even put fear into Tanya who had just slain the White Whale? Perhaps she had severely underestimated Emilia´s camp. Her competition grew more menacing with the minute it seemed.

"Due to hectic circumstances nothing has been finalized yet, but he recently expressed his desire to attain knighthood to me. After contributing so greatly to the destruction of one of the three great mabeasts he has more than earned his right to try at least. No doubt you will be hearing more of his career in the coming months."

"Yeah! That would be awesome! I bet Emi will love it when I can properly protect her with a big, long sword!"

Some of her soldiers snorted and he blushed intensely while gesturing wildly.

"Th-That totally came out wrong! I d-didn´t mean it that way!"

Even Wilhelm´s lips quirked upwards for a split-second.

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Tanya wasn't so sure if Subaru was just an excellent actor of if he really was a fool. Well, maybe that assessment was not entirely fair, seeing as he was just as gullible and naive as one would expect a child of the twenty-first millennium to be. He had probably not known mortal danger or careful diplomacy before coming to this world. Nonetheless, ignorance was never a very good excuse for failure in Tanya´s opinion.

Every human should possess the intrinsic capability to learn and adapt. Those that refused to do so were inevitably swept up in the waves of progress never to be seen again. History did not entrust success to the care of the weak-minded or overly trusting. After a few days or weeks at this point Subaru should have realized that guarding his emotions and thinking things through could only benefit him in the long run.

Whatever. She shouldn't complain since his social obliviousness played in her favour. The easier he was to read, the easier it was to manipulate him after all.

For example her little "persuasion" inside the magically insulated carriage had worked wonders on his impressionable mind:

"Your accomplishments with defeating the White Whale will certainly make the rounds soon. Whatever happened here is too grand to be hidden from Lady Crush so you have no choice but to play along. Now is the time to finally gain a substantial reputation if you make use of the current situation. Do you understand what I mean?"

"Ehm... Not really? I didn't do anything..."

"Oh, on the contrary! Without you I could have never made the correct plan to defeat the White Whale! Not all important positions are located on the front lines. I know that better than most. You conveyed strategic information to me that turned out to be critical in this operation. You should be proud of yourself Subaru!"

It hadn't taken much convincing afterwards to subtly plant the idea of knighthood into his head without her directly suggesting it. Exploiting his relationship with the half-elf turned out to be a great motivator for the boy who no doubt wanted to prove his usefulness to his employer. When he had hesitantly inquired about how one could potentially become a knight and she had to pinch herself to keep the satisfied grin of her face.

"Do you have an interest in attaining knighthood, Subaru?" Tanya had asked innocently.

He had taken the bait and promised her with obvious determination to become "the best knight ever". (Subaru´s words not hers.) Sadly, their conversation had come to an end as they had arrived at their destination already. They couldn't remain indoors or else Crusch suspicions would grow.

This whole debacle was slowly slipping out of control when she noticed that the third White Whale corpse was against her expectations not rapidly decomposing like the others. Why? That didn´t make sense? Was that particular creature different from the other two? Regardless, her hopes that the disintegration would hide the specifics of her fighting style from her enemies had been squashed. Now Crusch held the informational advantage.

Damn it!

At least she was able to shift the collective attention from her to Subaru when she conveniently brought up his involvement in the battle and exaggerated his importance with a few white lies. One truth could cut deeper than a thousand lies after all, or however Lieutenant Grantz´s saying went.

Embellishing his choice of career served to make the announcement more official, but she didn't know of it would be enough to convince the actual warriors present. Honestly, she could have done a much better job in her opinion if she hadn´t been exhausted already. Surviving combat while under the influence of sleep-deprivation and hunger was basically muscle memory at this point, but giving convincing political speeches on top was not typically required of her.

Well, with some luck it had been sufficient. She was just weighing the pros and cons of cutting the monster´s head of right here and now or waiting with it until Crusch´s forces withdrew when Subaru suddenly alerted her to what was going on behind her.

"Rem, what is it? Are you feeling unwell?"

The maid was clutching her head and seemed to be in some sort of discomfort.

"It´s sister! I can feel her through our connection and she is... afraid. Ram is never afraid. Something terrible must have happened at the mansion."

Tanya resisted the urge to facepalm. Of course these stupid maids couldn't have the decency to get in trouble without her noticing! Even if Ram was dying couldn't she understand that Tanya urgently needed a nap and a warm soup? No? Now she was forced to deal with whatever trivial problem was plaguing the Mathers household. Why couldn't she get one week without trouble? Being X truly was a spiteful bastard.

Notes:

How likely do you think is it for Tanya to survive whatever Rem sensed? Hmmmm? *cue evil laughter*

On a different note would you belive that the picture in this chapter was the indirect reason for the delay? I originally just wanted to learn more about MS Paint, but then I realized that I would need one more day than normal to finish the illustration, which broke my "writing rythm" and I got hit by anxiety. (And stress, because I had to move all my stuff from one house to another.) In the end it didn´t turn out as good as I wanted, but what can you expect from MS Paint?

EDIT: Did you know that this fic has become the 9th most read work in the Youjo Senki fandom with the second most comments? Incredible.