35

Chapter 35: Insides and insightsNotes:

For everybody who doesn´t know: season 2 of Youjo Senki has been announced! I am pumped!

EDIT: Haven´t updated in weeks but still got 12.000 views!

EDIT2: 12345 views!

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

Chapter Text

Chapter 35

Tanya wanted to make the two beasts that had dared to survive god´s divine miracle suffer. Their last wretched thoughts should be pleas for forgiveness to the almighty one. Of course no such mercy would be granted to lowly beasts.

"Retribution has come! You shall taste heavenly wrath today! Haha ha."

Once more she drew her sword and drove it through the thick hide of the less wounded whale. She couldn´t allow the wretch to escape, now could she?

Her body became near invisible to the unseasoned onlooker as she flew in a straight line along its belly and opened it up horizontally. Tanya blurred into existence again for a second and then continued her work on the other side before the monster even had the chance to scream. Nowhere near as much blood as before oozed from the deep wounds, much to her disappointment.

She chose to torment the other monster while her current victim would hopefully recover some strength for the next round of their little game. The "black twin" as she mockingly called the specimen with mostly charred skin and half of its tale missing proved to be far more interesting. Tanya silently thanked the lord that he alleviated her from her boredom.

From what remained of its skin it produced a dense fog that raced in her direction. Her instinct told her that this was no normal mist, but instead something far deadlier. Not that it could kill a messenger of god of course.

After evading its initial attack she opted to play with it in a different way then she had with the other one. Because most of its receptive nerves on the surface of his body had been burned cutting it yielded suboptimal amounts of pain from the beast.

Instead she humiliated it by first relieving its torso of its pectoral fins and then its head of its eyes. The heretical witch spawn wouldn't need them in hell anyways. After a minute or so its desperate cries stopped amusing her so logically its accursed existence came to an end.

Deciding to finish this waste of skin and bones off she rammed her arm as deep as she could into the empty eye socked of the creature until she could feel her fingers pressing into the soft flesh of his incompetent brain. The beast doubled his howling and trashing around, but it was for naught. Tanya would not let her prey escape judgement.

"Begone foul monster!"

Deciding to use something new she learned in this world she focused mana through her computation jewel into her fingers and supercharged them.

"El Jiwald"

Inside the whale´s head five burning claws of white mana cut into his brain, instantly liquefying it with their heat. The cry of pain and despair stopped and was replaced with the near inaudible sizzling of its meat being cooked from the inside out. Tanya retracted her bloody arm and let the giant carcass drop out of the sky like a dead fish.

"Praise the lo..." she began to intone, but stopped. Somehow this didn't feel right. Like there was a part of her that was screaming at her to stop. Just a heartbeat ago this joy coursing through her had felt so wonderful, but now it was almost making her dizzy with disgust. What was happening?

There was something she couldn't quite grasp. Something she had forgotten.

She needed to remember.

Remember!

Did she not enjoy worshipping god? No...

There was no god. Gods in general were an illusion! Yes! They were mental crutches for the weak and hopeless. A scapegoat for all the mistakes humans committed and were too lazy to fix themselves!

"What? Our harvest this year was ruined? That had to be the work of god and not our own fault for wrongly fertilizing our plants. Let us offer him a goat to appease him. That will definitely solve the problem!" So moronic. People like this were pathetic.

Then why had she believed in such a god just a moment ago? There was another puzzle piece that was missing. She recalled her last memories.

The fog.

The White Whale.

She had needed to kill it fast.

Not enough time.

She had activated her Type 95 computation jewel...

Being X. That was the name she had given him. And that absolute asshole had just brainwashed her. Tanya couldn't contain her rage any longer.

"BASTARD!" she yelled out into the ether. How dare this piece of shit! Some day... Some day she would make him pay.

She needed to finish this before she made even more of a fool of herself then she already had. Due to how difficult it was to retain information with the full power of the Type 95 active she could only hope that she done nothing she would come to regret later. Chance was on her side. The only people in a perimeter of a few dozen kilometres should be those inside Rem´s carriage. In conjunction with the fog obscuring her position she was optimistic that she hadn't been observed by anyone ranting like a fanatical lunatic.

Judging from the disintegrating corpses below her she guessed that she had finished off at least to whales. The only alive one that she could detect was weakly crawling through the sky away from her while showering the ground below it in blood. It would have been humorous to watch it struggle, but she had no time to waste.

Flying up to it she thought of different strategies to dispatch the crippled monster. At the short range even her pistol became viable, but she chose to preserve bullets. They were too precious for the time being. Alternatively the whale´s slowness coupled with its gigantic size allowed for manoeuvres that would be impossible with human opponents. Especially those with magic capabilities.

Checking her mana reserves she deemed the expenditure of more magic acceptable and tried something new, now that she the perfect chance to test an idea she had for a while. With a few calculations Tanya created a small orb-shaped barrier inside the whale were she presumed his heart to be and contracted it.

Normally a mage shell would only direct force outwards, but if you inverted the shield then it could form a miniature prison. Capturing enemy mages this way would not function due to them being able to divert the mana flow at close proximity. Killing or wounding would also work poorly, not to mention that a bullet through the cranium would always be more effective.

Groans of pure misery escaped its throat, but the monster was obviously not dead so she had guessed the position of its internal organs wrong. Practice had only taught her human anatomy, not that of (typically) aquatic mammals.

Another try and the whale regurgitated copious amounts of blood, and began to fall towards the ground. Still not good enough so she just repeated the procedure inside its brain with the result finally being satisfactory. The reason why she had initially opted to spare the head was that she intended to preserve it as a trophy.

Nobody would believe her otherwise. Vanquishing a threat that had plagued this kingdom for hundreds of years was no easy accomplishment. If she could deliver proof of her victory then that would surely boost her reputation quite a bit.

However such an act could gather uncomfortable attention as well. If she dominated the royal selection right from the start the other candidates might feel threatened and organize a violent confrontation which could devolve into a civil war. She had seen similar things happen with the enemies of the Empire after all. Most humans were unfortunately not rational enough to suppress their premature reactions.

Furthermore her ally and business partner Emilia could be alienated if she perceived Tanya announcing her feats as glory hoarding. Her servant Subaru had relayed critical information that had turned the battle in their favour so the whole endeavour could very much be seen as a group effort. Leaving Subaru out of the story would undoubtedly be perceived as treason or deceit.

That meant that Tanya would need to begrudgingly share her achievement with him. However she couldn´t reveal Subaru's special ability to the public. Nobody other than herself and her allies was allowed to catch onto the fact that they could now predict the future. To keep the boy´s true involvement a secret she would need to find a different reason how he had contributed to the fight.

It would be most believable if she told the public that Subaru had spotted the White Whale and discovered its two twins as well, because this was (in a twisted way) actually the truth. She would also need to overplay his usefulness to fit her equal partnership with Emilia.

The point of contention would be that Subaru was at the end of the day just a butler with no military history to speak of. If she exaggerated his skills too much then that would become painfully obvious later and she would turn into a laughingstock. "Have you heard that Degurechaff needed help from a boy who can't even swing a sword right? How pitiful." She could already imagine the derision among the nobles.

Implying that a simple servant could hold his own against the White Whale and fight besides Tanya would inadvertently slander her reputation. So she needed to portray him as someone with incredible potential as well as someone who had not reached said potential yet.

Maybe...

A knight in training would be ideal. Knights were highly regarded as the best warriors of the kingdoms, only outclassed by the royal knights, but the vague descriptor "in training" could signal anything. Even the most terrible or mediocre performance could be chalked up to being a trainee.

Unfortunately Tanya was in no position to declare Subaru a knight candidate for Emilia´s camp... But if a misconception should arise... Who was she to deny such claims if the immature boy called himself a knight?

Yes, Subaru seemed like the kind of naive fool who would simply love the idea of swinging a sword around. With a bit of outside influence it would hopefully be easy to convince him to play the role she would give him. As a bonus he would consequently learn to defend himself which would ease her work load when she didn't have to worry constantly over the security of one of her most valuable assets.

Also another bodyguard for Emilia would be nice. The careless half-elf went everywhere without visible protection. That practically attracted trouble! Aughhh...

Her mild headache exploded in barely suppressed agony. Why did she have to take care of everybody around her? All of these incompetent people went about their lives without a care in the world and left all the work to her as usual! First she had to fix the Empire and now Lugnica! Was the continuous stress of her life another one of Being X´s curses? Probably. She hadn't had a proper vacation in nearly two decades!

Someone like Subaru had it far better. Truly, ignorance was bliss...

Speaking of the devil, where was he?

As she scanned the horizon for his carriage she noticed said vehicle standing in front of a small army just an MG-shot away.

Tanya inwardly cursed herself for the critical lack of situational awareness. Her lapse in attention was probably a result of sleep deprivation and rapid mana consumption. Otherwise she would have never made such a fatal flaw. Or else she would not have survived this long if she had.

Optical formulae zoomed in and she reflexively snorted. Even though she lived now in the Middle Ages, people on horseback (or in this case ground-dragon-back) still gave her Dacia flashbacks. The apparent leader turned out to be the familiar face of Crusch Karsten. Oh joy.

Well, if Subaru and Rem were there she would have to check the situation.

Time to make an impression.

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Subaru was not sure how to feel. Tanya had gone slightly insane. The White Whale was being taken care of or at least stopped for a short while and he was as useless as ever. Damn it!

No, those were unproductive thought. He knew that. Whining would help nobody. Maybe he could convince those soldiers to help Tanya fight? They seemed capable. At least the green-haired girl in the front would have some answers. She was pretty and had a commanding aura surrounding her so he should probably introduce himself first and explain the state of affairs at hand.

"Hey there milady! I am Subaru Natsuki and I am the butler of the awesome, enigmatic, wonderful Lady Emilia! I just wanted to know who y´all are what you´re doing here. You see the White Whale is hanging around here."

Stunned silence seemingly froze the world for a moment. The patented Subaru charm just worked on everybody, he thought smugly.

The green-haired lady in armour recovered first.

"I am the duchess Crusch Karsten and candidate for the throne of Lugnica. We have come to exterminate the threat of the White Whale once and for all and put an end to its reign of terror."

"Awesome! I think Tanya could use some help over there."

He turned to point at the battle behind him only to wince as one of the beasts fell from the sky and raised a large dust cloud upon impact.

"Or not..."

"Say Subaru, did you happen to refer to Lady Tanya von Degurechaff?"

"Yeah. I guessed you would know her. With the whole royal selection business and all that."

Before she could formulate a response her gaze snapped to his left and was slightly surprised to see their carriage emerging out of a portion of the remaining fog. It made a straight beeline for them. No, correction: for him.

When Rem´s visage became visible she looked utterly fixated on him and if the dark look she was giving him was anything to go by then she had nothing pleasant in mind.

"I messed up, didn´t I?" thought Subaru.

Rem brought the carriage to a grinding halt and gracefully leapt from the front seat to the ground. As always, she bowed prim and proper to the nobility in front of her.

"Excuse me your highness, but I will have to borrow this unruly servant for a short while."

He silently begged Crusch with his eyes to intervene, but...

"Very well. If it does not take too long."

Betrayal. Why had she sold him out? Ahhhhhh...

"You have my thanks Lady Karsten."

With more force than he thought was necessary the blue-haired maid dragged him behind the coach.

"Subaru what were you thinking?" she hissed.

"I, uh, I..."

No words wanted to form in his mouth. Rem was terrifying! He had already known that, but chosen to forget.

"Subaru why did you do such a reckless thing? Do you want Rem to suffer?"

"Eh, what? Of course not!"

"Then why did you risk your life in such a stupid way? Can´t you imagine what I would have felt if you had died out there? Without me by your side?"

"Ehm..."

Again words were failing him. Did... Did she have feelings for him? Impossible.

"Eh, Rem... Why do you care? I mean I only became a real employee a few days ago and it´s not like I can get anything right. Without me both you and Ram would be perfectly alright. You managed before."

Pain.

What just happened? Had she slapped him? And if so then why so hard? He blinked the tears away only to find out that Rem was nearly crying as well.

"Don´t say such idiotic nonsense Subaru! Of course you are precious to me. How could you not? You saved me not only from death, but you showed me light in my life again. You gave me hope that I could be something other than my sister´s replacement. Thanks to you I can walk my own path and I want to walk it with you!"

"Wha-"

Subaru was feeling pretty overwhelmed right now. How could anybody say stuff like that about a worthless boy like him? Yes he had helped her out a bit, but that hadn't been, anything special. With a bit of time Rem would have realized how amazing she was all by herself without him needing to tell her that. And without him she would have never been in danger of the mabeasts in the first place!

"You´re amazing Subaru. So don´t you dare and die on me! We will talk later about this alright?"

Her question left no room for argument and he found himself dumbly nodding along.

Stepping back around the carriage, everybody gave him a knowing look which indicated that they had clearly heard everything what had been going on behind the coach. He tried his hardest to turn invisible in order to avoid the embarrassment, but as always the universe seemed to hate him.

"Sooooo... What are we going to do now?" he questioned idly while rubbing his hurting cheek. Rem seriously packed a punch.

"It appears as if we came here for naught. Nonetheless we should inspect the corpses and determine if Lady Tanya really felled the White Whale on her own."

Her steely voice betrayed a tiny amount of bitterness and Subaru could emphasize with her. He would be pretty miffed too if someone pulled a kill steal after a lengthy quest. What flag had the poor woman triggered to deserve this?

"I understand. Claims of that magnitude require proof. Sadly at least two of the bodies seem to have dissolved already."

Huh? Where had Tanya come from? The girl was silent as a ghost. Well, maybe everyone besides him had noticed her approach, because they didn't look nearly as surprised as he did. This day really wasn't the best for all of them.

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Crusch felt hopeless. She had to stand by and watch while her rival defeated not one, but (somehow) three of the most powerful beings in Lugnica in a matter of minutes and without help. How could she compare to that? What could she do to surpass this? All her life she had been hailed as a capable warrior and tactician. Someone who would be able to overcome all difficulties that life presented her with. But now... The best way to describe her feelings about herself would be "inadequate".

Still, she would not give up. Never. Her loyal supporters and vassals trusted her with their lives and she would not let them down by despairing. The future was still uncertain. Only her own actions could determine what would become of her. Like her father had said: "Who does not try cannot win."

If Tanya could swat the White Whale out of the sky like a pesky fly so what? What did that prove?

Only that she would be a formidable opponent. Good. Only with an exceptional adversary would she herself be able to grow exceptional as well. If Tanya defeated the White Whale then Crusch would just do something even more incredible. She would give her best and go beyond her limits. She would give everything she had for this kingdom and more. Because the people deserved it.

So she took courage and steeled her soul. This temporary setback meant nothing. Two years were a long time to surpass the other candidates. Through the power of determination she would prevail.

Tanya on the other hand looked thoroughly dishevelled. Wounds littered her entire body and her clothes were literally dyed red from blood. It should not have pleased her, but inwardly Crusch was relieved that the young girl had not come out of such a gargantuan battle unscathed. Such power would have been truly inconceivable.

But the closer she looked the more oddities became obvious. The countless cuts for example were too clean to be inflicted by a monstrosity like the whale. Indeed they looked exactly like knife wounds. Also her only weapon appeared to be cutlass of some sort sorts which was strange. Well, the girl was a magician, a powerful one at that, but to win with only a rather short blade and magic...

Thoughts for later. First she would inspect the corpse of the whale. Certainly this would teach her much about her powerful rival.

Notes:

I kept writing and writing and writing until I had to break off the chapter forcefully. As a result I´m not really happy with how it turned it out, but I wanted to release it on schedule anyway.

EDIT: I added a picture to chapter 34. Check it out! It took me way too long to make.