There he was, in the flesh, mostly as I remembered him. It wasn’t like Shinonome Yoshi’s visage was burned into my brain, but there were exactly two Japanese people on this planet and only one was that chunky, and also not me.

Actually, he looked a tad less chunky than I recalled, though not so in shape that the armor he’d found fit him well. The leather armor was meant for someone smaller and was strapped awkwardly to his chest, making most of his stomach bulge out underneath it—which was unfortunately visible as the shirt and coat under the armor had been sized for someone larger, but large as in muscle, so it was baggy around the chest and shoulders and quite tight across the gut. And he still hadn’t washed his hair. Poor kid couldn’t have looked less heroic if he rolled in mud.

Yoshi now had an entourage, but for a few startled moments as he and I stared at each other in mutual astonishment I ignored them, even as their unsubtle conversation filled the air around us.

“So this is the one.”

“He does have similar features…”

“Come on, why would the Dark Lord be in some hick-ass town in a backwater like Donut? This place is halfway to the core.”

“It’s Dount.”

“Nobody cares, Pashi!”

“H-he recognized Yoshi, too…I think it has to be—”

“Oh my god, Yoshi, are you okay?” I exclaimed, overriding their chatter. I spoke half out of genuine relief and half following an instinctive drive to mischief. “After the greeting I got in this shithole country, I figured you’d be dead! Man, you’ve lost weight… I mean, you had it to lose, but still, it’s barely been a week! Are you eating okay? Do you need money? Aster, gimme my coin pouch, we can spare Yoshi a couple gold halos. He’s good people.”

“I, uh...n-no, you don’t have to do that,” Yoshi stammered. He looked even more surprised than I was; clearly he hadn’t come to Gwyllthean looking for me. “Please, you don’t need to worry, I’m fine! It’s, uh, kinda difficult adjusting to life here, but I’ve made good friends already! Oh, I’m sorry, Omura-san, these are—”

“Hold on, Yoshi,” chimed a shrill little voice. “Do you really think it’s wise to start telling…this guy in particular all about your business?”

“Holy shit,” I exclaimed, having spotted the source of the voice after a couple seconds of searching. At issue was that it was a sunny day and she was all of ten centimeters tall, dressed in perfect sky blue to match her delicate butterfly wings, and hovering overhead where she was framed against the sky. If she hadn’t fluttered lower to hang around Yoshi’s shoulder, it probably would have taken me longer to spot her. “What the—you got a cute little pixie? Oh, that is just unfair.”

“Yeah?” the tiny woman shot back. “Where’s your familiar, Mister Dark Lord?”

Biribo was tucked in Aster’s pocket as usual when we were in the city, and I hoped to god he had the sense to damn well stay there. Also, I belatedly noticed that we were drawing stares. It was a nicer area of town, this was a loud conversation involving two obvious foreigners (one of whom lacked the basic wit to keep his familiar hidden in public), and that all-important title which had been used twice now.

I put on a confused frown. “Why do you people keep calling me that? You’ve got weird friends, Yoshi.”

“Hey, they’re good people,” the Hero started to protest, but then another figure barged in front of him, planting herself square in my field of vision and pointing an artifact rapier and a scowl at me.

“Enough! If this is truly him, then the Goddess has guided our steps here. Let’s be rid of this evil before he starts his path of conquest!”

And that was how I met my first elf.

Scowl aside, she was the most beautiful woman I had ever seen, to the point that it crested the bell curve and started to become less attractive and more unsettling. On Earth you’ll see the effect from time to time in rich women who’ve had way too much plastic surgery, or models in ads in which the photoshopping got excessive. There’s an uncanny valley effect that kicks in when features are a little too idealized. When it came to elves, in addition to the trademark long, pointed ears, this manifested in extremely refined and dainty features, which… Actually, much as I hated to acknowledge it, she looked like a photorealistic anime character. Like she’d stepped out of one of those extremely ill-advised 3D movies the Final Fantasy people keep making, from which I’ve seen stills that warned me off subjecting myself to the nightmare fuel of watching one even if I was that interested in cartoons.

Of course, all this was my perspective as someone who had seen plenty of real women, close enough to properly appreciate them. This girl undoubtedly had poor Yoshi wrapped around her little finger, whether she wanted him there or not.

“Excuse me, young woman,” I said stiffly, ignoring the sword, “we are in the middle of a conversation. Were you raised in a barn?”

To judge by her expression, not only had no one ever spoken to her that way, she had never contemplated the possibility that someone could. Yoshi just looked (more) nervous, but his other three friends all immediately bit down on their lips to suppress outward amusement. The pixie clapped a tiny palm to her tiny forehead. And just like that, I understood most of what I needed to about this group’s dynamic.

“Now hear this,” the elf snarled, raising her sword to point at my throat.

“Come on, Lady Flaethwyn,” the only other man in the group, a tall lowborn fellow with a ponytail carrying an artifact spear, “you can’t just stab somebody in the middle of the street. This isn’t your Clan’s territory, remember?”

“Please don’t get us arrested,” added another girl, sounding as nervous as Yoshi. I glanced at her, then had to do a double-take; only the fact that I’d been distracted by Heroes and pixies and elves had prevented this one from being the first thing to catch my notice. She seemed like a pretty average lowborn Fflyr woman, if on the short side, in her late teens at the most. Except that her hair—including eyebrows—was a vivid pink.

“Whoah,” I said, blinking at her. “Hey, guys, I’ve spotted the main character.”

At my direct attention, she immediately slid backward and ducked half-behind the guy with the spear.

“Leave her alone!” Flaethwyn barked, flicking the tip of her sword in a tight circle less than half a meter from my face. “Your business is with me, Champion of Virya!”

The fifth member of the group, a blonde highborn woman wearing well-fitted robes and narrow spectacles, cleared her throat pointedly. “Assuming, for the sake of argument, it’s decided that having a public altercation is not the terrible idea it looks like… Wouldn’t his business be, specifically, with Yoshi?”

Yoshi himself, I could tell by his expression, was having a very Japanese moment: increasingly irritated with how he was being disregarded here, but too polite to complain and unwilling to make an issue of it. The elf herself flushed at the sudden reminder that she was upstaging the Champion of Sanora, but rallied by sticking her nose in the air and the tip of her sword perilously close to mine. I could see it was an artifact from the subtle glow around it, but not what exactly it did. For that I’d need Biribo, and right now I really preferred that he stay hidden.

“That’s…there’s no need the— That is, Yoshi still early in his training! Obviously, this cretin is the same. This is the chance to cut him off before he does any damage! You and I can handle this, Pashilyn. Be ready to support me with spells! And you. If you’ve any last words, this is the final moment to voice them!”

The silly wench actually struck a pose, arching her back to stick her chest out and brandishing the rapier at me in a one-handed grip, nose somehow even higher in the air than before.

I eyed her up and down as slowly and insolently as I could, just until her cheeks went scarlet with rage, then leaned to the side, talking past her entirely.

“Excuse me, miss. I don’t mean to alarm you, but it appears that your hair is pink.”

In hindsight, I was at fault for what followed. After only a week on Ephemera my survival instincts hadn’t fully adjusted; I failed to consider how a spoiled noblewoman in a society which probably let her do anything she wanted would react to being treated in a manner which suited her behavior.

Flaethwyn was fast—she moved quicker than my own eyes could follow, probably due to a combination of martial training and her sword’s own power. That thing came straight at my chest at a speed that would undoubtedly have killed me, except that Aster also had an artifact sword, and much better social instincts than I did for dealing with Fflyr aristocracy. She must have started moving even before Flaethwyn did to intercept her, as even with the power of her greatsword it was a much slower weapon than the rapier. But she managed it, interposing herself between us, and that one deflection was all she needed. Slow it might be, but the sheer force of its much greater weight as it connected made the elf stagger, nearly losing her grip on her rapier.

Aster planted herself between us, causing me to stumble backward and forcing all of Yoshi’s group to retreat as she raised the greatsword; its considerable length was very good for enforcing personal space.

“Back. Off.”

I couldn’t see Aster’s face from behind her, but the snarl was audible.

“How dare you—” That was as far as Flaethwyn got before having both her arms grabbed by Yoshi and Pashilyn.

“Flaethwyn, no!”

“That’s enough!”

Clearly, they weren’t the only ones who thought so. Some of the onlookers had shrieked and fled when the blades came out, though others appeared to be placing bets. Much more important were the pounding boots of new arrivals in armor, brandishing weapons.

“No fighting!” bellowed the lead guard. “Weapons away, now!”

Aster immediately retreated two steps, fastening her greatsword onto her back again despite the continuing threat of Flaethwyn, who was now struggling against her companions’ attempts to restrain her.

“Do you have any idea who I am?” the elf demanded as five more soldiers closed in on us from multiple directions. “Get off me!”

She succeeded in shrugging Yoshi loose, due to a combination of his inherent reluctance to manhandle her and the fact that he’d picked the arm in which she held the sword, which kept swinging perilously close to him as they struggled. He gave up, leaving her half-free to brandish her weapon at the military guard with all the aplomb of someone raised in such comfort that no one had thought to warn her never to brandish a weapon at a military guard.

“I am executing the will of the Goddess,” Flaethwyn ranted, “and you will know your place, lowborn—”

I was as surprised as she to learn that the soldier was Blessed. Well, actually, probably somewhat less surprised, since I only got to see the man conjure a concentrated blast of gale-force wind. Flaethwyn was slammed across the street into an akorthist wall by it, ripped out of Pashilyn’s grasp violently enough to send the other woman staggering to the pavement.

“Wow,” I said, peeking around Aster at the Blessed guardsman. “Hey, where’d you get the scroll for that one? Are they selling?”

His expression told me he wasn’t interested in chitchat. “Quiet, foreigner. All of you are coming to the barracks. Weapons down, and no more nonsense, or I will put you down!”

Notably, Aster and the other lowborn had already placed their weapons on the ground; it was probably a well-trained instinct for them. Yoshi and I exchanged a single look, and raised our hands in unison.

Well, shit. I’d made it almost a week without getting in trouble with the law. Considering what I’d mostly been doing since I arrived here, that wasn’t bad.

An hour later, I was in a much more optimistic mood.

“Once again, Lord Seiji, I apologize on behalf of Clan Aelthwyn for this embarrassment.”

“On the contrary, Captain! These things happen everywhere—that’s why every city needs guards. I am quite impressed by how professionally your men handled this unfortunate incident.”

I really was, too. From what I’d been told about the Fflyr soldiers who doubled as city guards, they normally handled civil disturbances by clubbing everyone present into compliance and then making them scrub their own blood off the street. Apparently, though, once an altercation involved multiple aristocrats and rich foreigners on both sides of the conflict, some due diligence became necessary. The Blessed lieutenant on site had actually gone so far as to interview witnesses and suspects, and quickly put together exactly what had happened.

Which put me in a good position because, somewhat to my own surprise, I wasn’t even slightly in the wrong here.

“You are very gracious about this, Lord Seiji, which I appreciate,” Captain Norovena replied, nodding gravely at me. “My job would be much easier if all our own citizens faced such inconveniences with your equanimity.” He was a lot more articulate than his subordinates, which I put down to breeding; Norovena was pale and had hair of a shade that hovered between light brown and dirty blond. I suspected you didn’t get to be a Captain in the Fflyr military without at least lower noble status, competence be damned. No wonder this country was such a shambles. “In any case, I apologize once more for the inconvenience you’ve suffered, and I hope it will not color your perception of our fair nation. I won’t waste any more of your time, my lord; you may go at your convenience, with the goodwill of my master Archlord Caludon of Clan Aelthwyn. Rest assured, I will ensure these miscreants repent of their foolishness.”

He finished with a glare at the miscreants in question, all five of whom were lined up against the wall in the Captain’s office, with their weapons piled in the corner and their hands manacled. Yoshi’s pixie familiar had wisely kept her mouth shut and just fluttered aimlessly above his head, not revealing that she was sapient; the guards had been unable to do anything about her, or even figure out what she was, and so decided not to mess with what they assumed to be Spirit shenanigans. Mostly they just looked subdued, though the pink-haired girl, Amell, was visibly struggling not to burst out crying. Flaethwyn was a living portrait of the desire to throttle somebody.

“You cannot be serious!” she raged, having to lift both of her chained hands to point accusingly at Aster. “That lowborn raised a weapon at me!”

“Delavada Aster,” Norovena said with long-suffering patience, “is a registered member in good standing of the King’s Guild, whose contract as Lord Seiji’s bodyguard is on record there. She defended her lord from what every witness, including yourself, described as an unlawful assault with murderous intent. She acted correctly for her station as the Convocation has laid out the duties of blood, Lady Flaethwyn. Invoking rank is not going to levy any penalty on Miss Aster; it will just entitle Lord Seiji to demand satisfaction from your Clan. Is that really what you want?”

“I don’t think that will be necessary,” I demurred with a polite smile. Poor Flaethwyn; this was probably the worst day of her life. I was trying very hard not to enjoy it too much, because I was making an effort not to be an objectively bad person. “If I may ask, what exactly is going to happen to them?”

“Well, in each individual case it will depend on their station,” the Captain said. He had taken a rather genial tone once it became clear I wasn’t going to make his life unnecessarily difficult over this, and now seemed quite willing to hang about and chat with me, or at least in no hurry to hustle me out of his office. “Assault and attempted murder—these are not small things, as I’m sure you understand, Lord Seiji. In such a case, I will have to submit a report to Clan Aelthwyn. Since it involves aristocrats, Archlord Caludon will have to render judgment himself. At his convenience, of course; as the governor of all of Dount, the Archlord has countless demands upon his time and attention.” He gave me a sly little half-smile, which I returned because I saw an immediate benefit in maintaining a rapport with this guy which was more important than expressing my sudden disdain for his attitude. “In the meantime, they will be detained. The foreign boy will simply be held in a cell until the Archlord makes a verdict. Obviously I can’t speak for his Lordship, but it would be standard for him to be released for time served at that point. The two lowborn will receive twenty lashes by default for their complicity in this. Automatically, that is; Archlord Caludon will decide what, if any, further punishment is called for when this matter comes before him.”

Amell lost her battle and broke down in quiet sobs. The other fellow, Raffan, just stared stonily at the far wall.

“Lady Flaethwyn and Lady Pashilyn will be our…guests until their Clans deign to retrieve them,” Captain Norovena continued, ignoring Amell. “It’s not for the likes of myself to impose any punishment upon highborn, of course, my lord. What happens after their time in my custody will depend on the arrangement reached between their Clans and Clan Aelthwyn. Meanwhile… Gwyllthean is not a large city, you understand, and I lack such niceties as facilities for imprisoned noblewomen specifically. The standard measure, of course, will be to hire a female adventurer to serve as warden of their cells.”

I couldn’t help noticing that Pashilyn’s face had gone bone-white and even Flaethwyn was starting to look queasy. Norovena seemed increasingly smug, which only increased my growing unease.

“Do forgive me if this is a stupid question,” I said aloud. “I’m not terribly familiar with Fflyr customs just yet, Captain. Why would they need an adventurer guard?”

“Oh, I don’t anticipate needing an adventurer as such to guard them,” he clarified, smirking harder. “It’s just that here on Dount, the King’s Guild is the only likely source of a woman capable of performing guard duty. It’s a courtesy to their station, you see, Lord Seiji. I’m afraid out here in the frontier provinces we must make do with whatever louts are willing to serve in the Kingsguard, and it’s not for the generous pay or cozy accommodations, I can assure you. Obviously I have rules concerning the treatment of prisoners, but… I can’t be everywhere. And for some of the oafs I’m regrettably forced to rely on, this is the only chance they’ll ever have to get their hands on a noblewoman. A woman adventurer monitoring their cells is to make sure nothing happens which might embarrass any of the Clans involved, you see. Of course, that is an extraordinary expense, which would have to be approved by the Archlord. To uphold the dignity of the Clans, he naturally will grant the necessary funds, of that I have no doubt.”

“When he gets around to it.”

“When he gets around to it,” he repeated dryly.

Yoshi’s expression was growing more horrified by the second as he caught on. Pashilyn was clutching her skirts in quivering fists; Flaethwyn had gone stiff as a post, glaring into space. Aster was standing behind my chair, still and silent as if extra conscious of her station in the presence of the guard captain, but I could practically feel the disgust radiating from her.

I fucking hated this country. If burning Fflyr Dlemathlys to the ground ended up providing Virya with free amusement, well… I decided then and there I could live with that.

I had been about to point out that only Flaethwyn had done anything wrong and the rest had been actively trying to restrain her, but at this revelation I abruptly changed tactics. The silly girl deserved a reality check, not… Fortunately I had anticipated the assets I would need to leverage in order to get anything done in this obviously corrupt guardhouse, and thus had already retrieved said assets from Aster.

“It sounds, Captain, as if you are forced to spend a lot of effort maintaining order despite a command structure disorganized by politics and a lack of resources. I am impressed that you manage it.” While speaking, I idly produced a gold halo, set it on his desk and spun it with a flick of my fingers. The coin flashed in the torchlight, making an almost melodic buzzing noise as its serrated edge danced across the polished akorshil.

“Well, I would never presume to complain, Lord Seiji.” His eyes flicked to the coin, then back to my face. “It’s hardly my place to criticize the decisions of my betters. Of course, sometimes it seems like my job could be made simpler, but isn’t that true of anyone?”

“Oh, very true indeed,” I agreed in my most genial tone. “I imagine it must happen from time to time that you have to make decisions outside the normal procedures just to get anything done around here.”

“I suppose, at times, it does happen that some minor detail would only be a waste of my superiors’ time,” Norovena agreed in a very casual tone. “It’s a balancing act, you see, Lord Seiji. Ensuring the will of the highborn sometimes involves judgment calls to avoid cluttering up their agendas with trivial nonsense.”

“Exactly! You took the words right out of my mouth, Captain.” I stopped the spinning coin with one fingertip, then tipped it over onto the desktop. “Why, in this case… After all, what is this but a little kerfuffle caused by a few high-spirited youths? I already feel bad for the time your men have spent on it. I’d be dreadfully embarrassed to have the time of such a person as the island’s governor wasted on my account.”

“As courteous as you have been about this whole affair, my lord, I too would be terribly reluctant to cause you any such imposition,” Norovena agreed solemnly.

I placed a second gold halo atop the first one, and then a third. “Now, if I know bureaucracies—and I do—any little deviation from procedure causes all kinds of extra administrative costs to pile up. If you were willing to help me avoid such awkwardness, obviously I would be only too happy to cover the necessary expenses.”

With one fingertip, I pushed the stack of coins across the table. I still didn’t have much economic frame of reference here, but by the best guess I’d cobbled together, a gold halo would cover the salary of a city guard for at least a week. Maybe a month? Apparently it was enough; Captain Norovena didn’t hesitate, smoothly sweeping the coins off his side of the desk even as he answered.

“I can already tell you’re a man of impeccable judgment, Lord Seiji. If I could trouble you for an opinion, what do you think would be the most reasonable way to handle these troublemakers?”

I glanced over at the Hero and his party lined up along the wall in chains, their wide eyes all fixed on me as they waited to learn what terrible fate the Dark Lord had in store for them.

“It seems to me all of this has been blown out of proportion,” I said, deliberately keeping my tone light. “Yoshi’s a good kid, that I can vouch for—he’s just fallen in with the wrong crowd. Why, at worst, Lady Fr—Ful—ah, the young elf there seems to lack common sense and a knowledge of acceptable behavior in public. The rest of them were even trying to restrain her when your men intervened, Captain. I can only imagine how annoyed the governor would be to have his time wasted with this. I think what these kids need is a night in a cell to reinforce the fact that their actions have consequences. And then a…reasonable fine for the return of their weapons and belongings, yes? In fact, after that, I rather suspect they will be model citizens henceforth. You know how it is with the young: they just need to have boundaries set.”

“A very wise assessment, Lord Seiji,” the captain agreed, nodding solemnly. “Truly, I think that will be for the best—it will save effort all around! For me, and for the Clans who would otherwise have to clean up after this little mishap. I will see to it the kids have to endure no more than one uncomfortable night. No doubt you’re right, and that will be all the lesson they need.” He finished in a hard tone, turning his glare upon the prisoners. Amell and Yoshi began babbling nearly incoherent agreement.

I interrupted by setting another gold halo on the desk with a soft click. “And Captain…I realize this will be an imposition, but I do have a request.”

“Oh?” His eyes fixed on the coin for a moment before he met my gaze again. “I’m happy to accommodate you, my lord!”

I withdrew my hand slightly. “I’m sure, with a modicum of effort, it’s within your power to ensure the girls are watched over such that none of the more disreputable elements within your ranks get anywhere near them. I’d hate to think of myself as having been responsible for ladies being treated in any way disrespectfully.”

“That should not be a problem,” he agreed, reaching for the halo. “For just one night, I can arrange that without disrupting the schedule too much, I should think—”

I slapped my hand back over it.

“Seriously.” I stared at Norovena’s eyes, making my tone as suddenly cold as my expression. “If I were to learn they have been mistreated in any way, I cannot begin to describe how unhappy I will be. Captain.”

“We are of one mind, my lord.” His appearance was so deeply serious I might even have believed it, had I not just confirmed for myself what a well-mannered sleazeball the man was. “As gentlemen and men of the world, it’s incumbent upon us to protect the fairer sex from all harm.”

“I knew you would understand,” I said much more pleasantly, withdrawing my hand and allowing him to grab the last halo. “I had you pegged for an honorable man right from the beginning, Captain.”

“That is deeply gratifying, my lord, coming from such an excellent judge of character as yourself.”

There came a soft clink of chains as Pashilyn stepped forward from the wall, raised her manacled hands, and folded them down in my direction. “Thank you very much, Lord Seiji, for your graciousness. We are all of us deeply grateful.”

“Seiji-san,” Yoshi agreed with a solemn nod, “arigatou gozaimashita.”

“Flaethwyn,” Pashilyn added in a near growl.

The elf looked like she was about to be sick and would rather do that and then lick it up, but to her credit, she did step forward and offer me a jerky nod. “I…appreciate your forbearance. Lord Seiji.”

“Least I could do,” I said magnanimously, and exchanged a jovial wink with Captain Norovena.

Accidental as this whole encounter had been, and despite the money I’d just pissed away on bribes, I was counting it as a win. I now knew which guard captain was amenable to being paid off. That would undoubtedly be very useful in the near future. And in the longer term, it meant I knew which guard captain to quietly dispose of once I was running this town.

“So, correct me if I’m wrong,” Aster said later as we made our way to the city gates, “but…isn’t that guy kind of divinely compelled to try to kill you? It seems odd that you’d go out of your way to help them like that. Especially from the consequences of their own actions.”

“I know what I’m doing, Aster. Yoshi’s a dumb kid with a good heart; the last thing I want is to play into the fantasy he thinks he’s living by validating what…you-know-who told him. Now they’ve all got something to think about. Trust me, this will pay dividends the next time we see them. And there will be a next time.”

“I guess I see your point,” she murmured. “That was weird, though.”

“How so?”

“Well, that Lady Flaethwyn got arrested at all. This is Fflyr Dlemathlys; elves are considered the next best thing to the bloodline of the Goddess herself. Ordinarily, I’d say a city guard captain wouldn’t dare put irons on an elf, even if she’d succeeded in murdering someone in broad daylight in the middle of the street.”

“Hum. What do you make of that?”

“The only thing I can think of,” Aster said slowly, “is politics. The one reason guards would be willing to go after an elf is if they gained favor with other, more powerful elves by doing so.”

“You think she’s out of favor with Clan Aelthwyn,” I said, catching on.

“She’s young and seems like a hothead, Lord Seiji. People like that do cause trouble, but at the highest levels of politics? They’d be kept well away from anything that could cause serious enmity. It’s more likely her Clan is unfriendly with Clan Aelthwyn. I wish we’d heard what Clan she was in, but she never mentioned it in there. Which, now that I think about it, had to have been deliberate.”

“Indeed. Well, that’s definitely a lever I might be able to pull later on. Between Maugro, Auldmaer, and Gilder, I bet I can find out more. And speaking of, I hope the kid’s okay and won’t have much trouble finding us.”

“Well, we passed into the walls late last night and it’s been most of the morning. I guess how quickly he finds us will show if he’s as good as he claims at spying.”

“I’ve got a good feeling, Aster. The day started off with a distraction, but look how well it worked out! For the first time, everything’s comin’ up Seiji.”

From inside her coat pocket came a muffled but resonant snort.