“Are you ser-HRRRKH!!”

The choking was even more intense than normal, as if the System had taken additional offense at my words. There was another flicker at the side of my eye, and I instinctively glanced over, causing a mental pop-up to flash.

—————————————————————————————————————

WARNING:

Class “Butler” will take Physical and Psychic Damage upon further Inappropriate interactions with entity of class “Employer”.

—————————————————————————————————————

Okay, so I can’t call into question the man’s sanity. Not directly, at least.

“Ahem. Are you quite sure that’s wise, sir?”

There was a wild intensity in Aastor’s eyes when he looked at me and his face showed his furiousness. Clearly, wise or not, he wasn’t going to be stopped. Further, I could hardly imagine this was an action he was taking on the spur of the moment. No, the man had likely orchestrated this entire Rush Job just so that he would have a reason to be around for the summoning of the Chosen One.

Hey, I’ve been around the block! Even if Aastor seems like a kindly old Grandfather who can do some party tricks, he’s an intelligent Magus. And intelligent Magi tend to be crafty, even if they aren’t actively trying to backstab you. I trusted Aastor, but I didn’t think he was stupid.

“Boy, do you know of the great Calamity that Excelsia faces?”

“No, Sir.”

“Correct. You know nothing. And that-” He jabbed a finger in the Chosen One’s direction. “That is a child, Blanc. She’s what, Sixteen? Maybe? And yes, she’ll get some preparation and she’ll get some training and one of the many “priceless artifacts” that they like to shower on Chosen Ones like so much candy.”

Aastor used air quotes around priceless artifacts. He clearly doubted their value, and in fairness, I had found that most priceless artifacts were far from priceless. Most people didn't know how to use them correctly, and they were little more than a stopgap for actually developing skills that would be useful in battle.

“Yes Sir. However-”

“However? However, nothing Boy! They’ll send her on the same crackpot quest again, and watch her die. And the Queen will wring her hands and look sad and call for a Day of Mourning. Everyone will wail and bemoan her death. And then? They’ll do it again.”

“Yes Sir. If I may-”

“You may not! Dozens, I’ve seen die. Dozens! Sent ‘em myself, and now? No more! NO MORE!”

He was practically jumping in anger. Clearly, I wasn’t going to get a word in edgewise, and in fairness, he wasn’t wrong. There were no statistics in Isekai Hero, but I’d nearly died over a hundred times, and I was fairly sure my survival rate was extremely uncommon. It wasn’t likely that a lot of other Chosen Ones had managed to survive more than just the first adventure. Legendary Hero sounded like a cushy job, but you ended up fighting and killing and nearly dying a lot more than any normal person should have to.

I inclined my head, and Aastor seemed relieved that I wasn’t going to argue anymore. With a triumphant smile, he turned around and began to march towards the Chosen One. Unfortunately, she was no longer alone.

If Aastor was the image of a kindly old Grandfather who snuck you chocolate, the man standing next to the Chosen One was the kind of drill instructor Gramps who made you get up in the morning and run laps. Everything about him spoke of a military bearing, from his clean, gleaming armor, his short hair, and his neatly trimmed mustache. Oh, and the rows of medals on the front of his armor. I’d never seen anyone fit so neatly into the Battlemage stereotype, and every fiber of my body wanted to fight or flee. I’d been betrayed by his ilk many times before, and when you’re being Isekai’d to new worlds at a moment’s notice, you learn to judge people by the way they look very, very quickly.

Military Mage over there was standing stiffly, and seemed to be talking to the Chosen One. The girl, for her part, was listening attentively.

I took a closer look at her, and she was standard fare as far as Legendary Heroes came. Blonde, shoulder length hair, green eyes, and a lean build that could have come from years of running or swimming. And Aastor was right. She couldn’t have been more than sixteen or seventeen, barely out of high school. She was, in every sense of the word, a child.

Don’t ask me how old I am, by the way. I genuinely don’t know. I tried to figure it out once, but time passes differently on different world, and I’ve spent months in a dozen different planes of existence. Moreover, the System doesn’t really keep track of age in the way that normal people do. Best I can figure out, I might be 26? I was 20 when I first got plucked from my own reality, and about 6 months on each world seems right. But again, who knows? I could be anywhere between twenty and a hundred. The System didn't keep track, and after a while, I didn't either.

But the girl I saw before me was clearly young. Too young to know exactly what she was caught in the middle of. and the Battlemage was no doubt giving her the standard spiel. The world was in trouble, there was a calamity of some kind, and the powers of Excelsia were looking to her to save them. And she’d eventually be swayed, and nod and go off on a quest. She’d likely die, and in her dying breath, she wouldn’t wonder about what could have been. She wouldn’t remember her old life, wouldn’t mourn what she lost or have any regrets about her choices. After all, it was all on her own volition, wasn’t it? No, the only thing she’d think of was that she had simply failed.

I’d seen it happen. The Great Lie, told over and over, to every new hero, ad eternum.

Dulce Et Decorum Est,

Pro Patria Mori

However the battlemage phrased it, the words were a lie. The Hero, whether she knew it or not, had a choice. There was no shame, none at all, in quitting.

But it would need to be handled delicately. Distracting the battlemage, perhaps, while Aastor took the opportunity to talk to the girl? I could probably finesse him into-

“Hey, bullets-for-brains! Leave the girl alone, ya batty old warmonger!”

Or that.

The strict looking Magus turned around, facing Aastor. Well, looking down on him, since ol’ bullets-for-brains had almost a foot on Aastor’s frail, bent body.

“Ah, I do apologize Ms. Fairfax. I did not invite this particular brand of….hedge-wizard, to our first meeting. Please do not be startled. I know Aastor, and he is harmless. Annoying, but harmless.”

Aastor bristled at the insult. And for some reason, I felt strangely offended, as if the words had been directed at me. Some kind of psychic connection between my Employer and me, perhaps? Certainly, I could feel both, Aastor’s anger at being termed a hedge-wizard and his concern for the Chosen One, Ms. Fairfax.

Oh. Of course. Butler was, at least at a low level, likely to be a Support class of some kind. Based around helping and buffing a single target, most likely my Employer? Whatever mild psychic link there was between us, it was probably meant to help me deploy whatever skills I had more efficiently.

God, I really needed to find a few minutes alone to read through my Class description and the abilities I had. What even was “As You Command”? I’d never seen the skill before, so I assumed it was class-specific. Class-specific skills tended to be more powerful than the generic type, but they normally had to be used under more specific circumstances. For example, “Fireball” was a generic spell, and anyone could learn it fairly easily. The Legendary Hero Class had the specific skill “Holy Fire”, which would do greater damage to enemy combatants, but no damage to civilians or innocents.

I missed Holy Fire. It had proven to be more useful than I had ever thought possible, and even though I felt silly shouting “Holy Fire” at the top of my lungs whenever I cast the spell, I also felt just the teensiest bit…cool.

As I reminisced, Aastor had begun to lose his cool.

“Hedge-Wizard? HEDGE-WIZARD!? Listen to me, ya battle-crazed baboon, I’ve forgotten more magic than you’ve ever had rattling about in that concussed skull of yours!”

I spoke almost without thinking. I wasn’t quite sure how I knew what to say, but it seemed appropriate to say something.

“Ah, Sir, perhaps now is the right time to address Ms. Fairfax? I trust we do not want to keep her waiting?”

Wait, whose voice was that? It certainly wasn’t mine! Well, it was my physical voice, but the words just….came out? I hadn’t planned them out or anything, I just knew what to say. Moreover, I didn’t talk like that.

—————————————————————————————————————

Class Ability Unlocked: Business at Hand (Lvl. 1) (Passive)

You wouldn’t want to fight in front of the help! The Butler exudes a slight suppressing aura that allows cooler heads to prevail.

- Negates all Psychic Status Conditions of Mild Intensity.

- Allows the Butler to grant Allies the “Composed” Buff, which reduces the effect of Psychic debuffs.

- Gives the Butler the ability to change the direction of a conversation. This may only be used once per conversation.

—————————————————————————————————————

Hey, a skill! And what do you know, it even gave me an actual explanation for this one.

Reading over the explanation, I could tell this was clearly a support skill of some kind. I wasn’t sure how much Isekai Hero V2.0 had revamped, and how much it had kept the same. That said, this was a surprisingly strong skill. Definitely not offensively, but if I was in the middle of a fight, a passive buff against Mild Psychic ailments would have been invaluable. Granted, I didn’t know if Brain-Leeches were a common occurrence in Excelsia, so maybe this was the kind of thing that would really only be useful for negotiations.

Or to prevent Aastor from blowing someone up out of frustration. As it turns out, a few well placed words had worked wonders, and Aastor was beginning to collect himself.

“Ah, yes. Of course. Bullet-brain, bear with me for a few minutes okay?” He shook his head a little bit, like he was in a daze. Probably from "Business at Hand"?

“Aastor, I'm warning you. Whatever you’re about to do, don’t. Ms. Fairfax is a guest of the Crown, and Her Highness-”

“Yeah yeah, I know. Anastasia can suck an egg.” Aastor quite literally waved at bullet-brain, and his tone was serious. “Grigori, I need five minutes. Just this once.”

For old times sake, I’m guessing? Aastor and Grigori are old friends, or frenemies, or rivals, or brothers, or something like that?

“No.”

Guess whatever friendship they had going wasn’t worth all that much after all.

“I may be overstepping, but I think it would be nice to have a say in this. Especially since it seems to involve me?”

In all fairness to the Chosen One…No, actually, no excuses. It was honestly misogynistic not to have spoken to the girl directly. She was more than capable of deciding who to talk to. I remembered when I had been the Chosen One and everybody had seen me as an object to point at problems, instead of as a person. It had been....gross.

“Ms. Fairfax, really, you don’t need to waste your time with disgraced trash like him.”

“I think I’ll decide where to waste my time, if that’s okay?” Oooh, very sassy. I wasn’t quite sure how much autonomy the Chosen One had in this place, but clearly, Ms. Fairfax over there wasn’t about to let Grigori decide who she could talk to.

Aastor took the opportunity to drive the point home. “That’s right Grigori, let the girl choose!” He was almost crowing as he said it.

“Yes, well, we need to be leaving soon, so perhaps now is not-”

Grigori was really pushing against this. I wasn’t sure what kind of sway he thought Aastor might have had over anyone with two braincells to rub together, but the prospect of a conversation shouldn’t have been that concerning.

“Grigori, I’m going to talk to this old man, and then we can leave. And if you have a problem with that, please feel free to send me back home. I do have an exam tomorrow, and I don’t think “getting Narnia’d” counts as a valid excuse for missing it.”

“….Five minutes. Then we really need to leave.”

Aastor smiled gleefully as Grigori stalked away, looking nervous. The old man didn’t really waste any time, looking at the Chosen One and immediately getting into it.

“You should quit, and you should do it now.” He was sincere, and worried. I guess I would be too, if I had sent dozens of people her age to their death and was only now growing the conscience to stop.

“Lovely to meet you too. Mr. Aastor, I presume? I’m Lauren, thank you for the wonderful introduction.”

Aastor sighed, and spoke quickly, a pleading tone in his voice. “Listen, girl, I appreciate the niceties, but we have five minutes. You can quit being the Chosen One and they can’t force you. It’s the law.”

"Kind of feels like going back on a calling, doesn't it?" Lauren had a brooding expression on her face. "I mean, Joan of Arc wouldn't just turn tail and run, right?"

Not sure who that was, but I took her point. Quitting the Hero Calling was pretty hard, after all.

“Calling-shmalling, do this and you’ll die.”

It was clear that Aastor didn’t think the argument would progress a lot further than that. After all, who looks at death and just accepts it? Lauren's brooding expression got even more intense.

“….Okay.”

“Okay, you’ll quit?”

“Okay, I’ll die. Why not?”