He turned his head away from the unwelco interloper, repressing the urge to sigh. He had jinxed himself. That much was undeniably true. Still, he’d started to wonder if maybe for once the world was going to let him get away with it. Maybe the world was a kind and loving place, and he wouldn’t have to watch out for it to whip around and get him the second he lowered his guard. Maybe he’d done good things lately, and his good deeds had negated the mistake he’d made by putting that out into the world and jinxing himself.
No, was the answer. A swift and very clear no. No, he would be punished the way he deserved to be, for daring to spit into the wind the way he had.
Well, to be fair, I haven’t exactly done good deeds lately, Rhys thought, thinking back on his recent acts. Killing a man and replacing him wasn’t exactly A morality material. And before that… he hadn’t been thinking of it as his ‘villain arc’ for nothing. Though honestly? It was kind of a mid-ass villain arc. He could go way harder than that. He hadn’t even committed large-scale mass murder or anything yet.
I uh. I probably shouldn’t, though. No one liked a murderhobo. It would have to be justified large-scale mass murder.
Joking aside, he quietly scanned the man beside him. Tier 2, so no threat whatsoever, but his friendly attitude ant he was a high risk of identifying Rhys as not-Norton, even if Rhys successfully sold his complete and total change of heart. There were so things that always remained the sa, no matter how much the person changed. Mannerisms and motions, turns of phrase, even the way they made expressions. Sure, he’d watched Norton before taking his place, but he hadn’t spent weeks watching every tiny twitch and shift of the man’s face. He’d spent weeks watching the man writ large, from afar. He made a passable Norton, but he wasn’t going to win any little humanoid tal statuettes for his performance.
I guess I could just lure him back to my house and kill him, though that’s definitely a last resort. If everyone who’d known Norton went missing, people would eventually put two and two together and finger Norton as suspicious. He needed to be Norton for another week or two until ball season kicked off. That was plenty of ti for people to realize that all of Norton’s friends had been disappearing, one by one.
Then again, if everyone had the sa attitude as Mada Tunk, maybe they wouldn’t mind so much. He’d been watching Norton Tunk for long enough to know that neither him, nor his friends, were particularly popular. Mage-noble standards were strange. Rather than trying to hunt him down for killing because murder was wrong, they might, instead, appreciate him for taking out the trash
Taking out the trash…? Rhys’s eyes lit up. Hold up, now!
It did rely on noble-mage logic, which was exactly what he said he shouldn’t rely on until he understood it, but on the other hand… as long as Mada Tunk was a pretty normal mage-noble, wasn’t he perfectly fine? He benefitted the mage-nobles and society writ large by quietly removing a small population of undesirables? He was pretty sure they wouldn’t be happy if he openly killed them, but if he quietly killed them off out of sight of the world, the nobles would probably go along with it… or at least, weren’t likely to directly protest it to his face.
It would attract attention. That was the main problem. He needed to be stealthy, or at least blend in, right now. Going around as a serial killer-slash-vigilante for kind of shitty, useless noble brats wasn’t going to help him blend in. Just because the nobles might overlook it—and it is ‘might,’ he reminded himself—didn’t an they wouldn’t notice, and the last thing he needed was their attention. Still… He looked at the man who’d slung an arm over his shoulder. If push ca to shove, killing him was probably on the nu.
The man blinked back at him. “What’s that look for? What, don’t go to the pub for a week, and you’ve already forgotten your old friend Jorry?”
Rhys squinted at him. “Who are you…?”
Jorry laughed. He slapped Rhys’s back. “Yeah, yeah. You out with the broad?”
“More like she’s out with ,” Rhys returned. He was the one who was shopping, after all. Lily was just along for the ride.
“How about we ditch her and hit up the pleasure district instead?” Jorry suggested.
What, just you and ? I call top, Rhys thought to himself, but managed to restrain his urge to joke at the last second. This wasn’t Norton’s awakening as a B-tier codian, it was his awakening as a good husband and all around nice guy who didn’t drink all day or spend all his nights in brothels. He lifted his hand instead, putting his palm out flat toward Jorry. “No, thank you. I’ve sworn off all that.”
Jorry blinked at him. “Huh? No way. Hello, who’s in there? Am I speaking to Norton Tunk?”
Rhys sighed dramatically. “I’m sorry, Jorry. It’s just that I’ve had an awakening. I realized how tragic it was to waste my life away being a layabout. I want to make sothing of myself. I want to be a good husband and a good son. I can’t spend all day with you anymore.”
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Jorry frowned, his frown slowly deepening. “Hold up. Did you call a layabout?”
“Isn’t that what you are?” Rhys asked domineeringly. If he was going to pull holier-than-thou, he might as well go all the way. He was born again today, with all the evangelizing, annoying aura that ca along with it. Put a natag on and hand a mini-book, because I’m a good little boy from here on out!
Although, honestly, the natag-wearers weren’t that bad. It was the non-natag-wearers who were the worst, who looked like normal people, but then they’d ambush him with judgent when he was just trying to live a quiet trashy life. Yeah, he knew his life choices could be better, but he didn’t ask them about it. They just ca up to him and gave him their opinions anyways. Besides, who made them gods of morality? They’d all made mistakes in their lives at so point. Hell, telling him that he’d ssed up was ssing up according to their own code, not that they cared.
Jorry looked at him, then exerted his aura, suddenly bursting to a high Tier 2 level. Lily paled beside him, but Rhys lifted his hand and blocked the aura from reaching her, and her color returned.
Jorry scowled fiercely, sohow unaware of how unphased Rhys was. “Yeah? You want to say that again?”
Rhys squinted at him, then realized: this man was probably stronger than Norton. It was a close thing, so close that he wasn’t sure he’d have been able to tell the difference between the two of them unless they were standing right next to each other, but he was stronger. It was like the difference in strength between an ant and a soldier ant. Sure, to an ant, the soldier ant was a big deal, but to a human? They couldn’t even tell the difference unless they looked closely. As it was, his threat was laughable.
For a second, Rhys considered playing along and acting weak, but then he dismissed the idea. He’d already said he’d quit being a layabout and had an awakening. Why didn’t he show Jorry the extent of his awakening? He took a mont to carefully adjust his trash star down to the lowest possible Tier 3 burn he could, then exerted a tiny fraction of that pressure on Jorry. Like that, it would probably feel like a very high Tier 2 aura.
Jorry paled. He stumbled back, looking up at Rhys in shock, and Rhys licked his lips a little. Whoops. I might’ve overshot Tier 2. Oh well.
“H-how?” Jorry asked.
Rhys drew himself up to his full height. He pushed Jorry away, casually slipping a plan 2 into his pocket as he pushed the man away. “Like I said. I stopped slacking off and took my life and magehood seriously. You should try it.” Flipping his hair, he walked off, and Lily hurried after him.
At the very least, my shockingly higher tier should distract him from any micro-discrepencies in my Norton Tunk act, Rhys considered. Of course, on the other hand, Mada Tunk had been a high-ranking noble as a Tier 3. A high Tier 3, whereas he couldn’t have exerted more than a low Tier 3 aura himself, but still; Tier 3 ant sothing in the Alliance. The powerscaling here was low, even lower than the Empire, with most of the higher tier mages concentrated into a small pocket of four or five people, so even a low Tier 3 was a serious threat around this place. He truly might’ve overplayed his hand by not making the effort to lower his core all the way to 2. It was just that it was so annoying to burn it that cold, and the thing was constantly burning at full power right now, given the massive quantities of impurities he’d been encountering lately, so he hadn’t wanted to kill it that hard, even for a mont.
Jorry stared after him until he passed out of sight. Only then did Lily turn to him. “Was that okay? He’s your friend.”
“Was my friend,” Rhys emphasized, putting an arm around her shoulders and pulling her close to indicate to anyone who might be watching them that Lily was the reason he’d separated from Jorry’s crowd. It wasn’t true, but it was a convenient untruth.
“O-oh,” Lily murmured, and Rhys looked at her, startled. She didn’t believe him, did she? That’d be the most troubleso thing of all!
Lily was lost in her own world, her head tilted down, a hand to her mouth. There wasn’t a chance to make eye contact and shake his head. Rhys sighed silently to himself, suddenly feeling like he was the bad guy in a cheap romcom. Honestly, all I need to do is set her up with soone and find soone to fall in love with myself, and we’re all set. But Mouse was busy and Lily was married and not looking, so… so much for that.
Though, he supposed, to be specific, Lily was a widow. She just didn’t know it yet. Or maybe strongly suspected it? One way or another, he didn’t think she cared, or would cry when she found out the truth.
“Do you… want to go to a café, or anything?” Lily offered.
Rhys shook his head. “No, I’d rather head back ho.” That was enough outing for one day, and he was exhausted. He didn’t want to have to deal with any more of Norton’s friends.
Lily nodded, though she looked a little disappointed.
“You can go to a café,” he suggested. She didn’t need his permission or supervision to go.
She shook her head. “I can’t go alone.”
Rhys squinted at her. Huh? Yes, you can. It’s a little awkward, but it’s totally possible. Hey! You just shat on all the single dogs in the world. Apologize to all the people who can’t find a partner, Lily! There’s thousands of people who don’t have anyone else to go to cafes with, okay? They just have to grit their teeth and go alone. By saying you won’t do it, are you saying you’re better than every single person in the world, huh?
“W-what?”
Rhys sighed. Perfect husbands don’t rant at their wives about random bullshit. They bottle it up and loose it on their coworkers instead. “Nothing.” He paused. “You can go alone. There’s nothing stopping you from doing whatever you want, on your own, on your own ti. You have that power.”
She stared at him like he’d just suggested she stand on her head. “That’s never been true!”
“It’s always been true. You’ve just been brainwashed by noble society to think it isn’t. Challenge the ntal barriers you’ve been living according to, and I think you’ll find they’re far more flexible than you assu.”
Rhys shook his head and kept walking, but behind him, Lily stopped dead. She stared at the ground, her brows furrowing, then looked up slowly, shocked. Her mana shuddered as an epiphany rocked through her. Her lips moved as she spoke to herself, and then she shook her head and dashed after him.
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