“There's so much that happened back on Earth after I got here. For example most recently, they sent out people to Mars to establish a small colony.”

“You got to Mars already, that’s kinda cool. We just landed on the Moon a couple of times and called it quits.” I really should go there one day… to watch the rocks and sand… and stuff.

“Well, I haven’t been there for a few hundred years already. Everything I know about current Earth is just what I heard from others. To be honest, I have a hard time even believing everything they say. I just can’t imagine it, for technology progress so much. Sometimes is sounds more like magic than magic itself.”

So, they have quite advanced technology over there… That makes me wonder what their video games are like. They have to be good, right? Right?

We continued to converse for hours, and we talked about countless random things. Until I remembered why I was here to begin with. Right, the cat girl… and that Harold guy was here too… Now I am wondering what they were talking about when I got here, I am not quite sure what do those two have to do with each other. Especially now that I learned of his origins. “Right before the Harold guy left, what were you two talking about?”

“So, you overheard something out of our conversation? I am not sure what you heard, but it’s supposed to be a secret, it’s too important. I cannot really talk about it with anyone under any circumstances.”

“Like I was here since like literally the beginning, listening for hours, I mean I basically heard the whole thing so yeah. Not to mention that I knew some things about it before I even got here. I may not been here for that long, but I already built many powerful connections to nobility and other influential people. So, I am already aware of this scheme of yours.”

“Really?”

“Yes. But I have to say that the whole thing sounded very suspicious. I can sympathize with you a little bit because you are also arrived here from another world, but I don’t know if I can really trust you as a person. Especially because you are planning to do something so nefarious.”

“What? I am not…”

“Well, I don’t know, it certainly sounded like some villainous scheme. You might not know it, but I am on the side of justice. If you are planning to do something evil, I will make sure to oppose you.” I struck a heroic pose to reaffirm my point.

“Aren’t you misunderstanding something. I can assure that I am not planning anything bad.”

“Right, misunderstanding, that’s possible. Alright, I will do you a favor. You have one chance, I will allow you to explain the whole situation before I start making any judgments.”

“Alright, alright, I will, I will…” He sighed and looked at the ceiling. “As I mentioned previously, I don’t want to rule myself, that’s why I stepped down as king. I realized that I can delegate my responsibilities to other people, so I did. Although the way I went about it wasn’t particularly well-thought-out…”

“…”

“I wanted to establish a proper democratic nation and let people to rule it themselves. Well, I tried, but instead of doing that, I just used it as an excuse to pass my responsibility. I ran away from my problems and just assumed that things will get better on their own, without me setting up proper systems in place to support it.

I did a few things, I created a parliamentary voting structure with the nobility as the government and with an elected king to oversee it. Well, it didn’t work out very well, for over a hundred years they haven’t elected anyone, but if just that! They stifled innovation and implemented bogus laws benefiting only themselves. In my rush to shift my responsibilities, I left the country in a state of disarray.

But I really want to fix things, this time I intend to do it properly, I will make things right.

But when I tried to do so, I already gave up all of my power and responsibilities, and I was already assured to be dead by most people. To fix things and to set up a proper government system, I needed the power of the king. I could take it by force, but that would create more chaos than anything else. So I was left with the only option of being elected.”

“You were king before, why would they not vote for you if you came back?”

“They would lose a lot of their new-found power if they did. That’s why they coordinated their factions to not let anyone get elected to begin with… So they would never willingly vote for any candidate if they expected them to win. There we attempts made by some of the factions to elect their representative, but they couldn't pass over the half of the vote threshold. I myself stand no chance of taking back the crown using normal means, and I didn’t want it to begin with. But there is another way to go about it. As long as someone with the similar values gets elected, they could enact those changes without any need for me to personally involve myself.”

“And that someone is… don’t tell me…”

“Harold Saintiges.”

Really, that guy? “But will people vote for him? He didn’t seem like…”

“Of course not. His reputation is awful, he doesn’t have the support of any faction, and he is the most looked down upon noble in the whole country. But… How would a good reputation help him? If someone from one faction tries to get elected, all other factions will unite to oppose them, and the better your reputation is, the more wary will they be.”

“Then how can he win then? Doesn’t that also mean that there’s no reason to vote for him? So that makes no sense.”

“You see, he already tried to get elected. In fact, every chance he gets he asks for the vote to be held and because of how the rules are set up, he gets to do that often and they have to agree. Every couple of months the vote is being held to elect him, and at first, nobody voted for him, and he ended up without a single vote multiple times. But he kept doing it again and again, and eventually some people started to vote for him.”

“But why would they vote for him? After failing so badly, did anyone even take him seriously?”

“Obviously, after he received zero votes a few times in the row, nobody took him seriously at all. When they voted for him, they didn't want him to actually win. Some did it as a joke, and others did it as a form of protest when they had some disagreements in their own factions. Of course, the total number of votes he received every time was laughable, nowhere near what he needed. But over the years after his countless attempts, almost everyone gave him a vote at least once, for one reason or another.”

“What? He got everyone to vote for him, even if not at the same time… If half of them decided to say yes as a joke simultaneously, oh my god! So that… Is your plan?!”

“Bribery, instigated conflicts, well-timed rumors, there are many methods to influence their votes in the right direction. Especially if their guard is down, and they think that he has no chance of winning, not to mention that there’s a precedent of voting for him for nonsensical reasons. Anyone from any faction can vote for him without other faction members taking issue with it. Because he will lose anyway.”

“…”

“But they won’t fall for it twice, so we need to cross that threshold on our first attempt, or we won’t be given another chance. That’s why it must remain secret. I don’t want to question your character, but I have to ask you to not talk about it with anyone.”

“Wow. That’s quite a crazy plan, of course I will keep it secret, I am not that kind of person.” Who could have thought of something that crazy? It couldn’t have been this guy, after all, he created the adventurer's guild, I have no expectations of him. It had to be someone else, and the most obvious candidate would be… the candy stealer guy! Who else could it be? I called it, I knew it all along! He is some sort of secret mastermind controlling everything from the behind-the-scenes!

“Well, now that you know about it, why not to join us? Such an upstanding person such as yourself could bring a lot of good to the world. Even if you don’t want to personally involve yourself, just your insight from your unique perspective could help a lot. Your world, with different history and different experiences, we could avoid potential failings if we could view things from more perspectives.”

“…”

“The people of this country really deserve better, after my continual failures… I truly want only to make things right. If you could please lend us your help, I would be infinitely grateful.”

I guess that is my specialty, I could certainly pull that off. Tricking nobles, then tricking some more, then like a few dozen more after that… Responsibilities and expectations… all to support a greater cause. To help the masses by doing the politics stuff to make the government better. “Yeah, sounds boring, I’ll pass. I have better things to do.”

“What?” He asked with an uncertain tone, as if unsure if he heard properly.

“Ah, you see, I would gladly help. However, there are several responsibilities weighing me down right now. As you know, it isn’t that long since I got here, and I am still trying to settle down. I am also taking care of a child from an orphanage and helping them to accomplish their dreams. I also try to do some good deeds every day, helping everyday people. It might seem small, but that’s my way of helping the world. I appreciate what are you trying to do, but I am not the right person for it. Trying to do something that will fundamentally change the whole nation is just too daunting.”

“How unfortunate, we could use an extra hand.”

“Unfortunate indeed… By the way, you are like in charge of this whole place?”

He eyed me uncertain for a moment before answering. “Yes, more, or less. I am responsible for the secret order, although most people don’t know about my previous identity.”

“Alright, then a follow-up question. Do you happen to have any cat girls in here?”

“Wait, what now?”

“You know pointy ears, long fluffy tails…”

“I know what a cat girl is. I just want to know what that has to do with anything.” He answered, clearly perplexed.

“You see there’s a reason behind it, so are there any or not?”

“Well, that reminds me, there was one among the new batch of recruits. A few weeks back was it?” Oh, that could be her. It was around that time… “But she is currently missing, we weren’t able to locate her after the collapse…”

“Wait, is she dead?” Don’t tell me that I killed her.

“That’s unlikely, we received a one testimony that she survived the collapse, but she disappeared afterwards. It’s more likely that she tried to run away, new recruits tend to be disobedient…”

False alarm looks like she is fine, and it seems like she doesn’t want to be here. Ha, that’s perfect, isn’t it? “Can’t she just quit if she doesn’t want to be here?”

“If we let all recruits quit at any time they like, we wouldn’t have a proper military. We need to beat some amount of discipline into them first, at that point we don’t have to worry about them pulling off stunts like these. Catching her shouldn’t take too long. Had she hadn't run away at the time of the collapse, she would have been caught already. These young disobedient ones are causing trouble all the time…” He shook his head. “So, why are you asking?”

“You see, the reason why I asked is that while I was outside, there was a cat girl there, and she was running away to the east part of the island. So I was curious if she’s from here.”

“East, are you sure? I received a report that she supposedly went to the north.”

“Really? Then they must have been clearly mistaken. East for sure.”

“I see, I will inform my subordinates about it…”

“Alright, that’s all that I wanted. I will be on my way, I have been away for far too long.” After exchanging some pleasantries, I teleported away. “So north, was it? Huh.”

---

 

“Did she just teleport away? Didn’t we have a spatial disturbance array to prevent that? Is it broken, or was that something else? Maybe I should check on it…”

“…”

“I mean, how else would she… he… they? Wait, I suddenly can’t quite remember… what did they look like? What gender were they?”

“…”

“Am I really going senile?” I looked into a mirror in disbelief. “Maybe the doctor was right.”