Gun Girl from Another World

Libertine

"Hero Remmi Lee to see Lady Regent Noya."

My introduction to the gate guards is getting to be old hat at this point, though it's odd for me to be calling upon the regent instead of the mayor. Odd enough, in fact, that it catches them off-guard.

"The regent, Miss?"

"That's right," I confirm. "Is she in?"

"That's," he starts a bit aggressively, then hesitates, no doubt remembering who he is talking to. "We cannot comment on the presence of other guests at the estate."

"That's fair," I admit. "It's easy for me to forget that her office is elsewhere. I can go through the mayor to get to her, though, right?"

"Miss, the Lord Mayor is not seeing visitors at the moment."

Well, this is odd for them. Normally, they'd just let me through on mention of me being a Hero. All of this runaround is more trouble than they'd given me since my first day in town. I don't bother asking if everything's okay, I know they'll definitely just stonewall that, too.

"Well, can you ring me in, anyway," I try asking. "It's important business."

"The Lord Mayor is not seeing visitors at the moment," he repeats, stone-faced.

I sigh into the palm of my hand. "Look, you know that if you don't let me in, I'm just going to go in over the wall, anyway, right?"

Both of them clench their hands more tightly around their spears. "Miss, trespassing is against the law."

I pat the gun at my hip, a weapon they are no doubt familiar with by reputation at this point, if not by personal experience. "I've got clearance and a pretty sure bet you don't really want to stop me."

Before I can antagonize the gate guards any further, the servant that normally comes when the gate guards ring the bell comes sprinting desperately for the gate. This is enough to get the attention of all three of us, and we all watch as he closes the last of the distance. He reaches the gate and gasps for air as he reaches up to ring the bell for them to let me in.

The guards stare at him, then at each other, in confusion, trying to figure out what to do, but then the man finds his breath and berates them. "Don't just stand there, you idiots, let her in! The Regent commands it!"

At that, my eyes go to the main building of the estate, and I think I catch the motion of a blind closing. So our antics were being watched, were they? Well, at least that makes things a lot easier.

At the mention of the Regent's orders, the men hurry and get the gate open for me. They don't apologize, though, and I make an effort to resist being smug about being let in to make it worse. They're just doing their jobs, even if they're as bad at it as always. Too much arrogance from their position, not enough orders on what to do when faced with certain people.

… And maybe threatening to shoot them if they tried to stop me was a bit too far from me, as well. Regardless, I'm let through and I walk down the increasingly familiar path to the front door. Or, rather, the double doors.

Once the servant lets me through them, he begins guiding me through the hallways toward a destination I realize must be the mayor's office. I've been there a couple of times, enough to recognize the route.

"I'm not actually here to see the mayor," I try to correct him. "I'm here to speak with the Regent."

"That's where we're going," he informs me in turn, and soon, we're before another set of heavy doors. He knocks and opens one of them. "Hero Remmi Lee, as requested, Lady."

Sure enough, on the other side, behind the desk Mayor Oshu normally works at, sits Regent Noya, bent over stacks of paperwork that make me glad whatever is going on isn't my responsibility.

Still, she raises up as if happy to see me. "Hero Lee," she greets me. "I see that you did not bring your eternal companion with you today."

"Ayre is sleeping off the celebration with the Oni," I inform her as I step into the room and the servant leaves, shutting the door behind me. "I offered to treat the hangover, but my friend would rather battle that dragon alone."

Noya huffs at that. "I was surprised my cousin wasn't in a similar state this morning. His body has never held much tolerance for overindulgence."

"Ah, that's actually my fault," I admit. "He wanted to keep it going, but I Purged him of it before I thought to ask."

"Then you have my gratitude," she surprises me with her reply. "It was far easier to have a conversation with him this morning when he was sober. I can only imagine how he would have taken it with a hangover. I might have even been moved to enough sympathy to put it off."

Her comment catches me confused. "Taken what, Lady Noya? What happened to the mayor? Why are you running his office?"

She gives the amused huff again. "In short, Hero Lee, you happened to the mayor. Your report brought his schemes to the surface and put me in the position of having to review the service of my own cousin."

The narrative has been taken without permission. Report any sightings.

"You don't sound very put off by it."

"I am very good at decorum," Noya replies with a smirk, and I'm left trying to figure out if she's really offended or not.

"So, what, he's on leave?" I ask, a moment later hoping the word got translated and that I don't have to explain it.

"He has been discharged from his position," she provides, the translation apparently proceeding just fine. "As of this morning, there is currently no mayor of Giri Village, leaving me to clean up his mess until I can appoint another."

Oh. That's rather more serious than just on leave. I never imagined she'd go that far with him. But then, I had been all but certain she'd back him up and leave us with nowhere to go.

"What's going to happen to him, then?"

Noya apparently went to the same summoning school as her cousin, as she makes a motion with her hand and a young woman is there ready to take her instructions. She takes it a step further, however, and gives no verbal instructions, just another hand gesture, and the woman hurries off again.

"He will be returning to the family estate in shame," she declares as if it were an execution sentence. "He has the day to get his affairs in order, then he'll be leaving tomorrow."

She motions me to a chair and then returns to the other side of the desk with a sigh. "For the foreseeable future, I am both regent and acting mayor, until such time as I can find another suitable representative. I am certain his … friends will proffer themselves as candidates, but I suspect that will just perpetuate the cycle of idiocy I'm discovering."

She's slipping a little if she doesn't think I'd notice she's more concerned with idiocy than criminality. I diplomatically refrain from commenting on it, however. It's too easy to just brush it off as an issue of semantics.

I think for a moment before speaking for a change. "Well, an ideal candidate would be local, respected, and with a track record of integrity and community work, am I right?"

She looks up at me from across the desk with a leery eye. "You sound like you have someone in mind."

"Chief Ronolo," I venture. "That's who I'd pick." Then I scratch the side of my head. "Well, no, I'd run an election for the position, but he'd still get my vote."

"An election?" she repeats, bewildered by the idea. "For someone I have to trust with the care and management of my people? Yours must be quite libertine, Miss Lee."

Libertine. A word that sounds so positive, yet the tone in which she says it is anything but. Not that it's a terribly positive word in truth. I choose to think she is calling my people unrestrained, rather than promiscuous. It makes better sense, anyway.

Still, she takes a speculative look as she considers the actual idea. "One meeting with the head of the oni, and you came away with such a positive impression of him? I hope that wasn't the alcohol talking."

"I was more or less sober the whole night," I swear. "The man has a good head on his shoulders and cares deeply for the people of Giri, not just his own tribe."

"I'll take it under advisement," she finally answers, "though I don't know how the people of Giri would take to an Oni mayor."

"You should survey them," I suggest. "I think you'll find them pretty open about it. They don't seem to see any differences between them and the Oni."

Noya frowns a bit, thoughtfully. "Full of ideas, aren't you? Maybe I should be appointing you to the position."

"I'd have to decline," I admit with a bow of my head. "My home is in an entirely different region, and my first responsibility is to my duties as a Hero."

She shifts in her seat. "I guessed as much. You didn't come here to talk about low-level government, though, did you?"

"No, ma'am," I reply, and I have the treaty in my hand from my bag. "I wanted to cover the land deal with the oni."

"Well, aren't you diligent," she intones as she accepts the document. "Most would have simply mailed it."

"I had a hunch," I admit, "that my duties in negotiating this deal weren't going to be through until I had your signature on it."

That earns me an arched eyebrow, but she begins to flip through it. "This has to be the most in-depth land deal I've ever seen," she says after a minute of reading. "Training agreements, mining codes … Just what did you do before you became a Hero?"

"I was an engineer, ma'am," I provide readily. Funnily, I think that might be the first time anyone's ever asked me that. Maybe they generally assumed I was too young to have had an occupation.

They would have been right, of course, but only because I hadn't been fifteen for nearly a decade before I got here, either.

Timey wimey shenanigans, and all that.

"An engineer?" she repeats, looking over some of the sections again. "Yes, I suppose I can see it. Strange, I would have thought you a merchant's daughter. You don't conduct yourself like a simple engineer."

"Where I'm from, there's no such thing as a simple engineer, Lady Noya," I reply, amused at the idea. "We've got far too much to do."

She reads through to the end and pulls out a quill. "Well, it all seems very thorough to me. And it puts an end to this whole affair my cousin started. I'm happy to sign it."

I step up a bit closer at that. "Does that mean that, with this, the embargo on the Oni is also concluded?"

She looks at me with bewilderment, but then smirks sardonically, her eyes closing as if she is battling a migraine. "Ah, yes, he did do something like that, didn't he? Yes, consider it abolished. Was that also something they were concerned about?"

"It never came up," I admit. "I suspect he underestimated how independent the Huohi are. It was more of a pain for his own people than it ever was for them."

"A running theme with his term, I'm finding," she mutters. "But then why do you look so excited about it?"

"Ah," I say, getting a little sheepish about being so obvious. "I'm one of those impacted. I've mentioned that I'm under Imperial orders to visit all of the dungeons in the regions bordering the Demesne. Ogre's Grotto is the next one for me, in case you've forgotten."

Realization dawns in her eyes. "... Which is in Huohi territory, making this whole affair your problem from the start. Essence abandon that fool … Yes, of course, you are free to proceed to the dungeon at your leisure. And if there is anything else you need, don't hesitate to bring it to me. I don't care if we won't be getting reimbursed from the Throne, I'll see to my responsibility. Something my cousin should have been more conscious of."

"If he had," I point out, feeling just a bit cheeky at how heavily she seems to be denying any connection to it all, "he'd still be mayor."

She frowns, no doubt picking up on it being a bit of a dig, if it's not immediately clear how, and simply concludes our lovely meeting with a single word. "Quite."