Food. Whenever humans do anything, it always comes down to food. Even if it may not seem like it, all decisions eventually devolve into a battle to feed oneself. We like to think we're complex beings, driven by noble ideals, lofty ambitions, and intricate emotions.

But strip it all away, and what are we left with? The primal urge to satisfy our growling stomachs.

I am no exception.

While I freely admit that my main goal is to get back home as fast as possible, it is undeniable that I still enjoy food. Where in my world, there was the ever present sweetness of MAX Coffee, here, nothing could truly substitute it.

Sure, I could add as much sweeteners as I could to my own brew. That still wouldn't be the same as my precious MAX. Given that, I've opted to eat what I want, with the money I make from my blacksmithing.

Food that never had an equivalent in modern Japan is different. I've had all sorts of flavors that I never thought of before, and I surprisingly didn't mind it. In Japan, I only ate relatively cheap foodstuffs, if only because I didn't need the nutrition for what was a sedentary life.

Here, I needed every bit of energy I could scrounge up. It just so happened that the most nutritious meals were usually the ones that tasted better than some old bread. Nobles here were quite unlike those Western nobles in my world, after all.

They needed to be fit. Danger could literally be around the corner, and any amount of excess weight could be the difference between life and death. Of running away or just attempting to.

Hence, why it was in their best interests to keep the food that kept them alive better tasting than the food that kept lowly peasants alive.

Somehow, I wasn't surprised that capitalism like that was as prominent here as it was where I came from.

Given everything, I would have expected that Mathers would be dining in on some of the best food around. As Lugunica's Court Mage, he would need the energy to perform his duties and keep up his own research, is what I thought.

What I thought couldn't have been further from the truth.

Potatoes.

Steamed potatoes to be precise. I watched as Mathers ate a whole steamed potato in three bites, not looking any bit tired of the food despite having it for the entire week. Despite his plate still having a good eight or so potatoes left.

And that's it. I have not seen the man eat anything other than steamed potatoes.

What the actual fuck.

I have been here for a week now, and barring some time when I would pop back into my shop, I had spent most of the week here. While I had theoretically finished what I had set out to do, I wanted to refine it before anything else.

It was also a week of only being served steamed potatoes for every damn meal.

Look, I can understand wanting to eat your favorite food. I'm partial to a good curry myself, after all. But eating nothing but that, three times a day, for over a week? That was a recipe for insanity.

And fucking steamed potatoes? For breakfast? They weren't even seasoned, damn it!

Luckily, I wasn't the only one in this mansion that found this odd. Surprisingly, it was none other than Natsuki, who kept shooting incredulous glances at the margrave. Was that it? Was this world just full of weirdos that a NEET and a loner were considered normal people?

I'm leaning towards 'yes', considering the nobility of Lugunica apparently didn't mind that their Court Mage had clown makeup on.

I pushed away my plate of potatoes, feeling just a bit green with Mathers eating another one.

"It looks like the dog refuses to eat my cooking." The red-haired maid, despite her boss being right next to her, shot me a vicious glare as she snapped her attention to me, "Truly, the lack of gratefulness you've shown is the height of disrespect. Roswaal-sama, may I have permission to evict this cretin?"

"No~t today, Ram." The man barely paused in his eating to speak.

"Ha." I scoffed at the maid as she continued to glare at me, "Calling me a dog when you're the one following your master's commands? How hypocritical."

Talking like that in front of an established political figure such as Mathers should've been a death sentence. An insult to one's staff could be taken as an insult to them as well. Had it been anyone else, I would've never entertained the idea of talking back like this, in plain view.

Mathers was not just anyone else. I had found that out when my words had spilled out despite my attempts at politeness during my second day here.

The margrave just didn't give a shit.

Or rather, he probably didn't give a shit that I insulted Ram, who more than asked for similar vitriol with how antagonistic she was. He probably felt that she deserved at least some of the insults that came her way.

"Be grateful that you've been promoted to a dog." Her red eyes scrunched up in apparent disgust, "Your research has at least earned you that right, or would you rather I keep referring to you as 'dead fish'?"

"At least if I'm a dead fish I would provide better dining than this slop you call food."

I let myself fall into a rhythm. This was…familiar, as much as I didn't want it to be. My verbal jousts with Yukinoshita in the past came to mind. Those moments, I knew that she didn't mean any real harm, didn't truly mean the words she said.

Nor did I.

My conversations with Yukinoshita were always just how we communicated with one another. Deep down, we both knew that we…cared…for one another. Neither of us would truly wish the other harm, no matter what other people thought when they listened in.

Somehow, I got the same feeling from Ram.

Despite talking like she had a bone to pick with literally anything that breathed, I could tell that it was all some convoluted way of keeping other people at arm's length. I don't know why exactly she did that, but I had a good idea.

After all, I had once been the same, albeit in a different manner.

She wants to figure people out. To coax out the worst in people in order to see just how they truly worked. Anger usually belied the truth, I've found, and she likely sees the same.

I couldn't bring myself to truly hate her. At the same time, I hated her with every fiber of my being.

She reminded me too much of myself, and the mistakes I had made in the past. Mistakes that I don't regret, but have always wondered what could've been had circumstances been different.

I could see her falling down a similar path. And I don't know how I felt about that. The path I walked, the path of trying to find something genuine, was borne of years of my own rotten but true view of the world. Similarly, while I can't claim to know the full story behind Yukinoshita, I knew that it was at least tied to her own closely guarded past.

Our world was not kind, and yet, it was kinder than this one by far.

What sort of horrors could an individual such as Ram have suffered that she turned out as similar to me and Yukinoshita as she did?

I didn't want to find out.

That's why, even if she would likely truly hate me if she did find out, I pitied Ram.

It was an emotion that I thought I'd smothered deep within me. Pity was a fool's errand. To pity someone was to look down on them. I wasn't arrogant enough to do so, not when I knew that there were better people than me by far.

I couldn't help but do so for this maid.

Was this how Yukinoshita saw me? As I instinctively shot back barb after barb, Ram's own words gliding over me like nothing, I saw myself in Yukinoshita's shoes. It was a jarring look into an old mirror.

I could not say the same for her sister, however.

Rem stood at Mathers' side, similar to Ram. Unlike her sister, she did not talk. Instead, she stared directly at Natsuki, a frosty glare that would put an ice cube to shame. The girl obviously still suspected that Natsuki was a Witch Cultist, no matter how much the kid's actions pointed to it.

Something was seriously wrong with Natsuki.

First off, he already knew the written language, a feat that I don't know how he did so. It took me a solid month of studying in between my smithing to figure out how to write even a basic sentence. Meanwhile, he comes along and shows that he's already proficient enough to rival my own comprehension within the first day.

Either I seriously underestimated Natsuki's own learning capacity, or Astrea's been running him through the gutter with penmanship lessons.

Secondly, he knew this mansion too well. Even I had to get used to the winding hallways and the many empty rooms. Natsuki did not. He knew where to go, whenever he needed to, without asking anyone for directions.

Thirdly, as he was doing right now, he was sweating up a damn storm when he watched Rem. Rem, who was likely the only person in the entire Mathers domain that suspected that Natsuki was a Cultist.

Put all of that together and you'll get a highly suspicious maid that looks like she wants to hang the poor bastard's intestines on the chandelier.

Never mind that if Natsuki really was a Cultist, then he wouldn't be making an effort to be suspicious in the first place. A fact that Rem seemed to conveniently ignore.

Thankfully, everyone else was more or less reasonable. Except the Great Spirit, who's just a pain in the ass.

"As always, th~at was delicious, Ram." Mathers dabbed at his mouth with a cloth, somehow not smudging his makeup. That was almost more impressive than him saying what he did with a straight face. Almost.

"Of course, Roswaal-sama." Ram had this air of smug superiority directed at me. I stared back at her blankly, "Expect nothing less from my skills in the kitchen."

"Your skills end at boiling water." I snarked out, putting as much mocking energy into my words. It worked. I watched as Ram's single visible eye narrowed at me.

I smirked.

"It ple~ases me to watch you get along with someone other than R~em, my dear Ram." Mathers stood up from his seat with a soft chuckle. I snorted as Ram turned her focus back to her employer with raised eyebrows.

"Roswaal-sama, I would request that you never refer to my relations to this waste of space as 'getting along'." She sniffed away from my direction, "I would rather you use the term 'tolerate' if you must."

When Mathers continued to chuckle as I rolled my eyes, it only solidified just how different the margrave was to every other noble in the capital. Backtalk from their own servant was grounds for severe punishment, usually being fired, but sometimes being executed.

Of course, those executions would be disguised as unfortunate accidents.

Ego and arrogance went hand in hand when it came to status, wherever you go. Even the slightest insult from someone that was supposed to be under their thumb hurt that ego more so than anyone else. More so when it came to people with actual power.

Mathers, more than anyone, deserved that arrogance. He was also one of the few nobles that didn't have a hint of it, from what I could see. Actually, now that I think about it, the people in this world that deserved to be at least slightly arrogant were not.

Were the nobles that are actual decent people just weirdos? Is the reason why I only know a handful of them because I actively avoid weirdos? A thought for a different time.

"N~ow, if you'll excuse me, I have a meeting in the ca~pital." He nodded to Rem, who quickly brought a coat and hat. Mathers slipped them on easily enough, "I look forward to se~eing more progress on your research, Hikigaya-san."

The margrave, instead of going through the door like a reasonable person, headed towards the end of the room. The end of the room where Ram had opened a window.

Without any more preamble, the man leapt. He didn't fall. He slowly floated upward, before reaching above the treeline. With one final wave, the margrave practically shot himself from the air, a sonic boom echoing around the entire area.

"Woah, Roswaal can fly?!" Natsuki exclaimed from his position in the back, earning him the glare of both maids.

"Roswaal-sama is the greatest mage in the entire kingdom, of course he can fly." Ram stuck her head up as if she was the one that deserved the praise. I didn't bother correcting her.

Mathers already knew how to do the teleportation spell. There was no reason to fly anywhere he'd already been to. I didn't question his decision though. Not when doing so would likely get me a response akin to 'I like the wind in my hair'.

Which was fair, I'll admit.

"Good morning, everyone!" The doors to the dining room opened up, Emilia walking in with a smile on her face, stopping the tension that had built in the room, "Eh? Where's Roswaal?"

I finished drinking the coffee, cold as it had gotten, "You just missed him." I got up as I spoke, "Some meeting or the other."

"Mou, he couldn't even say goodbye?" Emilia pouted as she took her place next to Natsuki, "And you're already done, Hikigaya-san?"

"I am. If you need me, I'll be in the library."

I didn't listen to the response. I already knew it anyway, as the girl had said the same thing every time. She would've said 'Okay, and good luck, Hikigaya-san!'. Which, come to think of it, really only fueled the jealousy that I could see from Natsuki.

I really needed to nip that in the bud before some misunderstanding happens. I didn't need any distractions from my current project.

"Hey, Hikigaya-san, wait up!"

Like that.

A feeling of deja-vu as Natsuki came running up with a wave, "What is it?"

"Do you, uh, need any help with anything?" There was more to conversations than words, that much was something that even the slowest individual could get. Inflections, tone, body language, all of it contributed to showing the recipient what the speaker wants them to know.

All of that to say, Natsuki looked like a nervous wreck. Which was all the more concerning when you take into account that he was pretty much fine, if sweaty, in the dining room.

"No, I don't." He wants an excuse to stay in the library, for some reason. That was the only thing I could think of why he would ask me this. But why now? There was no rhyme or reason why the kid wouldn't ask any other time, when he would just walk in whenever he wanted.

"You sure?" Natsuki wrung his hands nervously, casting an almost subtle glance at the heavy wooden doors that lead to the dining room, "I could help with the books or something, you know? Maybe-"

"Cut the crap and tell me what you want, kid." I didn't have time for beating around the bush.

"Rem might try something now that Roswaal is off on his meeting." To my mild surprise, the kid immediately did exactly what I told him to do. That he looked even more nervous told me that he truly believed his own words.

"You're overreacting." Still, I shrugged it off, "The maids are under strict orders not to harm anyone in the mansion, and you're a part of the staff now."

"Yes, but…" Natsuki gulped down air as he tried to get his nerves in check, "I think Rem thinks that I'm part of the Witch Cult, so in her eyes, I'm a threat, right?"

This time, my surprise was evident. I had taken him for granted, it seems. Either the kid had listened into the maid's conversation with me, or he had gleaned that thought from his own interactions. The former was impossible, as I was certain that I would've heard him.

The latter was just plain impressive. The amount of logical hoops that one needed to successfully jump through in order to arrive at that specific conclusion was significant. That Natsuki managed to do so, with barely any information, was astonishing.

Nevertheless, I didn't believe that Rem would try anything. Those maids were loyal to a fault, and Mathers had given them their marching orders. I said as much to Natsuki.

He didn't believe me.

Whatever. Paranoia will be paranoia, I suppose. I'll leave the kid alone, maybe he'll relax once he realizes that Rem wouldn't do anything that would cause Mathers to be pissed.

…incidentally, I've found a peculiar use for my portals. You can form them so that they filter out specific things, allowing only whatever you want to pass through. Say, for example, light. Doing so would allow me to keep an eye out wherever I need to, with nobody being able to go through the portal and attack me.

What? Just because I shit on other people's paranoia doesn't mean I won't be paranoid.

A/N: Uni's starting to eat into my free time more and more, and I don't like it. Still, I signed up for it, and I do enjoy the work, so… Anyway, if you like what I do and want to support me, check out my P-atreon at P-atreon•com(slash)Almistyor.

Thanks to my newest patron: Little God of the West (good name btw).

And a special thanks to: Oliver vazquez, brutalcrab and Tassimo.