There are times when I realize I'm in way over my head. It's not hard to see, when looking at it from an outside perspective. The same can't be said when you're the one involved. Arrogance, or even just a distorted view of one's own capabilities, is as human as any other vice involved.

The Christmas play, for example, is one such event.

The mess I made, thinking back on it, was inevitable. Lie upon lie, despite my own self-admitted hate for such. It made me ill, looking at it now. No, that was wrong. Even back then, it made me ill. I didn't want to admit it, that my selfish, inconsiderate actions, borne from my rotten perspective, was wrong.

My methods, effective as they were, were wrong. Rotten to the core. Flawed beyond measure. They would be, at most, stopgap solutions. Tape around a water hose. They would eventually give out, regardless of what the problem was.

It was frustrating when I started to understand it, and it still is when I sit down and think about it.

For all that I spoke of going against the grain of what society would deem normal, I had inevitably fallen down that very same route. The route where a person in the wrong refused to acknowledge their mistakes. A hypocrite through and through.

I didn't regret it, though.

When one looks back onto their formative years of middle school and earlier, they're filled with embarrassment. The idea of being that stupid would never happen again, people think. You were younger and dumber then, now that you've grown, you know the mistakes you made and would try to avoid it from happening ever again.

In some cases, those people succeed.

In others, they fall back into those same mistakes.

It's not their fault. It's only human nature. You can't fully change yourself, no matter how old you get. The echoes of your past will always stay by you, their memories clinging like barnacles to a whale.

Right now, I can't help but feel like those echoes are gnawing at my heels.

My rudimentary surveillance system was set up in less than a few hours. One way portals positioned on the corners of every hallway. My eyes were, almost literally, everywhere. Nothing would go on in this mansion without me at least spying a hint of it, at least until I fall asleep.

Thankfully, I'm no stranger to late nights.

I don't know why I'm doing this. Natsuki wasn't my responsibility. I could've left him to his own devices. I would think that he would be smart enough to understand that I was under no obligation to help him. At most, we were two strangers temporarily staying in the same place.

You know, ignoring that we were both isekai'd, not that he knew that.

I could've just told Ram about Rem. Despite the older maid and myself arguing a lot, I knew there was mutual respect there. I knew, without a doubt, had I told her, she would've taken it seriously. She would've prevented any attempt that Rem would make, regardless of what it was.

And yet, I didn't. I went through the painstaking effort of getting just the right angles on every floor. Had Yukinoshita seen me, she would've questioned my sanity. I'm questioning my sanity as I speak.

I had the opportunity to pipe this to someone else, wipe my hands clean as I quietly do my research. There was no reason to do any of this, if someone had a better, more efficient solution. In fact, doing all of this only complicated things just that tiny bit more.

And yet, if that were the case, why would Natsuki talk to me of all people about Rem?

The kid knows the people of this mansion more than I could ever hope. He would've known that talking to Ram would be the smartest thing to do when dealing with whatever possible machinations her sister would've come up with. Instead, he comes up and asks me for help.

It didn't make sense.

That's why I took it seriously, even if I didn't say anything of the sort to Natsuki.

It didn't make sense, much in the way in how there was an attack by mabeasts in the capital, despite not even Astrea finding any hint towards such a thing. That Natsuki managed to inexplicably predict that would have left anyone else suspicious of him having something to do with the attack.

Astrea found nothing of the sort. Natsuki wouldn't say how he knew, but if that was borne out of maliciousness, then Astrea would've sniffed that out in a heartbeat.

That alone would lead other people to think that he may have some innate ability, maybe a Divine Blessing, to see incoming danger, or even see the future. Someone like me, who's been ingrained with years of shitty isekai tropes, can reasonably think that that line of thinking was fairly accurate.

Bullshit protagonist powers will be bullshit, I suppose. Assuming that was the case, then Nastuki's ability to read and write the local language can be explained. He just saw himself answering right, and copied it from his future self. It was a paradox - who answered the first time around? - but magic is magic.

That said, I don't have the full picture. Why act now? He had days on end to nip this in the bud, even more so than me, a third party. The answer was simple. Natsuki's ability is limited. He was able to predict the mabeast attack, but he wasn't able to predict that there was a tamer.

A flawed future sight.

Yeah, as far as bullshit protagonist powers with one severe downside that the author can use to artificially create tension, it checks out.

His words earlier may have proven that. He acted as if the margrave flying was a shocker, something that wouldn't have happened had he already known that. After all, I consider myself a fairly decent judge of liars, and Natsuki was truly surprised at Mathers' ability.

Therefore, he hadn't known that Mathers would be leaving. An event that would theoretically lead to Rem doing fuck knows what at this point.

Either that, or that was all an act, and I was doing exactly what Natsuki wanted me to do. In which case, I would have to applaud him for his performance. It must be truly difficult to play the part of a moron 24/7.

…Maybe I'm reading too much into this. Maybe Natsuki doesn't have clairvoyance and is just talking out of his ass. That the attack on the capital was him being lucky at the prediction, or had seen something that had led him to believe that it would happen, but just didn't feel the need to tell either me or Astrea.

Maybe.

Or maybe I'm just being a damn moron. I'm self aware enough to admit that that was likely playing a role.

Heh. If those two could see me now. The famed lazy bastard of the Service Club, going out of his way to help someone who'd requested it, in the most inconvenient way possible. Ebina's request happened quite a long time ago, but here I am, feeling the echoes of such a request.

Old habits die hard, I guess.

There was still a few hours before anything could truly happen. I figure, if the blue-haired maid was to try anything, she wouldn't do it in the middle of the day. Rather, she'd act when it was near midnight, when almost everyone in the mansion was asleep, or was falling asleep. Less possible witnesses then.

As such, I returned to my research, though I still kept an eye on my portals, just in case I was wrong. I was approaching the limits of what I could gather from the library, and though my findings were already leaps and bounds beyond what I could've done by myself, it wasn't enough.

I still couldn't make a portal to my home.

The reason was twofold. First, my home doesn't exist on the same plane as this one. The reason why I could make a portal to the capital and back was entirely because I could physically get there in the first place. The plane of space time that I would fold was the same, hence, I could weaken it at the same time, without the trouble of looking for a second plane.

And therein lies the problem with a portal back home. The second plane. I would have to weaken that plane as well, without having access to it, without knowing where it was, and hope to whatever was listening at a time that I didn't do it somewhere inconvenient. Such as, say, the bottom of the ocean.

Secondly, I didn't have enough mana in general. The distance by which the source and the exit were located was proportional to the mana used in the process. This was due to mana, from my conjectures, having to travel from you to the destination to begin the process of 'folding' the 'elastic' space time.

That was something that had to be looked into, and I had already penned that in my papers to Mathers.

Regardless, with those two factors in mind, reaching my home world would be incredibly difficult. I had already tested the limits of my portals, and I could reasonably create one to the edge of the capital. Beyond that, it became increasingly difficult to do so. I had tentatively put that my current limit was a few hundred kilometers, at best.

Not nearly as much as the Great Spirit, who'd gloated that she could make one thousands of kilometers away.

Neither of us were even close to the possible infinite amount of mana needed to find my home plane in the first place. As such, my next project was to find out how to reduce the power needed to create portals across a theoretically infinite distance.

Ha. Look at me. I've done more work in getting home in a week than I have in the years I've been here. Just goes to show you how much a good reference book or two can make with doing research like this. It would still take a momentous amount of effort to get home, but I haven't felt closer to that goal than today.

Hm. I'm getting a bit too positive there.

"What's with this mess, I suppose?!"

Ah. There we go. Thank you, Great Spirit. I was getting worried that I was losing my pessimism. Thanks for reminding me that you're still being an annoying little shit.

"Apologies." I stared at her with my deadest look to date, "I realize that individuals who get on in age tend to forget a lot more than normal. Do you need me to tell you your name? Maybe how doorknobs work?"

"You are insufferable, in fact!"

"Ah yes, violent outbursts. Yet another sign of advancing age."

The best part of this was that she couldn't refute me. The Great Spirit had taken a long time establishing that she was older than she looked, and now that I've 'accepted' that as fact, to try and say that she wasn't would be to admit defeat. Too much pride, to do so, I guess.

Honestly, it really does feel like talking to a seven year old more than anything else with how easy it is to rile her up.

"Now speak! What are you doing with these portals, in fact?"

"One-way viewing portals, as you can probably tell." I could see her eyes widen. I rolled my own in response, "Yes, yes, it should be impossible for me to do so this damn fast, I get it. You can shut up, I'm already tired of hearing it."

Yes, when I had first demonstrated my ability to form portals, Beatrice was both shocked and livid. The more I looked into the intricacies of yin magic, the more she expressed both of those feelings. It had gotten to a point that I would get at least one tirade from her about something or the other. At this point, I don't even know what she was angry about, having tuned her out most of the time.

"No! That is not what I…!" And naturally, I tuned her out once more. Maybe her insights would be useful. Most likely not. Beatrice, for all her abilities, both those I've seen and those I've only heard mention of, was lacking terribly in the theoretical department.

Don't get me wrong - she definitely knows what she's doing. It would be hard not to, having lived as long as her. No, the problem was that she couldn't really teach it. There was a difference between an expert in a topic, and an expert in teaching that topic.

An expert knows their topic. They can talk about it for days on end, their theories and speculations the like of which would lead to beginners scratching their heads. They have no need to think about what they know, as they already instinctively know it, their minds and bodies proceeding with actions almost automatically.

A teacher, meanwhile, is someone completely different. They don't necessarily need to be experts on the topic they teach. Instead, their job is to explain and educate others on said topic. They need to know how to dumb things down just enough so that the student can absorb that information.

Beatrice can never be a teacher of yin magic. No matter how hard she tries, no matter how many rants she gives out, this Great Spirit will never teach me anything.

She explains things as if I should already know them. She tells me to do something, but doesn't tell me how. She says things are impossible, and refuses to elaborate. She speaks like an expert talking to another expert.

I am no expert.

I am as much a student as I am a blacksmith. I know jack shit about whatever she's talking about. All I have are the things I've specialized in, for the sake of going back home. Beatrice can never be a teacher, as she refuses to acknowledge that fact.

She can't admit that all of her hard work, for who knows how long, could be learned in less than a few weeks by some novice. Hence, I must be an expert in my field, in spite of all the arrows pointing that I'm not.

Pride was one hell of a drug, I'll say.

"...pose! Well?!"

"Ah sorry, I wasn't listening. Scratch that, I'm sorry that I'm not sorry."

"I will kill you!"

"You're welcome to try. Just be sure to not get my blood on the easily stained carpet. In case you didn't catch that, that was sarcasm."

I took a look out the window, and I had to frown. I threw back another response to the Great Spirit almost automatically. The words didn't even register in my own head. I was too busy staring at the night sky.

Shit.

I had spent too long setting up the system and my inner monologue. It had already turned to near dusk, and I had barely anything to show for it.

I swear, if these precautions of mine were all for nothing, Natsuki is going to get it, bullshit protagonist clairvoyance be damned.

A/N: If you like what I do and want to support me, check out my P-atreon at P-atreon•com(slash)Almistyor.

And a special thanks to: Oliver vazquez, brutalcrab and Tassimo. Power outages are a pain in the ass fr.