How can a retired savior be considered retired if his price drops to 40,000?

Chapter 364: Any arrangement made by humans is always flawed
"…I mean, what Amit said is indeed correct. After I was forced to change my environment, there were indeed some complex factors that caused me to hesitate or act rashly when making plans and making judgments—"

"——I mean, why am I the one listening to your incoherent complaints now?" In the water mirror magic circle of the summoning room, the impatient image of Conrad Coze made a slightly muffled voice as if he was separated by water. "As far as I know, there is a brilliant and knowledgeable birdman who is no more than ten kilometers away from you in a straight line. If you must find a Primarch to bother you, why do you have to go far away——"

"--Because even though you're a problem child who could mess up everything at any time because of a whim of yours, I still miss you, Conrad." Fujimaru Ritsuka lay on the table where the magic circle was set up, looking at the stable image on the water from a very small angle.

An expression of disgust or nausea immediately appeared on the clean face of the Night Haunter. "I am sure I understand what you are saying, but you could have given more thought to your choice of words. Your statement makes our relationship seem inappropriately close."

"I miss you because you're obviously a very appropriate person to talk to in this regard," Fujimaru Ritsuka pointed out. "You certainly won't give me any big talk."

"Yes, I only dislike you for wasting time. You remember that the speed of time in our respective places is different, right?" Curze replied unhappily, "After hearing you complain like this face to face, maybe when I walk out of the room, I will find that several days have passed on the Emperor's Shadow."

"But you still answered the contract message instead of just coldly saying 'leave a message' to me." There was a strange satisfaction in Fujimaru Ritsuka's tone, "Thank you, Conrad."

"That's because you sound very wrong," the latter pointed out sharply, "Get up from the table. I can't see you now."

"Is this important?"

"It's very important. It will allow me to determine whether you need to go to the infirmary to give yourself some lithium salts." Coze's tone was sinister. "Indeed, I am not like Sanguinius. I will not preach to you or try to enlighten you with some of my past experiences and insights. I will directly suggest that you get a psychological scale for a mental diagnosis."

These words took effect very quickly - at least Fujimaru Ritsuka, who was lying on the table, did stand up again, and glared at the scene reflected on the water surface of the magic circle:

“I have no family history of mental illness.”

"But I obviously have serious mental problems." Curze even acted very proud when admitting this, as if it was something worthy of praise. "Don't forget what the basis is that allows us to communicate so instantly. The connection between you and me is closer than you and any other spirit you summoned."

Fujimaru Ritsuka crossed his arms - not out of defensiveness, but simply to show his dissatisfaction with the above remarks.

"You are trying to change the subject," she pointed out plainly. "You know very well that this contract will not have much effect on my spirit."

"You were the one who put me next to my bipolar brother in the first place. No offense, I feel like I deserved this ordeal - but that doesn't mean I wouldn't want to complain to you about it."

Curze on the water spread his hands, palms facing outward. In Nostramo culture, this is a body language that indicates that one's hands are empty and not holding a weapon, and is then extended to mean "I have no ill intentions." Fujimaru Ritsuka understood this cultural difference effortlessly, but it didn't make her feel any happier.

Fujimaru Ritsuka's silence did not interrupt Coze's narration: "Given your extremely persistent desire to share at this moment, let's return to the topic you want to express. But I really can't understand, you spent the effort to connect with Magic today and strongly requested to have a 'face-to-face talk' with me, is it really just to tell me 'I have thought it through, I want to stick to my own principles'?"

He cut off his words here, but Fujimaru Ritsuka knew that Coz's words were followed by another sentence: "I don't see the point of this matter."

She was not angry about it, but simply narrated calmly: "In fact, a more appropriate way of saying it is, 'I once again realized that I am not from this world.' So I can't tell Sanguinius this directly, he will definitely think too much."

"I'm glad to know that I'm still your second choice when something goes wrong." Coze replied sarcastically, "But no matter how you look at it, isn't it a little too late for you to realize this problem now?"

"It's an inappropriate wording." Fujimaru Ritsuka admitted frankly, then thought for a few seconds and explained again, "A more appropriate description might be 'I finally came to terms with the fact that I am not from this world'."

"how?"

"This is not the world that shaped my values ​​and ways of dealing with things. It's normal that I can't adapt to the environment here. When it is obviously impossible to 'force myself to accept the process of the Empire' and 'change the process of the Empire's operation to a state that I can accept', I should have accepted this reality in the past - I mean the 'past' before I came to this universe."

Fujimaru Ritsuka lowered his hands from his chest and adjusted to a more relaxed posture. "You see, I'm not the type to get upset about things that I 'definitely can't do.' Like - I'm assuming you know this - after the 'first' bomb exploded, I rushed into the control room and most of Mashu was pinned under the concrete that fell after being blown off. Of course I wanted to save her at that time, but I didn't even try to lift the construction debris that was pressing on her because I easily realized that I couldn't do it at that time."

Koz on the water did not seem very impatient and had no interest in continuing to listen, but he did not interrupt Fujimaru Ritsuka's statement, nor did he stay where he was, and did not leave in anger.

"But after this series of things... or rather, after I achieved a series of achievements, I began to become extremely confident in my abilities." Fujimaru Ritsuka crossed her hands, and this repeated little action showed that she was a little uneasy when she said these words, "I became unable to properly distinguish what I could do with a little more effort and what I absolutely could not do."

"Ouch." Coze couldn't help but laugh out loud. "I never thought that one day I'd hear you use the word 'achievement' to describe what you've done."

Fujimaru Ritsuka's next words immediately made Curze's expression change as if he had been forced to eat a fly: "I really don't think it's a big deal, but objectively speaking, perhaps most people would consider it an 'achievement' - let me finish first - but do you know how I would define the 'reorganization of human nature' that saved humanity?"

"I don't know what happened, but from the look on your face, I don't think you define it as 'success' or anything like that," Curze replied irritably. "So, from then on, you started thinking desperately: Did I have other choices? Could I have done better? You filled your little mortal head with these things, and then fell into our universe. With the help of the old thing, you went smoothly for a while, and then you began to think whether you could do more - but in fact you found that this would be opposed by others, and then you began to question yourself, and hesitated or felt painful. You realized that you couldn't do everything well, but you forgot that you were not Fulgrim, and you couldn't arrange everything around you perfectly."

"Conrad." As if his entire mental journey had been carefully cut open by a scalpel, Fujimaru Ritsuka was not only not angry, but even looked relieved. "Don't you have a very useful emotional intelligence?"

Koz in the water mirror gave Ritsuka Fujimaru a cold look.

"If your so-called 'tree hole session' is over, can we talk about something constructive?" The real Eighth Primarch said unhappily, "You know, I have to report to Little Crow."

Fujimaru Ritsuka immediately showed a very artificial sadness: "Wow, you didn't even ask me what I decided to do after I figured it out? I'm so sad."

"You've already made up your mind, why do you have to tell me? Are you looking for some non-existent sense of identity from me?" Curze sneered, "You can only understand and accept these differences at best, but you will never agree with them. At least where you have control, you will definitely want to continue to meddle in other people's business - you little thing can sometimes be more annoying than Rogal Dorn's stone, you know."

This passage ends with a question, but Coze uses a declarative tone when he says it, because Fujimaru Ritsuka himself certainly knows this:
"Thank you for the compliment." A smile flashed across her face for a second, "I knew you would understand." "Just a reminder, you used my brain in the illusion." Now it was the turn of Curze in the water mirror to cross his arms uncomfortably, "Theoretically speaking, I can do everything you could do at that time. Reading the mind of a mortal does not take up much of the Primarch's energy, it is a very common thing."

"Yes, the Primarch's eyes can see a lot of things clearly." Fujimaru Ritsuka said with a sympathetic heart, "As long as you put your perspective in the right place."

She was sure that she had diverted the topic to another direction because of what Curz wanted, but somehow, the Midnight Ghost in the water mirror looked even angrier.

Even so, Koz did not continue to dwell on the previous topic, but impatiently started the next one:
"Now, can we talk business?" he said. "About the location of the planet of Appreciation in the Warp, the preparations made by the Mechanicus, and the abomination that everyone knows was created by Archmagos Belisarius Cawl, the 'Chufu-89'?"
-
"According to Conrad's reminder, I may have to go to Macragge after the groundbreaking ceremony of the Second Astronomican is over."

In the corridor of Storm's Edge, Fujimaru Ritsuka said to Kaelia who was half a step behind him:

"Take Stormbound and come back quickly. If everything goes well, it will only take two weeks. If not, I will send you a star message. If the schedule allows, Cleopatra will stay with you in Baal and handle the political issues. Mr. Ferros of the Iron Hands will handle the engineering matters. Somni will stay in Baal's orbit. I will take Amit away, and Sevatar will be left to you - don't look at him like that, he actually has some idea of ​​how a normal society should operate. I want Hastings to stay as well, so that you will probably feel more at ease, but he may want to go back to report on his work... Never mind, we'll arrange it then."

"But, sister," Kaelia interrupted Fujimaru Ritsuka's thoughts with a hesitant tone, "Isn't this... a little too fast?"

"Hmm? Fast?" Fujimaru Ritsuka was puzzled for a second, and then when she opened the door of the summoning room in front of her, she realized that what Kaelia was talking about was not the things she had just hypothetically arranged - but there was no difference between the two things emotionally, so she simply answered, "Much slower than when I was there."

Kellya opened her mouth but said nothing. She had so many things in her mind that she couldn't express, all stuck in her throat. But during this time, Fujimaru Ritsuka continued to speak:

"You know, this day will come sooner or later - the Destiny Summoning System. This is not the first time you have seen its true appearance."

This was true. When she was in Parmenio, she was brought into this room by Arjuna, half-invited and half-forced, as an "emergency measure". At that time, the water mirror magic circle used to communicate with the Primarch had not yet been built to a semi-automatic level, so the entire space was even more empty. At that time, she used the system itself and a little bit of fate to summon "another" Asklepios. Theoretically, she had already become one of the "Masters of Chaldea" - but to be honest, she had almost no sense of reality.

Asclepius almost never listened to her commands, and the same was true for everyone else on the ship.

"Master qualifications are talents in a very practical dimension. Kaelia, you have this talent." Fujimaru Ritsuka said, "But simply possessing this talent is not enough. You must also equip yourself with the will to bear this talent."

Kellya's tone was a little weak: "...I don't think I have this kind of..."

"I'm not asking you to take on everything right now - I'm still here, and as a senior, I can still protect the younger generation from the rain." Fujimaru Ritsuka said calmly, "But you also have to realize that I certainly can't be here forever. So you'd better start to realize as soon as possible what you are going to face, or what you are going to take on."

Kaelia said nothing. From a common sense point of view, this is of course true - people will always grow old, get sick and die, and in a galaxy full of wars, there will always be all kinds of accidents. The life of the current mistress of Chaldea could be taken away by anything - but Kaelia felt for no reason that this was true, but things did not seem to work according to the so-called "common sense" that just jumped into her mind.

"My limited experience is that the respect and obedience of others are not unconditional. No matter if they are ordinary humans, Astartes, or Heroic Servant." Fujimaru Ritsuka continued to speak to Kaylia at his own pace, "Of course, my current command authority is given to me by the Emperor, but this alone is obviously not enough. When the same executor faces the same order, the effects of the actions he performs out of two different mentalities, 'to get by' and 'from the heart', are completely different. Sometimes we can't and shouldn't force it, but as a commander, the two can always be easily distinguished."

Kelly nodded randomly: "So I should try my best to get the latter."

"That's right." Fujimaru Ritsuka replied, "But today we are only discussing the issues arising from the summoning of heroic spirits, so the situation will be simpler: the vast majority of heroic spirits that can be engraved on the realm record tape and included in the spirit base portraits were already heroes in some aspects when they were alive. Therefore, your military theory, practical ability, judgment and other qualities that are very necessary for ordinary generals are not the top priority - most of them will be stronger than you. On this basis, how to reach an agreement with the other party in a short period of time to obtain their help is more important."

"...But what should I do?" Kellya sounded very unsure. "After living on the ship for so long, I have realized that there are obviously all kinds of heroic spirits--"

"Show your will." Fujimaru Ritsuka said almost coldly, "All the Heroic Spirits in the spirit portraits are the ones I have made a connection with during my journey of 'saving humanity'. Therefore, as long as your ultimate goal is similar and you have enough will to achieve it, then in most cases, the Heroic Spirits who are willing to respond to your call will also be willing to help. You may not be able to summon all the Heroic Spirits in the portraits, but as long as they can feel your will, the noble and tenacious ones among them will always be your helpers."

"...I don't understand, sister, it sounds so vague." Kaelia said in confusion, "I roughly understand how to 'show your will' - just like when you saved the civilians in the temporary settlement just now. I'm sure everyone present at the time had similar feelings, but..."

"'To use a popular saying in the Empire, everyone's life has its price.'" Fujimaru Ritsuka repeated what he had said at the meeting, "'If this decision goes wrong in the future, I will naturally take responsibility and pay for the losses.' Of course, we don't always face such a sharp problem, this is just a small aspect - first of all, you have to have a similar 'will' before you can talk about how to 'show' it."

Fujimaru Ritsuka looked at Kaelia who was still a little uneasy:
"'I wish to accomplish the greatest good in the world, and I wish to bear all the evil of mankind.' This is a sentence in the summoning spell, but at the moment, it also expresses the truth to a certain extent. If we only say 'summon something', with the technology of Chaldea, anyone with a little psychic literacy can do it, but if we want to truly 'use' this set of spirit-based portraits, it is impossible to do it without at least this level of awareness.

"You still have time, Kellya, but none of us knows how long that time will be. Hastings is a conservative on this issue. He thinks it is too inconsiderate for me to hand over the control console of the deadly weapon to you now. But I think that if you can't feel the weight of the decisions you make in your own hands, you will never be truly qualified."

"But... I still don't know..."

"You have to ask yourself, Kaelia, because I realize that I have failed in this regard as well." Fujimaru Ritsuka smiled bitterly, "I am walking towards goodness, but I have also done countless evils on the way forward. I want to reduce or correct this as much as possible, but do the methods I use increase good, reduce evil, or are they completely the opposite? I am not sure myself.

"I saved some people. Perhaps these people will hurt more people in the future. But should their lives be taken just because of an unformed possibility brought about by a 'maybe'? More people in the empire may think so. However, I hold the opposite attitude. On many similar points, I cannot agree with the empire. No matter how long Chaldea is led by someone like me, it will never be fully accepted by the imperial institution because of the difference in style of doing things - this is where I am doomed to fail. But I accept it and choose to move on, because the only thing I am sure of is: I should keep moving forward."

At this point, Fujimaru Ritsuka turned around and bowed to her nominal apprentice and actual successor:
"Please forgive me for not being able to arrange everything perfectly," she said. "I will do my best to help you, but in the end, the Chaldea I will leave you will most likely be a mess. Just like the other plans I made before that never came to fruition."

Kelly was silent for a moment, then smiled:
"It may sound a little arrogant for me to say this now, but I've been reading books in the library for over a year, and I know what you mean, sis."

She stepped forward and gave Fujimaru Ritsuka a gentle hug:

"This is how human history develops through constant inheritance and handover. That's why you need a successor."

(End of this chapter)