Casual Heroing

Some people are afraid of the dark. Some people are afraid of greatness. Some people are afraid of themselves. Some will never put their heart through the door of the world; they will never choose to brave the real monsters. They will never live. But they will lie, they will try to fit in a pathetic manner, akin to cattle feeding on grass before the slaughter.

And do you know what makes me angry?

A world full of magic is a world full of spineless people, of cattle. It’s a world of people who don’t know what real effort is. It’s a world of people who are living a lie completely different from everyone else. And what about those who can’t use the magic? Can they be considered people like the [Mages]? Can they do what [Mages] do?

If someone can clean blood off clothes this easily with a small stick… Sortina is not even a [Mage]. Wands, here, contain magic. And magic can be sold.

It makes me angry.

I want to beat some arrogant [Mage] up with a stick. Or better, a mace. Beat a [Mage] with a mace. Oui, that sounds funny in English. I let out a genuine laugh, maybe the first since I came here.

I don’t like lazy people who are not ready to dirty their hands. And maybe not all [Mages] are like that. But magic? That’s a plague. Who doesn’t want to move a wooden stick and change the world? But how is that fair? How can that be? Why?

What happens when there’s no magic in you, when you are just a common person that has to suffer the ire of great monsters, of villains so vile that they can just rip the heart from your chest with a snap of their fingers?

I have a hand on my gun while I sit on the bed before sleep. The cold metal calms my nerves.

What happens when the evil of the world is unchecked, when people are hidden inside a veil, when their eyes are covered by those in high positions of power? What happens when people think they can live, but in reality their freedom can be victim of the powerful at any moment?

They succumb. They suffer the tyranny. They become part of the problem.

Do you know what makes me happy, what makes me ecstatic?

I think of the politicians in France, I think about their blood tinting red Palais du Luxembourg’s beautiful fountains, and forming rivulets while going down Palais Bourbon stairs. I think of all the backroom deals they made, of all the empty promises of trying to make France better while destroying the Health system, destroying the judiciary system that protected worker rights. And when I think of a petty criminal blasting cold metal through their chests, I smile.

I smile because the revolution has to start somewhere, and I smile because I’ll be remembered as the greatest terrorist France has ever seen since the days a simple citizen decided that the price of bread had gone way beyond the means of simple people like him. I smile because they will make it about me being a daughter of immigrants, and I smile because they will make it about the banlieues. I smile because they will never mention how my father worked from dawn till dusk, breaking his back. I smile because I armed a nation and because I will be one day remembered as the woman who started the new French revolution, a woman whose parents came all the way from Tunisia. They will even say that I’m a Muslim, or that my catholic parents got radicalized by some Imam.

Lies will spread like locusts on a green boon, trying to phagocytoses the truth and regurgitate thick black humors ready to poison the mind.

They will find hundreds of thousands of euros worth of clothes in my house. They will say that I’m shallow, that I’m a bitch. That I’m a prostitute. But then, they will discover plans upon plans, blueprints to manufacture weapons on a scale never seen before in Europe. And that it is too late to do anything. And they will realize that the very fabric of the social cloth has changed, that something broke. And people will require the guns to fight the guns, they will start going crazy when their politicians will deny them such a right.

And even though there might be too many steps, I’m sure that the French people will follow in the deeds of their ancestors. They will bleed, but they will also get their freedom back—or the fight for it, at least. A flame has been ignited and the revolution will not be stopped. They will have the means to fight a war that the high-spheres had always tried to strip them of. And with the arms, the French souls will once again be rekindled, reminded of their past, of how they treated the tyrants who oppressed the small people.

…

I gathered information sneakily, listening, piecing together things. My memory is excellent. I rarely forget anything.

Leggiadra is the city. Carilia is the continent. I’m in a different world, and there are many continents I’ve never heard before. Carilia and Teiko are the ones I’ve heard so far. And then Kome, the one they often curse while arguing. I learned about some Vanedenis, whoever they might be.

But most of all, from what Cordius said and what Sortina mentioned about her friend with benefits, I learned that half-giants are expert in working with steel. Should I exclude that a superior entity sent me here? It seems suspicious that I would be sent among the masters of metal. Is it planned? If it is, would it damage me in any way if I followed what this reality has been giving me?

Metal. Guns. Machinery.

I could give them cannons, easily. Rudimentary guns shouldn’t be a problem. But that’s a big bargaining chip. I can’t expend it without a reason.

They also work with glass.

Windowmakers.

That’s one of the nicknames for half-giants on Carilia.

And I‘ve also learned that they are angry, that there’s an underground current bursting with fury. Whatever happened to this people, it made them bitter. But bitter people are good because they are prone to change, because they can be malleable.

And what happens then in a continent such as this one? Hydras, Goblins, Foxmen. And many other races. Some names not even I can’t piece together.

Nymphs.

So many creatures. So many species.

…

But what happens in the dimension of the here and now. What happens in the land of half-giants, in a sad city like this one?

In the city named Leggiadra.

Brassieres and guns, that’s where I’ll start.