"...I would never admit this to Mayonnaise, lest it encourage more obnoxious interference, but I almost had fun.”

The Tyrant paused.

Grandma Ru, her mind scrambling through a dozen paths, selected one and braced herself—

One of the guards piped up. “I’m gonna tell him.”

“I’m gonna remove you from the cuts," replied The Tyrant, before rolling straight on with his monologue. "And next week, grandma who wondered what I'm retiring to, after this tournament, after Saana, I’ll be conveying the Post-Maximal spirit onwards. The desolation perceived by others is to me an open field for More..."

Ruru threw in the towel. She leaned back as far as possible, and she accepted the blows with grace.

The teen's tone meanwhile, which had been dipping into solemnity, began to lighten like a feather picked up by a gust as he aimed for his monologue's actual climax.

“....assessed objectively, the careers outside a videogame are abundant. The difficulty better comprehended is the process of transitioning careers, but, on that front, Post-Maximalism has its tools aplenty. Sometimes, it’s as trivial as an expansion of mindset. Grief can be redeemed by not labelling the downward phase with the finality of a ‘death’ or a ‘retirement’ but by re-integrating it and your next step within a higher, more immortal purpose. This tournament, when viewed as the finale of ‘The Tyrant’, might be an anti-climax. If, however, I reconceptualise these declining times within the larger vistas beyond the one summit, they—and ‘The Tyrant’ and all the other names I leave upon the ice—could be reborn as a fantastical beginning. Let’s say, selecting one potential future, my next career could be in philanthropy. In that case, what has Saana been but the perfect training ground for the real-world frictions up ahead? Saana’s taught me many charitable virtues like compassion, courage, persistence, and leadership. Saana’s taught me the subtler virtues of compromise, delegation, velocity, and institution building. Saana has supplied me with the financial resources to fund any venture imaginable. More than that, Saana has supplied me with the greater human resource, my guild connecting me to many other bright, young, maximally-oriented individuals around the globe.”

“Oh, like Bill Gates," said Grandma Ru. "What was it called...The Foundation...The Gates Foundation?"

The philanthropy talk had reminded her of that ancient tech CEO who’d retired to digging wells and engineering anti-malarial mosquitoes.

The teen smiled without response, happy after beating the woman of her dogged search for tips. At last, a dialogue was possible.

“Do you know Bill Gates?” she asked.

Most Roboboomers didn’t.

“Sure,” answered The Tyrant. “Not that it’s a flex these days, but Flaming Sun salvaged a couple coffined farts from both their global development division and Microsoft. So, yeah, sure, I could be like Bill Gates...but More.”

Ruru frowned. "Wait a minute...are you guys bigger than Microsoft?"

"At their peak? Not in terms of market cap. I'm not a Bill Gates-tier billionaire, if that's what you're inquiring. But, you know, money isn't everything."

Ruru frowned deeper. "But you are a some-tier billionaire." She yelled. "Shut the hell up! You're a baby! This is some deceptive bait that loops back into your monologue, isn't it?"

The teen, as if the old woman had in fact chomped her dentures into a bait, nodded victoriously. "There are plenty of ways to cash in on Saana."

Grandma Ru was surprised. "Wow. That's cool. Good for you, kid! Good for you!"

He shrugged. "As a future philanthropist, I value the human resource More. But, if you're after money...hmm..."

The old woman was surprised on many, many, many counts.

Despite now understanding his philanthropic motivations, and means, when she tried to picture this kid transitioning into a charitable mogul role, it made for a comical mismatch. His tone describing such a future had also sounded unenthused and disingenuous, the teen evidently struggling more than herself to discover the appeal outside the game. If rolling in billions couldn't give you a convincing smile, then what could?

At the same time, how could she deny the possibility outright? This philanthropy nonsense could easily exist in the countless mysteries around the teen, like what spurred these exhausting monologues, or how—if she'd deciphered his monologue correctly—he'd found 15 tournaments such a bore that he needed to pad them with extra activities like chatting to herself, or where he'd earned a fortune, or why his lackeys were so stiff.

Re-re-examining the guards trapping her in, she reflected on his comments about ‘human resources’. A new unnoticed fact about them struck her. It'd been easy to miss because The Tyrant was usually shadowed by NPC soldiers. These players, however—his sole protection after the NPC evacuation—were performing their jobs with an identical, tight-lipped professionalism, with a degree of subordination that could not be purchased or commanded. Their behaviour reminded her of presidential security. Except…except they were more devoted, bound to an allegiance somehow beyond the patriotic.

It occurred to her that if this rich kid could command such loyalty from gamers, then a Gates-style humanitarian operation might be a breeze.

“Within the philanthropic redemption,” the teen, opening his eyes as he finished his examination, continued in a tone of rounding up, “even these boring tournaments obtain a new value. What are they but free publicity, projecting a positive image of me to billions?”

"Hah!" Ruru laughed, interpreting the comment as ironic because most of the audience despised him. "Bad luck. Some things you can't buy, but, hey, maybe the charity will help!"

As the calibration ritual concluded, her hands were raised off of the table by the kid, who blew the powder from her palms and knuckles. He then, in a gesture of release with all the gentleness of letting go a dove, folded her fingers together and pushed them back into her chest.

At once, the electric pressure she'd forgotten that was coursing throughout her body dissipated. She was subsequently walloped by a heavy, ambiguous emptiness, a sapping sensation between relief and disappointment.

With it, weirdly, vanished her surprise at his wealth, as also vanished a desire, moving on from that, to transition back to probing duelling tips.

To an external observer, the old woman would appear to have been zombified, her features a total blank.

The teen, copying the laughter that'd sloughed off of her face, continued to chatter, replying with a cryptic quip. An optimist, he believed, could find the signs of improvement in and around the boos - like this new breed who felt relaxed enough around him to ignore him, to even drink his concoctions voluntarily.

Others might've taken the last statement as a villainous admission that he'd just poisoned her. The thought itself did not occur to Ruru, who listened passively without reflection.

The Tyrant used some magic to vacuum up the clouds of blown powder back onto the table, then swiped the collection into a lacquered box. Simultaneously, he reclosed an eye while sorting, selecting, and measuring ingredients in his inventory. With the other, he swept the muted elderly woman. He seemed to calculate how to pair his musings on his own retirement to her, the setting, the mood, the hour, the tea.

If you stumble upon this tale on Amazon, it's taken without the author's consent. Report it.

During the resultant pause, a scratching noise broke over the quiet from the guard he’d spoken to, scribbling in a corner on a piece of paper.

"....what's...this?" asked Ruru, exhausting the first of her emotion, which was gradually restoring.

"A slight aftereffect from molesting you alchemically. You'll be 100% in a minute. It won't harm your duel performance, I promise. If anything, it'll help you to clear your mind and re-focus."

The teen opened the closed eye and finalised his calculations with a sip from his thermos, desummoned as covertly as it had appeared. Careful observation would note a shakiness beneath his next few utterances.

“I hope,” he continued, “that you’ll excuse the conceit of a highschooler giving advice on how to maximise what lies ahead.”

Ruru, no longer expecting but wishing ‘what lies ahead’ included duelling advice, smiled with a chipper modesty - or at least she thought she did, her face contorting with a half-paralysis. “I survived...this far by obeying...every tip...from the drill sergeant...supreme.”

“Soon, but, before the matter of the duels, it’s essential to conclude the maximisation of whatever you’ll be retiring to after it, the question within the question. I'll preface, though, that I’m far less certain of this, my own tomorrow doubtful. My initial inclination was to repeat my warnings to the children earlier.” He referred to advising SaNguiNe and The Third Gate to quit, which Ruru’d overhead, along with him arranging the stake in his bet with Alphamutt. “But would that serve you? It might, re-examining it, not serve them either, the advice spawning from an attitude I’ve adopted to hasten moving on - More hatred of gaming. But, you, it definitely won’t help – no offence, but the main problem in my view, the misdirection of our finite youth, does not apply.”

“Right…mine was already misspent…on gaming...”

The teen, missing her sarcasm, replied with sympathy. “Hey, you still exceeded many by managing to breed, by not jumping off a highrise onto concrete.”

Ruru found the last remark bizarre. One of her gaming friends long ago had done just that when he couldn’t rediscover the competitive edge. Recalling that person after many years, she wondered if this teen had researched her background more than he let on.

Should she be angry about that?

The Tyrant exhibited no sign of awareness. "I think your path to More exists within Saana, although not as, your inner doom forecasts, in duelling, nor, as you’ve already decided, in my guild.”

He referred there to an earlier chat, where Ruru’d boasted that she’d only signed up to the recruitment tournament to cane the master.

“That was...also a joke,” the grandma interjected, not wanting to eliminate the option.

“A joke spawning from wisdom - barracks life isn’t for the free-spirited. Instead of that, I think your path will be in Saana’s non-competitive side. Go questing with the gang, speedrun dungeons, use your prize winnings to fund an ex-pro guild.”

He emphasised prize winnings.

Grandma Ru had tried the casual stuff, including holidaying on one of the kid’s tour packages. When she mentioned this, he asked which and then sneered with revulsion when she described sailing around his island beach resorts. He denounced the package as suiting ‘a different type of ancient corpse’ that enjoyed decaying on cruiseships, saying he didn’t comprehend them but he did comprehend their cash.

It was mid-way through this denouncement that Ruru felt the last of the lingering emptiness fade.

“...No,” The Tyrant insisted. “Try literally anything else in Saana. Even crafting. It’s all very fun with no ceiling on the challenge. That calibration process, for example, was more cognitively strenuous for me than most of today's matches, and the tea's actual preparation dwarves them all.”

“You’re kidding me..." She inspected her hands, flexing them, wondering if it had truly faded.

“You're back."

"Am I?"

"Just a duellist's usual dementia. Like with a poison, death would clear the effect, so you can suicide your character if you're worried. Anyway, after the tourney, pick any path in Saana that you want; they all connect to More gaming and More fun. In two years, you’ll be kiting a whale-sized demon goat away from your mountain farm and you’ll be remembering nostalgically this episode that spawned your ten-trillion-IQ crop-saving routine. Like I said, the future peaks are in the mist.” He waved a hand dispersing the uncertain forecast, then he motioned as if plucking from its scattering pieces a single moment, which he—in a bizarre gesture—pinched between his thumb and index finger to show to her. “What isn’t so opaque is the terrain ahead, these impossible-to-win duels. Grandma, returning finally to the point, how are we, eternal seekers of life’s lucrative More, about to maximise this flop?”

It was an open question. Ruru, pondering outloud, as much to answer as to test her body out, recalled the compiled writings from the teen that she’d read yesterday. There’d been seven ‘Pillars of Invincibility’ for dealing with a loss: 1) don’t let the pain of losing erase the joy of past victories, 2) recognise that your wins outnumber your losses, 3) recognise the ultimate equality with the opponent destined to lose later, 4) learn from the smaller losses to win future duels, 5) duel when losing with the same vivacity of your winning matches, 6) forget about losing until it happens, and 7) actually, don’t lose.

“So,” Grandma Ru concluded. “I should maximise this loss…by winning with your help.”

A laugh came from one of the guards, around when those pillars were created.

“What…” The Tyrant was astounded. “No…no, that sermon was only superficially about duelling. For context, it preceded our first world conquest. The operation looked so bleak to everyone else that I tried to raise public spirits with what was tantamount to pro-suicide-bomber affirmations. You’ll get the message if you translate ‘losing’ and ‘winning’ into ‘dying’ and ‘living’. ‘Don’t let the pain of death erase the joy of past days lived.’ This shouldn’t be your mindset with this series or in any duel. You’re not dying - although, to be clear, against Emerson, you are going to lose. There is no secret tip that can puppeteer a week-young duelling zygote into overcoming a season finalist. You’re fucked. The question is—like myself embracing this dull tourney—embracing that you’re fucked, how can you maximise getting fucked? This should factor in not just the arena but, beyond a videogame, your friends, your family, your finan—"

Grandma Ru, told after all this that she would lose, her emotions flooding back, interrupted him in rage. “So…so what…so you’re telling me to forfeit, too? To sit humble and…and to what…and to what…to drink TEA?! I don’t drink tea! I’m American! We drink coffee in America! We threw your god-damn tea into the harbour!”

The teen was even more astounded by this outburst. As he probed it, the grandma, infuriated by his certainty but unable to refute it, ranted indirectly. She spilled into a diatribe about her daughter. Cassie—not comprehending what the arena meant to her—had been pestering her with complaints throughout the brackets. The girl insisted that she needs to quit because apparently grandma getting mutilated was traumatising for her grandkid or something. Total horseshit.

The teen imitated the old lady’s frustration, going so far as to switch to her parents' Mandarin. “This little one must think she crawled out of the womb in a vermillion dress of her own stitching! I now get why you take to gaming. You should’ve had More kids because that one is a dud! Impertinent roach! Is she not an adult and a mother? How about she make a parental compromise for once by disconnecting her child from these toxic videogames? Bah! This generation sickens me! No brain! No heart! No spine! No action except telling others what to do!"

Grandma Ru wanted to agree. However, she also didn’t appreciate the teen slandering her daughter, whose complaints truly stemmed from Cassie's own discomfort with violence. Plus, Ruru’s anger at him had not subsided, gaining a tinge of embarrassment.

Caught between those points, she had no response.

The teen, likewise, stewed afterwards in an awkward, contemplative silence. He’d realised that triggering the grandma had tanked what meagre understanding might’ve built up through their chat before his proposal, and no time remained to correct the blunder.

The Tyrant shrugged. “I was snaking towards a different, more grounded in reality, more profitable vision of Post-Maximal redemption. Will you accept it now? That's doubtful…but…the future’s always open…”

The guard who’d been scribbling in a corner appeared by Grandma Ru. They slid a sheet onto the table. On it was scrawled several loss conditions, from minute-one disembowelments to minute-two decapitations. In columns intersecting various combinations, numbers—some underlined for recommendation—signified the products of multiplying her wagered quarter-final prize.

Thus, they’d re-circled to the offer rejected at the start, the entire conversation being a convoluted attempt at persuasion. Rigging a bet - this was the teen’s so-called treasure with a value infinitely greater than victory.

The Tyrant, with a maximalist grin, stamped a finger on one triple-underlined figure. “That painstaking loss, which I’m betting you can fix, is worth More than victory…in fact, I'd gamble that's worth More than the whole prize pool…”

Grandma Ru stormed out past the grizzly bear, fuming that her preparations had been spoiled for nothing. The teen behind her promised that the tea would still be waiting after.

The sound of her telling him to kill himself would be drowned by the uproar outside the tent. The crowd were waving their banners with all of their fanatical hearts for Emerson Miller, who’d logged back on after skipping the commercials.

Her opponent, too, had sacrificed his warmup, but only because he’d never needed it.