Come the morning, Tanya noticed when dawn broke immediately. One of the side-effects of living in a turn-based world for so long, she supposed. She then promptly fell back asleep. She wasn’t a Ruler anymore.

Then she woke up startled, as her mental Rand counter ticked down by one. “...The turn’s begun.” She said, thinking for a moment. “...I’m still the ruler of Yojo Mojo. Maggie didn’t take over.” While she could no longer sense any of her units, by paying attention she could still sense quite a bit of her ruler’s senses. The Treasury, of course, but also her city’s production queues. “I promote Maggie Matcher, heir designate, to Acting Ruler.” She quickly delegated as much power as possible to Maggie, and the empty production queues immediately filled. She could do pretty much anything now that didn’t absolutely require a ruler’s physical presence, which was… pretty much just moving the capital to a different capital site.

Shortly thereafter, the heartstrings that still connected her to Erf strummed with power. From experience, she knew that this was assuredly Maggie linked up with a date-a-mancer, and from the multi-threaded message, it was likely Janis.

The message didn’t, strictly speaking, have words, but she felt them nonetheless. [Question]. It meant: “Why leave?”

It was impossible to lie over this channel, so she didn’t. [Unimpressed]. They know why she left, she wrote it all down.

[Concern]. They are asking about her health, of course.

[Assurance] She encountered no problems that she did not expect to encounter. Except for that one with the train, but she handled that fine.

[Status] They were requesting a more thorough explanation of how she’s doing over here.

[Optimal] She had everything she left with, and her upkeep triggered just fine. While it was impossible for any one kind of caster to subsist on their own juice, she could use her potato wand, the furniture wand, the ammo wand, or even simply using the cooking or fermentation wands on normal food to make enough ration value to cover her whole upkeep, then use moneymancy to convert it into shmuckers. This used approximately three caster levels of juice, solely because of her immense upkeep: she had 2340 upkeep as a level ten, a truly immense quantity. She had twenty of them to work with every turn from her wand doubling her reserve. In fact… [Proposal] She could add a reasonably large amount of shmucker income to the treasury from here, if they were concerned about wasting shmuckers on her upkeep.

[Rejection] Ah, yeah. Maggie was right, from a strictly strategic point of view, making shmuckers was one of the least effective things she could be using her juice for. She’ll still do it, spending her spare juice in the morning between Dawn and the turn beginning…

[Rejection] But they are not coming back. She’ll live far longer in a modern world, where war is far away. It was a solution that favored both her and Charlie, which was nice. [Message] And they could tell him that, or she might consider returning to make him regret acting against her precious subordinates. Her friends.

The connection faded. It was presumably quite expensive to send a message across dimensional boundaries, or they simply deemed further attempts futile. Either way, Tanya expected that she’ll probably have to deal with this more tomorrow.

…Wait, she just admitted that she was perfectly capable of returning. While lying was impossible, she still shouldn’t have revealed that. Glancing towards the door, where the Arkenshoes resided, Tanya cursed herself.

Well, it was time for breakfast.

She had expected Mizuki to still be asleep at this time of the morning, unless he had to go into the office, but he had both woken up, cleaned himself up, and prepared a serviceable bachelor’s breakfast sourced primarily from the convenience store.

It irritated Tanya to see her friend treat her as a newly met guest to be impressed instead of as a longstanding friend, but it has been a few years, maybe that girlfriend whipped more manners into him than he had implied. It also irritated her to not be treated as the royalty she was, but that particular emotion was much easier to ignore.

“So what are you going to do today?” Mizuki asked.

“I have quite a bit I still need to do in order to integrate back into this world.” Tanya said offhandedly between bites of rice. “I did bring some gold, converting it into usable currency is one thing I’ll be doing.”

Mizuki nodded seriously. “Gold, of course. If you were in a fantasy world, you should have had access to tons of it.”

“...Let’s go with that.” Tanya said after a moment to think about it. “I’m a bit worried about purity and usability,” As well as how well shmuckers converts into yen through this medium, “But if I can find a place that will reliably give me a good price for sketchy gold, that should give me a substantial nest egg.” And income, if she can keep the fact that she can make some quantity of gold from the ether secret, but if the conversion rate was bad enough she may need to get her old job back.

“Can’t help you.” Mizuki said ruefully. “I think pawn shops buy random gold? Never seen one.” He took out his smartphone and did a quick search. “...There’s apparently ten of them within a kilometer.” Given urban density as well as the typical size of a Tokyo business front limiting customer throughput, this is not even remotely a surprise. It would take a rather niche retail business to require extensive travel in Tokyo.

“I’ll need to purchase a new phone too.” Tanya added, “Even in the unlikely event that my old one survived my demise, it would be rather obsolete by now.”

“I’ll buy it for you on my plan.” Mizuki volunteered, giving her an ‘I’m so reliable’ thumbs up and smile. “Getting a smartphone without an ID is rough, so it’ll just be in my name. I’ve done this before.” For his ex-girlfriend, presumably.

Internally wincing at his awkward pseudo-flirtation, Tanya smiled brightly. Despite his imagining of the situation, he’s still being helpful and polite, so she’ll leave it be for now.

Not for the first time, Tanya rues the day that she learned date-a-mancy. It means she can no longer miss subtle cues such as this.

---------------------------

Fortunately, smart phones didn’t change quite enough for Tanya to get confused at the new models; she was fairly certain there were features she was underutilizing, but she can use the internet to more thoroughly explore that at a later time.

“I missed this.” Tanya said with a sigh of satisfaction, deftly using her thumb to navigate the internet. “I didn’t get a chance to try out the AI assistant before I died,” Because she had a personal disdain for the business practices of Apple, and their competitors had yet to catch up when she died, “-but it’s quite nice.” What’s more, her ‘recharge accessory’ wand was able to recharge the battery! At a pittance of juice, too. Fortunately, her email account was still extant, and she was busy re-activating her internet presence.

“Okay, let’s try this place.” Mizuki said, leading her into the third pawn shop they tried. As most were, the layout was crowded and the shelves were filled with various second-hand items that were either sold for spare money or repossessed from a bad loan.

Tanya’s first impression of the shopkeeper was ‘Yakuza’. It was the same intuition that had helped her so much when entreating with other sides, but when she focused on him, she could tell that this man was feared by many people, but at the same time his strongest connection was that of loyalty, of fealty. The Oyabun, she assumed.

Now this was someone she could deal with. She strode up boldly, barely missing Mizuki, and stared straight into the man’s intense gaze with equal violence. “You ask questions?” She asked first.

The man was intrigued, to the point that a weak heartstring connected them immediately. He saw her as an individual already. “No.” The Yakuza said firmly.

“Then I’m selling gold.” She put the singular bar, about half a kilogram, on the counter. “Check the purity. It’s supposed to be pure, but I don’t believe that.” Her eyes narrowed, “I’ll know if you lie.”

The Yakuza assessed her. She was dressed in her least elaborate duds (which was the dollamancy term for non-magical raiment), a cream-colored dress with only three layers and quite suitable for the summer heat. She still wore her tiara and earrings, so she could activate her armor at any time, but she was otherwise solely armed with her wand, strapped (magically) to her thigh and a little tricky to reach quickly. But…

A case of literary theft: this tale is not rightfully on Amazon; if you see it, report the violation.

[Thug]

Combat: 0 (unarmed)

Defense: 3

Hits: 9

[Tanya]

Combat: 29 (unarmed)

Defense: 33

Hits: 20

She wasn’t particularly concerned about battle, even bereft of most of her bonuses. She might be a bit concerned without her tiara, as it doubled her leadership even without activating the armor, but it was sufficient when combined with the passive bonus of Attuned that as long as guns stayed stowed she wasn’t threatened.

Satisfied with whatever he saw in her, the Yakuza took the small bar of gold and went to his scale, where he weighed it, and then he scratched it, dropping a chemical of some kind on it. After comparing the results to a small booklet he had by the scale, he came back. “It is fifty percent gold.” He said, which matched exactly to the percentage of shmuckers she loaded it with compared to how much it could hold. “It is a good time to be selling gold, customer-san. Prices have spiked to all-time high, it is understandable that you wish to offload it before the price drops back down.”

Tanya nodded firmly. That wasn’t why she was doing it, but it made a fine excuse. “Market price for a quarter of a kilogram of gold would be one and a half million yen. What’s your offer?” Mizuki choked at the quantity, but Tanya was internally wincing. Each kilogram of gold could hold one hundred thousand shmuckers, which meant that ingot had twenty-five thousand. This was not a favorable exchange rate for her, even if it meant that she could produce one of these every other day without much issue.

“Typically, customer-san, we would pay as much as ninety percent of value for an ingot of pure gold. It would be an easy turnaround.” The shopkeeper said, buttering her up. Note to self: max it out next time. “But for such an impure sample, we will have to go down on that. Further, as gold is currently inflated to such a high price, the boss has said that we will not be paying that much.” The unfailingly polite Yakuza’s expression twisted slightly, as he crossed his arms, showing off his thick arm muscles, as well as his elaborate tattoo of turtleshell hexagons along his arms. “We will only be paying seven hundred fifty thousand yen for your gold.” Seventy-five Ten thousand sounded so much better in Japanese…

“That’s robbery!” Mizuki said, panicking. “Let’s find someone who will give us a better deal.”

Tanya shrugged. “Fine.” She said, shooing away the small brick of gold. “I’ll take it in cash.” She took out a second brick. “For both.”

After testing the new brick and finding it exactly as pure as the last, Tanya was given one hundred and fifty crisp, clean ten thousand yen bills, which were assuredly either counterfeit or merely stolen/extorted. Given the condition, she was leaning towards the former. But if it was, it was a sufficiently high-quality fake that she couldn’t tell the difference, though, so it might just be proceeds from crime…

“He ripped you off, Tenko.” Mizuki said after they had moved a safe distance.

Tanya shrugged again. “I don’t care.” She said bluntly. “I can afford to pay a premium on a quick conversion now.” She slipped him fifteen of the bills. “For the phone.” It was a rather expensive model, and it could also cover any other expenses.

Their next step was a trip to the bank, where Mizuki once more set up a new bank account in his name with her funds. One hundred thousand was kept in cash, and converted into smaller denominations. Her story that she had gotten the money by selling jewelry to a pawn shop with the heavy implication that Mizuki was helping her run away from an abusive husband was accepted by the tellers, as Tanya was still wearing some jewelry, and thus it could be assumed she had access to more. To sell it, she used foolamancy to hide her tiara and add a diamond necklace along with some rings.

Was it stereotypical that she took her new bank card and dragged Mizuki to go shopping for some necessities, and by that she meant ‘more clothes and some accessories’? Yes. But her closet only had fancy dresses, and she needed more casual clothing, as even her least elaborate dress drew inquiries from the saleswomen on who designed it, as it screamed ‘high-fashion’. She didn’t have the heart to tell them that the one who did so was an amoral weapons designer who only made duds under protest. Further, she needed at least one purse to hold her wallet, which holds her bank card. She bought three matching pairs, but that was just so she wouldn’t have any serious clashes with her outfits.

…She may have gone a bit overboard with her money. “Man, Tenko.” Mizuki said, panting with her bags placed on the ground while he rested. They had stopped by a shaved ice stand and Tanya was enjoying her sweet treat while Mizuki let his melt. “You became a real girl, huh?”

Tanya tilted her head. “...I suppose I did.” She acknowledged. “Being a princess,” then queen, then empress…”...it changes you.” Granted, signamancy meant that ‘what she thought of as princess-y’ was just as important as things that were actually emblematic of being one, and she shifted her own preferences in that direction purely by thinking of herself as a princess in a difficult-to-shake feedback loop. “It’s not a bad thing. Clinging to what I’ve lost is unproductive, and I’m making the best of things.”

“Yeah, being a magical girl is pretty cool.” Mizuki admitted. “If you gotta turn into a girl, at least you’re a powerful one.”

“Exactly.” Tanya said brightly. “I knew you’d understand.”

“-and it’s not like you’ve ever been interested in a girlfriend anyway,” Mizuki continued, which led Tanya to frown. She totally wanted to get one… at some point… “-despite having your pick of the office ladies, so maybe you’ll have better luck finding a boy you like instead.”

“I did not have my pick of the office ladies.” Tanya objected.

“You really did, dude.” Mizuki said, chuckling. “They were falling over each other making you bentos and getting you coffee. It was hilarious to watch.”

“...I thought they were just trying to placate me.” Tanya said quietly. “I wasn’t unaware of my reputation.”

“Of being the scary guy who the bosses sic on bad workers?” Mizuki asked ruefully. “Yeah, you were. But you were also the guy who always listened when the girls complained about sexual harassment, and took their side more often than not. They took your death hard.” Mizuki worked in accounting, specifically handling invoices. It was not a job with a consistent workload, so he tended to have a good handle on the office’s pulse. It was an advantage that Tanya had exploited in her meteoric rise. “I didn’t even know about that stuff until after you were gone, man.”

Tanya blushed. “Well, those kinds of HR discussions aren’t to be discussed.” She protested, “Sure, everyone notices when someone gets fired, but that wasn’t anywhere near my full workload.” Maybe one-fifth of it. As a generous estimate. Heck, she would sooner describe her job as preventing people from getting fired, as it is the last resort.

“Well, let’s go back to my place.” Mizuki said, standing back up and grabbing her shopping bags. “We’ll drop this off, then I need to do some actual work.”

“Thank you for your help.” Tanya said sincerely. “But I do need to go home, tell my parents the news.”

“Yeah, can’t help you there. Good luck!”

It’s time.

---------------------------

Tanya may have lived and worked in Tokyo, but she didn’t grow up there. No, instead she grew up in Yokohama, a relatively short distance to the south, easily within her ability to visit. It was rather regrettable that she didn’t do so more often... But with the Arkenshoes accelerating her flight, it was a quick trip.

Uneventful too, unless one counted picking up the senses of a radar operator via the foolamancy senses she was focusing on. Fortunately, they didn’t seem to care enough to draw the attention of anyone else to his screen, so she figured that her small size made her be mistaken for one of those little helicopter drones that she had been seeing. It helped that she was creating an illusion of just such a drone.

Still, she twisted into true invisibility a few hundred meters away from her destination, in an instant where she was unobserved. It was more expensive, juice-wise, but it meant that when she appeared in an unobserved section of the street no one was filming her in secret.

Cloaked in an illusion of her old face, Tanya took a moment to look over her childhood home. It was a proper one-family house, built on a plot of land inherited by her samurai great-great grandfather; the original structure was destroyed by a stray bomb during WWII. Her grandfather kept the land, building the house with his own two hands, the materials and some help from experts paid for by Father’s modest but sufficient income as a college-educated salaryman in the 70s. At least, that was the story she was told by Grandfather, a proud old man who sought to occupy a child with stories of honor and glory rooted in economic success rather than skill at arms. A man who sought to teach kendo not as an art of war, but instead as a method to build a strong, confident student who could seize his future with his own two hands. Even without exceptional enough performance on her part to go professional, he managed at least that much.

She wonders if the old man was still alive…

The house didn’t have a perimeter fence or wall like some larger properties might, but it did have an exquisite garden, Mother’s pride and joy. It was good to see it in good health, it said good things about how well her parents have lived even after the vagaries of life removed their only son from them.

At this time of year, the soybeans were, as she expected, growing nicely, surrounded by much prettier decorative plants. The homemade tofu and natto, only eaten for a short time each year due to the small plot, were fond memories, something that occasionally popped for her meals back when she was a barbarian, but rarely when she was a ruler. The quality of the ingredients was much grander, but those fine foods lacked the nostalgia factor of the imperfect, homegrown beans.

Ah, she was crying, tears flowing without restraint. That realization, that she had not noticed a critical detail, shattered her active foolamancy and wasted the juice used to conjure it. She was, sadly, not yet a master-class foolamancer (not a master-class anything, bluntly), and thus could not salvage the spell in the face of having to once more re-center herself and Look at the world around her.

Unfortunately, before she could do so, a familiar face came out from the house, and immediately noticed the crying girl that was staring at her garden. Mother was only half-Japanese, her own mother having escaped as a young child from a Soviet gulag, although Tanya never learned the details. She had long hair, originally dark blonde but now a lighter shade as age whitened the strands. “Oh my, come here, girl.” Mother said, setting down her gardening tools and walking confidently towards Tanya.

As she couldn’t seem to move her legs, and gravity decided to be unusually insistent, Tanya remained rooted to the spot as her tears were dried by the rag that was assuredly meant to soak sweat instead. She opened her mouth to say something, but any noise died in her throat.

“There, that’s better.” Mother said, “Come on girl, come sit with Grandma and tell her your troubles.” The old woman led Tanya to the porch, where the discarded gardening tools were, and sat down. “Come on, you’ll feel better.”

Taking a deep breath, Tanya sat down, sniffling as she acknowledged the one thing any foolamancer must: this was real. She was here. Even by flexing that mental muscle, the one that shattered illusions before her as she attempted a spot check, nothing changed.

But still, she could not find the nerve to speak. “I’ll get you some tea.” Mother said, standing back up and walking to the kitchen.

“Coffee, please.” Tanya said before she cringed at her rudeness. “I mean-”

“It’s alright, dear.” Mother said, “Grandma’s got some coffee. My husband loves the stuff.” It was where she learned she liked it. “I’d tell you it would stunt your growth, but my son drank it since he was twelve and he was one of the tallest you’d ever see. He always had this little historical quote he liked to say about the perfect cup, you know.”

“Black as the devil, hot as hell, pure as an angel, sweet as love.” Tanya recited, surprised at her own sudden recollection of something forgotten. It lost a bit in translation, and it was contradictory enough that it didn’t really say anything, but she had read it in a book dramatizing Napoleonic-era politics back in high school, just as a hobby read, and it was poetic enough, after she modified the wording to flow better in Japanese, that it reciting it while preparing her coffee was probably the closest she ever got to prayer.

Mother paused. “...that’s right.” She said, a sense of wonder as she heard the words. “He always said it… exactly like that.” She looked at Tanya more intensely, trying to see something that she did not find. “Where did you hear it?”

“Years ago, from my own lips.” Tanya near-whispered. “Before I died.”

“...Tenko?” Mother asked.

This time, Tanya could find the will to move.

She didn’t want this hug to end…