Finua

Chapter 37: The Time That is Given

"This is what being a wage-stealing, censorship-loving, pussyfooted human snowflake is like:

"First I wake up in my expansive four-poster king-sized bed at 2pm even though I claim to hate the rich because I am an open-sore hypocrite. I stretch and yawn, working all of the independent thoughts out of my system so I can more openly accept today's fresh batch of propaganda. My underpaid servant, off of whose taxes I live, offers me a weapon for breakfast, which I reject because I rely on the same police force for protection that I constantly claim is oppressing me. Then I spend two hours grooming myself because I am vain, and go downstairs to start my shift of begging the hard-working labor class for handouts because I am simply too lazy and incapable of taking care of myself. Unfortunately for me, the small fraction of people gullible enough to offer me free money end up offending me in some unrelated shape or form, such as by being too masculine or by having politically incorrect private thoughts that manifest in forbidden actions such as taking precautions against proven threats to personal and public safety or acting in ways that directly benefit oneself instead of going out on a limb to cater to loud minorities. I do all these things because I'm just better than you.

"That's how it begins."

"Terrific Yusla, thank you."

"When I find myself encountering someone with their own personal opinion, I swiftly proceed to engage in the one activity in my life that can be said to take any effort, even if it is completely counterproductive: a cancel culture campaign. For example, last week I chanced to speak with a g*blin named Salkar Rex, who through dedication, ambition, hard work, and a refusal to back down from a fight, ended up pioneering the towering Battle-T Enterprises which employs thousands of workers every year. So, naturally, I decided to do my best to undo his entire legacy and lay off all of his workers."

"Wait, who is this character even supposed to be?"

"Queen Anastasia!"

"What?! Queen Anastasia has literally never tried to regulate big business before!"

"Yes she has!"

"Literally when?!"

"She constantly complains about tax havens and bailouts!"

"But what has she actually done about them as High Queen?"

"Ah, but I address this! Read on, Dark Lady:"

"I said to Master Salkar, "sir, why don't you pay your employees twice as much for the same amount of work?" To which Master Salkar said, 'from whence comes this extra money? The sky?'"

Yusla took a moment to chuckle at his own fabrication.

"The fact that Master Salkar was unwilling to cause massive inflation among his essential products, thus making them completely unattainable to the average leather-knuckle laborer, is the reason I have spent so much time, effort, and money to cancel him. It is also the reason that so many g*blins have resorted to theft out of desperation and have begun to question the very concept of currency as an arbitrary social syst—wait a second..."

"Yusla, can we do this another time? Can't you see I'm busy?"

"Well sorry, Dark Lady, I'm just doing what you told me to do."

"No, Yusla, you are doing what you repeatedly begged me to let you do until I finally told you to just do what you want and leave me alone."

"And... you're saying that again?"

"What do you think, man? Look at this! Look at what I'm in the middle of! We're literally a single day's march from Flameeso. I have ten thousand troops to keep track of, two Northern-held bases to capture, and no time for reading! You want Sh'raitha back or not?"