I write an Isekai about communist revolution until an anime is made out of it

Settling in

Having found a convenient switch on the inside to raise the dull back of the door behind me, I found something else lying around the vault-library: silence. With the violent modern history of the keep around me sealed outside, I could finally enjoy some respite from - not just the recent screams and gunshots, but the dizzying babble at the center of attention, the varieties of great expectations, the uncanny sights and sounds now too commonplace to mention, the characters marching into my life, even the hooves and horse-breath and butt-aches from having precious few ideas how to ride horseback.

That isn't to say that this was the first time I'd shut myself off, no, I'd spent more than my fair share of time cowering already, but those little tavern rooms couldn't hold a candle to this place in their wildest dreams; even the air in here was somehow fresher than the air outside. Before I knew it I'd left my coat and my rifle against the central chair and slouched into it for a good ten minutes, staring into the blank polished stone walls, letting thoughts dance below my immediate attention until they congealed into a terror great enough to peel me from my seat in search of distraction.

Woe is me, how could I possibly know what will kill me out there? If only I had some source of knowledge to look into!

I began chipping away at the block of text by picking through the stacks for anything that seemed useful, but after several which lacked so much as a title, I was reduced to starting my own stacks based on how comprehensible a given book was, or at least appeared to be. The writing ranged from hieroglyphics to what looked like English until you tried to read it, and none of it struck me as worth digging into, not when the uncharted piles held the promise of an answer to this twisted reality.

It was something like six hours later when the sound of my thoughts reverberating against the walls grew loud enough to force me out of the vault-library, past a few guards, and with a handful of gestures, into a room with at least enough cobwebs to convince myself the Butcher hadn't touched it. I hadn't asked any of the guards I passed about what lay in the rest of the keep, but one gave me all the explanation I needed with a thousand-mile stare I could've sworn he didn't have when we rode in those hours ago. With that trail of curiosity safely discarded, I went about clearing the webs from my new quarters with probably-unwise use of a torch until it finally dawned on me that I hadn't eaten since before the battle.

Returning through the now-throneless room's doors, I found that (as expected) it had turned to night while I pored, and (as not expected) the land was bathed in the dim pink light of sunset. I'd never glimpsed the moon and Milky Way I knew I'd see from earth since arriving here, but tonight there was nothing in the sky but a canopy of stars several orders of magnitude too thick for an actual sunset.

So, the sky is wrong. What else is new?

The derelict city below now coursed with new arrivals: the fighters and their followers celebrated the lives of those lost as much as their victory with a vibrant clamour of conversation, munitions-turned-fireworks, and fresh kills turning over open flames. I wandered the empty outer streets, taking stock of recent events and bracing myself for social contact, when out of the corners of my immediate attention I heard something:

"Offworlder! Sir offworlder!"

The source was a young woman encased in brigantine armor, a belt adorned with ammo pouches and something from the "deviously-shaped iron on a stick" school of melee weapons wrapped around her waist. Looking up to the part a socially-functioning human should, her black hair was mostly tied into a loose ponytail slipped inside the back of her armor, the front left loose down the sides of her gently-rounded face, with eyes of a color I couldn't quite make out under the unearthly twilight fixed at my feet. All this I processed soon enough to make a response before an awkward silence could settle.

"Hello there"

Shit I said it.. I will bone you right now if you respond with "general kenobi".

"I, um, I've been looking for you, to apologize. Do you remember me, from the slums? You lent me your 'toe-me-goon' and I returned it broken."

Oh well that was a lost cause anywa- hey, she's the one who broke my tommy-gun!

"I'm sorry. I should have been far more careful feeding that ingenious machine, But my excitement got the better of me. Sir Hadlon allowed me to take a share from the vault - here, I hope this will settle my debt to you."

As her face grew steadily red enough to be noticed in the freakish light, she produced a sack barely small enough to be held within a single hand, which held the clinking and the weight of what must've been gold as she handed it to me with once looking me in the eye.

Shit, shit she's paying me for that? Don't do this lady I've got effectively infinite money as-is you can keep that for yourself. Shitshitshit I can't just turn it down can I? That'd basically be calling her broke, and in this case that would be shameful for her, wouldn't it? Ah, fuck, it's already in my hands. Dammit, at least do something for her sake.

While I tossed around the idea of reaching out the hand not currently occupied by gold for a handshake, she spoke again.

"And - that's not all. My name is - Nami (to her credit that's not a homonym in Elgean common, which I cannot remotely be bothered to write a proper conlang for). Thank you for accepting this, sir offworlder."

"Uh, you're welcome, Nami, and - thank you for giving me this. It's probably worth much more than that gun cost in the first place, to be honest."

"Thank you, sir offworlder."

She bowed / curtsied / whatever while saying that, and then turned around to disappear behind the cluttering of abandoned buildings.

Well ain't that something; looks like I'm hot shit around here.

With the conversation gone, the looming festivities caught my attention with a particularly loud gunshot, and what I recognized as a tracer zipping into the air.

Speaking of hot shit

I joined the celebration to a chorus of cheers, and dove right into at least a couple thousand calories of mostly meat, an unprecedented but still pathetic amount of alcohol, and what I in hindsight assume to have been basically on par with a pot brownie. I told stories of wacky World War 2 hijinks, and only mostly embarrassed myself trying to shoot from the hip like a fictional cowboy. Over the course of the night, Nami apparently got drunk enough to look me in the eye, before my social battery finally drained and I left for the keep.