Hearts of Iron 4 Player's Guide to Save the Isekai World

Paralyze

Revised November 2023

***

He'd argue it was the best sleep in his new life. Instead of the Sistine Chapel or elaborate canopies and bed curtains looking down on him, it was just joists from a dead tree, planks, and a knight. Instead of the expansive space, it was snug, the size of a one-person dorm room with a bed in the corner.

It was simple. And it was enough.

"My Lord, it's time."

Erich huffed and sat up. How they broke into his room, his yawn ignored the pleasure of knowing. Sunlight still had to reach the window.

People often complain about the small things — get angry for something that doesn't suit their beliefs. Being open-minded had its benefits. But someday, you'll become certain and have less conviction when it comes to it. And without someone to shake it up, it'll just be stagnant water, left to breed whatever.

And, by the same token, those who do not change get swept in its unpredictable current; a rock cuts them from underneath, not knowing how to swim, but it's natural to survive. Ideas and the people who hold them are no different. You cling to it as you cling to life. It's just instincts.

You can ignore the nutrition fact labels, lose touch with the physical for convenience in the digital, and even have the decency to feign civility and intellect. It wasn't a perfect society, but it's progress, good or bad. You just need to have the will to change once everything goes kaput.

A bag descended on Erich's head, thin enough to breathe and see, and a waxy slightly green-tinged, spicy aroma surrounded him. Lilies, roses, whatever. An average person might not have the same mindset as a survivor or the experience of a knowledgeable person. They flail for help and somewhat find others to join together. They form a group, perceiving it as progress and nothing more.

The knights hoisted him and cuffed his hands behind his back. There will come a time when they realize the river is endless but only a product of their imagination. Some people tend to refuse the fact they're going to die, so they determine how it ends. No one knows what happens after death. So, the comforting feeling that all the pain would go away was reassuring. Should they survive, they call it grit, faith.

While both are acceptable reasons from an emotional standpoint, mathematics does not. Variables, factors, and equations exist to create formulas to deduce the reason and compute them into numbers to conclude. But the human mind is beyond rationality. The experience becomes warped into something inconclusive, such as faith and miracles. Emotions tend to trounce the rational mind for both good and bad.

It was not that Erich was against natural phenomena. It's how ethics, morals, and values form. But for the advancement of civilization, it does not. Emotion is the antithesis of itself. Yesterday's war won't win you tomorrow's. It's all about balance.

And so Erich boarded the prison carriage, his chains unlocked, but the knights offered him a clean junior officer's uniform.

"I said dirty and worn."

"His Majesty wants to remind the cadets that this can be them."

Erich snatched it from the knight's grasp and threw it to the floor, leaving no room for doubt or hesitation.

"The nobility needs to be reminded of what they did to a Hero. Now, if you mind," the knights trampled on the snow-white tunic, making it darker with every step. "Tear the hem of the trousers apart, limit the knife to openings, and do the rest by hand. And spare me the boots. I'll go barefoot."

The knights followed suit, and Erich began buttoning up the shirt, only for buttons to scatter. Some might see a maniac, but Erich saw it. He saw the struggle it forced him to endure, the sweat and exhaustion. Soon, he will expose the hypocrisy hidden beneath the veils of the virtuous.