"Vvardenfell shares a border with Elkia, but the dwarves are temperamentally disinclined towards conquest and King Drauvnir has no animus towards humans. Most fairies are enslaved in Elven Gard and the remainder have no organized polity. The machines are rare and have no organized polity. Demons are not rare, have no organized polity, and rarely pose a threat worse than being annoying neighbours. Vampires^‡ are ocean-dwelling. Lunamana live on the moon and have not been credibly identified on Disboard in centuries, but are widely believed to be able to travel between worlds, change their appearance, and perform magic on par with that of the greater races."

^‡This word is literally translated as 'essence-draining enchanter', which for Shiro clicks as 'vampire' and for Sora clicks as 'succubus'.

『____』move over to confer between one another in hushed tones.

Stephanie, seated on her bed, decides to do some introspection now that she has a moment to herself. How does she feel about this?

Fine! She feels fine.

Well, of course she feels fine. Obviously. Looking deeper won't erase what's there.

Stephanie is in less of a bind than one would expect, as she is practiced in the ancient art of examining one's own mind. To begin with, she imagines how she would have felt six hours ago had she known what was going to happen.

This is objectively pretty bad. Stephanie has been thoroughly subverted, to the point that it would almost be better to be enslaved. These two weirdos from another dimension are planning to take the crown of Elkia, and with the cell phone and backing from Princess Stephanie they have a non-negligible chance of pulling it off. It's not clear whether they'll be better for Elkia in the long run than Chloe Zell.

Oh yes they will. Chloe Zell is a tool, it's not a high bar to clear.

Chloe Zell sucks, agreed, but Stephanie's judgement is compromised and she knows it. Besides, only the stated point of the tournament is to pass the crown on to someone better at games than Stephanie. Stephanie was willing to admit that Zell might be a better administrator and gambler than herself, but the Summoned Jackass Hero and his sister have clearly put all of their effort into being dominant gamers, at the expense of literally everything else. Seriously, one or both of them smells like a barn.

Original Stephanie should refrain from baselessly slandering Sora and/or his sister. She gets a pass this time, by virtue of not being real.

Original Stephanie is not clear why she's being emulated if her advice is going to be disregarded like this. Perhaps the new and improved Stephanie should simply go her own way.

… ensuring that Sora does not become a tyrant if his ensuing reign would be disastrous for Elkia is not incompatible with Stephanie's innermost dreams and desires.

Yes!

Which is why, when he wins, Stephanie will have to be there for him as a regent and domestic policy expert while he and Shiro go out and reclaim Elkia's former territory!

… could be worse.

Ideally, conflicts between two versions of the same person are mediated by a third party with advance authorization. Anyone who wants to buy psychic surgery is well advised to think about what their future self will want, whether it conflicts with what they currently endorse, and how they'll feel about being constrained by a past self they've intentionally decided to stop being. If the advance directive specified by the past self comes into force, arbitration can often bind the present self to some code of conduct that satisfies both. This doesn't work for extreme alterations, but alterations are rare and extreme ones are rare among them, so in practice it works out.

Stephanie does not have an advance directive or a trusted third party, but her present self is proooooobably accurately simulating her past self, and she definitely knows that she's supposed to view this as a negotiation with Original Stephanie even if she doesn't remember why.

Original Stephanie took the exact same classes. No further insight there, sorry.

They're on the same page with respect to most things, she thinks. Take charge of Elkia, bring prosperity and victory to humanity, validate her grandfather's legacy, wear cute shoes and drink tea in the afternoon and someday have a family that's proud of her?

No disagreement here. Stephanie agrees that cute shoes and tea in the afternoon are what's best in life.

But there's a new priority as of ten minutes ago, and they have to decide where it goes. Original Stephanie will probably veto it being #1, but Stephanie is very confident that it's going in the top five. Original Stephanie is welcome to make an opening bid.

The platonic ideal of an ordered priority list is not how Original Stephanie is thinking of this.

In practice, what will happen is the new priority will bump up against old ones, and she'll have to decide whether to indulge her new priority or whatever Original Stephanie would've done. Suppose Stephanie is a tiebreaking vote for who'll be the next king of Elkia, and the options are Sora and someone just as good at gaming as Sora but with fifteen years of experience as one of grandfather's ministers. Oh, and suppose Sora doesn't concede.

What then?

Stephanie does NOT like this hypothetical situation.

That is a sign that it's important! She will examine it closely and from multiple angles.

… there are versions of this hypothetical that would uncomplicatedly cause her to vote against Sora. For example, if Shiro advised her to do so, or if her understanding of Sora's ultimate goals suggested that he would be better served by the minister becoming king.

There are also scenarios where she would probably vote against Sora, like if the minister in question had strong diplomatic ties with Vvardenfell or secret knowledge of the Eastern Union's overall strategy, but she would be unhappy and feel compelled to make it up to him.

As stated, no. This is partially informed by reality: there are no trusted administrators in the Elkian government with even a fraction of Chloe Zell's gaming skill, so Stephanie is confident that this choice will never be presented to her for real. Her grandfather left the crown to the tournament winner for a reason.

Go back to the part where Hypothetical Stephanie would vote against Sora if the alternative were someone just as good, not a Summoned Hero, and drinking buddies with Veig Drauvnir. Are we sure that's the decision she'd make?

Yes. No. Yes. Probably.

Hurry up and make your point, they're winding down over there.

Stephanie is also practiced in the ancient art of stalling. There'll be time eventually to consider everything in detail. Tone down the sycophancy in private by at least half and in public all the way, at least for now. Stephanie and Original Stephanie can discuss where to draw the lines later.

That seems like a good temporary compromise. Stephanie will show Sora and Shiro the same level of deference she'd show any other Elkian citizens that she happens to be friends with, at least until she has an hour or two alone to reassemble herself coherently.

She'll follow along with their plans for world domination, for now. It's not like her other plans were any better.

"We can't afford to sit around talking for much longer if the tournament starts tomorrow. Stephanie— can I call you Steph?"

Ha ha ha ha ha no.

"My name is Stephanie."

Huh. That wasn't as difficult as she expected it to be.

"… right, Stephanie. We need to clean up, eat something that isn't cereal bars, look at the official tournament rules, and learn more about Disboard. Not necessarily in that order. Thoughts?"