There is no variable called
of if you use it, then it is a user-defined one.
Which would also mean that the file itself has to be touched each time as the variable is sought in the tag data.
And then it could be that the tag data has to be re-written as the padding is not big enought.
If you really refer to the variable %_directory% which references the current folder name then this is a call of OS functions which really only manipulates the folder name - and that should be done fairly quickly.
Also, see here: