S5 - An Ever-Changing World
“Nngh… mmf. Urgh…”
I hear a groan and look over to see Elder Ronandt wincing as he wakes up.
“Good morning. How are you feeling?”
“Hmph! Not very well, I must admit.”
Elder Ronandt drags himself up from the floor with a muttered “heave-ho.”
Something called the “world quest sequence 1” went into effect not long ago, installing Taboo into all people.
Because of that, Elder Ronandt and everyone else here but me all lost consciousness.
I was probably excluded because I had already maxed out Taboo.
However, since Sue had drugged me with something before that, I couldn’t move, either, until the poison left my system.
For a while, I had to just lie there while everyone had fallen to the floor.
Once I regained my ability to move, I went around repositioning everyone who was unconscious.
I felt bad leaving someone as old as Elder Ronandt on the floor, but there was only one bed. Hopefully, the towels I put underneath him were good enough.
If you’re wondering why I couldn’t put Elder Ronandt on the bed, it’s because that was already occupied by the girls.
Namely, Sue, Yuri, and Katia (I wasn’t sure whether I should include that last one, but there was just enough space for one more).
Maybe I should’ve put Fei there instead of Katia, but there was a weight-related issue there.
Although she’s in human form, Fei is really an enormous wyrm.
Her weight remains the same as it was in her original form, in spite of her appearance.
If I had put her on the bed, it might have broken.
We’re lucky she didn’t transform back into her original form and crush us all when she fainted. Instead, I set her up on the bed like Elder Ronandt.
Considering the huge size of her wyrm form, she never would’ve fit into this room. I imagine a wall might have gotten broken down or something.
Natsume?
He’s on the floor, of course.
“How long was I out…?”
“About half a day.”
Elder Ronandt stretches, producing some crackling sounds from his back and hips.
…I guess it really was a bad move to leave an elderly person on the floor.
But I couldn’t very well put him in the bed with the girls, either…
“Erm… I’m sorry about that. Putting you on the floor, I mean.”
“Hmm? Oh! That’s perfectly fine.”
When I apologize, Elder Ronandt glances at the bed and immediately understands, giving a loud cackle.
“Why, on the front lines, I was camping on the ground just about every night. I’m happy just to have a roof over my head.”
“That’s impressive. But couldn’t you have teleported home to sleep if you really wanted to?”
“It would hardly be fair to get a comfortable rest in my own bed while my comrades sleep on the ground, eh? Besides, I wouldn’t be able to help if something happened overnight.”
“Ah, of course. That was foolish of me.”
“Well, it wouldn’t be a bad option to ensure that I stay in tip-top shape so I can bring my best to the battlefield, eh? But when you only think of efficiency, you lose sight of other things.”
“That’s good to know.”
Really, there’s so much I don’t know that we never would have learned in the academy.
“You’re such a diligent student, just like Julius. But a youngster like you will have plenty of chances to learn…or perhaps not, in this day and age…”
Elder Ronandt trails off with a sigh.
“What do you think is going to happen now, Elder Ronandt?”
“Why, I haven’t the slightest. These recent events are beyond the scope of even my understanding.”
If Julius’s former teacher and the head mage of the imperial court doesn’t know what’s going on, I doubt anybody does.
“I should very much like to speak with you some more, youngster, but at the moment I wish to focus on this ‘Taboo’ business. You’ll have to excuse me a moment.”
“Oh, okay…”
“Don’t you worry, I’ll be right outside. If there’s any trouble, you need only call for me.”
“All right.”
Elder Ronandt leaves the building with a grim expression still on his face.
He probably wants to be alone to look over the contents of Taboo for himself.
Will he be all right?
Just having Taboo hits you with an intense, invasive thought.
“Atone.”
Even if the Taboo menu isn’t open, the thought never stops echoing.
And when you do open the menu, it becomes even stronger.
Just looking at it for a short while was enough to make my face go pale with nausea.
That’s in spite of the fact that I’m a reincarnation who came from another world.
I think I’ve been able to fend off the thought because, in a way, I’m an outsider.
But will the people of this world who are directly connected to all this be able to bear that overwhelming demand for atonement?
There’s something called Reincarnation History on the Taboo menu, too.
If natives of this world look at the beginning of that history, their lives from when the system was first created, I worry that they might be overcome with guilt.
Over the past half day, I checked my Reincarnation History and found it was empty.
I’m guessing that if you’re from this world, it shows a record of all your previous lives.
Since I’m not originally part of this world, I have no way of knowing how much detail is shown to those who are native inhabitants.
But the contents of the other options like System Header Descriptions and Update History were jam-packed with details, so I suspect there will be a fair amount of information.
It’s one thing if it’s just a list, but if it actually brings back memories from previous lives, that would be another story entirely.
It could even affect people’s current personalities.
Even with the same soul, one’s personality is likely to change, depending on where and how you were born and raised.
…I’d hate to see Sue suddenly go down the wrong path.
Actually, though, maybe it’s a little too late for her already?
If anything, maybe remembering her previous lives would make her a little more sane…
But maybe it’s wrong to put my hopes on something like that. Besides, should an older brother really think that about his little sister?
As my thoughts go on in circles for a while, Sue actually wakes up.
She still doesn’t get up from the bed, though.
“Elder Brother. May I ask why I am tied up?”
“Why don’t you put your hand over your heart and think about it for a while?”
“I’m afraid I can’t, since my hands are bound.”
“You can still think about it, though, can’t you?”
It’s no big deal. Sue’s arms and legs are tied down right now.
I wasn’t trying to get revenge for earlier, but it didn’t seem wise to let her move freely, either.
The idea of a brother tying up his half-sister probably makes me sound deranged, but considering that she did the same to me earlier and even drugged me on top of that, I don’t think you can blame me for being cautious.
“…Go on, then.”
“What do you mean, go on?”
Sue blushes and flutters her eyelashes at me.
I really don’t like where this is going…
Obviously I would never do anything evil to my half-sister, tied up or not.
What now, though…? If it wasn’t already painfully clear when she drugged me, it’s even more obvious now that something is wrong with my sister.
I mean, her obsession with me was always a little unhealthy, for sure.
But she still had the good sense to recognize that some lines shouldn’t be crossed between siblings…at least, I’m fairly sure.
She did, right? I certainly hope so…
At any rate, whatever good sense she had is definitely gone now.
Is this a temporary change, or is it permanent?
If this is just a temporary state of confusion, I can handle it.
But if it’s permanent, that’s a problem. A big problem. A really big problem.
Why does such a major personal crisis have to come up right now, when a crisis on a global scale—the world quest—is already ongoing?
When you look at the big picture, I’m sure this problem of mine seems small.
But for me personally, it’s a very serious family matter.
I probably can’t put this off…
If anything, this is happening now because I put it off for so long already.
I’ve known for a while that Sue had feelings for me beyond the love of a sibling.
She made it so obvious that it was practically impossible not to notice.
And yet I kept putting that problem on the back burner, pretending I didn’t see it.
Because I didn’t know what else to do.
I mean, think about it.
In my old life, I was a totally ordinary high school boy, the kind you’d describe as “average” or “a background character.”
I didn’t have an adorable little sister or an adorable childhood friend, let alone a girlfriend.
It’s not that I didn’t have any female friends at all; there were some girls I could talk to, like Yuri’s former self, Yuika Hasebe, but definitely no prospects of getting into a romantic relationship.
What I’m trying to say is that I really have no understanding of the finer points of male-female relations whatsoever.
So for someone like me, the idea of a half-sister who’s in love with her older brother sounds like some far-fetched fantasy fiction.
I don’t even know how to deal with girls under normal circumstances, never mind a younger half-sister from a different mother.
As far as I know, I’ve always treated Sue like a younger sibling, nothing else.
But since I was an only child in my previous life, I have no way of knowing if I was playing the role of an older brother correctly or not.
Judging by Sue’s current state, I’m guessing I must have gone wrong somewhere.
I do think that she might have imprinted on me because we were together constantly from a young age.
We were raised together for as long as I can remember.
And ever since childhood, like a true isekai character, I’ve worked hard to acquire more skills.
Apparently, Sue thought of me as “cool” because of that and started getting attached to me.
It wasn’t so intense when we were little, though.
Since Sue and I were raised in a fairly unique environment, we had very few chances to interact with other kids our age.
In Sue’s case, she almost never met any other boys besides me.
So I figured that once we started going to school, and she got more chances to meet other boys, she’d naturally start losing her attachment to me.
Surely she was just mixing up familial love with romantic love, a minor problem that would correct itself when she entered puberty, all the more so once she developed other crushes.
But this plan failed spectacularly, and Sue remained attached to me.
She started acting a bit distant around that time, so I thought she was finally starting to drift away from me, which was a relief, even if it was a little bit sad. Now, though, I realize how horribly wrong I was.
Her acting distant must have been because she was working with Wakaba’s side in secret.
And in the end, that led to her having to commit the horrible act of murdering our father.
I don’t know what kind of scars that left on Sue’s heart.
But judging by the way she’s acting now, it was clearly even more serious than I thought.
If I had tried to check in on her when she first started acting distant, maybe things wouldn’t have gotten so bad.
Maybe if I had faced her head-on, instead of being wishy-washy because I didn’t know how to handle her, I would’ve noticed sooner that something was wrong.
Whether that might have helped me get ahead of Wakaba and the others doesn’t matter right now.
I didn’t notice that something strange was going on with Sue.
That’s clearly a failure on my part.
Even so, I can’t reciprocate Sue’s feelings.
“I can’t return your feelings, Sue. But I can still stay by your side…as your older brother, nothing more. Is that not good enough?”
I know I’m probably letting her off too easy.
I’m not a saint, you know.
Part of me wants to interrogate her about why she was working with Wakaba.
And an even bigger part of me wants to interrogate her about why she drugged me, tied me up, and tried to do who-knows-what to me!
But if I do that to her while she’s emotionally unstable, I’m afraid I might do irreparable damage.
But it wouldn’t be right to give her what she wants, either.
It wouldn’t be good for her or for me to try to pacify her by doing something like that.
Even if it would satisfy her feelings in the moment, a twisted relationship like that would be bound to end poorly.
And then Sue would get hurt even more.
So I have to set my relationship with Sue on the proper path, right here and now.
As a normal brother and sister.
I look right into her eyes as I wait for her answer.
Just as the prolonged eye contact is starting to get awkward, Sue abruptly turns away.
“…You can be so cruel, Brother.”
And without another coherent word, she bursts into tears.
I made her cry.
Wh-what do I do?
I have no idea what the right answer is, but I feel like if I run away now, we’ll be right back where we started.
So I cautiously reach out my hand and pat her head.
While this might not be the right choice, it seems worse to just stand here in silence.
So I keep patting her head until she stops crying.
…Incidentally, it seems like Katia woke up at some point during all this, but she politely pretended that she was still sleeping.
She even went so far as to put a sleeping spell on Yuri for us.
Otherwise, if Yuri woke up, I’m sure she wouldn’t be nearly as polite…
<World quest sequence 2. Influence the battle between gods by way of prayer.>
“There it is…”
Around when Sue stopped crying—or to be more precise, when she went on crying for so long that I began to suspect she was faking it, then became increasingly certain, and was just starting to seriously debate whether I should hit her with an iron claw move instead of continuing to pat her—there was another world quest announcement.
It gave me the perfect excuse to remove my hand from Sue’s head and step away from her.
I immediately sensed that she was disgruntled, which confirmed my suspicions that she’d started faking it partway through.
I can’t believe she took advantage of my kindness at a time like this…
Maybe I should’ve taught her a lesson with a little iron claw to the face after all?
Once I move away from Sue, Katia sits up innocently and wakes Yuri, who rouses from her magic-induced sleep with a start.
While we wait for Yuri to fully recover, I open the Taboo menu and check it again.
Taboo Menu
System Overview
System Header Descriptions
Update History
Points List
Reincarnation History
Special Option n% I = W
World Quest
There’s a new option at the bottom of the menu.
I guess it just got added because the world quest assumes prior knowledge of Taboo.
Since “sequence 1” installed it in all humanoids, “sequence 2” probably created this new “World Quest” option in the menu so that everyone can read up on it.
I cautiously open the World Quest header.
<Currently, the goddess Sariel, who serves as the core of the system, is in danger of disappearing under the overwhelming burden. The ivory god aims to destroy the system, use the energy that was running the system to complete the restoration of this world, and free the goddess Sariel, preventing her disappearance. However, in choosing this method, approximately half of mankind will die as a side effect of the destruction of the system, and their souls will be destroyed. The ebony god has deemed this unacceptable and challenged the ivory god to battle. If the ivory god wins, half of humanity will be sacrificed, and Goddess Sariel and the planet will be saved. If the ebony god wins, Goddess Sariel and her successor, the ebony god, will be sacrificed, and humanity and the planet will be saved. By offering a prayer to one of these two gods, mankind can send a small amount of power to the god of their choice.>
“What in the…?”
I can’t believe what I’ve just read.
It’s so shocking that I don’t know what to process first.
“So it’s like a final battle…or should I say a final ballot?”
Katia must have read the contents of the world quest header, too.
A final ballot is the perfect way to describe it.
Each of us is supposed to pray to either the white god or the black god, and send them strength.
These “ballots” will break the tie in power between the two gods.
“So our options are to save humanity, or save the goddess?”
And the fate of the world hangs in the balance.
Do we save mankind, or the goddess?
It’s up to us to choose who will survive and who will be forsaken.
The goddess Sariel became a sacrifice to save this world, her body slowly wearing away all this time.
The ebony god has been protecting this world for her sake, attempting to carry on her will.
This world, and the people in it, owe these two gods an enormous debt of gratitude.
And now, we’re being given the choice to either save those two gods, or save ourselves.
“But…both of these choices are horrible!”
No one should have to choose between either of these!
No matter which you choose, the loss is simply too great.
“Isn’t there any way to save both?! There has to be!”
“Clearly, we’re in this situation because there is no other way.”
I turn around with a start to see that Elder Ronandt has returned.
“I do not know how much power these gods might have. But I know all too well how little power people have. We humans are weak.”
“So you’re saying we’re not strong enough to change this situation?”
“Indeed I am.”
That sends me into a rage.
“Brother Julius would never have given up!”
If my brother Julius was here, I’m sure he wouldn’t give up even at a time like this.
So how can Elder Ronandt, his old master, say something so cowardly?
“Right you are, youngster. But Julius is dead.”
Those words make me feel anger and despair, but at the same time, it also makes sense.
I’m sure Julius never gave up, not even in his final moments.
But he still died without ever achieving his goals.
My brother often spoke of wanting to create a peaceful world where everyone can live happily.
But even he couldn’t make that dream a reality.
“Human beings are pitiful little things. Try as we might, there is a limit to how much we can do.”
I grit my teeth and bow my head.
Elder Ronandt is right.
It was barely a day ago that I realized how truly powerless I am.
“But there is still the option of refusing to give up until we die, just like Julius did.”
“Huh?”
I raise my head.
“Humans are weak. Even if we don’t give up, we cannot change much. This situation is no different, eh? I doubt refusing to give up will change anything at all. It would only mean dying in vain. But it is true, all the same, that we will never know for sure unless we try. Will we assume we can do nothing and give up, or keep on struggling until the end, unafraid of a meaningless death? What will you do, hrmm?”
Elder Ronandt looks at me challengingly.
“You already know my answer.”
I gaze back at him steadily.
I swore that I would follow in my brother Julius’s footsteps.
And Julius never gave up.
“Good answer.”
Elder Ronandt grins, a mischievous expression that belies his age.
“Then let’s begin the strategy meeting, shall we?”
I’m not going to give up, either.
No Comments Yet
Post a new comment
Register or Login