Chapter 34
A Continuing Story
Translator : PolterGlast
"El, are you sure
about this?"
"Yeah."
In the dark night sky
above the forest, Lotus held me, now in my child form, standing straight up in
the air. Bat wings moved slowly on his back. Only one of his blackish-purple
eyes was a deep red.
Lotus had become a
demon.
No, strictly speaking,
that wasn't right. When I healed his injuries, I poured all my power into it.
My power alone couldn't heal him. The Illusion skill was, in the end, just a
mass of lies. Too big a lie would crumble and disappear from the start. When I
asked Ichi and the others, they said that slimes were like messengers of the
gods. The many waters that the god had spilled became ponds, and the slightly
spilled droplets became slimes. Slime water, which everyone could drink
deliciously, was a fragment of the god.
Using that fragment of
the god, I was finally able to somehow give it form.
My power and Lotus's
power swirled together. No, rather, most of it was sucked away. Thanks to that,
most of my skills disappeared, and now I only had Illusion, Tamer, Flight, and
Cleaning. The Illusion skill also leveled down, returning to LV. 2.
In return, Lotus
gained the Flight skill. And surprisingly, it was Lv. 4. Mine was only 2,
though. It never seemed to go up. Was it a difference in talent?
Lotus wasn't a demon.
Just like in the game, he didn't awaken a unique skill. He was just a young man
with only one red eye who could fly freely. But people would probably think he
was a demon. After all, he was different from ordinary people.
The wings would
disappear if he just turned off the Flight skill. But his eyes were different.
When I saw his awakened eyes, I just bit my lip. It was a terribly
self-satisfied act. If I used my Illusion skill, I could make them look like their
original color, but if he moved away from me, they would return to normal after
a while. He could no longer live freely among people. I had stolen his life as
a human.
I apologized countless
times until my throat was hoarse.
When Lotus saw his own
eyes for the first time, he was terribly surprised, but he ruffled my hair
roughly and said, "It's better than dying, right?" But even that, in
reality, was different.
"An otome game,
huh? To be honest, it's hard to understand that there's a story about this
world's future in another world."
"Yeah... in that
world, Lotus didn't end up like this."
"Who knows? Even
if you tell me, it wouldn't really make sense."
The concept of another
world existed in this world. But it was a different story when it came to us
existing within the framework of a game. Crying, I told Lotus everything. That
I had memories of my previous life. That I knew the future three years from now.
He opened and closed
his mouth, as if thinking about what to say. After a while of mutual silence,
he clapped his hands together. "Alright," he said. "According to
what you've told me, there's one certain future. Shall we go and confirm it?"
***
Lotus spread his wings
and flew through the sky in the blink of an eye, covering the distance I had
traveled on the slimes. It hadn't been that long, but I quietly looked down at
the village on top of a large cliff, feeling a sense of nostalgia. Monsters would
come to that village. It was the village where I was born.
In the game's main
story, Eldorado's village had already been destroyed, and Eldorado, having lost
her target for revenge, lashed out her unbearable frustration at unrelated
people. Yuko was one of them. Why had Eldorado's village been destroyed? It
wasn't clearly depicted, but I could imagine. It was the same as the city of
Volvect.
The demons had
summoned monsters. Because it was the village that had banished Eldorado. The
demon who had said he would come to pick me up at the chapel had asked for the
name of my village. Even though I didn't answer, he said he remembered. He knew
this story.
Demons possessed
mysterious powers. If one of them had the power to read the future. The
Eldorado of the correct story would have headed to the city of Volvect and been
protected by that demon. Then, as a side effect, the city would be attacked,
and Lotus repelled them. In the process, the silver-haired demon probably
destroyed Eldorado's hometown as well. Eldorado wouldn't have accepted that.
The her in the game wasn't the kind of character who would want to take revenge
using someone else's hands. If she was going to do it, she would do it herself,
thoroughly.
Even though she was
really a child, she would try to act like an adult, wearing provocative
clothes. That was an expression of her harshness and instability. As a result,
Eldorado would have cut ties with the silver-haired man. That's why she would
have wandered alone, causing trouble in the Cloudy Country and becoming Yuko's
enemy.
That man seemed to be
walking a predetermined future. Even without us saying anything, he would have
concluded the story on his own and disappeared. So, when I predicted that
Eldorado's village would also be attacked soon according to the story, it
turned out to be exactly as I thought.
In the darkness of the
deserted plaza, Lotus quietly sheathed his sword.
There, not as large as
the demon that attacked Volvect, but still a creature of a size far too large
for humans to handle, lay cut in two and collapsed.
Without making a
single sound, Lotus had settled everything.
I had told Lotus that
the village would be attacked. At that time, I wasn't really thinking about
anything, but when he said we should go and check, I looked up, thinking,
"If possible, I want you to save the village."
Lotus had asked me if
it was okay. After all, these were the people who had driven me out. They had
picked up stones, thrown them, and hit me with all their might.
"Yeah. It's not
like the feeling of resentment has disappeared or anything."
I just didn't like the
idea of them dying on their own without me knowing.
The silver-haired man
might send a new demon, having failed, but I didn't care about that anymore. It
was when I nodded at the hand Lotus extended to me, saying, "Let's
go."
"U-uwaa!"
A resident had noticed
us. Had they been out for a night stroll at this hour? "W-what, a
monster...? But it's dead...?" Monsters used by demons were called demonic
beasts. There weren't many of them around here since it was mostly peaceful
monsters. It was when we hurriedly tried to hide.
"El...?"
My name was called.
He was just a little
older than me, cheeky, but a boy who looked like an unsuited young master for
the village.
"Socius...?"
When I called the name
of my childhood friend, his face, a little taller than I remembered, crumpled
sadly. "Lotus, let's go!" It would be terrible if he called the
adults. He nodded silently. "W-wait!" Socius's voice could be heard. Lotus
immediately glided through the sky. "Wait, wait!" the boy cried
desperately.
"I'm
sorry!!"
I'm sorry for not
being able to do anything back then.
The words that reached
me were different from what I had imagined. He pulled a necklace from his neck
and waved it widely. The orange light reflected the moonlight peeking through
the clouds, sparkling. "Ah..." At the festival, he had bought a
matching necklace with me. I thought, "He hadn't throw it away." I
also took mine out from under my clothes and waved it widely as a signal. Could
he see it?
"...Should we go
back?"
"No."
It wasn't that I had
any regrets. We were steadily moving away from the village.
I couldn't go back
anymore.
Even in the city of
Volvect, I claimed to be an evil demon and shouted all around. No matter how
much I tried to deceive them by turning into a child, my adult self looked too
much alike, so eventually, I would slip up somewhere. I was sad about the
collapsed city. Harapeko-tei had somehow survived, with only the edges damaged.
I secretly took out the hidden scarf Lotus had given me, and we left without
even saying goodbye to Sutra-san and the others. Lotus had apparently told
Yozaki-san that he was going on a journey.
"...I'm really
sorry."
Lotus could no longer
live apart from me. It didn't matter what he wanted. With his red eyes, he had
to live as a demon. "Haa... I'm tired of hearing that," he sighed.
"What's done is done." My body shrank.
Since we were far from
the village, we flew through the sky more slowly than before. I was still bad
at flying, so I was still being held by Lotus. Feeling nothing but apologetic,
I had shrunk down in his arms when Lotus continued, "But in the first
place."
"I knew you were
a demon from the start."
"...Huh?"
"I didn't know
that the demon who fell from the roof was also you, though."
In other words, he
hadn't thought that the child me and the adult me were the same person, but he
knew that the child me was also a demon. "...Huh?" It was a surprise
for me, so I repeated the same word without understanding. Lotus, whom I looked
up at, moved his mouth as if he had something difficult to say.
"...When we first
met. El, you weren't hiding your eye color, were you? I was surprised when it
changed in an instant. I thought it was a demon's unique skill to change
colors."
Little by little, I
remembered. At that time, I had tried changing my eye color for the first time.
Since I hadn't made it a constant change yet, I had been slow to react. I had
been worried that I might have been seen, but since Lotus hadn't said anything,
I thought it was okay. Yet, this.
"That's why I
asked you at the shop the next time we met. Why did you go out of your way to
tell me that the slimes had returned to normal?"
I remembered the
conversation, but I didn't understand the purpose. Lotus had come to
investigate the cause of the slimes disappearing from the forest. But since
everyone had already dispersed from around me and returned to their original
places, I had thought, "he would be troubled," and had told him that
at the end.
"You probably
thought I'd be in trouble, right? I thought you were a foolish kid. You ran
away and hid, but then this ridiculously kind side of you pops out. Even though
you're a demon."
That's why he couldn't
bring himself to abandon me and dragged me to Harapeko-tei. He had found a
place where I could be taken care of, but he had left me there and initially
checked on me more frequently than usual, fearing something might happen. But
seeing me gradually fit in, he felt it was anticlimactic, and he weakly smiled.
I really had no choice
but to shrink down.
"Come to think of
it, it's the same. Whether you're big or small. You're the same. Why didn't I
realize it?"
"Don't joke
around," Lotus had scolded me before. He had gotten angry at my lack of a
sense of danger, coming across as kind and joking around. "...So, I was
wondering." The words he muttered probably weren't meant for me to hear. "Huh?"
When I blinked, Ichi and the others popped out of my and Lotus's bags.
"How are you
doingー!" "We're
doing greatー!" "It's
getting a little tightーー!"
"S-sorry,
sorry..."
They, who emerged with
monyomonyo and uguugu, could surprisingly stretch and shrink freely. But being
in a narrow bag was apparently a different story. They kept talking to each
other, saying, "We want to feel the outside air soon." Lotus, who had
initially been surprised by the slimes' existence, said, "These guys are
kind of cute." and poked them with puyo-puyo and funi-funi.
When I told Ichi and
the others that we were going to a faraway place, they trembled with
fuwawawawa. Cleaning slimes didn't stay in one place. They cleaned and moved
further and further away. But leaving their companions behind and being just
the three of them was probably a different matter.
"What should we
do?" I asked, retrieving the scarf Lotus had given me on the second floor
of Harapeko-tei, and they moved, crossing each other in a susususu motion. They
seemed to be searching the familiar room and immediately lined up in front of
me, sliding smoothly with momentum. "We're ready, kiriri."
I stopped myself from
pointing out that they weren't carrying any luggage. That would be too
insensitive.
Clinging to Lotus, we
flew further and further away. The wind hit my cheeks straight on. I looked up
at him. And when I thought, "Is it okay now?" I shook my head,
"No." Then, I braced myself a little. It might have been even scarier
than when I shouted at the god, and I thought and hesitated and trembled before
putting it into words.
"Um, I'm
El..."
"Hmm? I
know."
"No, that's not
it, actually, I can also become an adult!"
"I saw, so I
know."
I had actually shown
him, and I also had the necklace. "Come to think of it, you even said my
name without me telling you." "Eh, u-, ooh..." I was too
hopeless and surprised. No, that wasn't it.
I bit my lip hard.
"I can become an
adult..."
Lotus had said he
liked me. Maybe he didn't care anymore, and since he hadn't thought of me as
such a child back then, the situation was different.
Lotus frowned and
thought about the words I muttered as if scraping them out. The small addition
of "you said it at Harapeko-tei" seemed to make him realize something,
and he blinked. Then he looked terribly uncomfortable and his eyes darted
around.
"Aah, yeah,
aah..."
There was nothing else
to say but, "Well, that's awkward." It couldn't be this complicated.
Looking at him, even though he hadn't been fazed by Sutra-san's teasing, his
earlobes were slightly red.
"I like you,
Lotus..."
I thought it was
unfair, but I told him my feelings first. Ichi and the others murmured,
"Waoh..." and, sensing the mood, quietly returned to the bag. Lotus
was suffering. He tried to say something several times, swallowed his words,
and then spat them out.
"…………Grow
up."
"Huh?"
"Just, grow up
first! That's all!"
When he muttered,
"I don't have a taste for kids," poof, changed my form. It was night,
after all. There was no problem with MP recovery. "Whoa!" He lost his
balance because I suddenly became heavy. I let out a hyaa scream and clung to
his neck. Then, I whispered softly in his ear.
"I, I can become
an adult, but... is this no good...?"
Lotus stared down at
me. Then, his face turned red in an instant. "Baaah!" After a pause,
he shouted, "Y-you idiot!"
"W-what kind of
clothes are you wearing? Put some clothes on!"
"B-but I am
wearing clothes, and it's been like this from the start! Besides, it's not like
I like being this flashy!"
"What's with
'flashy'? You're showing too much, are you kidding me!"
"I'm dead
serious!"
"Wait, so you
weren't wearing it because you liked it...!?" At his retort, I felt the
need to explain properly later, since it would be a long story if I started
now. My sexual preferences were being questioned. Lotus, still carrying my
adult body in a princess carry, finally couldn't take it anymore and looked
away with all his might. "You don't have to dress like that..." He
let out an inarticulate sound and sighed.
I reflected that maybe
I had been a little too forceful.
Lotus sighed deeply
again. Then, he said, "I told you, it doesn't change anything. Whether
you're a kid or not, you're you." In other words, that meant.
"Lotus, I love
youーーー!!"
"Idiot, moron,
don't cling to meーーー!!"
We flailed around in
the sky, going up and down. When he finally got angry and said, "Enough
already!" I had completely turned into a child and was carried by the
scruff of my neck. His handling was a bit rough.
Before I knew it, the
sky was slowly getting brighter. The strange way he was carrying me was only
for a moment, and then he held me properly. First, we would head to a new city.
A city where no one knew us. And then――――what should we do?
There were many things
to think about. Our destination wasn't clearly decided either. But everyone was
present. Lotus and the three slimes. We slowly moved towards the bright sky.
***
"Lotus went on a
journey, huh?"
At the red-haired
girl's muttered words, the white-haired young man nodded. "How cold of
him," she commented, and he replied, "Yeah." The girl seemed a
little down because the cute younger girl had disappeared. A demon had rampaged
through the city. It had left large scars on the city, but strangely, there
were only a few injured people, and no one had died.
A blonde demon woman
in strange clothes had apparently caused the trouble. She had loudly declared
that she was going to destroy the city, and she had done exactly that. The
woman was foolish and had even given a warning beforehand. So in the meantime,
the surrounding citizens had completed their evacuation. Many citizens had
mocked the woman. The foolish demon was, after all, foolish, they had laughed.
That demon woman
apparently looked very similar to the girl who had disappeared. A regular at
Harapeko-tei had said that she looked like the adult version of the girl. Both
the demon and the girl had disappeared. So now, they didn't even know the
truth.
"El tried to help
us escape, didn't she..."
She had desperately
shouted, "Go!"
Yozaki couldn't say
anything. He just remembered his friend's words. It was when they were dividing
the work of clearing away the collapsed buildings and the demon's corpse. Surprised
by his sudden appearance, he had asked where he had been.
『Yozaki, I'm going on a journey.』
That was all. The
luggage he carried was what he used during his missions outside. His words were
too short, so Yozaki hadn't been able to ask what he meant. Instead, the words
that had sprung out were ones he didn't even understand himself.
『Are you going to Veja's place...!?』
It had been a long
time since he had said that name. They used to always play together, the three
of them. A boy with a face like a girl, and silver hair that was a slightly
different shade from Yozaki's pure white hair. His real name was a little
longer, but it was hard to say, so they had shortened it.
Lotus had blinked a
few times. Of course not. That guy was already dead. But for some reason, he
had thought so. For Yozaki, his death had been terribly painful. That's why he
had buried it deep inside. He had been pretending not to see it. But Lotus was
different. He had always been thinking about something, looking forward,
holding questions inside.
『Sorry.』 It was a simple farewell. He had to say something to Lotus, who had
turned his back. He had thought so, but he didn't even know what to say. 『Lotus!』 He hadn't meant to stop him. But he called out his name anyway. 『You were the only one who never made fun of my hair!』 Yozaki's hair was pure white, like an old man's. In
the orphanage full of children, he had always been laughed at, and he had
bitten his lip in frustration.
It might have been nothing
to Lotus, but people's values were different from his own. He had exhaled and
looked down. And when he had looked up, Lotus was gone.
"Was El a
demon...?"
Yozaki was a weak man,
so he was afraid to even mention that possibility. He envied Stra's strength.
All he could do was give a vague reply, wondering what he could do.
"Hey, about
demons..."
Even Sutra couldn't
say anything more. She couldn't think about it. The values she was born with
wouldn't crumble so easily. They fell silent. But they had both noticed. A
child with hair like an old man's – of course, it was strange. He had lived his
life clenching his small fists at such words countless times. Perhaps, it felt
terribly similar.
He couldn't become
like Lotus. He regretted that.
"I don't
understand anything, but..."
He hoped that the path
she walked wouldn't be a painful one. He wished for her safety, and for the day
they could meet again.
***
Straight ahead, they
went straight ahead. Light fell and spilled. It twirled as it fell, slipped,
and rolled. When she woke up, familiar people were there. No, they were people
she always saw on the game screen. She had apparently been summoned. The reason
was quite familiar.
"H-handsome..."
"Huh?"
Oops, she covered her
mouth. She had inadvertently stared at the young man in front of her for too
long.
Looking at the student
handbook she held, her name seemed to have changed too. Her name was
"Yuko." She knew it. This was the heroine of the "game."
"What's this? The
protagonist of an otome game? I'm a winner, hooray, my favorite character, wait
for meーーーー!!!!"
*
"Hachoo."
"Whoa, Lotus, do
you have a cold?"
When she asked if he
wanted to warm himself by the fire, he tilted his head with a puzzled look,
rubbing his nose with his index finger.
A deep night had
fallen overhead. A sky without clouds was quite refreshing. Three years had
passed since then. She was now eleven, having grown from eight. Lotus was
twenty-one.
――――The Land of the Five Leaves Countries begins.
-----
Thank you for my Patrons !!
[Platinum]
MaxKne
Swagaraga
[Gold]
B random
DavidA
Nepheos
[Silver]
Creris
Fred A.
Frédéric Bertrand-Hudon
Matthew Fraser
Anton Lim
Ctdela
Curious Panda
Read Advanced Chapters only on my Patreon
-----
