Chapter 93
Chapter 93
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Translator: Vine
Chapter: 93
Chapter Title: Beneath the Green Tree☆ (2)
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After spending a month here,
I had learned where people didn't often go.
This quiet park where I was sitting, for example.
The streets were bustling with the Summer Harvest Festival. The sound of distant laughter seemed to mock the scene, where only my senior and I sat.
The Sword Spirit, in the form of a pink-haired toddler, mumbled to herself.
“Ootya—♪”
…
It was a sudden, meaningless babble.
But I could understand the feeling.
No matter if you were the remnant of a legendary [Saintess] or an office worker with a commute… sometimes, you just get the sudden urge to babble.
‘She probably just felt like going *dyudyattyattya*…’
I’d even heard my department head from my past life babbling to himself while smoking alone sometimes. I, too, would let out a sudden babble when working overtime by myself.
A 21st-century person could not live without babbling.
‘Anyone who goes through life without babbling must be a transcendent being with superhuman patience… No, they’re practically an alien.’
Even if the great hero of the Three Kingdoms, Guan Yu, were to come back to life, he would probably stroke his beard and babble when he was alone.
I nodded and filled my cup with tea.
*Trickle—*
Amber liquid fell into the white porcelain teacup.
“…”
Green grass, colorful summer flowers… it was the perfect setting to share a cup of tea and have a heart-to-heart.
After pouring two cups,
I cautiously brought up my reason for being here.
“Senior—☆ Can’t you just spoil everything♪ that happened 1,500 years ago—☆ I want to figure that guy’s psyche out faster than anyone and get a quick and easy win—☆”
Right now, the relationship between me and ‘that guy’ could be described as the creator and the player of a tower defense game.
Unless one side knew everything about the other… the defending side could never strike first.
The creator’s identity.
‘Prophet Kang Jin-soo,’ who was very likely the same person as my ‘past self.’
Considering the remarks from Grafvölluðr and Ófnir, that guy’s knowledge was based on the ‘unchanged original story.’ And it was possible he thought his opponent had also crossed over ‘as a man,’ just like him.
This gap in perception had been the foundation of my winning streak so far.
*Hehe, I’ll spoil the original story beforehand!* > It changed.
*If another guy shows up, he must be a ‘transmigrator’ like me, right?* > Wrong.
‘I’ve managed to hold my own so far thanks to this unintentional gap…’
But now that I’d been blindsided twice, he might have updated his information.
Perhaps he was now considering the possibility of ‘possession.’ If not, he might just be off somewhere, babbling *dyudyattyattya*…
“…”
No…
This wasn’t the time for nonsense.
I recalled Alvitt’s gaunt face and collected my thoughts.
‘If it were ‘me’…’
I imagined being blindsided twice by unexpected changes to the original story. It was surprisingly easy to empathize.
‘My train of thought would probably go something like this, right?’
1. Start gathering information the moment I recognize the change.
2. Hesitate before launching a surprise attack on .
3. “It’ll hurt if I get blindsided again, won’t it?”
4. Trace the changes in the order they deviated from the original.
5. Investigate Clara, Hilde, Freyja, and Eir, in that order.
…
The problem started from there.
‘I need to know what abilities that guy has and what his goal is to strike first.’
The wimp ‘Kang Jin-soo’ prefers to attack in areas where he feels confident. For all his inner posturing, the coward runs away from fields he’s not sure about.
“…”
I could surmise that much.
But…
“…”
But I couldn’t know anything more about him.
There were no records even mentioning a being called the ‘Prophet.’ The hints from [The Golden Witch] and [The Saintess of Sacrifice] were the only help I’d gotten.
‘The worst-case scenario… is that he hunkers down and plays the waiting game.’
The World Tree’s distortion, caused by [The Dragon Crouching in the Abyss], was getting worse. If he was just passively wishing for the world’s destruction and leaving everything to that, then there was really nothing I could do.
‘But then I’d lose the initiative in the narrative… and the Academy City, this world, everything would be blown away.’
However, the wimp ‘Kang Jin-soo’ was true to himself. He wasn’t the type to pray for everything to be ruined for no reason.
“…”
Anyway…
That’s why I decided to ask my senior directly.
“Senior! Please tell me about the past—☆”
“Tya, ootya—☆”
-I dunno, I dunno—☆
“…”
Damn it.
So this was a passive trait for pink-hairs.
Come to think of it, Urðr also suffered from considerable memory confusion. I figured it might be some kind of penalty one receives after a major event.
…Or not.
“…Haa—☆”
I wanted an easy win for once.
“…”
I soothed my burning insides with a cup of tea. In the distance, I could sense the guests from walking toward the stream.
Two tall girls strolled leisurely, holding snacks.
Seeing them reminded me of my own junior.
‘Kara should be about done with the repair request from those cultist pointy-ears…’
In the end, having only emptied my teacup, I parted ways with my senior and went to find Kara.
“…”
-It’s okay if things don’t go the way you want~ Paintings rarely turn out exactly as you intend…!
Senior Frida’s words flashed through my mind.
“…”
As did the fact that ‘for now,’ I was the only person who remembered them.
***
Two tall girls from , visiting for the Summer Harvest Festival, were chatting by a stream. Their arms were laden with snacks.
One dish was particularly large.
The sherbet in the wooden bowl was generously topped with wild berries and fresh fruit. The opportunity to gobble down fruit that wasn't frozen was rare in the Academy City, so it was disappearing quickly.
When the disappearing snacks brought a pang of disappointment,
they would bring up a new topic to keep the conversation blooming.
The friend sitting next to the girl with horn-rimmed glasses began to speak again.
“Hey, Horn-rims, have you heard that rumor?”
“What… rumor?”
“About our first years. At the beginning of the semester, after that one student transferred to , the first-year class size became exactly 500, right? So we were divided into classes of 10.”
“Yeah. The upperclassmen said it was amazing how the numbers matched up perfectly.”
At Horn-rims’ reply, her friend continued.
“So you remember how we always joked that we were the 500 elite engineers?”
“Yeah. When the pointy-ears invaded, we all laughed when we said, ‘We’re 500 elite soldiers, each worth a hundred—so it’s fine even if 50,000 of them attack.’”
The girl with the horn-rimmed glasses nodded, a spoon in her mouth. She savored the bittersweet taste lingering on her tongue and thought about what her friend had suddenly brought up.
The 500 first-year students.
After one particularly troublesome first year left for at the start of the semester, the remaining freshmen at <mimir industrial="" high="" school=""> were known for their strong sense of unity.
‘Though that was probably because the second-year seniors were always throwing parties and festivals for club events, so we all naturally got close…’
Thanks to that unity, they had played an active role during the chaotic period of the Eastern Alliance’s attack. They had moved with perfect discipline under the command of Senior Maya from the Facility Engineering Department, who had just returned from outside.
As a result, the first-year students at were now exceptionally close. Close enough to travel this far as a group.
‘Although there was a war over the invitation tickets since only 50 of us first years could come…’
They had won a 10-to-1 game of rock-paper-scissors,
which was why they were here now, eating snacks topped with plenty of fresh fruit.
‘But why is she bringing this up all of a sudden?’
As the girl with horn-rimmed glasses was pondering their situation, her friend, who had just taken another spoonful of sherbet, continued her story.
“But during summer break, when the administration did another headcount, they found one class that strangely had only nine students. So they counted everyone again, and it turned out there were only 499 first years in total.”
“…”
“Isn’t that weird? We went on about 500, 500 all first semester… but it was actually 499?”
“…”
“An admin senior went to that class of nine and asked them… ‘Did anyone from your class leave the school?’…”
“And?”
“All nine of them answered, ‘No one left our class. We all love it here.’”
“…”
The nine girls were close.
They had lived together in the same dorm for half a year.
They had come to consider each other sisters.
It wasn't a situation where one person would ever be left out or bullied.
“As proof, they showed photos they had taken and other records…”
Happy school days spent by nine girls. In the records capturing those moments… there was a single empty space that no one remembered.
Next to it was a rolling paper they had passed around to each other. There were ten sheets in total.
With trembling hands, the admin senior took it out to read.
One page…
Another page…
Finally, she reached the last, tenth page.
A one-line message was written in each of the nine handwritings.
-Congrats on the success of your research, □□! I can’t believe you got the idea during the event!
-You worked so hard pulling all-nighters, □□! We can hang out together now, right?
-Who’s the ace among us? > Obviously □□!
-□□ will definitely do well outside too… That’s a true technological innovation…
-The most likely candidate for the next head of the Mechanical Engineering Department (I voted), □□.
-□□, cover yourself with a blanket when you sleep… You’ll get sick.
-□□! You planning on living in the workshop during the second semester too?
-Hey, □□. I’ll yield the top spot in our class to you.
-↑What are you talking about… You would’ve failed the practical exam if it wasn’t for □□.
Messages where the recipient’s name had been unnaturally erased.
And at the very bottom of the page, it was written:
-Mechanical Engineering Department, 1st Year, Class 11—In record of our ‘friendship of ten.’
They were seized with a sense of unease and confusion.
Why… had they only just realized there was an empty space?
“…When everyone there happened to look at a corner of the workshop, they saw an unfamiliar engine someone had left behind. It was as if it had been there from the very beginning… No one had known it was there all along.”
“…”
“No matter how hard they thought… they couldn’t remember who made it, so they just decided to believe there had only ever been nine of them.”
“…I see. What… what happened to that engine?”
At Horn-rims’ question, her friend tilted her head and replied.
“Well, I don’t know the details either. It was a strange model that ran on some kind of oil? It was different from the existing aether engines… so the seniors confiscated it for safety reasons.”
“…I see.”
“…Yeah.”
Though the story had started out of interest,
an unsettling chill made them fall silent.
The friend didn't bother telling Horn-rims the rumor that had spread after the incident. Horn-rims didn't want to hear any more scary stories from her friend, either.
And so, the two girls fell silent.
“…”
“…”
*Swoosh—*
A cold breeze from the stream blew between the two silent girls. It felt like goosebumps were rising on their arms.
“…”
“…”
Trying to shake off the awkward atmosphere, the two girls brought up a new topic in deliberately cheerful tones.
“H-Hey, Horn-rims! Speaking of which!”
“Y-Yeah…!”
The rumor the two girls had left unspoken was this:
‘If you defy [Destiny], you don’t just get kicked out of the Academy City—you might truly vanish without a trace.’
This happy city…
might be a fragile illusion.
That was the rumor.