The Supporting Star
When I opened my eyes, I was in the bedroom.
My senses felt subtly different.
Not unpleasant.
My head was fogged over like mist, and I couldn't clearly recall what had happened. I had definitely gone to the Central Church, and then… what had I done?
Nothing important, surely.
I slowly rustled upright on the bed. The empty room looked exactly the same as yesterday.
"Ah… aah… uh."
Still no words came out.
Beside the bed sat a sheet of rather expensive-looking paper and a fountain pen—left there by someone.
Wait. A fountain pen?
When the Saintess had exchanged written conversations with the Hero, she had used a white fountain pen. This one looked similar. If I wasn't mistaken, it was the same pen.
In any case, I clutched my head—which felt ready to split—and spoke inwardly, as if by long habit.
Heal
A strange sensation in my eyes made me blink, but I chalked it up to sleeping too long and paid it no further mind.
On the table sat a meal piled high with the same vegetables I had seen yesterday morning.
Suddenly, I didn't feel like doing anything at all.
I pointed a finger at the meal and spoke a name inwardly.
Holy Fire
Holy Fire—the fanatics' signature technique for burning whatever they deemed blasphemous—was now being used to incinerate a salad. A green diet was blasphemy as far as I was concerned.
Somehow I conjured the flames as naturally as if I had done it a thousand times—
Knock, knock.
The cheerful rhythm of knuckles on wood always made a person look forward to something. Two knocks—it had to be the Holy Knight who had attended me on my first day in this world. I opened the door.
I had remembered to grab the paper and fountain pen, so communication wouldn't be a problem.
The Holy Knight who greeted me with that familiar face was exactly who I had expected. In a slightly subdued voice, he spoke with concern.
"Are you all right?"
The texture of ink on paper always gave me a strange sense of satisfaction, no matter when I experienced it.
-I'm fine.-
When I wrote that and showed it to him, he made a complicated expression, turned around, and left.
At last complete silence filled the room, and I lay back down comfortably.
A permanent state acquired after using the Madman's Notebook.
…What is this.
The semi-transparent window floating before my eyes—completely different from the Erosion Rate—was more than enough to throw me into a panic. I hurriedly sat up in bed, searching for a way to check my Erosion Rate. That semi-transparent window was the same damn window that always showed me the Erosion Rate, after all.
Okay. Good.
I am the Saintess—
Wait. Is that right?
If I happened to receive an Erosion Rate penalty that came in fifteen-percent increments, my bodily senses might grow even sharper, and I might feel pain with every breath. It was assuming the worst case—but assuming the worst was always better than pretending everything was fine.
Okay. Reject that.
A fork—was there one?
I remembered the fork I had used to stab my arm, wipe the blood clean, and leave on the table. I had confirmed a five-percent drop in Erosion Rate then, so I should be able to check again this time.
I didn't want to go through it again.
But there was no choice.
I staggered slowly toward the table. Having gotten up too fast, my vision went black like a mosaic, distorting like a television screen that couldn't catch a signal.
Heal
I forced myself upright and cast Heal. Artificially driving out pain and dizziness was a bad habit, but the immediate effect was far too tempting an option. No one would hesitate when a choice to erase their pain right now was sitting right there. Yeah—self-justification.
Grind. Grind.
My teeth ground together. I needed to check the Erosion Rate, but anxiety was creeping up on me. My whole body felt like it was being bound in chains, bones creaking as they squeezed me tight.
Fountain pen. Paper. Let's think about what I have.
The fountain pen. Its tip was quite sharp.
Would it work?
It would.
I picked up the white fountain pen carefully set on the shelf beside the bed. Holding it, I tried writing on my body.
No black ink came out—only red ink welled up in abundance. The feeling of my arm becoming a canvas made me laugh out of nowhere.
Ahaha.
I can't speak, but I can laugh—isn't that something to be grateful for? I think so too. A soundless laugh is still a laugh. Thinking of it that way gives you a little strength, doesn't it?
The semi-transparent letters stopped tormenting me and gradually faded away.
The action I had chosen was perfectly rational. I believed that wounding myself and healing was clearly a better choice than letting the Erosion Rate rise and contaminating me further into Theas—into the Saintess.
■■■■■□□□□□
Erosion Rate:49%
…What.
My returned reason calmly governed my body.
Okay. Think. Don't stop thinking.
Strange sounds coming from somewhere—push them away. That grinding, scraping noise—ignore it. The sudden impulse to lift my head—master it.
Yes.
Okay. Let's try deep breaths.
Hoo—
Haa—
I repeated the sequence of inhaling and exhaling like a machine, hoping the motions would help me reclaim even a little composure.
The first question was why the Erosion Rate was as high as forty-nine percent.
What had happened while I was asleep? Before I fell asleep—what had I been doing before I fell asleep?
I couldn't remember.
Why?
Okay—characters who can interfere with memory, who are villains—who was there? The Pope can become an ally, so exclude him. Spring?
In Four Seasons, where the story is structured around the four seasons of spring, summer, autumn, and winter, Spring is the first part-boss you encounter—a pink-themed succubus concept that spawned countless fan works. But there was no way she should appear this early, right?
The only thing that had changed was me. Had turning the game into reality caused some kind of effect?
The combat power I currently possessed was far too low to solo a part-boss. Even if I could use Heal a bit more skillfully now, I still hadn't tested my unique skills or offensive holy magic—catching a "gimmick boss" like Spring would be beyond my limits.
And the Pope barely had any story weight to begin with—a character you buttered up and then dragged to the front lines to work. One of the "Stars" with a low acquisition difficulty, just like the Saintess.
And the second question: why had the Erosion Rate only dropped by one percent?
Increases and decreases had always happened in five-percent increments. Same as the last time I'd tried self-harm. But this time, the self-harm only dropped it by one percent. Of course, that only held if the assumption that increases came in five-percent steps was correct.
It was only day two, and already far too much had diverged from the future I knew. I knew trembling with anxiety wouldn't help, but I couldn't stop my body from shaking. What would happen when the Erosion Rate rose was still unknown, so all I could do was wait for the Hero while bracing for the worst.
Clutching a stomach that felt as empty as if I'd starved for a day, I curled up on the bed like a fetus.
By now, he should have met the Emperor.
The Hero looked at the Emperor before him, bones creaking as he drafted documents.
Including previous cycles, this was the fourth time; counting only this cycle, the second.
The Supporting Star. The Star of Bones—Osis.
The Immortal Emperor.
With his flesh reduced to dust and only bones remaining, he moved his creaking joints while suspended from the Threads of Tuning hanging in the sky—the last Emperor protecting the Empire.
He was now locking eyes with the Hero who had barged into his office at dawn.
The Emperor moved his jaw joint, producing sound in a bizarre fashion. At first it sounded like rusted iron being forced to screech, but it was unmistakably human speech.
"What business brings you at this hour?"
The Hero answered without hesitation.
The sight of a gloomy skeleton creaking through paperwork in a dark office at dawn was certainly frightening—but he had already experienced it in previous cycles, and had even shown an embarrassing side of himself, so this time the Hero didn't panic.
"Please lend me a carriage."
The Emperor's jawbone opened as if it might fall off. Whether it was a laugh or surprise was impossible to tell; that vocal apparatus filled the office with a gloomy silence.
Wait—does he even have a vocal apparatus?
The Hero entertained the rude thought while waiting for the Emperor's reply. The threads creaked as they lifted the jawbone, and the Emperor finally spoke.
"Very well. Here is the key to a carriage."
The Hero took the key from the skeletal hand and tucked it into his coat.
"Ah, and please prepare a room for my parents as well."
The Hero was the sole champion chosen by the Stars—a talent destined to reach the same heights as himself, the master of the highest tower, or that madman of the Holy Kingdom. Every Hero who had existed in history had left a heavy name behind as a Superhuman, and all of them had been beings who touched the Stars.
Even if he barged into the Emperor's office at dawn with demands like these, if treating it as cute cheek and pulling him to one's side was possible, it was pure profit. The Emperor ran the calculations inwardly and accepted the proposal.
"Very well. I'll give you a special suite."
"But when do you intend to leave?"
The Hero maintained a blank expression as he spoke.
"Right now."
—Thunk!
The Emperor's jawbone dropped to the office floor.