Tutorial (2)

As we made our way to the dining hall, a status window popped up before my eyes.

A message that appeared belatedly upon clearing the tutorial — I already knew it from playing the game.

Originally, this scene marked the end of things. All the tutorial had to teach was that even minor changes influenced your options, along with a brief explanation of the mechanic I'd come to call affinity.

So by rights, this scene should have been skipped over, moving on to the next screen.

But it wasn't moving on.

I was still standing in that dining hall. The scene skip hadn't happened.

So the game... isn't a game after all.

I had to move. There were no skips anymore, which meant I had to fill in all that cut time with my own two feet.

Because this was my reality now.

One by one, everyone settled into their seats at the dining hall, and I naturally slid into the seat beside Claire — the one that appeared to be Karsein's spot.

Apparently that little process took me far too long, because Claire clicked her tongue at me.

"Why are you moving so damn slow? Mother's hungry too, so hurry up already."

That doomed pink-haired brat.

If I could move quickly, you think I wouldn't?

The problem was my status condition, which had worsened beyond a simple cold. I'd been doused in cold water in the dead of winter and forced to bathe in it — no body could come out of that unscathed.

Just as the status window had warned in advance, Karsein was currently suffering from Cold (Worsened), and his body already looked frail to begin with, so the bad factors had piled on top of one another.

So this was why movement speed in the game had been so sluggish. Feeling it with my actual body, I could appreciate just how significant that handicap really was.

"Enough. Let's eat, then. I'm famished."

"Yes, Mother."

And so Isabella began what looked like a peaceful family meal, seemingly content to let the matter pass without comment —

"And what happened today, Karsein? Tell me."

The moment Isabella's voice rang out alongside the status window announcing Tutorial II, my jaw clenched involuntarily.

"What happened today... too?"

No, it couldn't be.

A flicker of foreboding crossed my mind, but surely it wasn't anything like that.

Just an ordinary greeting. Nothing more...

...What is this?

Tutorial II?

I'd never seen it. Never heard of it. And I'd played the actual game with my own hands — no such tutorial ever existed.

But if this thing had suddenly appeared...

It wants me to treat this as an episode and clear it?

The status window's reappearance made me swallow hard and glance around the table.

The eyes around me were vicious. Claire and Arina were already glaring at me. Flora was openly anticipating whatever I'd say next, practically leaning in for it.

I could vaguely sense that a single wrong word here would spell disaster.

"Karsein? Do you have nothing to say to me today, of all days?"

In response to Isabella's probing question, options sprang up that were absolutely insane.

Low-difficulty, predictable choices, sure. The obvious answer was plain to see.

And yet I couldn't shake the thought that those first two options might reflect Karsein's genuine state of mind.

She said it without even sparing me a glance, carving her meat. I hadn't expected even this to be the same.

Right. You're the same breed as the rest. No matter how high your affinity runs, to Karsein you were never a mother.

My course of action was decided.

Clearing the game went without saying, but first things first — I had to get out of this house.

Just like I had in that family of mine.

With warmth already beginning to spread through my body, I answered flatly, without betraying anything.

"Nothing happened, my lady."

At those words, Flora tilted her head in confusion, while Claire and Arina quickly withdrew their glares. And last of all, Isabella —

"...I see."

She answered indifferently.

That instant, I knew I'd done something wrong.

I didn't pick option 3, did I?

My cold was flaring up and I'd fumbled, but the words that had come out weren't about her hard work on territory matters — I'd said nothing happened instead.

Come to think of it, the same thing had happened when I'd paid my respects this morning. Hadn't my reply of "Mother" been cut off before it was finished?

Back then, the options hadn't reacted at all either. Which meant even a slightly off-script line carried no consequence. What just happened had been accepted as well.

Yes. This is my body. Not Karsein's.

As long as I was accepting this situation as reality, that meant I had plenty of variables of my own to inject into it.

The clinking of tableware began to echo through the dining hall. Over the course of the proper meal, the mother and daughters chatted about this and that.

All the while, I ‍‍‌‌⁠​​⁠‌​​‍​​‍​‌​⁠‍‌‍⁠⁠‌⁠‌‍‌‍‌‌‌‍⁠​‌​‌​‌‍‌‌‌⁠‍​​‌‍⁠‌‌⁠⁠was staring at the status window.

Ha. A family meal where only MY food gets tampered with.

Absurdly enough, a foul memory kept surfacing in my head. Why did I have to live through this experience twice?

The fact that the culprit messing with my food was the third sibling of the family, the fact that I couldn't so much as peep when only my meal was treated this way — it all felt like being thrown right back into those days.

No. Maybe that's exactly what this ‍‍‌‌⁠​​⁠‌​​‍​​‍​‌​⁠‍‌‍⁠⁠‌⁠‌‍‌‍‌‌‌‍⁠​‌​‌​‌‍‌‌‌⁠‍​​‌‍⁠‌‌⁠⁠is.

The two sisters who'd despised me as the kid they'd been saddled with, the mother whose mental illness had driven her to take me in and raise me — their attitudes were no different from the family I'd escaped.

Which was why, perversely, I might even find this easier.

I'd been through it once. A second time held no fear.

Clunk.

"...!"

I lifted the spoon, took a mouthful of the brine-soaked food, and swallowed — and Flora's eyes, which had been smirking sideways at me, wavered violently.

Just as the status window's ‍‍‌‌⁠​​⁠‌​​‍​​‍​‌​⁠‍‌‍⁠⁠‌⁠‌‍‌‍‌‌‌‍⁠​‌​‌​‌‍‌‌‌⁠‍​​‌‍⁠‌‌⁠⁠information said, there was no doubt this was the handiwork of the third daughter, Flora. Her expression was practically screaming, You're seriously just going to eat that?

Regardless of her, I made a show of continuing to fill my stomach.

The warning flashed across the status window, but I couldn't afford not to eat. Right beneath that alert, my status conditions showed — quite naturally — Starving stamped on top.

I'd already watched the ending where Karsein dies of an empty stomach, having eaten nothing while starving, multiple times in the game. So when there was food to eat, you ate it.

Before long, one more window floated up.

The hunger recovery window that appeared once I'd eaten about half of the soup — which, with all its liquid, I'd estimated would be somewhat less salty. That was enough.

"Excuse me while I take my leave."

I dabbed the soup smeared all over my mouth with my napkin and rose from the dining hall. By then the cold had burned past fever into a full-blown inferno of a body, one that could no longer hold out — a dull dizziness was creeping in wave by wave.

Watching Karsein leave the dining hall, Claire scrunched up her face toward the exit in open displeasure.

Arina was no different. By the time she dragged her glaring eyes back to her tableware, she was clicking her tongue in disgust.

Both of them were genuinely irritated, it was true — but with Mother right there, neither dared let it show on the surface.

Flora, however, was another matter entirely.

Her gaze stuck vacantly on Karsein's empty soup bowl, her face twisted with frustration, she outright dropped her silverware.

CLATTER!

"Flora? What's wrong? Lost your appetite?"

Startled by Claire's sudden call, Flora snapped back to her senses and forced her usual expression into place.

"O-oh! Yeah, I guess I'm not that hungry."

"You still have to eat properly. Keep that up and you won't grow any taller, you know?"

"I'll just eat a lot next time instead of now. Tch."

At that, Arina and Isabella let out little snorts of laughter. So they hadn't caught the frustration written all over her face, then.

Meanwhile, the words next time? turning over in Flora's head, she decided to call an end to breakfast right then and there.

"What? You barely ate anything at all."

"But I really can't eat any more."

The result of her whining:

"Then shall you make a promise with your big sister? Even if you skip breakfast, you have to eat a proper lunch without fail."

Her eldest sister, Arina, extended her pinky finger and granted her leave to exit the dining hall.

Flora seized the chance and hooked her pinky around it.

"Okay! Promise!"

The moment she stepped out of the dining hall, the expression she'd been hiding bloomed across her face ‍‍‌‌⁠​​⁠‌​​‍​​‍​‌​⁠‍‌‍⁠⁠‌⁠‌‍‌‍‌‌‌‍⁠​‌​‌​‌‍‌‌‌⁠‍​​‌‍⁠‌‌⁠⁠in full.

How. HOW did he eat that like it was nothing?

He had to know — it was obvious Camilla had tampered with his food yet again through the maid. And knowing it, Karsein had still choked down fully half of that salt-choked soup.

Could the maid have... not actually put in enough salt?

For now, that was the only explanation she could conjure.

The plan had warped. And it had been a golden opportunity, one that rarely came along.

If Karsein had raged at them again this time, needling at Mother and her two sisters' tempers without end, he really might have been cast out of House Bagrand for good.

And then — then their family would have gone back to the way it was supposed to be.

Grraaaagh! This is WRONG! This wasn't how it was supposed to go!

Flora hurried off to find the head maid, Emma.

"Welcome, my young lady."

One look at the youngest daughter's frustration-glazed face and Head Maid Emma understood: things had not gone smoothly.

Flora stayed silent for a moment before spitting out her words, irritation dripping from every syllable.

"Camilla — did she actually salt Karsein's bowl properly or not?!"

"Pardon? Did something happen in the dining hall?"

"He ate HALF the soup! And he didn't even bring up being washed in cold water. I'm starting to doubt the water was even cold in the first place!"

It was hard to believe. If Karsein had noticed the salt-loaded soup, he'd have eaten almost none of it — or none at all. But half?

Beyond that, the fact that he hadn't complained about being bathed in cold water, that he'd simply stayed quiet — that was undeniably strange.

"Damn it all. Everything was going so well. So tell that girl to do it again — make it good this time! And make sure she knows she'd better be ready for consequences if she's been lying to me!"

"Yes, Lady Flora. I will deliver a proper result this time."

A cold smile crept across Emma's face.

"...Fuck."

The curse I'd been holding back burst out the moment I dragged my burning body through my door.

Looking at my situation objectively, things weren't bad. I'd weathered the crisis without incident, gathered a decent amount of information, and even succeeded in filling the one status condition that had proven most dangerous in bad endings — hunger.

In other words, I'd cleared the tutorial cleanly. Just like in the game.

And yet that sensation — of being thrown right back in with these goddamn excuses for a family — would not wash off.

That curse had slipped out of me because the overlap between my past life and my life as Karsein was uncanny — uncomfortably, revoltingly so.

Groaning, I flopped onto the bed first.

"Status window."

Even as the dizziness refused to let up, the status window shimmered into view, perfectly clear.

What I was looking at was exactly two lines.

The reward granted upon clearing the game. The moment I obtained it, I would beg — beg to be sent back to my own home. I was going to survive, crawling and clawing the whole way, and I was going back.

In the meantime, the status window, heedless of my will, produced a different pane.

"A result beyond the options?"

Normally when a game hands out a reward, it's something worthwhile, so my ears had perked up — but the instant I saw this, my enthusiasm deflated. It was just a tutorial reward, after all.

And yet, in truth, I'd already claimed the single greatest reward there was.

This game had one inviolable law: when the option window appeared, Karsein could not avoid the scene in front of him, no matter what.

If you think you might simply wait it out without choosing an option, just recall the timer. Simple as that — the odds of a bad ending were far higher.

But I, facing this not as a game but as reality, was different.

A result beyond the options. Options I no longer had to pick "correctly." Unlike Karsein within the game, I possessed one colossal advantage: the ability to steer the story my own way.

"If I keep weaving bits of my own conduct into it, I can slip past the constraints of the options entirely."

Whether I could outright negate the options themselves, though — that I didn't know. I'd have to test that next time.

So this was part of what had been unreadable before. When I played the game, this stat window had always left me mired in endless speculation.

"Good. This is plenty. Now, time to sleep..."

With it confirmed that nothing differed from the in-game version, there was nothing more to see. Then I realized — that wasn't quite true.

"Hold on. Karsein writhing in bed... right after finishing a meal?"

Just as unease began to smolder in my chest, the episode progression window appeared.

Knock, knock.

"Young master. I've brought your dessert."

The skipped hours had fully run their course — the moment we crossed into the regular episodes had arrived.