There's No Way the Real One Will Appear
Day 2
17:50
KWAJAJAK!!
With a swing of young Lily's hand, the shack at the eastern edge of the village was obliterated without a trace, revealing another clock hidden beneath the wreckage.
A pocket watch this time, huh.
Tik.
Clutching the pocket watch, young Lily tilted her head back to look at the sky and waved her hand around wildly.
Floating in midair in my fairy form, I nodded in approval.
Wow lololololololol
That's insane power
What lmaooo
One-shot everything, huh
What did you even give her to make her that strong
Dayum
Lily, did you buff her?
When I granted young Lily her power, I had asked just one thing of her.
'Go find the hints in my place.'
With the strength she now possessed, no one in this village could stand in her way.
Under normal circumstances, I would have had to regain ownership of a body first and hunt for clues while carefully maintaining the scenario's plausibility — but young Lily was different.
She had already earned more than enough plausibility to justify wielding tremendous power, and she was, after all, me — which meant she could move with even fewer restrictions.
What I'd given her carried no particular risk either…
"So I just have to turn this, right?"
—That's right.
The pocket watch sat snugly in young Lily's palm, its hands frozen at 5:18.
That was two minutes behind the system's time, so she needed to push it forward by two more minutes.
Young Lily nodded and, in her own careful way, began winding the hands forward with a series of little clicks.
Pop! Another note sprang out.
You have discovered Gio's Note (2).
Lily (Day 2) becomes more aware of the existence of the Calamity.
Record — 'Day 2, 17:50' has been saved.
Remaining slots: 3/6 (+?)
Much larger than the last note.
It picked up seamlessly from where the previous one had torn off.
/ …Did you head that way and find the shack I used to live in?
If you did, that's how you found this note.
Sorry for hiding the clock away so thoroughly. I poured a great deal of time into this place myself, so I couldn't bear to simply hand it over. The sorcerer was the same way, but I always believed that I needed to be perfect not just in mind, but in body as well. So I hid it beneath the shack's floorboards on purpose. /
'No wonder it wasn't there when I looked around at the start.'
There had been a shack at the eastern end, but nothing turned up no matter how thoroughly it was searched — which is why I'd simply told her to smash it.
With young Lily's strength, a wooden shack was little more than a gingerbread house. Sure, the clock might break along with it, but the clock was a form of authority in its own right.
A light tap would never be enough to destroy it.
"What is this talking about? A clock? A note?"
—People who tried to stop the Nightmare. Read it through to the end first.
"Okay…"
/ In any case, now that you've found it, I'll write the original method down here.
I'll say this first: I failed.
Failed, you say? No — whether I did or not doesn't matter. What matters is that once things went wrong, failure was something I had to guarantee.
I saw that terrible calamity with my own two eyes that day. I do not have the courage to face it again with these eyes.
Unless it's 100%…
Refer to below. /
"Below?"
Young Lily's gaze slid downward.
There, an enormous magic circle sprawled across the ground — a massive array formed from a dozen-odd interlocking formulae.
To an ordinary academy student, its intricately layered structure alone would have been enough to blur their vision and make them slam the book shut.
A hexagonal star inscribed within a great circle, with jewels set at each of the endpoints.
Oooh
What is that lolololol
Looks like a demon summoning circle
Young Lily's expression twisted into something quite grotesque.
"Ugh! What is this thing?!"
—It's a warding array.
"A warding array?"
—It links energy-providing jewels together to cut off the flow of power, then rewrites everything above it to appear ordinary.
Swoosh.
I examined the note in my fairy form.
The note had grown so large from all the diagrams drawn on it that it was now twice my size.
—Fairly advanced formulae have been drawn here… and mixed in are several spells that use other abilities to conceal things from the world. Whoever this sorcerer was, their skill was nothing to scoff at.
"...I have no idea what you're saying."
—Simply put, it's magic that hides you from the Nightmare Great Demon King's eyes.
Magic created to evade the Territorialization of the Kraken — the Nightmare Great Demon King.
Jewels imbued with the power of the heavens would block the Territorialization, while the array would cast a deception potent enough to fool the Kraken itself, making the village appear to be nothing more than ordinary nature.
In other words, it was a design meant to trick the monster into passing the village by without a second glance.
—You've heard that the Nightmare Great Demon King is influencing reality, haven't you?
"Yes."
—Many people have already tried, time and again, to stop the Nightmare Great Demon King. But even they only ever managed to evade its gaze. Not one of them subdued it.
And so, unable to subdue it, they had no choice but to keep suffering, keep losing, keep running.
Someone had to break that cycle.
Young Lily looked up at me, a trace of nervousness on her face.
"I can do it, can't I?"
—Of course you can.
That thing — the 'something' that enveloped young Lily — was more than capable of facing it.
A head-on battle was out of the question, of course, but drawing the creature out? That she could do easily.
—Go home and rest for now. I'll refine this array so that you can handle it yourself.
"Oh! Yes, ma'am!"
—Call for me if you need anything at all.
Poing! The fairy form vanished.
Left alone, young Lily let out a long breath — phew… — and clenched and unclenched her fists.
The same fists that had been soft and squishy barely a day ago were now firm enough to shatter rock overnight.
Well, not literally rock-hard, but you get the idea.
"...The Nightmare Great Demon King."
It was true that I had become absurdly strong.
But could I really win?
No — could I even face it at all…?
23:58
The hour when young Lily had fallen asleep and night had deepened into darkness.
Having reworked the array to my own satisfaction, I was chatting with my viewers while sketching out plans for the next day.
'No hint about the next note, so it's probably connected to the array… Guess I should build it after all?'
As long as young Lily believed I was the Dream Fairy, I had no qualms about using my abilities.
Everything I did would be dismissed as a dreamlike illusion, and young Lily herself could wield her power freely, without worry.
No more agonizing over variables like Gio or the sorcerer — but the most important thing remained the Calamity.
'What form will the Kraken take when it appears?'
If it was the mass-produced Kraken familiar to every player out there, young Lily could subdue it single-handedly.
Something a notch stronger, and I'd pitch in a little to finish the job.
'But what if it's the real one?'
If it appeared exactly as I'd seen it in the Multicolored Successor, then even I couldn't handle it right now.
Creak.
Sitting in my chair in spirit form, I shook my head.
"...There's no way the real one will appear."
No matter how I looked at it, it couldn't be the genuine article.
The Great Cataclysm hadn't even begun yet, and asking a mere young Lily to face the real Kraken was absurd on its face.
'A being capable of crushing even the angels and demons of the middle ranks — limited to the sea, but still.'
Against a Kraken even stronger than that, I could bind both its arms and legs, blindfold it, and stack dozens of layers of weakening magic — and it still wouldn't be enough.
We're moving on to Day 3, right?
3333
Will Day 3 be the same too
About time something showed up
Midnight?
Click.
00:00
"......."
Sure enough, the day rolled over to Day 3.
Day 3
00:01
Day 3 has begun.
The Calamity of Seawater fixes its Gaze upon you.
Before I could so much as ask what?, the entire world tipped sideways.
GUUUUUUMBLE!!!
"Kyaaaaah!"
Young Lily, sprawled on her bed, went boing! and rolled clean off into the corner of the desk, while the whole village shuddered as though the very earth were convulsing.
?
?
???????
Already?!
"Wh-what's going on?!"
Young Lily scrambled up on trembling limbs — but the Gaze had already begun. The ground split apart in jagged cracks, and the walls crumbled to dust.
The creature had no power to overturn the earth itself.
Its domain was, and always would be, the sea.
SHAAAAA…!
Splsh.
"...Water?"
The creature possessed the ability to turn everything it touched into ocean.
In the blink of an eye, water surged up to young Lily's ankles. Her eyes flew open, and she threw the door open as if she might rip it off its hinges and bolted outside.
"Mom! Dad!"
"Lily!"
"What in the…!"
"We have to get out, hurry!"
"R-right! Ugh…! Why won't the door…!"
The door to the master bedroom where Mom and Dad were rattled violently. They were clearly trying to open it from the inside, yet even though the water hadn't risen that high, it refused to budge.
In the end, young Lily simply tore the door off entirely and pulled her parents out.
"L-Lily! You…?!"
"I'll explain later! We have to escape first!"
"Right! Let's hurry, honey!"
"Got it!"
Having barely freed her parents, young Lily rushed them out of the house.
Outside was no better. The water had already climbed to their thighs, and most of the villagers still hadn't made it out of their homes.
Young Lily's eyes went dim with despair.
"Hhk… hhk…"
She had gained tremendous power — but in the end, she was twelve years old.
She'd managed to save the parents right in front of her, and now she had no idea what to do.
'Do I run with Mom and Dad to higher ground? Or do I go save everyone else?'
What should I—
Lily. Calm down.
".....Hooah."
A deep breath.
"Haa… haa…"
A voice echoing from deep within her heart.
She'd always assumed it was just her own thoughts, but now it felt strangely different.
Calm yourself, and call for the Dreamland Fairy.
Like a third party's voice rather than her own.
And yet, somehow familiar.
"...Fairy. Please come out."
—Lily.
The Dreamland Fairy appeared.
Clutching her parents close, she looked up at the fairy with everything she had.
"What… what should I do?"
—Sooner than I expected… but it's time. Use it.
"Huh?"
—Press the sigil.
The fairy sigil the fairy had granted her.
The moment she pressed it, the transparent film covering her hand revealed its true form, rippling outward in soft waves.
Startled for an instant, she waited — and soon, a translucent white material enveloped young Lily from head to toe.
At the same time, enormous wings unfurled from her back, and her body slowly lifted into the air.
A power bestowed by the Dreamland Fairy — a miraculous substance capable of shifting into any shape imaginable.
Metamor — the White Savior.
The White Savior begins its salvation!
—It's time to save the people.