Everything in Moderation
More than ten years ago, I was possessed—dropped into the world of a fantasy RPG.
It was a game with the most paint-by-numbers medieval fantasy setting imaginable. An empire, a northern grand duke, a Swordmaster. The same tired clichés, over and over.
The man I became was named Damian Bernstein, a famous mid-boss you were guaranteed to meet no matter which faction you joined, and who died, one way or another, on every single route. On the Empire route he was a traitor, and the protagonist killed him in person. He even died on his own faction's path, the Third Faction route. There, the Damian of the Third Faction Resistance succeeded in joining hands with the protagonist and becoming their key ally, and he even managed to bring his five runaway core disciples back into the fold. Then, at the end of the Resistance route, the protagonist—fallen into darkness—stabbed him in the back and killed him.
Chase a heroine, and you still had to kill Damian, because he was their enemy. Do nothing at all, and Damian died anyway, at the hands of the heroine characters who had once been his disciples. He died on the peace route, too.
He always dies. No exceptions.
The problem was that I had become that Damian. And not at some point I could still walk back from—I had become him after he had already kidnapped the five heroines. Before the kidnapping, maybe there would have been a way. As things stood, there was none.
So.
For now, I move exactly as the original did.
I took the heroines I had kidnapped and, just as in the original, taught them the sword. I had to play at being their master, because the story demanded it. The people I had taken were major characters, the sort who mattered on every route in one form or another. If they were too weak for the fight against the final boss to even function, I was finished.
Damian was an instructor for the dark faction. Following the original, I taught not only the five disciples, but the other boys and girls the dark faction had assigned to me as well. In the original, those disciples joined the Resistance too, on the Third Faction route. The heart of it, though, was the five heroines. This game was no one-man show. It was a turn-based RPG in which linked combat with your companions was everything.
Those same five core disciples were also the first to slip out of Damian's grasp. I had no reason at all to sit back and allow their escape. Not if I wanted to live. So I decided I would run before they did.
I'm getting out.
I watched for an opening, left a letter, and escaped before the five core disciples could make their own break for it. To survive, I had to do the things the original Damian never would have.
Damian was a man eaten alive by revenge, brimming with hatred for the Empire and the dark faction. He had kidnapped the five and worked them like slaves for a simple reason: he was half-crippled, incapable of taking revenge himself, so he raised slaves to take it in his place.
Of course, unlike the original, I didn't work them like slaves. I treated every one of them well.
In the story, once those first five core disciples escaped, Damian fled the organization to dodge the reprimand from above. He hid in a safehouse, kidnapped other orphans, and tried to build the Third Faction—an organization under his own command, meant to destroy both the dark faction and the Empire. Until the protagonist joined, of course, the Third Faction Resistance was nothing but a rebellion played at from a back room. On the other routes, the Resistance Damian scraped together was so small it was embarrassing to call it an organization. A neighborhood social club, nothing more.
Only when the protagonist signed on did that little local circle grow—by recruiting the old disciples all over again, the five core disciples among them—into a secret third power capable of threatening the Empire and the dark faction alike. Which is why he dies on every route. Tsk.
But not me. I was going to live an ordinary life. I hid my identity and my injuries and drifted for ten years, and at last, just as I had scraped together a nest egg for my old age and stood on the verge of retirement—just before the original story was set to begin—
"Master. So this is where you were."
I was caught.
By one of the five heroines I had kidnapped. One of the five core disciples I had taught with my own hands. One of the game's most popular heroines. Elena Petrova, Grand Duchess of the North.
By her.
And so I was dragged away, to the castle of the Grand Duchess of the North, the Winter Palace.
And now, like this, I was being ravished. Every single day.
"……Hhnn……."
Her body convulsed, and Elena's white face flushed red. She slumped. Her body folded down over mine, and her lips covered my lips. Their softness bore down on me, and a tongue, sticky and yielding, roamed the inside of my mouth. Only after she had indulged in me for a long while did her lips finally draw away. A thin silver thread stretched between us, then broke.
"Haa."
What remained of our joining came undone. She lay down beside me, pulled me tight into her arms, and burrowed in against me.
"Was tonight good as well?"
She looked up at me as she asked. Her face was as expressionless as ever, and yet flushed pink. Beneath the blanket, her smooth, curved nakedness lay in plain view. From the fireplace came the crackle and pop of wood burning down.
"Uh. Yeah."
Yeah. It had been good. To say otherwise would have been a lie. A beauty like that in my bed every single day, and I was supposed to call it nothing special? Only a eunuch could manage a line like that.
And yet I was uneasy all the same. The body was pleased. The mind was not.
Is it really all right to go on like this?
The new year was almost here. By now, word of the original protagonist's exploits ought to have been getting around. My escape had erased the Third Faction route, true, but the Third Faction Resistance had never amounted to much without the protagonist. Its absence would not stir much of a butterfly effect. The impact on the main story was, for all practical purposes, nothing—unless someone meant to take the route where you joined the Third Faction. That was why I had been bold enough to leave the five disciples behind and slam the door on a preemptive escape. The story could proceed just fine without the Third Faction.
"I'm glad it pleased you."
She nestled deeper into my arms, and her soft breasts crushed against my chest. In my mind, I traced the word endure and held on.
But the original had already broken. Why? Because she had come looking for me, kidnapped me, and ravished me. Because she and I had had sex.
Outside the Third Faction route, Damian barely existed in the main story. Elena was different. She was a crucial companion who poured out an overwhelming presence on every route, and at the same time she was, in all but name, the protagonist of the north, one of the game's main regions. On every male-protagonist playthrough she was effectively the main heroine, and on a female-protagonist playthrough she was a steadfast ally. Whatever the protagonist's gender, whichever route you took, she was a character bound tightly to them.
And now she was ravishing me, not the original protagonist. This could not stand.
Goddamn sex.
I needed to understand just how badly a single bout of it had tangled everything. The problem was—
"……You seem to have a great deal on your mind, Master. Would you tell me? You and I…… we are deeply joined now, are we not?"
She said it while looking at me. Elena's blue eyes glittered like sapphires.
"The annex is spacious, but never breathing the air outside grows stifling. If I could just step beyond the garden……"
"……For your safety, Master, that will not do. Where would you go, unwell as you are? It is dangerous."
I was a prisoner in the annex of the Winter Palace. Yes. Kidnapped by a disciple I had not seen in ten years, and then confined to the palace. And every night, once her duties were finished, she came to me, and we kept sharing a bed. For all practical purposes, it was half against my will.
Honestly, I did not hate it. Even in confinement, the annex was vast. I could have lived out my whole life in here and been content. No man disliked sharing a bed with a younger beauty.
If only I were not Damian. If only she were not, of all people, a disciple I had taught with my own hands. And if only this world were not a doomed-game world racing, moment by moment, toward destruction.
If the world ends, none of it matters.
That was the truth. If I meant to keep my own life, the world had to stay intact first. I stared at Elena where she lay, and our eyes met. I reached out and touched her breast. A breast round as the full moon yielded under my hand.
"Soft."
"Master…… if you are this forward…… it is embarrassing……"
Elena whispered, coloring. She did not refuse my touch. If anything, she pressed her body more tightly into my hand. Good. But if the world ended, what was any of this for? I would never get to touch this beautiful softness again. So, if only for the sake of sustainable sex, I had to save the world.
To be sure of that, I needed to be sure the protagonist was all right. A commission to the information guild, or whatever it took. Which meant I had to get out. Out of this annex.
But Elena would never let me past its walls. Get outside even once, and I was confident I could shake the watchers and make for the information guild. Since I could not get outside, there was nothing to be done. Breach this ironclad guard and I would certainly be found out, and Elena slept in my bed every night besides. There was no leaving the Winter Palace without her noticing. Leaving meant being prepared to be caught, and prepared for things between us to fall apart.
One week. In the week I had been locked in here, I had tried every trick I could think of to get outside. None of them worked. Maybe my fears were groundless. So I changed my approach.
"……By any chance, is there a mercenary who has grown famous of late in the heartland—no, in the Imperial Capital? The name is Chris. Pretty-faced…… striking blue hair……"
In this game, the protagonist's gender was chosen at the start. A male lead, or a female lead, and the characters you could romance changed with the choice. The nickname Chris, though, was shared either way. And the place the protagonist began—the so-called starter zone—was the Imperial Capital, the capital of the Empire. It was also where the common-route story unfolded, before you joined a faction.
"……Chris……. What sort of woman is she……? What is she to you, Master? What kind of woman is she, that you keep searching for her?"
The focus drained out of Elena's eyes. She murmured it under her breath.
No idea. What the hell. That's terrifying.
"……She is nothing to me."
I was not even certain whether the protagonist was a woman or a man. When I had played, I mostly chose the male lead, but it was not as if I had never played the female one. And yet she had said a woman. Don't tell me it was the female protagonist?
"……Nothing to you? Truly? A woman I have never once heard of……. In truth, I have known for some time that you were searching for some strange, unidentified person called Chris. That you were questioning the maids and servants of the annex. So your disciple looked into it herself……"
Right. I had done that, to gauge how far the original had progressed. By this point the protagonist ought to have been fairly well known across the continent. But no one seemed to know a thing. That was not normal. Of course I had done it knowing the questions would reach Elena's ears. If anyone would set the Grand Duchess of the North's intelligence network in motion and bring me an answer, it was her. Just like now.
Elena spoke, and her gaze turned on me.
Come on. Say it, Elena. Give me the information.
"There was no such woman. Just in case, I looked into men as well, and there was no one. No mercenary matching the conditions you described. Not from the very beginning. Which means they are a person who does not exist."
At her words, I went still for a beat. What. A person who doesn't exist? Not that the protagonist had failed to become famous—that they did not exist at all?
That can't be.
It couldn't be. No protagonist? Then what became of this doomed-game world? If the axis of the story was gone, the protagonist meant to stop the end of everything, then there was only one ending. Destruction. This farce of a doomed world would end, and of course I would die with it.
No. That could not happen. Everything I had done until now, I had done in order to live. It could not end like that.
While I was still reeling, Elena looked at me and spoke.
"So who is she? That woman? Who…… mmph……"
As the obsession in her only deepened, I pressed my mouth to her lips. Elena accepted the kiss. Our tongues tangled, and then I drew away.
"……Master……"
"We have already mixed our bodies. What is there for you to be so anxious about?"
It was true. She and I had done it, several times a day, more times than I could count across a single week. Elena lowered her eyes. Her voice trembled.
"……I'm sorry, Master……. I just…… grew ugly with jealousy……"
Without a word, I caught her wrist and tipped her back onto the bed. Then, face flushed, I let out a rough breath, as though I were a man swept up past restraint. I looked at her, stroking her body as I spoke.
"Brace yourself tonight. I won't be letting you sleep."
The sight of me reflected in Elena's unfocused eyes. Her face reddened. Her body trembled. She stroked my cheek, her voice low and bewitching.
"Heh. For Master to want this maiden's body first…… to mark the occasion, we ought to share a celebratory love shot."
From the bottle of liquor on the table, she poured a thin, trickling stream. Amber liquid filled the glass. Elena held it in her mouth, then kissed me just like that.
Wait. A love shot, she had said. Why was she feeding it to me mouth to mouth?
"Mmph! Mmmph?!"
Unable to fight the kiss, I took the liquor in as it came. Heat rushed through my whole body.
"Master…… my Master…… I am sorry for doubting you. You have come to want to hold me again. Then hold me. All through the night, until I break, take me. Pour your desire out upon me. I am forever your Lena, and yours alone."
I fell upon Lena's body just like that. A storm of searing pleasure tore across the bed.
And the next day.
Hah. I fell asleep.
I had meant to stay up through the night and watch for a gap to escape, but whether it was the liquor or not, I had simply dropped off. I looked to the side. Elena was there, sleeping soundly. I studied her face.
Pretty. Damnably pretty.
Thinking that, I brushed her forehead once, lightly, and the moment I rose from the bed—
Huh. Why does my body feel so light?
It was light. Damian's body was half-crippled, unable to circulate mana properly because of his internal injuries. That was the core reason he had raised disciples. Possessing that body, I had lived with chronic pain from those same injuries. In my previous life I had been a sturdy young man. After the possession, I had become, overnight, a middle-aged man who went about with painkillers in his mouth. Honestly, it was unfair. Even here, where potions circulated that could reattach a severed arm, my internal injuries had been impossible to treat.
And now those injuries were gone. All of them.
The problem is, the mana reset along with them.
The mana had vanished too. My body had, quite literally, been factory-reset. What on earth had happened to me? I turned my gaze toward the mirror. There, where I was used to the familiar Damian of his early forties, a middle-aged man, stood a boy of about fifteen.
"What?!"
When I startled, the boy in the mirror startled with me. This was me? I had gotten young? What was this? Don't tell me it was the liquor I drank last night?
Even as I thought it, a warm body heat reached me from behind.
"Master. How do you like your disciple's gift?"
Elena. She had wrapped herself around me from behind, and in the mirror she stood reflected at my back. With my mana reset, I had not sensed her at all.
"A dashing Master is wonderful, but a boy Master is adorable as well."
Elena licked her lips and spoke to me in a heated voice. So. She was telling me I had undergone Return to Youth?
Unfortunately, this body of mine, restored to a boy's, answered the scent of her skin with perfect honesty. The testosterone of a puberty fierce enough to chew through stone had taken command of my flesh, and just like that I was standing at full attention.
"Heh. Master. Perhaps because it is a boy's body, you have already recovered. Come. Come here."
Elena took hold of me and steered me straight back toward the bed.
The first day of my Return to Youth. The very first thing I did was have sex. Again.