So You Saw a Future Where You'd Be Corrupted and Conquered by Master?
"He's fallen asleep."
"...Looks like he's finally at ease. Well, he does care a great deal about Jasmine."
That much was true — but even so, I never expected him to make this much of a scene over it. We'd known each other for less than a month, and yet he'd been this shaken. Still, good thing Jasmine's ultimate skill — the one I'd always written off as pure trash — actually went off and saved us.
"I've got it now!"
"Citrus, got what?"
"I've been pulling pranks on Master this whole time, but his reactions were always so lukewarm."
"...Citrus is still the same even after Master changed."
She never bothered pranking me, so I hadn't noticed — but apparently her personality hadn't shifted much from the game. She was a troublemaker, sure, but she always got her actual work done, so I'd never paid it much mind. Turns out she'd been putting real effort into her pranks all along.
"The old Master was super cute, you know. Hehe — I figured this one would be fun too."
"I-I told you the new Master might be a scary person. You just wouldn't listen."
"If you mess up, you take the punishment. That part I don't really care about."
Her type was the kind that just went for it first if it looked fun, and took the scolding later. Getting chewed out was fair if it was her own fault — but she simply couldn't resist a good prank.
That personality of hers had even spawned a meme: whenever something weird happened, people would immediately go, "Citrus, was it you again?" And surprisingly enough, when you dug into it, it usually was.
"So what exactly did you figure out?"
"Master doesn't really care about much of anything else."
"...Yeah, that does feel about right."
"But there's one thing he cares about a lot."
"Ah."
"From now on, I'm pranking Jasmine unnie. That'll get a reaction out of him for sure."
Well. She wasn't wrong. I wanted to stop her, but she was the type who wouldn't listen anyway, so maybe I'd just leave her to it. Sometimes you had to get chewed out once before you learned to be careful.
If she really won't listen, it's the mountain-of-chocolate treatment for her.
She'd need the same kind of disciplinary measure I'd gotten before she came to her senses. Of course, I had no real intention of doing something that unethical if I could help it — but if it got in the way of our survival, I wouldn't have a choice.
Not that Citrus's personality would ever let it get that far.
She was surprisingly diligent, and she always kept her pranks within certain lines. Most of the time, whatever she pulled off wrapped up cleanly without lasting damage. The really catastrophic accidents tended to come from Fruity — pure-hearted misunderstandings that spiraled completely out of control.
"Anyway, the sand-flooding symptom is gone now... Let's just gather up these coin-shaped lumps and head back."
In Deadly Battles, most of the rewards came through mission clearances or ranking payouts. What you actually got for killing the boss itself was nothing but Deadly Battle coins.
...I'd half-wondered if they only paid out for a single kill, but luckily the monthly quantity being handed out looked like the maximum you could earn from one Deadly Battle.
It scales with the highest difficulty cleared, so the amount should go up once the difficulty rises.
We'd probably be able to spend them at a convenience store — pay a usage fee and buy whatever we needed. There were Affection Gifts available there, and even a small stock of skill materials, so we'd have to shop carefully. No Linger, though, which meant leveling would still be stuck where it was.
...So farming still has to be done the old-fashioned way.
Pulling another level-penalty-ignore bug like this time wasn't going to work. Dungeons mixed enemy levels all over the place, so that trick was basically impossible there. In the end, the only solution was to grind levels hard — which meant we just had to hold out until the event.
Well, the next Deadly Battle is scheduled after the event anyway.
The difficulty would go up, but as long as we raised the party members' levels properly, it should be manageable. The next one was essentially this same fight with the difficulty cranked higher. Very Hard did give the boss a slightly cooler look and a few extra patterns, but...
Those don't really matter.
Honestly, the added patterns weren't anything critical. Boost our specs through the event and a clear would be more than doable. Raise everything else properly, and it might even be easier than this one.
"They look just like the monsters that come out of dungeons. Defeat them and they vanish, leaving only rewards like these behind."
"Probably a similar type? Though having them show up outside a dungeon is still pretty unsettling..."
That particular plot thread still wasn't fully fleshed out. From what I knew, someone was deliberately summoning them to attack this place. That was why I'd called it an invasion.
"For now, please announce what happened here as something minor. The less panic, the better."
Making a big public deal of it wouldn't bring anyone running to help us anyway. In the end, Deadly Battles were something only a handful of people connected to that protagonist kid would be handling. Of course, we'd still need to look into exactly what those people were.
We returned to the guild, laid the protagonist out in a small room, and stepped back out. Well — work was done, so time to eat something good and rest. I'd been running myself ragged over this Deadly Battle lately.
"...Captain."
"Yes?"
"You've looked rushed lately, and I figured you had your reasons, so I cooperated without asking questions. And then something this dangerous actually happened — and we resolved it thanks to you."
"...That's, true?"
There was only one reason she'd bring that up now. Honestly, I was just grateful that everyone had followed me this far without a word. The truth was, I'd been shoving them forward under the banner of Master's orders — and by now, as the misunderstandings gradually cleared, they must have realized that none of these plans had actually come from Master's head.
"Still can't explain?"
"...Coming back from a fight that dangerous and then asking them to wait a little longer does feel a bit awkward."
Hmm. How should I put this? Aroma really was impatient. For something this sensitive, she could at least give me a day to think it through.
Tell them the truth? Absolutely not.
How was I supposed to say this was a game and that I'd possessed a character while playing it? If they believed me, that was its own problem — and if they didn't, there was no point saying it at all. Worst option either way.
Which meant I had to explain that I knew the future. And for that, there was one option that fit almost perfectly.
"Ever since the Queen left... I keep seeing the future."
Time to cosplay as a prophet. This way I could also explain that I didn't know every future. And even if I got something wrong, I could spin some nonsense about the future changing because of me.
"...So when Jasmine said she'd serve Master right away, that was—?"
"Because my future self did. That's how I judged he was someone worth trusting."
Oh. This misunderstanding got cleaned up by that explanation too? Excellent choice. The people here were reasonably trustworthy, and I could at least tell them they were worth that much to me.
"That does explain all those strange things you've been doing."
"And when you said near death that you wished you'd told Master more — that was for the same reason, wasn't it."
I hadn't even thought that far. Leave it to an all-purpose cheat key like this — they filled in the blanks themselves. From now on, these girls probably wouldn't question my words much. They'd just assume I was doing weird things because I'd seen the future, and cooperate accordingly.
"Ah — but this stays a secret between us."
"...Even from Master?"
"Yes. From everyone."
He didn't seem the type to care about small details like that anyway. Still, to keep strange variables from cropping up, this information couldn't leave this group.
"If someone needs to know, I'll tell them myself. I'd prefer as few people as possible knew about this."
"Understood."
"Got it."
That should be enough for them to get the picture. Of course, there was a non-zero chance Fruity would blurt it out by accident — but I'd factored that in when I told them. I'd just have to respond as fast as possible if it happened. Fruity's personality meant that if she caused an accident, she'd come straight to me to confess and apologize.
"Haa... so warm. Aroma's hot chocolate really is the best."
"Hehe. Flattery won't get you anything, you know."
It got me hot chocolate. That was more than enough. What could possibly be more important than a walking hot-chocolate dispenser?
"By the way, where did Citrus go?"
"Huh? She was right next to me just a moment ago."
...Given that talk earlier about pranking Master, she'd probably gone into his room. The fact that she considered a prank more important than this critical conversation... she really was a consistent character.
"Ab-buh-buh-buh..."
"Huh."
We were all resting with cookies and hot chocolate when the protagonist kid, somehow already awake, appeared pinching both of Citrus's cheeks with his hands. Tear-drops hung from his eyes, and the way he was glaring at her...
Yep. Citrus had pulled a prank.
"Ah, Master. Are you feeling a little better?"
"Yeah."
"Ahh... Master scolded me."
Watching them like that, she almost looked kind of cute.
...What the hell was I saying. There was no way that little brat was cute. R-right. Not him — Citrus, with her cheeks all puffed up and swollen, was the cute one.
"What does it take to get scolded by Master..."
"Jasmine unnie asked if he was okay, so I stalled and played dead as a joke. He reacted right away."
You watched him run himself ragged getting here and still wanted to pull a prank like that? Though the fact that she'd only stalled, rather than going further, was almost endearing in its own way. If she'd outright lied and said he was dead, that would've crossed a line.
"Master, please sit here."
"Sleepy..."
"Master?"
...So he hadn't actually finished sleeping when he came out. I sat down on the floor so he could at least rest his head on my lap. He'd clearly been too worried about me to sleep properly — the only option was to stay right here with him.
"You've worked hard, Master. Sleep well."
...But his hair brushing against my inner thighs was making this feel a little weird. Should I not have offered?