The Final Gamble
After the preliminaries ended, Line returned to the lodging. I personally went out to the entrance to greet her.
“Sister, you were amazing!”
“Thank you, Ruwina.”
Line answered with a smile she rarely showed, clearly in a good mood. I was the one who should be grateful. I had witnessed the protagonist’s entrance event and even made a bit of pocket money thanks to Line’s victory. The money I gained from this bet was 2,000 gold. In the Aindium world, the value of gold varied wildly between the anime, manga, and novel, so I wasn’t sure exactly how much it was worth, but it certainly wasn’t a small sum.
Just in case, I immediately retrieved the 10,000-gold promissory note and had my aide handle it so that it looked as though I had never borrowed the money in the first place. Since no actual gold had changed hands, Line would never notice.
While happily pondering how to grow the 2,000 gold now in my possession, I enjoyed a lavish feast. During the meal, Line stared at me and tapped the table with her index finger.
“Ruwina.”
“Yes?”
“Your table manners seem to have regressed to when you were a child.”
“Ah.”
I quietly set down the chicken leg I had been holding. Line was smiling, but her eyes were not kind. The fear Ruwina felt toward her strict yet affectionate older sister had somehow transferred to me as well.
I steadied my breathing, summoned the inner Ruwina, and layered her over myself to begin the act.
“I’m sorry. My hands lack strength…”
I was now a frail girl who could barely lift a fork. A spoon full of soup felt heavier than a field shovel packed with dirt. But a chicken leg weighed zero grams when eaten deliciously…
Whether my self-hypnosis worked or not, sadness appeared on my face. Line, who had been watching me quietly, let out a light sigh.
“I see. Everyone, please assist Ruwina with her meal.”
“Yes, Lady Line.”
At Line’s command, the maids standing behind her approached and began helping with my meal. No! If you cut the chicken leg into such tiny pieces, how am I supposed to enjoy it? And salad isn’t meant to be eaten plain—add some dressing!
“Here, Lady Ruwina. Say ah~”
“I can do it myself—hup!”
The meal, which felt more like torture than dining, finally ended. And who on earth prepared mint-chocolate cake for dessert? They deserve punishment.
“Do you have no appetite? I even prepared your favorite snack on purpose.”
Seeing me poking and mashing the mint-chocolate cake with my fork, Line asked with a puzzled look. It seemed Ruwina would have to take the punishment. I forced a smile and took a small bite of the cake.
Huh? Why does this taste good? Ruwina’s palate must be quite different from mine.
Only then did Line relax and begin sipping her coffee while reading the newspaper. I felt that I would have to be especially careful with my behavior around Line. If she ever realized that some strange person was inside her precious little sister’s body, I couldn’t even imagine what she might do. From now on, I resolved to perfectly act as Ruwina whenever I was near Line.
The next day of the tournament. I wanted to watch other matches, but I was not permitted due to my health. The hospital had said my body was normal, but the truth was I wasn’t exactly brimming with energy. Ruwina had never been particularly healthy to begin with, and perhaps because of the disconnect between mind and body, I often felt dizzy. Although the arena where the duels were held was only a five-minute walk away, traveling to other venues would require a long journey, so Line had refused.
I wanted to see various Aindiums, but there was nothing I could do. After all, Ruwina was scheduled to study abroad at the Alitus Kingdom’s military academy soon, where she would see more than enough Aindiums to last a lifetime. Yet Ruwina’s identity had never been revealed in the original work, so I had no idea why she would come to study in Alitus. What’s more, she would enroll as a freshman next March—only five months from now, not several years later. Something must happen in between.
The Kingdom of Karmanu, the homeland of Ruwina and Line, was a country with very little known about it. Ruwina simply treated it as her own country and had no particular thoughts on the matter, so she possessed no useful memories. Even the original novel’s setting only mentioned the name in passing. From the first work in the series all the way to the previous installment, characters from the four kingdoms barely appeared at all. The story had always focused on the Republic, the Empire, and the space colonies. Even as a long-time fan of the Aindium series, I didn’t know the detailed setting.
Still, since I was definitely going there, I decided to quietly cheer for Line and the protagonist before returning home. Because the skill level of the competitors was higher in the main tournament than in the preliminaries, the battles were fierce. I continued cheering while sweating over my betting slips. I placed my bet on the protagonist first, then, after some hesitation when Line was matched against the opponent who had reached the finals against the protagonist in the original story, I bet on Line as well. Not because she was family, but because I trusted the skill that had made her famous even abroad.
Line’s Ardent did not overwhelm her opponent in a single strike like she had in the preliminaries. Yet she didn’t seem to be struggling either. Using swift movements to control the entire arena, she slipped behind her opponent and thrust her sword low. The strike landed cleanly. Since this was a friendly tournament, the blade was dull and carried no magic iron core—just a simple iron club shaped like a sword—but that didn’t matter. Just as a master’s wooden branch could be deadly, the practice sword in Line’s Ardent silenced her opponent’s Aind with a single blow.
Whether the impact to the chest had transmitted shock to the cockpit or not, the Aind that had been moving unsteadily soon came to a halt. Line pushed her opponent lightly out of the ring, then raised her sword high as if declaring victory. The crowd erupted in cheers. While Karmanu’s strongest pilot set the duel tournament ablaze, my wallet situation steadily improved.
From the semifinals onward, I would have to gradually stop betting on my sister. Her overwhelming skill had driven the odds too low. The protagonist’s matches were always spectacular. If I compared them to a game, Line was the type who relied on high levels and solid stats with faithful fundamentals, while the protagonist Rendel was the type who carried multiple skills. In the original story, whenever a crisis struck, he would pull out a hidden ability, and fans would joke that he was “hiding his power” or call him a “skill can of tuna,” but it simply meant he possessed a wide variety of usable abilities and magic.
In this tournament, he had reached the finals using only that acceleration ability. The scene where he revealed a new power against his finals opponent had been excellent. But that opponent had lost to Line. Wait a moment. Thinking about it now, far too many things that never happened in the original story had occurred. Thanks to my survival instinct, Ruwina hadn’t been seriously injured in the attack. Because of that, Line had been able to come here instead of returning home, and she had just defeated Rendel’s original finals opponent. All of it had changed because of my actions.
…It should be fine. It had to be. At the very least, the story needed to proceed as I knew it up to this point. Only then could I accept the situation of suddenly falling into this world. I would act as the characters in the story—as Ruwina. And as a fan of the work called Aindium, I would witness the beginning and the end of the story with my own eyes. That alone was the only proof that I had come from another world.
After the semifinals ended, Line’s and Rendel’s names were engraved at the very top of the tournament bracket. Just like yesterday, I greeted Line with great fanfare, ate according to the court etiquette that had become second nature, and chewed the mint-chocolate cookies as if they were delicious. No, they really were delicious. Maybe thinking mint-chocolate was strange had been nothing but prejudice all along.
At night, I felt a brief moment of happiness at the thought of growing the money that had now swelled to 5,000 gold, then fell asleep feeling anxious about how reality was gradually diverging from the original story.
The long-awaited day of the finals. I saw Line off early in the morning and came out quickly myself, only to find the stands already packed an hour before the finals began. It was fortunate I had a VIP seat. It felt strange—and a little chilling—that every finalist in this best-of-five series was connected to me. Not only had the story diverged significantly from the original, but there was also a more realistic problem.
Beep.
“Thank you for visiting again today, my lady. Which side will you be betting on?”
The 5,000-gold check in my hand felt heavy. From what the maids had told me yesterday under the pretext of curiosity about commoner life, one gold was roughly worth a thousand won. Whether the Karmanu treasury was strange for casually spending ten million won on my entertainment, or whether it was strange that I was nervous about carrying an amount Ruwina would normally spend in a month, I couldn’t decide. Either way, time was passing, and I had to choose within three minutes of the first match starting.
The protagonist, or Line?
After agonizing until my head hurt, I finally made my choice.
“I’ll bet 4,000 gold on Rendel Tsubertine.”
Protagonist of the original story, I’m counting on you.
It wasn’t a blind bet just because he was the protagonist. Watching the three matches each of them had fought so far, Rendel didn’t seem significantly inferior to Line in raw skill. Moreover, he possessed the ability to accelerate his Aind in an instant. Line fought well, but I had never seen her use anything magical like that. If their abilities weren’t too far apart and he had a trump card, then Rendel had a high chance of defeating Line. And ultimately, Rendel’s odds were just slightly lower. Other people’s data had to be more reliable than mine, since this was my first time watching Aind battles.
Still, just in case, I kept 1,000 gold aside.
“Understood, my lady. I hope you enjoy the matches.”
The young man left, and I fixed my eyes on the screen. Setting aside my small entertainment, I began to feel excited at the thought of watching a battle between ace Aind pilots.
『We apologize for the long wait! We will now begin the finals of the Aindium duels—the flower of the First Quadruple Alliance Friendly Tournament!』
As the announcement that the match was about to start rang out, the arena filled with cheers. Line’s Ardent and Rendel’s White Fang rose onto the field and faced each other from a distance. At the signal marking the start of the bout, they shot toward one another.