I Want to Forget This World's Original Form
“Sister, you know. I thought that hearts drift apart together when the distance between them grows.”
Late at night. Inside a hideout with the lights extinguished. The sisters gazed at the moonlight half-hidden by clouds. Some believed the moon was struggling to break free from those clouds. Others thought the moon was slowly losing its light as it was swallowed by them.
“That’s not true. From that day onward, I never forgot you for a single day. You were always by your sister’s side.”
It was the truth. Even if that presence came in the form of unbearable nightmares and hallucinations.
Eres had not forgotten Melina for even one day, and she suffered constantly. While being tormented by their vulgar father. Even when she enrolled in the Academy to search for her sister. Even after the pain awakened the magic sword and forced it into her hand, she fought countless enemies by abandoning herself. She fought to save people who would never remember her. When she watched from afar as those people smiled in joy after the problem was solved, or looked uneasy about the inexplicable resolution, she still had to swallow her tears while thinking of her separated younger sister.
But that ended today. Everything had gone well. She had rescued her younger sister from Viscount Castra. Using the magic sword, she had cut down the viscount’s conspiracy and the demon he had contracted with, shattering the bondage magic. Though using the magic sword erased all memories of Eres from those involved, this time, while everyone else’s memories vanished, Melina’s remained intact.
“Once we graduate from the Academy, we won’t need to return to our hometown. We can live without any problems. Let’s bring Pih too and live together as the three of us again.”
“Sister… you really are strong.”
“It’s not like that. I was just lucky.”
Having saved her sister, Eres now intended to set down her sword. There was no longer any need to fight. The story of the girl hero who had obtained the magic sword by chance would end here. From now on, she would simply become an ordinary girl you could find anywhere, growing into an ordinary adult you could find anywhere.
“Today was full of so many things—you must be tired, right? Sister will leave now, so let’s talk again tomorrow.”
“…Yeah.”
A story of living with family, friends, a lover, and family once more.
“…Sister, you really are strong.”
It should have ended with a story like that. At the very least, it should never have continued in the way it did.
“I’m not. I forgot.”
Three years. To some a short time, to others an eternity.
“I never thought sister or brother would come to rescue me. Father even less so, and mother… Do you know? When people suffer, they cling to the person closest to them. Even when that person is the reason for their suffering.”
Alone in the empty room, Melina continued her monologue.
“For me, there was only Master. The one who caused the pain, the one who comforted the pain—everything… everything….”
When I first met Melina in the game, she did not recognize Eres. That was why Eres and the player fell victim to the viscount’s magic and forgot their family. That clichéd story was the first thing that came to mind. But it was not the case. Investigating Viscount Castra’s room revealed that he could not use magic that affected the mind. She had simply forgotten. She had been conditioned until her head was filled only with thoughts of the viscount. She had forgotten everything about the sister and brother who were not by her side. Even after her memories returned, she still wavered between family and master. Yet Eres had not forgotten her and had suffered just as much as she had. What must that have felt like?
“…I’m sorry, Miss Eres. It seems I’m still there after all.”
The next morning, Melina put on the formal attire she had worn at Castra’s mansion and took her own life. Not as Eres’s younger sister Melina, but as Viscount Castra’s servant and lover.
Eres, having seen that, went to school. She attended classes normally, did favors for people who asked, and conversed with them. As always, she was picked on by nobles who looked down on her for being a commoner, got hurt, and endured it. And when she returned to the hideout, her dead sister’s body was still there.
“Why?”
A single word. After that one line, dubbed in a hollow voice common to every country, the screen went dark and the game forcibly terminated. When the game was restarted, the player was back at the dormitory and could never approach the hideout again. From then on, Eres spoke far less and her expression never changed.
What exactly happened while the game was shut down is not known in detail. But anyone who saw it could tell that, from that point onward, Eres’s mind had crossed a river from which there was no return.
This episode became the worst one that every user unanimously agreed upon with its single ending. It caused a massive number of players who had reached that point to quit the game. At the same time, many praised the scene of the already broken Eres heading to school—the way she tried to look away from the madness and run, only to slowly and quietly descend into it—as the greatest direction in Endless Fantasia.
Well, if they saw the tags and reviews and still went that far, they clearly had that kind of taste, so it was only natural. For someone like me who started the game without any resistance simply because the protagonist was pretty, that scene still leaves lasting scars.
What a fucking dream.
It had been an incredibly long time since I last dreamed of the original world. Episode Six—the one where Melina appears. That ending still made me nauseous just thinking about it.
At least I managed to avoid that one…!
As long as Melina is with me, something like that will never happen. The biggest cause of that tragedy was Melina losing all hope. With no one coming to save her, she gave up and had no choice but to depend on Castra. The bridge effect, or maybe Stockholm syndrome? Whatever it was. In short, if I gave her smooth human relationships and a moderately comfortable life with some breathing room, it wouldn’t come to that.
“Master Luke! Come out this instant!”
“Beating people up wasn’t enough? Now you’ve kidnapped a child! Just how many sins do you plan to pile up?!”
“Don’t you feel sorry for your parents, you worthless bastard?!”
Why exactly was I being chased by the Colwen family’s people? I had clearly told them I rescued this child, not kidnapped her. Those deranged servants didn’t seem interested in listening to a single word I said.
If it were only the servants, that might have been fortunate.
“Did the young lady have any further instructions?”
“She said not to bother capturing him alive. Use spears, blades, or poison—kill him by any means.”
“Hmm… If only the child weren’t here, we could have sealed the city and released poison gas.”
The most furious of all was my younger sister, Layla Colwen… Wait. Poison gas?
“Do not think of him as human! Master Luke is a monster who could tear us apart without even lifting a finger! We must use our wits and subjugate him in the most cowardly and filthy way possible!”
“Blades don’t work on him. The only way we can harm him is with chemical nerve agents that aren’t magic.”
“Apply the distributed poison the moment you get close. It will burn the skin and seep inside.”
Why the hell do you people keep such dangerous poisons in the house?! I’ve never tested my poison resistance!!!
Of course. You bastards have been planning to kill me from the start!
“We’ll have to tear his clothes to apply it, but fortunately he looks like a beggar.”
“Still, it won’t be easy for mere soldiers like us.”
“It’s fine. We’ve all left our lives behind anyway.”
Why?! Why are mere soldiers going this far?! According to every cliché, you’re supposed to get scared from threats and run away! Value your lives, damn it!
“…What do you want to do, mister?”
“I’m not a mister.”
This was bad. At this rate, raising Melina would be difficult, and above all, I wouldn’t be able to support Eres. If she followed my training method, she could definitely become strong, but there were many preparations required. How could Eres, who was already busy feeding her remaining brother, obtain all of that?
“…Should I have brought her younger brother as well?”
“Hik…!”
Melina, with her hands and feet bound, flinched. In the original work I only met her after she had already fallen, so I had only seen her original personality through Eres’s flashbacks. She had been quiet the entire time since I brought her, so I assumed she was a mature child like her sister, but it seemed she had childlike sides too.
“You’re not going to scream?”
“…Why would I?”
“If you scream now, the men outside might notice and take you away. That would be the wiser choice.”
“Forget it. Then you’d just kill those people too, mister.”
“I’m not a mister… Wise indeed.”
Cancel that. This child seemed to have a more mature personality than I thought. I knew the setting said she was intelligent, but that alone couldn’t explain such composure. Like Eres, had she been tempered under that father?
“For now, I need to go back.”
“Where?”
“Layla Colwen. She’s my younger sister. You saw her yesterday too, right?”
“The sister who said, ‘As long as I live, I will not allow you to set foot in this mansion’?”
“…There’s a way to persuade her, so don’t worry.”
That girl—don’t tell me she actually wanted the head of the family position. I’m the eldest son, but I’m always wandering outside. I never even considered inheriting the countship in the first place. If that’s what she wants, I can just hand it over. I only need to support things until Eres enters the Academy. If money runs short, I can earn more and add to it. With my current strength, making money is simple.
…Though my age means I’ll need a guardian’s permission.
This is a dark fantasy world, but I’m a noble with a well-known name and face, so there’s nothing I can do about it. Or I could throw away my shame and turn to banditry. But as someone raised with the ethics of a twenty-first-century modern person, I can’t fill my stomach through such evil deeds. If I just talk to them, surely we can communicate—
“But don’t we need to defend the mansion?”
“It’s fine. The moment the young master sets foot there, the final measure is set to activate immediately.”
“Final measure? What is that?”
“Every room except the Count and Countess’s will explode. The young lady has staked her life on this as well.”
“……”
“Mister really must be a bad person.”
Don’t throw your lives away, you lunatics!! If you all die too, who will take care of our parents?! The Count and Countess treated us with love!!! Ah, of course I am an unfilial son, but still.
This wouldn’t do. It wasn’t that she coveted the countship—she simply didn’t want to share the same sky with me. Should I just run away? If I forged my identity and age and took on work, maybe I could manage somehow? But as a morally upright ordinary adult male raised in a law-abiding nation, how could I commit something as heinous as forging my identity—
“Mister.”
“I’m not a mister. What is it?”
“Outside there…”
Melina was staring outside with terrified eyes. Of course she was scared—with dozens of grown men chasing after us with menacing weapons. Still, they probably wouldn’t think we had dug a hole in the ground and hidden inside it overnight. Even if they thought of it, it would take them a long time to—
“I have one question for all of you.”
No. It wasn’t the Colwen family men chasing me that Melina was looking at. An aura that could never belong to the gentle, warm people of the Colwen family—murky and grotesque. A narrow-eyed male character with a perfectly neat smile that looked like a mask, who seemed like a mastermind no matter how you viewed him.
“Is the person you are looking for Luke Colwen?”
“…That is correct. But who are you?”
I knew that man. A villainous faction that appeared continuously from the early to mid-to-late stages of Endless Fantasia. An executive of Nine’s Piece.
“How fortunate! I was looking for him as well. He’s quite famous, after all.”
“I don’t know what your purpose is, but that person belongs to us—”
“It’s convenient when all the competitors are gathered in one place.”
The moment he shattered the dirt-covered pit and emerged, red lines were drawn across the necks of every soldier gathered there. That was the knight who wielded the thinnest and shortest, yet also the thickest and longest blade in this world.
“You’re lucky. If you hadn’t come out, I was planning to dig you out myself. But it’s already too late…”
“Cardo!”
“Huh? How do you know my name—”
“Die!!”
Speed Attack! Bind! Stun! Extreme Damage! Time Attack!
“W-wait—Kuek! Keuhk!”
Stack every buff and pour on the extreme damage. Finish the fight within one minute! The reason that was possible was simple: this guy had far less health than other bosses of the same level! Otherwise the difficulty would have been completely insane!
“I won’t! Give you! The chance to attack! Until you die!!!”
“L-let’s talk—”
“Too late!”