“Found you!”
“!?”
I encountered that woman in the back alley of the small rural town where I lived.
The pink dress that woman wore, the kind a young woman from the city might wear, was strangely worn out, and her disheveled hair looked like an old woman’s, but perhaps she was actually young.
Her sunken cheeks and bloodshot eyes were as frightening as a ghost, and when I cowered in fear, she threw down the bag she was carrying and pounced on me.
“N-No way!”
“You brat, be quiet! …Hehe, this is it.”
“No, give it back!”
“Shut up!”
She tore at my chest, snatching the amulet pouch I wore around my neck. The woman took something out of the pouch, which I had been told never to open, and burst into a loud laugh.
“Aha… Ahahahahahahahahahahahahahahaha! I knew it! I was right! This is the world of ‘※※※※’! Ahahahahahahahahahahaha!”
I was too terrified to move at that mad laughter.
I lived with my father and mother until I was four years old. I was happy then… I would wake up in the morning to the smell of my mother’s soup, and when I woke up my sleepy father, he would hug me tightly and rub his unshaven cheek against mine.
When I complained, my father would laugh and lift me high in the air to cheer me up. I would quickly cheer up and laugh, and my mother would come from the kitchen at the sound of my voice and scold us with a face that wasn’t scary at all.
But those happy days will never come again…
Three years ago, the town where we lived was attacked by many Monsters. A Monster outbreak that occurs once every few decades. My father, a soldier in the town, said he would protect my mother and me, and fought bravely against the Monsters and died. Still, he couldn’t hold back the Monsters, and my mother died to protect me from the Monsters that entered the town.
I don’t know what happened to the battle with the Monsters. I was crying in the rubble, surrounded by the corpses of Monsters and people, when I was picked up by a surviving soldier and taken to an Orphanage in this distant town.
My father’s big back. My mother’s gentle smile… All that was left to me, having lost everything, was the ‘Amulet Pouch’ given to me by my mother. Not knowing what would happen to me, I was exposed to the harshness of the world without even having time to grieve the loss of my parents.
The old church Orphanage. There were about ten new orphans. There, we were all crammed into a narrow room like a barn, and the tattered, thin blanket given to us instead of bedding, and the thin soup of vegetable scraps and salt, were taken away by the older orphans who had been there before.
The old woman who managed the Orphanage gave us hard black bread and salt soup twice a day and did nothing else, leaving everything in the Orphanage to the orphans. We were forced to do water drawing, laundry, cleaning, field work, firewood gathering, carrying luggage, and other work that the old woman had undertaken that had nothing to do with the Orphanage, and we worked from before dawn until it was dark.
The older orphans, who had learned to take it easy, made the young children do all the work, and one hungry boy, who had his meals stolen, gnawed on a potato in the pantry, and the old woman beat him with a rolling pin until he spat blood, and the boy was cold in his bed the next day.
I’ve thought about being killed more than once or twice. But I couldn’t rely on the adults in town either. No one wants to get involved with dirty, emaciated orphans. No one wants to take in such orphans. Moreover, that old woman would hand over only the good-looking orphans to certain well-dressed adults who appeared from time to time, and receive a lot of money.
I don’t want to be in a place like this. But I kept the words my father and mother had told me and endured.
“There is no one who is truly bad at heart. So you should be someone who can smile and forgive.”
The old woman who uses violence is just in a bad mood. The older orphans who steal from below are probably just in a bad environment. So I will try to be someone who can smile and forgive. …Thinking so, I kept the amulet pouch from being taken away and never stopped smiling, and I endured for three years.
But… I wonder if what I did was wrong. The old woman said that an important guest would be coming tomorrow, and I was told to purify myself in the well and make myself clean. I was desperate. I hated the way those adults looked at us. And I couldn’t stand the disgusting feeling and the life anymore, so that day… I ran away from the Orphanage.
But even though I ran away, I ended up squatting in a back alley, hugging my knees out of hunger and loneliness, because I had nothing, and that woman suddenly appeared in front of me.
“Hehehe, don’t be afraid, ‘Alicia’…”
“!”
I trembled when the woman suddenly called my name. How does she know my name?
“I’ve been watching you since the day before yesterday, you know? I only knew your name, age… and the color of your hair and eyes, so it was hard to find you…”
The woman looked down at me with a distorted smile, stroking my hair and eyes with her fingers.
“You’re so dirty. But it’s okay, I’ll clean you up soon. And you’re so thin… ‘Grandfather’ will be surprised when he comes to pick you up. You have to eat properly…”
“…Grand…father?”
When I muttered those words, the woman’s bloodshot eyes rolled around.
“That’s right, your… no, ‘my’ Grandfather. …Hey, will you listen to me? When I regained my memories of my previous life and realized that this was the world of ‘※※※※’, I trembled with joy… and despaired. Because the ‘Protagonist (Heroine)’ won’t enter the academy, which is the setting of the main story, for decades to come. By that time, I’ll be an old woman, so there’s no way I can get involved in the story. So I thought that if I could at least become a teacher, I would become an Adventurer, learn Magic, and study a lot. But it didn’t work. Only nobles can become students or teachers… so…”
“Hii.”
The woman grabbed my neck and took out a Knife and a jet-black ‘Stone’ from her waist.
“I’ve decided to become the ‘Protagonist (You)’…”
The woman’s smile twisted strangely.
“Hey, do you know what a ‘Magic Stone’ is? When a living creature absorbs a certain amount of Mana Particles, a stone called a ‘Magic Stone’ is born in the heart, using the blood in the body as a medium. The Magic Stone not only generates Mana within the body and accumulates high-purity Mana, but also retains the attributes and, to a small extent, the properties of the original creature. Hehe… I was thrilled when I found this method in an old document. Because if you use this method, you can copy ‘memories’ and ‘personality’ onto a Magic Stone and transfer them to another person!”
Magic Stone? Mana? The woman continues to speak as if drunk, using difficult words.
“The Magician who was doing that research stopped the research at the animal experiment (frog) stage, but I’m sure I can complete it! It’s no good to use other people’s Magic Stones! I repeatedly drew my own blood and painstakingly collected the coagulation components generated by including my own Mana, and it took me five years to finally complete my Magic Stone! It was hard… it was painful… but…”
The woman, who had been talking fluently, grinned, showing off the jet-black stone.
“If I embed this Magic Stone in your heart, I can abandon this old body and become the ‘Protagonist (You)!”
“…Hii.”
She’s crazy. She’s not sane. Even if it succeeds, isn’t it just another person who inherited the memories and personality? The woman, unaware of something that even a young child like me could understand, raised the Knife.
“Be quiet. It’ll be over soon.”
“…N-No way!”
My hand, which I reflexively swung around in terror, touched the Knife, slightly injuring my palm. When that blood-soaked hand touched the Magic Stone that the woman was pinching with her fingers, something strange flowed into my head.
“Ah!”
The Magic Stone was repelled from my hand, and the woman’s consciousness was diverted to the rolling Magic Stone.
A strange sensation, both cold and hot, flowed in from my injured hand. I felt the same disgusting feeling as that woman from something that was invading me, and when I desperately rejected it, only the remaining part settled inside me, and the smile that had been plastered on my face like a doll for the past three years crumbled.
I narrowed my eyes slightly, realizing I was calmly thinking, “I have to counterattack in this opening.” While pinned down by the woman, I moved only my gaze, scanning my surroundings, and grabbed a nearby suitable stone. Then, with a burst of force, I slammed it into the woman’s temple.
Thwack!
“Gyaaaaaaaah!?”
The woman rolled to the side, protecting her head, and the knife she had been holding clattered to the ground. I picked up the knife, held it in my right hand, placed my left palm on the pommel, and lunged at the woman’s chest as if tackling her.
“Gah… hah… wh-why, you…”
The knife, thrust horizontally to slip between her ribs, gouged the woman’s heart. Her eyes, as if seeing something unbelievable, reflected the face of the emotionless “me.”
Even as her heart was being torn apart, the woman’s hand reached out towards me. Undeterred, I applied more force, creating a gap as if to further gouge with the knife, and a torrent of blood gushed out from it. The light of life faded from the woman’s eyes.
“…”
My hand trembled slightly. With fingers trembling in the same way, I gradually peeled away the frozen, unmoving fingers gripping the blood-soaked knife.
Now I understood. What had flooded into my head was fragmented “knowledge” from this woman.
I didn’t fully understand what this woman had been thinking or what she had been trying to do. But I could understand that this woman, according to the knowledge, had put in decades of blood, sweat, and tears for the sake of this “Otome Game.”
The world of swords and magic, Ciel.
Within it, Claydale, the largest nation on the Searth Continent.
Geography and history. Knowledge of magic. Combat techniques. The common sense of this world… There was much that was too specialized for me to understand, but I had gained the minimum “knowledge” to survive in this world.
I retrieved the amulet pouch and the ring inside it, which had been taken from me, from the woman’s corpse, which was growing cold. Then, being careful not to touch it, I repeatedly smashed the woman’s disgusting “Magic Stone” that had fallen nearby with a rock, and flicked the remaining pieces that I couldn’t crush into the gutter.
After that, I rummaged through the woman’s pockets, stole the knife sheath and wallet, and slung the woman’s discarded backpack over my shoulder.
I had no more business in this place. But… there was one thing I had left to do.
Still carrying my luggage, I returned to the orphanage I had fled from, using a different, silent way of walking. I didn’t enter, but instead observed the orphanage’s condition without being seen. Inside, the old woman, finally realizing I was gone, was yelling at the other orphans.
I quietly entered the orphanage grounds, hiding in the darkness of the garden, suppressing my breath like a beast.
“…”
Due to my lack of stamina, I was overcome with drowsiness, but I deceived it by nibbling little by little on the hard black bread that had been in the woman’s luggage. Even while drifting in and out of consciousness, I waited for the sounds from the orphanage to cease. After the light in the detached room where the old woman’s room was located went out, and after about an hour had passed, I moved in the darkness.
My eyes, fully accustomed to the darkness, could discern the old woman’s location even with the faint starlight.
The old church that served as the orphanage had no rooms with locks. I quietly pushed open the door and slipped into the detached room that reeked of alcohol. I patiently waited for the old woman, who was snoring in her sleep, to turn over. The moment she turned her back to me, I lightly pressed a nearby hand towel against her neck, and then, putting my entire weight on the knife, I thrust the blade all the way to the hilt into the old woman’s medulla oblongata.
“–!”
The old woman’s body trembled as she let out a faint groan.
While pressing the hand towel to prevent blood from spurting out, I slowly pulled out the knife as if wiping away bloodstains. I quietly exhaled the breath I had been holding, returned the knife to its sheath as if loosening my stiff fingertips, and then tucked it into my waistband.
Now there was nothing to worry about. According to that woman’s “knowledge,” the head of this orphanage I lived in was supposed to be a kind old priest. Perhaps this would hasten the arrival of that priest as the person in charge here in place of the old woman, and the number of orphans who were abused or sold would decrease.
But–
“…How absurd…”
This old, run-down orphanage, the cunning orphans, the greedy old woman, the townspeople who turned a blind eye to the abuse, the feelings that woman had harbored, and that “Otome Game” of hers were all absurd.
Are you seriously trying to say that I was born for such “absurd things?”
Are you trying to say that my mother and father died for such absurd things?!
I ransacked the old woman’s room and the adjoining storage room, put on leather sandals that seemed to fit my bare feet, and changed out of the blood-stained rags that resembled a poncho into a slightly more decent poncho.
Then, I spread out a sheet, packed it with clean-looking cloths, the old woman’s hidden coins, good-quality food for the old woman, a water bottle, and other necessary items. In a manner resembling a night flight, I escaped from this absurd town.
I reject the “Otome Game.”
“I will survive, even if I have to do it alone.”
This is a new series, but it’s another Otome Game story (laughs).
Basically, it will be a growth story with adventures, and a behind-the-scenes part with Otome Game elements.
The growth part will be quite detailed.
It’s quite brutal, but I would be happy if you could bookmark it.
Simple explanation:
Game Heroine: Alicia Melsys (Melrose)
A girl with pink blonde hair inherited from her noblewoman mother and emerald green eyes inherited from her grandfather, with a lovely and adorable face that inspires protectiveness.
In the game, she lived in an orphanage until she was 11 years old, so her magic power is low and her development is modest.
Her magical talent is also mediocre (only Light attribute), but after entering the Magic Academy, she deepens her interactions with the “target characters” with her indomitable cheerfulness and “smile” that doesn’t doubt others.
The adult that the Protagonist (Heroine) was supposed to meet was not the usual “slave trader,” but someone working for the grandfather who was searching for his missing “granddaughter.” Originally, based on that information, the head of the orphanage was supposed to be replaced, and Alicia was supposed to be carefully raised until it was confirmed that she was the granddaughter herself.
By the way, the current protagonist’s wide eyes have become half-closed, and at the tender age of seven, she has a bad look in her eyes.
She has gained the “knowledge” of a woman with a strange past life, but she hasn’t learned how to use it yet because she hasn’t studied.
There are biases in her knowledge. The content consists only of the knowledge that the woman learned in this world, and modern calculations and science knowledge at the junior high school level. Because Alicia unconsciously rejected the “Otome Game” part related to the woman’s essence, her knowledge in that area is vague.
She only has knowledge and has not received education, so the current protagonist’s sense of ethics is quite weak.
Alicia’s personality has not changed, but she has become detached due to suddenly gaining decades of knowledge, and she has lost her childlike “purity” and “innocence” — and “smile.”