Anoseka Volume 3 Prologue

This is MTL. So, I cannot guarantee that the translation 100% contextually accurate or appropriate.

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Prologue

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The sun's light became dimmer, and it became dark soon after school.

The tea ceremony room on the second floor of the school building also felt cold as soon as the sun went down.

"Maybe it's time to get a stove ready? If a room with a fireplace is available, I can prepare firewood."

I, [Leon Fou Bartfalt] preparing the tea, turned my back and talked to the person who had invited me to this place.

The one who answers is [Marie Fou Lafan].

"What's up with you making noise at this level of cold? I can still endure it."

Marie is a blonde-haired, blue-eyed schoolmate and my fiancée.

She has a small, well-defined face and a slender, albeit petite, body.

Recently, her skin and hair have become more shiny, partly due to an improvement in her eating habits, or rather her nutritional situation.

She has long, curly blonde hair that is voluminous and looks shinier than before.

Because she is slender, she looks younger than her age, so does she appear to third parties as a lovely, fragile, beautiful girl?

However, on the inside, she is a reincarnated person just like me.

We are former players who have been reincarnated in the world of "that otome game".

What I am trying to say is that Marie is not the pitiful, fragile, beautiful young woman that she appears to be.

"This is not a contest of endurance."

I was taken aback by Marie's answer and let out a sigh as I carried the prepared tea to the table.

After receiving the tea, Marie holds the cup with both hands and blows on it before starting to drink it little by little.

"Ah~, it warms~"

"So the "I can still endure it" comment is just fake stoicism."

Marie drinks without manners or anything, so I didn't blame her.

This occasion is just named a tea party, but the real purpose is to discuss the future.

We needed to talk about the future of that otome game.

I went to the trouble of throwing a tea party and inviting Marie to discuss it between us alone.

It's not something you would talk about in a classroom, and it would be troublesome if someone heard about it.

For that reason, we chose a place where the three of us could be alone.

Three of us, it is questionable whether it's right to say it, because the third one is my partner, [Luxion].

He is metallic coloured sphere about the size of a softball, with red lenses like a single eye.

This figure is a sub-unit, while his main body is a spaceship over 700 meters long.

Usually this sub-unit machine supports us.

It's too much of a hindrance, or too much of a support, to have a spaceship by your side all the time.

[Master, Marie, time is limited. Let's get down to business now.]

At Luxion's urging, Marie placed the cup on the table.

"You want to talk about the future, don't you? Well, I've given it a lot of thought."

Marie was smiling confidently today.

It seems that Marie was also seriously thinking about it.

I felt a little surprised, but I guess she has her own thoughts about the future of this world.

"You sound very confident. For now, let's hear it."

"Fufufu, There's no way I'm missing out."

Marie even gets up from her seat and moves her hands to let us hear her thoughts.

"School trip to a Japanese floating island! They say it's summer there, right? There's going to be a festival, so I'll definitely be wearing a yukata."

After hearing Marie's words, me and Luxion looked at each other and shook our heads.

"It seems like you weren't thinking about anything."

Luxion only shakes his single eye from side to side, but his gesture conveys amazement.

[She must be looking forward to the school trip.]

Marie's cheeks puffed out at our words and actions.

She can't believe how low our excitement is with the school trip just around the corner.

"It's a school trip, the big event of your school days! You should think about it more carefully!"

Speaking of school trips, in my previous life, it was certainly one of the biggest school events.

However, this school's school trip was completely different.

"It can't be helped if the rarity value of something like a school trip that all grades participate in every year goes down."

This school trip, in fact, involves all three grades.

It's just an annual event.

It will have a slightly different meaning to the school trip in the previous life, which can only be experienced once in three years.

However, Marie's take on the situation seems to be otherwise.

"There are three destinations! Every year, we split into three groups and aim for different floating islands. It's not the same trip every time."

"It's just a different destination, but what we're going to do won't be any different."

"Things would be different in different places! You have to be more motivated!"

So in order to broaden our horizons, we go to a different floating island every year.

Also, this grouping is mixed across the three grades.

In order to make acquaintances with senior and junior students with whom they did not normally have a relationship, a complex grouping arrangement was in place.

However, gaining knowledge and acquaintances is the official procedure.

In that otome game, it was just an event for the protagonist to deepen her relationship with the boys she was targeting.

In my previous life, I repeated it many times during the game, so it is an event that has left a strong impression on me.

The reason was simply that the event had a strong element of luck.

Some items were only available on school trips, but the method of obtaining them was random, so the saved data had to be loaded many times until the desired item was obtained.

For me, who has experienced that otome game, it's just a troublesome event.

Instead we should be discussing bigger issues.

"Let's talk about the school trip later."

"Later? Isn't it close!"

When Marie is unconvinced, I let out a deep sigh before reminding her of the problem at hand.

"You know the Offley family left earlier than planned, right."

When Marie heard about the Offley family, she twitched and took her seat.

Perhaps her excited mood has completely cooled down, and now she has a troubled expression on her face.

"It's about Stephanie, isn't it? Because of me, you did something reckless——"

There was a schoolgirl named Stephanie, the daughter of the Offley family.

She is probably what you would call a mid-boss.

Although the Offley family was a count family, they were connected to sky pirates and did evil deeds.

They are the so-called villain.

Stephanie, the daughter of such an Offley family, was annoyed by the protagonist in the middle of the game and tried to eliminate her with the help of her parents' family.

The protagonist is attacked by sky pirates, but the boys who are the capture targets come to her aid and the incident is successfully resolved.

Stephanie was also punished and the Offley family was demolished after their misdeeds were exposed.

This was the original storyline.

[Marie need not be concerned. It was the Offley family who started it first, and they have only ruined themselves by the misdeeds they have committed.]

Luxion comforts Marie, but Marie seems to think that she is also at fault.

Marie squeezed her hands in her lap.

"It was my fault that I approached Brad with the intention of aiming for a fortune."

When I first met Marie, she was using her knowledge of the game to try to seduce the capture targets.

She wanted to take the position of the protagonist, Olivia, and put herself in her place.

After meeting me and reviewing each other's information, she realized how dangerous it was, though.

But she continued aiming for a rich man's fortune.

This caused Stephanie's outrage and Marie was targeted.

In the end, I was the one who brought down the Offley family to save Marie.

"I think you're responsible, but in Stephanie's case it was obviously overkill. Besides, sooner or later that guy would have been brought to justice."

If we follow the game scenario, the Offley family was demolished in the middle of the story —— when the main characters were in the second year of school.

If it was going to fall, it was only a question of whether it was sooner or later.

Marie looks up, sees me and smiles.

"You're really clumsy. If you want to console me, come up with a better line."

I scratched my head in embarrassment and decided to get back to the topic.

"The important thing is that we beat the Offley family to save you. Thanks to that, an important event that the main characters must overcome has disappeared."

The important question here is who defeated the Offley family.

"We beat the main characters' enemies in advance of them!" It is not as simple as that.

Originally, it was an event where the main characters made up their minds and bravely confronted them.

And even more importantly, the Offley family event was the event that determined the capture target.

Marie puts her hand on her chin and makes a troubled face.

"As I recall, the capture target who helps out in the Offley family event becomes the protagonist's lover, right?"

"After that, the events are going to be overcome together, with that capture target as the main focus. We're not talking about just one event disappearing."

If the protagonist's lover is not decided, the upcoming showdown with the final boss will be hopeless.

After all, what is needed in the end is the love between the protagonist and the target.

——Love is amazing, isn't it?

By the way, there are other problems caused by the disappearance of events.

It's an experience that the main characters were supposed to have had, but we've taken it away from them.

I slumped down on the table.

"I don't want to talk about experience points like in a game, but it still hurts to lose combat experience. The growth opportunities for the capture targets were lost."

The disappearance really hurts because it was also the event that determined the main characters' resolve.

Marie also has her head in her hands.

"If you look at the mood of Olivia and the others, the lover thing might not be a problem —— but it certainly hurts to lose experience in combat and that sort of thing."

Both Marie and I are players who have had a lot of trouble with the military strategy part of that otome game.

I am painfully aware that the lack of experience points will have repercussions later on.

Luxion, who was alternately looking at us as we racked our brains, asked a simple question.

[Judging from what you two have said, is it correct to say that the problem is that you deprived Olivia and her friends of an opportunity to grow?]

"I've been saying that for a while."

When I answered curtly, Luxion moved the ring inside the red lens.

[Do you expect Olivia and her friends to grow up so that they can eventually defeat the final boss?]

Marie doesn't understand what Luxion wants to say and seems annoyed.

"That's right. If Olivia and the others don't do their best, we'll be in trouble too."

If the final boss cannot be defeated, the Horfalt Kingdom will be destroyed and the game will be over.

I don't know if we will actually die, but it would be really troublesome if the country were destroyed.

Even if we survive, things will be tough after that.

That's why we want our main characters to protect the peaceful world.

It's a selfish wish, but defeating the final boss is difficult even for Luxion.

Luxion thinks for a few seconds, then checks with me.

[Is it true that the last boss cannot be defeated even by my main body?]

"That's right. That's why we're trying to get Olivia-san and the others to take them down."

When I think, 'What are you saying at this untimely moment?', Luxion says.

[Is that still true at this point in time?]

"What do you want to say?"

[I've heard that the final boss, a monster, will be summoned by the magic flute owned by the Principality of Fanose.]

Marie and I looked at each other.

We both had the embarrassed look on our faces that we hadn't thought of it before.

Ignoring us, Luxion offers a solution.

[I advise you to retrieve or destroy the Magic Flute of the Principality of Fanose before the Last Boss is summoned. If you seize the magic flute first, you will not have to fight the last boss.]

I accept Luxion's suggestion.

"Y-You're right! Alright, let's strike while the iron is hot. Let's retrieve the magic flute of the Principality of Fanose and remove any uncertainty about the future!"

When I say this impatiently, Marie also thrusts one hand up and raises her voice.

"O-Ooh! Now I can sleep in peace from now on!"

It doesn't seem to be my imagination that Luxion's red lens, looking at us like that, seems somewhat cold.

[Maybe you haven't come up with this method before? It's the easiest solution, right?]

We felt very uncomfortable as Luxion stared at us.

Why hadn't I thought of it before?

If I may make an excuse, it would be that I left it to the main characters to solve the problems in the future.

That's why it never occurred to me that we could solve the problem directly, with our own hands.

"I-I was just trying to think if there was another way. Or rather, that would be a last resort, don't you think? See, we believed in the main characters, you know."

Marie goes along with me as I make excuses.

"Right! That's right! This is their story, not ours. It would be tactless to beat the last boss in advance!"

After hearing what we both said, Luxion waved his single eye from side to side saying yare yare.

[Let's just leave it at that for this time.]

——I'm shocked that an AI pays attention.

Luxion's red lens was now pointed at Marie.

[Now, once we've decided how to deal with the Last Boss, the next is about Marie.]

I also turned my gaze to Marie, having guessed what Luxion was going to say.

"This is also a big problem."

Marie, who was stared at by us, had an indescribable expression on her face.

"It's really the worst. I couldn't believe —— that the saint's necklace was cursed."

The saint's necklace I left with Marie is apparently cursed.

The story goes back to the night I gave her the saint's necklace.