“Hmm? Sis, your expression doesn’t look good. Are you sick?”
“……”
What should I even say?
To be honest, I had intended to hide this until the end—no, I wasn’t planning to say anything at all. So, it’s not like I actually hid it.
That’s right. I haven’t hidden anything. Hiding and not mentioning it are completely different things, aren’t they?
In the first place, even if I’d gained a bit of fame with the nickname on a not-so-famous minor gallery, it’s not like I’d be known by everyone on the internet. I mean, no matter how famous you are on streaming sites, there are always people who don’t know you at all.
Besides, it’s not like I’m creating something; I’m just buying etymology books and translating some information or translating magazine interviews, or creating a script before the Korean version is out… The only famous part about me is that, and there’s surely someone who remembers my nickname—
—Yeah, I suppose there would be, just like what Claire showed me.
“… I think I have a slight fever. It might just be a cold.”
But now, the story had changed a bit.
That’s right. Just because I didn’t intend to hide it doesn’t mean I wasn’t planning to reveal it. I don’t actually know what that means, but in any case, my mind has changed. Since the situation has changed, isn’t it natural for my assumptions to change too? Initially, I had no intention of hiding it, but since I wasn’t planning on revealing it either, if someone were to dig up that dark history without my knowing, of course, I would naturally start thinking about hiding it.
No, more than that, the characters I wrote back then were simply ‘characters’ and not real people, so there’s really no dark history to speak of.
If my friend finds out, the only one who would actually care would be the person who plays that game with me, and that person wasn’t even part of the entire community.
“Didn’t you stay in all day today? You were fine until the morning.”
Of course, Claire’s eyes were filled with worry as she said that to me. It’s not like she wanted to blame me, but she probably needed to figure out why I was sick to grasp the situation.
“Just lie down for now. Should I take you to your bed?”
“……”
Since I wasn’t actually sick at all, I felt terribly guilty for displaying such a reaction.
“What’s wrong? Why are you like this? What happened?”
As I got up with Claire’s help—even though I hadn’t said anything, she took it upon herself to support me—Alice asked, surprised.
“She said she’s sick. I think it’s a cold.”
“A cold? But you didn’t go out today! It wasn’t like you exercised or anything.”
Alice made a very valid point. It was exactly what Claire had said.
Exactly. Usually, you don’t catch a cold just from being at home. I’m not that active of a person, anyway.
As Claire and Alice spoke, Charlotte and Mia naturally reacted as well.
“Are you saying Sylvia is sick?”
“Where does it hurt? Magic… Ah, that won’t work here.”
No, you can just do what you were doing!
Besides, there’s no need for two people to support me when I’m not even sick.
In the first place, a cold isn’t a huge deal. Sure, it might hurt a bit, but it’s not like I can’t walk at all, right?
“Could it be something that I ate today?”
“But if that was the case, we all would be sick.”
It was quite bothersome to be caught in the middle of Claire and Alice discussing this.
That’s right. Honestly, I felt embarrassed. I ended up acting all sick from saying just the wrong word.
… Ever since I forgot about reversing time, I’ve never felt the need for that ability more intensely than today.
“……”
Without meaning to, I found myself lying in the middle of our room, staring at the ceiling.
There was already a wet towel on my forehead. Unfortunately, I didn’t have any medicine on hand, so I couldn’t take anything.
… But can you take cold medicine even if you’re not sick?
No, more importantly, I don’t get why they’re not leaving the room while I’m lying here.
The room wasn’t exactly spacious; it had three desks, three beds, and a wardrobe, so it couldn’t have much spare room. There was a space to sit on the floor, but it wouldn’t be very spacious at all.
The kids sat between Claire and my beds and started chatting away.
Is this just going to become a habit?
“So, what was that post you were looking at earlier?”
Alice asked Claire with curious interest.
Claire answered while showing Alice her smartphone.
“Yeah. The world we were in is known as a game in this world, right? It’s only natural that there are fans and enthusiasts out there. And this person has been involved in related communities for a long time, writing all sorts of speculative posts.”
Not a community, but a forum.
I don’t even know the faces of the users. No, even from the start, if I had posted something like that, I would’ve been immediately shut down.
I know that from experience.
And it’s not like I only wrote speculative posts! I also wrote a lot of helpful tips! I’ve been banned several times, but I avoided permanent ban because of that!
Of course, later on, my position became precarious because of the translation tools, and I got banned again!
“This is just wrong in every way. Especially… What is this? My bust size? Even if we assume that someone might guess that, isn’t it just too ignorant about a girl’s underwear size?”
I wanted to cover my ears, but if I did that, they’d notice I wrote it, so I gritted my teeth and ignored it.
“And I didn’t have any hidden siblings. If I did, there would be no reason for Father to have made me the heir.”
Charlotte said.
No, that kind of setting is pretty common in these games, isn’t it? I thought there would be some new character or something.
“I’m just glad there were almost no speculations about me.”
Ah, that’s a relief. Now that I think about it, I didn’t write much about Mia.
In fact, if I did have speculations about that, it would lead into Claire’s story.
She was a character I had seriously considered whether to buy a figure of, so naturally, I didn’t want anyone criticizing her or putting her down.
Usually, some fans of these games have a repertoire of complaints when it comes to characters with such pasts.
It was hinted in the game that Claire’s father was killed, and the reason was fairly clear, but I was hesitating to judge whether he deserved to die until I confirmed it myself.
In the end, I did go with killing him.
“… But there are posts like this. ‘Why Claire is a virgin.’”
“……”
“This is a bit… awkward.”
Charlotte frowned slightly at Claire’s words.
“I get a feeling that someone likes her, but, uh, that’s a bit… yeah.”
Alice looked as if she was contemplating how to judge this.
“Honestly, doesn’t it give you the creepies?”
Mia cut it short.
My heart felt like a knife pierced it over all of that.
No, I mean.
At that time, they were just characters in a game. Who’d be talking about human rights while talking about game characters?
“Someone who wasted time in many ways—”
“—That’s not true.”
Ah.
I messed up.
I unintentionally retorted to Alice’s words.
But still, I wanted to say that’s not the case.
“I wrote guides and translated info. Even if it looks like that, people must have benefitted a lot from the things I wrote.”
When I suddenly jumped up and said that, the kids looked at me with dazed expressions.
“Uh.”
“And that guiding and translating takes much more time and effort than you might think. Do you know how hard it is to learn a language from another country without any abilities? And since it’s free translation, it’s only natural that I can throw in a few personal opinions as a bit of fun. It’s not like I’m being paid for it, so isn’t it ridiculous to nitpick about the accuracy? If you think your skills are better, go ahead and translate it yourself—”
“Uh, sis.”
Claire said in a very composed manner.
“Is this person your sister? Are you angry because she’s your sister?”
“……”
Thud.
I collapsed right into the bed.
And I pulled the covers up to cover my head.
“Sis, sis!? Wait, I’m sorry!”
“Uh, I’m sorry! I didn’t know it was you writing that…!”
“I mistook Sylvia for someone from this side!”
“… Was this the reason I’m sick?”
Mia’s last question hurt a lot.
“Don’t worry, sis. You thought we were just characters. The truth is, it wasn’t me who wrote it, but I just wrote it down after seeing a character that looked like me. Yeah, if I thought I was going to meet them in real life, I wouldn’t have been able to write something like that.”
… Ah, that was a kind thing to say.
Yeah, that’s right. I wasn’t writing about Claire or Alice. I was just putting down my impressions of the characters I had seen.
So—
I peeked my face out from under the blanket.
There was Claire smiling brightly at me.
“So, since you wrote something like this, could you read it out loud?”
[Claire is the most virtuous and pure character in the Chronicles of Aetherna, and any claims to the contrary are completely wrong.]
That was the last line of my ‘Claire the Virgin’ post.
“……”
I stared at the post for a moment before pulling the blanket back over my head.
And for about ten minutes, I kicked the air above the blanket.
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