《I Reincarnated as a Hero's Bad End》 Volume One Prologue: Obviously Obviously (A Pair of Arguing Ashari) ¡°Euda my friend! You must give me permission investigate Samantha¡¯s death!¡± ¡°And I have been telling you, it is not necessary Ashari Bein, people die from those sorts of accidents all the time. Just because it is strange doesn¡¯t mean that it is foul play. I admit the thought is tempting, the idea that my sister is still in a sense alive. I would be very happy if I got to meet her again but you have to admit that she is probably far beyond even your reach.¡± ¡°Admit? Come on! She was ran over by a truck while trying to save that kid! A TRUCK! Come ON! Rescue attempt! Truck! A situation where a person with heroic tendencies is killed by a vehicle that requires an additional license to drive it! It is just too coincidental for my tastes, that sort of style of death is currently all the rage for zutmis at the moment. Though personally in my opinion it¡¯s a most unoriginal and stupid fad but¡­¡± ¡°No, my answer is still no. I think the reason why Zutmis like to use that for a go-to-method is probably because it happens often enough for real that no one suspects it, the odds that my sister wasn''t taken are just too great.¡± ¡°How odd, we ashari tend to think the opposite, no odds are too small, are you protesting out of fear? Please calm yourself and think about it! If she is truly passed on, that¡¯s all fine and dandy, but if a zutmi really stole her¡­she could be living in misery right now as some lazy ¡°goddess¡¯s¡± lackey or form of sick entertainment¡­¡± ¡°¡­what is this really about? You didn¡¯t even know my sister personally.¡± ¡°Not personally yes technically, but from all that you have told and given me, plus my own research I can tell that she is one of us! Maybe not a full ashari but a high honorary at the very least and family no matter what the case!¡± ¡°¡­I admit that I have also thought so, have felt it as well, from the very moment you awakened me even I suspected it, but why her? and why now? I still feel you are not telling me all¡­don¡¯t forget I too am ashari there must be something that you are leaving out.¡± You could be reading stolen content. Head to Royal Road for the genuine story. ¡°Sigh, you really want me to answer completely eh? Fine then. I admit it I feel very guilty if only we had investigated your world sooner¡­even if your sister really did die in an ordinary accident I probably could have saved her, protected her¡­prevented harm from happening to her until she herself could prevent it. But I had decided to wait, you were probably a sleeper ashari with no need of my interference. By the time I suspected that you might be a newbie and a fellow garlic soul besides I was too late.¡± ¡°¡­Fine, but I don¡¯t want you to tell me anything unless you find her.¡± ¡°Oh thank you, thank you, thank you! I can¡¯t wait to meet her! And before you say anything negative as you negs tend to do, let me point out that although this world does not show any signs of reincarnation systems, there are plenty signs that soul abductions and world transfers have taken place.¡± ¡°Well I hope you are right about this, but¡­I have just had an idea... maybe no matter the case right or wrong¡­we could go and rescue another soul in a situation that''s similar or worse than being a ¡°gods¡± lackey?¡± ¡°What a great idea! It sounds like the perfect kind of penance for me...Plus it would give you some personal experience of what it is like to be a Pride Eater I know you are still leaning towards your birthright as garlic but there is no need to be inflexible, in my opinion the more options the better!¡± ¡°Well I am not saying that we or you should do anything immediately. There is no need for me or us to hurry any of these decisions ''haste makes not speed but sloppy''. Besides weren¡¯t you insisting when we first met, that the proper order of things was that we should secure my world and then establish my nest and territory first ?¡± ¡°Right¡­OH YEAH!¡± ¡°Hmm what is it?¡± ¡°Nothing, I had just forgotten all about even saying that!¡± :D ¡°YOU!¡± Volume One Chapter 1: I Talk About My Practical Mother I Talk About my Practical Mother (Princess Sakura of Quarnz) I had lived a relatively contented life. Until that fateful day when I choked on a cherry seed during my 7th birthday party. No don¡¯t laugh, it¡¯s actually not as humorous as it sounds. If my nurse Xia hadn¡¯t noticed immediately and pounded me on the back until the seed was dislodged from my throat I might have even died. As it was I merely fainted. Fainting does not seem like a major deal especially if it is a young princess doing the fainting as princesses are known to do so. But there have been many times since then, that I have fantasized that instead of fainting that I actually suffocated to death on that day. Don¡¯t get me wrong I am far from being suicidal, but you know that saying: ¡°Ignorance is bliss?¡± Well one doesn¡¯t realize just how true that proverb is until your ignorance is painfully stripped from you. I know from personal experience, losing your innocence can be more painful then flayed flesh. As I have said, my life was relatively content. I was born as the first daughter and tentative crown princess of the Kingdom of Quarnz. I was unaware at the time but I happily lost the title a year later when my younger brother was born. Happily because as crown princess I would have been constantly tutored and under direct supervision of various stern servants. This I know from visiting my brother. I was much more free as a ¡®mere¡¯ princess, and besides because of my mother¡¯s wishes I had been somewhat protected from being married off. My mother had been an exotic courtesan with imperial royal blood. She was a Nimese, and when our country formed political connections with hers, as the sole remaining unmarried female of the imperial royal family at that time, she quit her career as the Highest Flower in order to marry my father out of filial duty. Which wouldn¡¯t have seemed that bad a deal in this country, as our courtesans are just expensive prostitutes, but apparently in Nim a Highest Flower can be considered equivalent to a major nobility in social status and honor. This was even more so because my mother was one of the rare few courtesans who had accomplished the task without ever becoming a man¡¯s mistress. Part of this was because of said royal blood, but in my opinion the main reason my mother remained ¡®pure¡¯ was because of her generously sized pride and ambition. According to Xia I now know that my mother had originally desired to be the queen in her own country. So it really wasn¡¯t the biggest of catches for my mother. However as you might have guessed already all the unrelated royalty were already married or completely unsuitable. Some of them according to rumor had more than one wife. As said my mother was a most prideful woman. Though she might have considered being a first bride in a polygamous relationship, there was no way that she would stand for being a second let alone a third bride. Her ambition was much too high to settle for that. So although it wasn¡¯t the best she could do it was extremely far from the worst. My mother¡¯s pride was mainly two. Fold firstly the majority of her pride went towards herself. Her beauty primarily and then about all her courtly manners. I should know because Xia and the other Nim servants have practically made my ears bleed with all the compliments and stories I have been told about these commendations. The second area of her pride had to do with her pride for her country. In her opinion Nim was the greatest, most cultured, and advanced country in all the world. And this is just the beginning of a long list of compliments. In fact, if my grandfather the emperor hadn¡¯t pointed out all the merits that a foreign marriage would have for Nim as well as the fact that my mother would act as a showpiece to the Quarnz for how superior the Nimese were. She probably wouldn¡¯t have even considered it. The way he worded things with his silver tongue you would think that Nim was doing Quarnz a favor, rather than the truth which was that it was mostly the other way around. At that time Nim was living by a very old fashioned feudal system in which a few rich nobles lived off the bounty of hordes of hard working peasants who were kept in line partly by poverty but mostly through fear of a group of warrior aristocracy known as samurai. But then for some reason or another (I am not that familiar with Nim history) Nim picked a fight with one of our shared neighbors but got more than they bargained for. They won, but at a great cost, their ranks of soldiers were greatly depleted and their numbers of samurai devastated. They quickly started to implement plans to create more samurai through adoption and through the promotion of some of the more skilled rank and file soldiers but it wasn¡¯t quick enough. Peasants not having as much to fear started uprising and less working meant less food and other raw materials being collected or created. Famines started in many areas which created more uprisings which¡­well you get the idea. Fortunately for Nim there was an upside to this debacle that is the country they picked a fight with was apparently a long time enemy with Quarnz so they were inadvertently doing us a favor. So Quarnz cut a deal with them. Quarnz would sell its food to Nim for extremely low prices, essentially let them ¡°borrow¡± some of their soldiers to protect them until they regained an appropriate amount of samurais and soldiers, as well as send an ambassador with experience in negotiating with unhappy lower classes. And all they had to do in return was sign a treaty of peace and alliance with Quarnz and find a suitable person of royal blood to become the young king¡¯s bride. Like my mother my father was apparently also having difficulties finding someone appropriate to marry, either that or perhaps he had heard the rumors of my mother¡¯s beauty. Doesn¡¯t really matter ,because to my grandfather the answer was obvious he immediately sent a representative (my uncle the imperial crown prince) to sign the treaty. And begain to polish his silver tongue in preparation for the long battle to warm my mother up to the idea. I really want to meet that talented fellow one day (he is still alive) to hear him speak must be really something for after only a few weeks of flattery, promises and quite a large gift in the form of a huge dowry my mother acquiesced. Along with her huge dowry my mother also took hundreds perhaps even thousands of servants practically an army of guards and body guards, and various supplies, treasures and even animals. The story has been illicitly taken; should you find it on Amazon, report the infringement. It was probably almost everything in her ¡®small¡¯ personal mansion but perhaps the kitchen sink. There was no need Quarnz like Nim is quite advanced in technology and has plumbing. My mother was most practical and also used to a most luxurious lifestyle that she didn¡¯t feel that the ¡®inferior¡¯ Quarnz could meet. As to her thoughts on my father they were probably at least neutral. As said what my mother desired was to be queen, and if possible queen in her own ¡®superior¡¯ country but as she was the 7th or so royal daughter (can never remember the little details) had 12 or so royal brothers not to mention the tens and dozens of royal cozens and nephews, in order to become queen she would have to somehow plan the deaths of hundreds of people. While Xia might tell you such a wonderful, dignified and noble lady such as my mother would never even consider the idea of murder. From the little that I remember about her before her death, as well as from eavesdropping and reading between the lines, if she had the opportunity she probably would have taken it. But alas murdering so many is not only hard to do without someone finding out and hating you for it but also just not practical, and my mother was as said if not anything else practical. Apparently her practical nature stood her good in her marriage for not too long after arriving I was born. Despite the rumors I was definitely my father¡¯s. Despite mostly looking like a Nimese on the surface I have his bright green eyes. I also overheard several servants laughing and joking about my, shall we say unusual girth and stature? It seems that other then some vaguely Nimese features I didn''t get much from my mother¡¯s side, most of whom seem to come in rather slender petite sizes especially for the females, instead was formed in the mold of my late paternal grandfather. King Helmrick had shared with me his generously large body proportions. Or as I heard: ¡°She is just like a miniature version of great Helmrick the third, only female.¡± A year after me as I¡¯ve said, came my brother and a few years after that my mother unfortunately or fortunately possibly passed away from an illness. You may be wondering why I have been talking so much about my mother, well there are several reasons. First of all, after this speech, I will mostly cease talking about her, so if I didn¡¯t do it now I probably will never feel the need to. Which as you might soon see would probably would cause all sorts of misunderstandings. Second of all, I don¡¯t want you to feel any sort of pity for me, or be under the illusion, that since I never mention my mother, that I must have this big secret issue with talking about her or that I am a poor motherless child. You might not completely understand why I am saying this until later, but simply I do not want to be seen with any more sympathy then I have to. Finally and most importantly I am telling you about her, because I don¡¯t want you to be able to find a gap in my story and start making wild imaginings on what happened to the queen, and worry about assassination plots or murder mysteries. There is no mystery so far as I know, and even if there was evidence of my mother being assassinated I don¡¯t think it would matter anyway. Firstly my father and brothers do not seem so hot headed as to start a war over her death if the origin turned out to be another country. Also and more importantly, I don¡¯t see any way that it could affect me now regardless, not only was it so long ago. There can¡¯t possibly be a chance that I will be attacked in my mother¡¯s places as a crime of passion especially since I am not beautiful like mother. Now that I have hopefully settled the matter, let me hammer the final nail in her coffin by telling you about her cause of death. She died from food poisoning. And no, I am not making this up. Xia likes to dramatically recount that my mother died from homesickness from desperately missing her family and old life, and if you take away some of the more dramatic parts of what she said I would be able to agree with that assessment, in my opinion technically it is a correct one. My mother did die from missing her homeland, or to be more precise missing some of her favorite and familiar foods she was craving. Being the queen there would have been no problem if her craving had been something that is easy to transport and store like rice, but destiny had other plans it seems. For she had been craving one of the most dangerous foods known to mankind. She had been greatly craving fish. In Quarnz although our food is neither disgusting nor primitive as Xia would like to think, I cannot deny that it is rather lacking in aquatic bounty. This is partly because most Quarnzen people think that fish is disgusting, but mostly because unlike the peninsular and island kingdom of Nim, Quarnz is completely land enclosed, except for a few small lakes and rivers, and very few people even know how to fish. My mother had to import fish in, if she wanted to eat it, and the closest source was over a week away by trader wagon. I don¡¯t know if the fish was bad to begin with or if the journey took its toll, but not long after happily consuming her favorite food whilst complaining of the taste, she started puking and things got worse from then on, and I am glad I am not able to tell you anything in detail. Now that my mother is finally done and buried we can continue from where we left off, shall we? I was a most chubby and happy child. Chubby because the Nimese cooks my mother had brought with her in her copious entourage made exquisite and near heavenly food. Happy because I was the sort of happy go lucky kid that found joy in the smallest of things. I was so content at my lot in life, so accepting of whatever might happen to me that I believed I probably would have remained so, as I had been an optimist who could find the silver lining in almost anything. If only I hadn¡¯t decide that day that I craved fresh fruit preferably cherries. If only I hadn¡¯t clumsily swallowed the seed and chocked on it instead of spitting it out as intended. But I did choke, in fact I nearly died from that cherry seed, and when I awoke, I remembered everything. Some were things I had forgotten because of my young age. I suddenly could recall everything up to my toddlerhood when I had first gained some ability to reason. This would have been fine and perhaps useful. However it wasn¡¯t only kind of memories that I gained. Unexpectedly not only could I remember some of my should-have-been-forgotten infancy but also I could recall things from even before that. Yes, it is exactly as you are thinking, I impossibly now could remember not just the little I had experienced in this life but all of my past life as well. Volume One Chapter 2: A Mostly Happy Family Spoiler : To anyone who has tried this story: Sorry about leaving you with technically only one chapter that makes no sense, if you want to find out the reasons as to why this happened you can read the spoiler section of RF and WMAW. I have a good feeling about this story, mainly because I think the genre will suit my writing style a bit better then my other two stories do, as it is actually intended to be slice of life from the very beginning. The main character is also from what I have seen, very different from most other MC''s I have seen so far. Something interesting to keep in mind is that Sakura (specifically her appearance) will not change much throughout the story. What I mean is that she won''t go through a sudden transformation that turns her into a perfect beauty (at least not in the traditional sense and not in the beginning or even the middle). Also because of the complaints I have received, after I get around to describing her appearance in a bit more detail... and you have really good imagination and want to get rid of my current cover art, if you send me a replacement I will consider using it. Several things to keep in mind: *It must be astoundingly good and in my tastes *I can''t compensate you, at least financially *I probably won''t use it, but even if I don''t I shall post it on one of the chapters anyway so others can see it, unless you don''t want me too. Also if you dislike the art of my other story''s, either RF or WMAW you can always submit a cover for them as well, but keep in mind that I am even more unlikely to use it. A Mostly Happy Family (Samantha now called Sakura) Before I died my name was Samantha Swanson. My father¡¯s name was Howard, my mother¡¯s name was Kara, they were basically the usual breadwinner and housewife pair, and I had two older Sisters Lucinda, a queen b***h and Ramona. I also had one older brother Howard younger then my sisters, a passive sports freak and basically Lucinda¡¯s slave. Then there was me and last was the baby, his name was James. For most of that life I was under the delusion that our family was a completely ordinary, healthy and happy family. And on the surface at least that was mostly true. Our parents were far from getting a divorce and when they weren¡¯t squabbling or bickering over minor things they seemed like they were in love with each other. My siblings Lucy and Howie were both doing quite well in school, Lucy with her cheer-leading and academics and Howie with his sports and student council activities. I myself was into track and would often join any sports club who asked me to join. Even with baby James, even though it was too early to really tell, it seemed that he was if not above average in his development certainly not below. For the longest time even back then, the only one who I felt didn¡¯t fit in, and didn¡¯t seem happy was Ramona. Almost our whole family was athletic, my father was a retired football player, and my mother had been a dancer that had even made it on the stage. We all loved to go on vacations that involved the great outdoors, hiking, swimming or other extreme tests of endurance and survival were activities that we preferred. Yes our whole family liked to do those sorts of things, our whole family except Ramona. She would always stay in the house, or the tent or the hotel and would sit there and read a book or do mysterious things on her computer. Whenever one of us asked her to play with us or participate in some fun activity if she didn¡¯t refuse she would whine and complain and incompetently join in while sighing depressingly. She was also unlike the rest of us physically, we who were all toned and fit from our participation in sports and or gym workouts, in comparison to her who was somewhat overweight and would get out of breath easily. My parents would constantly nag on her to eat less or to get up and move. But she didn¡¯t seem to listen or to care, and would just sit there stoically. My other siblings would also nag the rare times my parents didn¡¯t beat them do it, but they were slightly more insulting. Instead of using euphemisms like overweight or chubby, like my parents did. They would often yell at her things such as fatty or obese. I myself was also guilty of this sometimes but in my defense it was usually only when I didn¡¯t get my way with her, was angry, or sometimes when I was jealous to see her eating as much as she wanted while I couldn¡¯t knowing from personal experience that I would feel sick when I tried run on an overstuffed stomach. Her level of fitness wasn¡¯t the only way she seemed to differ either. My father is in a leadership position in his job and is always saying such phrases as If you discover this narrative on Amazon, be aware that it has been stolen. Please report the violation. ¡°You can do anything you put your mind too all it takes is will power and the desire to succeed¡± He was also quite strict with us. My mother used to be a Miss Vineland pageant contestant and had even once won a state level contest, she knew everything about fashion and style, and she has managed to continue hundreds of friendships most of them from her school years, despite her extremely busy schedule with her volunteer work and ¡®housewife¡¯ duties. Lucinda and my mother could be twins, and my sister seems to be following in her footsteps, being a cheerleader and head of her social group. If you hear about a huge party being planned at our school my sister was probably involved in the planning at some level. Although Howard didn¡¯t really have much ambitions he still possessed a sort of charisma that made him extremely popular without him even really trying, and most everybody he met became his friend or at least got along with him. Although I myself wasn¡¯t traditionally popular, because I liked to be extremely busy I would volunteer to help anyone who asked me too. Teachers especially found me dependable, and if someone was starting a program at school the one they would go to for advice in getting things organized was usually me. Although unlike my brother I never ran for student government I was fairly sure that if I did I probably could have easily won, as most everyone seemed to know who I was and were on if not friendly then neutral terms with me. Ramona on the other hand was an introvert, near to being a shut in. Except for occasional participation in drama club or after school creative writing, and frequent trips to the library, she almost never chose to go outside. She also didn¡¯t seem to have any friends at all. Unlike my mother and Sister who made daily make up checks and myself who would put it on when the occasion required. Ramona almost never wore make up or dressed up, the few times she did a year my mother would have to force her, or Lucy would use her as an unwilling manikin. Her clothes were always sloppy, as my parents said she looked like a slob. My brother often insisted that she had horrid hygiene and that she stank. Although to me she smelled perfectly fine if not nice, I might have deceived myself into agreeing with him anyway, had I not known for a fact that she bathed almost every day as we both preferred to take showers at night and thus often fought over who would go first. Sometimes it seemed to me that my family hated her, to my father she was a disappointment, to my mother she was embarrassment, and to my other two elder siblings often times they seemed to use her as a stress relief essentially she became their verbal punching bag they used to feel better about themselves. I myself would like to think that I wasn¡¯t as bad, but as mentioned this doesn¡¯t mean that I got along with her. Actually at that time I feel that I was rather apathetic and neutral when it came to her. She was just sort of there in my life, almost as if she were part of the furniture, or was a pet that had long lost the excitement of newness and was now only another chore. Did the dishes, check, took out the trash, check, fed the lazy older sister, check. Actually even though I say I didn¡¯t spend much time with her with my neat freak and generally nice and submissive personality as I usually ended up doing most of the chores in my free time, and the fact that we shared several habits and a sleep schedule of fellow night owls, I probably spent more time with her then the rest of my family combined. Obviously my elder sister was the favorite of my mom, Howard was the favorite of my dad and I and the baby came in as a close third almost tied with James, the baby having a slight lead. Ramona on the other hand seemed like she always came in last. We would go to her drama productions, but as she never had any important roles and we would usually just give her lip service on how well she did as tree number 8 or whatever minor part she had, and then stop talking about her play and instead move on to other topics on the ride home. During that brief stint in time that she was a part of the school marching band we would go to her recitals and concerts, but as with the plays, nothing much was said and the compliments were routine and soon pushed aside for more important conversation like my brother¡¯s football games. As I have already mentioned I didn¡¯t really think much of anything for her. In fact other than an occasional wince in sympathy, and regular moments of joy at the fact that I wasn¡¯t doing anything to receive the same treatment she did, I didn¡¯t really think of her at all. Then that incident happened to me and things changed when I got to know her. It was to the point that the way I looked at the world was nearly turned upside down. I am especially glad now that this happened because if it hadn¡¯t happened I would have never have gotten into liking light novels. And I would never have gotten the information of just how my new life was similar to those literature genres, and one story in particular. It all started when I was hospitalized. Volume One Chapter 3: The Start of the Life Changing Visits Spoiler : I wonder what people will think of the character of Romona? While there are many differences she is one of the few characters that I allowed to be like myself. And while Ro won''t interact directly in the story for quite some time, you will probably be able to see that she had a major impact on the MC and continues to effect her. I think I will have 2 or 3 more flashback chapters before going back to the new world again. Actually I wonder how the story will end up...? Well I guess we''ll have to wait and see. The Start of the Life Changing Visits (Samantha) I won¡¯t go to deep into the details of how I ended up in the hospital. Suffice to say it was first partly out my own bad decisions, then mostly because a classmate was being really stupid and finally a bit of nasty bad luck was the straw that broke the camels back. The how and whys don¡¯t really matter in this instance. You just need to know that I was injured badly enough that I couldn¡¯t go to school for months and that other than doing some homework sent to me regularly by my teachers and watching TV I had nothing to do, and of course I was near to dyeing from boredom. For the first few weeks the whole family visited me nearly every day. However they my mother and father especially had busy lives, and once they saw that I wasn¡¯t going to die or be crippled, they came less and less, until finally I was lucky if I received a phone call. Not long after mother greatly cut the frequency of her visits my oldest sister followed suit, my elder brother managed to make it a few days longer but then sissy got jealous and soon he was making his excuses and not showing up. Just in case you are feeling that I left someone out I am going to put on the hat of captain obvious and point out that since James is a baby he and my mother are a package deal...just kidding. Yes, I have yet to mention Ramona. For a time after my parents stopped coming she didn¡¯t appear as well. I didn¡¯t give much thought to this and just assumed that she was ¡®busy¡¯ being her and like my parents felt there was no need to visit me. A short while after my brother stopped visiting I started to suffer from loneliness. I hadn¡¯t really acknowledged it before, but prior to this hospitalization I had almost never been alone. Whether it be at school or at home I was almost always surrounded by family friends or acquaintances. Nurses and doctors don¡¯t really count, and although when they found out what happened my ¡®friends¡¯ had quickly promised to visit, they had gotten bored of it even quicker than my parents, and other then being sent an occasional get well email, or a random comment on my social networking site I did not really get anything substantial from my peers from school. Although I can say truthfully that I get along with my teachers more than most students do, I can¡¯t really say that I am true friends with any of them either. So while I did receive with gratitude several baskets of fruit and a bouquet of balloons from my goofy science teacher, there was not enough contribution to negate any of my loneliness. For other than the small comments they made on some of my homework after correcting it I didn¡¯t really get communication from them either. As I said I became desperately lonely. The kind of lonely that allows for a lot of introspection. I realized that I gave to others far more then what I received. Later when I researched the subject I learned that my type of personality is often labeled as ¡®the nurturer¡¯, I cannot deny that I am the type to care more about others then I do myself. Thinking about how, despite everything I do I was rarely acknowledged for it, or even appreciated for it started to make me feel depressed. My sadness exacerbated my feelings of loneliness, and mixing those feelings with boredom I ended up in quite the uncomfortable state. I was few days into enduring such feelings when my sister suddenly reappeared into my life. I had been working on one of my recently delivered homework assignments forcing myself to take as long as possible as I knew that once I finished I would have nothing to do. There was a knock on my room¡¯s door frame and I looked up when I heard the sound of one of usual nurses clearing her throat. Next to the nurse stood Ramona smiling and lightly waving one hand. This content has been misappropriated from Royal Road; report any instances of this story if found elsewhere. I couldn¡¯t believe my eyes at first and just stared at her after the nurse who had led her here left probably after saying something, probably along the lines of ¡®your sister came to visit you isn¡¯t that nice¡¯, but I couldn¡¯t hear her, I was that shocked. After a few moments of silence Ramona walked up to my hospital bed and waved her hand in front of my eyes. ¡°Hello anyone home?¡± She smirked at my shock. After I blinked several times, I asked in befuddlement ¡°What are you doing here?¡± She gave me a look that said ¡®isn¡¯t it obvious¡¯ then declared in a neutral tone of voice that was hinting that I had just gone insane. ¡°Visiting you of course.¡± I could barely get my hand around the concept, Ramona was visiting me? Hadn¡¯t she only come before because the others forced her to go? That is what I had believed, and what happened during the visits of my family only served to enforce this belief. While my mother and sister had exclaimed and fussed over my injuries, my brother had hugged me then held my hand, and my father had repeated what the doctor said alongside the encouragement of ¡°you will be back in the game in no time.¡± Ramona had just stood silently in a corner and looked reluctant to be there. In my mind there had been no other explanation then she had been forced to go. As I was thinking this in full befuddlement. Romona started speaking again. ¡°I am sorry that I had stopped visiting and wasn¡¯t able to come again sooner, but when brother was eh encouraged by our mutual ¡®deeda¡¯ to stop coming I lost my ride, and since I have never really had to use the bus system other than to go to school, it took me a while to figure out how to get here. ¡° Seeing that I was still not replying, she assumed that my silence was accusatory sighed and admitted. ¡°Well yes, I could have gotten here earlier but I had¡­stuff that was taking up a lot of my time, plus I figured that you wouldn¡¯t want me bothering you while you were having your vacation. I mean, I am so jealous! Other than a few homework assignments you don¡¯t have to work and can just lie around all day doing almost whatever you want! Plus you don¡¯t have our evil deeda breathing down your neck here.¡± I continued to stare at her, in a corner of my mind I recalled the dim memory of our childhood before Lucy and thus of course Howie had decided that it was uncool to be with family, a time when everyone still played together and Ramona had called Lucy by her strange made up word ¡®deeda¡¯ and Howie and I were occasionally referred to as ¡®ooduh¡¯. In that faintly remembered time, where strangely, instead of insulting Ramona we all admired her, and appreciated her for her great ability to come up with games and other things to do, and lead us in doing them. As I recalled that happy time which I until now had let myself forget, I suddenly had a surge of affection for my sister and I found myself smiling as I spoke to her. ¡°No it¡¯s fine, I am just glad that you came at all, unlike you I find it terribly boring when I am by myself I can scarcely consider this a vacation.¡± Ramona looked at me thoughtfully. ¡°I can understand feeling alone, but bored? How is that possible? I mean there is so many possibilities as to what one can do in this day in age!¡± ¡°If you are referring to technology I am just about sick of it. All my games get old really fast and if I have to watch another boring plotless TV show I will probably scream.¡± Ramona showed a exaggerated face of shocked horror and put fake fear in her voice as she said. ¡°All you have been doing is watching TV? That¡¯s terrible, no wonder you are bored.¡± To my surprise she moved even closer to me and while being careful of my reasons of covalence hugged me. ¡°My dear ooduhii, let your deeda show you how to have fun.¡± Seeing the mischievous smile on her face I just had to smile back and answer with. ¡°Okay.¡± Volume One Chapter 4: Cats Spoiler : Sorry for the shortness of the chapter, don''t worry most of them won''t be this short. I did this mainly because RF is at 24 WMAW is at 14 and now this one is at 4! Aren''t patterns nice? Now when I update them all at the same time each one will be ahead of the one below it by ten chapters :) Cats (Sakura) The first thing I learned from my sister actually wasn¡¯t how to have fun, though I was having so much fun I didn¡¯t realize it until much later after much reflection. No the first thing I learned was that my point of view was actually very narrow. Why had I given up on having fun in the first place? Wasn¡¯t it because I had thought I had done all the activities possible while on convalescence? Why had I never tried any experiences outside the few things that I participated in? Wasn¡¯t it because once I found a few things that I at the very least didn¡¯t dislike, I never felt the need to see if there was any other possibilities? Furthermore and most importantly why had I so looked down on my sister in past, and why had we never done anything together? Wasn¡¯t it because I had always been taught by my parents and told by the rest of my family, that any activities that were nonphysical and indoors were boring, and because she didn¡¯t like participating in the vigorous activities that we loved, she was a boring ¡®party pooper¡¯ that never experienced any enjoyment or fun? It was quite obvious once I added one and one together and came up with two. I was quite limited in my past thinking. I was ignorant to the point that once enlightened I had to look at my past self as someone with a major disability. I squirmed in embarrassment to think of all the times in the past where I had thought myself so open minded and receptive (at least compared to the majority of others) and I turned red whenever I recall my smug sense of superiority. Most significantly I learned through my ¡®lessons¡¯ that while my past ways of thinking and favored activities weren¡¯t invalid, they were also extremely far from being the only valid ones existing. They weren¡¯t even the tip of their respective iceberg. I am grateful for my ability to adapt, it is one of things I like most about myself. Though I had indeed been quite boxed in and na?ve, it didn¡¯t hold me back from letting myself experience new things. While I regretted most deeply later that I hadn¡¯t experienced such an awaking sooner, I often comforted myself with the thought that at least I hadn¡¯t tossed my opportunity aside and continued to live obliviously. In fact I had even grabbed on to this new chance eagerly and with both hands . Ramona started her ¡®education¡¯ by taking out her laptop and logging on to a video hosting website that I had only heard of in passing before. She then asked me to say the first word that pops into my head. I glanced around the room, my head blank, finally I noticed a get well card that was sitting at the top of a little pile of similar gifts that were on top of my bedside table. On it , a little cat was barely clinging to the end of a tree branch that was sinking a bit under its weight, the words ¡®Hang in there¡¯ floated above the sad scene in big cheery letters. Enjoying this book? Seek out the original to ensure the author gets credit. ¡°¡­cat?¡± I said with not a little trepidation. ¡°Felineiii? Oh that¡¯s perfect!¡± she grinned at me widely, baring a mouth full of crooked teeth, briefly to my view. She typed the word ¡®cat¡¯ in the search engine and I carefully watched as she hit enter. After a few seconds of loading time, the results appeared. I was actually surprised when I saw the number of available videos. Who knew there existed millions of videos about those little fur balls, that our family had never had in the past because of our brother¡¯s allergies? My sister didn¡¯t seemed phased at all however she, just slowly scrolled down the page while muttering. ¡°Which one seems most fun...? Hmmm¡­I know! let¡¯s try that one!¡± She clicked on one of many options and I watched as the show started. If I had to summarize the events that followed I would say that we had a cat video marathon, followed by a cat binge, and finishing with a splurge of watching a particular silly music video, that for some reason, both of us found it hilarious, that we had it on repeat about a hundred times. I am a bit embarrassed to admit this, but we watched cat videos until late at night, and by the time a nurse came to ¡®gently¡¯ drag my sister away, visiting hours were completely over and I hadn¡¯t even thought about let alone touched my homework. The next day, I was much less surprised when she came again. This time we had changed our video marathon from cats to dogs, and then the next day to even more exotic pets. After we got bored of animals we would play the random word game or occasionally when in an unimaginative mood we would check the recommended list to see if anything stood out. I slowly started to really relax and came to look forward to and even expect her visits. For almost a month she came almost every day, and the few times she wasn¡¯t there the explanation she gave me was usually homework, to my chagrin, I had become so entrapped in our time wasting pursuits that homework which had been so important and something¡¯s entertaining for me before became a boring low priority. So mustering up my weakened industriousness, I insisted on a schedule, we would only watch the videos for the latter half of her visits, the rest of the time, I would do homework. She did argue against me briefly at first saying such things as ¡®this is a vacation¡¯ but she didn¡¯t put much strength to it. I had learned something about my sister since I had spent more time with her, those constant complains that I had found so depressing and annoying in the past were usually mostly just talk, with no real bite to them, the best way to get her to shut up or change her negativity, was to agree with her, or better yet find something in her words that had flawed logic or was debatable and then ask her to elaborate what she meant by that. I had come to understand her much better, but it didn¡¯t come about because of my own ability. Volume One Chapter 5: My Deedas Instruction Manual My Deeda''s Instruction Manual (Samantha) Spoiler : Well today is my birthday! Happy birthday to me!! [th_091_-2.gif] Anyway I decided to celebrate by doing the Hobit tradition of giving people presents! So here is a chapter (hopefully I will be able to do another one by the end of December making this at least a two chapter release month but no promises unfortunately) As part of the party I am even including a bonus illustration!! (OOOOH!) Done by me (Sarcastic yay) I know I suck. (please have mercy) Well...this isn''t supposed to be that serious of a fanfic/webnovel anyway... Please enjoy the chapter, I wrote it just for you!~ In the past it was easy to become emotional and then overly stubborn. This would happen often and though I felt guilty the conclusion to any ¡®conflict¡¯ would happen in either one of two ways. I would either abandon her without explanation or apology, even if I had been helping her with something beforehand. Or I would give in to my baser urges and squabble with her like a little child. One of the main reasons I hadn¡¯t spent much time with her in the past was because I abhorred those kind of results. Remembering my apprehension in the beginning to spend so much time with her I was pleasantly surprised that my fears were easily realized. When I learned the correct way to handle her. For example when it came to doing homework, whenever she got off track I would just present some clear logical reasons as to why I wanted what I was asking. I would proceed to debate a bit with her and after a token amount of reluctance (despite appearances) she would acquiesce. There was more to it than this, but it is a bit hard to explain and that is the gist of it. The usually calm and sometimes even cheerful way we acted around each other then was quite the improvement over the not so distant past which would end up with either I or Ramona throwing the textbook at the floor and screaming at each other, and this is just one example there were probably hundreds of little tricks that I had learned that made everything so much easier. You may be a bit confused when I say this, but the way I learned these new Ramona handling methods of mind was not through experimentation or observation, but because she told me. Yes you heard me right, Ramona had actually written an instruction manual about herself and proceeded to give it to me in pieces and parcels as time went on. Seeing its effectiveness I started to wonder why she didn¡¯t do this for our parents or others I had heard she had trouble with at school. I mean the uses were obvious, as I knew from personal experience, not long after I started to get the hang of dealing with her, all the little botherations I had with her in past vanished, almost without a trace. When I asked she gave me a serious look and said. ¡°What makes you think that I didn¡¯t try to give this information to others? I did in fact try to many times, but they would either insist that I didn¡¯t know what I was talking about, that it wasn¡¯t their methods that needed to change but Ramo herself. But Ramona can¡¯t change herself¡­ not even if she wanted to, and even if Ramona tried to be what they wanted her to be one little slip up and it was like all the work she did didn¡¯t happen, and they would get angry when Ramona said that maybe other way¡­would have more effect on Ramona¡¯s behavior. Besides, usually them not believing Ramona was actually not the worst result.¡± Hesitantly almost not wanting to know, I asked. ¡°Then what was the worst result?¡± If you discover this tale on Amazon, be aware that it has been unlawfully taken from Royal Road. Please report it.She paused for a long moment then said almost expression then with pain. ¡°That they would use Romona¡¯s information against her, that they would learn from it but instead of using it to help and talk to Ramona they would use it to manipulate her, and more worse would lie to others¡­in control and use them indirectly to¡­do things to Ramona.¡± ¡°What things.¡± I asked feeling a bit angry at the thought of someone hurting my sister on purpose, while my other siblings would often mock her for her so called ¡®mental disabilities¡¯ even when I hadn¡¯t cared much for her I had hugely disliked when anyone did this. I never could see the entertainment found in mocking someone for things that were out of their control. She told me. It was the first time that I had felt so much anger about another person, actually it was the first time I had felt so much emotion about anyone. In the past, all my relationships with others including to the rest of my family had been really shallow and I hadn¡¯t had enough of a connection to feel much no matter what happened. But once I had started to really open up to Ramona I had started to change, I felt things more deeply more strongly than I ever had before. At the same time however, I had felt that I hadn¡¯t changed at all and I was the exact same person, only seeing things a little differently. It was kind of a queer sort of feeling but I didn¡¯t hate it. Although I got angry more easily and felt sad more often, I also felt far happier than I ever had and any fun experience was far more pleasurable then I could ever remember even my past memories of trying it for the first time. Yes I didn¡¯t hate it and I didn¡¯t regret. Though I had lost my old way of life I had gained a new one, a life in which I realized that I rather than finding a sister I discovered that I had never lost one in the first place. The realization as well as her confession about some of her past experience made us much closer, and soon after I got her to strict to a schedule involving homework she not only started to bring her own homework with her when she visited but she also was not afraid to talk to me about it, or be asked about my own. Unsurprisingly we ended up helping each other study. Although she was a few years older than me, this was not as far-fetched as it sounds. She had been held back in a few classes (specifically math and one other, the later she said was because the teacher hadn¡¯t liked her) and I had advanced in a few classes early because of my place on honor roll. Despite what her failures might incline some people to think, she was not stupid as I had heard her been called in the past. Actually she was quite intelligent. Some of the questions in my homework that I struggled with she would show me how to get the answer quite easily, and in a way that was easy for me to understand and remember. Unfortunately I learned more from her rather than the other way around. Though I had gained some patience from my recent understanding of her, I still got annoyed when she failed to see the very obvious and especially when she asked the same question for the nth time, when I had answered it for as equally as many. In fact it was when we were going through that annoying process that I soon had another revelation about my life, one which would change more than just myself and my view of Ramona. ¡°So when you divide here, you just use the XXX method and you end up with x=...¡± ¡°-so that minus that¡­and then ex-ii equals 1 right!?¡± Ramona interrupted me excitement in her voice. She is just like a little kid, I thought, wasn¡¯t she reaching her majority soon and she was still this immature? No wonder some of those teacher¡¯s got angry at her¡­ I scratched that disloyal thought and sighed, just when I was about to reply with what I suspected to end up as either a rebuke at her interrupting me or my opinion that she hadn¡¯t used the right method even though she had gotten the right answer, when the loud annoying voice of our ¡®deeda¡¯ (older sister) Lucy interrupted. ¡°What is she doing here?¡± She sneered. The rest of my family, who hadn¡¯t visited in a while were standing in the doorway. Volume One Chapter 6: Differences Become More Obvious Differences Become More Obvious (Samantha) Spoiler : So Merry Christmas, Happy Holidays and all the rest of the various seasons greetings depending on your culture ;) You may object but the flash backs shall continue anyway Muhahhah! Well actually they may end sooner then I expected but I think there is a reason for them...(there has to be or else all my writing has been pointless) Lucy continued to look at us with an undisguised sneer then, she seemed to come to her own conclusions and smiled as she said to me. ¡°So you have been helping the fat useless lard with her homework? How sweet?¡± Had she always sounded that patronizing? I had always known she wasn¡¯t a nice person, I referred to her as evil, in my head all the time after all, but wasn¡¯t this reaction a bit much. I looked at my mother with a frown on my face. ¡°Mom did you hear that?¡± I asked a bit concerned. ¡°Lucile it isn¡¯t very lady like to use such course language.¡± My mother said immediately without much energy. Look, I thought to myself, I know you are probably tired but shouldn¡¯t you use at least a bit more effort in defending her? Not being lady like had practically nothing to do with the real crime after all. I felt peeved but I kept silent, knowing from past personal experiences, that when my mother sounded like that, not only would further requests for action do nothing but let us hear a few more unenthusiastic reprimands or perhaps equally weak requests for the inflictor to apologize, but also even though she occasionally said the words, I felt that in the end Lucy was incapable of remorse. However I still had a burning desire for justice in my heart so I looked to my father with my final hope in my eyes. To my disappointment though not to my surprise, he had a blank almost bored look in his face and it seemed having entering last he ¡®apparently¡¯ didn¡¯t hear anything at all. So in the end I didn¡¯t say anything, though he was usually somewhat more effective in disciplining us then my mother, he usually acted more on emotion than truth and Lucy usually could lead him by the nose. Out of concern I lastly looked at my sister, and saw that she had her usual slightly smiling, glossy eyes expression that I had seen on her face many times before but until now it had never registered as off. She didn¡¯t say anything, and just sat there, I noticed that the hand that held the writing implement was now relaxed and that the notebook she was using was leaning to the side seemly forgotten. For the first time I felt real burning anger at the rest of my family, and unlike the times in the past where I felt something similar I found that I could not swallow it down and pretend to ¡®forget¡¯ about it. Besides the anger there were other repercussions when before I had really looked forward to their visits and had greatly enjoyed myself and felt less lonely while they were here and I now found myself almost in a state of misery. I never really noticed before how many times, they apparently felt that they had to insult my sister Ramona. Of course Lucy was the worst, but now and then my mother would out rightly agree with her, or give her own ¡®helpful criticism¡¯ and my brother and father would give ¡®advice¡¯, that unlike my mother¡¯s ,sweet but cutting subtle comments ,was nowhere near as well disguised to hide the insults and braggery that all the comments really were. After a while, in a situation that I am used to, though one that has never ceased to annoy me, (do I really lack so much in having a presence even a negative one?) they eventually turned their attentions back to me. Immediately their expressions turned from ugly to well ¡®sweet¡¯, except maybe my dad, for that guy seems to have practically a poker face nearly 24/7. They asked, how I was feeling, they asked how my school work was going and they even asked such menial things as ¡®what¡¯s you¡¯ve been up to?¡¯, Fine, alright, and watching movies was basically my reply. Their obligation done, they then focused on what they really wanted to actually talk about which was of course themselves. The narrative has been illicitly obtained; should you discover it on Amazon, report the violation. I admit I am exaggerating a bit here and there, and being a little harsh. Even still, none of what they then said was out of my expectations or even my most conservative guesses, and I soon ¡®secretly¡¯ became a little ¨Cwell ok I shall admit it quite bored. I had never really thought about it until then, but other than our shared interests in athletics and the great outdoors I and my family didn¡¯t really have a lot in common. For one thing they were all majorly competitive, even my brother though I am not sure he would be so in his natural state, he was such a people pleaser that in the end only what they wanted for him mattered. So basically they all did their various competitions mainly for the sake of winning. While I did athletics it was firstly for health, secondly because I found it slightly entertaining and lastly because I felt like I didn¡¯t really have much to do. Ok, I will also allow that I am more similar to my brother then I would like to admit, and thus I also like ¡®doing things for the sake of pleasing others¡¯ but I would also like to think that I have far more of a backbone. Everytime I am asked to do something I usually actively work to make a decision on whether or not to do it, after weighting the pros and cons. While my brother, well I this is just my prospective, keep that in mind, but my brother seems to submissively go along with anything just so long that the person who asks him is either A older and or B in a position of authority. This is of course with the strange exception of my sister Ramona and a few sad unpopular people that he shuns for not being a part of his crowd. Anyway, as I was saying I was starting to get bored at their retelling of their lives since their last visit, basically something that could have easily been covered without the necessity of a visit if they had just added a bit more words through the messages and emails they had sent me. So eventually even they got tired of hearing themselves speak, and after saying their goodbyes and wishes for me to get better soon, they left without so much a glance at Ramona. I turned and looked at her concerned, wondering if we should get back to homework, or something else, at the same time wondering if being treated that way had hurt her feelings when Ramona suddenly blinked then said. ¡°Oh darn it, I just realized that I should have asked to go back with them, if I had gone home early I would have saved on bus fare.¡± She cared more about saving money than she did about our family¡¯s near abusive treatment of her. Hearing this, there was nothing I could do but burst out into laughter to the point that I became out of breath. Sadly my exuberance also partly triggered the reason for my hospitalization and the pain quickly killed my humor and I continued my panting for a completely different reason. I felt a hand on my shoulder, and at the same time cool warmth within my heart that made all the pain and causes of fade away greatly. I looked up and saw Ramona looking at me with a familiar expression of concern. Touched, I gathered the gumption to ask. ¡°Why didn¡¯t you fight back?¡± She acted like she didn¡¯t understand what I meant but when I insisted of awhile she gave in. The reasons why she had kept her silence were simple. Didn¡¯t I notice that if she talked usually they would start putting her down even more? And then didn¡¯t they usually get angry and start pointless loud arguments that didn¡¯t get anywhere? If she already knew the results why should she bother wasting her energy to provoke them? Besides wasn¡¯t that kind of violent atmosphere nonconductive to creating a healing environment for a sick person? Besides, she may be able to silently take some insults but even she had her limits giving herself the freedom to respond would definitely stretch her inner limits o the point of bursting. She would probably end up in a shouting match where the conclusion would most likely earn her a punishment such as a grounding, or even worse mom could shut off her internet. Now what could I possibly say to that? Volume One Chapter 7: Adventuring in the Land of Fantasy Adventuring in the Land of Fantasy (Sam) Spoiler : So I got the end of the flashbacks already written I just have one no two more chapters to write that are in between them... I am also pretty sure that these stupid boring chapters are more important to the story then they may appear...just so you know. Right after the visit my sister my ¡®deeda¡¯ decided that it was time to shake things up. We stopped watching random videos and switched to other media. My sister introduced me to the land of web novels, fanfiction and translated literary works. I liked these new mediums more, for while videos tended to only be most fun when she was there to keep me company, as well give someone to compare reactions too. With these many stories of different varieties it was a more solo event. It was easier for me to enjoy during the many times that she wasn¡¯t there because of school or her ¡®work¡¯. Instead of ending up bored because I had nothing to do or had done what I had too much, I found myself in a situation where I actually felt that I had not enough time. The downside was that I started leaving my homework to the last minute. It also opened me to the idea of looking for things I could like on my own and letting myself experience them. Before I had always made the excuse to myself that I didn¡¯t have enough time for reading fantasy novels and such, but the truth was although I was indeed busy there would be many times during the day where I would find myself with nothing to do. This would lead me to adding more projects and activities onto my already mostly packed schedule. The contrast between the times I was busy and the rare periods in which I had ¡®free¡¯ time were so great that I would feel more extremely, and thus decide to add more things to my schedule to prevent the free time from appearing. Eventually I would have to drop some things or be overwhelmed but when I did that I would eventually find myself with free time. It was quite the vicious cycle. But because of my sisters nonjudgmental attitude and encouragement I opened myself to the possibility of activities that weren¡¯t as ¡®active¡¯, that didn¡¯t require my active work and participation. I started to find such things as reading, relaxing rather than a waste of time like I had before. When eventually I had too much of a good thing and started to get bored she would break up the monotony for me. Sometimes she would bring her hand held game devices and let me borrow them to experience the concept of RPG¡¯s personally. Other times she would play next to me while I watched. The handheld sometimes but also she would often bring her laptop and play computer versions. When the game was more complex she would also bring a guide book and have me read it to her. At these times she would call me her ¡®navigator¡¯ and would calmly and quietly follow my commands without question. The feeling of someone being completely and truly obedient to me rather than just tolerant of my position, or expecting me to be the subordinate felt so refreshing it was almost euphoric. It also let me see a side of my sister I never would have believed existed. Even though I had learned to handle her, no matter what she would always be questioning me, almost argumentative. But when I directed her through video games she would rarely question and the few times she did it was always for clarification rather than the inquisitive ¡®why¡¯ she would almost always disturb me with. If you discover this tale on Amazon, be aware that it has been unlawfully taken from Royal Road. Please report it. It wasn¡¯t long after she allowed me to become her navigator that she revealed to me one of her secrets. It turns out that it was one of many of her ¡®lazy¡¯ ¡®passive¡¯ solo projects that I had always seen her working on, even as the rest of us many our parents would chide her for not getting out more. She was actually a published author. She didn¡¯t make money off of it, and in her opinion she wasn¡¯t that popular but she was a published author all the same. Her pen name was Disconsolate Star. ¡°Swanson Turquoise Ashari Ramona¡± She said to me when I asked her where she got the idea for her name. ¡°Last name first like some of the weby novs, the acronyms make ¡®Star¡¯ and ¡®Disconsolate¡¯ because I am a neg.¡± I think I understood the reason for disconsolate because although I never quite understood why she was kind of proud of and tended to self-identify by her negative personality. But what in the world is an ashari? I asked and got. ¡°Eh¡­it¡¯s kind of complicated but maybe I will try to explain to you later¡­maybe if I feel like it¡­it is kind of embarrassing.¡± ¡°Embarrassing how?¡± I asked intrigued. ¡°Well¡­¡±she said hesitantly ¡°¡­It is sort of along the lines of that 6th no 8th? 8th grade syndrome?¡± ¡°chuunibyou¡± I grinned at her. ¡°Well¡­yeah¡­¡± she admitted begrudgingly. Though I was desperately, curious now that I had received that telling hint about what an ashari was, I didn¡¯t really get any more information out of her on the subject but I did get another clue though I soon found out unfortunately I could not yet see it. ¡°I will explain all about the ashari in my webnovels¡­I just haves not gotten to that point¡­¡± Of course this made me want to read her novels even more, but out of embarrassment she refused to tell me how to find it and since she never left her laptop unlocked in my presence I had to get clever. Since the fanfic site she was most often on was woldofwebfics I created the hypothesis that she probably published her stories on it. If not, then she probably had her own website and I didn¡¯t have too high of hopes of finding it without her help. I used my own barely used in the past but recently seriously used laptop and browsed around the site. After not finding any mentions of asharies in the fiction titles of the directory as I had expected. I suddenly had the obvious realization that I should use her pen name. So I typed in ¡°Disconsolate Star¡± and was delighted to see several results. The author ¡°Disconsolate Star¡± had written several fantasy stories, and each one had the same main character Euda Talrune. I read some and soon realized that Euda¡¯s personalty was quite similar to Romona so much so that I briefly suspected some degree Self-Insertion. But the more I read the more I realized that other then some shared traits in personality Euda and Ramona no Disconsolate Star were definitely different people. Whether or not Disconsolate Star was really Ramona there was not complete certainty but either way I knew one thing, I really liked their work. I had read a few fantasy novels in the past and more recently I had read various original, inspired and translated work, and in my opinion Disconsolate Star topped them all. I think it was the way that they breathed life into the characters. It was like this person Euda really existed and really was out there somewhere in a different world going on adventures. And in order to accompany her and see all the exotic sites and exciting events that always eventually appeared just at the right moments all one had to do was read. Volume One Chapter 8: Returned Maybe Returned Maybe (Samantha) Spoiler : So hear is another chapter of this fic...actually there are a few more backstory chapters until it gets back to the other world...but the story is how it is...not like any one bothers to read this anyway! I got out of the hospital changed from who I had been. To me the greatest change was my new closeness and engagement with Ramona, we started to do various activities together¡­and we continued many of the ones that we had started in the hospital. Like watching random online videos, and discussing various things that we read, as well as helping each other with homework. I also made a point of going to her band recitals, and concerts of which there were two since my return. I also spent much of my own free time reading completely by myself not only various online works but also the classics, and other books I hadn¡¯t really bothered to try before because of my lack of time. But other than Ramona everyone seemed to be so caught up in their own lives that it took quite some time before they noticed, the to me major but probably to the outside minor changes with in me. I think change most obvious to others was how I acted in school. Firstly, I didn¡¯t sign up for track and other clubs again. Actually I greatly cut back on all my extracurricular activities. Although I still ran every morning and evening like I had when I had been in various sports, I no longer did it seriously, for training. It was mainly because of habit, and thus had become a completely leisure and recreational activity. One that I tried to get Ramona to participate in with me as I was worried about her health again this time, probably because of our increased closeness. Unfortunately I only managed any form of success a few scant times. And what a depressing success it was, as she had complained the whole time, and as I was much faster than her I had to constantly hold myself back, knowing that if I left her behind I would find her sitting or walking at a snail¡¯s pace having given up without my encouragement/a person to complain to. I mainly maintained my grades, but I didn¡¯t take it quite as seriously as I had before. I would study, and I would do all my homework. But I wasn¡¯t anywhere near as obsessed with any mistakes that I made as I had been in the past. There were also a few times where I found myself close to certain deadlines, and not fretting at all in fact even letting myself do other pointless things. Once or twice I even left things to the last minute, but as such an action would temporarily bring back the old stresses and pains that I had experienced in the past I had soon learned a happy medium and though my grades dropped a bit at times I never felt the hectic fear of probable failure again. At first, my parents didn¡¯t notice even these changes or if they did they didn¡¯t take them seriously. Of course my ¡®friends¡¯ and my teachers had already noticed my changes but other than asking if this was really what I wanted, they left me alone. Though I had been useful I had noticed and realized anew that I wasn¡¯t integral to the workings and doing of which I had participated in. As the saying goes ¡®there is always someone else¡¯, my retiring from that mouse race, especially because it had been at the end of a long hospital stay during which they had already gotten used to my non-participation, was scarcely noticed. But as I think I have told you before, being competitive people my decision to no longer compete wouldn¡¯t escape my parent¡¯s purview forever. This tale has been unlawfully lifted without the author''s consent. Report any appearances on Amazon. I think they first realized something was up, when my mother heard about me not signing up for any sports or other extracurricular activities. When she questioned me, concerned that I was still in pain from what hospitalized me. I quickly reassured her and explained things as I wanted to take things slower as the hospital had given me a new lease on life. I felt a bit guilty as I knew she would assume that by ¡®slower¡¯ that I still meant to get back in the game, I was just not immediately. When my father came to me later in his rare free time to give me some pep talk about having to take a break not being the end of the world. I only smiled and nodded and by doing so increased my guilt even more. A lie of omission in my mind is still a lie, but I didn¡¯t want to see the disappointment and probably anger on their faces when I told them the rest of the story. Even more shamefully was my secret fear that if I started to act like Ramona that I might end up being treated like Ramona. I think my brother, may have been the one in my family to realize my changes the most, as we had been quite close despite the often intervention of Lucy. But being of the type to not want to make waves other than giving me an odd look now and then him did nothing. Luckily the B***h Queen was quite busy with her own matters at the moment, so much so that she didn¡¯t have the time to insult any of us let alone take a second look. So for a time there was a peace not much different then the quietness we had before. I knew it to be merely the calm before the storm, and that it was only a matter of time for the conflict to begin. What started to set things to a simmer was my decision not to participate in one of the family trips. They were planning to go one of the usual family hiking trips over the weekend. I didn¡¯t not mind hiking, and sometimes it could even be fun especially when you go to a place with lots of nice scenery where you can really experience nature. This time, was one of the more boring trails, and it was a workout to boot. I would have considered playing the sick card if I wasn¡¯t so terribly healthy most of the time, as well as the more condemning fact that last week I had agreed to go on a hiking trip that had been to the same place. One major difference between the two was that last week Lucy had been too busy to go, and thus it had been just my parents my brother in me, Ramona as usual choosing to relax at home despite my entreaties. Though it hadn¡¯t been that fun, it hadn¡¯t been terrible either I had an okay time. And I had shown no sign that the exercise was out of my capability. This time Lucy and somehow managed to find the time to go, I suspect it had something to do with the fact she was worried that I would somehow still her minion, our brother, away from her or something. Whatever, no matter wat the case having to hike up that boring hard trail while listening to her derogatory, comments was not my idea of a good time. Besides that, I was in the middle of reading quite an interesting book, and I was at what looked to be quite an exciting part. Though I wouldn¡¯t consider myself to be a slow reader¡­I didn¡¯t think I would be fast enough to finish the book before the weekend ended, if I had to take the time out to go hiking. As there was a test due next week I didn¡¯t want to take time away from my studies either. With more than two checks on my list of pros, I asked for I think the first time ever, if instead of going hiking I could stay with Ramona. I realized later that in some ways it might have been a mistake, for it revealed a picture of me that was quite alarming to most of my family. Volume One Chapter 9: Family Fight Family Fight (Sam) Spoiler : Finally finished this chapter, one more chapter and it is back to other world. Oh yeah before I forget Happy belated Easter and or Spring As per what I have seen in the movies and TV when someone drops a conversation bomb, usually there is a few Moments of stunned silence, followed by angry pandemonium. That is people start yelling and screaming at each other over the dinner table maybe even waving their hands or going so far as to throw food in each other¡¯s faces (usually some sort of cake or cream pie). One time at one of my many casual ¡®friends¡¯ house, I saw a live episode of such domestic dramatic violence confirmed in reality, where one person got so angry about what the other said that they slapped them, and of course the other retaliated and they got into a hair and clothes pulling childish wrestling match. But this isn¡¯t the point, let me disappoint you right off the bat, it is nothing like that at our house. It was silent for a brief time after I said this, but none of them were shocked, and thus the silence wasn¡¯t a tense one but the usual calm lax one we usually had during meals, except for the occasional conversation that was usually started for the sake of politeness and or tradition, but although my comment was far from traditional, everyone continued to eat as if I had said nothing at all. Though I say that it seemed like nothing happened, and that everyone was calm, at the time I imagined that it felt like the temperature had dropped a few degrees, particularly in the direction of my mother. And my mother was the first to speak, right after she had eaten the last bite of the food she and I had oh so carefully prepared. ¡°Are you sick, again?¡± she asked, almost hopefully. ¡°No¡± I said ¡°I just don¡¯t feel like going this time.¡± ¡°And why not?¡± She said in a flat voice but I fancied that I could hear at least a hint of anger in it. ¡°Mainly because I have been reading this book, and have just gotten to an exciting part and want to see what happens, but also partly because we have gone to that place for hiking a lot lately and it is my least favorite place.¡± My mother pursed her lips in irritation, and didn¡¯t say anything else but my Dad suddenly looked up from the meal he had seemingly been single mindedly focusing on to ask in a slightly accusing tone of voice. ¡°Did Ramona put you up to this? She did, didn¡¯t she? What did she do to get you to enable her bad behavior?¡± He turned to glare at my ¡®deeda¡¯. I sighed in exasperation, and turned to face her as well, knowing her a bit better know it didn¡¯t surprise me to see a small smile of face. I have heard my father accuse that smile of being a smug selfish one in the past but to me it looked like one that resulted from her usual coping method of finding the accusation funny rather than letting herself be hurt by it. Seeing me look at her Ramona¡¯s smile increased a little bit and she raised an eyebrow suggestively in a silent question that I could almost hear. And suddenly I went from feeling a mix of pity and admiration (the former sadly more than the latter) for her plus a bit of sad sick disappointment in my father¡¯s behavior to struggling and straining myself not to laugh. Ever since my sister and I had become ¡®friends¡¯ of a sort, she had started to share jokes with me that only the two of us could get, and her sharing her opinion of the ridiculousness of my father¡¯s attitude was one of them. I covered my mouth and pretended to cough to hide my laugh and then forcing myself back to focusing on the potential seriousness of the subject I quickly replied to my father. ¡°No, Ro has had nothing to do with my decision, you know, I have never really fun most of the trips that fun, especially because we do them so often that the novelty has long worn off. This time I just have a reason not to go.¡± My mother smiled a sly smile and looked at Lucy who quickly got a grin to match our Mom¡¯s then asked in a sweet voice. ¡°Can¡¯t you just come with us like always? You can always read your book later, aren¡¯t you being selfish? Just think about all the trouble Mom and Dad have gone through just to find the precious time in their busy schedules to be with us? Shouldn¡¯t you be a little more grateful?¡± I was a bit surprised, she was using the same tactic that she often used on Ramona to get her to do things she didn¡¯t want to do. Making you feel guilty about not doing it, that is. However I was not Ramona, and I was so often the neutral harmless party in our family¡¯s conflicts that the manipulative b****h probably didn¡¯t really have much knowledge of my weaknesses. And unlike Ramona, sensitivity or empathy to others feelings wasn¡¯t one of them. For me kindness, and caring was always a conscious choice that I usually made after a lot of thinking and debating with myself, I didn¡¯t ever do anything purely out of emotion. Differently from my surprisingly selfless deeda I could be selfish when I wanted to and I didn¡¯t even feel that guilty about it. ¡°Actually I cannot ¡®always¡¯ read my book later. The weekends are my vacation from school and although I have cut back a lot this semester I still have plenty of homework, so if I don¡¯t read it now I will probably end up having to keep putting off until I forget what I have read and have to reread it from the beginning.¡± ¡°Besides¡± I concluded with the sweetest smile I could muster ¡°I have been in a bad mood lately and I don¡¯t think I am the best company for Mom and Dad to waste their ¡®precious¡¯ time with.¡± If you stumble upon this narrative on Amazon, be aware that it has been stolen from Royal Road. Please report it. I inwardly high-fived myself when I saw my oldest sister¡¯s expression briefly turn ugly before reverting back to its usual fake pretty smile, that didn¡¯t ever reach her calculating eyes which were now glaring at me as I had not only held my own in that round but even perhaps even won, as I had used her own arguments against her, and made it difficult for her to retort. However I and Ramona gave her the secret nickname of ¡®Devil¡¯ for a reason, she quickly tried for a counter attack. ¡°Now that you mention cutting back, I just remembered something. Last week I heard from an older sister of one of your old team mates that you had told the coach that you probably wouldn¡¯t be signing up for track again this semester, is that true?¡± The sly smile was back and this time she looked casually in the direction of our father, expecting his inadvertent assistance, as nothing riled our old man up more than someone who wasn¡¯t trying their best to succeed, and he was someone that thought that participation in sports, no matter what the kind was always a good indication for the existence of the fulfilment of that philosophy of success. But I had already been at least half expecting that sort of tactic and thus was quite prepared to nullify it before it could set off any sparks with our father. ¡°Thank you for your concern, but the reason I had signed up for track in the first place was because I had wanted to exercise and I wanted to experience the good fellowship and enjoyment that comes from participating in sports. However the hospital gives you a lot of time for reflection and I realized not long after my¡­accident, that track was no longer meeting those objectives. First of all, our school¡¯s track program is quite challenging, we spend so much time training for meets that you never really have time for conversation let alone being able to work at forming relationships with the other runners. Second of all, even though I say that I have cut back I still have plenty of classes and activities to keep me busy. To be truthful, my past schedule was completely extreme and overwhelming, that I am beginning to think that the reason for my extended hospital stay perhaps even a large portion of it was because I was so near to burning out before I had the accident. And so I decided that it would be best for my health that I exercise more casually for health and recreation instead of the major training and commitment that is required in sports. In conclusion my heart wasn¡¯t totally in it, and felt that not doing it at all was better than doing it but not giving it all the focus and commitment it required to do it seriously. Besides, now that I have more free time I can focus more on our family¡­ ¡°(read do more chores and have more time to help around the house) ¡°¡­as well as work on increasing the likely hood to gain more friends at school¡° I didn¡¯t look at my oldest sister but if I had to guess then I would say the ugly look that had marred her face in the past was probably back with a vengeance. Not only I had I quickly nipped her thoughts of finding a supporter in our father in the bud, I had also laid a great deal of groundwork in alieving many potential concerns of both my parents. So except for a few token questions there wasn¡¯t really any arguments after that, and after everybody seeming to give their approval and input to my plan, (though I could see Lucy¡¯s hand clenching so hard on her silverware that her skin turned white, as she said her empty compliment) except for Ramona, at least not out loud. Though that was probably a good thing, for if she had it probably would have brought back the ridiculous, though admittingly in a way at least partially true, theory of Ramona being behind the reason for my change in behavior. Though I myself highly doubt, her reason to spend time with me and encourage me to consume entertainment value media for fun was just to have someone else in the family refuse to go on the hiking trips and instead stay home with her. Things went mostly back to normal after this incident, with the exception that unlike before where I would mindlessly go to every single trip or activity my mom came up with, occasionally I would take a stand and refuse to go. Lucy realized to her surprise after a few more attempts to get me in trouble that she was no match for me in the art of tongue and soon strangely started to go out of her way to avoid me, or if that was not possible give me the silent treatment and she encouraged our brother to do the same. My brother being the weak willed man that he was would usually comply when he was in both our pretenses. However the rare times we met when she wasn¡¯t there he would talk to me as usual. One time wanting my advice he had even sneaked into my room, and hid in my closet when my sister barged in looking for him. Now and then when I spoke to him I would see, a sadness that I could easily understand and empathize with. For in the past, especially before the time our sister got jealous of our close relationship and started to monopolize him we had the closest relationship with each other, and I myself felt he was more of a best friend then a brother. But now, with his strange loyalty to our sister pulling him away from me, and my own allegiance to our other sister, keeping me in place, we were starting have a growing space between us that I doubted we would ever fully get back. Even if one day the impossible happened and he actually grew a spine, or maybe at least a pair of...well you get the idea. Volume One Chapter 10: Towords the End Towards the End (Sam for the Last Time) April Fool''s 2016 Spoiler : After getting so many critical reviews, and nasty comments (breaks down and starts crying) I just can¡¯t take it anymore so I have made up my mind, I have decided to stop writing forever! And soon I am also planning to take down all my prior chapters, so they can¡¯t hurt the eyes of the readers on royal road anymore! As a not so fond farewell to all you haters I have written in these spoilers a long rant about what I really think of all of you! (Warning: includes hate, more hate and many snobbish and obscene curses) Spoiler : April Fools! I love you guys! (Even the haters) A Spoiler of the next real chapter: Time passed some more. Besides occasionally not participating in every single family activity, I started to ¡®act out¡¯ in other ways. Embarrassed by my past indifference I started to more obviously and more actively spend time with Ramona. At first the rest of my family were mystified, they just couldn¡¯t see what I saw in her, or how our coach potato activities were fun. I think the closest to understanding us, was Howard, and only because despite the fact it was only sports with an occasional first person shooter, he did participate in the related activity of video games. But as said he was under Lucy¡¯s thumb, and because she said so, to him up was down and down was up, and somehow Lucy was the poor sympathetic little victim and Ramona and I had somehow become the pathetic evil brats jealous because of her beauty, and sickening because we did things like read. If there is anybody curious on what would have happened if I had continued to write, I will be posting the rough draft of what the next chapter would have been : P.S. just before I decided to retire from writing I had been thinking of starting another fanfic, and because I hate for all my hard work to go to waste I will be posting the chapters I have for it, for one day and one day only. RMHS Just a warning this fic is the worst of my work to date so unless you want your eyes to start bleeding right before you start puking all over the place, there is only one solution DON¡¯T READ IT!! The end and goodbye! FOREVER!! P. P. S. Don¡¯t you readers even think of coming crawling back to me when you realize just how good of thing you had (sniff, sniff) Author''s Note: Spoiler : For those of you who did not read the spoiler yesterday I am sorry if that caused you any distress...as you can see I am not really dropping my writing. Though in my opinion it should have been obvious that it was an April Fools joke, after all at the very least one should take everything online on April 1st with a large grain of salt. Actually originally my April Fools post was just going to be about the rough-rough draft page picture. The joke was that: "I am so tired of working hard for my readers, that I decided to be lazy and give them the first draft to read, and if they want a better chapter they had better edit it/write one themselves" However some of the comments I read put me in a bad mood and so, a few months ago in 2015 I started to plan out a new and meaner version of April Foolery. To the people I wanted to target: It would serve them right if they believed it for a second. As to those who were innocent of ever making me angry? Well wasn''t the first day of the fourth month always full of victims anyway? Besides it was only some words, and it would only be up for around 24 hours they would survive. I felt that it was exaggerated enough to be joking, I personally liked the touch at the end where I channel the same lines that a cheated on stereotypical woman would say. I mean come on do I really seem like the kind of person who would blame their own incompetence and lack of will power on other people so much so that they even claim they (the other people) will regret it? (on second thought please don''t answer that question) The next chapter after this one will find ourselves back in the other world, and everything that entails waking up with memories of a completely different life. P.S. One part of the joke wasn''t a joke I wonder if you guys can figure it out and if you will even care when you do ;) FP: Tee hee I plan for the non-joke to be as mysterious as possible... AA: Yet it will end up completely ordinary and boring and no one will like it KNG: I am confused is it really you speaking? Time passed some more. Besides occasionally not participating in every single family activity, I started to ¡®act out¡¯ in other ways. Embarrassed by my past indifference I started to more obviously and more actively spend time with Ramona. At first the rest of my family were mystified, they just couldn¡¯t see what I saw in her, or how our coach potato activities were fun. I think the closest to understanding us, was Howard, and only because despite the fact it was only sports with an occasional first person shooter, he did participate in the related activity of video games. The tale has been taken without authorization; if you see it on Amazon, report the incident. But as said he was under Lucy¡¯s thumb, and because she said so, to him up was down and down was up, and somehow Lucy was the poor sympathetic little victim and Ramona and I had somehow become the pathetic evil brats jealous because of her beauty, and sickening because we did things like read. Or at least this is what I theorized she was saying, whenever she paused in her busy life to glare at me. The other thing I did, and also motivated at least in the beginning partially by guilt, was start to speak up and object and complain whenever anyone said anything even the slightest bit critical about Ramona if it seemed at all unjustified. With a lot of hard work, and a lot of jumping down everyone¡¯s throats, (except for Lucy¡¯s cause hey obvious a lost cause) I got things to the point, that at least when I was in the room everybody else would at least have second thoughts about saying something bad about Ramona. I say that my actions were motivated by guilt at least partially in the beginning, but as I went along I discovered something that made my actions become an incentive that purely for myself. I hadn¡¯t realized it before, but in my family I actually held quite a lot of power. If I wanted something, all I had to do was threaten to stop cleaning, or helping with making dinner and I would get what I wanted. I of course used this power only to get my family to lay off Ramona, but in the end I was only human and my mind was filled with many fantasies. For example what if like my materialistic sister, I was a spoiled selfish brat? If that was true, then I would blackmail my family (especially my parents) for money and use it to pay for the increasing multitude of all my new hobbies. Some of my hobbies were basically free, as our family already had quite the nice internet and data link plan. But some of them were quite pricey, even though technically I did hadn¡¯t even started them yet outside of my fantasies. I was even considering getting a job, though a job (outside of the chores I normally did) would be adding more back on to my barely somewhat cleared plate, I was already itching to do more, old habits die hard I guess. I was just about to consider seeing if I could convince my parents to give me an allowance as compensation for all the house work I had been doing when, it first began. It started so slowly that I didn¡¯t realize it was happening, at first it was just a small irritation that I didn¡¯t realize consciously existed. Despite however much I didn¡¯t notice it, from the moment it begun it had already started to show an effect. I became moody, snappish, and I started to pick fights with anyone, even Ramona and this was despite the fact that I had learned that it was near impossible for me to truly fight her. I also grew board easily, and no matter what I did or tried. No matter if it was my new or my old hobbies nothing really held my attention. Now that I look back on this strange time even though I didn¡¯t realize something was going on, that something was wrong with me, Ramona probably did for our roles became exchanged. Instead of I going to her and trying to get her to do something, she would come to me and ask for my company or assistance on various things. This was extremely out of character for her, but to the me of that time it wasn¡¯t even a blip on the radar or if it was then it was just a minor annoyance. And then things started to get worse. Slight annoyance turned into a feeling that was truly odd, and my behavior became strange. I am can¡¯t remember my thoughts too clearly but I do recall that it was if my blood was boiling with in my veins. It was definitely a not good feeling it made me go from slightly irritable, to trigger happy explosive. Most puzzling of all to me now, for some unfathomable reason being around Ramona made me feel even worse. And the worse ¡®she¡¯ made me feel, the more often she would try to be around me, try to talk to me, but I wouldn¡¯t listen. I am not sure how the rest of my family reacted to this new me, because besides the dull remembrance of what I had been feeling as well as some of my interactions with Ramona I don¡¯t really have a clear memory of most of what happened. Except the few memories I have of towards the end. I got into an argument with Ramona. I don¡¯t recall about what but it was a really bad one, or at least it seemed that way. I said many things that if I could clearly remember I think I would forever regret them. I could tell by the pained face she showed ,that I hurt her badly but at the time I was most unlike myself and the pain I was causing her made me feel happy¡­superior. It was like I could suddenly relate to all those prideful degrading people that I had hated on principal and for many reasons besides. I remember declaring in a screaming voice towards the end that we were no longer sisters, that I hated and I never wanted to see her again. I remember dimly Ramona trying to say something to me but I couldn¡¯t hear it and for the strangeness already said I didn¡¯t want to hear it. I left. I stamped out peeved and still arrogant, the boiling in my blood increasing, almost as it was heading towards a crescendo where it would burst out of my veins. And then for reasons completely unknown to myself I decided that ¡®now¡¯ was the perfect time for a walk. In my memories the red haze of that time, went from blurry to absurdly eerily clear. I was standing on a busy street corner, when I saw a kid on the other side of the street, giggle like they saw something and come running towards my direction. And then, I was suddenly running and I was fast, faster than multifold then even my quickest recorded time. I saw myself reach out and push the kid out of the way. And the last thing I remember is hearing the screeching sound of breaks squealing far too late. Volume One Chapter 11: Awakening Awakening (Sakura) Lost in my memories the squealing of truck breaks suddenly turned into the high pitched screams of a woman. ¡°Your highness! Your highness!¡± Yes, the first thing I heard when I woke up from my near death experience and sudden memory overloading, was the worried voice of my nurse, maid and all-purpose servant Xia. ¡°Your highness! Please breathe!¡± Instinctively following the instruction, I was somehow able to take one big painful breath of air then another. With each breath the dizziness I was feeling lessened and the fog in my head began to clear. I gradually came to the realization that I was lying belly down, my head angled to the side so that I could taste oxygen instead of grass. When I regained enough of my wits, I maneuvered my arms to my sides and slowly pushed myself to my hands and knees. I blurrily opened my eyes and saw after several blinks that in the middle of the patch of grass I looked upon there lay my nemesis. Yes it was the cheery seed. I glared at it, if it weren¡¯t for that stupid pit I would be happily and obviously unaware of my current situation. I could have had a life that was happy and hea¡­well not exactly a healthy one but most probably at least a happy one. I sighed a sigh, filled with regrets and then leaning on one hand used the other to grab the seed in one chubby child¡¯s fist. Then using hand and fist I pushed myself onto my rear and sat up and looked at Xia who was still looking at me with worry. I gave a tired smile to her somewhat wrinkled face, a face that had recently obtained more wrinkles from her concern in an attempt to reassure her. More ¡®recent¡¯ memories had started to come back to me by then, so the sight of the garden draped in the decorations of my 7th birthday garden party seemed quite familiar though far from being as exciting and fun as when I had seen them with my earlier more innocent mind. When I looked at them now I still thought they were beautiful but overwhelming that feeling was the guilty thought that it had probably been a great bother to the castle staff to get it set up. I realized by some out of the many various pains I felt, when I tried to stand up. That someone, probably Xia, had hit my back multiple times, most likely in a mostly ineffective attempt to dislodge the cherry seed. I briefly wondered why someone hadn¡¯t thought to perform the Heimlich maneuver before realizing with slight self-embarrassment, that in such a world as I now existed in, something as useful and lifesaving as the Heimlich probably didn¡¯t exist yet. I then thought with some morbid humor, that even if the Heimlich maneuver existed as small as Xia was and as big as I was for my age, she probably wouldn¡¯t have been able to accomplish it. And as for some reason there currently were no guards or other servants around, the young ladies in waiting and servant¡¯s children that I had ordered to celebrate my birthday with me could scarcely be counted on to be able to help either for similar reasons. Of course all these thoughts were rather moot point anyway, for as stated before proper choking rescue measures probably did not even exist in the first place. Such pointless thoughts were soon interrupted by the thuds of large booted feet. It turns out that the missing servants had left to get help, and the irresponsible guards who had decided to celebrate my birthday in alcoholic style, while neglecting their duty, had been quickly found but not so quickly roused, to come to the rescue of their princess. I learned this interesting tidbit, while listening to Xia screaming at them and berating them quickly, now and then lapsing back into Nimese, and their pitiful attempts to talk back. To the excited surprise of what remained of my past self I found that I could easily understand what she was saying, have been listening and learning both languages being spoken since my birth. The guards who were probably clueless about the insults to their parentage, honor and er manhood that they were receiving, humorously looked afraid of the woman who was at least 3 times smaller than them. After their first pitiful attempts sheepishly remained silent, after looking at me and seeing that I looked fine. The servants who had gone for help stood silently to the sides hands on their hips and schadenfreude marking the smirks upon their mouths. My throat still painful from where the seed had scratched downwards before it had somehow got lodged inside, and my lungs still aching from lack of air, I didn¡¯t speak. Love what you''re reading? Discover and support the author on the platform they originally published on. But once I felt that I had recovered as much as was possible for now, I raised one of my hands and whispered my nurse maids name, and Xia upon seeing it immediately stopped her harassment and rushed to my side. I spoke to her in a weak whisper the most I was currently capable of. ¡°¡­could you please tell the guests to enjoy themselves without me? I want¡­need to go rest in my room for a while.¡± I had spoken to her in Nimese for it was the language I was used to speaking to her in, she was the main person who had taught it to me after all. Xia ran to one of the larger guards and switching to speaking commands quickly in highly accented but still mostly understandable Quarnish the guard immediately nodded their head awkwardly in agreement and rushed towards me. I was as mentioned quite large for my age, but this guard a tall strong man, was able to pick me up, if not with ease, then at least without any difficulty. Carefully making sure to not touch my skin, I was a mere princess and he was just a lowly guard after all, which was not as hard as it sounds as I was wearing a dress that not only almost completely covered me but also had cloth to spare with all the ruffles and flounces it included. My childish self-had earlier decided that they wished to look like a proper princess for their birthday party and the maids and seamstresses chosen to make her wish come true were a bit old fashioned in taste even for this world¡¯s culture and time period. By that, I mean modesty was key and from dimly remembered stories I was told, in that times version of modest it was not uncommon for woman to not only wear veils and hoods but also to be near smothered by fabric. Eager to get away from Xia¡¯s continued performance as an angry harridan, the guard walked quite quickly and soon despite the considerable distance between my room and the garden in which I hosted my failure of a birthday party I could see the door of my set of rooms. Xia immediately gestured for the footmen standing outside to open the door, which they quickly did and then the guard with myself still in his arms were ushered inside. Under the hawk like gaze of Xia the guard carefully set me down on my bed, after she¡¯d pulled back sheets in preparation. The bed was built to be almost as large as my fathers, the servants well able to see which way the wind was blowing in regard to my size and how far it was tossing the acorn from the old tree that was my grandfather. I relaxed once I was safely laid down and the sheets and had been tucked back tightly around me. I closed my eyes and pretended to sleep. I sensed the guard leaving, and for a time Xia¡¯s continued mother hen hovering presence until she eventually fell asleep. Once I was sure she wasn¡¯t aware of what I was doing I opened my eyes again and quickly struggled to loosen the sheets being careful not to make any noise. I then reached into the thick almost padded bosom of my dress and took out a necklace. I kept my hand covering it for a moment, then slowly let my fingers slide down until I revealed its appearance. I then stared at the familiar engraving like I had never seen it before. For in a way I hadn¡¯t, it was, besides my name and the name of many other acquainces, the biggest evidence towards what my past self was now telling me my identity was. It was an unknown silver colored metal, I knew from my own clumsy experience that it was also harder than most materials perhaps even diamonds and that unlike silver it never tarnished. It was stylized in the shape of a particular type of flower that others might see as something else, but I knew from my mother that it was definitely a ¡®sakura¡¯ the pretty blossom of the Nimese ornamental cherry tree. It was a nice eye catching ornament, very memorable and easy to identify. So much so that it was impossible to deny that when my past self-had last seen it portrayed in some artwork, it had been hanging over the enormous bosom of someone that to most was quite hideous as a real person, but humorous and interesting as a side character Sakura [Star-Risen] Quarnz. A character who had been in almost all the mediums in which she had been portrayed, web novel and web novel sequel, several volumes of light novels, manga and even an otome game(?): the optimum (worst) type of a bad end, for the hero. Volume One Chapter 12: Milk and Cheese Milk and Cheese (Sakura) Spoiler : My apologies for the wait. Beside the usual shameful reasons there was also the understandable excuse of a power outage at my house today which prevented me from accessing the internet and even my computer. It might satisfy your Schadenfreude to know that sadly right before the power outage I ran out of battery on several of my mobile devices so I had to go on electronic cold turkey...so painful ;) Anyway originally I was going to name this chapter "birds of a feather" but then I felt upon looking at it...that is a way too cool of a title for such a stupid chapter so I changed it...to a stupid title so they maches now yay :D Alright I think I will confess something to you, no don¡¯t look at me that way it¡¯s nothing major, just that I wasn¡¯t exactly being totally accurate when I kind of jumped the gun and said that I remembered ¡®everything¡¯ about my past life. To be more precise, I think I remember most of the generalities and some maybe even a majority of the specifics but I definitely do not remember much of the little tiny details. Why did I say that then? Well don¡¯t you think that the word ¡®everything¡¯ is a bit more awesome and impressive then the sentence: most of the generalities and some maybe even a majority of the specifics and in regards to the details things are kinda blurry. See what I mean? Anyway back to what I realized about my past life and what it has to do with my new one, in other words why the need for my confession? Simply put, I can¡¯t remember the title of any of the works which I now have reason to believe show a version of one of my probably no longer possible futures. Hey before you rake me over the coals let me point out a few key points. First of all, as I think I have already at least mentioned in the short time before my death especially I have read hundreds if not thousands of books, webnovels, light novels, comics¡­well you get the idea. With the exception of those that have the mythical and imaginary thing known as photographic memory, remembering one out of many anything¡¯s is quite difficult if not impossible at times¡­unless one purposely works to memorize said information for some reason. I had neither the cheat known as photographic memory nor did I feel any need to remember the title at the time, I was reading for fun after all I didn¡¯t think that there would be a test on the subject. Nor did I think I would suddenly awaken in the future in a new life with a need for said information. I also used a great deal of the handy dandy little things known as bookmarks on my web browser, to keep track of things I wanted to read, and I would read things in the order the book mark was put in the folder which by the way was not organized alphabetically or in any other way. Second of all the original language of the works was not my native language, the name of which is kind of complicated and I will explain later but for now let¡¯s just call it ¡®English¡¯ to make things easy. Memorizing things is hard, with the exception of certain cheating people see ¡®photo graphic memory¡¯ mentioned above, it should then be obvious that memorizing things written in a language different from your own is even harder. Maybe if I knew even the basics in the language it was written in it would have been easier but in my past life I took a few classes in school but never got that proficient in any language except the one I grew up learning. And the options in school were quite limited there was no-¡­well¡­for now let us just dub it ¡®Nihongo¡¯ and once again I will probably explain things later. Finally, and most importantly the title, maybe titles? Just were not memorable. They were neither that creative nor catchy¡­maybe something about a road? Or maybe princes something¡­or perhaps magic something or other¡­like I said I simply do not remember it. This book''s true home is on another platform. Check it out there for the real experience. Maybe it would have been easier to remember it if I had been my most favorite out of the things I read but sadly and now unfortunately it wasn¡¯t. While it wasn¡¯t my least liked thing to read, it was always low on my list of priorities especially after the webnovel author no longer posted new content. Well pointless to bother caring about this now as it¡¯s not like I can go back in time and work on gaining both photo graphic memory cheat as well as, cheat knowledge to study the works like a bible. There was a reason for my lackluster in regards to these particular works. Simply put most of all of the ¡®stories¡¯ had been not of the highest quality. Perhaps the webnovel was the only one with any degree of excellence in regards to literary worth, and I admittedly did read it several times. And luckily despite their numerous flaws I also read the light novel and manga and read some basic information about the game. Or to be more accurate I read the fan translations, and the summaries off of the wiki. You have got to admit though that at least reading/skimming through something that you later discover to be far more important than you would ever originally believe is much better then never having read it at all right? If I had never reincarnated through I wouldn¡¯t have minded if I had forgotten everything about them for those works became part of a list of what I later considered one of my somewhat shameful guilty pleasures¡­which I wouldn¡¯t even talk to Ramona about though when I mentioned it she eased my embarrassment somewhat by sharing that she also liked to consume such ¡®junk-food¡¯. Why shameful specifically? Well as you have probably gotten by now, in my opinion the webnovel wasn¡¯t that bad, actually it probably could have amounted to something great even if the original author had finished it before they died or something. Fan translators disagree on what happened to them¡­ Well anyway while the webnovel wasn¡¯t that bad and could have possibly been great with a little more completion and polishing. Whoever took up that mantle¡­well I have two words for it¡­pure cheese. Yes cheesiness and clich¨¦-ness to the point of ridiculousness. It was the kind of story that at certain times that you knew were supposed to be serious or sad if not tragic you couldn¡¯t help but laugh because of the shock value of just how well un-shocking and predictable it was. Well having said that¡­as I have already hinted it wasn¡¯t like it was unreadable, just disappointing¡­especially when paired with all the hopes that the webnovel raised up and then brought gently though brutally down when you read the light novel and realize that a different author wrote it. In the author notes it says that the new author was a friend of the original author¡­but let me say if their writing styles tell anything about their personality it completely disproves the expression. ¡°Birds of a feather flock together¡±. To me what made the webnovel better wasn¡¯t just the lack of cheese but also it seemed like they worked much harder on their characterization, for example their version of Sakura was believable as a human being even sympathizeable compared to the monstrosity that showed up in the rest of the franchise. Of course many of the other readers probably disagreed with my opinion, for the light novel and later the anime and games it was based on did better on certain things that the webnovel completely neglected. The one that was most obvious was mainly fan service. Yup, part of the ¡®milk¡¯ of the cheese shall we say was all the ¡®inappropriate¡¯, and from my point of view ¡®pointless¡¯ innuendo and as well er shall we say excessive sex appeal added to the female characters and a few of the males too. But let me just finish for now on this subject, with my personal opinion that I ¡®didn¡¯t like those parts, and sometimes they made me feel uncomfortable¡¯ and just leave it at that. Volume One Chapter 13: Earth and [Earth] Earth and [Earth] (Sakura) Spoiler : Sorry¡­I totally forgot to post this¡­I don¡¯t know where my head has been lately¡­it is like it has run away leaving me with nothing¡­or something. Anyway in this chapter you will see how the MC is completely different from most of my MC¡¯s for example though in my opinion she is a nice person it doesn¡¯t change the fact that she often misbehaves. Before we get much further with me explaining what I know or rather ¡®knew¡¯ about the world possibly worlds this world I now reside in is based on I think I should explain at least one other thing. That is, the difference between the world you the reader probably reside in ¡°Earth¡± and the [Earth] that I think that I lived in, in my past life. In short, not the same thing. In longer, I am not sure if the multitude of similarities stem from the two simply being parallel worlds or perhaps unknown coincidences of ridiculous and epic proportions which happened to somehow create at least two technically unrelated worlds that shared a lot of traits. By the way I am not that talented with words so I can¡¯t really think of a way to describe what the two world have in common other than ¡®similar¡¯. Some things are more exaggerated while others are toned down. For example the culture of the [Earth] I know is much more conservative I guess you would say, we didn¡¯t really have any cultural revolutions when it comes to clothing so the majority of those of [Earth] compared to Earth are more modestly dressed. On the one hand [Earth] has had less world wars less major conflicts compared to Earth and it is relatively safer and more ¡®wholesome¡¯, on the other hand it is in many ways a far more boring place¡­there is less art less creativity and less spiritual things available like religion. As with everything there are excesses and lacks so I would never be able to say that one world is better than the other. What I am trying to say is that I am not exactly an earthling, so while there are many things that I will say that you will probably understand no problem, there might also be many times where I will confuse, bemuse and confound without meaning too¡­well at least for most of those times. I admit it now that there may be times that I can¡¯t resist changing details here and there and will try to deceive you on purpose¡­but keep in mind that those times will usually be for your on good rather than my own amusement. I swear. Back on topic, remember around a chapter ago when I said that in my past life I spoke ¡®English¡¯, and that the light novel etc. of this world was fan translated (mostly machine) from ¡®Nihongo¡¯ probably more likely to be recognized as ¡®Japanese¡¯? Well that confusing idea is what this chapter is supposed to clear up. ¡®We¡¯ decided before sharing this story that we needed to keep things as simple as possible and in order to do that there is such a thing as: ¡°know your audience¡±. While there are indeed many similarities between Earth and [Earth] so much so that it is like someone took one and made a slightly distorted funhouse mirror reflection of the other one, it doesn¡¯t change the fact that the two or really different, and one of those differences is understandably language. For example you know that language I spoke in my past life? Well it is really hard to pronounce in true English¡­more like impossible. The same goes for pronouncing English in a body that speaks that language. I don¡¯t know why this is but maybe the humans of Earth and [Earth] are just built differently or something. So in order to make things easier on us both¡­and by us both I mean myself, you guys the readers and our translator you know as the ¡®author¡¯ Frostypine we decided to attempt to switch around a few things in order to try and make it easier to understand. Here is an example of what we did using countries. *note that as I said it is near impossible for those of Earth to pronounce [Earth] words and vice versa so the words you see before you are only an approximation rather than a direct sounding out. [Earth] : Earth Vinland: USA some of Canada some of Mexico and a lot of islands including alternate Hawaii and Porto Ricco. Northland: Canada and Alaska Nihon: just as you might expect alternate Japan Zongo: China Jo¡¯son: Korea Anglhend: England Franco: France Sindhus: India Did you know this story is from Royal Road? Read the official version for free and support the author.Rus: Russia Latinca: South America Ifritta: Africa Convenient or confusing? For me it is really confusing but while FP was taking my dictation she got mad at the fact that I continually failed at sticking to narrating in such a way that I did not use any slang or [Earth] terms. I have no clue what she expected, but speaking while sticking to only some words and phrases is just unreasonable right? I mean many of the things I use to express myself all come from a natural and instinctive language and that I feel that I have lived in for over 16 years as well as the many additional cultures that I have lived in afterwards; how am I to suddenly change it and act like it is not a part of me? To give you an idea of what it¡¯s like, play one of those word games where you can¡¯t speak any words that start or end with certain letters and see how you do. Even worse, FP¡¯s other suggestion was that I try to pretend that I am from Earth and using a dictionary and an internet access to both that world as well as a parallel world that is closer in likeness to your Earth, just talk all I want and then later on make a few substitutions. Hearing this I was like ¡®just a few substitutions¡¯ ay? Come on now really Frosty! I thought that I was narrating to you in the first place was because I was doing you a favor and now you want me to do even more work?! So to once again make a somewhat long story short this is the compromise that we settled on. I would talk however and whatever way that I wanted to, and on the side of Frosty Pain in the n- excuse me Pine wouldn¡¯t have to bother with each and every little slip up that I made when trying to use Earth words instead of [Earth] words. If you are curious to see an example of one of my little mistakes I think there is still one in one of the earlier chapters in which I say my Mother is a Miss Vinland beauty pageant Queen rather than a more neutral Miss Universe or Earth biased America. Anyway you the reader(s?) might not be appreciative of all the hard work that myself and she-who-will-not-be-named-while-I-am-annoyed-with-her are doing in order to make things easier to understand. In fact you might be thinking ¡®I don¡¯t care about this sort of thing anyway so stupid to do that when it doesn¡¯t matter¡¯ or something similar right? Well let me tell you a little secret which is obviously when you think of it not so secret. If you yourself had in the past read any other light or web novels of any kind, though it may not be as obvious as the message in this chapter you have most definitely read about an [Earth]. Even the times when you thought (wow this is really believable and realistic) when it came to reading the description you were probably not reading about Earth but rather another [Earth]. They may change things here and there so it seems more like Earth, but it is usually a [Earth] they are talking about nonetheless, they just aren¡¯t as honest about it. Or if they are it is usually a major part of the story. Though I hate to admit it something that both I and FP have in common is our honesty¡­or rather inability to be dishonest and or deceive. On purpose at least. Though we both like the idea of writing a story without any outside interruptions is awesome and kudos to the many many authors and possibly narrators¡¯ who are able to do such a thing without breaking any of the immersion. In the end we did not and possibly cannot. While I don¡¯t exactly think my background is a major part of the story it does have some impact on various things that take place in the future, so even if I could do this narrating thing the way it is supposed to be done without breaking the fourth wall in all I probably wouldn¡¯t bother doing it. Besides it took a lot to even get this far. It was only after a lot of back and forth arguments between the two of us that we even managed to settle on this somewhat stupid compromise¡­so if any of you readers have an argument or bone to pick with this¡­let me say that at least one or both of us has probably gone over it to death already. To bring an end to this chapter let me say I think my greatest fault as a narrator lies not in the differences in that remembered world versus yours but rather in the many other things that I am lacking. I won¡¯t bother to go over all of them now mostly because you will soon find them out for yourself if you haven¡¯t already. Just keep in mind that from my point of view I am a very ordinary person who doesn¡¯t know much of anything to begin with so hopefully all these many lacks are somewhat excusable and won¡¯t get in the way again after this chapter. Volume One Chapter 14: Introducing Princess Fatty Introducing Princess Fatty (Sakura) So now coming back to narrating the story more towards the way you expect. You may have forgotten but that ¡®me¡¯ was sitting in bed holding a necklace and trying desperately to remember all about a franchise that they knew about mainly from probably faulty fan translations and several wiki summaries among other skimpy sources. So anyway let me start off with the ¡®Sakura [Star Risen] Quarnz¡¯ that possibly should have been. Don¡¯t worry I am not going to go into any of the theories and explanations of why or how it happened (me becoming her) or what I mean when I say that anytime soon. I will give a small warning slash spoiler that we will get to that eventually and sad to say it will probably be painful for the both of us¡­the whole mess confuses me to this day¡­ So Sakura. From a few comments on the websites of the translations I knew that her most common nickname given by the readers was Princess Fatty. And that was one of the kinder ones. Let us put aside the webnovel for now, because in it her character is far more complex and even a little mysterious. And go look at the easy to understand cardboard cutout that is seen in all of the rest of the media she is in. I don¡¯t know why¡­excuse me didn¡¯t know why but for some strange unknown reason the adaptions that were created or written after the webnovel stopped were many and all of them were basically the same in their content and plot lines. *See chapter: Milk and Cheese for a little more info regarding this. Because of this great degree of shared characteristics and traits I am not going to bother specifically saying everytime from which media I am referring to. That is I completely refuse to do the work of creating references and citations. I mean it¡¯s not like the Copy Right police from another world are going to come chasing after to me or anything, and in my opinion the source doesn¡¯t really matter that much in the end and in the rare event that it does matter I can always specifically tell you then right? To keep things simple I will just say that all you need to know is the ¡®me¡¯ at that time was desperately praying that the world I was then in was based off the webnovel and the webnovel only and for good reason. However since the countries mentioned in the web novels saying had names that were different from ¡®Nim¡¯ and ¡®Quarnz¡¯ among a few other little hints that I won¡¯t get into, I knew that the thin straw that I was attempting to clutch probably didn¡¯t even exist. So though there was still some hope that perhaps the webnovel had some influence there was depressingly little that the others didn¡¯t. And since the webnovel was left basically unfinished and thus there was no absolute evidence that it really had a bad end, while on the other hand the others were chalk full of various disasters and death flags (especially the game versions) I decided to focus my attention on them. And according to them the alternative Sakura, henceforth referred to as Princess Fatty was a princess that was well¡­a fatty. Actually I take that back¡­she was far from being just a fatty, she was a monstrosity of epic proportions that would make the giantesses you see in those cartoons about freak shows look cute. Frostypine tells me that I should say that Princess Fatty is basically like a slightly more human and barely feminine version of Jaba the hut in both appearance and personality and supposedly that should give you somewhat of an idea of just how gross she was. And in several of the games and visual novels with one slip or miscalculation on their part the Hero or one of the male rivals or less liked capture targets could be forced to marry that. Hello what was the definition of bad end again? Yes that is a perfect example of one right? Here let me scrounge around in my brains to attempt to reproduce what her ¡®capture card¡¯ looks like. Name: Sakura [Star Risen] Quarnz Race: Human ? This story originates from a different website. Ensure the author gets the support they deserve by reading it there.Sex: female ? Age: 16 Occupation: Princess Hobbies: Eating Personality: Similar to a spoiled infant¡¯s, throws a temper tantrum when she doesn¡¯t get her way. Warning: Exercise extreme caution that you don¡¯t get in-between her and her food. Are you beginning to get the idea now? Before you start to barf let me comfort you with the fact that while the light novel almost went into graphic detail descriptions of her disturbing appearance her illustrations were mostly bearable to look at. Actually since the artist that illustrated for the light novel could make anything look pretty so that is not that surprising. Obviously because of the format of the light novels and comics you could just skip reading about the parts with her in them (unless for whatever reason you find a monstrously obese princess hilarious I won¡¯t judge you) so her horrendousness wasn¡¯t that big of a deal. Also since in both of those she was just the method that the author used to give you the schadenfreude of watching the villain be condemned to despair, as well as give an occasional laugh at her ridiculous greed and stupidity you couldn¡¯t really care about her status as a ¡®bad end¡¯. So you should be able to tell that it was in the video games that her character was really able to shine in her part as a ¡®bad end¡¯. She was a death flag, romance fail and fame drain all rolled into one big unhappy package. Though she didn¡¯t usually effect the plot when things went wrong you would 6 times out of ten find yourself seeing her ugly mug basically while she wasn¡¯t the big bad boss but you¡¯d call an ordinary disaster. The most horrific thing about Princess Fatty was not her appearance or bad end state, it was that unlike the other disasters it was absolutely impossible to avoid her. I don¡¯t mean that all the games (with perhaps the exception of hacked) were broken to the point that it was impossible to reach a good or even neutral ending. I mean that from what I have heard she makes quite a large amount of appearances despite being so obviously such a side character. The whole reason I had even started reading the light novel and later on the other media in the first place was because of a humorous meme I stumbled across. That meme lead me to other memes which lead me to a comment on a forum which eventually lead to me reading the light novel. Actually Princess Fatty was surprisingly popular in her own infamous way. She was just one of those characters that people seemed to love to hate. Here are some meme reproductions for your enjoyment and clarification: Walking through the castle. WHY IS THERE A MONSTER IN THE CASTLE?! Wait, you say that is your princess?!! I decided to sneak down into the kitchen to get a snack. Princess Fatty says: Don¡¯t Even Think About It! Girl: I think I need to go on a diet Boy: Why you are already so beautiful Girl: Because I don¡¯t want the slightest chance of ever looking like this [pic of PF] Yeah... And sadly the bad end was not just limited to bad ends. Even if you avoided all the flags with negative consequences she would still show up to ruin your gaming experience at least once per play through. Whether it be by glaring at you when you entered the kitchen for a snack in a scary cut scene or being forced to do some random but tiring and randomly annoying minor quest with no reward just because she was the most official princess, she was always a big ole rain on your parade. Or at least that is what the web videos and wiki summaries all agree on. And for whatever random or otherwise reason in every picture that I have ever seen of Princess Fatty on her bulging chest was always the necklace that I was now held in my hand. A necklace which despite its original owner and only spending a small time in the Hero or Heroines hands was always strangely crucial part of most of the plot-lines. Volume One Chapter 15: The Necklace (Sakura not her royal fatness¡­even if I am a bit fat for a 5 year old) How can a necklace be vital you ask? Well I don¡¯t know if they ran out of ideas or if they wanted some subtle form of continuity between the story lines, or just plain ran out of ideas, but PF¡¯s ( and now my ) necklace was used as the McGuffin (object that characters have to find) in almost all the plots and many of the side quests. From the minor:
Side Quest Discovered! Find the Princess¡¯s Necklace: Princess Sakura was eating berries in the garden when she reached to grab a particularly delicious looking berry she tripped and fell down and unfortunately at that moment the necklace was lost. Rewards: Increased intimacy with the princess (why you would want to be friends with that fatty nobody would ever know) permission to pick a bowlful of berries from the princess¡¯s private garden. Sakura: Just one small bowel, you understand?!
To the much more major:
A Hidden Clue to the Main Quest Has Been Discovered! A Mysterious Flower¡¯s Legacy: Long ago in one of the major noble families of Nim there was once a powerful [miko] (priestess) who sealed many demons, and performed many miracles, one of which was taking a fallen cherry blossom and transfiguring it into a strange indestructible metal, in which she sealed some of her amazing powers. Item Stats: Options: *All stats +10% of current level with bonus +1% to wisdom, intelligence and charm. *Increased intimacy with Nim nobility and royalty *Protection of the [miko]: Once a day maximum the power of the [miko] will save your life from death, or give you a great lucky chance (limit resets at sunrise of next day) *can seal an evil demon, but once sealed the necklace will be destroyed. The flower was given to the priestess¡¯s decedents and passed down mother to daughter until it reached its present owner who carelessly lost it. It sat here hidden from view until it was rediscovered by a passing hero, there is evidence of strange and powerful magic on this necklace. Maybe if you keep it, you will be able to research a way to replicate ¡­it with a little help. Options: 1) Keep the necklace for yourself, unlocks a multi stage quest (intelligence level restricted: requires high level of intelligence or help from someone with high intelligence to research about the necklace) 2) figure out who it belongs to, if you return the necklace maybe the owner will feel grateful and reward youThe tale has been illicitly lifted; should you spot it on Amazon, report the violation.
As a side note, I didn¡¯t get these quests from the game summaries I had mentioned earlier but rather from one of the better manga which was strangely enough a litrpg based off one of the better games with many game elements included in the plot line. Unlike some of the others except for the token smattering of cheese it was one of the better items in the franchise, and was one of the few that made me wish that it¡¯s origin game had been published in my country but oh well¡­ Once again how in the universe did such a story get to be so big and popular? Sigh¡­I¡¯d feel happier if things weren¡¯t so mixed up and complicated Anyway to continue: even though some of the other media forms didn¡¯t mention the use of the necklace so specifically all of the media forms used it one way or another, and it was usually if not extremely useful McGuffin then at least used to perform some sort of Deus Ex Machina when things looked most dim. Of course usually if you did end up returning the necklace to PF you would never get it back and end up either going through a lot of trouble to craft some sort of alternative McGuffin, or eventually hitting a dead end and well¡­dying. Didn¡¯t I tell you from the beginning? PF is a total Hero¡¯s (or in some cases Heroine¡¯s) bad end, and this necklace was actually the main and most common way that she showed her power as a dream crusher. Now that I think about it, I haven¡¯t gotten to explain the main plot line of the story yet haven¡¯t I? Well¡­the web novel had this mysterious and epic plot, with many twists and turns includeing from what I hear what was going to be the most epic plot twist ever except the author unfortunetly died (or something) before he could fulfill that promise. Sigh¡­anyway even incomplete I have to admit that I found that thing a full course masterwork that this lowly me still finds hard to explain, so once again let¡¯s skip it for now and move on to the cheesy and simple meals that are the rest of what was available. Though there were differences in characterization, and some plot elements varied or did or did not exist they all had a similar plot lines and shared many characters. Like I think I mentioned PF was in them all for example but there were also a few MC, and important SC and even one or two basic NPC that were mostly shared as well. They also shared the basic setting. There were four countries, Nim, Quarnz, something, and something-something (maybe the former it started with a k and sounded slightly [French]? Or perhaps [German]? And the later I couldn¡¯t tell which country it was based off of¡­but it was really melodic and nice sounding (if I interpreted the pronunciation correctly) ) anyway they were divided by Race, Quarnz was obviously a human country, and something and something-something were demi humans (half animals and dwarves) and a demon country. Strangely enough, and quite hopeful looking to me, Nim unlike the current realty was not a human country but rather a country of elves. Also encouraging is that after living in this world 2-4 years, I have yet to hear anything about any people with races other than human, unfortunately this information isn¡¯t that trustworthy after taking my age sheltered view of the world into account, so I sadly I couldn¡¯t be relived yet. Anyway, you may be wondering, by now why I am panicking so much when I realized that it was likely that I rebirthed into a place of which I had some knowledge. Surely you might wonder after my lavish praising of my past self¡¯s values I wasn¡¯t a fatty hater and thus was suffering in despair at the high likelihood of becoming overweight if not obese in my eventual teenagedom and future adult hood. The answer is, even if I did feel really depressed being born as a person who obviously if nothing else not naturally athletic. I would probably get over that rather quickly, above all no matter who or what I am I know for certain that this is a precious second chance at life! So I of course would be thinking: shouldn¡¯t I live it to the fullest no matter what? Then what was the problem, why the upset? Well let me say this¡­if this world is even a little bit like anyone of those stories/games I wouldn¡¯t be happy¡­because to make it simple¡­none of the places portrayed (except maybe the webnovel) were nice places to be. Volume One Chapter 16: Worlds and Worlds of Endless Bad Ends Chapter: 16 Worlds and Worlds of Endless Bad Ends (Sakura) Here are a few words for you to explain the impression I got from the ¡®world(s?)¡¯ being described by the franchise. Violent, harsh, cruel, primitive and bleak. Yes it was somewhat all of those and though in the slice of life portions and periods you could kind of see some hope that maybe the place wasn¡¯t so bad? The fact that those periods most of the time quickly ended and usually in a brutal and violent way should tell you something. Yes as possibly hinted by the epic amounts of cheese the various authors of the various PF world media didn¡¯t seem to have enough imagination and style to come up with a plot line deeper than the typical overused ¡®point and go and hack and slash¡¯ variety. I will admit that I usually skipped and skimmed over these parts along with the cheese in order to get to what I felt were the few hidden gems that remained so it is not like I am an expert on the subject but even from just with what tattered and burry stuff remained to me I felt a decent amount of fear. Basically all of them even the ones that were not rpgs or related to them were chalk full of death flags. PF was a huge one when it came to plot, but even when you discounted her a defined cornucopia of various death, doom and destruction, greeted you no matter your viewing (or possibly listening) pleasure. From what I read, as can be expected, it was particularly evident in the games. A good example would be that supposedly if you didn¡¯t game a butt load of various stats, skills, equipment, items, allies and maybe a pet or two before you headed out of the tutorial/beginner zone that was the immediate area surrounding the royal castle and the small capital city that enclosed it, you would die, and there would be no if ands or further buts about it. The monsters were always many, OP and completely aggressive, necessary items and consumables like equipment and HP replenishing items were rare and or expensive, and there was little if at all any kind of guidance, leaving the players to wander around on their own to figure things out for themselves. According from what I can remember it was typical to die at least once per story arc but probably and usually many times more, even if you had the advice and guidance of those online who had gone through the challenge before. Yep it was quite the hardcore game, which was kind of surprising considering how beautiful, sparkly and fluffy the artwork was, not to mention it¡¯s common use of extremely handsome/beautiful appearances for all the characters ex except for maybe some of the old men and FP.The narrative has been illicitly obtained; should you discover it on Amazon, report the violation. Of course obviously the challenge appealed too many, gamers who liked that kind of challenge. I learned this more fully, when I happened to seen a few videos made by several of the apparently more well-known gamers where they challenged the gauntlet know as¡­er let¡¯s just continue to call it Fat Princess World or FP world for short. I didn¡¯t really get into the videos or even finish it because I found their bragging, self-congratulating and various comments kind of stupid and or annoying but I saw enough of it for it to impress on me, the difficulty of the game. And it even said in the comment section that the one they were playing was considered one of the easier games! Even if you pretended the rest of the world didn¡¯t exist and stayed in Quarnz you weren¡¯t safe either, because if you didn¡¯t go to the danger apparently the game felt it would be a good idea to bring the danger to you. Plagues, wars, and even random things like crazy old men that were once supposedly assassins in their youth could and almost always would a appear to deal out death¡¯s hand. You must of course always keep in mind that when I say no matter what media from the franchise you held death was always the easiest possibility to achieve, I really mean it. Though the role play video games were the most obvious all of them were dark one way or another. Most of the manga and light novels were chalk full of various tragic elements and painful plot twists. And maybe shockingly to some the more romantic visual novels and [Otome] based games (those that focused more on the relationships then the battles) were almost as death flagged as the rpgs. In those choose your own adventure stories apparently if PF didn¡¯t squash you flat under her rolls of fat, there was always the possibility that you triggered something in your love interest or rival and they did you in. The story in those cases usually went something like this: you pick a love interest and try to raise familiarity or friendship or whatever points with them, then a few death flags pop up here and there one after the other and if and once you side step them (whilst of course continue to up those happy points) a rival will appear and start getting in the way, and you have to either befriend them to the point that they consider leaving you alone for friendships sake, or completely devastate them even and up to including the option of killing them and only then do you pass that wall. Then just when you feel relieved and think you have reached the end of the game, some sort of disaster or doom appears and you have to face and endure that too, hopefully with the help of your conquered love interest and befriended love rival turned ally. The sad thing is even if you defeat even that, the game is still not over, for you have to then defeat the disasters that would have showed up on the other love interests routs even if you didn¡¯t choose them. Actually this specifically was even ranted about several times on the forums that even if you didn¡¯t strive for the hidden condition triggered really difficult to get harem love, and harem friendship ends you still had a royal harem sized mound of obstacles to face, and as already said probably and usually without the benefits (?) that would come with it. Of course all of those possibly only can exist in a play through in which PF didn¡¯t get in the big fat way and spoil everything. You know, that monstrously sized, commonly and easily reached bad end? HBE: Taking a Hiatus It wasn''t planned but I think now that it has gotten to this point I might as well admit it: I am (and have been) taking a hiatus...I feel kind of disappointed in myself but things kept popping up one after the other, and then it became final exam week(s)...and studying took priority. Anyway I have set for myself as a deadline my birthday which is December 17. Hopefully I can take enough time in-between studies to write all the chapters that I should have written a long time ago...Originally I was just going to continue to lie to myself and pretend like nothing happened when I started posting chapters again...but then a little voice whispered that isn''t being very fair to the readers is it? And while I don''t really care what the readers think, I also at the same time really care about what the readers think, so I decided to just confess to you guys the truth before things got any more ridiculous. My apologies now, for the past, and sadly probably in advance. Hopefully I will come back on the 17th with lots of new chapters, maybe something extra, and at minimum an explanation of what has been going on with me lately (the past few months).A case of content theft: this narrative is not rightfully on Amazon; if you spot it, report the violation. As a mostly unrelated side note, I have been slowly starting to move a copy of my fictions to Novel Updates Forums, starting with my ¡®newest¡¯ story RMHS (3 chapters out of the 7 total have been moved so far, so I¡¯m like almost halfway done for that novel) and ending with my oldest RCF, and while I have been doing that I have found myself taking the time to edit and polish the chapter a little bit, so essentially currently the ¡®newest¡¯ version is on NUF, I will probably also update my RoyalRoadl version after I have finished editing and posting the ones on NUF, but before then, if you are interested you can always check out the ¡®new¡¯ version on NUF. update: So because of the weather I am heading home later then planned and will have no internet access so the chapters will probably be late... HBE Hiatus Update There was an unfortunate incident that happened a while ago and led to me having to prolong the hiatus...sorryThis book is hosted on another platform. Read the official version and support the author''s work. Because of that I don¡¯t know when I will get the new chapters rewritten and posted and so I can¡¯t give an end date yet but hopefully it is soon