Chapter 129: Emotions
In the end, I was unable to get any information about the statues.
There were no words or symbols on the ruins, just statues standing in silence.
I asked Geppeti, but she only had a similar guess to mine so I had to turn around and leave this nagging feeling unresolved.
“Ke… Ke…”
Sheddie, who had been masquerading as me with his ‘shadow mimicry’, looked stressed.
Next to him was Ismir, sleeping coolly.
I had escaped from the ruins and sneaked back to the tent.
Judging by Sheddie’s reaction, he must have had a hard time with Ismir’s ‘rough’ struggle when she came in to sleep after I left.
‘You’re strong…’
Ismir’s strength must have been quite a bit to take, but Sheddie seems to have managed to hold on without letting anyone know who he was.
I immediately dismissed Sheddie’s shadow mimicry.
His human form gradually shrinks away, and he returns to his normal, fluffy self.
-Pfft!
At that moment, Ismir, who was sleeping, kicked.
-Thud!
Amon, who was at the end of the line, is knocked out of his sleep by Ismir’s foot and sent flying, crashing into the corner of the tent.
“Uh…”
I exclaim in bewilderment.
Amon is too strong.
Curled up in an odd position in the corner of the tent, he doesn’t wake up from the impact.
Sheddie, who has been watching, looks somewhat resentful, then looks back and forth between Amon and me.
‘…You mean to tell me you’ve been through that too?’
Lucia was well aware of Ismir’s tendencies and was lying on the edge of the tent as far away from her as possible, sleeping soundly.
-Yawn.
Someone stuck their face into the tent.
“Uh… Zetto, weren’t you sleeping? I heard a noise and came in…”
Her red eyes roll, darting around the tent.
“Yeah, well…”
“Ahaha…Instructor Ismir is a rough sleeper…”
Yuri smiled wryly as she looked around the tent and seemed to get the picture.
“You’re not tired, are you? I suppose I could stand guard…”
“Eh, I can handle this.”
Yuri shook her head.
There’s nothing else to do inside so I followed Yuri out of the tent.
My eyes fall on the countless grains of sand, glistening in the bluish moonlight.
On the other side, a platinum-haired girl stood tall on the sandy ground, her eyes scanning her surroundings.
It was Aizel, standing guard.
‘I’m afraid she won’t be able to find any otherworldly species…’
Aizel stirred and turned her head to look at me as I approached her with Yuri.
“What about the otherworldly species?”
“None.”
“I haven’t seen one, let alone encountered one, and with the ruins so close…”
Yuri glanced at the ancient ruins in the near distance and sighed.
My orders to the otherworldly servants were working well. As a bonus, I’ve removed the ‘virus’ from Geppeti, so no more humans will be killed by them.
“…Something’s wrong.”
Aizel questioned with a serious expression.
‘Well, it is strange from the perspective of a regressor like Aizel.’
She even seemed to dislike the otherworldly species but to be fair, Aizel isn’t the only one who doesn’t like them.
The delgradians who have lost family members to them especially hate them so it seems like it’s best to keep the fact that I’m the King of the Otherworld…the one who can rule over the Otherworlders…to myself.
I didn’t feel very comfortable with the fact that I had more to hide, but I suppose it was inevitable.
“Zetto, I’m cold.”
Aizel said, and looked at me quizzically.
I shake my head, and Aizel lunges at me, lifting my robe and digging into it.
Yuri’s eyes widen as she watches.
“I’m a little cold, too…”
Yuri sneaks up on me, too, and slips into the robe. However, Yuri is not as short as Aizel, so the robe pokes up a bit.
“It’s cramped.”
“Aren’t more people supposed to make it warmer? I thought you said it was cold?”
Aizel and Yuri began to bicker in my robe.
“I… Am I supposed to stand guard…?”
I ask, my voice muffled by the robes.
“Zetto can find them better than we can, anyway.”
I don’t think that’s a very nice thing to say to someone whose eyes are covered with bandages, but I don’t argue.
“…And the desert nights are cold. We… yeah, we’re the stove.”
“…What do you mean, ‘we’? I have enough heat myself.”
Finally, I hear the sound of Aizel arguing with Yuri again.
‘A stove…Yeah, it’s warm…’
Aizel and Yuri on either side of me were sticking to me, and the warmth… No, I was feeling a bit more heat than that.
“…Ms. Yuri, can’t you at least not use magic…? My robes are going to burn.”
Yuri flinched at the sound of my voice.
“Ugh… Aizel, I told you not to use magic. Uh, uh…! I’m stuck to Zetto, can you take responsibility if he gets electrocuted with me?”
Yuri, who was in my robes, said as she wrapped her arms around me.
“Chit.”
Aizel clicks his tongue, and the tiny sound of digging disappears.
…I wonder if she’s trying to wrestle her out of my robes.
Wrapped in my robes, which had grown out of proportion to my size, I stayed still and listened to their voices.
I don’t need to stand guard anyway.
They must be tired in their own way, and it would be good for them to get some rest.
‘Well, this is all just a memory.’
Now that I had no memory of being an Earthling.
I was now ‘Zetto,’ a human being, not a game character so I decided to fully accept this fact.
It wouldn’t change the fact that I was Zetto anyway so I decided to make as many pleasant memories as possible and make every moment count.
They say that intense emotions slow down the wear and tear of emotions, and of course, positive emotions are better.
What kind of emotions am I feeling right now, when I’m looking at a beautiful night sky with brilliant stars and hearing the voices of my loved ones in my ears?
It wasn’t intense, but it was definitely ‘happiness’.
***
“Hmph…”
Ismir, who had been carrying a hawk on her shoulder carefully examined the note it had brought as it flapped its wings.
After reading the entire note, Ismir scratched her head.
“We can’t see them and neither can the others. We’re heading back to Delgrad.”
Amon’s face lights up at Ismir’s words.
All of the cadets in the desert have been ordered to return, it was an unprecedented occurrence when all of the otherworldly species disappear overnight.
Ismir’s expression was more than a little grave since the reason for their disappearance is unknown.
Soon enough, Delgrad will be sending a team of investigators to determine the cause.
Their destination will be the Ancient Ruins, but I’m told by Geppeti that there’s an identification device at the entrance, and they’re located deep underground where they’ll never be able to reach without activating the elevator, so I’m not too worried.
If the alien species don’t keep showing up, Delgrad will be on high alert in a few months.
‘Though they’ll never find out why.’
We headed straight for Delgrad, traveling nonstop and arriving late at night.
The city was quite chaotic as magicians and warriors were chatting beside empty carts in the middle of the street.
-I hadn’t captured a single alien.
-No aliens appeared.
-We need materials, but what can we do?
The conversations went something like this.
If the Otherworlders don’t continue to show up, the progress of the magecraft that utilizes their remains will be slowed.
Not that I cared.
Not long after entering the city, we found Edward waiting for us.
Apparently we were the last group but it was no wonder we were so close to the ancient ruins, hoping to catch a humanoid alien.
Edward said that unfortunately, the tour would have to come to an end.
With no more alien species to kill, it was only natural.
We headed back to the inn where we’d stayed the first night, following Edward’s advice to get some rest.
I don’t know if we’ll be staying in Delgrad for a few more days, but this is the end of the tour.
‘I guess the joint battle is a foregone conclusion after all…’
So much has happened to me personally, and the only thing I’ve done as a cadet is cross the desert.
It was funny.
***
Meanwhile, Geppeti sat on the white floor of her virtual space, ‘learning’.
Learning that was necessary to serve her master and her king.
Zetto’s command to her was to learn about being a ‘little sister’ and she understood his intentions.
Geppeti knew that her speech was far from human so it was necessary to learn.
The problem was the data about sisters.
Geppeti had learned mostly from media from 200 years ago that would have been familiar to Zetto.
From this, Geppeti learned that there were many “little sister” characters.
Why there were so many little sister characters was beyond her, but the fact that so much data was available was good news for her.
“The younger sister would often wake up before her ‘older brother’ and jump on his body while he was still in bed.”
Geppeti mumbled as she continued to learn.
Under her legs was a “dummy” that looked exactly like Zetto.
This was her virtual world, so anything was possible.
“There are two types here.”
Geppeti shook the pile under her legs to wake him up.
“Wake up, big brother! It’s morning already?”
Geppeti was an artificial intelligence so “acting” wasn’t a problem for her. She could mimic the tone of voice, facial expressions, and speech patterns.
With her facial muscles relaxed, Geppeti decided to recreate the next type of sister.
This time, she leans over the dummy’s body.
“Brother… I can’t believe you were so rough with me last night…”
This, too, was successfully played off.
“…It may have been a bit of inappropriate data, but since I don’t know what Lord Zetto’s ‘preferences’ are, it seems only right that I learn as much as I can.”
Geppeti continued to learn about the different types of ‘sisters’.
This time, Geppeti’s contact with Zetto yielded one type of emotions, the negative emotions, such as confusion and anxiety, that Zetto had displayed in front of her but she hadn’t yet realized how these emotions would cause her to make errors.