“Bell, is something wrong?”
As the last class of the week wrapped up and I was about to head back, Victoria suddenly asked me.
“What do you mean?”
I knew Victoria had been checking my face multiple times, but she hadn’t focused on any particular spot. So I figured it was just her whims, but then she said something unexpected.
“You look like you’re in a bad mood.”
Hmm, really?
I touched my face. I didn’t think my expression would be that obvious.
“Is that so?”
“You do realize you’re saying you feel bad, right?”
I nodded. The fact that I felt bad wasn’t something I had to hide. Why was she so surprised that I answered?
“I thought it would take you some time to talk, but you nodded right away. So what’s going on?”
I couldn’t explain everything, but there’s a rule I follow: when asked, I must only tell the truth.
Without that, I wouldn’t know where to start or end. If I lied, I couldn’t turn back at some point.
It’s likely that others would figure me out faster than I could figure myself out.
It’s not that I don’t trust myself. I just don’t forget that there are smarter people than me.
“It’s just cold.”
“Eh? Is it that cold today? Or are you feeling unwell? You don’t seem to have a fever…”
Victoria placed her hand on my head to check my temperature. Her hand was warm. While I was surprised at how warm she was, Victoria kept asking questions with a serious expression. But I shook my head; none of them applied to me.
Honestly, I didn’t even know if this body could give birth.
“I’m fine. It’s just that the time I could forget the cold has been pushed far away.”
Yeah. All my expectations have been wrong.
Kanna gave up killing her family to climb up, and people in Bern City have stopped behaving selfishly.
And with the rain, as if waking from a dream, the people in Brightshin are no longer crazily recording knowledge.
Nothing satisfying has happened.
But it’s okay.
I’ve already done a lot.
Aurora and Kanna. A princess and a noble lady. I made someone with high status into a harvesting period.
Even if I can’t expect much from myself, who knows what the offspring might be like?
Even if someone in Bern City claims to have become kind, the world can still change.
Of all things, they created a religion.
It’s still a primitive form of religion where they pray to me in gratitude. I’m not a god yet, and they don’t think they believe in a god either.
They just look up as if praying to a great figure.
But how would someone unrelated to religion see that? In a nation where reason and rationality are their primary ideologies, religion is seen as old-fashioned and pitiful.
It’s the perfect thing to be cast aside.
And in the slums of Brightshin. The rampant spread of knowledge has stopped like a plague. It would have been easier for me if it hadn’t happened. Just a little more convenient. Just that much.
It’s not just that knowledge is increasing; there are more people to see it. And when someone with power and authority sees it, the chances of them taking it grow.
But that’s fine too.
I found out that knowledge is being properly absorbed, and the harvesting period will pull the technology I have in mind out into the world.
No matter how long it takes, if this world remains optimistic about science and technology, it won’t escape this technology.
Simply put, I’ve just been robbed of all my fast food.
The lack of easy and quick warmth is felt.
That said, I’m not in a place to harvest warmth from the harvesting period right now. I’m not that reckless.
I wasn’t foolish enough to break my own rules. Patience is my specialty. Now, I just need to slowly watch as the world progresses.
The harvesting period has already burrowed deep inside people.
About 25,000.
A mix of those with outstanding physical abilities and high intelligence. Who has the advantage in a survival competition?
Having clear skin becomes a form of beauty too.
Among the harvesting period are many women in the profession of selling their bodies. They returned to that line of work after changing. They came back with far more beautiful and healthier bodies. It’s a time without contraceptives.
Even their appearances improved. Who has the better breeding success rate?
I only have to wait.
I’m waiting for the offspring of the harvesting period to blanket the world.
Even if every creature becomes the offspring of the harvesting period, the world won’t collapse.
I just need to choose a leader among them and push myself into that place. Then I can automatically gain warmth.
Until I recognize and push in the offspring of the harvesting period, I’m not part of it.
It’s fast and easy to spread with a contract document, but I learned in the first world that doing so would break the world. So I’d rather go safe, even if it takes time.
However, if reason and rationality move in a twisted way, a scenario like a genocide of the harvesting period would be dangerous.
No, it’s not exactly dangerous.
As long as there’s psychic ability. Even if that happens, the harvesting period is unlikely to lose. In fact, there are already harvesting period beings with brainwashing abilities in this world.
“Is that your story? The one you said about being an outsider?”
At that moment, Victoria casually stabbed the blade of truth deep into me. I truly felt a chill in my chest from the suddenness.
This is why.
This is why I cling desperately to the rules. How on earth do you get to the truth?
Maybe.
I made a mistake, and Victoria collected the pieces. There’s no guarantee she’s the only one who can do that. She’s not special, and I’m not a genius.
That means there will likely be many who reach the truth. So shouldn’t I desperately follow even the foolish rule of speaking the truth?
I should at least try.
Outsider. Outsider. I’m not a god. Who said that first?
Ah.
“Some witch called me that. But it was pretty funny because I’m not a god.”
At my words, Victoria looked up at the air. Is she imagining the witch? It must be pretty funny. Giving that name to a mere monster who isn’t even a god.
That’s a lifetime mistake, right?
“Bell must have been really scary. That’s why they gave such an easy name.”
“Why do you resonate with that?”
“Because Bell is really easy to understand?”
Maybe the rule I set about always telling the truth is the best rule I have.
Without that, I might have already been hanging somewhere.
“I thought it was easy, but is it really? If it were easy, it wouldn’t be scary, right?”
At my question, Victoria crossed her arms. She tilted her head for a moment, organizing her thoughts.
To me, someone whose thoughts are easy to read seems like easy prey, so it’s surprising to hear her say it’s scary.
“You see Bell as easy to understand, right? But there are sides I show deliberately to seem easy, and sides that reveal themselves without me knowing. The two are different.”
I get the front part. I’m doing that on purpose. But the back… I need to remember not to miss it. My weaknesses pop out so simply.
“Is the hidden side scary?”
“No. That part, um. No. I don’t want to say yet.”
Then, suddenly, Victoria brought her face very close to mine.
“So, you wanna hear it forcibly?”
I want to. But.
“No, Victoria. I don’t force anyone.”
Even if minor accidents happen during the memory insertion process, I never think of twisting someone’s consciousness. I can only be bold and proud if I’m noble to myself.
But.
I did force once.
Yeah.
In the second world.
When heading to Kunlun Mountain.
I closed my eyes.
At that time, I was so greedy for the memories of the Primordial Heavenly Sovereign. The technology to move between worlds. So I dashed to Kunlun Mountain to acquire it.
Now I’ve unleashed that into this world.
From now on, I’ll stand this world and move to another.
So that an unfortunate future comes to everyone.
So that a happy era for me, where I can gain warmth, comes.
I made the right choice.
Therefore, I open my eyes again.
“Now, how will you see me, Victoria?”
“Now? From now on, to me, Bell is Bell.”
With a bright smile, Victoria stepped back again. Then she placed her hand on my head.
“Aha! I feel better with just this! Bell is really twisted.”
The people with real business have already left, and those like us are left chatting in the classroom.
Victoria walked towards the exit. I followed her.
“So, what happened to that witch?”
I recalled the little witch who didn’t know when to laugh. She wasn’t a harvesting period.
“Well, I wonder what happened to her.”
After she fell to where I am, she disappeared as if she had never existed. I don’t know how because I really didn’t do anything.
“You don’t know?”
“She disappeared like a bubble, but I really don’t know if she’s dead. She never completed the contract, so she never gained warmth at the end.”
Actually, I could have gotten it since I was close, but she just vanished without a trace as if this place had been a fridge from the start.
“Was she a bad witch?”
“She was a witchy witch who bullied those weaker than her to take their belongings and ran away while mocking those stronger than her.”
“Wow, what trash.”
Victoria shook her head.
Rather than her, there was another friend who was always with me…
I shook my head to erase that thought and decided to change the subject. The stories of other worlds aren’t needed in this world yet.
“Victoria, it seems the person managing the house where I live will come to escort soon, so we can get close, right?”
“Isn’t that supposed to be you getting close to them?”
“I’m open-minded, Victoria.”
“If you say so, it makes me sound narrow-minded!”
As we chatted like that, we ended our day.
