Min-Maxing My TRPG Build in Another World - Volume 2 - Chapter 8

Late Spring of the Twelfth Year (II)

Wandering Monster Encounter

Minor, semi-random combat scenarios that crop up often in TRPGs with an emphasis on combat mechanics. These can heighten the stakes of the final battle by chipping away at resources, add a sense of urgency to the campaign, or else act as the catalyst for major plot points.

Spending too much time here can cause the session to run out of steam by the climax. These serve as a test of both the GM’s preparation and the players’ prowess.

I love convenience. Back in my old life, my appetite for novelty and the ease of online shopping meant it was all too easy for greed to overpower my higher faculties. Yet even so, I had to question whether I was spoiling myself now more than I ever had before.

“Alfar are terrifying...”

Faced with four daemon corpses in a holding room meant for maids and butlers attached to the wing of the central dining hall, I could do nothing but tremble at the sheer brutality of unique racial skills.

Moments ago, Lottie had led me just outside and told me there were four daemons within—prompting an “Ugh...” to slip out. Had this not been a fantasy world, I would have asked for a grenade.

Fighting four opponents solo is exhausting. It wasn’t even a matter of whether I would win or lose; regardless of the outcome, the thought of expending precious stamina dispirited me. Truthfully, I was confident—I’d managed to face off against six daemons at once before setting foot in this building—but I felt as though I’d relied on my long-range backstab a bit too much. While I was far from physically fatigued, my mana reserves were shakier; I’d been throwing a lot into beefing up my spells.

I noticed that some of my usual energy escaped me. If this was how it felt to use roughly half of my mana, then I was all but guaranteed to black out upon using all of it. Apparently, I hadn’t been born to a world where one could squeeze the value out of every last point of HP and MP with zero repercussions. The designers clearly hadn’t taken the age-old advice that there’s a point where simulationism only turns players away...

Jokes aside, I decided to get things over with and asked Ursula to temporarily blind the daemons, at which point I walked in and promptly dispatched them with my new fey knife. It was easy to the point of feeling fake.

This combo was so strong that I feared the thought of getting used to it. Like players who chose overpowered characters in fighting games, I could see myself degrading to the point where this would be all I could do. Convenience was lovely, but I had to remind myself not to indulge too much. Eventually, the time would come when I would need to fight my way out with my own two hands.

“That’s right, Beloved One. Alfar are to be feared. I’m glad to receive your love, but do make sure not to rely on us too heavily. Although I will say this: dancing on a twilight hill without a care in the world is quite ravishing.”

Ursula looked positively delighted as she spoke. I couldn’t understand why all the innocent faces around me loved whispering traumatic things into my ear. For the first time in a while, I took in the shivers that shot up from my tailbone as I put away the knife. Despite my eager use of the weapon, the blade was immaculate. This too was something I couldn’t let myself lean on—using a blade so perfect, I might lose the fundamental instinct to angle my sword properly.

With the group of four out of the way, all that remained was one ogre, whom Lottie had already confirmed to be waiting in the dining room. Was this placement intentional? Had I charged in without thought, I would have been blocked in by the four daemons waiting in the wings. This was exactly the sort of trap that GMs employed to kill boneheaded PCs. Despite shuddering at how pervasive their bloodlust seemed, I psyched myself up as I pushed open the door to the dining hall.

Let’s do this fair and square.

Here, lavish recipes had lined the table; a family had exchanged heartfelt smiles; guests had praised the cooks for their fine cuisine. Yet all that remained was a depressing sight. With no one to use it, the long table had been smashed and thrown to one side. The red carpet had decayed into black, and the desaturated decorations had cast their lot with the artistic school of atrophy.

At the far end of this decrepit space, a single chair the lord of the manor had once used remained upright; in it was the imposing, gallant figure of a perfectly polished ogre.

The afternoon sun trickling in from a broken window dimly glimmered on blue skin peeking out beneath hide armor. The pelt was mostly intact, with its rugged edges only heightening its valorous air.

I took in the female ogre in all her glory, a large buckler in her left hand and a massive sword in her right.

“Wait, wait, seriously?”

Her menacing gaze met mine: the glowing gems that poked out from the gaps in her lustrous indigo bangs had an undeniable wit hidden within. The art of battle she’d honed in her life now encased her like armor and shone through her eyes. She was not the same as the male ogres who’d been fully reduced to their primal instincts I’d cut down at noon.

She rose slowly, as if the task of standing bored her. Her beautiful face was slack with indolence as she took her sword and shield. The massive blade, built for her kind, had the reach of a spear by mensch standards.

After turning her neck a few times to get her bearings...she leapt toward me. Combat had begun. No words were exchanged: we were merely pitting one life against another to see whose was tougher—an experiment that would continue until one was irreparably destroyed.

The ogre approached in a straight line, her shield raised and her weight behind it. Her technique with the sword and shield was so impeccable that I wanted to place a diagram of her form in a textbook. Her shield was perfectly positioned to deny access to her vitals, angled slightly to roll off any impact. On the other hand, the brunt of her blade was hidden behind her, making it a challenge to guess where she would strike.

An ill-timed step forward would be met with a heavy shield bash, and any half-baked attempt to dodge would leave me a sitting duck for her readied sword. On the offense, a lukewarm attack would bounce off her shield and give her enough time to make a full-course meal out of me. She pushed the fundamentals to their absolute limit; her strategy was too simple to poke holes in easily, yet so refined that I could hardly believe she was mad.

Furthermore, she was three meters tall and probably weighed more than an armored truck. Her presence was so staggering that any normal person would turn tail and flee or search for the most painless means of dying as they cursed their fleeting life. Faced with this flesh-and-bone tank that would reduce me to mincemeat if I let her, I wielded Schutzwolfe low and dashed forward.

I won’t lie: the entire premise of the fight intimidated me. Still, my spirit was unbroken—after all, Sir Lambert had prepared me for fights just like these.

What is most crucial in combat? Power—there can be no dissent. Speed—none would deny you. Wit—of course, a vital element. Yet none of these are the answer: the true warrior is ever watchful. He knows the space between himself and his opponent, reevaluating the distance with each passing moment, occupying the perfect spot at all times!

As soon as I entered her range, the sword hidden behind her massive frame contorted into a dark gray whirlwind. Her blade scooped up from below, and I could tell the grandeur of her swing was a front for the delicate touch hidden in her bladework. Well aware that strikes from below are difficult to dodge, she’d recognized that my light equipment and lack of a shield made her choice of attack ideal.

The force of her swing caused the tip of her sword to blur; if she hit me, my legs and torso would share a tear-jerking farewell, armor be damned. Impending doom aroused my Lightning Reflexes, and as the world slowed, I used my Insight to plot out the trajectory of her peerless strike.

Oh, how beautiful your skill is. The arc of her blade couldn’t have been more perfect if I’d drawn it with a compass. Every limb had to coordinate perfectly with the rest of her body to accomplish a feat like this. It was leaps and bounds ahead of attacks made by fools who swung with their arms instead of their hips...but while parrying thoughtless swinging was easy, it was also unpredictable.

Her textbook form was so seamless that I knew exactly what she was going to do. As the milliseconds dragged on, I hopped ever so slightly. Kicking off with my right foot toward the belly of her blade, I landed with my left. The minor change in position over a fraction of a second had been the difference between being bisected and slipping into safety as she rushed toward me.

I heard a gust of wind follow the ogre’s sword behind me. She’d trimmed off a few strands of hair—she would have peeled the skin off my back had I been any slower. A cold sweat ran down my neck.

Regardless, I’d rolled a success on my reaction, as difficult as it was. At times like these, stepping back out of fear was the worst thing to do. Making distance wouldn’t help me counterattack; for the opponent, all it did was leave me one step away from striking distance again.

To fight—that is, to attack and not merely buy time to flee—involved advancing even during evasion. Still, I was far from home free: I was up against an enemy that wielded a buckler the size of a mensch’s tower shield, after all. Although the word “shield” has a defensive nuance, it was ultimately a giant slab of wood and steel. It followed that it had a great deal of rock-solid mass—all the makings of a great blunt weapon.

The ogre displayed neither surprise nor panic upon seeing me dodge her slice. Her golden irises followed me calmly and she jerked her body, her sword still high in its arc. To swing up with one’s right arm necessarily causes the left to dip, and to draw back is to build up power.

She unleashed her spring-loaded arm, slamming the shield into the ground with ludicrous force in an attempt to crush the entirety of the space in front of her. It was a marvelous attack: the bands of steel reinforcing her shield’s edge crashed to the ground, kicking up carpet and wood chips with a deafening roar. Direct contact would have reduced me to jelly even if I was wearing the fanciest armor ever made.

Impressive as it was, I took no time to gawk; I tumbled left, sticking to the ogre’s right-hand side. Scattering splinters pelted me, but my armor kept them from causing any more damage than a minor sting.

Stepping into her range was terrifying beyond belief. Her sword was a tempest of steel, her shield a castle wall, and the gargantuan fists she had yet to resort to were pillars in and of themselves. Yet I’d gotten too close for her—swallowing my fear, I’d managed to enter a blind spot, breaching the towering walls of her fort.

“Aaargh!” I made no effort to dampen my momentum as I whizzed by, nearly close enough to touch her thigh. With an uncharacteristic war cry, I slashed Schutzwolfe upward, aiming for the exposed wrist where her armor opened from link bracer to glove.

Every atom in my body moved in sync to coordinate strike and step, transferring the whole of my forward momentum into my arms. Finding its mark, my blade sank in and tore out, severing flesh and bone alike.

Dull paralysis spread through my hand. The feedback felt like it couldn’t have come from a living being. That a full body swing with all of the force I could muster was still so sluggish was disheartening. Had my angle of entry been a degree or two off, I would have certainly been shaken off and sprained my wrist.

Yet it appeared that I’d claimed my reward for the tingling in my hand. The tip of my blade dripped with oozing blue blood.

“GUIII...”

I whipped around while drawing back to see the ogre drop her sword with a loud thud. I’d pierced her arm and gotten halfway to lopping off her wrist.

Lightning Reflexes gave me an immaculate perception of movement, Insight offered an intuitive understanding of the best locations to target, and Parallel Processing allowed me to come up with a strategy that took every possibility into consideration. Finally, my VI: Expert level Hybrid Sword Arts and Enchanting Artistry combined to render Schutzwolfe a fang capable of splitting alloyed bones.

The legendary wolf had clawed through the tendon in the ogre’s right wrist. Unable to form a proper grip, she fumbled, grasping uselessly at her fallen sword.

A mistake, I noted; I sprinted as fast as I could manage without tripping, not giving her any time to regain her bearings. With my sword pointing from my shoulder, I lunged for her defenseless rear at full speed.

“GURUOOOOOOO!”

Unfortunately, I’d underestimated her reaction speed. She turned quickly enough to cover for her slipup, ready to backhand me from above with her shield angled parallel to the ground. Considering her strength, she would have been able to blow away a light car with this motion. Eating her counterattack would make my head explode like a pomegranate.

So, I tasked my Hands with a new job. I dropped down to dodge her portable falling ceiling, only to be met with a lethal kick at point-blank range. Although the wind generated by her initial movement was painful in and of itself, I forced myself to dodge with a little nick-of-time spellcraft. By rapidly creating a Hand to support me, I secured my balance and sorted out my footing with an extra step. Cheating to her right, I slipped past her while offering her leg a parting gift—I yanked a leather pad to one side with an Unseen Hand and sliced at her exposed flesh.

This was the blend of magic and swordplay I’d envisioned. My style did not rely on one or the other, but both at once, shrinking the distance between my blade and an opponent’s life. Every facet of this combat paradigm served to enhance the return for raw skill.

A smattering of blood spurted forth, soaking into a blue stain on my chest. The sensation of foreign muscle straining and then yielding raced through my arm.

“GOAAAAAAAAAA!”

And in the very next moment, a booming blast sent me sailing through the air. The ogre had managed to stabilize herself with torso movement alone, kicking her freshly severed leg into me. Although she hadn’t had the leeway to build up for a proper attack, the bone running through her shin was sturdy, and the sinews wrapping around it were as thick as suspension bridge wiring. The impact of having a leg like that hurled at me could not be understated.

What tenacity—what thirst for blood! I’d paid the price for my naive thought that cutting her tendons would neutralize her. I could hardly breathe; my stomach tried to crawl out of my mouth. The terrible pain in my chest echoed through the rest of my body when I bounced off the floor.

I’d been saved by the Unseen Hands I’d barely managed to conjure, cushioning the blow from the flying leg... Had I been even a fraction of a second later, I would surely have died.

As I tumbled back, I desperately grasped at the carpet to slow my velocity. The pain of impact reverberating from my chest made me want to cry, and every fiber of my being hurt from rebounding off the floor, but I hadn’t broken any bones. More importantly, I was alive. An attack of that caliber ordinarily should have snapped my ribs like twigs and crushed my heart in one fell swoop. Evidently, my loose wallet was finally paying dividends.

I spit out the blood flowing from a nasty gash inside my mouth. The ogre had lost control of her posture shortly after parting with her leg, and her attempts to put weight on her right side caused her to lose balance and kneel.

“GUOOO...”

I would not call the sight of her trying to rise while holding her leg pathetic—but it was profoundly sad. Although I had been the one to do it, seeing this proud, mighty warrior brought to her knees pricked at my heart.

Yet still, her will to fight was alive and well. The instant she recognized her leg’s uselessness, she began biting at the clasps on her shield—by the time I’d registered what she was up to, it was already flying toward me.

“Whoa?!” I screamed, barely ducking out of the way. The gruesome flying disk whizzed through the space my head had occupied moments prior. It smashed the door to flinders and flew off into the hallway as if it were flying off to freedom...and I didn’t hear it fall. Forget crushing me—that would have cleaved me in two.

Her bloodlust was a thing of wonder. Even after losing half of her limbs, murder was the only thing on her mind. Unlike the original six daemons that had groveled in pain, her will to fight until her last breath offered a glimpse into the chivalry and strength that personified her when she’d been sane.

It would have been an honor to meet you before you turned.

Looking again, her newly freed left hand reached for her sword. She still hadn’t given up, and she wouldn’t so long as her heart continued to beat.

Gritting my teeth, I called on my drying well of mana to shove away her giant sword and pick up my own from where it’d flown upon impact. I took hold of Schutzwolfe’s grip as if she were a loyal hound returning to her master. Beating down the horrid pain that screamed from every pore, I walked forward.

The fist that awaited me no longer had any force behind it. Even without Lightning Reflexes, an attack of this speed was simple to dodge. Something about her sluggish punch filled my heart with desolation as I sidestepped it to bring down my sword.

Schutzwolfe’s edge glided into her neck, cutting about a fourth of the way through. A mist emerged as her arteries pumped out blue globs, and I remained alert, stepping back to avoid the spray. It wasn’t simply a matter of not wanting to shower in her blood: each of her death throes left a tempest that blew past my face in its wake. She screamed as if to refute the thought of defeat, violently throwing her nearly severed right hand at me as I retreated. A second or two of delay would have left me looking like a splattered frog.

After all this, the fiery desire to end me still gleamed in her eyes. It sank into the back of my brain, hardening into fear. Never before had I been assaulted with such vivacity—such intense life.

There was no good nor evil to her bloodlust as it lapped at my soul and constricted my body. What would have happened if I’d been watching the crimson glint in these eyes as we’d fought? Insight allowed me to view her form as a whole—but without it? That was a situation I didn’t want to imagine.

Still trying to stymie the endless stream of blood, the ogre attempted to stand only to fall flat. Yet her gaze remained fixed on me, filled with nothing but an unquenchable desire for my life. Her eyes were screaming that, if not physically, she would try to murder me with force of will alone.

Pulsing blood slowly drained her of life, eventually snuffing it out altogether. All I could manage was to watch over her, struck with dumb awe... So this is what it means to fight to the death.

It had been horrific. I was shaken to my core, and I could feel my spirit whimper away. Strength abandoned me to the point that the thought of standing was enough to distress me. The ogre’s blazing hatred had sparked a war of the mind, and withstanding a siege of dozens of mental attacks had been frighteningly exhausting.

At the time, I did not feel the thrill of victory or the joy of accomplishment; all I felt was the unfiltered relief that I had survived.

I now knew that less than a few minutes prior, I hadn’t at all understood what it meant to cross swords. Dispatching enemies far weaker than myself was no fight—it was slaughter. For the first time, I had found myself in battle, where one misstep from either side led straight to death.

Haunted by numbness, I forced air into my lungs and pushed myself to my feet. What would I gain by faltering now? There was no point in pondering the life I’d taken, or swearing to live on for both of our sakes. On the receiving end, the most she’d thought would have been, “You got me, you bastard.” No one cared whether their killer would go on to gallantly fight in their stead; it was easy enough to come to that conclusion by imagining myself in the shoes of the loser.

I thought back on the reason I picked up the blade: I didn’t want my loved ones to experience this sheer terror. I was here now as Elisa’s brother to win back her future. I didn’t have time to dawdle here.

“May this great warrior’s soul see no rest by the War God’s side,” I said, reciting a hymn from our pantheon’s God of War.

As I wiped the blood off of my sword, my body finally reached its limit. My legs gave out, and I buckled down onto my ass. The heavy thumping in my stinging chest felt like it was going to make me split open.

Oh, god, I didn’t think I’d be reduced to a tattered rag twice in one season.

“That must have been exhausting,” Ursula said, blurring out of the darkness. I looked her way as I showered myself with my waterskin.

“Wowie, you did super!” Lottie reappeared with a gust of wind, consoling me by rubbing my cheek.

“Yeah, I really am tired. But now, I’m finally done.”

The gentle spring breeze soothed my heated skin; if this was the world’s reward for my efforts, it was almost enough to bring me to tears. Now, all that remained was to collect the mana stones and return to the carriage to collect my payment.

“Oh, but you’re not, are you?”

“Huh?”

My indescribable sense of accomplishment was suddenly derailed. I opened my eyes wide in shock only for Ursula to bid me to stand.

Huh? That daemon has to be dead, right? Is there a hidden boss or something? If so, I’ve got a word or two for this GM’s encounter design.

“It isn’t a fight,” Ursula said, reading my mind. With her hands on her hips, she huffed and continued, “There is one more of our kind you have yet to help.”

“Another one?”

“Yes, didn’t I say so? When we found Lottie, I do believe I said she was one of the sistren I bid you to save.”

Now that you mention it... “But I already received the reward,” I said.

“That was that; this is this. This is a separate matter from your reward. Besides, I have my...apprehensions about this.”

“What do you mean?” I asked. Ursula avoided eye contact.

“Now, come along,” the svartalf said. “She too is sealed away in a manner that we alfar cannot undo.”

“Okay, okay! Stop tugging on my hair, I’ll go bald.”

“No need to worry about that. You won’t ever bald—you won’t even grow gray hairs.”

“Yeah, those aren’t cute!” Lottie added.

What did you just say? I felt like their final statements weren’t something to gloss over, but a powerful tailwind pushed me to my feet and the two tiny fairies dragged me by the hand to the back of the dining hall.

We traversed a handful of hallways to come to a skewed door. They bid me to open it, and I did so to reveal a staircase leading into the basement. Strangely, the descending corridor seemed to continue forever, as I couldn’t see the end in spite of Ursula’s blessing.

This dungeon has more than one hidden room? How hard-core is this place?

The air rising up from below filled the cramped stairwell like the throat of a groaning behemoth. My fatigued body almost locked up in protest. I couldn’t handle another fight without rest.

“Don’t worry!” Lottie said, taking note of my hesitance. “The scaries are all gone!”

“All right,” I said. “Then let’s keep going.” Fine. You want me to go? I get it, I’ll go.

I took a few deep breaths and slowly began my descent. The vestiges of magic tools lined the walls flanking me on both sides; perhaps this path had once lit up when someone was present. There were spells scrawled all over that I was too green to understand. While I would have liked to stop and jot them all down, this clearly wasn’t the time.

“It took an eternity for the mana feeding these spells to bottom out,” Ursula said.

Twenty-eight steps down, a short landing gave way to more stairs. The landing was also marked with a peculiar symbol, but when I dusted it off, the ink making up its structure had indeed blurred with time.

“Hey, this place looks like it’s meant to keep something really dangerous locked up,” I said, voicing my growing concern. And, wouldn’t you know it, the second flight of stairs also had twenty-eight steps—a mathematically perfect number that some religions abroad considered holy. Walls lined with rituals in a staircase that intrinsically had mystic properties pointed to something being down here...and, well, I had a hunch as to what it was.

“Continue on. There is nothing to fear.”

“It’s okay, she’s super nice!”

The alfar beckoned my frozen legs to move, and when I turned the final corner, I was met with a massive double door. However, this door was clearly different from the stairwell leading to it.

“The magic here is still active?” I said, puzzled.

The arcane circlet built into the door was still alive and well. Unlike the scrawlings above, the spell had been worked into the metal bands that supported the door itself. A large gemstone in the center of the two halves had been set as a battery, and its faint glow had persisted to this very moment.

“I don’t get the details, but...” One touch was enough for my novice mind to recognize the intent behind it: this was a lock meant to ensure that whatever lay within never saw the light of day again. To begin with, doors are inherently rife with the semiotics of quarantine—bolstered with a powerful spell, its properties of enclosure spread to the whole room it led to.

“Ursula, how do I open this?”

“I’m sure you can already tell.”

Much like what awaited me within, I had a solid guess as to what I needed to do. I asked anyway, but the fairy wasn’t very receptive to my games.

“I have to break that, don’t I?”

“You do indeed.”

“Yuuup!”

I knew it. Clinging to a thread of hope that it might just open anyway, I tried the doorknob to no avail. I sighed; the gem was probably a lapis lazuli, and it was large and antique to boot. Something like that could turn into gold coins (plural!) if I managed to bring it back in one piece, but it was not meant to be.

Argh, dammit, I guess I should be cursing myself for not having a rogue in my party to pick the lock. Why am I dungeon crawling as a solo warrior?!

In a minor fit of despair, I hacked at it with Schutzwolfe, which sliced through the jewel like butter. My dim hope of recovering a decent chunk lasted but a moment, as it soon crumbled to dust as if to mock me.

Ahh... No... Elisa’s tuition...

In contrast to my anguish at the sparkling sand spilling from between my fingers, the alfar looked quite happy as they used a mysterious power to open the door.

“Ugh!” The view of what was hidden beyond was chilling enough to drain me of all the heat of combat that still lingered. The ceiling, walls, and floor were completely covered in indecipherable scribbling. Amidst the countless medicine cabinets and bookshelves was a workbench lined with unspeakable tools.

In the very back of the room, a lone girl stood chained against the wall. The scene exceeded my every expectation in its horror. Wrapped from head to toe in bandages, every inch of the cloth around her was covered in mad inscriptions that betrayed the depths of human folly. The dark gauze tightly wrapped around her malnourished frame, and both her wrists and ankles were chained—and on further inspection, I could see the cuffs stab into her flesh—to giant pillars on both sides. Finally, giant rivets in her chest and every limb nailed her to the wall behind.

I’d known that I was going to see the fate of a daughter imprisoned by her deranged father...but this? This was too much.

Cursed paper covered every bit of skin on what had once been this mansion’s noble princess. Here stood a girl tormented by a madman for the sake of a “real” daughter that had never existed. Now, decades later, the poor girl remained forgotten in this abyssal basement—or rather, the changeling had been left here.

“Is she...”

“Alas, she is. Here is the other sister I would like you to save, but I didn’t include her for your reward because...I wasn’t sure if you could,” Ursula whispered, stepping into the room. She’d regained her mensch-like size from when we’d first met, and walked up to the pitifully crucified girl. “Poor, poor Helga. So fascinated with mortal life that you ended up like this.”

“Sorry... Lottie couldn’t save you...”

The two alfar fluttered about the changeling for a minute and looked her over, until they eventually shook their heads. Their glistening eyes cast downward, sending an unhappy conclusion racing through my mind: we didn’t make it.

“She isn’t dead,” Ursula said, tracing her hand around the girl’s face. Her melancholy turned to anger as she continued, “She’s still alive—oh, they wouldn’t let her die.”

Mind follows flesh; even an alf would shift toward human sensibilities if they obtained a physical body. Soft and frail, our psyches could be cracked to the point of no return. An eternity of loneliness and torture was too much for the young girl, and so the alfar had shaken their heads. At this point, a coup de grâce was all the mercy we could offer.

“B-But she’s still alive, isn’t she?” I asked, my voice unintentionally shrill. My chest had been heaving up and down ever since I entered the room and saw the girl they called Helga. To come clean, I had projected Elisa onto her. One wrong move, and my sister could end up like this. This terrible sensation had followed me ever since we’d entered the first hidden room.

Faced with the worst-of-all-possible-worlds scenario that had been brewing in my mind, my heart creaked under the pressure. Logic faltered as my passions kicked in and cried out that I wanted to save the girl I’d likened to Elisa.

Intellectually, I knew. Ursula had said she was an optional objective—she’d given me my reward already knowing that Helga might be beyond rescue.

By all odds, she was just as shattered as the daemons that I had cut down on my way here. Her sistren of all people were the ones saying so. I had no room to object to their reasoning, and I knew that...but my wretched heart would not cease crying out: if she still had form, then maybe there was a chance.

“Unfortunately, we alfar cannot do anything. These bandages are soaked in the blood of elder dragons—without physical form, we are powerless to free her. Honestly, where in the world did he get his hands on this? Stabilizing phenomena in time is the sort of divine feat I’d expect from the age of gods.”

“But, but! Menschies with bodies can break it. Sooo...”

“I won’t hold it against you, no matter how things fall into place.”

I was the one who had to choose. The alfar put the decision in my hands, saying that they would hold no grudges regardless of what I chose to do—or how my choice played out.

And I...I...

[Tips] Flesh is a vessel for the mind, but the self adjusts to its vessel.

Torn to shreds, a large ego drifted in a tiny corner of an endless dream. An uncountable array of formless dreams floated by without pattern, dancing along until they disappeared into nothingness like bubbles in water.

A happy memory fluttered by—two, even.

The shadowed face of a man. Golden hair. Ice-blue eyes that popped through the blurred shadows of his face. A kind, deep voice that soaked into the ears. Large hands, a soft lap, the reassuring beat of his heart, and the faint smell of tobacco.

A birthday banquet. Custom-made clothes. A large doll. Sweet ice candy, a lakeside dinghy, and distant singing.

Such were the relics of the blissful days sailing by. Twisted and broken, the ego pieced itself together every so often to see these and smile. However, try as she might to collect happy times, these rare gems came to an end all too quickly. The most delectable of her memories could not sate her.

What remained was bitter.

The first painful memory: an unfamiliar tombstone; an interrogating voice; a repentant wail.

The second painful memory: a dark room; the sight of her beloved doll and clothes burning; a cold box of stone without so much as a bed.

The third painful memory: unending beratement; the flavor of rust; the odor of mud.

The fourth painful memory: the bitterness of medicine; sensations of paralysis; unbearable pain.

The fifth painful memory: her beloved golden hair, blue eyes, and deep voice; her detested sharp dagger, rusted saw, and hot iron.

The sixth painful memory, then the seventh, eighth, and ninth...

The broken self saw the world as something full of suffering. There had been a time when everything had overflowed with happiness, but that period was all too short. The joy she’d so desperately dug to find was a single plank floating in the rich sea of misery that was her ordeal.

The world was meant to be so happy. She had been born to be happy. She was supposed to know what happiness was—yet she did not. Trapped in an indefinite slumber that could hardly be called rest, the fragmented ego sank into sleep, awaiting the day she would awaken, dreading and longing for it.

Suddenly, a voice—one that she hated, yet one that she loved—called to her:

Good job, Helga. That’s my girl, Helga. I’m so proud of you, Helga. You’re growing up to be just like your mother, Helga.

Give me my daughter. You fiend. Did you think an alf could deceive me? You’re going to give my daughter her body back.

She couldn’t bear any more. She wished everything would just end; she wished everything would just go back to the way it used to be.

Infinite uncertainty enveloped the broken psyche as she drowned in the dolor of depressing memories. Despite crying out for death, she could do nothing but continue sleeping. This continued forever. The sequence of grief repeated ad nauseam. No end was in sight, and she hardly wanted to look back to see where it had started.

Trapped in an eternal prison, the ego took note of a long-forgotten stimulus. The cold, interminable veil over the reality that had given birth to her hell had begun to tear.

She did not want to be freed: the world was crueler than her mind.

She wanted to be freed: the world was meant to be so happy.

The unhinged consciousness paired these antithetical concepts into a deranged harmony, as discordant as it was. Her desire for life and death fused together in a way that no other being on the planet could comprehend—thus we say she was broken.

Helga, the changeling that had lost her place as a daughter, was surfacing. From the perspective of someone inhabiting the material universe, she was awakening for the first time in over half a century.

How would her memories of love warp when bathed in memories of torture? Only those who were there to open her box would know.

[Tips] A line of thought that can be unraveled with reasoning cannot be called mad. True lunacy is incomprehensible by definition.

I decided to unpin the rivets that held the girl up like an entomological specimen and strip her of her bindings. I undid a tight section of the bandages on her head, slowly unveiling her face to the world. I had no idea if there was any meaning to my actions. I knew full well that this could simply be ridiculous wasted effort.

I merely hoped beyond hope that, among the countless futures Elisa could encounter, there would be just one more that had some kind of salvation at the end. My foolish prayer won out...even though I knew that the release of death may have been exactly that.

Before I had been reborn as Erich, my final days as Fukemachi Saku had been excruciating. The memory of death by early-onset pancreatic cancer drained the color from my face to this day. Every breath had been a living hell, and the relief the future Buddha had imparted upon me did little to assuage the agony of existence. Having experienced what could only be described as a harrowing end, I should have known that death was not always the worst of fates.

Discolored hair spilled forth from the undone gauze. What had presumably once been a beautiful chestnut color had faded, as if a thin layer of ice descended onto her head. Next came a skinny face befitting a nobleman’s child. Judging from her appearance, she seemed to be a few years my senior, and despite retaining a childish face, there were heavy bags under her eyes. The look of fear that had been frozen in time made my heart sink.

I touched her cheek to find that it was cold—here too, it was as if a frost covered her. With skin so icy, I could hardly believe she was breathing. Can people even survive temperatures this low?

“She’s almost an alf,” Ursula muttered.

“What?” I asked. The fairy of night must have been able to see something we couldn’t; she narrowed her red eyes at the sleeping girl.

“I can’t believe it. An alf who won a body, trying to return to her original form? Does this mean...”

Ursula’s muttering offered a glimpse of hope, but I didn’t get a chance to hear it until the end. As soon as I’d finished removing the cursed seal on Helga’s face, her eyes had opened—though I couldn’t describe her awakening as peaceful. Her eyelids snapped wide like someone who’d seen a terrible nightmare, and her irises could not settle on a focal point as each flickered about on its own.

“Ghghh!”

“Helga!” Ursula said.

“You’re awake?!” Lottie asked. “Helgaaa!”

The two fairies hurried over to their companion’s side in a fret, but she failed to say anything meaningful. Her groaning was mere noise, birthed from the expulsion of what air remained in her lungs. No matter how much the alfar shook her or screamed in her ear, she showed no sign of awareness.

Thinking that I’d failed and only caused her undue suffering, I nearly began to cry...when our eyes met. Her bleary gaze began to focus, and judging from how intently she stared at me, her brain seemed to be processing the image coming in through her eyes. Somewhere within, she was alive.

“Helga?” I asked, trembling.

“Fffgh...”

At long last, her groans took on some color. Her mouth opened ever so slightly, and I could see her tongue—which, I now realized, had also been bolted down, as if to say there was no part of her that could be left free—wriggling around in an attempt to convey something.

“Frgh, agh...”

The three of us cheered her on, clutching tightly onto our hope that she had survived in one piece. We prayed that she would show us a brilliant smile and thank us for saving her. All this time, I’d considered alfar to be terrifying and unknowable creatures, but I could tell from their passionate shouting that they, like us, cared deeply for their peers. I didn’t know if Ursula and Lottie had personal ties to her or if they simply wanted their sistren to be happy, but they were invested all the same.

“Fah...ther?”

Yet we... Nay. I alone was made to realize the truth: dreams are fleeting.

The girl looked at me and called me father. That, by itself, was fine. Sometimes, the fuzzy vision and memory that accompanies the shift between sleep and waking causes people to mistake others for family. I’d done it myself; now and again, I’d get my twin brothers mixed up in the morning. But something was wrong here—horribly so.

“Ah... No! Father...please, please, no more. I’m sorry... It was me, I was wrong, please...”

Helga had been anchored to an era where the lord of this manor still stood in this room. Her delirium worsened: unable to hear our voices, her hair whipped back and forth as she jerked and thrashed against her restraints. I heard the sounds of snapping bones and tearing flesh as she broke free from her chains and the bindings began to slip off.

Patches of skin now peeked out from the gaps, causing me to swallow my breath. Scars ran across her at every angle; the seams made her look like a poorly patched up doll, evidence of unthinkable torture.

I had been naive. Could an immature soul retain its grip on sanity after experiencing such horrors at the hand of her beloved father? The answer was a resounding no.

Ramblings turned to screams that robbed all heat from the air around us. Deprived of its magical security system, this basement had been reduced to an unkept storage unit. Shackles flew, and an unbolted straitjacket was no match for a changeling’s power.

“Nooo!” Lottie screamed. Half an instant later, everything beside me was frozen. Had the sylphid not surrounded me with a lukewarm layer of air to protect me, I would have been too.

“Whoa?!”

“Urk! Helga!” Ursula shouted. “Calm down!”

“No! Father, stop!” Helga floated off the ground, surrounded by a swirling hailstorm that buried the room in snow. “Don’t kill me! Don’t break me! Don’t take me from me!”

Bookshelves cracked under the rapid change in temperature, and the racked vials burst as their contents turned to ice. The space around us turned into a subzero purgatory unfit for mortal survival. The psychotic changeling pleaded again and again for mercy as she subjected us to her own violence. At last, her powers took effect on things I’d never seen freeze before. The cracked stone flooring and scattered bits of glass turned to ice.

Oh no, at this rate... I steeled myself for the worst, when a particularly powerful breeze tore by me. Then, everything returned to the way it had been, as if nothing had happened at all.

“Huh? Wha?” Helga had disappeared, leaving only the terrible screams that echoed in my mind. I turned to see that I was not alone in my confusion: the alfar were just as astounded as me.

I had no idea where she’d gone, or why. I only knew one thing: I’d fumbled as badly as I possibly could have.

[Tips] Those who stray too far from their design can scarcely be called the same being as before.