Min-Maxing My TRPG Build in Another World - Volume 2 - Chapter 9

Late Spring of the Twelfth Year (III)

Enemy

An antagonistic entity. Some come pre-made with source material while others are custom-made by the GM. At times, they employ powerful unique skills and/or traits to fulfill their purpose as living obstacles. Extra-thorough GMs can build up each and every important enemy with all the care of a player creating their PC.

The one throughline that brings all enemies together is the fact that they are all NPCs designed to forgo conversation.

After scratching her head in an unbecoming manner, Agrippina pushed her monocle back into place.

“I’ve had this boy for ten days,” she muttered. Her tone was a mixture of exasperation and awe as she curiously examined the damp basement she found herself in. Forcibly stripped of all its mystic meaning, the room was little more than an antiquated cellar, but the lingering traces of magic clinging to its walls were more than enough to impress her.

Here lay archaic tongues from every reach of the continent, a lost language devoted to a foreign god, and sacred glyphs intentionally miswritten to alter their purposes. The fruit of hope had ripened until it rotted off the tree, and Agrippina could taste the misguided beliefs and concentrated madness that had birthed such persistence. The methuselah shivered at the thought of a man doing all this for his daughter out of obsession alone; she doubted whether she could fixate on herself in this way, let alone another.

It could be argued that the rituals here had succeeded, in a sense. When her servant had Voice Transferred a frightened and panicked message asking her to take a look at something, Agrippina hadn’t expected him to bring her something so grand.

Looking back, the magus had first found the boy engaged in a massive brawl with a whole troupe of bandits, only for him to stumble across a captive fairy and broken changeling as soon as they set off. Ordinarily, this packed schedule of high-intensity events would be unthinkable.

Of course, every person comes across a handful of opportunities for great adventure in their life, but the numbers didn’t seem right here. Seeing her servant stumble over an unending torrent of fluke events—each enough to sate the thrill-seeking palate of a normal person for the rest of their life—the methuselah couldn’t help but feel as though the stars had been horribly misaligned on the night of his birth.

And if Agrippina’s hunch was right, this episode would not end so easily. She’d teleported the boy in question back to the carriage, but that was no guarantee he’d stay out of trouble. If nothing else, the magus had an unshakable conviction that the boy would not wake to see the sunrise without something of import coming to pass.

It seemed likely that the defective changeling had wandered off after winning her freedom. In fact, one might assume she would want to put as much distance between her and this accursed site as physically possible. Logically, it made sense for her to flee, never to be seen again.

Agrippina had no interest in the havoc she might cause elsewhere. After all, there wouldn’t be any way for someone to investigate the girl’s origins. Yet her servant’s density of contrivance in his life affairs as observed so far continued to vex her. While it was grating to borrow the words of the class of educated fool specialized in prophecy and the affairs of spirits, there was a saying at the college that perfectly suited her situation.

“Nine times the die offers one; the tenth mustn’t bleed red...was it?”

The odds of rolling a one nine times out of nine are astronomically low. What, then, are the odds of rolling another on the tenth throw?

As a pragmatic realist of the School of Daybreak, Agrippina ought to have instantly answered one-sixth without an ounce of hesitation. However, statistical probability denoted reality as seen by gods at the end of an infinite existence—and only there, after transcending the bounds of realistic replication, did it achieve its flawless form. The movements of the hand, the slant of the table, and the imperfections of the die itself refuted the existence of an infallible one-in-six.

Believing that a one was destined to follow nine of its kind was absurd...yet Agrippina found herself feeling as much. While the proverb had various interpretations among the different schools at the college, at this moment, the methuselah could only believe in one: coincidence is dictated by what must be.

This blond boy with kitten-blue eyes had a sister who happened to be a changeling, and had left his village behind to help her. Immediately following this, he’d charmed an alf—inadvertently or otherwise. To top everything off, he now had found a changeling in a similar setting to his kin who had not been saved.

The pieces were too perfect; it was as if the gods had written the script to his drama. To borrow the forms of Agrippina’s beloved stories, the boy was fated to play out this tale. Had even a single beat been missing, his journey would not have been so foreboding. She felt alike to authors with delusions of grandeur who saw every piece and claimed that all had been for this moment...including her presence in this very room.

“Absurd.”

The methuselah genius scoffed as she put an end to this tedious strand of thought. What did it matter that fate seemed to align? Even her measly century and a half was enough to know that the world was not so well put together. If it were, a recluse of her standard would not have been born to the unstrung kite that was her father.

Agrippina conceded that the present situation was an amusing string of unbelievable statistical oddities, but what implications lay beyond were none of her concern. All she had to do was steer things to suit her—this basement and that changeling both. People were the ones to roll the dice, and she would take the opportunity to misrepresent their result as she pleased.

First and foremost, she decided to dismantle the room. The space’s aura polluted with sick affection paled in comparison to its scholarly value. From a certain lens, this was a treasure vault. Although the persistent frost had rendered some things unsalvageable, the cellar was still lined with curios a magus might find fascinating.

Agrippina had no doubt that the many researchers who’d been summoned by the crazed father had been twisted in their own way. She could find no other explanation for the sick, pained contortions of the mangled spells left behind.

While omens of calamity crept toward her, the magus elected to prioritize her own pleasure as she dove into the realm of knowledge.

[Tips] An experienced caster of space-bending magic can instantly warp to the location of a person carrying a suitable marker, no matter how far the target has moved...even with a massive carriage in tow.

A lone girl drifted in the boundless sky, soaring high above the clouds alongside a waxing moon. Her gaze was devoid of meaning as she peered up at the lunar body, and she showed none of the signs of sapient life.

Only hidden by horrific seals scrawled with curses, the scars running every which way across her starved body were a painful sight that dimmed her already diminished presence. Was there even a girl here at all? Perhaps the maiden beloved by all who knew her as Helga was no longer here—in her stead was a drifting shadow in her likeness.

Neither mensch nor alf, the girl was a jumbled mess that could scarcely understand her own emancipation as she obeyed her fey inclinations and floated through the air. For whatever reason, the growing moon called to her; she was drawn to it as those on the brink of death are still drawn to quench their thirst when offered water.

As she took in the long-forgotten glow of moonlight with her whole body, a bubble swam up in her mind, just like the ones that had interrupted her irregular, formless thoughts in sleep.

It was golden hair, glowing bright even in the dark. One association gave way to another, and another still. Golden hair begot blue eyes; blue eyes brought a deep voice. As more and more items accumulated, her memory of this fragmentary joy gave way to something that she had yet to attempt: thought.

“Father...” The hoarse voice of a young girl reverberated through the thin, forsaken air. Her first conscious word in over half a century triggered yet another lost memory to resurface...of happier days, with her loving father.

Maybe, she thought, my kind father has come home to retrieve me.

Impossible as this was, the fatigue and brain rot that had followed her out of the never-ending hell of her imprisoned mind left her incapable of noticing. Both the infinitesimal odds of her tormentor coming to reclaim her and the months and years she’d spent imprisoned escaped the muddy wreckage of her thoughts.

“Oh, father. Father!”

Once inflamed, her warped ideation spawned fantasies at an accelerated pace; she disturbed the settled muck at the bottom of her brain, unearthing a misshapen love that wedded the unique derangements of her mensch and alf halves.

“You’ve come for me! You even hugged me, and I...”

The broken self patched its missing portions with whatever fragments of thought were at hand: the boy she had gotten a single glimpse of overwrote a gap in her memory that belonged to the terrible pain she chose to toss away. The clouds around her gave way to new shapes and forms as others of their kind combined and broke away; in the same vein, her recollection shifted with each passing moment.

The girl was loved. She had never been hurt. “Father” had come to take her home.

“Oh, I have to apologize! Father, I’m sorry. Father, oh father... Father!”

Her voice ranged wildly in pitch, but steadily grew sweeter in tone. Her crazed irises swayed about as a willfulness returned to her gaze. Once, her father had praised her gentle, droopy lids as the greatest reminder of her mother; the charm of yesteryear was nowhere to be found. All that remained was a straightforward insanity. Tears welled in the girl’s ice-blue eyes as she began to laugh.

“Father, oh father! Your Helga is coming! Together again! Let us be a happy family together, once more!”

Her memories were not certain enough to warrant clinging to, but having nothing else, the girl soared through the air with maniacal laughter. Neither the bolts of lightning running through the clouds nor the rain soaking her to the core could stop her—in fact, the water around her condensed into frozen chunks, only adding to her power.

“To that endless hill! Join me on the eternal hill of twilight! Where no one can part us again!”

Such was her birthright. Unable to comprehend her mensch or alfish roots as she was, the power dwelling within her needed no intent to manifest. Hers was the power of frost: where winter bid dreamers to a slumber without awakening, she was to herald its arrival.

This life-ending cold was the core of her being before she had ever taken form in a mensch womb. Frost was not as harsh as snow, yet far bleaker than mere cold; the reifalf who presided over it came from a family of winter spirits.

Bound by instinct, the fairy flew after the scent of nostalgia—toward he whom she had deemed beloved. The moon watched without comment as hysterical cackling scattered into every corner of the night sky.

[Tips] Each individual alf presides over some concept; those that rule over more abstract subjects are considered greater in power.

Staring up at the brimming midnight moon, I finally began to feel some semblance of peace.

Lady Agrippina had decided to stop the carriage to investigate the mansion. Canceling our reservation at the next inn, we’d looped back around to the spot where I’d fought off the noon assault to camp out for the night.

Apparently the carriage had continued on for the inn after I’d set off, but things rapidly fell into place once I’d sent her a message detailing the situation. The madam had appeared out of her usual fray in space-time and tossed me back into the carriage from whence she came.

I simmered in the terrible pain of being left alone after a colossal mistake. I could feel my guts churning in the same way they had in my memories of white-collar life. That being said, I was so exhausted that I had to admit I was grateful too. Mixing the bit of medicine she’d thrown my way into my tea, I could feel the stinging pain in my body dissipate like a mirage.

Elisa was my only saving grace. Once she’d heard that we were to eat at the same table and sleep in the same bed for a night, her mood improved instantly. Although she’d seemed worried about the odor of blood that pursued me, she’d gone out like a light as soon as I tucked her in.

Unfortunately, I was so restless that I’d crawled out of bed to find myself here, taking in the night air. I thought back to the broken changeling I’d woken in the manor. Helga demanded so much of my mind that drowsiness did not bother to visit my weary psyche.

“Man...”

At the end of my wits, I ruffled my own hair. The golden color that skimmed the edges of my vision was a minor point of pride that I’d inherited from my mother; I wouldn’t have thought I’d ever find it as unpleasant as I did now. While it was impressive that I’d managed to score some recessive traits from my parents, they’d proven to be nothing but trouble. If I didn’t have these looks that the alfar loved so much, would things have changed?

“Tired from the long day, o Beloved One?”

A voice called me from behind as I tossed and turned dozens of possible futures in my mind. I didn’t need to turn around to know the svartalf that had beckoned me to the lake house was sitting on the carriage.

“I’ll have you know that you’d be wrong to apologize to me.” Ursula had perfectly read my mind, to the point where my breath caught in my throat. Why does everyone around me know exactly what’s on my mind at critical moments like this?

I wanted to apologize—to no one in particular—and go unforgiven. I wanted to be blamed.

From first principles, self-reproach is impossible to unload on one’s own—otherwise there’d be no issue. I was searching for a vulgar means by which someone else would condemn me in my stead. It was far easier to act like a pitiful wretch forever waiting to be forgiven by another than to truly forgive myself.

I was deplorable: my mind twisted miserably at the consequences of my own actions...but there had been no right answer from the start. Had I cut her down then and there, I surely would still regret my choice.

“Besides, I thought I told you?” Without any warning, the svartalf gently hugged me from behind. The ticklish scent of flowers, the melting sensation of her soft flesh, and the warmth soaking into my neck from her thin fingers commanded my attention. “‘I won’t hold it against you no matter how things fall into place,’ remember?”

What a kind thing to say; so kind, yet so merciless.

She did not forgive—only accept. Although I thought her treatment was crueler than even what my sins deserved, the truth was that a single drop of acceptance was enough to ease my pain. To coddle is a sweeter love than mere consideration...but I couldn’t let her spoil me. I had a feeling that I would never recover if I did.

“Thanks.” Yet I did not refuse her, for I was not strong enough to tear away from another’s kindness.

Ugh...I wish I were stronger. Forty total years, and this? I’m no better than any other brat my age.

My heartrending worthlessness nearly brought me to tears. I took hold of the hand that dangled in front of my chest. As I squeezed at her warmth, Ursula curled her fingers into mine. The damp passion that I’d been holding back in my eyes finally gave way and dropped onto the back of my palm...as a crystal of ice.

“Wha—”

Instantaneously, the tranquil spring night began to stir. The pleasant temperature suddenly dropped to biting cold, causing my skin to crawl beneath my thin sleepwear. Birds took panicked flight from nearby trees, and I could sense desperation in the beasts fleeing the area. All of them were being chased by the unbidden winter, and the terrible slumber without awakening that accompanied its cold.

“Why in the world?” Ursula muttered.

I didn’t need the svartalf’s mumbling to know what had happened. I’d already experienced this chill that left a layer of frost on the soul itself: she was coming—the wreck of a changeling that had been sealed away in the mansion.

Looking up, I could see a silhouette floating in front of the moon. The white light shining past her was just as crisp as the overwhelming cold that surrounded the living embodiment of my crimes.

“Hehe...” Helga, the reifalf, was here. As soon as she noticed me, her dignified visage warped into an enraptured smile. With both hands squarely on her cheeks, she called for me as if to advertise her delusion to the world. “I found you, father...”

While it was a matter of course for someone locked away in such awful conditions for so long, seeing her again drove home how irreversibly dysfunctional she’d become. She seemed incapable of comprehending that the lord of the manor had left this realm long before his estate fell into disrepair.

Furthermore, I’d seen rotting paintings decorating the main hall: beyond the superficial colors of our hair and eyes, I had nothing in common with the noble homeowner. And in between the portrait of a high-strung yet dignified man and a gentle-looking brunette, there had been an empty space that would have just fit another frame of the same size.

“Let’s go home, father. To our home, on that twilight hill.”

Helga was so beyond help that she had to conflate a total stranger with her father in order to cope. How easy it would be to call her by her name and embrace her like her father had once done...but what then?

I could not play along with her forever. I, Erich, was a citizen of Konigstuhl canton, fourth-born son to Johannes, elder brother to Elisa, and servant to Agrippina du Stahl. I couldn’t cast aside all I’d sworn to protect to hug this lost soul tight.

“Beloved One...”

“I know, Ursula.”

I cut off the fairy’s worried whispers by rising to my feet, and slipped away from her arms. Naturally and without a hint of anxiety, I approached the floating girl. Unequipped and unarmed, I advanced, looking as defenseless as I could.

Pitiful as this is to admit, keeping my calm was almost more than I could manage. My legs threatened to give out at any moment, and I couldn’t feel any force in my tightly balled fists. Buried in guilt and remorse, my mind pleaded for the escape of death. But this was the consequence of my actions, and I had to be the one to bring it to an end.

Had I not been so soft, Helga may not have suffered like this. Thus, I too had to suffer: after worrying to the end of worry, after hurting to the end of hurt, I needed to see this through without any more regrets. The price of foolishness could not be loaned away, and she had endured enough of my debts.

“Oh, father! It really is you! You’re here to hug me, aren’t you? You’re here to accept me, aren’t you? You’re here to dispel that horrific dream!”

Helga smoothly dove through the air toward me. I stretched out my arms to hold her...as I used an Unseen Hand to pull the fey knife out of my sleeve and placed it in my right hand. I’d hoped she wouldn’t come tonight, but I’d prepared myself, knowing that an event this major would not end so haphazardly.

Just as no session can end after a single random encounter, it was safe to assume every story continued until its conclusion. A rolling stone cannot stop until the hill ends or it shatters into pieces.

I’d repented plenty. What I was about to do absolutely could not be something I’d regret. I looped this mantra over and over again in my head.

The distance closed, and soon Helga was in reach of a hug. This perfect opportunity was my final shot. Failure was not an option: otherwise, she would lose her last chance to be put to rest without knowing the end had come.

In the fateful moment, I thrust my dagger forward without hesitation, aiming for the neck. This weakness was not unique to mensch: only those exceptions who held the carapace of flesh in no high regard could shrug off an attack to their vitals. Trapped in the body of a mensch, a changeling was plenty vulnerable here.

“Fah...ther?”

At the last minute, my motion to embrace her was cut short with a flashing blade as I slit her skinny throat. It was far from a pleasant sensation, but I refused to let that deter my follow-through; anything less would be inhumane.

I had cut a gash so wide that any more would have cleanly beheaded her. There was no possible way someone could survive a wound of this size...but that was all there was to it.

“What?!”

Without a drop of blood, my knife slipped out of her with even less resistance than cutting air. Looking down at the spotless karambit, my fatal mistake set in. Helga had long abandoned the realm of mortal life.

“Oh, father, why?! Are you really... Huh? But no, that wasn’t real, that was a nightmare...but it was. And father has a knife. Father, oh, father, aughhh!”

Mad ramblings spilled from her open neck, and the icy blue of her eyes contrasted with the crimson tears streaming down her cheeks.

Oh, dammit! Are all my rolls really this bad today?!

As soon as I rued my misguided judgment, the air around Helga exploded. The biting cold nipped at my skin, but not as harshly as the razored pellets of hail whizzing by in the wind that sent me flying.

Yet I was far from dead; I hardly felt any pain as I rolled off my fall. There was only one explanation for the fact that I’d been spared the storm’s wrath without so much as a broken finger.

“Ptooie! That was close!” I don’t know when she’d gotten in there, but Lottie poked out from my inner pocket and had created a massive cushion of air to protect me. Without her, I would have been sliced to bits by the icy blades whirling around.

“Alas, poor Helga is lost,” Ursula said.

“Helga!” Lottie shouted. “Stop! Don’t get angrier! You won’t be an alf or a humanfolk anymore—you’ll be something really bad!”

The girl in question was writhing in ways that exceeded the bounds of physical motion as she metamorphosed into something beyond human and fey reckoning alike. I had no way of telling whether this was spurred on by her mental state or the treatment she’d received, but one thing was for certain: if I didn’t put her to rest here, then she would suffer even more.

“Ursula, Lottie, back me up!”

I switched gears and prepared for combat. This was no longer an attempt to catch her unawares; the scene had switched to a full-on encounter.

With an iron grip on the fey knife, I dashed forward, casting Unseen Hand—but it wasn’t the same as before. When the madam had sent me back to the carriage, I’d prepared for the worst with yet another modification. So far no other spell matched up in terms of performance ceiling. Without upgrades it was really only good for nabbing utensils that’d fallen behind the stove and such, but cleverly tuned to a general use case, it was a magic utility knife.

My battle with the ogre daemon had bestowed a tremendous sum of experience on me. I’d realized this in part after my run-in with the kidnappers: any activity that risked my life yielded juicy returns. Seeing the surging number on my status sheet, I’d spared no expense, knowing that something like this might happen.

I constructed an Unseen Hand: it was thicker, longer...and more numerous. One by one, a full six phantom limbs took shape around me. They all reached over to the top of our carriage to collect my spoils of war: the gargantuan sword and shield of my dining room foe.

The ogre’s equipment must have been made of special materials, as I hadn’t been able to get it off the ground with my current strength, no matter how much mana I poured into my spell. Musing over the conundrum, I had reached an epiphany. There’s an add-on to summon an additional Hand, so what if I just stack a bunch of them together?

My bet paid off. The hideous weapons that had once nearly split me like fruit now hung in midair, eager to serve. I brought the shield to my left side and the sword to my right—from afar, it must have looked like I was a normal boy with the arms of a giant.

If I had to give this combo a name, it would be the Invisible Behemoth. Unfortunately, I couldn’t justify carrying around these ludicrously heavy items everywhere I went, so I could only do this if I happened to come across massive weapons I could “borrow.” My original plan was actually to equip each and every Hand with its own sword, but the sudden encounter had changed that image into something far grander.

Being the mensch child that I was, the shield was practically a mobile wall that completely covered me as I advanced. Slanted to one side, I used it to divert the forceful gale away from me at an angle. It groaned under the tempest’s pressure.

What terrified me above all else was that my fingers were growing numb, even with Lottie’s barrier. Helga was turning her surroundings to winter just by virtue of being, likely evidence of her power as the alf she once was.

I nearly buckled more than a few times as I battled the cyclone to inch forward. All the while, a horrid screaming pierced into my brain far louder than the howling wind ever could. Helga’s cries sounded like someone had filed down a psyche and scattered its powdered remains on the breeze. Her voice may have been a spell in and of itself; out of nowhere, a handful of shadows rose up in the storm, totally unaffected by the whirlwind around them.

With my meager command of language, I struggle to describe those abominable shades. They were misshapen dolls crafted from chunks of ice and scattered tree trunks, not dissimilar from childish attempts at shaping clay. These hooded silhouettes were clumsily formed at best, except for their dreadfully polished hands.

Their arms tapered off into saws, drills, knives, hammers, and weapons of every sort—all familiar. Like the well-worn instruments of torture that had been left in the cellar, these hooded figures were a manifestation of her past. The mages and magia that had tormented her so now took icy form as her weapon.

Helga simply imagined what had frightened her and tried to use it against me. I could offer no knowing smile, despite understanding her naive intentions. Her minions were multiplying so rapidly that I gave up keeping count in an instant.

Not good. If I don’t stop them, they’ll attack the carriage!

The disfigured frozen dolls clumsily dashed outward. They didn’t concentrate their efforts on me; these chaotic sprinters merely tried to destroy whatever they could get their hands on. They were driven by a fittingly juvenile notion of violence.

Pitiful as this was, I could not fight in this cyclone. I had to step away from the strongest portion of the gale to have any hope of wielding my weapons properly. Putting down a lone girl was one thing, but fighting off hordes of enemies was impossible like this.

“There is no need to worry, Beloved One.” I turned toward the whisper in my ear to find Ursula had returned to her minimized state and taken a seat on my shoulder. “Allow me to show you a svartalf’s true power. They don’t need to be alive for me to blind them.”

A massive crash rang out. I looked over in surprise to see that two of the shades had smashed right into one another. The sight of these monstrosities aimlessly running into each other at full speed only to explode into ice was heartrendingly horrific.

If I tried to fight someone that could do this, I would lose on the spot.

Soaking in the awesome power of the fey to my very core, I steeled myself and swung the ogre’s huge blade. Without the wit or skills to dodge, the shadows shattered like glass figurines.

Whew, it looks like I’ll manage. Armed with newfound confidence, I mowed down the disoriented puppets—on their own, they turned out to be little threat. The devastating violence of my greatsword needed no finicky skill to wreak havoc. Unblockable weight swung in a wide arc was a recipe for destruction.

However, I came to notice a flaw as I defended the carriage. Whether I was swinging my sword or bracing with my shield, my body would shift ever so slightly to match the movement. The free movements of my actual arms betrayed my inability to impeccably control multiple Hands. Similar to the intuitive leaning of a child playing a racing game, I was reflexively mimicking the movements I saw.

This was less than ideal. For the moment, I only had two things in Hand and no major weapons physically equipped, but this would not do for my optimal use case. Clearly, an upgrade to Parallel Processing was in order; I couldn’t let a fault like this put me in danger next time.

That was, of course, if I lived to see a next time. Even with Ursula’s help, I was barely hanging on, and the inexhaustible army was encroaching on us. My tactical retreat to avoid the brunt of Helga’s tempest had driven me into a corner, surrounded on all fronts.

Cutting the approaching foes down was easy: a mindless slash or bash with either weapon did the trick just fine. I was reminded of the video games of my past life where levels would be covered in countless fodder units waiting to be slaughtered. However, as reminiscent as this scene was, I could hardly classify it as a musou game.

Blowing these icemen away was anything but refreshing. Every second I spent like this was time that the infinite legion could shrug off casualties and continue their saturation attack. Simply put, I didn’t have enough firepower. They’d reach the carriage soon enough—with the sleeping princess I had to protect still inside.

Growing panic dulled my form, and the heavy mana expenditure of wielding two humongous chunks of mass went to my head. This is bad. At this rate...

“Would somebody mind explaining how my little servant finds his way into trouble every time I blink?”

In the literal blink of an eye, a black ball of death tore through the swaths of silhouettes and erased the better part of the swarm. They neither shattered nor crumbled; no, they simply disappeared into thin air. Whirling around, I saw my employer atop her own vehicle.

“I returned sensing the use of magic, and perhaps for good cause. Why, look at how tattered you are.” Lady Agrippina’s trademark boredom in the face of a hopeless challenge stemmed directly from her unshakable confidence—and in this moment, nothing could comfort me more. “Still, this is quite the spectacle. What is that? I can’t even begin to fathom how a changeling could become this.”

Helga was still thrashing about, totally oblivious to the dent in her forces. The madam eyed her dubiously. Her gaze was devoid of scholarly interest; the prodigal researcher merely looked disgusted at the alien sight before her.

“How anything can continue living after straying so far from their worldly design is beyond me,” she said. Not even Agrippina du Stahl could find purpose in Helga’s existence. “You certainly have a knack for finding strange ones. To think you’d charm a mangled being at the end of its line. Are you positive that you aren’t cursed?”

Her heartless description nearly got a rise out of me, but I didn’t have the time or energy to yell at her. Still...it was clear that even the magus, with all her wisdom, considered Helga a lost cause. She hadn’t said so explicitly, but I could tell from her voice that she had no mind to let the girl go.

“Well enough,” she said. “A bother is a bother. I shall—”

“W-Wait, please!” I screamed.

“Hm?” The madam paused, moments away from completing the spell that would bring this all to an end.

You can’t. It won’t mean anything if you do it.

I had been the one to begin this catastrophe; I had to be the one to end it. Why else would Ursula and Lottie be twiddling their thumbs helping me? Either of them could annihilate me hundreds of times over...but they too must have thought this was the best ending Helga could hope for.

That was why the alfar had left it to me. They’d said that they wouldn’t hold it against me no matter how things turned out: I’m sure that included a failed future where I caved at the hands of the broken changeling. Fairies say things that sound sweet, but their values are simply irreconcilable with our own.

“Do as you will. I have nothing to lose either way,” Lady Agrippina said after a moment’s pause. She sighed and listlessly took a seat on the edge of the carriage, crossing her slender legs with grace. Pulling her beloved pipe out of a hole in reality, she added, “I shall take care of the rear. The books say to let children have their freedom, after all.”

“My deepest thanks!”

As soon as my master accepted my selfish request, I heard the low growl of those pitch-black orbs all around me. Knowing their power, it was a great reassurance to have them on my side; still, I couldn’t help but fret about the thought of tripping into one.

There were ways of carefully modifying spells to prevent friendly fire, but...I questioned whether she was the type to worry about the front guard. While she would probably avoid collateral damage for efficiency’s sake, I could easily imagine her telling me that it was my responsibility to dodge.

Regardless, the fact that I no longer had to worry about my flank meant that all that was left for me to—

“Mr. Brother?”

I heard the creak of the carriage door and the angelic voice that accompanied it as clear as day despite the raging winds. As I turned, I heard Lady Agrippina mutter, “Oh dear,” only to see Elisa trying to climb down from the open doorway.

Wrapped only in simple sleepwear and carrying an oversized pillow, she must have just woken up from all the commotion. When she’d realized I wasn’t by her side, her first instinct was to come look for me. I’d only intended to step out for a moment, so I’d left the door unlocked; Lady Agrippina clearly hadn’t accounted for this either, seeing as she hadn’t picked up my slack with her magic.

“Elisa, stay inside! It’s dangerous!”

“But, but! Mr. Brother, it’s scary! Who’s that?”

My attempts to shoo her back into the carriage were futile as Elisa waddled over on her little legs.

“AAAUUUUUGHHHH?!”

The piercing wail that escaped Helga’s lungs conveyed a deeper emotion than the cackles, groans, and screams that had preceded it. The abyssal pain of her soul knew no name but despair. Helga had seen the one thing that should have forever evaded her gaze. If she truly believed me to be her father, then how would her mind twist the sight of me with another young girl?

You know the answer.

I immediately abandoned the ogre’s sword and rerouted my freed Hands to wrap around Elisa. I pulled her scrawny frame tight to me and put my back against the shield to prop it up against the worsening gale. As the pangs of despair assaulted our ears, we could do nothing but hold out against the ripping cyclone.

[Tips] The spells alfar naturally cast encroach on the territory of miracles. In fields related to their own bubble of authority, they can practically bring about natural disasters.

Did the pain come from her body, or was it a parting gift from the lifeless vestige of her mind? With her neck nearly severed, she could not understand.

She was supposed to be happy. She was supposed to go back. She was supposed to put an end to this nightmare. She was supposed to never have to say those cursed words again:

“I am not your daughter. I’m sorry for stealing Helga away.”

Helga was herself. She had only ever seen her mother in paintings, but she looked just like her. There hadn’t been anyone else born to her pretty mother and her beloved father. Everyone she asked would always tell her what a wonderful, kind person her mother was—and she looked just like her.

Yet one day, her father had cast Helga aside. On that fateful day when her heart began to flutter and she floated into the air, Helga had been happy. She took to the sky like the fairies and angels of the sagas her father had hired poets to recite from time to time. With a pure heart, she was sure her adventure was going to begin.

Alas, reality was different. A quiet unease draped over the manor, forever changing her happy home. Everything Helga had was taken from her; she was locked in a lonely room in the west wing.

And after that? She didn’t want to remember. Besides, she didn’t need to. That had all been a terrible, terrible nightmare. It was. But then, why had her father cut her neck with a knife?

No amount of thought could solve this riddle—all it did was rekindle memory after memory of torture at the hands of a father that did not exist. Stop, she screamed, you’re lying! Yet her soundless voice failed to abate the awful visions. She used every ounce of the unfamiliar power bubbling inside her to blast everything away in a frozen gust, but still the nightmare remained.

Helga begged and pleaded for these unacceptable memories to disappear alongside he who resembled her father. Wringing out every last drop of herself to do so, she still could not end it all.

I wish the world would rot away, and take me with it.

As the patchwork soul screamed in agony, it caught a glimpse of a young girl. She had pretty golden hair. She had cute brown eyes. She was small and thin. Something about the girl reminded Helga of her father, and of the fleeting happiness of days gone by.

Who was she? Why was she so close to her father? Why did she nuzzle against him so? That was Helga’s place...and she would not give it to anyone.

As cognition twisted reality to fit itself, the ego elected to off-load the responsibility onto another: everything had been that girl’s fault.

It’s all because of her. She stole my father. She tricked him. That’s why he was mean to me! This new character had never appeared in her memory and could not be written in now, but the fragments of her heart could not connect the dots. With more hatred than ever before, she exploded with power to expunge the unpleasant sight before her.

Sharp, hard icicles flurried in a fatal whirlwind with the sole wish of mincing all that entered it. The storm danced faster and faster in the palm of her hand, and she unleashed it with a wail that embodied a sublime, ineffable suffering.

As her senses expanded, she began to perceive the world in ways a mensch could never dream of. The fury of the tempest was like a second skin. Frost settled onto everything, but amidst the sensation of draining heat, one thing remained standing.

Helga did not mind that the carriage had moved far away before she knew it. While the perfect composure of the woman sitting on top of it brushed against her sensibilities at a disagreeable angle, destroying the vehicle had been the least of her concerns.

Behind an upright slab of wood and metal, she felt a final cluster of heat. They weren’t dead. They still weren’t dead. Both the vile girl who’d stolen away her father and the father that had so easily been tricked still drew breath.

Hm? Do I hate my father? No, of course not. I love and respect him from the bottom of my heart.

Then who is that? My father went somewhere far, far away. Is that him?

Father left because he hated me, but that was a dream, so he’s still here, but that can’t be my father because—

Like a gear with teeth too worn to lock into place, Helga’s thoughts spun in circles, doomed to an eternity without conclusion. So lost in the pits of her mind, she could not even recognize that the endless font of mana that she’d let loose was pushing her body to the brink of collapse.

Everything distorted into an unintelligible mess. But then...she realized something. Could those two actually be her and her father, from long ago? When she had been sad or hurt, she remembered being held just like that.

The earnest wish that she might return to those arms naturally weakened the winter gale. However, the shard of nostalgia that empowered a speck of her sanity was not the only reason: she had torn through the mental block of self-preservation and continued to discharge her rapidly dwindling mana.

Just as the storm began to let up, the ogre’s shield gave out. Helga’s father—nay, a golden boy whom she did not know—rushed forward, leaving behind a sword large enough to shield his tiny companion. Even in the wavering tempest, the hail flying about cut his skin like a million daggers. Yet the boy held firm, charging headlong toward the floating changeling.

The ice sheared his skin and hair and tore open his flesh—yet still he pressed on. All the while, the two of them locked eyes. With a gaze free of any kind of hatred or bloodlust, the boy leapt toward her.

“Oh,” Helga said.

His eyes were so kind, yet so foreign. Her father’s eyes had been a cooler, translucent blue. The darker tone of his kitten-like eyes was a color she’d never seen before...but they were so very warm and gentle.

It didn’t hurt; she didn’t suffer; she wasn’t scared. To think, she had hated blades so much back then.

Curiously enough, Helga felt very calm. Her body shrieked in pain and her irreparable psyche continued to wail, but her soul alone was gazing at a cloudless sky—a sky not unlike what she saw as the storm clouds parted.

As she stared at the beautiful moon, she could feel the strange shape of a knife pierce through her accursed bindings and plunge into her chest. Her body did not bleed, but something in her heart felt incredibly warm.

Enveloped in the tender heat of the end, the girl slowly drifted to earth, unshackled from her eternal bonds. For the first time in decades, she felt peace as she closed her eyes.

[Tips] Death is the great equalizer for all those with souls.

The winds whipped at me and I squeezed Elisa tight, desperately looking for the faintest chance. My treasured sister clung to me with welling tears of terror, and as I felt her paltry heat on my skin, the whole of my mind was taken up by one thought: I’m a soft fool.

What did I say when I had executed those six daemons? I had proclaimed that saving them was beyond me—that to put them out of their misery was for the best.

Look at me now.

I had been a blind idiot pretending to understand. As soon as I had come across a pitiful girl, I bent. I’d ignored the fact that the alfar had already forsaken her, instead clinging to the preposterous hope in the back of my mind that told me I could save her.

Of course I had. I’d convinced myself that reality, too, was soft on young girls mistreated by the world. How many times had my efforts to help people like her been rewarded in my campaigns?

Reality did not care. A cracked cup cannot hold wine, and her broken heart could not be repaired. There were no convenient miracles, no turns of fate to restore her sanity, and no cheap items that could bring her back from the brink.

I had done this to her. This was my penance for indulging in sweet fantasy, and I would see it through if it took the last of my breaths away. How could I call myself a good brother when my half-baked resolve had put Elisa in danger? How could I call myself an adventurer ready to set off? I wanted to go back in time to tear out my own tongue and beat myself to death with these two hands. Assailed by the cold, I trembled for no other reason than rage.

Suddenly, the storm receded. While the winds were still harsh, they were nothing like what they had been a moment before.

“She’s running out of mana,” Ursula said. “Of course she is—she can’t overstep her bounds forever...”

“Reifalfs are only supposed to call for wintertime or make it stronger,” Lottie said. “Storms and ices are for bigger alfs to do...”

Helga was growing weaker: if I held out—if I let myself hold out—she would die of her own accord.

Oh, please no. Anything but that.

“Ursula, Lottie, I have a request.”

“What is it, Beloved One?”

I had a will—nay, a duty. I knew exactly how painful it was to run out of mana as a mensch. Then what of an alf? How harrowing would it be for one of these sentient bundles of magical energy to chisel away at her own existence until she dissolved into nothing?

“I want you to protect Elisa.”

Helga had gone through enough: her life was a tale of nothing but pain. For her to suffer until her final moment was just too much.

“I suppose we don’t have a choice.”

“Yup! We can’t say no to you, Lovey One!”

The two fairies exchanged glances and smiled for my pitiful sake.

“Elisa,” I said, “can you promise me something?”

“Mr. Brother? What?”

“Until I come back to get you, don’t move a muscle.”

I pulled my sister’s sobbing face out of my bosom and balled her up beneath me. The shield was at its limit, but Elisa was small enough to fit behind the ogre’s sword with a little fey help. It was a race: would the alfar’s blessings come first, or would the shield crack early? Without waiting for the answer, I left it all to fate and sprinted forward.

Even now, the storm was deadly. Frost robbed my sense of touch and jagged hailstones scored me at every angle—but what of it? I could endure the pain. With what mana I could spare, I opened my Unseen Hands wide to shield me; then I laid them flat as stepping stones.

I’m sorry, Helga. It’s all my fault. I will forever think of you and apologize; never again will I make this mistake.

I’m so sorry.

Helga, I will never forgive myself. So I ask that you do the same. No matter who else dares to absolve me, you and I...

I stared into her wavering eyes until the end of the end, carving her into my very soul. At long last, I thrust the fey knife into her small frame, making certain to pierce the crux of her being.

[Tips] The vital organ containing a demonfolk’s mana stone is found next to the heart. In the same vein, many creatures anchor their physical presence in their chest.