"No… What's a sponsor?" Or to be accurate, what kind of sponsor does she mean? There are many kinds of sponsors in definition terms but I think I have an idea of what kind of sponsor she is talking about, though it is best to hear it from her directly.
"Hmm… let me see how can I explain this… ah, do you know those tournaments that Miles tells you about from time to time?"
"Yeah? Like those sword-fighting competitions or magic competitions and other stuff."
"Yeah like that. Those tournaments are obviously being held by people, mostly very powerful and influential people, but there are those who give them money or gifts that will help make the event more entertaining. Think of those people that give as sponsors. Now, the sponsors that I'm talking about are… well, the constellations, who are also known as gods."
Yup, so I'm right. This should mean that there is a [Star Stream] or something similar in this universe. God, this is straight out of ORV, not even gonna deny it. If the sponsoring works like it does in ORV then she might have contracted with one of the Goddesses of Love and received a stigma that can do a hypnosis type of effect. The question is why the hell would she even use it?!
"Now, constellations can sponsor an individual that they like and might make a contract with them. They can give us money, skills, power, items, and all that kind of stuff whenever they want, however, we must give them something that they like and want in return for all of the things they give us. The agreement between the sponsor and the incarnation/person is a contract which you and the sponsor have to follow."
"Ok… so basically constellations are like parents who give us presents and stuff?"
"Yeah, kinda like that but just have stricter rules than our parents."
"Oh, ok. So how does this relate to us?"
"Well… I may have contracted with multiple constellations… I have exactly four of them. And well, the skills that I inherited from them are what caused the things that happen between us…"
'I knew it. So she has four, huh. Quite a rare sight, to be honest. She is lucky.'
'Wait, hold on, did I hear that correctly? She has 4 sponsors! At the same time?! I never heard anything like that was possible in ORV unless it was a nebula. Wait, did she have a contract with a nebula rather than a constellation? Ugh, I'm so confused!'
'I highly doubt it. If the skills that she inherited are what I'm thinking of then no, it is not a nebula. In fact, all four of them might be in a separate nebula from each other. Though I understand your confusion. You just didn't expect her to have multiple sponsors.'
'Well duh! After all, one person can only have one sponsor as far as I'm aware unless it is a whole nebula. This situation is unheard of, or at least as far as I'm concerned.'
'Well then, want me to tell you what are the differences in this universe from the novel you read?'
'Yeah… please tell me.'
'Alright, so yes, a person or incarnation can get sponsors if they were liked enough but it is entirely possible for a person to get multiple sponsors despite it not being a nebula. The only reason why it is commonly one sponsor for most people is that the first constellation that makes a contract to the incarnation would get the most benefit out of all the other sponsors that the incarnation might get in the future, which would be unprofitable for the other constellations and therefore would not want to sponsor that incarnation anymore.'
Basically, it is the finders, keepers kind of thing. Or is it something else… I don't know, moving on.
'Also, you might think that constellations can only have 1-3 or maybe a little bit more incarnations to sponsor but here, that is not the case. In fact, the minimum is 10. That is not to say that constellations can't have less than 10 incarnations to sponsor but the vast majority have the minimum amount of incarnations of 10. That is just how powerful the constellations are in here.'
'So you are saying that the constellations I have read in the novel are weak?'
'I mean, compared to the constellations here, it is like comparing a god to a mere fly.'
Man, that hurts a bit. I mean, they were pretty strong you know? I don't know if she is just joking but if what she said is true, then what kind of monsters are the gods in this world? I got shivers just thinking about it.
'And, I think you are wondering if there is a [Star Stream] in this world, correct?'
'Well duh.' After all, if there was a [Star Stream] then I could probably monopolize it with my knowledge, well to some extent at least.
'Well then, the short answer is no. The long answer is yes and no. To explain that, you just have to know that there are no streamers in this universe, so no dokkaebi or anything like that, but it doesn't mean the constellations can't see/watch this world. First of all, there are two ways to watch the incarnations or three if you count looking.'
'Well, that's a lot more than I thought.'
'Yup, the first and the most obvious are to watch the incarnations directly with their eyes. It is more taxing and limited since you are only able to look at a certain group at once but you can still see.'
'What makes it taxing though?'
'We will talk about it for another time, just think of it as taking probability. The other thing is to watch through the World's system.'
'Wait, you can do that?'
'Yup, as I said, this world might be similar to the many novels that you have read but everything doesn't work the same way. Now, continuing on, watching through the World System is less taxing and is less limited but if I were to compare it to your previous world's standards, it is like looking at the news on a TV, which means only the important stuff can be looked at and if you want to get stuff, you have to do it manually.'
'Ah, I see.'
'Now the third and probably the most popular is to use the [Star Stream] or in this case, [Interstellar Streaming Platform]!'
'...'
'I know, the name is lame and all but it is the best way to watch. If you want to blame someone then blame the creator for that. Ok so, this is basically the same thing as the [Star Stream], only that it is done automatically. No more dokkaebis to manage everything and you don't need to ask someone to open a [Dokkaebi Shop] because everything is done automatically. And the quality is like having internet on a speedy computer! This means you can just buy things without doing them manually. Overall, it is the best viewing experience and it is also made by an Otherworlder.'
'I expected much, I mean, what kind of being other than an Otherworlder can make something like that? We lived in an advanced civilization and this world is medieval times, of course, it had to be an Otherworlder. Still, it is quite amazing that they made something this great in this world, so what's the catch? From all of your examples earlier, there is always a catch so what's the catch on this thing?'
'... Well… you have to pay for it.'
'That isn't too bad, how much?'
'Maybe around five hundred thousand [Stellar Gold] coins per minute?'
My mouth dropped. Did I hear that correctly? 500,000 [Stellar Gold] coins per minute?! Ain't no way anybody has that kind of money! That is so expensive! That is basically 5 Quadrillion Yen per minute!
My brain can't process the information that I just got. My brain is going haywire just thinking about it. Of course, the quality is good, everything is automatic and it is overall the best option, which obviously means it needs to be so unbelievably expensive.
'Who even has those kinds of money…'
'You want an answer to that? God-like beings, so yeah, it is expensive. This is why constellations only use it if the situation is very heated or amazing or really anything that needs a better viewing experience, other than that, no one really uses it 24/7. Unless it is the shop, by which they don't need to pay every time since you only have to pay one-time and the access to the shop is unlimited. Of course, you have to increase your ranks to get more items but that is beside the point. So yeah, I think this is everything that you need to know right now.'
'I still can't wrap my head around this, maybe we should just continue our talk with my sister.'
'Good plan because even I was astonished to what I was saying. Maybe I got influenced too much by your memories because I have a new appreciation for money now. Hey, Tomo. Maybe we should save every penny we get when we become an adventurer so we could at least afford to buy access to the shop, alright? There are so many good things in there that you might want to buy...'
'Yeah yeah. We will worry about that later. I'm still processing the info dump that you-'
"Are you alright, Tomo-chan? You seem a bit tired…"
"Ah, no worries. I just had a lot to think about."
Gosh, I was about to forget that I am still in my sister's room.
"So… what were the things that you inherited that caused that thing to happen."
"Well, about that… I can tell you about what stigma I got but I'm not allowed to say the modifiers of my sponsors or their real names, would that be fine?"
"Yeah, it is fine."
"Ok, so I got a stigma from one of my sponsors, which is the [Undenying Luck]. The effect is to randomly manipulate my luck from time to time, maybe I get a little bit luckier than what I was going to get or maybe a little bit unluckier. The main part of it is that there are random times in a year when my luck suddenly spikes, either being extremely lucky or unlucky. Now another stigma that I got from another sponsor is called the [Random Scenario], this affects the surrounding scenarios by random, whether it be the cooking of the main chef became better than usual or the maids suddenly trip over nothing…"
Why did she just stop in that sentence? I'm getting a bad feeling about this…
"...The other stigma that I got from another sponsor is the [Bounded Love]. Its effects are that the first person who gets to make eye contact with me for 3 seconds while touching any private parts, accidental or not, would suddenly become flirtatious with me and make advances, of course, I'm also affected by it."
Yup, I'm getting really bad vibes with this one.
"But why did you get those stigmas in the first place?"
"Well… both [Undenying Luck] and [Random Scenario] affect my luck and I really needed luck for my magic research at the time… [Bounded Love] however, I needed it for a 'story' to fulfill the requirements on my contract, which is to spread one of the stories of one of my sponsors…"
I forgot how crazy constellations get with stories, still, why that skill in the first place! It could have been any skill but that one!
"So what happened between us?"
"Umm… well… the [Undenying Luck] just so happened to spike my unluckiness out of nowhere and activated both [Random Scenario] and [Bounded Love]. Because of that, while you were walking behind me carrying some books, you and I tripped over nothing and fell… and it just so happened that you landed on my… bottom…"
I don't like where this is going.
"I turned around to look if you were fine but you and I coincidentally locked eyes and because of my luck again, we weren't able to look away from each other until it was too late…"
What… in the actual fuck?! All of those events happened so perfectly together as if it was staged, am I the only one thinking about this?!
'What kind of bullshit is that! The timing was too good for it to be a coincidence, this has to be staged!'
Oh, Aurelia was thinking that too. Good, I wasn't hallucinating.
'Lia, what are the chances that the constellation staged that?'
'I don't know about the Goddess of Love but it is certainly done by her other sponsors. I know for a fact that only a few constellations have [Undenying Luck] and [Random Scenario], and it just so happened that all of the constellations that have those stigmas are f*ckin psychopaths. There is also the fact that constellations can affect the [Undenying Luck] by paying a bit of price!'
'They can affect it? So it must be staged, right?'
'Might as well be! There is no other reason because it is too much of a coincidence.'
God, my brain hurts right now, So the constellations might have done something about this… why the hell…
"Ugh…"
"Yeah, I get what you mean. This is why I didn't want to talk about it…"
"No, it is fine, it's just- ugh… yeah. I see why now. But… can you tell me if I hurt you in any way?"
I was actually scared to learn how bad it happened. It's because I'm quite the scary person in bed, not that I had any experience though, or should I say I have experienced it, I just don't have any memories of it.
"Well… you were really aggressive and dominated out of the both of us…"
Oh, my freaking god, I'm dying. "I'm so sorry…"
"No no, it is my fault entirely, ok? You were affected by my skill so it is not your fault-"
"It kinda still is. So, I'm sorry… very very sorry… goddamnit" I am about to go crazy because of this.
She looked at my face and saw that I was going crazy. She was thinking about how she could resolve the issue until-
"Umm… just… come here."
She hugged me tight to comfort me. Well, this is new. It feels a bit awkward though but I got comforted a bit. I wonder if she too is getting at least a little bit better from doing this. It must have been traumatizing for her and maybe for me as well. I can't remember exactly what happened but I can just guess. She is trying her best to not get too emotional right now, I can feel that.
I hugged her back and gently patted her head to comfort her as well. I am slightly taller and bigger than her right now so this is the only time that I could do this. After a while, we finished hugging and laughed a bit to alleviate the atmosphere. She might have not noticed it but I could see tiny tears falling out of her eyes.
She is really hurt, huh. We continued talking about various stuff to try and lighten up the mood since I'm not good with dealing in this kind of atmosphere. The mood lightened up a bit until…
'Tomo, are you kidding me? Did you really just think that?!'
'Yeah, I'm sorry. God, why did I think of that! I really don't want to say it but I'm so curious now-'
"Are you thinking of something?"
"Oh, ah… well, just a random thought that passed by, no big deal…"
"C'mon, tell me."
"Uhh…"
"Please?"
"Ugh… well, if you insist… Umm… you said you remembered it then umm… what do you think of my performance, just curious..."
Her eyes widened at my question, of course, she would be surprised. She never thought I would ask her this question, perfectly understandable.
"Hmm… I wonder…"
One minute. Two minutes. Three minutes passed by.
"Hmm… ah! Oh… hmm…"
W-Why is she thinking about it so deeply?1 What is taking so long! Was I that bad? What is going on? I was honestly scared to hear her response as I waited patiently, sweating nervously.
"Haha, calm down. I'm just joking with you."
She looked at me having a nervous expression. She chuckled and laughed. Haha, my ass. You scared the heck out of me! You can't just do that to a man!
I closed my eyes and sighed. She was just toying with me this entire time… No matter, at least she is having fun. I opened my eyes while sighing again. The next moment, she was right at my face and to my ears, she whispered:
"Well… let's just say there might be no one else that can satisfy me~"
I backed away from her after hearing this. I looked at her in disbelief. My face was beet red and I covered myself to hide my embarrassment. She really just had to whisper that, huh! In a seductive tone as well, fuck this, I might need a shot to the nerves to calm down because goddamnit, teenage hormones are still in this body. She laughed again and apologized, saying that she will not do it again. I hope not because I'm dying over here!
After a while of talking, I suddenly brought up this question.
"So, how are we supposed to tell this to our parents?"