My sight was blurry, and I didn't feel like I was in the real world. If anything, I felt like I was floating inside a big, fluffy cloud.
Yup, I'm in a dream all right.
As I realized this, I looked around the room and noticed that the ever-stupid-looking Fudou Niito in the room was up. He seemed to be heading toward the kitchen even though I hadn't tried to move at all...
What's going on? Can my body move without my control this time? I guess it's a dream, so anything's possible. It'd be even weirder if every single one of my dreams went the exact same way.
I walked up to the computer and tried to turn it on like I always did, but for some reason, I couldn't touch it. My hand went through it.
The hell? This dream is kind of a pain in the ass.
While I was cursing the dream, my body came back from the kitchen.
Oh, great. Perfect timing, me. Turn on the computer, there's stuff I wanna check. Come on, hurry.
I tapped the computer a few times and gestured at it, but Niito—me—simply plopped down on the chair. He looked bored to death as he booted up the computer.
Good, good, looks like he's listening to me. That's the most important thing. Go to that video platform—you know, the one I always check out with the comments?
Comments were often more informative than the videos themselves. I was hoping to learn what people thought about the me in the game.
On the homepage, there were several recommendations—including videos of Ellize's and Layla's routes—but I wanted to see Eterna's.
I had a feeling Verner was kind of straying on the wrong path, and I needed to set him straight. The ending I wanted to see was Verner/Eterna and nothing else, so I needed to know about the new Eterna route—the one where I was Ellize. I was sure the video would give me useful hints to fix things when I woke up inside the game again.
As it turned out, the Eterna route video showed me scenes that were completely different from the ones I remembered.
First of all, Ellize had done a 180. She still had the same face, but she wasn't a bully anymore. She was a proper saint with a perfect reputation—me.
However, the rest of the events were pretty different from the ones I'd seen as Ellize.
For instance, Farah hadn't kidnapped her at all. Instead, Verner and Eterna had stopped Farah from trying to kill Ellize. During their fight, Eterna had awoken her saintly powers and saved Farah from the witch's brainwashing. While the target of the assassination had changed, the series of events was much closer to the initial Eterna route I'd played in the game.
I assumed the kidnapping hadn't happened because I hadn't visited the academy in this storyline. That, or I had gone to the academy, but Verner had been good and raised the heroine's affection level properly without my intervention. After all, Farah had only decided to kidnap Verner because she'd seen me meet with him in private. If I hadn't done that, the story wouldn't have moved in that direction.
I continued watching the video, but Ellize didn't end up transferring to the academy at all. The event where monsters attacked the academy had gone how it was initially supposed to go. Some no-name background characters had died pitifully, but Verner, Eterna, and a few other girls he'd talked to had worked together to resolve the situation.
Needless to say, Eterna hadn't tried to kill herself either.
All in all, most of the events progressed according to the normal game, albeit with a few differences.
Eterna and her friends never tried to prove that Ellize was a fake. The story continued to unfold with everyone believing that she was the real deal.
I watched up until the moment where Ellize was outed in the normal storyline but, naturally, that didn't happen.
The playthrough continued all the way to the fight against the witch but Ellize still hadn't been ousted from her position.
Four-Eyed Pervert didn't stalk Eterna, nor did he abduct her. He'd turned into a strange character that merely looked suspicious, but didn't actually do anything.
The evening before the fight with the witch, the Ellize of this storyline gave up on waiting. She gathered Verner, Eterna, and Layla to tell them the truth. It was followed by another scene where Verner and Eterna discussed Ellize's confession, but their reaction was completely different from what I expected.
"Me, the real saint...? It's so sudden! I don't know what to do, Ver. I'm scared... I can't measure up to Lady Ellize! I'll never be a good saint!"
Eterna wasn't supposed to react like that! She was supposed to go "I have to accomplish my destiny... I'm the saint, after all," and make up her mind to act like a dignified saint.
In the next scene, Ellize was preparing to fight the witch, but the moment she started going down the stairs to the basement, the witch ran away, scared shitless. Mission complete.
No one was able to find the witch again a year after the beginning of the game. The game moved on to the final fight automatically, then to the ending. The player no longer had any choices to make.
Ellize was nearing the end of her life by then, and she could barely move any more.
For real? I thought I had at least a few years left, but it looks like my life span was shortened much more than I expected.
The king was scared of the repercussions that would follow Ellize's death, so he decided to confine her to prevent everyone from learning of her ailment. She wasn't allowed to fight anymore.
As a result, Ellize wasn't even given the possibility to use the last of her strength to track down the witch and take her down with her.
Comments along the lines of "If only they hadn't confined her..." and "The king is a freaking dumbass!" flooded my screen.
The protagonists ended up having to face the witch in the final flight without Ellize. Just like in the original story, Eterna had to give up her life to take down the witch. She passed away in Verner's arms right after the witch.
WHAT?! Why am I just sleeping instead of doing something about this?! How useless can I get? This is literally the one ending I wanted to avoid!!!
If only Ellize hadn't been confined to her room...
It wouldn't have changed anything. The witch would've teleported the second she felt Ellize approach.
The witch keeps running away from Lady El in every route.
If Ellize had gotten her hands on her everything would've been different tho...
All right, so... The witch runs away from me. Let's remember that. The time I had left to live was much shorter than I'd expected, so I needed to keep that in mind too. I should assume that I'll die on the three-hundred sixty-fifth day after the start of the game.
Anyway, the witch had used teleportation... That was her very last resort because it weakened her a great deal.
In the world of Kuon no Sanka, teleporting meant taking your own body apart. You had to break it down into fine particles that could travel in an instant before putting it back together. Even the witch would risk dying in the process. The skill was the main reason why the witch wasn't as powerful in every run. If she'd had to teleport, she'd be weaker in the final fight.
So why the heck did she teleport without even trying to fight me? Do I scare her that much? Whatever. I can stop watching videos of Eterna's route. I got it.
Even though I'd been placed in Ellize's shoes instead of the original, Eterna's route wouldn't change. Which meant that I couldn't continue to aim for that ending, could I?!
Maybe there was still some hope for her ending... What I'd experienced so far had ended up being pretty different from the content of this video. Since I'd been in the academy the whole time, and I'd just gained knowledge of the future, there had to be a way for me to fix things for her.
Hey, Niito—uh, me—can you show me a playthrough of Ellize's route now? Fast forward to Ellize entering the academy... Yep, perfect.
This video, on the other hand, showed the events just as I'd seen them.
The standard characters that appeared in this route were different from others. Random dude and Fiora didn't even exist in other routes, and Four-eyed Pervert usually never hung out with Verner and his group.
Ellize had been present during the whole monsters-raiding-the-academy mess and she'd managed to get everything under control almost instantly. Eterna then ran away and tried to kill herself by jumping off the cliff, and Ellize and Verner jumped after her.
And then—yep, exactly as I remembered it—Verner saw my cut. Just like I had, Ellize had made up an excuse about a piece of thread.
I looked at the comments and finally realized—a bit late, sure—that I'd messed up.
A piece of thread?
Lady Ellize... You do know that nobody's wearing red, right?
Hang on! Maybe her panties are red.
I'm sure it's from Verner's underwear.
That'd be funny. The red thread of fate between me and Ellize...right from my underwear.
Mine too.
You two can just connect your red threads, then. Congrats.
Damn, I imagined it. Gross lol
Wanna connect with me lmao?
Crap. I'd had to say something fast in the heat of the moment, and the first thing that came to mind had been the whole thread thing, but... There hadn't been any red fabric around us back then. None at all.
Verner's uniform was black and blue. Mine and Eterna's were white and green.
I messed up. Oh boy, did I mess up.
Thankfully, while the guys in the comments had noticed immediately, Verner hadn't seemed to notice anything wrong with what Ellize had told him. Guess that was a win, then.
After that, the summer holiday started and it was time for the date events.
I continued watching the video. One evening, Ellize's face popped on the minimap. The player clicked on her and sent Verner to her location—the academy.
The event started. Verner was walking in the school building and he spotted Ellize. She seemed to be trying to be discreet and looked left and right before each step.
Wait... That's... Was that a date event?
Verner and Ellize's conversation went exactly as it had last time. They failed to distract Layla and got an earful. In the end, Ellize said goodbye to Verner, but it was different than usual.
See you tomorrow, Verner!♪
HUH?!
THE HELL?! DID I SOUND LIKE THAT?! I didn't. No way. Who even is that?!
Sure, I'd said those exact words, but...my tone had been different, right? I knew it had. I was convinced I'd spoken to him like any guy would with a friend. Or at least, that was what I'd intended.
Idk how many times I've listened to this line
I replayed the event at least 20 times to hear it. No, I'm not addicted.
She sounds so mischievous! Too cuuuuuute!!!
Lady Ellize is so adorable. I love how she's super happy that she made a friend.
Cute...
She's so precious.
Aaah, she looks so happy!!!
What happens if you renamed your MC?
>Then there's no voice line, you only get the text.
I couldn't take it anymore; I covered the comment section with my hand.
So that was how it'd ended up sounding from the outside...
What a disaster! I wanted to nuke the whole area, crawl into a hole, and die.
Anyway, the video moved on to the martial tournament. Verner struggled against Marie, but eventually won. Then the small fry entered the fight.
Ellize made a sword for Verner, so the player immediately went into his inventory to equip it. Its specs were— Wait! What the hell?! I'd casually slapped something together so he'd at least have a decent weapon to use, but I never expected it to have such high stats!
It was called the "Saint's Great Sword," and it raised the wielder's attack as much as the strongest end-game weapon did. On top of that, two-handed swords usually came with an accuracy and speed penalty, but this one had almost none.
STROOOOOOOOONG!!!
It's way too good for a sword you get at this point...
RIP the game's balance
You can only do Lady El's route once so you definitely need all the help you can get.
What happens if you use another type of weapon?
>It's still called the "Saint's ___" but it'll turn into whatever weapon you picked for the tournament. I dual wielded and got a pair of incredible one-handed swords.
>I got a longsword.
>I got a tonfa.
>I got nothing...
>>lmao did you fight Marie barehanded? You get no weapon then, deal w/it
>>Seriously...
>I played with the daikon radish for the lols and she gave me the Saint's Daikon Blade lmao. It was super strong too.
>I equipped a mackerel and she gave me the Saint's Mackerel.
>>Lady El's so good at crafting weapons lmao
It seemed like Ellize would make something suitable for Verner regardless of what he used.
It's impossible to win with a training weapon, so I guess that makes sense.
It wasn't all that difficult for me to craft weapons... As long as it wasn't anything too weird, that is.
And yeah, fair enough. I guess I wouldn't have made him anything if he just fought bare-handed to begin with...
The big doggo died after the fight, as expected, but...for some reason, a heart-wrenching BGM started playing as Ellize hugged his head.
Oh, that's a CG. What a nice picture. Is that what it looked like from the outside?
While I was thinking about that, I suddenly heard someone speak.
"I bet all you could think of during that scene was something like, 'what a pain, can you hurry up and fall asleep so we can call it a day?' The CG's making you seem like the perfect heroine, though. What a joke."
The one who'd just said that was...me?
Fudou Niito—me—had started talking...to me?
He turned toward me and smirked.
What the hell's going on?! Can my body do things regardless of my will? No wait, isn't that how dreams always work? You never truly control them, do you?
He cleared his throat. "Can't you do something about the way you talk? Usually you're all polite, and it's kinda weird to hear you speak like me with that face."
What the fuck is he on about? I only do that because I have to pretend to be the saint. There's no reason for me to go out of my way to speak like a proper lady in my dreams. I'm not Ellize right now.
"I get it now. You have no idea, do you? Hang on," he said, getting up. "Where did I put my mirror again?"
He started rummaging through the room.
Are you an idiot or what? The mirror's in the desk's drawer, always has been.
"Oh, right," he said, taking it out and angling it toward me. "Take a look at yourself."
Ellize's face stared back at me. She was translucent, just like a ghost.
What...the hell?!
"WHAAAT?! I was so sure I was back to looking like myself in my dreams! Why do I still have Ellize's face?!" I screamed, shocked.
That was when I noticed. The voice that had just come out of my mouth was one I had gotten used to hearing—a clear, melodious feminine voice.
Niito—me—smiled triumphantly at the look of astonishment on my face.
"How did you manage not to notice? Are you dumb or what? Just so you know, it was exactly the same the past few times you were here. You did take over my body but you still looked like that when you arrived."
"F-For real?"
"Yeah, duh. When did you start deluding yourself into thinking that you were Fudou Niito?"
"Oh, stop trying to sound cool," I shot back. "Just so you know, you still sound like a dumbass."
This dream's so strange. I never expected me to start making fun of myself.
"Let's assume you're right. Who the hell am I, then? What, I'm the real Ellize but I happened to reincarnate with your memories? Is that it?" I asked.
"Nah, that wouldn't make any sense. There'd be no way for you to come and go as you please. You'd be stuck in that world with only the memories if that were the case. We're connected somehow. It's not just our memories, I think we—"
While Niito—me—was speaking, my vision started blurring at breakneck speed.
Uh-oh. I knew that feeling. It meant I was gonna wake up soon. Niito—me—seemed to notice as well.
"Whatever! We don't have time, so listen up! You seem to think this is a dream. Well, it is and it isn't. The fact that you're able to bring the memories you obtain here into your world is crucial. Don't just brush it off as a dream—remember everything you see and hear here! You got it? If you approach the witch, she'll run away! She'll keep hiding until you die, so you can't go to the basement! She's still in the academy because she doesn't think you know her exact location. The moment you show her that you do, she'll flee without hesitating, and you won't be able to find her again! I've seen that route play out, so what you need to do is—"
Niito—me—was still speaking, but I was unable to hear the rest.
AAARGH, I WANNA KNOW!
Sadly, I didn't get a choice in the matter. I woke up in the luxurious bed I'd gotten used to.
Man, now that was weird.
I'd just had a talk with myself, and he'd told me some confusing stuff. Apparently, my dreams were dreams...but they also weren't? That didn't make any sense. Dreams were dreams; that's all there was to them.
As much as I wished I could've just written the whole thing off entirely, I figured remembering that bit about the witch might prove useful in the future.
If what I'd learned in my dream was true, the witch would flee as soon as she knew I was coming for her. She would use teleportation regardless of the side effects and conceal her whereabouts.
Yeah, that would suck.
The only reason I knew where the witch was hiding was because I'd seen it in the game. I didn't have some special tracking ability or anything like that. If she ran away, I wouldn't have a way to find her. She could very well cross the ocean and hide on the neighboring continent for all I knew! There was a large forest there, and I had a feeling that I could spend years looking for her to no avail.
It wasn't completely impossible to track dark magic in this world, so that might be a solution. Four-Eyed Pervert had done it to find Eterna last time. However, I'd only learned to bulldoze my way through mobs galore by spamming magic everywhere. I didn't know any sneaky spells like his. I couldn't ask Four-Eyed Pervert to do it for me either—I was pretty sure he could only track people if they were fairly close to him.
Either way, it was much safer to avoid spooking the witch.
Discretion is the better part of valor, and it looked like the witch was well aware of that. She knew to avoid engaging in a fight she couldn't win. She wouldn't even let me get close to her. Sure, that made her kind of a wuss, but she was smart. That was how you won wars.
Still, what kind of final boss runs away, huh?
At the moment she was (most likely) still in the basement of the academy.
Besides the fact that teleportation was a risky spell, there were merits to staying there. The academy was the place where future knights gathered to learn, so hiding there would allow her to quickly learn about individuals who posed a possible threat to her in the future. On top of that, this place was a mine of information.
She could count on the headmaster, a few teachers, and several students—all of whom she'd planted in the academy—to spy for her.
Without them, she'd have no way to know exactly when I'd come for her.
There had to be someone close to me who watched my movement and reported to the witch... Most likely someone in my guard.
Layla? ...No, impossible. She wasn't that shrewd.
While Layla had betrayed the original Ellize in the game, she was still proud of hailing from a noble family that had always stood by the saint's side. As far as she was concerned, she'd never betrayed the saint. No, she'd betrayed Ellize, the traitor who'd deceived her. She later devoted herself to the one who should've been her true master all along: Eterna.
Another guard who might've disliked me was Viscount Fox, Aina's beloved daddy. In the game, his family had fallen—in fact, most of them even committed suicide—all because he'd dared to tell Ellize she was going too far. Poor man.
He used to be the head of my guard before Layla took over, but he'd taken care of me a lot when I was younger. He didn't really have any reason to hate me in this world, though, and he wasn't even at the academy. Layla was the only member of my guard who'd followed me here.
That made Viscount Fox a very unlikely suspect, which meant...it had to be either a student or a teacher. I had no way of knowing their identity, then.
I couldn't remember most of the random named characters that barely appeared. It'd be a major pain to look through all of these extras to find the spy.
Urgh... I have no idea who it could be. Well, whatever. Let's put that on the back burner and avoid the basement for the time being.
The next time I had one of those dreams, I'd check on the internet for more info.
I had a lot of time before the game ended, so there was no reason to hurry. I knew that I'd die at around the same time Verner and the others would finish their first year at the academy. Conversely, I also knew for sure that I'd at least hold out that long.
Yeah, there was no need to rush.
With that all sorted out in my mind, it was time to get ready.
I stood in front of the mirror and used my usual spells to make my hair and skin as perfect as ever. I had to always make sure my appearance was beautiful enough to conceal the terrible piece of shit I was deep inside.
Well, you know how the saying went—you couldn't polish a turd. Even a gold-plated piece of shit still stunk.
As an Ainu girl once said, you shouldn't eat poop, no matter what.
Anyway, I was currently in class.
Whenever I was around other students, I made sure to keep on the most radiant smile at all times. It was impossible to keep your mouth in that shape forever—if you tried to do it normally, that is. I relied on magic for this as well. I used thunder magic to send electrical signals to my facial muscles and switched between a few natural expressions I'd rehearsed beforehand.
If I didn't do that, I tended to revert to my natural resting bitch face fairly quickly.
As always, my performative smile was on point. Conceal, don't feel—that was my motto.
"...and as such, you should always keep that in mind when fighting sorries. I cannot warn you enough, do not stand in front of a sorry bowing to you. It may look like a sign of capitulation at first glance, but this posture is in fact a subterfuge that will..."
I was barely listening to the lecture as I tried to summarize the upcoming events in my head.
The time period between the first martial tournament and the winter holiday was the middle phase of the game. Most of it was actually dedicated to Ellize's story arc—you know, her getting outed as the fake and all that. That made Ellize the main enemy during this part of the game, not the witch.
After Verner put his life on the line to save her during the martial tournament, Ellize took a liking to him and barged into the academy. She followed Verner around everywhere and got jealous of whichever heroine hung out with him the most at that point in time. She resolved to bully her until she gave up on her man, going as far as to order her underlings to assault the poor girl. She even hired hit men!
The game was PG, so the rape attempts all failed, but Verner's hatred—as well as the players'—toward Ellize kept intensifying.
That was when Aina stepped in with her botched assassination attempt. As I'd said in the past, she'd failed in killing Ellize, but still succeeded in hurting her, which had cast doubt on her identity.
At the same time, Verner and his friends had created a list of Ellize's evil deeds, and Layla had finally made up her mind and betrayed her ward. She'd joined Verner and gave him all the information she'd gathered over the years. Ellize was finally convicted and cast away, disgraced.
This all happened a little earlier during Eterna's route, since she realized that she was the true saint and awakened her powers during the Farah event.
Anyway, after all that happened, a fight between Ellize and the main character's party occurred. While the former was a genius, she hadn't lifted a finger a day in her life and was unable to use her potential. She lost miserably and fled the academy. In the end, she hid away in a poor village, living off scavenging rubbish for scraps of food...that is, until she was found by a group of people who'd sworn to take revenge on her. They killed her and tore her body apart until nothing remained.
I hadn't done anything worthy of being hated, so I didn't think the story would progress that way. Hopefully, this part of the game would be a peaceful, uneventful, cozy time.
I'd seen the Eterna route in my dream, and no one had known I was a fake until the end. Unless I messed up real bad, it would probably stay that way.
To be fair, even since my blunder—letting Verner see my cut—I made sure to protect my body with magic 24-7. Even if Aina tried to kill me, I was all set.
Anyway! To sum things up, I could enjoy myself and take it easy until the winter holiday. I was the main source of trouble during the middle phase, so as long as I stayed put, everything would be all right.
There were also a few events related to each of the heroines during this part of the game, but, well... Since Verner was a stupid bodybuilder in this world, I didn't expect much.
At the very least, Marie had started hanging out with him after the martial tournament. Although I had a feeling they saw each other as rivals, rather than love interests. I doubted Marie's event would occur at all.
Hm...
Man, I'm so bored.
Maybe I should go bully the headmaster a little to pass the time? I already know he's a spy anyway.If I beat him up and force him to tell me everything he knows, I bet I'll be able to uncover the other spies. I can't attack him without any evidence, though. That would hurt my image. It'd be great if I could find some proof... But I'm sure he's not stupid enough to leave incriminating evidence all over the place.
In that case, the best course of action would be to catch him in the act. I had a feeling it wouldn't be easy, though...
I dunno what to doooo! Can't someone just give me a hint?
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