False Truths

Unfortunately, right when I thought she wouldn't, Jess did the thing again. Where she hugs me and only lets me go until I relax.

I'll spare you the details.

All you really need to know is that it took a damn long time. I'm honestly not even sure if it was shorter or longer than last time. In the end, I fell asleep once more. This time it looked like the book didn't care enough to invade my dreams and bother me.

And so, when I woke up, I found that I was once again being held by Jess.

Naturally, my body began tensing up, and sensing that, Jess opened up her eyes. A small smile formed on her face.

"Good morning..."

I blinked a few times, looking back with my lips pressed into a line.

"Are we really going to be doing this every day?"

Jess looked at me like I was stupid.

"What else would we be doing?"

...It seemed like I would have to get used to this life.

Deciding to shove away those thoughts, I got up from the bed. Today there wasn't going to be school. However, there was still going to be a ball sometime during the evening. Apparently, one of the servants would inform me when I would have to get ready.

With that, I wasn't really sure what I was supposed to do.

Of course, I could meditate, but I was already doing that while walking down the hallway. It would be more effective if I was just standing still with my eyes closed, but I didn't care too much about those tiny semantics.

While thinking about that and walking around the place, I thought maybe I could check up on how the chefs were doing with the pig that Edward had made by draining its blood.

Yet, as I was thinking about that, I suddenly felt a strong wave of heat pass through the open window. I was on the second floor and it was currently the fall season. So that heat was rather confusing.

I looked outside and faintly heard the sounds of someone cursing.

"Shit! Fuck! I can do it this time... just..."

I was about to look outside, but as I was about to, a massive torrent of fire shot upwards into the sky, almost like a firework. Immediately, I threw my head backward. Thankfully, I was able to easily avoid it, but still, I wondered what in the hell was going on.

Looking down after the torrent of fire had passed, I saw that it was Nathan, once again cursing to himself as he raised his finger up once more.

I yelled at him.

"What the hell are you doing, dumbass? You can't burn down a house made of stone!"

Nathan looked up and called out to me.

"Che! I was doing this to get your attention! There's no glass in your window, so I can't throw a rock at it to get you to notice! I'm kind of a genius since it worked!"

My eyelid twitched.

"Idiot! The reason I even noticed you in the first place was that I could hear you cursing from inside here!"

In the past, when Nathan wanted to hang out, he usually hurled pebbles at my window. However, he usually picked ones that were too big and once ended up even cracking my window.

He apologized and fixed it, but that didn't change the fact that it happened.

Although cell phones were a widespread thing at the time, neither I nor Nathan had one. As such, we kinda just had to find other ways to contact each other. It wasn't as though we didn't want one, but a damn whole computer was cheaper, and that was already a pretty big expense to us.

Granted, the computers we used were only just barely above a toaster, but still.

I suppose now that we transmigrated, his alternative was to shoot a massive flamethrower in front of my house because... that made so much more sense.

"You dumbass! I told you before that you can just call for me while outside and I'll get to you if I'm there!"

Nathan immediately defended himself, like he already knew I was going to say that.

"But this makes it feel more special! You don't know who it is until you look outside to check!"

I raised my fist out the window and shook it.

"There's hardly any damn mystery at all! The only person that would use a flamethrower outside to attract attention is either you or some shitty villain that needs attention before he does any of his evil acts!"

Nathan crossed his arms and spoke righteously.

"But you're still not one hundred percent sure that it's me, right? That builds up the suspense! I remember that was important for stories and stuff like that!"

I held onto my forehead with exasperation, trying to calm down.

...Then I blew up all over again.

"Story my ass! The story is already shitty enough, you don't have to make it worse! It's not even like this is important in some way!"

Nathan shook his head and sighed. He put one hand on his forehead before tilting back his head overly pretentiously.

"Some people just don't understand art..."

I let out a long sigh and decided to leave it like that. For some reason, Nathan was normally a pretty level-headed guy, but would occasionally do something really strange and think it was completely normal.

Kinda like when he first beat the shit out of himself after just transmigrating, thinking that would somehow fix the changes we made to the story.

At first, I thought this was some sort of long-running joke he played, but it turns out that's just how he was. Because why not, I guess. Maybe there was a reason he was like this, but even if there was, I at least knew that not even Nathan knew what that was.

I navigated my way down to the entrance and saw Nathan waiting outside.

He looked a little out of breath, which was reasonable because I recall my manor being pretty damn far away from the slums. I had some thoughts before of not using the carriage, but after realizing how damn far it was, I never said them out loud.

Even though his way of getting my attention was rather stupid, it seemed like it was something important, so I was willing to hear him out.

"So what is it?"

He held out a hand to me robotically.

"I don't know why Charlotte is so annoying."

...Ok, maybe I should've phrased it by saying that it was probably important.

"You're pretty damn annoying yourself."

Nathan put his hand up, almost like he was brushing that comment away.

"That's not relevant to what I'm saying."

I stared at him without knowing what to think. Did he really come all the way out here just to tell me this?

"What do you want me to do about it? Aren't you the person at fault for attracting her in the first place anyway?"

Nathan's expression relaxed somewhat.

"You see, that's the thing. I don't actually remember interacting with her before. She suddenly just came up to me and pretended to know me."

Processing what he said, I suddenly felt very strange. It distorted my physical senses too, making me feel like the ground under me was teetering as though I was standing on a tilting ship.

"Are you sure you never talked with her beforehand?"

Nathan nodded.

"I wouldn't just not recognize the main cast that easily."

The main protagonist and Charlotte never should've met before the game started, which threw out that option. On top of that, it wasn't as though Charlotte was friendly with Nathan all the way from the beginning.

I then began thinking about it to myself as well.

Now that I look back on it, the fact that Nathan was able to establish a connection with Charlotte was weird as hell. After all, the commoners and nobles were very distinctly separated.

It wasn't like my going over to the slums was a normal thing. That's why so many people were always watching me. The nobles stay among themselves, while the commoners do the same.

The only real interaction was either at school or when taxes needed to be collected.

I took a deep breath and looked at Nathan.

"...Do you have any guesses as to what happened?"

Nathan massaged his temple with the base of his palm.

"The only possible thing I could think of is her somehow being mesmerized by me getting a good score in classes and showing up to the teacher. And that's ignoring the fact I claimed you taught me. But even then, the way she talks to me is like she's familiar with me."

He frowned slightly and tilted his head to the side.

"Well, I guess familiar is an over-exaggeration, but you get what I mean."

I blinked a few times, thinking about what that could possibly mean. All things considered, the game was still technically in its prologue. The first choice you are able to make actually starts at the ball itself, which is where the first chapter starts.

Of course, as a commoner, you don't go into the ball itself, but while wandering around on a day off, you just happen to be in the general area. One after another, you randomly meet with most of the girls as they leave the ball and just so happen to meet with them. Or, if they were commoners, you would just run into them.

That's how the game decided to introduce most of the female leads.

So as for how Charlotte met with Nathan...

"Is there some look-a-like of you running around?"

We had changed the plot already by quite a bit, but I don't recall us doing anything all that drastic. While this was a world of magic, it was still grounded by the medieval age with nothing too wacky happening. It was nothing like certain animated shows that contain bizarre adventures.

Nathan ruffled his hair in frustration.

"I don't think this game would pull off something like that. Somehow or another, one of our actions made something really different happen. I don't know which one that was or how it happened like this, but that fact remains."

We stood there in silence for a few moments. I waved him over.

"Let's talk in my room."

Nathan shook his head.

"No, I'm sure some people saw me come over, but it's best if the least number of people possible knew that we came into contact. I just wanted to tell you that there's something strange happening."

I blinked a few times before nodding.

"We have too little information to talk about much at all in the first place. I'll take note of that. I'm still going to be doing the same thing, going to the ball and showing off the meat and all that. With your warning, I'll just pay attention to stuff more."

Nathan nodded before turning around.

"Cool. As far as we know, we never met."

With that, he left. Similarly, I continued wandering around the place like nothing was wrong. While Nathan was a bit oblivious to certain things, I knew he wasn't the type of person to mess something like this up.

I tried to think of possibilities as to how he and Charlotte could've met, yet Nathan not recalling it whatsoever. After thinking about it for a while, the only real conclusion I came to was something messing with Nathan's memories.

Yet, I was confident that Nathan wouldn't be so easily messed with. If a pocket of his memory suddenly disappeared, I'm sure he would be able to connect the dots to at least realize that.

...At least, I think so.