Gacha Kingdom Building

Thus, even though I had some complaints from Anna and Bea, who seemed interested in the no-rest marathon we could embark on, I limited my night activities for everyone's sake.

The only one I couldn't convince was Cassandra, as she's always accompanying me anyway, and so she wasn't affected by the time dilation.

Still, even though I missed having the girls with me every night, thanks to this decision I was able to rest better and also keep a good eye on Isabella and the situation of her house.

But we eventually moved to the capital...

At first, I thought this would give me even more time to plan our steps since the staff at this residence was less antagonistic and more willing to do their job and help Isabella out.

This would've been the case... If not for Mei.

She told many stories about me to the people working for the Evretis family.

Whether she was the one responsible for embellishing them or she received them in their current state matters not.

What's really important is that a bunch of maids became curious and I'd often receive some visits from them as they seemed to mistake me for this gallant being who ruled his own dimension and was able to match Gods.

I can almost pinpoint where the stories were twisted...

I might be at fault for being vague about my kingdom too, but matching Gods was a clear and deliberate modification to my actions towards The Merchant and The First Daughter.

Sure, I often tell those two off. But I can only do that because they are friendly and allow me to.

If they were ever serious about fighting me... Well, there would be no contest.

Explaining all of that was a little too hard though. And inconvenient in many ways.

And so, to Cassandra's dismay, and for the sake of dividing my attention fairly with each of my girls, I ended up accepting the maids' visits.

I thought things wouldn't change much from there, but I was mistaken.

A few days ago, Isabella had her first P.E. lesson. As the first class, the contents weren't that relevant. It mostly dealt with simple tips and introductory training.

Or at least this is what should have happened if not for the monster encounter that interrupted the class.

We already knew of this event, so we weren't too worried about it.

However, we might've prepared Isabella a little too much for it, as even though her guards were too occupied to lend a hand, she managed to push through and defeat the strongest monster that appeared.

Since this was a great achievement and she managed to do it while in a party with the prince, an action that would gain her affection points in the game, I foolishly thought this was a great thing.

It was hard to imagine this becoming a bad thing, no matter how powerful her [The Darkest Star] is.

In essence, what I learned was that I lacked imagination.

Miwen: "Any suspects among the teachers?"

Bea: "I think I've gone through them all, but no signs of [Spatial Magic]."

The reason for us being occupied during Isabella's battle was that Bea and I were trying to figure out the root of the problem.

Thanks to Bea, we at least discovered the magic element behind the random monster encounters, and since [Spatial Magic] is rare, it became a clue we could use to look for suspects.

Miwen: "And the students?"

Bea: "...Nothing yet, but there's still plenty I haven't left for me to search."

Considering Bea's abilities, identifying the culprit shouldn't be too hard, however, things weren't progressing as smoothly as I wanted them to.

The lead we found... It was created by the system.

It's just its product, and whenever random battles start, we can find one of them.

They don't lead us to a person, they just lead us back to the system. It does mean we can try to analyze it from the end, but it doesn't mean much since we are still unable to reach too far from either end.

And while we were studying it, we ran into the worst possible luck. The number of random battles we are facing is the highest compared to what the girls have experienced in the game.

I have almost no doubts that this is a result of [The Darkest Star].

It was certainly my mistake to doubt how powerful this Gift truly is.

While in this world accidents with monsters are fairly accepted as a normal thing, due to the frequency, the school had to take action, and so, a few adventurers were hired to increase security.

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It was also decided that some students would join a committee to help keep things in order. The main job they were tasked with was to quell the worries of other students.

And that's where Isabella's achievements... The prowess and courage she had demonstrated, something I couldn't believe would become a negative... Suddenly became a thorn in our side.

Most students didn't want to join the committee, so, since they couldn't get enough numbers, they held a vote.

And of course, our princess won by a longshot.

It was obvious. She's been an honor student. Her grades are the best, and she has demonstrated many times that she's able to hold her own against the monsters.

The girl herself also didn't complain about it.

If anything, she seemed happy thinking that she was being recognized by her classmates.

Still, this led to some changes.

The biggest one yet was that Isabella had to stay within the academy during weekdays.

She's provided with a room in the girls' dormitories, but this made it hard for our lessons as there were too many eyes I couldn't account for.

It also made my activities a little more difficult. I couldn't move as much as I was used to before, which meant I had to count on the others for most of my plans.

Thankfully, it opened a few doors as well. And while I was more restricted, I at least had more time to investigate the school and the weird things that tend to happen here.

While they are normal for a game, in real life, I find things like the monster encounters to be quite strange.

On a side note. Another plus side to this whole thing was Edmond volunteering for the committee work as well.

If not for the fact that Sabrina also joined, this would've been brilliant as it would've allowed Isabella to have more time with him.

And with our classroom's committee formed by these three, we started our activities.

One such was this night's.

Reports of suspicious screams and sounds have been reported. Strangely, these reports come from both the boys and the girls.

They cite these problems happening in different places as well. Bathrooms, the dormitories...

However, perhaps because it's a place that should normally be as quiet as possible and so any weird noise is instantly noticed, most cases cite the library.

This all led to the recent rumors... of a ghost.

Sabrina: "Are you scared?"

Miwen: "...Of ghosts? Not particularly."

Sabrina: "Oh... So you don't believe in them?"

The last time I talked about ghosts was... with The Merchant.

Back then I was intrigued by the existence of spirits, but I now understand it a little more.

They are definitely a different thing compared to the undead that we can find in dungeons, or even to the usual idea of an apparition.

While they share a few characteristics, that seems to be a coincidence. Spirits aren't really the result of someone's death or anything like that.

As for ghosts outside of dungeons... Well, I still don't know much about souls and whatnot, so I can't vouch for any side.

It is a little weird to hear Sabrina question me about that though.

In a world that only knows fantasy like this one, I'd think the population wouldn't be as skeptical about these things.

Still, as for whether or not I'm afraid, that would be a no.

I have a witch by my side and a demon I can call whenever I want so a ghost should easily get outranked.

And well... this whole situation seems a little more straightforward to me.

Firstly, this is not present in the game. Or at least if it is, the girls haven't been able to trigger it.

Actually, the very establishment of a committee isn't part of the game.

And so, I believe these two are a special case linked to the one truly abnormal thing.

Isabella.

My theory is that due to her incredibly bad NRG, she's triggering rare scenarios that we simply wouldn't be able to find normally.

It just makes sense that due to the number of encounters, the school would take action.

And this should also influence the students' psyche.

Rather than a ghost, it's much more believable that they are suffering mentally from always being alert and stressed.

They should probably be just imagining things.

Sabrina: "Hmm... Here, I'll hold your arm so don't worry!"

Miwen: "Aren't you so lovely? However, I need that arm to fight, you know?"

Sabrina: "You won't have to! If there's such a thing as a ghost, I'll exorcise it!"

How reassuring...

Well, at least I can keep her away from Edmond like this, so I'm sure Isabella will...

Yeah... She didn't look too happy about it.

And in my defense, neither was I. I'd much rather be this close to Bea or Mia.

However, I had no reason to complain since her reasons were pure.

I just accepted the situation and continued searching the library.

The unsettling silence would sometimes be broken by the wind or some trees.

Spooky stuff... for a kid.

But maybe if they are stressed enough, even teenagers might find the creaks of the door and the floor to be scary.

Still, until this point, there was nothing out of the ordinary.

Bea: "...Hm..."

Miwen: "Something the matter?"

Bea: "...I think so. Have you noticed how the books are sorted? Doesn't this seem a little odd?"

...At first glance, it was pretty normal.

The library is divided into sections. Closest to the entrance was the section of tales and simple stories and other generally easier books to read.

The next sections were divided according to general knowledge such as geography and history. Most of those books are used by the students during tests.

And then lastly we had spellbooks of various types of magic.

It could be said that the sections were based on theme as well as reading difficulty.

The thing is... a few books were upside down in the tales section.

Since each shelf uses alphabetical order to sort their books, this appeared to be random, but upon closer inspection, we noticed that all of these books were written by the same author: Raella T.

This didn't mean much at first, but Bea and I decided to take a closer look at them.

Beatrice: "Dedicated to Chris Liven... 06/12/1032..."

Miwen: "Dedicated to Elana Greystone... 23/01/1056..."

Huh...

24 years between one book and the other? That's a long time for someone to be writing.

Surely they must have acquired some fame after so many years...

Miwen: "Isa... Do you know about Raella T.?"

Isa: "Hm? Never heard of them."

...I didn't even need to look at Bea.

If I found that suspicious, she must've as well.

Beatrice: "What about a Chris Liven or an Elana Greystone?"

Isa: "Uh... No clue..."

It's normal for an author to dedicate their work to someone important to them, normally to their family or someone who might have been their inspiration.

With the different surnames, we could rule out the first.

But... an author that writes for 24 years and keeps referencing other unknown authors...

Even though no one seemed to know of his name, they still managed to get their books in the library of a prestigious school attended by the nobility.

Yeah...There was something funny going on.

Sabrina: "...Something the matter?"

Miwen: "Maybe. Can you ask Edmond and his guards to look for and collect all the books that were upside down? Or books authored by Raella T.?"

Sabrina: " Leave it to me!"

I would have loved to be right from the start. To say that there was nothing aside from mass hallucination and paranoia and be done with this.

However, Bea's discovery suddenly made things more interesting and I couldn't help but get interested.

In total, we found 49 books authored by Raella T.

Edmond's boys were careful and made sure to note where they found each of them.

Interestingly, while we didn't find any spellbooks of hers, we did find books in a few other sections, such as history, alchemy, and nature.

At first, the titles seemed innocent enough.

"The No Face Brave", was a powerful title for a tale, but it didn't seem out of place. The premise was also rather normal and simple, it told the story of a coward who acted as a tough guy.

However, things started to seem a little more unusual with the books from the other sections.

From the nature section, one of the books was titled "Roots Of A Lie". The story of a botanist who was worried and unsure about his place in the world, until he got one chance to prove himself to the girl he loved.

Another interesting title was found in the alchemy section. The book called "The Cure For Memory Loss" didn't seem to have anything to do with medicine as the premise stated that it was the story of a woman who would always excuse herself out of promises by saying her memory wasn't good and that she simply forgot.

Sabrina: "..."

Mia: "...What does this mean, Miwen?"

Things were starting to get a little more tense...

I could feel Sabrina trembling Her bravado didn't take long to dissipate at all.

But at the same time, everyone else was feeling weird about this.

It took them a little longer, but they started to catch up with what Bea and I were thinking.

Miwen: "...To be honest, I don't know. We'll have to read them, I guess."

Sadly, it also meant that I didn't have much more to offer then.

49 Books authored by the same person. All of them were dedicated to someone. We couldn't find any correlation between the people cited.

The date inscribed in each of them ranged quite a bit. What we thought were 24 years of honest writing turned out to actually be 68.

Assuming we didn't miss any book, that would be almost one every year. However, the frequency wasn't evenly distributed.

There were big gaps in the early years, but in this world's last year, Raella had authored 3 new books.

This was a pattern. She was ramping up production.

Everyone understood how strange this was, but as I told Mia, I couldn't conclude anything yet, and it didn't seem like anyone else had any ideas either.

The dates, titles, and dedicatories weren't enough.

Without reading them, we wouldn't be able to decipher anything...

Bea: "I'm surprised you can read that fast."

Mia: "He jumped to the last pages."

Miwen: "It's where they hide all the fun."

Bea gave me quite a disapproving look, but sadly, I wasn't that interested in reading "The Bard's Delirium".

Especially with how boring the premise was... It depicted the story of a man who searched for love and conquered many women, only to break their hearts as his only objective in experiencing love was to improve his craft.

I'm sure an experienced author like Raella was able to put a lot of emotions, twists, and turns into every chapter, but I thought it was fine to let my friends experience such things while I searched more objectively.

It's something I often do, but... I'm glad for this decision.

Isabella: "...Hey! What are you doing?"

Miwen: "Isabella, don't pick another one. Bea, Mia, give me yours."

With how serious I was, they complied immediately.

Sabrina: "...Should we also stop reading?"

Miwen: "That depends. How strong is your stomach?"

The contents of the book weren't cursed.

They were a big clue. I'm sure if Bea read one of them until the end she would figure it out.

However, only one was enough.

There was no need for the girls to read through them. It wouldn't do anyone any good.

Mia: "...Calm down, Miwen."

Miwen: "Hm? I am as calm as it gets. Now, let's see... Do we have access to the school's yearbooks?"

Seeing as Mia got even closer to me, I probably didn't manage to convince her.

She can be quite sweet sometimes, even if she does her best to hide it.

But still, it wasn't a complete lie. I wasn't scared, worried, or anxious... Just... Shaken by the contents of the book.

When I read its ending, I had to go back and quickly take a look at some more of it, but... The more I knew about that story, the worse it got.

Thankfully, I was pretty sure that as long as no one else had reached the end of a book, they wouldn't feel the same as me.

Isabella: "I think they are stored in here..."

Thanks to her position, Isabella got a master key that gave us access to almost any room and facility of the school.

But if not for that, I'd probably have Lana lockpick the door when no one was looking.

Either way, once we entered the room I explained what we were searching for.

Miwen: "1032... 1056... And 1072."

The two first years were familiar to everyone, and the last was present in the dedicatories of "The Bard's Delirium".

Once I got my hands on the yearbooks, I searched for a few specific individuals such as Chris Liven and Elana Greystone.

I wish I hadn't found them, but... my fears were confirmed and I felt shivers down my spine.

Although I had a feeling the latter wasn't caused entirely by what we found in this room.