NOVEL NEXT Chapter 23 part2
The Taste of Betrayal
Fighting Against Reality
Part 2
But let me tell you. Listen to the words of a young man who hasn't even lived one-tenth of your total years.
"No matter what I say to you right now, I don't think it'll have any impression on you."
Once Baba gets tired of screaming and her punches to my chest grow weak, I take her face in both my hands, stare right into her crying eyes, and say
"This is reality. No matter how long we wait or how much we cry, nothing will change. You just have to accept it and move on. We have to fight for our victories."
Baba muttered some more curses and violently glared at me. If looks could kill, I would've already died three times by now. However, before long her glare loses strength, and eventually her gaze drops downward. After a long silence, Baba gets up from on top of me and retreats back to the couch.
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"It's true,"
Baba says while playing with the branch in her hair. While listening to her, I slowly return to my seat.
"I may just have been running away from reality."
"Running away? No, you stood up to it."
I interrupt involuntarily. It's not easy to abandon your hometown, your status, and your property and go to another world. Baba, in her own way, fought against this boring and shitty reality. She should be praised for it. But Baba just shook her head.
"No, it's the truth. If I really wanted to face it without running away, I should have made an effort in my own world. If there was nothing interesting in the world, I should have looked for companions and made my own fun with them. But instead, I threw my world aside. You could even say that I betrayed it. I ran away. I didn't even try to change the world, as you are doing."
"That's…"
"Don't be modest, just accept the compliment. My my, to be behaving like such a fool at my age. I even had to take lessons from a young sapling."
Baba says this calmly; all the anger has disappeared from her face. She may just be skillfully hiding her emotions though. But I do have some skill in reading people, and it seems to me that Baba has sublimated her anger and sadness with great speed and is trying to move forward.
"The time has come for me to face reality. I apologize for my previous behavior. And now, I have a favor to ask of you. Please, let me work with you and Kaburagi on this side of the match-pump."
"Baba…!"
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Seeing Baba say this while wiping away her tears, I was moved. The former queen wasn't just putting on airs. As you grow older, reflection becomes more difficult. "Apologize for your mistakes", how many people can't put this simple thing into practice? Apologizing isn't easy, and most people lie when they do so. And there are some who don't apologize no matter what. What makes apologizing so difficult is that it means that you are accepting responsibility for your actions.
But Baba was able to reflect on her actions. While I personally don't think that Baba did anything wrong, Baba was able to find her mistakes and admonish herself for them. At 905 years old, she can still reflect and change. What a great person. I want to be like her when I'm old.
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I was day-dreaming about what I'd ideally look like as an old man while a silver-haired loli-baba sat on the couch, when behind me, the door of the room suddenly made a rattling noise. A few moments later, The door opens with an unlocking sound. It was Kaburagi-san, who walked in wearing a red dress that was covered in frills and lace. She had recovered completely and was brimming with energy.
"So you were both here. I'm sorry I took two weeks off to ⸺"
Upon seeing us, Kaburagi-san froze up. I also became frozen. After all, it was just the two of us, alone in a locked room. There was a loli-baba with messed up clothes who looked like she had been crying. The sofa and desk, which had been kicked over by Baba in her rampage, were still out of place. Baba's expression is unreadable, but my face was twitching. The circumstantial evidence is bad. It makes it seem like she just walked in on a pervert with an isekai fetish ravishing a helpless loli-baba.
Kaburagi-san took a step back, then stopped.
"So you're a loli-con… no, there must be some sort of explanation for this, right?"
"Ah, um. Just hear me out…"
Safe! I'm glad Kaburagi-san always keeps her cool. I'm really, really glad.
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Once I explained the situation to Kaburagi-san, it became a three-way interview. Once the three of us were done exchanging information, Kaburagi-san held her head in her hands.
"There's a lot I want to say, but instead I'll just say this. If you were going to bring in Baba, why didn't you talk to me first? Didn't we agree to decide on important matters together?"
"Well, I didn't want to place an additional burden on you while you were recovering, so ⸺"
"It's more burdensome for me to not be consulted. That's what I'm here for, after all. From now on, when something comes up, please don't hesitate to tell me about it."
"Uh, I'm sorry."
"Good."
Once everything was settled, Baba smiled slightly.
"So, I've decided to try to cheer up the downcast Kaburagi by giving her a present. It's a magic wand."
"Baba, please stop talking."
"Oh, is that so? I’m happy."
A smile blooms on Kaburagi-san's face. Wow, she's dazzling! Baba caused her to become as beautiful as a rose! But Baba, don't just sit there smiling like an old lady watching over a matchmaking session!
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"I’ll look forward to the present. It seems like there's a lot that piled up while I was away, so I need to get to work. First, I'll prepare citizenship documents from Marineland for Baba. We'll claim that you're a young genius who's already finished her necessary education. Don't worry, I'll make sure the paperwork is flawless."
Kaburagi-san quickly switched gears and started making a to-do list. I added on to it.
"I also need to work on some things. Right now, I'm only doing my habitual training, but I want to start doing some more intensive training again as well. Specifically, I need to do PSI Drive defense training. When I'm attacked by the PSI Drive, there's not much damage, but I definitely feel like it's penetrating my defensive barrier. Or rather, it's not penetrating it, it's more like it's disabling it. It goes right through. But if I practice enough, I may be able to gain some resistance to the PSI Drive. Although it may be the case that developing a resistance to it is impossible because it's technology from a different world, I still want to at least try. So, Baba, would you please help me with this?"
"Sure. I'll do what I can. I'm also interested in whether or not you can create a barrier that will be able to deflect my weapon. When you receive damage from the PSI Drive, what's the magnitude of it? Is it like a mosquito bite?"
"No, it's more like a paper cut. Why do you need to know? Is it important for something?"
Baba thought for a moment before replying.
"I worried about the fact that, so far, all of the events have been caused by external pressures."
"External pressures?"
To Kaburagi-san's question, Baba nodded.
"External pressures are threats or enemies that come from outside sources that you fight and defeat. While these events are easy to understand and there's nothing really wrong with them, I want something more than that. We need to have internal pressure as well."
"Internal pressure… like an enemy on the inside? You want a betrayal event?"
"Exactly."
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I see, so that's it. Well, traitors and internal factions are common occurrences in secret organizations, but that won't be keeping with the idea of a "fun-filled youth", right?
"Baba-san, we're not going to toy with Shouta-kun and Touka-chan like that. We want them to have fun."
Kaburagi-san said what I was thinking, but Baba just shook her head in response.
"Having a youth that is only fun will make them weak. Those who only know how to defeat external enemies will easily be defeated by internal ones. Experiencing both is necessary to become a wise and good adult. You can come to terms with hardships and talk about it as a funny story when you grow up. Isn't having both hardships and fun truly what it means to have a fulfilling youth?"
Kaburagi-san and I both let out a moan. She has a point. Actually, she has three or four of them.
Internal pressure? Fine then. I wanted to keep the dirty world of adults hidden from our two young people, since it's unpleasant to kick such pure hearted kids out of the nest and into such a harsh and shitty reality, but if it'll help them grow, then I guess I have no choice. Just like how Shouta-kun needed to experience his defeat event, these kids need to experience a betrayal. But I still have some misgivings. After all, if we take it too far and/or don't follow up properly, they may end up hating reality so much that they want to die. We need to prepare carefully so that there's just the right amount of suffering. But, thinking about it, giving them too much of a safety net won't allow them to build up any resistance to the real world, so maybe I should just let them experience reality at full-blast…
Wait, since when did I start worrying about how to properly raise children?
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"I think it's a good idea. However, we'll need to carefully make adjustments as we go in order to prevent them from having any lasting trauma."
"Ok. I'll keep that in mind. Then let's have a betrayal event. I'll take on the role of the traitor. If it's me, the psychological damage will be lower than if it was Kaburagi or Sago."
"What do you think, Sago-san?"
While I was thinking over things, the women had continued talking. Kaburagi-san must've noticed that I wasn't participating in the conversation, and thus directed a question towards me.
A betrayal event, huh?
I feel a bit uneasy about it, but… well… I'm in!
It would be rude of me to reject Baba's idea after she gave up so much to come to this side of the match-pump. It's going to be a bit of an upsetting event, but then again, youth is supposed to be comprised of both laughter and tears, right? So let's go ahead and produce some tears.
Now that it's decided, I'll give it my best efforts. Let's have a betrayal event. I'm itching to put my skills to good use.
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