SWNOVELXO Chapter 135
The hot sunlight forced my eyes open against my will.
I propped myself up, grasping at my hazy consciousness.
As I rubbed my eyes, my vision gradually cleared.
I reflected on things from yesterday—or rather, just a moment ago.
Suddenly, something came charging at me and collided right into me.
The force, which should have just pushed me aside, felt like it was sucking my soul out.
“Abyss Branch, huh?”
This was the familiar space that welcomed me when I met my death in Part 1.
It was also the world I had originally set as my destination.
What was it again?
In the end, I managed to find my way here…
Did I really just see a hallucination? Or was there an impact while skipping through the open world?
And my questions were immediately answered when the door to the inn swung open.
“Welcome back, sis! I was so worried about you!”
“Adella? What are you doing here?”
This wasn’t the Adella from this world.
She still knew nothing about me.
And most importantly, she was calling me “sis” instead of “NoName.”
My body, which had swapped with Adella’s, had returned to its original form, and my flowing blonde hair was in my hands.
“I… I don’t know! Suddenly a demon appeared, and I was running for my life, and then there you were!”
Adella babbled in a fluster.
Frowning, I opened up the event window, thinking, “Could it be?”
[14:20][The duration of ‘Soul Exchange’ has ended.]
[14:21][NoName ⥨ Adella]
[14:21][Adella ⥨ NoName]
Since the skill had ended, did Adella get dragged into this world during the soul exchange process?
I pondered, stroking my chin.
Perhaps this was a fortunate turn of events.
That meant Mephistopheles was still summoned, and with Adella by my side, she didn’t have to worry about getting killed by it.
For a moment, our eyes met.
“Adella, can you say ‘what are you doing?’”
“What am I doing?”
“And also say it’s fun.”
“It’s fun? Like this?”
Yeah, only Adella could sound cute saying it like that. I had no desire to live in that body.
“Let’s pack up and head out. We just need to reach the place where Jin Chronicle was, and we’ll be able to move to the next world.”
“Wait, sis!”
Her hand was atop mine, which was gripping the doorknob.
We exchanged glances, her expression profound.
“What?”
“No matter how you think about it, this place is odd.”
“It is indeed a strange world. After all, I’ve been through here before.”
“No, that’s not what I mean! Way more than that…!”
Clunk-!
Even though I hadn’t turned the doorknob, the door opened by itself.
I almost lost my balance and fell over with Adella, but I wouldn’t fall for that trick again.
“Hey, you all good? Sorry for opening the door suddenly without knowing you were trying to come out.”
At the gravelly voice of a middle-aged man, Adella jumped back in fright and hurried to a corner of the room.
A stout figure, cloaked in layers of black, obscured any shape of his body.
But since I’d seen him frequently during my many returns in Part 1, I could recognize him right away, even though there was something different about him.
“Gestalt…?”
“Oh, you know me?”
His hair was quite abundant.
*
– Isn’t this the appearance from the Gestalt sub-quest’s memory scene?
– Right? He definitely looks younger.
– But that’s not in story mode.
– Yep, just a simple flashback.
I glanced sideways and scanned the chat windows.
So it was true that I was in the past world, but the problem was it wasn’t the ‘player’s’ past.
“Let me ask you something. Since we live off of our blades, I’m not very good with kids. Can you look after one until tonight?”
I went downstairs, just like the first time I entered the branch leader’s room, passing through the narrow corridor.
The flickering light from the last door crack indicated someone was inside.
“The kid doesn’t listen at all… Haha, since it’s a beastkin, it should listen better, right?”
He laughed slyly, patting Adella’s back. Not wanting to be hit, she dodged his crude hand and stepped next to me, crossing her arms.
Creeeak-
“Well then, please take care. Their mother won’t arrive until tonight, so the child might be lonely.”
Feeling unnecessarily nervous, Adella took a deep breath and carefully opened the door.
As soon as the door swung wide open, a small child came waddling over with all their might.
Their short legs couldn’t keep up, and they collapsed right in front of us, starting to cry.
“Waaahhh!”
On the child’s back was a cute tail, the same silver color as Adella’s.
“Adella?”
“Could it be… me?”
No one, not even the operators who provided the roadmap, would’ve imagined that we traveled back to Adella’s past.
Life was a continuous series of uncertainties.
*
“Hey, can you stop that?”
“Whee! I want to do it again, sis! Let’s undo your hair again!”
“If you pull my hair like that, I’ll scream!”
Adella’s voice resonated with a plea for help.
The child, however, appeared completely unfazed by Adella’s distress.
They twisted her hair this way and that, and with each tug, Adella’s voice grew louder in decibels.
“Ugh… Ugh… This is a nightmare! There can’t be a worse nightmare than this! Sis, slap me hard!”
-Little kitty getting schooled, lol.
-Is this what you call ‘eye for an eye’?
-Cats are just cats, lol.
-Why’s Adella so cute when she’s tiny?
-But real parenting is different, right?
-Damn, this fiend looks just like my daughter…
└ Hey, it’s the weekend, stop watching and feed your kid already!
It hadn’t felt like long, but the sun was already setting.
Could it be because it was past data that time was sped up?
Yet, it seemed Adella hoped for night to come quickly as she had felt the time with me was lengthy.
“Adella, do you remember your childhood?”
“Childhood? How many people can even remember that?”
“Hmm…”
“By the way, it’s amazing. Gestalt knew me since I was little. Isn’t that kind of stalker-ish? Ew, gross!”
Adella didn’t know she had visited the Abyss Branch when she was very young.
It appeared her heart was deeply unsettled.
As for me, being a reincarnator was an exception. Sure, reflecting on one’s first life, humans tend to forget their childhood memories.
We must have existed in that past, but to confirm that fact, we could only rely on photos or videos.
So how was that any different from an AI?
While Adella played with ‘little Adella’, I took a moment to look around the city.
Thanks to that, I learned a bit more about this world.
In the famously crowded Remnant Academy, there wasn’t a single NPC in sight, just like a lie.
Only figures like Jin Chronicle or Alphonse Shipot were casually warming up in the training arena.
It seemed reasonable to label NPCs as a sort of ‘learning world’ made to remember the past.
It must be the world used when viewers speak of flashbacks.
– To our parents who raised us, you are the true GOAT.
– But why does the baby look so real? I don’t think they’re any NPCs!
└ Lol, that’s parenting (despair edition).
-I wonder if they applied ASI to the baby model instead of normal AI?
-Jin Chronicle and Giselle Phoenix are all ASI too, but why do NPCs feel different?
-They must’ve used Super Ultra Capstone ASI then.
└ After all, Mephistopheles is the ultimate being in this world.
-But how do we get out now?
Knock-
The sound of despair fell upon the child playing blissfully, while it felt like a beacon of salvation for Adella.
“Could I really meet my real mom? I’ve always been curious. I wonder what the one who gave birth to me looks like.”
Ironically, those who were already grown-up adults showed more excited expressions than the child.
But contrary to expectations, the door did not open; instead, incoherent shouting exchanged back and forth.
Through a glance exchanged with Adella, we gently sat the child down on the floor and carefully placed our ears at the door.
One voice was definitely Gestalt’s. The other was a high-pitched feminine voice, but too little information was gleaned from it.
“Do you even know how you raised this child to be like this? Are you even human?”
“It’s not your kid, so why are you rambling? If you’re so worried, why don’t you take care of it?”
“People aren’t objects! Why would you raise someone? What’s wrong with you? You weren’t like this before!”
“Phew. What kind of person do you think I was? I’m asking because I truly don’t know, Gestalt.”
“Y-you…!”
Gestalt’s voice quaked with fury.
At the same time, Adella’s expression, listening closely, grew incredibly serious.
Her hand was on the doorknob.
If she had simply twisted that knob, she could see her mother’s face, one that she couldn’t even remember.
Yet, despite the strength surging through her hand, the doorknob refused to budge.
“Don’t live like that anymore. No, if you’re going to live, live however you want. But not Adella. Don’t shove your daughter into the pit you made for yourself, got it?”
“You think I’ll scare just because you yell? Do whatever you want. After all, I never thought of her as my daughter anyway. Oh, by the way, you don’t have to worry about child support, right?”
“For real, this is where it ends…”
– Why’s Adella’s mom doing this when she’s not even her real daughter?
– Gestalt’s childhood friend and first love was Adella’s mother!
└ Oh gosh…!
└ This is a bit…
└ Reuniting with your first love is the worst, evolving into the final form, wow.
– The reason Adella survived for over a decade in the back alleys was that Gestalt kept watching over her.
└ It’s a seriously twisted unrequited love, ugh.
└ Where does this kind of story come from?
└ Clear Mephistopheles while maintaining over 90% health as a condition.
– Adella’s stiff; what’s she going to do…
“C-sis…”
Adella lowered her head and spoke in a muffled voice.
“…”
“I’m going to pretend today never happened…”
Tears welled around her unfocused eyes.
For a moment, she clenched her eyes shut, then raised her head to look at the ceiling.
Pushing the tears back inside, Adella spoke calmly, her emerald eyes glistening.
“I’ll just think that my mom was a good person… Even without hearing that.”
[system: Session has expired.]
[system: Loading World]
[A critical error has occurred: 6a 61 61 6c 62 72 65 61 6b]
“Is it still okay, sis?”