Fake Saint of the Year

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Translator: Tsukiii

Editor: Evelet

Read at Watashi wa Sugoi Desu!

Chapter 72: Fiori’s Turtle¹

Yamoto Tamaki².

That was the real name of the scenario writer for “Fiori’s Turtle,” as Niito and Ijuuin managed to find out after a few days of investigation.

It was weird that it had taken so long, even though it was supposed to be easy to find this name through simple investigation.

Ijuuin was unable to remember the name at all. Even when he searched the company’s directory, he was somehow unable to find it.

It kept slipping through their fingers as if they were trying to grab a mist.

In the end, they only learned of this name when the story on the “Other Side” had advanced to some degree.

Then somehow, things they had been unable to discover suddenly become easy to find out. 

Ijuuin remembered the scenario writer’s real name.

On the contrary, the “real plot” inside Ijuuin’s head, the memory of a scenario where Elrise was selfish and a villain who did all she liked, for some reason faded away.

He could barely remember that Elrise had originally been a villain and that there had been a different scenario.

More than that, his recognition that “the current story is the original plot” turned into a growing feeling that “Elrise originally was a fake Saint, and then she became more Saint-like than the original.”

Yes, it was as if recognition of the story was shared by everyone but two people: Niito and Ijuuin.

Ijuuin also gradually forgot his memories of the world he had known before meeting Niito. 

They didn’t understand what these changes meant.

In the first place, they didn’t know how to interpret this kind of occult phenomenon to reach the right answer.

Perhaps they wouldn’t be able to find the answer regardless of how they searched for it, or maybe a right answer didn’t exist to begin with.

Even so, they should search for everything they could until they reached a stalemate, otherwise, this troublesome feeling would remain.

Ijuuin immediately contacted the Fiori’s Turtle — Yamoto — and decided to meet in person to talk about it.

They decided to meet at a cafe in the region with moderately high prices, chosen at the other side’s request. They would talk there.

…By the way, the bill went to Ijuuin.

Anyway, they had finally managed to contact the other party. They couldn’t let this chance slip away so Ijuuin had no choice but to agree to this meeting, and they could finally talk about it today.

When they arrived at the café, they found a brick building that looked out of place in modern Japan. Inside there were trees and chairs; even the floor was made of wood.

Lighting was hung from the ceiling, they were a chic style, and candle-type chandeliers illuminated inside the shop moderately so it didn’t become too bright.

The glass wall gave a feeling of liberation, as one could look outside the street properly.

Inside the café, one could feel the taste of middle age. Ijuuin asked an employee there for the person they were meeting.

Then the employee smiled and pointed to a seat.

The person who sat there… was a woman.

She was quite a young woman at that. Judging by her appearance, she was definitely not older than 20.

Her black hair, which was common for Japanese people, extended down to her shoulders. She was a woman who wore a suit.

Her looks were above average. It wasn’t the type of beauty that made everyone stare, but she didn’t look bad.

The two people went to the seat and called to her.

“Excuse me. Are you Yamoto-san?”

“Yes, I am. You are Ijuuin-san? I’ve been waiting for you.”

It seemed that this woman was the person they had asked for.

After confirming her identity, the two people sat across from her.

There were several plates beside Yamoto. It was clear she’d ordered many expensive foods while she was waiting.

Obviously, the bill was to be paid by Ijuuin.

“By the way, about the person over there…”

“He is my companion.”

“…Errr, are you okay? Your expression is awful.”

“Don’t worry about it.”

Yamoto’s first words voiced her concern about Fudou Niito’s awful expression and his thinness.

Café employees wouldn’t say anything about customers, but they sometimes looked in Niito’s direction so it was clear how eye-catching his unhealthy appearance was.

Maybe they thought something like, “Please don’t collapse inside the café.”

If something happened and he died, even though the shop was not at fault, it would still produce bad rumors and the shop might wind up implicated by it.

So, for the café, they wished for him to get out already.

“Well… you said you had something to talk about with me, so what do you wish to talk about? If it is about having me write the scenario for a sequel, I already told you that I still haven’t made it yet… Rather, I already told you from the beginning that “Kuon no Sanka” is intended to be completed by that single work, so it is very troublesome for me to be asked to make a sequel without informing me beforehand. How can I write about things I never thought about…”

 “We’re very sorry about that. But since it was a very popular and best-selling game in our company, we had no choice but to plan for a sequel. There are also many requests about it… that’s why, for the sequel, we might end up asking other people to…”

 “No. I will not give that story to a person I know nothing about. That’s why it’s better to just say there won’t be any sequel.”

Yamoto said the last with an air of slight displeasure and looked toward Ijuuin as if to criticize him.

It seemed that planning a sequel to “Kuon no Sanka” was an arbitrary decision by the company.

I see; so that’s why the sequel never appeared no matter how long one waited.

Because the scenario writer originally intended it to end with a single work, from the beginning she never thought of a sequel.

“That is… oops, we didn’t come here to talk about this today. Actually, we are in a strange situation here. It sounds like something occult, and that might make it hard to believe but… can you first listen to our story?”

 “…Occult, is it?”

Then Ijuuin told her about the various mysterious things that had happened.

He talked about the original game scenario, which was known only to him and Fudou Niito, and about the drastic changes to the game character Elrise.

For some reason, Elrise appeared to Niito on this side of reality and the game content changed according to her actions.

Only the two of them could recognize the change, while other people thought that the game had been like that from the beginning.

In addition, information about what would happen next… in other words, if they tried to view spoilers, they were unable to make the spoilers appear.

After hearing everything, Yamoto put her hand over her mouth and wore a serious expression.

“That’s interesting… I thought I wrote the current scenario as it is now from the beginning but… according to what you just told me, the things I saw when I was on the other side matched with the scenario I heard now… a deviation of the time axis…? A divergence of possibility? Does that mean that Elrise truly is the key…?” Yamoto muttered to herself.

Then she raised her face and looked directly at Ijuuin and Niito.

“It’s quite an insane story, but I will believe you for now.”

“You believe it quite easily. If I say so myself, though, these are not things that could not happen logically.”

“Well, I guess that’s true. It is just… I, too, had something that did not happen logically in my own personal history.”

The corner of her mouth went up as she said that.

As expected, there was more to learn from her. Did she actually know what this mysterious phenomenon was?

At the very least, one could never believe this kind of thing and say, “Yes, it is,” without any prior basis for understanding.

Honestly, when the two of them came here today, they were prepared for Yamoto to make a fool of them.

But the next moment, Yamoto said something unbelievable.

“Actually… ‘Kuon no Sanka’ is not a tale I made up. It truly happened in another reality… I merely turned things that happened on Fiori into a story.”

 “O, oi… what did that mean…”

 “I lived my life in the other world. Then I died and was born here. Is it called reincarnation? I don’t know how but I retained memories of my past life… that’s why the Elrise I know is a fake Saint who was even more Saint-like than the real one. From the beginning, I never saw the evil Elrise you talked about before, and don’t remember ever writing about it.”

The truth, directly from Yamoto’s mouth, was that she came from the other side and had been reincarnated as a person on this side.

It was quite a personal history indeed.

Niito could accept it because of his prior experiences involving him and Elrise, but Ijuuin, who had never been told about it, could only feel troubled by the story.

“The-there’s… there’s no way; how could I believe such a thing! In the first place, if reincarnation truly exists, what about the brain!? Memories are an accumulation of changes to the physiology of the brain. Even if you were truly reincarnated, there’s no way your memories could have been brought along!”

What Ijuuin said was logical.

The brain recorded memories.

On the premise that reincarnation did exist, it wasn’t like you could bring your brain along, so your memories wouldn’t be transferred.

But this was not something to be understood using common sense to begin with, thought Niito.

There was a world that went beyond human knowledge… it must be something like that.

“Ijuuin-san, she believed our words, so let’s believe hers too. The discussion won’t proceed if we insist.”

“Nu, gu… but you see… no, I understand. Yes, we need to move on first.”

Ijuuin didn’t seem to accept it, but he needed to assume it was correct anyway before the conversation could proceed.

So he abandoned his doubts and violently drank his water while Niito spoke.

“So for you… at least according to your memory, nothing has changed in this world, the game scenario is what it has been from the very beginning. Only the two of us thought it was strange… Is that correct?”

“Yes. There seemed to be a limit imposed on the information you could observe, so you just assumed the future was not yet decided because it was unobservable. But… from my point of view, that’s not the case. The game ends with events that have already happened and are known to me. From my point of view, the things that happened on the other side are already fixed and have reached their conclusion. Because that’s exactly what I wrote in the story.”

Niito asked a question on behalf of Ijuuin, but the response that came contradicted the premise on which they had been basing their conclusions.

All this time, Niito thought he was unable to observe what happened next because it was not yet fixed.

He thought that only things that Elrise had actually done were shown in the game.

They had believed that was the reason they couldn’t find out anything that had not yet happened to Elrise. He had thought so and Elrise also believed this.

But that was not the case.

Only the two of them were unable to see what happened, while other people already saw the fixed future that already transpired.

At the very least, the thought that Elrise’s actions changed the world in real time had never been true.

“Then… Why were we unable to see the events that happened next? Regardless how we investigated, we could never find out any information beyond the time Elrise was currently experiencing. So what was an unknown future for Elrise, was also turned into an unknown for us.”

“Despite how you tried, the buffer never ended… Was that it? Maybe… It’s just speculation, but could it be the world-correcting power? You might not believe it, but the world has its own will. Due to that, the Saint and the Witch were born. Perhaps because the Earth’s will hates contradiction, it put a filter on what you could see. Because if you guys, who could contact Elrise, knew information about her future… and told Elrise about it, then it is possible a time paradox might happen as a result of her knowledge. To prevent that from happening, the corrective power makes its move… Don’t you think so?”

In response to Yamoto’s speculation, Niito swallowed a scream.

It was not that the world continually changed what happened in real time, but it was only those two who were unable to recognize that the world had already changed.

I see; at the very least, this is more likely to happen than a worldwide change.

This world was already like this from the beginning. The scenario in “Kuon no Sanka” never changed. It had always been as it was.

But only Niito, due to the connection he had with Elrise, came to know the other scenario.

The reason why Ijuuin had also ended up in this situation… was most likely because Niito had contacted him, thus the world filter also extended to him.

It was the same for computers. To deny Niito knowledge of the future, it became impossible to browse on their devices.

Likewise, because Ijuuin had contact with Niito, his recognition and memories were changed so Niito was unable to access the information Ijuuin had known.

Bluntly, Ijuuin had just been dragged into this.

Recently, he didn’t even think anything was weird about the scenario, and began to think that “It was originally like this…” It might be because the plot was drawing closer to the end on the other side, so the necessity for the filter was diminished.

As time passed Ijuuin would most likely recognize that the current scenario was the correct one and forget about the previous scenario.

“But in that case, such corrective power would also work against you. I could ask you about Elrise in the future and then talk to her about what you said.”

“That’s impossible. I never had the intention to tell you any spoilers, after all. On the contrary, the moment I think about telling you, my recollections will change.”

After her unexpected statement, Yamoto drank her coffee. 

It seems Niito and Elrise were truly unable to know the ending of the game until the right time came.

As he thought of that, Niito let out a tired sigh.

---

A/N:

“Confirmed Information”
– The game plot was already written all the way to the end.
Niito thought it was “because it is still in progress, thus no information exists about the future.”
But he was mistaken.

The game was properly written with the story of what Elrise would do next, and the end result was already written within the game.
But since it was future information for Elrise, it needed to be impossible for such information to reach her.
When Niito used a computer, the filter extended to it, and when he contacted a person, the filter also was extended to include said person.

It was as if the world said, “There’s no way I would do troublesome things like overwriting the whole of humanity. It is way faster to just overwrite two people.”

– Ijuuin was just dragged into it.
The only person who had memories of the “previous world” was Elrise alone.
Ijuuin merely had his own computer to set as “unable to be browsed.”
Strictly speaking, Fudou Niito himself only had his recognition of the plot changed due to the World-Correction power, so information about her future was unable to reach Elrise.

– Yamoto Tamaki is a Reincarnator.
She had actually lived in Fiore in the past and she saw with her own eyes how Elrise’s tale ended.
Her previous self has already appeared in the story.
So for her, “Kuon no Sanka” was merely a past that had already happened; she merely turned what she actually saw into a story and wrote it.
By the way, she hated the “irresponsible owner who threw away her pet turtle since it grew too big.”
I wonder who Propheter was again…?

Want early access to Fake Saint and Executed Sage? Support the translator on Patreon! Also check out their newest project, Melancholy of the Demon Army Officer. It’s a Rance fanfic, sort of a prequel to the main story.