[Yakumo: Three hundred and sixty-five years? You’ve really worked hard, Fufu.]
The moment Furina saw those words, the strength she had forced herself to maintain all these years nearly crumbled.
She had made an agreement with Focalors’s divine side.
She would remain in the position of Hydro Archon, continuously playing the role of the Hydro Archon until Fontaine’s greatest crisis was resolved.
At the time, she’d been told that it could be an extremely long performance.
But she had never imagined it would be so long that she couldn’t even see the end.
More than three hundred years had already passed.
How much longer did she need to endure?
Would that crisis truly be resolved in the future?
Everyone in Fontaine now believed she was the Hydro Archon.
Yet the pressure of being the Hydro Archon was far greater than she could ever have imagined.
And she couldn’t tell anyone about that burden.
She could only carry it alone.
The pressure of several centuries was enormous.
The fact that Furina hadn’t broken down after all this time was enough to make Yakumo genuinely respect her.
For once, he couldn’t even bring himself to make any stupid jokes.
[Yakumo: First, I want to say that I deeply respect everything you’ve endured and done over all these years. Second, unfortunately, you may still need to remain patient for a little less than another hundred and forty years.]
[Yakumo: I can’t tell you the exact plan for now because I have no way of knowing whether doing so would provoke a response from the Heavenly Principles. But I can tell you one thing with certainty.]
[Yakumo: The plan succeeds.]
[Furina: Th-That’s… enough.]
The plan succeeded!
Courage surged back into Furina’s heart.
She no longer doubted whether Yakumo was telling the truth.
The moment he mentioned Neuvillette, she had believed him.
There were only around a hundred and forty years left.
Compared to the three hundred and sixty-five years she’d already endured, that was nothing!
[Yakumo: You could say that. Because of a promise, she has no choice but to carry an unspeakable secret for five hundred years.]
[Shu: …That truly is… a difficult burden.]
[Yakumo: Finally, I suppose I should explain my situation. Compared to all of you, I should originally have been as ordinary as a background character in a novel. But I got lucky.]
[Yakumo: I transmigrated.]
[Yakumo: There’s nothing special to say about my original world. It was pretty similar to Eriri’s. I was just an ordinary university graduate working a regular job. But now… somehow, I ended up in another world.]
After giving Furina some time to collect herself, Yakumo began explaining his own situation.
He described how he still hadn’t identified exactly which world he was in, along with the information he’d gathered so far.
[Eriri: That’s… a very standard isekai setup. Every anime season has three or five shows like that. The concept has been used to death.]
[Yakumo: Tell me about it. But tons of people still love it. Oh, I can access video sites from here. If any of you want to watch anime, just tell me and I’ll send you links.]
[Eriri: Wait. Doesn’t that mean I can just get light novels directly from you and submit them to publishers?]
[Yakumo: You really want to show off in front of Utaha-senpai that badly?]
How could Yakumo possibly fail to understand what Eriri was thinking?
Kasumigaoka Utaha was different.
Tomoya had helped promote her novel, so she became grateful toward him, and that gratitude eventually developed into romantic feelings.
Eriri, on the other hand, was Tomoya’s childhood friend.
And in Japanese light novels, the mystical power of the childhood friend archetype was immense.
Unless something happened that truly shattered Eriri’s heart, there was no chance she could simply decide to give up on Tomoya right now.
[Eriri: Hey! You call that fat woman “Senpai,” so why do you just call me by my first name?!]
[Yakumo: It just rolls off the tongue. What do you want me to call you instead? Kawamura Sparta Sparkle-Sparkle?]
[Eriri: I saw the censored jokes on Moegirlpedia too!]
Eriri became so angry that her hair practically tried to stand on end.
Unfortunately, she’d left her hair down instead of tying it into twin tails.
Even if she wanted to unleash the legendary hair-whipping technique she used on Tomoya, she couldn’t.
[Yakumo: I can’t exactly call you Kashiwagi-sensei, can I? If you want me to, though, I don’t mind.]
[Eriri: …Just Eriri is fine.]
The mere thought of new members joining the group in the future and everyone calling her Kashiwagi-sensei sent shivers down Eriri’s spine.
[Yakumo: By the way, I’m still in the early-growth stage over here, so I don’t really have anything valuable I can give you guys. But I just received some level-up rewards from the system, so I’ll share a few. I have no idea how useful they’ll actually be to you, though…]
Yakumo divided up his Red and Blue Potions, sending each member three stacks of ten bottles.
Back when he played Genshin, his Furina had started at more than forty thousand HP.
He had no idea how helpful a tiny potion that restored 50 HP would be to her.
[Shu: What an interesting little item. I can sense a very faint authority of restoration within it.]
[Furina: I-I mean, ahem, naturally this Hydro Archon can sense it as well!]
[Yakumo: Fufu, you really don’t need to put on an act in the group. Relax. Seriously, relax a little.]
[Furina: Ahem… All right. It’s simply difficult to relax that quickly… But Neuvillette seems very interested in this. Ah! He’s looking over here! This is the first time I’ve ever seen Neuvillette get distracted while working!]
[Yakumo: Probably because potions are liquids, which means they have something to do with water.]
[Yakumo: The red ones restore HP. The blue ones restore MP or other similar forms of energy. A lot of my functions are still locked, so this is all I can make for now. Once more things unlock, I should be able to produce higher-grade versions.]
[Shu: Little Yakumo, did you leave any for yourself? These should be useful to you right now as well, shouldn’t they?]
[Yakumo: I’ve still got twenty bottles. Besides, HP potions aren’t that important to me. Worst case, I die and revive. It’s not like it’ll be the first time.]
[Eriri: …]
[Furina: …]
[Shu: …]
[Shu: This +1 feature is surprisingly tempting… No, wait. Little Yakumo, you should not speak of death so casually. Death is something that must be treated with gravity. If you truly become accustomed to it, you may begin to disregard the value of life.]
[Yakumo: Ah, don’t worry, Sister Shu. Eriri should understand this comparison better. My situation is basically like a game character dying and then respawning in the nearest town. It isn’t going to make me start treating other people’s lives lightly.]
[Eriri: That’s still completely insane! More importantly, why am I the only normal human in this group?!]
[Yakumo: You may be an ordinary human now, but what if I find magic over here that normal people can learn?]
[Eriri: Really?! Sparkling eyes.jpg]
[Yakumo: Worlds with heroes usually have that kind of thing, right? I still need to explore the map, though. More importantly, I’m curious about something. Sister Shu, when you activate Skill 3, do you really yank people back to you?]