Eternal Saṃsāra: The Wanderer of Worlds

Chapter 27: Humanity's Loser and the Bunny Girl

—

The day ended with not much else to describe.

"Isn't this too strong? In the beginning, I wondered why you didn't teach this before, but now I understand…"

"Mhm, just focus on mastering it for now."

Fine, maybe not entirely, as I did teach Ruby a new spell: [Humanity's Nova]. It was a different kind of magic than the ones she knew, as it was from the magic system in my 7th life, which differed from the one in my 5th life – as the Sorcerer of Eternity.

I did simplify it to fit into a typical spell system – as the magic in my 7th life couldn't just work on its own and was supported by technology.

It's true that I have never been born into a modern world before, but there was sci-fi. My 7th life was like that, it was a world where space travel and aliens were a thing. I… don't want to talk about it much. It was an impactful life.

Ruby had 5th Circle Mana Heart, I was supposed to give her a choice of Spell Concept she wanted to learn back in 4th circle, but she advanced fast so here we are. My plan was to give her normal elemental options at first, but I changed my mind after this. I was going to give her an original Spell Concept, I just made it up overnight.

[Spell Concept: Cosmic Magistra of the Scintillating Quasar]

A spell concept was basically a "Path" for comparison, it's like a skill tree from video games. I made this Spell Concept by taking two power systems and making a new one.

First was the Faith System of my 6th life as the White Tiger who was prayed to by many – I could use the faith essence to grow stronger. Additionally, I could get stronger by believing in myself, basically by being brave. Ruby won't become a Goddess with this, no, but it will allow her to get stronger in tough situations by resolving herself, but more importantly, she could use the faith of her fans from across the globe – as she would be a famous Idol soon – to grow stronger. 

But my 6th life mostly works as the source of this power, the fire. The execution of it, the techniques, come from the light-magic spell tree from my 7th life – which led me to earn one of my most important titles. 

The Monarch of the Brightest Night. It was a title that resonated with me enough that I had an Icon for it. However, that's for later. As I was still in Ruby's room, she spoke.

"Still, I'm surprised you have such dangerous spells memorized…"

Ruby said as she looked down at her hands; the spell I just taught her seemed to scare her a little. As it should.

[Humanity's Nova: Infused with the essence of unwavering belief, the user sings a soul-shivering song whose notes were old when the universe was young; it converts harmful energies in the nearby kilometres into benevolent forces, turning into light. As the user sings, a scintillating aura appears about her, growing ever brighter and hotter with every refrain. Only when the song ends does the aura explode, discharging its pent-up fury in a blinding, supernoval flash, releasing a wave of quasar energy that destroys everything in its path. It can create a black hole if the user gathers too much energy from the vicinity.]

A quasar is the brightest thing in the cosmos; it's an extremely luminous active galactic nucleus. Yes, it's a super Nuke. It can destroy a city if she went all out in her current rank, though that'd badly injure herself too – but at least her enemies will go down.

"In a world like ours, where negative energies are everywhere due to the unhappy people of the 21st century, it's a stronger spell than usual. Use it carefully and well, it's not a party trick." I told her as I ruffled her hair. She already knew that, despite her age and behavior she was smart in picking things up.

"Okay…" Ruby looked up at me, her mouth hesitated. "Onii-chan, if you don't mind, can I ask you something?"

I wondered what she wanted to ask. Her Kagemimic allowed her to learn the spell already, she had easily copied the necessary flow of Mana I showed her – though this sort of spell was more than just mana flow, one had to feel a certain way. She was good with emotions enough that it wasn't an issue either. I was proud of her, her speed of growth thanks to her eyes mixing general speed of growth made her extraordinary now. So I was curious about what question my talented student had.

"Who are you?" asked Ruby, causing me to pause while ruffling her hair.

…Who am I? Huh. 

I could ignore it as usual, hit her forehead and move on, but I didn't see any reason to. I opened my mouth and answered, and at that moment even I didn't know what I'll say — because there were too many answers to her simple question.

The Venerable One wasn't the answer this time. It was close, but not today. In my entire lifetime, if the Venerable One was at the highest on the evil spectrum, there was someone just as impactful and important in the opposite, the good spectrum. Because while I was the oldest as the Venerable One, the one who was the oldest right behind that was me from my 7th life. Yet, despite being so impactful to my existence, that side was so quiet these days – therefore it surprised me that my answer was him. 

Heh, perhaps that was because I was passing down his power to her right now. For reasons I knew were stupid, the words that left my lips were something I didn't like.

"The… Emperor." I said. "Of Mankind. The Monarch of the Brightest Night."

The identity I had in my 7th life before I was titled the monarch, was the Emperor. I was the husband of the same woman who sealed my magic till 18, the Empress. 

I was Humanity's Last Emperor, the only hope against the galactic enemies. I… am the failure of a Sage for whom humanity fell. The living disgrace, the loser for whose weakness doomed all of humanity. 

* * *

When I woke up the next morning, I found myself in a sour mood. Recalling the past made me dream of some disturbing things.

I got off my bed with a groan and walked into the bathroom. I paused in front of the mirror and stared.

"You've got a date, don't mess it up," I said to myself, looking into my blue eyes that had double stars in them. 

The stars looked as odd as ever; normal people couldn't see them, but people with magical sights could. I have always had one star except for situations when I stepped out of my current identity. The first time it happened was when I murdered the shut-in weeb bastard back when I was four, but then it went back to normal. However, right after I kissed Ai and decided on the course of action, both my eyes had stars.

Now, the usually white stars were larger and darker. They appeared creepy. I paused in front of the basin and looked into my reflection.

Happy thoughts. Happy memories. It took me a minute but I was used to these things so it passed. Uh, though, the word "happy" was quite subjective here as I was basking in the memories of my 9th life where I was murdering orphans and eating dead men. But hey, it worked, so whatever.

"Haha..."

My black stars returned to white, and as I felt my emotions come under control, even though it was colder than usual, my lips moved to form a smile.

"Heuhahahahahaa…" I stared at myself in the mirror. "Great."

."

…

..

.

"Good morning, mom. Nice weather today, isn't it?"

I greeted the woman in the kitchen as she raised an eyebrow at me. Ai had pink velcro rollers on her hair, and she was cooking food for me. She was up earlier than usual today because my shooting started hours before Ruby's school would begin. Yet here was Ai, up and cooking, even though she was outside the entire day yesterday and was surely tired.

I walked to her, standing a bit too close to her. "Want help with the cooking?"

"No? What's up with you today?"

"Rejecting help? Rude."

She fully turned towards me and opened her mouth to say something, but then she shut her lips and shook her head. Ai muttered something under her breath about kids and puberty as I ruffled her hair and walked away, followed by her annoyed yell.

"I just did my hair earlier! Brat, you- come back!"

* * *

After leaving the house, I called an Uber a few blocks away and got on it. It took less than half an hour to reach today's destination. It was a mall today, a super mall where we will shop and the camera crew will record. Since it's very early in the morning there won't be many people in the mall so filming won't be an issue.

When I reached the gate and entered, the crew was already present, but not all the actors and actresses were present.

"Prince Charming wasn't late today?" I heard the director say in a sarcastic voice a bit far from me, but I ignored him.

I met up with the guys and caught up with them about what we've been up to recently. They were quite curious about the situation between me and Mem-Cho, and since that girl was yet to reach us – I had to handle it myself. Akane and Mai were the only girls present right now, and although they were a bit far from us I felt them pay attention to my words.

"My fault for falling for her casual flirting, honestly. I saw in the group chat she tried to take all the blame, but it's really just me who got a bit too excited. Uh, we met up later and the issue was resolved. No, we are not dating." I explained.

The guys gave me knowing looks, and for a moment I was glad they were chill with it. They gave me proud looks for 'bagging a senpai' without getting into consequences. Well, not all of the guys were chill with it though; particularly the kid named Sen Kaibara, who was the same age as me, seemed a little pissed that I was playing with girls' hearts and that the others didn't seem to mind. Still, he didn't say anything which was good for him.

From what I felt through my Jade Perception, Mai Sakurajima returned to her own space, she didn't care – she only listened in because she thought there would be drama but there was none. Akane Kurokawa appeared a bit more bothered though, she had a similar reaction to Sen, she thought that I was one of the bad boys who played girls on a whim. She wasn't wrong, but it's not good if my prior impression was ruined because of this.

Soon, Mem-Cho and Yuki joined us. The latter gave me a cold stare before ignoring me, which was what was going on so it was great for me.

….

The shooting began and we were divided into groups. Mem-Cho didn't join me; I had instructed her days ago to try to show a 'tension' between us so she couldn't just hang out with me in front of the camera yet. 

The audience will be annoyed that we were not interacting, and curious about what may have happened between us for us to not even talk when the cameras weren't rolling. But I wasn't doing this for audience clout, of course, I just wanted her to stay away from me so that I could pursue other girls.

Sadly, that plan of mine wasn't working very well. Mem-Cho was gone, sure, but my main target Akane was acting weird.

"Ah, A-kun, can I go on my own…?" Said Akane, looking uncomfortable.

As I've said we were divided into groups. I luckily fell into her group, but after just three minutes of walking around, she said she wanted to go on her own. I wondered what was the issue, though I did have a general idea anyway. 

Sad.

Must I do it the hard way?

"Ah, it's fine. Then, I'll go this way." 

I told her and waved my hand, as I walked away. Akane appeared a little surprised, she didn't expect me to go with her whim so easily. Now, she suddenly looked guilty for pushing me away like this.

She's too soft. How very innocent. Incredibly naive. benefit her more than harm, so let it be. Enjoy your solitude.

* * *

I couldn't just waste an episode wandering around, so I began to look for Mai Senpai. It didn't take long since my Jade Perception was sensitive to the presence of these magical girls.

When I approached her, she was entering a shop. She pushed open the heavy glass door and stepped in, and before it could close I slipped in with her.

"Hey, your partner left you too? What a coincidence. Actually, it must be fate."

"...."

She gave me a side look before continuing to head inside. A worker quickly approached us, but I waved my hand from behind Mai's head to tell him to stay away. It seemed her low presence had made her partner leave her just like how Akane went on her own way, so it was a good thing that I'm getting some alone time with her.

"You didn't tell me we went to the same school?" I said, "I did notice your uniform, but as a new student I couldn't be sure, but you should have recognized me."

"Why are you talking to me? I'm clearly not interested." She gave me a sharp look. "And how did you know we go to the same school?"

"Someone whom we both know told me."

"Who?"

"That's a business secret."

She didn't bother asking again and then wandered around the shop. Only then did I pay attention to my surroundings, we were in a shop filled with cosplay items. Cool.

I wanted to talk to her again but the shop was interesting, so I let her explore while I looked around a bit myself.

"Welcome sir, would you happen to have anything specific you're looking for?" I was asked by one of the workers, now that I and Mai have separated they approached both of us.

A cameraman had entered the shop too by now, and he was recording towards me. It was a bit annoying right now since I was just about to enjoy myself, but then again I could enjoy myself without bothering about the camera.

The worker helped me look around a bit, and I soon found an interesting fit. It was an orange jacket and pants, with a tight black shirt under it. The belt in the pants had the shape of a heart and the end of the sleeves of the jacket was like gauntlets. It was the outfit of Dio Brando, the blonde vampire.

Blonde Vampire with time abilities. That reminded me of my 5th life, as the Sorcerer. I happened to be blonde here too, let me try this out.

….

I walked out of the changing room in the tight fit, finding myself in the face of a camera. The cameraman whistled and gave me a thumbs-up as I waved at him. 

Turning to the side, I was surprised to find Mai in front of the cashier's desk, paused as she stared at me. She held a bag in her hand as she quickly shook her head and tried to walk away, but I wasn't going to let her do that.

"Hey, what's that in that bag? No way, did you just buy a bunny girl outfit?" Did I just witness the beginning of her bunny suit era? Well, she did have bunny ears already, just invisible to the normal eye, and probably even had a tail tucked under her pants.

"Why are you making your voice like that? It's weird."

I quickly cleared my throat and returned to my normal tone; Dio's voice was weird for me, indeed.

"Better now?"

"I guess." She took another peek at me. "It suits you. I didn't know you were muscular, I thought you were just big."

As the black shirt under my orange jacket was too tight, made to show your muscles and abs, it just looked as if I had painted my skin black. My abs looked like intricate machinery as they moved when I walked.

But what is that she just said? Haah, have my muscles once again charmed a maiden's heart?

For the rest of the shoot, I and Mai spent our time together. I wouldn't say we were best friends all of a sudden, or even a friend for that matter, but I sure was the closest person to her in this entire set. 

That was a good development.

Now, I had a real date waiting for me. It's time to leave.

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Master4thWall Note: Passed out to sleep, so couldn't post the chapter. Here you go! Also, here is a Aqua [Picture] in this paragraph.

Looks like we didn't complete the Goal though, from what I gathered in the comments and a friend I had on the lookout for it. By the time stone reset, we weren't at 1100. Sad. We were close enough, I'd have still given an extra chapter if I was free like usual, but dang busy schedule. Next time goal will be fulfilled for sure.

Next Goal is: 650 more stones from where we are at, since we managed almost 600 it shouldn't be hard. We are at a clean 1150, so goal is we reach 1800 stones. Goodluck! 

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