LIGHTNOVELONLINE Chapter 200: Pale Machine Expansion Pack
Hello, it's me, the number one maid with Side Note, Shadow Cloning, and an infinite amount of daggers, Madeleine here. I am sitting at one of those fancy glass tables that nobles use when having tea outside. There's even a cute vase in the middle with some white and yellow chrysanthemums in it. Yeah, I know a thing or two about botany. I'm drinking some tea with my good ol' buddy Myka.
"I've gotta say, your tea really is worth all that bragging." She's already finished seven cups worth of tea, and she's drinking an eighth right now. I wonder if she'll need to pee? "I'll just do it off-screen, don't worry."
"Oh, okay." I have no idea what off-screen means, but it should be fine. Now, you're probably wondering why me and Myka aren't fighting, and the answer to that is… uhh… "Hey Myka, why aren't we fighting?"
"Because a fight would be boring, of course. I'm too overpowered, you keep winning using cheap, quick tactics, and some random idiot has no idea how to describe something as simple as a punch."
"Punches go pow!" I punched the air. All a punch needs for a description.
"Wow. Just wow." Myka took a sip of her tea before facing me with a serious expression. "This is the part where the main character questions the antagonist, but knowing you… actually, it won't hurt. Any questions, Madeleine?"
"How the hell do you cheat in Go Fish?" Myka looked at me, dumbfounded, as if I had asked an incredibly obvious question. Look, the Maid School taught me a lot of things, like magic, information gathering, and assassination, but they gave up on teaching me deception. Apparently, I'm too open with my thoughts, whatever that means.
"Remind the audience what my Sacred Power is again."
"Reality Warping?"
"Yes."
"What does that have to do with cheating in Go Fish?"
"Madeleine, you're actually fucking smart. Please don't do this shit right now."
"No, seriou- mmh… mmf." It appears I cannot talk anymore. This is incredibly inconvenient.
"Inconvenient to you." I glared at Myka, who just continued sipping her tea. She gently put the cup down before snapping her fingers and summoning a tablet.
"So we've got quite a lot of time to fill… how about I talk about my motivations? That'll be a nice change of pace, considering we never hear anyone's motivations. Hey Madeleine, tell me the motivation of at least one person you've fought since you first discovered Side Note?" Hmm… uhh… oh, I know. Mother just wanted someone stronger than her.
"Well, shit. You actually do know. Well, whatever. I'm still gonna say mine since I actually matter. Wanna know why I was so fucking miffed about being a bad guy the first time around?" She asked me. I was about to shake my head no, but she held it still, uninterested in what I had to answer. Talk about a party pooper.
"Because the bad guys don't fucking matter. They just appear, get fucked, and then go away. Unless it's some weird wish-fulfilment story and the bad guy is a hot chick. Too bad our world ain't that. Hell, bad guys have it bad here. Who remembers Duffy? Ammul? Motherfucking Ham Berg?" Yeah, no, I haven't the slightest idea who those people are. Myka swiped up on her tablet, her eyes slowly moving across the screen as if she were counting something.
"Then, for some god-forsaken reason, I ended up not getting wiped off the face of existence and became an 'ally'. Which, by the way, was hella fucked up since I was satisfied before my 'death'. I was fine with being gone at that point." I've gotta agree there. Extending the life of someone who was alright with dying is kind of fucked up. I should do it to an enemy at some point.
"Now, it's literally written into my soul that I'm in this weird, metanarrative-focused person… except I'm pretty sure that whatever bullshit I've been doing doesn't fall under metanarrative and that the fucker who is forcing me to spout it out has not a single clue as to what's going on." Isn't Myka the one making Myka spout this stuff out? Isn't that how rants work?
"Speaking about myself, why the hell do I have so many siblings and how come they aren't important? Why can't I have a heartwarming family reunion with them? Sure, I killed one of them, and I turned another into a card, but still, it's fucked up that nothing has been done with any of them besides Eldra… who, by the way, is pouting because she didn't get to do anything thanks to your quick escape." I'm going to have to apologise to her, then. By the way, Myka's eyes are still glued to the tablet, and she's still counting. In fact, that's what she's been doing during her whole rant.
"Speaking of Eldra, it turns out that back when she swallowed you and me, she was actually doing that to protect me, and you just so happened to be there. She even returned Mendass back to how it was, so we should probably thank her at some bit… although, did we ever get an answer as to how Cookie not only came into contact with her but also took control of her?" Hmm… I don't think so. I could summon Cookie and ask her, but I don't really want to.
"Whatever. I don't want to talk to that creep anyways. So… where was I? Oh yeah, my motivations… but first, we've gotta talk about the nature of worlds. So you see, there are two types of worlds. Natural worlds and narrative worlds. Obviously, you know our world is a narrative world, right?" Considering how much a surprising amount of people in my life say we're a story, I'd say yes to that answer.
"Well, us being a narrative world is tied to my motivations. In fact, it's very important to my…" She suddenly paused, looking at the tablet harder, before smirking.
"I FUCKING WIN!!! FUCK YOU, EVERYONE!!!" She jumped up, celebrating, before smashing the tablet on the table, snapping her fingers to let me talk again. "I DON'T NEED THAT LITTLE BLUE PIECE OF SHIT'S TABLET ANYMORE!!!"
"You win? How?"
"Haha… simple. We're past 1,000 words and I still haven't explained my motivations. Sure, it's fucking obvious, but we still need an extra chapter. Hell yeah, baybee! I continue to fucking exist!"
Chapter namesake: The expansion pack for bo en's album "Pale Machine" that adds two more singles.
