Surviving as a Useless Bard in a Game

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Skylar walked right into the room as soon as he heard my call, almost like he was waiting just outside.

It felt strange.

“…Were you waiting?”

“Yeah.”

“Why?”

“Thought you might need some time.”

–

Skylar.

Current state.

Sorting out thoughts and feelings.

And towards you—

–

Yeah. Time.

I needed time.

“Right.”

“…Are you okay?”

It was a bit unsettling to have someone taller than me looking down at me.

His eyes were above my head.

When you’re standing next to someone taller, you can’t help but feel smaller, even if you’re actually tall.

At that moment, I felt pretty pathetic.

I walked slowly towards him.

Skylar’s expression stiffened.

Adventurers were sensitive to smells. Unable to detect a foul odor, they could sniff out blood and booze better than a local mutt.

He was an adventurer, too.

“…Did you drink?”

Skylar’s tone changed slightly.

From a respectful, childlike whine to one laced with disappointment and disdain.

Just a little, but it hurt.

“You shouldn’t look at me like that.”

“Answer the question.”

“I’m an adult.”

“Yeah. Since you woke up with no memories, you’re basically a baby who just turned one.”

“…You’ve lived more than 200 years, yet you sound like you just became an adult?”

His eyes sparkled.

Magic power swirling in his pinkish gaze.

His eyes were on me.

Truth mixing faintly in.

There was anger in his words.

“Where on earth did you…!”

Skylar fell silent when he saw my expression.

I was just testing him.

Two hundred years can wear down or change a person’s mind. But given Skylar’s actions and speech, it’s hard to believe they were like those of an old man with two centuries under his belt.

I tossed one of the theories I’d been harboring into the conversation. That was all.

Looking at Skylar’s reaction, it seemed I might have hit the nail on the head.

Silence was always awkward for me, just like it was for him.

He seemed to have started to dislike silence too, just like I did.

It was kind of funny.

“Skylar.”

“Yeah.”

“You don’t fit that look.”

“…You’re really good at changing the subject. You really are a bard.”

Boom.

He was engulfed in white smoke as if he were Cinderella with her magic glass slipper wearing off, gradually shrinking.

As soon as I finished speaking, just in time, Skylar’s form changed back into that of a small boy.

The scroll worked. But conditions were needed.

Supply of magic power.

His bodily issues were somewhat resolved, but if magic power wasn’t continuously supplied, he’d stop abruptly.

Yeah. His body was now toggling between being juvenile and adult.

Someone with peculiar tastes might find joy in tasting both at once, but unfortunately, I wasn’t that interested in such things.

It seemed Skylar had expected the scroll to eventually stop working one day, as he wasn’t overly flustered.

Even in his smaller form, he stared at my face for a while.

It wasn’t intimidating at all, despite how he looked as a child.

“Will there come a time when you can be honest with me?”

“Yeah. Maybe.”

“…You’ve known everything from the start, haven’t you? Why you were blessed and cursed and why you opened your eyes in a body.”

“Well…”

“You knew everything and hid it all. The moment I brought up the theory about artificial personalities, you showed a reaction. You either got close to something you already knew, or I hit a sore spot, or you found a contradiction.”

Sharp.

But a lot of contradictions existed.

Skylar usually was composed and clever.

He occasionally showed foolishness, but fundamentally, he was smart as long as he didn’t panic too much.

He must have panicked greatly just before his heart regenerated and rewound.

A very human reason.

A foolish reason.

The reason he was questioning me now, voicing his tightly wound contradictions, was also simple, human, and foolish. Just like me.

“I could just wait until you decide to share everything by yourself.”

“…I don’t want to wait.”

“When I feel it’s alright to tell you everything, I will. But that time isn’t now.”

“Are you saying I’m still not someone you can trust?”

“No.”

“……”

Skylar fell silent.

In that brief moment, another contradiction appeared.

You don’t share secrets with someone you can trust.

It was a contradiction often seen in reality.

One I was currently committing myself.

“Skylar, I trust you.”

“Yeah. I know.”

“The theory you had about artificial personalities… might be right. But it’s different from my memory. You get that, right?”

He nodded.

The wizard who created the artificial personality can insert whatever memories they desire into it.

In other words, the memories of that personality can’t be trusted.

What if I was an artificial personality created by an imaginative wizard?

Even so, nothing much would change.

‘…The chances of that are low anyway.’

What kind of person would gain God’s Body and give it up to use it on their own experimental subject?

Skylar had already mentioned in the past that the curse and blessing on my body were permanent and couldn’t be lifted, no matter the price paid, and it was even questionable how they were placed in the first place.

Yeah. If there was indeed a being that brought me to this world, it would be a god.

Not a human.

In the end, the destination was still the same.

To someday gather all these bodies in one place.

I would return to the original world.

***

I stepped outside.

The first faces I saw were Nisha and Propertyius.

It had been a while, so it felt rather nice.

“Long time no see, Nisha.”

“You’ve changed a bit, huh?”

“Yeah?”

“You look a bit more confident. You used to give off that vibe of ‘the world has abandoned me! I have no talent at all!'”

Watching Nisha jokingly mimic me, I couldn’t help but chuckle.

But suddenly, Nisha’s expression turned serious.

Out of nowhere!

I quickly corrected my own expression and started retracing my actions to figure out what mistake I had made.

Yet no matter how much I thought, I couldn’t remember what I had just done wrong.

In other words, I messed up.

“Why are you looking at me like that?”

“Hey.”

“…Yeah?”

“You said we were friends, remember? The last time we met.”

“Oh, right.”

“And didn’t you say it would be fine to speak casually? Skylar? Skylar, right? That guy’s tone is always respectful, so it’s no surprise! I’ll personally—”

I knew she was just joking, but her expression looked so serious.

I subtly raised my hand, caught her wrist, and pretended to stop her.

Only then did Nisha burst into laughter.

The bandages wrapped around her legs, a faint scent of blood, her oddly creaky movements…

She was desperately trying to act okay.

“Are you alright?”

“Yeah. You finally talked to me like a friend.”

“…If you keep dodging the topic, I’ll start using honorifics again, just like when we first met.”

“Oh, I got it.”

“…So, you’re really okay?”

“I’m a platinum adventurer. I’ve faced worse injuries. Besides, as a cleric, I can heal up quickly if I just leave it be.”

“Wait, why hasn’t a cleric healed you yet…?”

“There are people worse off than me. Healing is limited.”

No matter how high-ranking a cleric was, they couldn’t heal every injured person in a city all by themselves.

Right now, both Propertyius and Fura were doing their part, but still only three of them.

When there are mass injuries in a city, generally an enormous number of clerics are deployed.

They simply didn’t have the capacity to attend to so many wounds.

I’d doubted whether Nisha and Propertyius were genuine clerics when I first met them.

Now they definitely looked and acted the part more than anyone else.

As we conversed, a familiar face slowly approached me.

It was Propertyius.

I said it was a familiar face, but this was actually the first time I’d seen his true face.

A figure who always hid behind robes or veils, casting a gloomy shadow over himself.

With black hair and black eyes. If this world weren’t a fantasy realm, he might have been seen as a typical East Asian person.

Skylar was the most handsome human I’d seen, while Eyal had a mystique about him, but Propertyius… fit the description of being ‘fallen’ perfectly.

He was a good person despite his looks, though.

‘Just a little too mischievous, and let’s not forget the time he forced me into a duel when we first met.’

…Maybe he wasn’t such a good person after all.

“Nice to meet you.”

“Long time no see. I didn’t think I’d run into you again like this after you collapsed.”

“Ha ha….”

Propertyius gave an awkward laugh.

Night deepened, and the old adventurers gathered in one place.

The once great adventurers known as the “Starlackers” had reunited again.

Amid the awkward atmosphere, a question was carelessly tossed into the air.

“So what are we gonna do now?”

Nobody could answer that question.

Here, in this place, our direction would be decided.