Sprace: Kazuki

[perfectpower]

Comments

[teenrebellion]

[ somehow he didn't expect to be lectured about sibling relationships. ]

...It was like that for years. It only changed in the past month, before we woke up on the ship.

[perfectpower]

[Unfortunately Bradley loves his brothers and sisters and thus thinks highly of sibling relationships.]

What changed it?

[teenrebellion]

[ he hesitates, because he is well aware of how childish the answer sounds when he says it out loud. ]

...She finally started listening to me.

[perfectpower]

[Nothing childish about that.]

Good. It's hard to form strong bonds if you don't listen. Glad she came around on that.

[teenrebellion]

...I am, too. But it won't matter that much if we don't get home.

[perfectpower]

Yeah, we gotta get you home first.

[He goes to pat Kazuki on the shoulder, but then a memshare!]

---

You're running as fast as your two legs can carry you, dodging around the thorny vines that have taken over most of the castle. Every so often you feel a twitch in your nose, and you have to plug it with your free hand and force the sneeze down. You can't afford to teleport away now, people are counting on you.

"Mitile! Mitile, run away......!"

"I can’t leave you behind, Riquet! ....I-it’s here......"

You grit your teeth as you vault over a low wall. The voices of Mitile and Riquet are echoing through the labyrinth of walls and thorns, distant but clear enough to point you in the right direction.

Your sleeve catches on a thorn, cutting your arm, you barely slow down from the pain.

You hear the roar of the fearsome minotaur, followed by the screams of the two boys. You're getting closer. "Just hold on a little longer," you say, even though you know they can't hear you.

Up over one tall wall, and down you drop into an open courtyard. On the far side, you can see that the minotaur has cornered the two boys, who are hugging each other and crying out in terror.

"No..."

"Mother, please save us!"

But the one who answers Mitile’s cry for help is not his caring mother in heaven. It’s you, the Northern wizard Bradley.

You flick your rifle up, pointing it directly at the minotaur's head. And then you shoot.

"<< Adnopotensum >>!"

Shot through the head, the Minotaur collapses to the ground with a deafening crash.

The two terrified boys look up to you.

"Mister Bradley!"

"Bradley!"

You grin at the relief and joy lighting up their faces.

"Sorry, my bad! That took me some time! I got blasted away by a sneeze, see. So I kept sneezing my way back. Stroke of luck landed me here in time......"

You casually chat away, but then you take notice of the boys’ wet eyes, their swollen ankles, their elbows scraped red. They fought really hard, didn't they. They're still kids, barely 15, and they managed to stare down a minotaur until you could come to their rescue.

You narrows your eyes kindly and pat them both on their shoulders. "Hey, you look like real men right now. You worked hard."

At your praise, Riquet and Mitile’s faces crumple up tearfully. "......W-we did!!"

[teenrebellion]

[ ...it's easy enough to see what he's doing. talking and talking to distract those kids, keep their heads up, keep them looking forward. it's not a bad thing to do - not really, but there's something in it that makes kazuki a little uncomfortable, so he chooses to focus on something else. ]

"Sneezing your way back?"

[ the fuck does that mean. ]

[perfectpower]

Ah, yeah, that's my curse. Whenever I sneeze, I teleport somewhere. It can be a real pain in the ass sometimes.

[teenrebellion]

You have a curse?

[perfectpower]

Yeah.

Basically, everyone who survived the previous calamity- the one before Nero joined the Sage's wizards- got cursed by the calamity. We have no idea how to get rid of our curses either, beyond "defeat the calamity for good".

Honestly, sneeze-teleporting isn't as bad as some of the others. I'll take it over never being able to sleep again.

[teenrebellion]

Calamity...? What calamity?

...That... Yeah. That sounds miserable.

[ what the fuck ]

[perfectpower]

That's what the Sage's wizards fight: the Great Calamity.

[What the fuck indeed.]

[teenrebellion]

Which is...?

[perfectpower]

The moon is cursed and, once a year, it tries to kill everyone.

[teenrebellion]

[









what ]

The entire moon? A whole celestial body tries to kill you?

[perfectpower]

Technically it's the curse that was placed on the moon that's trying to kill us, but the moon is still involved.

[teenrebellion]

Why would someone curse a moon?

[perfectpower]

Dunno. There's some crazy fucks in my world. Consider this: I'm probably the most sane and responsible wizard in the entire Northern Country right now.

[He knows he carries only 2 braincells, that's the point he's trying to make.]

[teenrebellion]

Okay, but there have to be sane people in the rest of the world, right?

[perfectpower]

Well yeah. But the point is, there's some nutters there. I could see someone cursing the moon like that.

[teenrebellion]

I dunno. It sounds counterproductive to curse a moon to kill everyone when you also live there.

[perfectpower]

Yeah, it does sound really counterproductive.

[Bradley like "this fucker is even stupider than me!"]

[teenrebellion]

Your world sounds insane.

[perfectpower]

Yeah, it kinda is. It's not somewhere I would tell people to visit.

[teenrebellion]

Don't worry, I'm not planning to add it to my bucket list.

...But you guys are still going back?