The Crown Prince Who Raises Alt Characters

#Chapter 311 Cat Pago (24) - Interlude, Outsiders "...By the way. Don't you feel any sense of discomfort or anything?" Eizern Empire. Golden Cloud Palace. At Lucidra's question, the Crown Prince lightly touched the teacup he had lifted to his lips, then set it back down on the saucer. Lucidra thought it was an unnecessarily refined and perfect appearance. "A sense of discomfort? What do you mean?" "Well, here you have a human body but over there you have a cat body. Don't you get confused between them?" "Haven't I explained several times that an actor and their role are different things?" "Even the most veteran actor would probably have errors in their actions if told to enter a cat's body." "Then let's say it's like a TRPG player and their character." "The analogy isn't what's important here?" "Hmm." The Crown Prince briefly crossed his arms and fell into thought. For quite a long time, even by the Crown Prince's standards. And then he said. "Isn't multitasking to the degree of performing precision surgery with your right hand while processing gems with your left something anyone can do?" "......" "It's a joke. I can feel quite serious killing intent, so I'm scared." "Put away that curled-up corner of your mouth when you speak, you human." "Well, to speak seriously, it's not particularly difficult for me. This body's specs are inherently good, after all." Lucidra thought that while specs were important, mentality was the more crucial aspect, but she didn't bother to voice this opinion. Because a new question that was even more curious had come to mind. "But you. What are you planning to do this time?" "You need to fix that bad habit of constantly leaving out the subject when you talk." "I mean the world where your clone is right now." Lucidra, who had been floating in the air, flipped her body upside down and continued speaking with her head facing the ground. "It's not that uncommon for transcendents to be driven out of the mortal world and create their own worlds to hole up in. However, the scale of it differs depending on their power and rank as a transcendent." Lucidra pulled one knee to her chest. "In that regard, the one maintaining that world right now is an incredibly massive figure. If it descended to the mortal world, everything except here where we are and over there where the elf Guardian is would probably be smashed to pieces along with their entire factions? And that's the minimum damage estimate." "What are you trying to say?" "That there can't be a happy ending." Lucidra's face was pushed forward in front of the Crown Prince's face. "You're neither particularly good nor evil, but your preferences are close to happy endings. But that can't happen there, you know? It's just how the world's laws work. Because the transcendent harbors that kind of desire." The 7th Rank transcendent who descended to the mortal world long ago, the Sky Sage, desired 'a world where those who work hard are rewarded', and as a result, the area around him became a place where quests and systems existed as naturally as in a game. That's what transcendents are. Beings who simply by existing there overlay the world and impose their own rules. How could there be a happy ending in a place where the world's creator chants like a mantra for the humans of his world to suffer, to suffer? "Of course, it might be possible if you really set your mind to it. But at minimum, your main body would have to step in, right? Then it wouldn't be leisure anymore, would it?" At Lucidra's point, the Crown Prince nodded obediently. "Well, that's true. Actually, this matter is quite a big case to resolve with just a clone. There are many elements that require being quite serious for something called leisure." "Then why?" "Because it overlaps with the empire's affairs." The Crown Prince snapped his fingers. Then his mana formed countless colors and shapes, creating a large holographic map in the air. "This is a complete map of the empire. I added some details to the original map using my experiences and search magic over time. And here, do you see this point? This is the region where Pago's current world and our world are conceptually closest. It's probably the place where that 'Dreaming God' transcended and was expelled." What? It feels like a story on a very large scale for an individual to be doing just passed by nonchalantly. (E/N: Referring, I guess, to the fact Alondre just casually said he essentially mapped out the Empire by himself through more details than the official maps) While Lucidra was tilting her head in confusion, the Crown Prince snapped his fingers once more to mark new information on the map. "And this shows miscarriage and stillbirth rates, meaning the degree to which children die during pregnancy or childbirth. How about it, can't you see something?" "...The more closely connected a place is to the Dreaming God's world, the more children died there?" Since her point of comparison is the Crown Prince, she often plays Watson rather than Holmes, but Lucidra is quite intelligent herself. She soon realized what the Crown Prince was trying to say. "You suspect the Dreaming God is sucking away souls?" "At least that's what the results show from Pago going around and sensing various places." The Dreaming God is a god of suffering. It wants to confine people in a breeding ground, torment them endlessly, and gradually kill them off. But let's think about it. Was the Dreaming God a god from the beginning? Did it hate and detest humans from birth? Close, but not quite. The Dreaming God hated and detested people even when it was originally human. Then, what world's people were the 'people the Dreaming God hated'? "This place. Due to the nature of transcendents, it's difficult to openly enter the world, so it gradually kidnapped people, dragged them into its own world, and then continuously reincarnated and bred them inside. When souls became too weak to even reincarnate, it just devoured them." The Crown Prince suspected that it probably hadn't only devoured souls from this world. Because the lifestyle, overall culture, and social conditions had many aspects very similar to the Crown Prince's previous world. It either learned by consuming souls from that side, or such beings reincarnated inside and naturally developed civilization in that direction. As can be seen from the Sky Sage inscribing game systems as world laws, it's not uncommon for a transcendent's world to develop in completely different ways from its original world. "But this has been gradually siphoning away for a very long time, hasn't it? But seeing as there haven't been any particular problems so far, it doesn't seem like this would cause your country to collapse or anything?" "Lucidra." The Crown Prince grabbed Lucidra's face that was in front of him and matched their eye level exactly. "Being bitten by a mosquito won't kill you. But that's no reason to meekly donate blood to mosquitoes." At that extremely calm yet arrogant dismissal of a god as a 'mosquito', Lucidra felt a thrill run down her spine. She rotated her body and moved behind the Crown Prince's chair, embracing his neck. "So this matter is both leisure and serious business at the same time? But subjugating that thing won't be easy even for you, will it? It's not a half-baked divinity like last time, and just in terms of power size, it's among the top transcendents I've ever seen." "No, that's actually why it's good. Because it's become so large, it's become that much more sluggish and slow." When the Crown Prince snapped his fingers again, the image of Popuri and Pago attempting to escape and conquer the museum appeared on screen. "The humans in that world can't use powers like sword aura, magic, or supernatural abilities. They don't have such knowledge or skills, and those functions are blocked from the moment they're born." It's a kind of spec-cut. If those fighting supernatural entities could shoot fireballs from their hands and split rocks with sword aura, management would become troublesome, so they placed strict upper limits on the power balance. "But as is usually the case with products made in factories, sometimes defective products come out, don't they?" "She's that defective product?" "Yes. Her sensory organs, especially her 'eyes', are very good. Mana, or what could be called spiritual power in that worldview, is being utilized in that direction." That's why she can perceive, recognize, and avoid supernatural entities that others have no choice but to fall victim to helplessly. Of course, if it were just Popuri alone, even if she avoided them like that, she would have eventually fallen victim to that world's characteristic unreasonable persecution and died soon enough... but now, how about it? Supernatural entities. And victims destined to fall prey to supernatural entities. If 'beings who fight against and defeat supernatural entities' were newly added to a world where only these two categories existed. It's not expecting Popuri individually to become strong enough to oppose a god. It's just expecting her to be classified as one category and a meaningful variable. "If there's one, you can expect two. If there are two, three becomes inevitable. Once you exceed three, it's already part of the worldview. How about it? Isn't this sufficient alignment of public and private interests, work and leisure?" At the Crown Prince's question, Lucidra curled up the corners of her mouth in a grin. "I'll give you that, arrogant Crown Prince."