Chapter 3: Prologue 1-3 (Lemie).

Inside a young woman's room, on the bed lies a woman, sleeping rather peacefully. She's wearing her night camisole, the curtains of the room are closed not letting the sunlight of the early morning through.

However, the tranquil scene gets broken as a knock sounds at the door of the room.

Right after the knock, the door slams open, and there stands another woman, but she's clearly younger than the woman who's stirring up from her sleep because of the noise.

"Sis, wake up!" The young girl at the door said loudly and quickly jumped on the bed, making the whole bed wobble and the sleeping girl groan awake.

She sat up, and with her hands, she scratched her eyes. But as she was scratching she got hugged by her waist and a head snuggled into her chest.

The girl being hugged groggily says "Not now, Esmie"

The one holding her froze "Who is this 'Esmie', sis?" She also questioned with her voice sounding threatening.

The girl stopped scratching her eyes and blinked open to see who hugged her, she knew that it wasn't Esmie's cute voice that she heard, this one was more shrill than anything.

"Were you dreaming of somebody? Oh, oh, oh, please tell me what it was about" The girl still latching onto the sleepy woman excitedly asks.

The woman blinks in confusion without answering.

"Sis?" The girl tilts her head sideways.

"Who..." The woman stops talking due to her voice sounding different than usual"Who are you?" But finishes nonetheless.

The younger girl quickly gets off of the woman and stares at her incredulously "I don't like this joke, Sis" She says disturbed, but after seeing nothing, no emotion of laughter, no emotion of lying... Or anything at all for that matter, she immediately understands that something's really wrong.

So instead of addressing her sister as 'sis', she calls out with her name "Zoe? What's wrong?"

The woman blinks at the girl's serious tone "I don't know who Zoe is"

"Seriously, Zoe... Sis, stop, it's not funny anymore, in fact, you're scaring me" The younger girl pleads her voice cracking at the end of her sentence.

"I'm sorry, but my name is Lemie. Or I suppose my pseudo-name wouldn't be enough in first meetings, my name is Lemmilie"

The girl looks at the woman even more disturbed, before her eyes widen in shock. And in disbelief, she stutters out "L-Lemmilie Gold from the M-Maximilim Orphanage?"

"You know of it? That's a surprise, I always thought that it was unpopular. But Gold?" Lemie comments, not seeing the girl's facial expression morph into anger. This is why she didn't expect it when she was roughly grabbed by her shoulds by the girl.

"WHAT DID YOU DO TO MY SISTER?! WHAT DID YOU DO" The girl shouts aggrieved.

Lemie cringes from pain "L-let me go"

The girl seeing that Lemie is hurting eases up a little bit, but not because of Lemie or that she's feeling pain, no, it's because this is her sister's body.

"My sister, what did you do with her" She seethes through her teeth angrily

Lemie blinks in confusion "Sister? I don't have a sister, I don't understand what you're talking about"

The girl grits her teeth and quickly stands up, turns around, walks a few steps to a table, picks up a hand mirror, walks back, and turns the mirror face first for Lemie.

And then Lemie sees her reflection, her eyes go wide... Except that these eyes aren't hers at all, her, no, this body's hand goes up to its face and it touches it softly. Lemie clearly saw the hand movements as she tried to move it, she's even more confused now, just now she was sitting in a chair during the test process and now she's here, in a body she doesn't know, with a woman screaming at her. She doesn't understand any of what's happening.

Her blue and short hair got replaced by brown and long hair, her small face with baby fat on it got changed into a mature and feminine one, even if it's still tired from sleep it still looks quite decent, her eyes are now brown as well.

"What did you do to my sister, answer me" The girl questions Lemie again.

"I... I don't know"

The girl visibly grits her teeth and clenches her palms into fists. But after forcing herself to calm down, she throws out a different question.

"How old are you?"

Lemie blinks in confusion, these questions are so far apart from one another that they threw her off again, she sees that the girl is about to open her mouth again and repeat the question, so she answers before she could.

"Nine years"

The girl freezes in place again... Her twenty-year-old sister, her adoring, lovable sister, he dear amazing sister... She just got replaced by a nine-year-old fictitious character.

Her heartbeat rapidly increases, her skin boils from the heat, and her subsided anger returns in a form of rage. Her fists clench hard and tight around the mirror she was still holding, she didn't even notice as the glass of the mirror cracked and cut her fingers, as shattered pieces of glass entered her tendons.

Lemie seeing the hatred from the girl, couldn't do anything else but try to hide by sliding back on the bed until she hit the bed frame and had to stop in place.

The girl's eyes looking at her are so harsh, she never experienced something like this, she has gotten unwelcome gazes, others looked at her as if she wasn't there, just ignoring her, but nowhere in her memory was there anybody who looked like this at her... For the first time in her life, she's scared, fearful of what's going to happen and unlike before, she seems to be somewhere far away from her home, far away from Esmie, her comfort. Esmie probably never knew, but Lemie needed her as much as Esmie needed her, if not more. And now she really wants to see her and hug her, it would help her stabilize her emotions by calming her down.

The very next moment, there were two loud noses as the mirror in the young girl's hand got forcefully thrown to the side, hitting a wall, it breaking completely, shards flying to the ground and the child stuck in an adult's body screaming frightened.

There were also some blood splats thrown to the ground from the injured fingers of the girl, with a few shards leaving the girl's hand due to the force, but not all of them had such luck, in fact, one of them got stuck further in because of the same force that got others loose.

There's only silence, long tense silence as both of the women look into each other's eyes, one with pure unadulterated rage and unexplainable hatred, the other with unhidden fearfulness.

Lemie seeing that she's not getting attacked finally opens her mouth to ask something.

Of course, it comes out as a stuttering mess, due to how scared she still is.

"H-h-h-how d-d-d-do y-you k-k-know m-me?"

The girl's eyes squint, she turns around and leaves the room in a hurry, leaving Lemie on the back of the bed, alone, confused, and scared.

For a few minutes, Lemie doesn't move from her spot at all, her eyes fixated on the door that the girl left with. But seeing as there was no more immediate danger, she relaxes enough for her to start looking around the place.

There are various kinds of papers stuck to the wall, she would guess that it's drawn and painted photographs of people, in her short life she's only seen one and it was the first owner of the orphanage in the head taker Nell's room. But they seem a lot different... Unreal to be honest, they don't look anything like people, she can't even describe them. And how could she? They are posters of animated characters after all.

Then her eyes also see some sort of rectangular box... Two of them to be exact, one's smaller but longer and closer to the ground, while the other one is on a table and wider, there also seems to be glass in it. She has no idea what that is at all.

And the last noticeable feature in this room is the big desk filled with books, the person previously living here should've really liked to read, there's one even near the bed, on a small table beside it, with a bookmark coming out of it.

Besides these three different things in the room, it's quite barren, seeing as she doesn't have more to look at, her eyes fall down to the ground, where the shattered mirror lays, then to the dried blood, she cringes slightly because she had a morbid thought... That could've been hers if she got attacked.

But she, with a calmer mind, realized that the reason she haven't been hurt yet was that she inhabits the angry girl's sister's body somehow and the girl doesn't want to wound it, it doesn't have anything to do with herself.

As her eyes still look at the mirror, the door opens again and quickly closes shut, her eyes snap to the door, only to see the girl back again.

Her hand is wrapped up in a bandage and the other hand is holding something, a small rectangular thing.

"I hate you"

These are the first words Lemie hears after the two stared at each other again. Lemie's eyes droop down a little from hearing it.

"But..." The girl breathes in and breathes out "I need... Both of us need to understand our situation better. That's why need to talk... So if you want to understand more, you better answer all of my questions honestly, and trust me, when you will lie, I will know and the moment I catch you in a lie, there will be consequences. Do you understand?"

Lemie thinks for a bit, she doesn't what the consequences mean in this situation, but she can tell that the girl is serious, not to mention she knows that magic exists, so maybe here, wherever she is, one could detect when one's lying, so she dare not try.

"O-okay" Lemie finally says.

"Good, now listen closely. The Maximilim Orphanage and you, Lemmilie, don't exist"

Lemie looks confused, what does the girl mean by saying that. She's clearly alive and here.

"I see that you're confused, let me reiterate, you shouldn't exist. You see, you aren't in your world at all. Magic? Spells? Demons? Demihumans? Monsters? None of that exists in this world and so, in a short version, you aren't supposed to be here, thus you don't exist"

"W-what? T-then where am I?" Lemie asks with some fear rising up in her body again.

"A place called... Well, that won't work because your place is called the same... Hmm..." The girl stops her answer midway by muttering to herself, she visibly gets annoyed as her hand goes up to her head and ruffles her hair.

"I will answer that question later, for now, we move on" She finally says "Now tell me, do you know a man named Merlin Gold, or does the term 'Red-stained Coin' mean anything to you?"

"No, that's the first time I hear that name or that term"

"Okay, so what do you remember? If anything at all"

"I was sitting in a chair strapped to the magic testing apparatus"

The girl clicks her tongue in annoyance hearing the answer and mutters to herself "So the very beginning, huh?" Unfortunately, it was too far away for Lemie to hear it.

"Tell me everything that happened since you sat on that chair"

"I don't know"

The Girl's eyes squint at Lemie, Lemie thinking that her answer was inadequate tries to explain herself "I really don't kn-"

"Save it, I know" The girl however cuts her off. Lemie shuts up instantly.

"You have no idea what was happening because you were stuck in your head, praying to yourself. Isn't that right?"

"H-huh? H-how?"

But the girl doesn't answer Lemie's confusion and asks another question "Tell me, what were you praying for... Exactly word for word"

Lemie blinks a few times and answers "I wished for a happy life"

However, she knew her mistake instantly, because the very next moment the girl turned around and left the room. She thought she could get away with a small lie because the girl said there was no magic, but she can't believe that she instantly got caught... How?

But that will have to come later, Lemie scared for whatever could happen, finally gets up from the bed and runs to the door, trying to open it, but to her dismay it's locked.

So she starts banging on the door and shouting for the girl to come back.

"Please, p-please come back, I'm sorry, I won't lie again, I promise, please, c-come back" Over and over the same words.

And she continues for a few dozen seconds before she hears the door unlock, she quickly steps away from the door and clears away the tears forming in her eyes with her hands.

The door opens and the girl comes in.

"You better not lie again, that's a warning"

"I... I promise, but could you please tell me what would happen if I did? What are these 'consequences'?" Lemie asks with hope in her eyes, she really wants to know the answer. She can't imagine being physically hurt because the girl is clearly forcing herself to act cordially with her because of her sister's body, which she still doesn't understand how she got to be in. But if she wants to know or at least understand better, she promises herself to not lie again, this girl might be her only hope to understand after all.

The girl looks at her quietly but chooses to answer "I would've locked you inside this room for a long while. And you not knowing anything about this world and not having your friend Esmie here for you, you would go crazy, stuck alone in a place you don't know. And I would finally come back, only when you would cry yourself hoarse when your voice would be lost. Maybe then you would know better than to cross me and would try to save whatever's left of your voice. I know that by design you're a smarter child than most adults should be, so by now you probably figured that I won't touch you because you're in my sister's place... But physical pain isn't the only pain that exists and the other kinds of pain don't affect the body immediately"

Lemie subconsciously takes a step back, this girl... She's absolutely evil, she's ruthless. Lemie gulps the knot in her throat. And nods in understanding.

The girl seeing this child finally settled down, eases up on her facial expression and goes to her sister's desk, pulls out the chair, and sits down on it.

"Sit down" The girl says pointing at her sister's bed.

Lemie nods and goes to sit on the bed.

"Let's continue, the question is still the same. What were you praying for?"

"I..." Lemie sighs and resigns to her fate "I wished for a family, a lovable family"

"Word for word" The girl reminds.

"I want to have a kind family" Lemie answers honestly.

"You haven't learned your lesson..." The girl shakes her head disappointed and starts to get up.

Lemie watches the actions of the girl confused.

"B-but I didn't lie, I promise, that's what I prayed for in my head, I really did, I promise. Please believe me" She pleads with a tear in her eyes.

the girl stops her movements as she looks at her sister's face, she knows that tears are something that she has never seen on her face, yet there it is, right there. She sits back down and thinks for a bit.

She needs to remind herself that this is not her sister, that this is a small child, well a child that's way beyond her years, but a child nonetheless, so no matter how smart she was made out to be, her emotional prowess was left for the player to interpret in their own way by taking control. But everytime she thinks that her sister isn't here, it drives her anger levels up, but she needs to reign it because she wants her sister back. There has to be a way for her to return... there has to.

"Fine I believe you, even if... It shouldn't be like that, so maybe you're just misremembering"

"Huh? What do you mean it shouldn't be like that?"

The girl turns around in her chair, presses something on the box near the floor and after a few seconds the box on the table lights up. Lemie's eyes watch with surprise at the spectacle.

The girl then leans down and puts the small thing she was holding her hand in the box below.

She taps her fingers on the table and waits for a bit, before her hand touches a strangely shaped thing on the table, Lemie hears a clicking sound coming from it, multiple itmes.

And after a few minutes, the girl finally speaks again.

"Come here" It was quite harshly said.

Lemie quickly stands up as if it was a command and gets closer to the girl, the closer she gets, the more her nose picks up a sweet and amazing smell, so she sniffs a little bit harder and figures out that it's coming from the girl.

Not wanting to get caught sniffing the girl, she stops. But her thoughts go away from the situation for a bit. She can't remember the last time she smelled something so amazing, in the orphanage, everybody was more or less unclean, yet this girl beside her has a smell that was borderline intoxicating.

"Hey, are you listening?" The girl calls out, snapping Lemie out of her thoughts.

With slight embarrassment, Lemie answers "Y-yes, what is it?"

The girl's eyes squint at her for a bit, seemingly scrutinizing her for something, before turning her head to look at the shining box.

"Look here" She points at something with her hand, so Lemie looks in the direction.

And instantly she thinks that something's off, there are people inside the box, however, they look strange to her, then in the corner of her eyes, she sees a poster, so she cranes her head to the side to look at it more carefully and she sees a striking resemblance at least in style.

Then she looks back at the shining box and now she sees different people altogether. She blinks in confusion. And the confusion only rises as more and more appear on it, then disappear, showing only a battered room's background, which still looks strange, but at the same time familiar.

And then, something appears that startles her. Those features, those clothes, isn't that what Sir Bark wore when she caught a look of him before sitting on the chair? In fact, the more she looks, the more strange it seems, she can even see the resemblance in the man himself.

"I-is that?" Lemie lets out shocked when that thought crosses her mind.

"Mhm" The girl noncommittally lets out and the next moment the person in the shining box changes again and this time, Lemie's legs become weak.

"T-that's Esmie" She'd know this anywhere, that's her friend, after all, even if she looks strange and unreal, that's still her Esmie, it has to be.

But her mental torture isn't finished as the person changes again and this time, her brain shuts down altogether.

"Lemmillie of Maximilim Orphanage, that's her and..." The girl points at the box, then turns sideways and points at Lemie "And that's you"

"I-I don't understand, how can that be me? She...I am here a-nd I look so strange in that box"

The girl snorts "Well of course it's 'strange', you're not animated anymore"

Lemie looked at the girl confused, she actually had a small smile on her face and she also snorted. The girl seeing her own unconscious mistake immediately gets her frown back on.

Lemie however doesn't speak on the girl's slip up and instead asks what's on her mind at the moment "What does 'Animated' mean?"

"Hmm, I think it will be faster to show you than try to explain"

Lemie sees the people on the box disappear and some sort of thing appeared instead of it, there are many little squares with even more humans in them, what is this thing? Some sort of magical prison?

The girl clicks several buttons on yet another rectangular-shaped thing, it's also shining just as the big box is, but this one is in a multitude of colors.

While Lemie was inspecting the keyboard and its LEDs, the girl calls out to her.

"Here, look at this"

Lemie's eyes go back up, only for her to see another human, this time it's a normal-looking one, not this 'animated' as the girl described it.

There's silence for several minutes as the two women watch a video about real people drawing themselves as anime characters.

And after it ends, Lemie seems to understand, somewhat, what's going on.

"Okay, but it still doesn't explain why I am here then, because I am me, so that 'animated' me can't be me" Lemie complains with confusion in her voice "Not to mention, my animated self's hair wasn't like I had it before"

"Well, I can't really explain the first of your sentences, but I can explain the second. You see, after the testing ceremony, or I should say during it, your powers awake for the first time and they don't really see eye to eye with that piece of metal on your head, thus the powers fight against each other, your powers win, but because of that, the hall of the Orphanage break apart, windows shattered, doors came off their hinges and people fell over. And along that came your hair change, you should know why that is, I know that you're not an idiot after all"

Lemie doesn't comment on the girl's specific ender to her words, she has no idea how she can be seen through like this if there is really no magic here in this strange world, so she just speaks herself about the hair change.

"I do, a lot of the time when the kid experiences their first spell casting, their hair will change in some ways. The first and the most common change would be the general color of the element a person can utilize. The second and less common, is a mix of that, with personality, birth conditions, and race linked into it alongside elements. Some people can even have eight colors in their hair if they are gifted enough to be able to control a lot of elements. But aren't these colors on my hair... A little bit strange?"

"Indeed they are... Or at least they would be" The girl answers honestly to Lemie's speculations.

"What do you mean?"

"There's one fact, a simple one, that I haven't mentioned yet. You are the main protagonist of your world, the most important existence in it, there isn't a singular other individuals in that world more important than you. The king of your kingdom? The rulers of other races? All of them combined are lesser than you alone. You are the Heroine of the world"

Lemie's eyes pop wide open in disbelief.

"B-but I am only an orphan without parents, h-how can I be so important? That doesn't make any sense. No, no, you have to be lying to me, because of earlier right? Because I lied too, in the first place, how do you even know me, or about me at all"

The girl facepalms, she yet again forgot that she's speaking to a child whose mentality and brain haven't fully matured yet, yes she's smart and quite knowledgeable, but most of that is of course the main heroine halo. But still. So she chooses to explain a bit more, before continuing on with what she wanted.

"Okay, listen, first things first, I have no motive to lie to you, remember, you are occupying my sister's body right now, don't you think that I would love to get her back and get rid of you as fast as possible?"

Lemie blinks at that statement, she did do that somehow and the girl is right... "Yeah, I suppose what I said didn't make much sense"

"And let me now tell how I know you. This might take a huge mental strain on you, but the faster I explain it all, the easier it will be later and you won't question everything. So are you ready to listen to me for a longer time?"

"Yes"

The girl nods. She clicks presses alt+tab and the game New World Maiden pops up again, just where she left it off.

"Now, this equipment that you're looking at" The girl points around the keyboard, the mouse, and the computer, Lemie's eyes follow everything.

You are reading story New World Maidens at novel35.com

"First, this is the Keyboard, you can see letters on them, think of it like a pen when you write on paper, but much faster and more efficient" The girl pauses in her explanation, seeing that Lemie is listening with rapt attention, she continues "This? It's called a 'mouse', yes, it's called after a rodent, now these modern models may not look like a mouse, but the older versions looked quite similar, as it had a cord that looked like a tail. So people just called it a mouse. And back to the previous analogy, this is essentially you picking from various kinds of oils and inks to write with, the mouse lets you open and do many different things"

The girl sees Lemie being quite interested in the keyboard and the mouse and lets her try it out "Here, put your palm on the mouse"

Lemie blinks at the suggestion but does it with some hidden excitement. As her fingers land on the mouse, the buttons get pushed in, startling her, thus her hand jumps back to her chest.

The girl rolls her eyes "Don't be afraid, those are just buttons, that allow you to choose what to do, when you put your fingers on it softly, nothing will happen at first, but when you exert even a slight bit of pressure, the button will be pressed in, look"

The girl shows Lemie what she means, with her palm set on the whole mouse, there is no sound of clicking or moving when Lemie tried it, but the next second it happened when the girl's index finger is pressed into it. And the girl allows Lemie to try again.

And so Lemie does exactly that, at first she goes cautiously, but when she sees nothing happening, she just starts hammering on the buttons, pressing them repeatedly and as fast as she can.

"Umm... What is this in the middle?" Lemie asks, spotting the first circle in this 'equipment'.

"That would be the mouse wheel... I know, very original. But in theory, it changes the perspective of what you can see on the computer, like changing what kind of paper or surface you want to write on, which comes to my third explanation" The girl derives Lemie's attention on the screen.

"That's is called the computer, the display, the monitor, the PC, the screen and a few other names. But for clarity's sake, let's call it the monitor, okay?"

"Okay, the monitor, I understand"

"Mhm, anyways, it allowed you to see yourself, Esmyna, the other NPCs, and then an internet video where you saw real people draw themselves as animated characters"

"The internet?"

"Wait on that for a bit, we will come to it later, now I want to show you what the mouse wheel does and for you to try out the keyboard. So as I said, it allows you to see different parts of the screen that most of the time hides more than it shows. Here, try to scroll it down and up a little" The girl instructs, quickly alt tabbing again to bring back the video sharing site.

Lemie does as said and when looking at the screen, she can see it moving up and down and she quickly understands what the girl meant about changing perspectives on what you can see.

"Now, if you look down on the mouse, you will see two buttons on it, some have more... A lot more, but those are not that important to most people and it wasn't for my sister, so she had this basic one. Anyways, the first button, the one your index is on, most of its function is to open something that the little arrow on the screen shows. Why don't you try to move the mouse to a different side and open something with the first button? How about from there to here" The girl points from where the pointer is to where she should move it to.

"Okay, I will try" Lemie at first moves the mouse to the wrong side, she sees the arrow move wrongly, so she changes the direction when it goes where she wanted it to, and she smiles.

After she gets close to where the girl showed her to move, she clicked the left mouse button and in a blink of an eye, a bigger rectangle appeared and the smaller ones moved to the side on the right, also the picture yet again started to move and emit sound from somewhere. Lemie watches it with glee and feels quite accomplished with herself.

"I will explain the second, the right mouse button later, for now, let's move on, you've yet to still try the keyboard. Now first answer me, do you understand these letters that you see on the keyboard?"

The girl's voice breaks out Lemie out of her proud moment, she looks down at the keyboard and after looking at some of the letters she answers "Yes, I understand them"

"Good, then you're not from the original after all, which is great, because I have no idea how I would deal with you"

"Original?"

"Later' Is all that the girl says, effectively blue balling Lemie from getting answers yet again.

"Now, look at the screen and at the top part of the moving picture, there's a long rectangle there. You see the word written on it?" The girl asks about the search bar, while also pointing at it.

Lemie does not fully understand why she asked and pointed at it, she can clearly see it so she just nods as she reads the words 'search bar', even if she doesn't fully understand the meaning of it.

The girl however was checking one thing with it, the eyesight, her sister had poor eyesight and had to wear contacts of her glasses to see clearly, yet this child can see perfectly, just like in her game.

The girl falls into deep contemplation and because of it, the room falls into silence again.

So Lemie calls out to her to make converation or at least tries to "Hey... Uh... Wait, what's your name? You know mine, yet I don't know yours. If you don't want to tell me your real name, you can just say your pseudo-name"

The girl looks at Lemie after coming back from her thoughts and rolls her eyes. Did the creator of the game really have to change the 'nickname' and 'pet names' into this 'pseudo-name' nonsense?

"My name is Erika" The girl, Erika, finally introduces herself "Anyway, the search bar, look at it, while writing something on the keyboard, go ahead" Erika moves out of the way by leaning back, giving access to the keyboard.

Lemie satisfied with knowing the girl's name, at last, starts using it right away "Okay, Erika"

Lemie slowly, one press by one press, writes her full name on it, seeing it slowly appear as she wrote it, made her inexplicably happy.

"Now, press this big button here, it's called 'enter' and as the implies, it allows you entry to whatever it is that you'd write with the letters"

Lemie does it and she sees the screen change with new squares of animated pictures, she also sees herself in most of them.

"...Why are you teaching me these things and about this 'computer' anyway?" Lemie can't help but ask, but she didn't have much hope of her question being answered and for it to be just thrown away by a 'later' by Erika.

But she was surprised, as Erika actually takes her time to answer.

"Let's say that this 'computer' and most of the things inside it, for example, a thing called the 'internet' is as close to magic as one could get in this world. So I am teaching you about it, because I and you have no idea how long you will be here, with knowledge of the computer you can experience a lot and when I am not near you, you can use it by yourself for knowledge. And the main reason why I am doing it is because it will be simpler to explain and easier for you to understand why I know all about you. Don't worry, you will pick it up quickly... I know you better than you know yourself after all"

Ignoring the ominous ending of Erika's words, she nods with a smile at her explanation. At least she got something, so it's enough for now.

"Now, I mentioned the internet... think of it like an archive, a very big one, or if you don't get that, then a bookshelf, still a very big one. And that bookshelf has the knowledge for anything that your mind wishes to know about"

"How big exactly?" Lemie asks interested, in her life she has read only three books, one of which was burnt and half-torn.

"Well, the number that I am about to tell you, it might not even be close to the real thing. But it has way more information than sixty million books combined"

Lemie's eyes pop out wide yet again, she seems too stuck for words, not knowing what to say, which is why her mouth makes random speechless noises.

"S-s-ix-mil-on-ty-wha-uhh-ehh-aah-bbut-whu" Lemie's brain seems to have shut down.

"Yeah, it may seem shocking at first glance, but people that are used to the internet, more or less don't register such things, they just know that they can find whatever it is they look for and that's it. We do it without giving it a second thought. This is why a lot of problems may arise. Obviously, in such a vast bookshelf of information, a lot and I mean a LOT of it will be false, wrong, and outright lies for various different reasons that I am not going to get into it now, otherwise, we would be here all week without any progress. But just know that when you look at something, you have to really think about it, before you make your judgment"

Lemie nods repeatedly in understanding, but she stops soon after and asks something that's on her mind.

"And the king allows so much information to go out for free? I find that hard to believe"

"Ah... The king... Yeah I suppose to you, this may seem way too ridiculous, as you've only read two and a half books, and commoners in your world barely have any of them"

Lemie's back shudders in creeps, Erika even knows how much she has read, every time she mentions something about her, the more creeped out she feels.

"Look, kings don't exist in our world... At least in general terms that you think of, we have something called presidents and similar names in their language... There are a few 'Queens' and 'Kings' left, but they are different than where you come from. Anyway, these presidents more or less accompany the duties of a king... In very loose and broad terms"

"Then these presidents, how do they allow this internet to stay active like this?"

"I don't think they could shut it down even if all of them combined their power to try, ok let me simplify for you. Magic in your world, nobody actually controls who has it, right?"

"Uh-huh"

"Then it's the same with the internet, it has expanded so much, that not one single person controls it. And just like magic in your world, different areas of the internet are controlled by different people. So just like your magic, the king uses it and so do the presidents with the internet. It's a global source, obviously, it wasn't like that in the past, but one 'great' thing can infestate itself internationally. You do understand what I am saying, right?"

"Most of it, Magic used to be only a part of Demons and Royal blood, but now, even us commoners, demihumans, and monsters can use it, not to the extent that the King can, but still. Is that what you mean?"

"Exactly that, the internet itself has places that not everybody can access to, not all of it is free and public, you have to pay for a lot of it and just like commoners have to get chosen by magic teachers to attend royal academy as their payment to enroll into it, seeing as otherwise, they would never be able to afford it, it's the same with the internet. I mean you can't even access it at all without paying for it monthly, so, it's basically never actually free"

"I see..." Lemie lets out thoughtfully. Of course, such capable equipment wouldn't be free, what was she thinking, she got blinded by the insane number that Erika said.

"Oh and I forgot to mention one thing. Presidents themselves use the internet, a lot too... Now do all of them know what they're doing? Absolutely not, at least not in a decent way, but it is what it is. There's no way anybody would even think of turning the internet off seriously. Most of the world is too dependent on it at this point. Just like the nobles in your world are dependent on magic, without them they wouldn't be able to do much. If the internet disappeared our world would most likely enter a dark age"

"Just like the dark age of controlled magic?" Lemie asks.

"Right, that one book that the Royalty and the King's family gives out to every single person and establishment for free... Yeah, no, every single word in that book is a lie, your world was never in a dark age. They just want to keep up this 'ancient' history to make themselves out to be heroic and all-powerful against opposition"

"... What?" That is all that Lemie can say with that information because the purse shock won't allow any other reaction.

"Indeed" Erika adds, clearly not interesting in speaking about it anymore "Though the contents of that fake book are still far more interesting than anything that World's New Maiden has to offer" She adds spitefully.

"New World Maiden? Is that another book? Is it from your world or from mine?" Lemie asks, not trying to continue the topic of her world's past apparently being fake and instead latches onto new information.

Erika looks at Lemie ridiculously, sighs, shakes her head, and just doesn't answer the simple question, so now there's an awkward silence.

Lemie hears no answer from Erika, has already adapted to not getting any answers, asks something else instead, and at the same time comes back to the topic at hand.

"Is that how you know about me? With this all-powerful internet?"

"well... I wouldn't call it all-powerful, but it is indeed the reason I know you"

"How? Please tell me" Lemie pleads at the end of her question, she really needs to know, maybe she won't feel as bad as she does when Erika mentions something about her.

"I get why you want to know, but you're not ready for it" Erika says mercilessly.

"B-but... Please..." Lemie lets out dejectedly.

Erika sighs tiredly and caresses her bandaged hand, cringing slightly because of the pain. She should probably go to the hospital to get it checked out professionally, there may still be smaller glass shards in there, it was painful to take out the bigger ones, but it's not the first time she has done so, so it wasn't a huge deal.

"I can see that you feel uncomfortable every time I say something about you" Erika says, getting Lemie's attention.

"I know that you're smart, way too smart for your good, but this situation seems to have lowered your sharpness"

Lemie's eye twitches as she gets passively insulted, but she keeps her mouth shut.

"Okay, so you want to know why I know you, right?"

"Yes, I really do"

"Then think about it, if you feel bad when I tell one thing about you, then how will you feel when I tell you, your entire future?"

Lemie's whole body shudders at that thought. She seems to have overlooked something the entire time she talked with Erika and this was that thing.

"Umm..."

"So, do you still want to know? Without me preparing you for it?"

After a minute of silence and staring at each other's eyes, Lemie made up her mind and nodded at Erika.

Erika shakes her head but just goes with it, it's better that way for her anyways, she wants to talk about her sister anyway.

At first, Erika wanted to get Lemie up to seed on computers and the internet and then make her play a few video games... And then eventually bring out the game 'World's New Maiden' of which she is the protagonist of, thus making it easier for her to take it all... But so be it.

"Okay, wait for me to come back, I'm going to bring another chair, so you could sit down near me instead of standing there awkwardly"

"Ah... Okay, sure" Lemie got thrown off for a bit after Erika changed the topic but agreed nonetheless.

In two minutes or so, Erika came back, carrying her chair for Lemie to sit in, she puts it down near the chair that was her sister's, which she sat in after doing all this.

"Here, sit down"

Lemie nods and does so, however, she didn't expect the chair to be so comfortable, she completely sinks into it and sighs out relaxed.

"I see you like it"

"Mhm, it's the comfiest thing I've sat on"

"I guess, but my sister's bed is way comfier"

"..." Lemie remembers where she woke up and how she did, she had no time to pay to such details.

Erika shrugs her shoulders and reopens the game with alt+tab. And she selects the 'new game' option in the main menu.

"Warning, what you're about to see, might be hard to digest" Erika warns, but before continuing she gets an idea to try and explain at least a little bit about what's going to happen.

"Before that actually, do you know what a game is?" Of course, Erika knows that Lemie does, but she wants to ease her into it.

"I know a few, Esmie taught me some of them"

"Tag, Hide and Seek, and similar things to that right?"

"Mhm" Lemie lets out a sound of acknowledgment "But I've heard of magical games too, but seeing as we had no magic, we couldn't play those"

"Yeah, okay. Well, what you're going to see is a game of sorts. It's called an 'Otome' game. It's a game about relationships, like between a loving father and a mother"

"Aren't games physical? Can this computer really allow us to play?"

"In this world, there are multiple varieties of games. Physical games, mental games, video games and so many more. And video games are played on the computer and similar devices. Like this one" Erika takes out an android from her pocket to show Lemie "This is basically a tiny computer"

"O-ho" Lemie looks at it intrigued "So? What are these video games and is this 'Otome' game one of them?"

"It is one of them, yes. And video games are in theory, anything that you want them to be. A lot of them are good, a lot of them are bad, some you do alone, some you do with friends and even strangers all over the world"

"The world? How?"

"The internet" Is all Erika answers, they are getting off-topic again, so she wants to continue.

"Wow... This internet is truly magical"

"Mhm... Anyway, an Otome game is quite simple. You play as a 'main' protagonist of the game, going about your day, most of the time in school, but it can happen anywhere and you try to get together with one of the date objects, which are characters for the main protagonist to overwhelm with lovey Dobey feelings and then you fall for each other and at the end, you marry each other and have kids and happy ever afters"

"You still with me?" Erika questions after explaining some of it.

"I am, for the most of it"

"Good, Otome games can start four different ways for the most part. One is, the most basic thing, you start as a Male player and get Females to love. Second is the reverse of that, you start as a female to get males to love. Third is quite rare but still accessible, you play as a female and get other females to love. The last one is the rarest, you really have to look for those and that is the opposite of the third one. You play as a male and get males to love"

"B-but... How does that work?" Lemie asks an unfinished question, but Erika understands it.

"Well, why do you think we are talking about these otome games?"

"Honestly, I don't know"

Erika rolls her eyes, fine, let's just get to the point.

"It's because you're one of these main characters in an Otome-style game. You're Lemmilie Gold, adopted daughter of the Gold family, led by Merlin Gold, a Grade Four magician and the fourth strongest individual in your world. You are a game character made up by somebody else, your past, your present, and your future, all of it was written out in game form and that's how I know you. When I showed you your animated self, that was your real self from the game"

When Lemie hears what Erika just said, she can't believe it, she? A game character? And from the talk between them, she clearly had a distinction of real people and these animated people, one's real, the other isn't... She knows that she is real, so being told that she's fake, so bluntly to the eye, it's just unbelievable. Of course, Erika told her that way earlier, that she doesn't exist, but she didn't take that to heart.

She feels real, she knows that she's real, she can't believe it... No, it's not that, she simply refuses to even try believing it. She shakes her head subconsciously, that just can't be true, Esmie, her friend. Nell, the head taker, the other brothers, and sisters, she has felt their warm love, how can that be not real? It just makes no sense.

Erika seeing that Lemie is having an existential crisis, let's it go for a while... She herself doesn't know why, is it because she took her sister away from her and now is reveling in the girl's agony as part of revenge? Or was it because she had no idea how to deal with it... She doesn't know, but there's one thing she does understand. Is that she has seen enough of it after a few minutes of it, so she might as well try to stop it by talking.

"Don't think about that, the fact that you're here, using my sister's body for whatever reason, proves that you're actually real. You might not have been real before, but now, you're definitely real... That or I just lost it and became crazy. One or the other" Erika ends with a shrug of her shoulders.

Lemie hearing the 'comfort' from Erika, breathes in and out a couple of times, which helps her to calm down.

"Can you..." Lemie starts requesting something, but stops midway and looks away.

"Just say it, I might not like you, but I am not actually going to hurt you and I've said it plenty of times already, we need each other at the moment. So if you need something, ask for it. I'll decide what to do when you say it"

Lemie sighs tiredly and with a nod to herself, goes for it.

"Could you tell me about that family?"

"What? The Golds?"

"Mhm"

"Why tell you, when I can show you. These games are quite detailed after all. An easier way to think of them would be those moving pictures, but way longer and always in motion"

"... Okay" Lemie is not as pleased as she would like to be.

"Don't sound so displeased. This way you will know more than just about your family. You will know why you're the 'main' heroine to begin with. Remember when I mentioned that your supposed adopted father is the fourth strongest person in your world?"

'Yeah?"

"Well, you're the first"

And for what seems the hundredth time since she took over this woman's body, her eyes widen again.

"Just like the importance, your power is no joke"

"I don't understand anything anymore..." Lemie murmurs, but because they are close to each other, Erika hears it as well.

"Hey, I am not any better here, I mean, look at it from my perspective. I am talking to somebody else that controls my sister's body, that somebody is also a character that was supposed to be made up from imagination and I have no idea what happened to my sister. So... I also don't understand anything"

Lemie chuckles pathetically and right after says "I'm sorry. For your sister"

Erika caresses her bandaged hand in silence.

"Thank you. But don't apologize for things beyond your control. Yes, if you removed my sister out of malice or anything like that and if I were to find out, I'd make you pay and wish you never came here..."

"But I d-"

"I know" Erika cuts off her excuses "That's just my hate for your speaking... For the sole fact of my sister being replaced by you, I personally don't have anything against you. So there's no need to apologize for things that you didn't do, save it"

"Why do you... Trust me?"

"It's the same reason why I hate you... It's because you exist, right here, right now. I know everything about you and that gives me a sliver of hope of getting my sister back"

Lemie wants to question that statement, what is her power? Why put so much faith into the one you hate? And what is this knowledge about her that's not being told to her... But she knows that her questions will not be answered, so she goes for a different approach.

"Okay... So, shall we play this... My game?"

Erika breaks a tiny smile and without any pretenses and comments, she skips the game's prologue of the world, as it's the fake story from the fake dark age.

"Let's do it"

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