My Servant Is An Elf Knight From Another World

For most people, photo albums and video recordings are your go-to way of storing any precious memories for you and yours to look back on somewhere down on the road and as a result, develop a closer, tighter bond through the sheer power of sentimentality.

Anyway, video games… yeah, apparently they were just as good, if not, better. Who knew?

More and more this gathering we were having was starting to feel less like a dinner and more like a date, with Mom and Dad taking up most of the spotlight and cruising down memory lane while Amanda and I were there somewhere in the scene acting as the third and fourth wheel respectively.

Every once in a while one of them would decide they wanted to switch lanes, and then Amanda would have to come up, switch some gears, and after waiting on a quick loading screen, we were back to slow cruising and awkward reminiscing.

Awkward because I noticed there was a pattern gradually starting to form. Someone would pick a spot, Amanda would lead them there, only for the place to either already be in ruins or was soon to be left in ruins.

Dad wanted to see his hometown. Or what was left of it, before a certain Demon Queen went ahead and razed the entire settlement to scorch marks on broken earth. Mom had to urge to see a litter of Neplims before the time she had sent them all to the brink of extinction.

Even something as benign and innocent as strolling through the streets of a kingdom can't be enjoyed without one of them mentioning who died or what was destroyed around every junction.

For any other married couple, it'd be their first kiss, their third date, favorite hangout spots; mushy feel-good things like that. I don't doubt my parents have things like that too, but their past—their history with each other—was much too spattered with death and destruction that it just simply overshadowed all that fickle lovey-dovey nonsense.

"Sometimes I forget all the beauty that existed in the world," Mom said after guiding Amanda all the way atop a breathtaking vista of soaring cliffs that formed a caldera of rushing waterfalls into a great lake that not even she knew about. "I used to always come here. To rest, sometimes to heal. After shattering the barrier around Astra, this was where I stayed to recuperate. It was home. Sometimes, I wish it still was."

It was the first spot without any kind of malignant backstory to bog it down, and it was also the only spot where she seemed to feel any sort of wistful attachment to. which was a breath of fresh air, literally. But at the same time, I'm not so sure if she deserves the right to feel that way about anything there.

Mom immediately seemed to sense my side-eye, turning to me with a smile I could only describe as vaguely apologetic. "Yes, it's not right, it's not fair… but who's to stop me now from feeling a little nostalgic?"

"I rather not talk about any of this at the moment," I said, veering my gaze back toward the television. "Time and place, y'know?"

Amanda, on the other hand, was like a journalist neck-deep in some exclusive insider scoop. "In one of the endings… it's implied that there are still surviving remnants of Asteria after your… after you did what you did. I'm wondering—for Kronocia—is it all really…?"

"It's all really gone," Mom finished her question plainly and unequivocally. "You can be sure I made sure of that."

Now she sounded proud. Or was that just bias making my ears prick at absolutely nothing? I can't tell anymore. And this was exactly why I didn't want to take the conversation further.

Because I know there was no justifying what she did, but still I can't help but try to anyway. To no avail, always. Then that's when I start feeling a bit funny, a bit lost within. Like I was beginning to feel right then.

"Did you say… one of the endings?" Dad broke out of one of his long brooding stares to ask. "What does that mean? Can you elaborate?"

"A different ending. A different outcome, you know? In video games, sometimes there's more than one ending you can get depending on the choices you've made," Amanda said, doing her best to explain things in a way that keeps any questions at the bare minimum. "In Asteria, there's five. They're really not all that different, it just depends on how prepared you are for the final battle."

"Interesting," Mom remarked. "So what is the worst ending? What happens in that one?"

"You, uh, you win," Amanda said after a bit of hesitation. "You kill the Hero and Asteria is gone for good."

"What's the best ending?" Dad inquired next.

Even more hesitation this time. I mean I'd be a bit weirded out too—suddenly getting treated like some kind of seer foretelling would-be prophecies.

"You sacrifice yourself to vanquish the demon queen," she said. "The Realm is safe. Asteria is saved. And the lives within get to enjoy the peace and prosperity you've granted to them."

There was a short pause. Mom smiling, Dad brooding, Amanda fiddling awkwardly with the thumbsticks, twirling Leonardo in place, then…

"Could you show me that ending?" Dad asked. "I'd like to see it if possible."

Mom threw him a wry glance, the smirk on her lips seemingly expecting as much. "Relishing over what-ifs now, are we? And here I believed you didn't care anymore."

"I don't," Dad grunted back, before immediately contradicting himself. "I just want to know."

"You're no longer their hero, dear. You never were, remember?"

"I know," Dad said, his tone a little heavier, a decibel louder. He looked at Amanda, his expression remained ever as stoic and apathetic. "Do you have a save file for that ending?"

"I-I do, yes," Amanda stammered; an innocent bystander literally sandwiched between the two of them. "The thing is, the save is set before the final battle. So if you want to see the ending, first I'm going to need to get through…"

"Me?" Mom finished, leaning and leering toward her, sensing meekness. "You'll have to go through me?"

Amanda decided against stating the obvious, saying instead, "It'll probably feel a little awkward if I did that, so…."

"No. Not at all," Mom said, hastening to interject. "In fact, I think I'd like to see that too."

"Y-You do?"

"Who doesn't love a good fight? A happy ending?" Mom proceeded to scooch closer to the screen, her wide, black eyes glossy with anticipation. "I already got my happy ending. I'm curious to see the outcome in which I didn't. An ending where I lose."

"You sure you'd like to see that?" I spoke up after a long time of just sitting and listening.

But she just turned to me again, that same knowing expression on her face. "Wouldn't you? It's what should have happened, right? What's right. What's fair. No better chance."

"I never said that."

"But it's the truth," she said. "In a right, just world where goodness prevails, I should have lost. I should be dead. Not sitting here, not condemning my continued existence to you."

"I'm, uh… I'm loading the save now," Amanda piped up, attempting to smother out Mom's disturbing bluntness. "I'll try to get to the ending quickly. I know a cheese… a strat I always use…"

"But that's not reality, is it?" Mom continued on regardless. "I'm alive. So are you. Happy and content with a family I adore so much. That's the world we live in. Our reality. Flawed and unjust."

"Meatloaf should be almost done too…" Amanda tried again.

Mom giggled. "And what a perfect world it is, don't you think so?"