Chapter 114 - 110: Ninth adventure: QUI

Chapter 114: Chapter 110: Ninth adventure: QUI

Damn, I just realized I scheduled this Chapter incorrectly. It was set for October 16th instead of September 16th. Don’t worry, the publication of this Chapter does not affect the schedule of the other Chapters.

I also want to take this opportunity to mention something I had forgotten: Yami’s Chapter is almost completely made up by me. The truth is that I don’t know most of her canon lore, and even after searching, I couldn’t find much about it, so I decided to make it up.

Also, this Chapter is part of Lala and Yuuji’s journey, which was optional to read, so you don’t need to read it.

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"Yuuji, they just opened a new entertainment center in the Luk058 star system, do you want to go?"

"Another one?" Yuuji raised an eyebrow, hesitating for a second before shaking his head. "There is no need. Ever since the situation in the WARA star system was resolved and they decided to withdraw from the entertainment industry, more and more substitutes keep appearing trying to replace them. But even though we have already been to five, they are all equally boring"

"Mmm, then where should we go now?" Lala asked.

"I don’t know, how about..." Yuuji was about to suggest simply going to the nearest planet when the familiar sound of a call rang in his ears. Along with it, an icon of an old-fashioned telephone appeared on the screen in front of the main controls.

Seeing the sender, Yuuji was quite surprised. "My parents?"

"Oooh, a call from Clara and Eicchi? Answer it" urged the bored Lala, finally finding something that seemed like it might be interesting.

Yuuji answered, and the overly large faces of Clara and Eicchi appeared on the screen side by side.

"Rito, it has been a while" Clara smiled from the other side, lifting the sunglasses she was wearing and placing them on her blonde hair. "How have things been out there?"

"...Fun" Yuuji answered after thinking about it for a moment, deciding that it was the best word to describe it.

"Then it is exactly what you were looking for. I’m happy for you" Clara smiled, genuinely happy for her son.

"Thanks. So, why are you calling?"

"Rito, can’t we just call because we miss our son?"

"Haha, if Mom had said it, it would have at least been more believable. Dad, what is actually going on?" Yuuji laughed.

"Bahh, we worry about you and this is how you treat us" Eicchi said, pretending to be annoyed.

"You worry about me?"

"That’s right" Clara nodded. "You’re looking for adventures, right Rito? We have one for you"

Hearing this, Yuuji simply narrowed his eyes and watched them in silence for a few seconds. Lala was the one who finally broke the tense atmosphere.

"An adventure?! Great, we were just getting bored" she said, appearing in front of the camera extremely excited.

Seeing the guilty look his parents exchanged when they noticed Lala was there, Yuuji basically confirmed his suspicions.

"Lala, they just want us to take care of one of their problems because they are busy with something else" Yuuji explained.

"Eh? Then it won’t be fun?"

"It will, it will" Eicchi quickly replied before Yuuji could say anything.

"Well, since I see that you accepted, I’ll tell you..."

"We didn’t accept anything"

"I’ll tell you what’s happening" Eicchi continued, ignoring Yuuji. "You see, Baba Yaga...ah, you don’t know Baba Yaga yet. In short, she is a fortune teller who serves our family.

The point is that she recently had a sudden and rather concerning vision. Apparently, Earth is going to be invaded by an alien race. Unfortunately, Clara and I are busy with a very important mission right now and can’t take care of it"

"What mission could possibly be more important than an alien invasion?" Yuuji asked. "You know that without Earth you can’t do a special mission, right?"

"I never said our mission was on Earth, Rito" Clara winked at him. "If you were alone, I’d be a little worried, but with Lala by your side, you should be able to handle this easily, so I’m more at ease.

Don’t worry, Baba Yaga prophesied that the invasion will happen tomorrow, so you have time to prepare.

Goodbye Rito, take care and take care of my lovely alien daughter-in-law. Goodbye Lala, take care and take care of my adorable son"

"Bye bye" Lala said goodbye with a smile as the image on the screen disappeared in a flash of white light.

"Ah, those two" Yuuji sighed. "Well, Lala, it looks like we have to deal with an alien invasion instead of my busy parents"

"...By the way, Yuuji" Lala said with a nervous smile, hesitating over whether she should speak.

"What is it?" Yuuji asked with a bad feeling upon seeing her reaction.

"No, it’s just...from the zoomed-in image, it looked like they didn’t want us to see where they were" Lala said. "But this ship has a built-in call locator, so I know they’re in CHEBB?"

Before Yuuji could ask, Lala explained on her own. "It’s a paradise planet and...the main vacation destination in the entire Milky Way"

"...Those two" Yuuji muttered under his breath.

...

"Wouldn’t it be better to just wait until tomorrow?"

Only a few hours later, Yuuji and Lala were on a planet called QUI with the objective of investigating the situation regarding the invasion that would occur the following day.

Hearing his question, Yuuji shook his head.

"No, unlike when we were in WARA, this time handling it ourselves instead of asking for help could result in the deaths of millions of people on Earth during an invasion.

Once the invasion begins, we’ll simply ask Gid to take care of it. We can’t gamble with the lives of seven billion people just for a skill ticket. If we want to handle this ourselves, it can only be before the invasion begins.

After ending the call, my parents sent us the complete vision from Baba Yaga. According to Mona, the ships on this planet are the most similar to those that will invade Earth"

"Oh, good, then we find out why they will invade Earth and see if it is possible to prevent it somehow. If we can’t, we use a bomb and destroy the planet" Lala understood.

"..."

"W-what’s wrong?" she asked, blushing when she became the target of Yuuji’s intense stare.

"Nothing, I was just expecting your first idea to be destroying the planet. Not negotiating"

"Yuuji, what do you think of me?" Lala complained, offended. "I’m also the future queen of the galaxy, you know? I know you can’t just destroy everyone and expect there to be peace.

Mmmhhm" Lala cleared her throat. "My father taught me: To achieve peace, you must first try to negotiate, if they don’t want to negotiate, you force them, and if they still refuse to negotiate, then you make sure they can’t negotiate with anyone else"

"He even added forcing them to listen before destroying them all? Wow, my father-in-law is so kind" Yuuji joked.

However, putting the jokes about Gid’s extremist personality aside, Yuuji actually agreed quite a bit with that method.

"By the way, what do you mean by ’the most similar?’ Even Mona couldn’t find the culprits?"

"It’s...a strange situation" Yuuji replied. "It’s not that the ships here are 50% similar to the invasion ships. It’s that they are literally 50% of the culprits’ ships.

Look, Mona..."

Mona appeared in front of Lala and projected two images side by side.

In the image on the right was a fleet of clearly military spaceships, predominantly green in color and carrying technology years ahead of Earth’s, with ray cannons, weapons, and energy shields like those found in science fiction stories. If Earth were to face them, they definitely wouldn’t stand a chance. This was the fleet of planet QUI.

Meanwhile, the image on the left was a reconstruction made by Mona based on Baba Yaga’s description of her vision. These ships were almost identical to those of QUI in terms of structure, however, their colors were half red and half green. It wasn’t paint or a mixture, they seemed to be two different ships forcibly attached to each other, as if pieces of two different ships had been mixed together. But although the red parts had a slightly different structure, they were clearly the same type of ships.

"How strange" Lala murmured, trying to figure out the reason behind it. "But speaking of green..."

Lala looked around. While they were talking, the ship had already reached the ground and both had left it. QUI was a planet belonging to the galactic network, so the locals weren’t surprised to see a spaceship and extraterrestrials there. There were even special places for tourists from other planets to leave their ships.

But Yuuji and Lala did look around curiously. Contrary to most planets, QUI didn’t have much of a variety of colors, as most of the structures there were shades of green, whether the ground, walls, crystals, objects, flowers, sky, or even the sun. Of course, the rest wasn’t left behind, the people’s clothes were also green and even their skin was slightly green, although it was a very light shade that didn’t stand out too much. The only different things were their hair and eyes.

However, although the inhabitants of QUI didn’t react to the fact that visitors from beyond the stars had arrived, they did react to the particular visitors. As soon as they got off, they were greeted by a group of people armed with dark suits who positioned themselves on both sides of their path, opening the way for them.

"It is a pleasure to welcome Her Highness Princess Lala Satalin Deviluke and her fiancé Yuuji Rito" they said in unison, standing perfectly upright with one hand over their hearts and serious expressions behind their dark sunglasses.

"Are you the local Royal Guard?" Lala asked.

"Miss, we are the president’s personal security team. Here on QUI, we use a system of government called Democracy. I understand that on planet Earth you use a system that is 90% similar, so you may consider it the same, Your Highness" the closest guard replied. "Please allow us to escort you to the president"

"Of course, lead the way" Lala smiled.

Yuuji also nodded and followed them alongside Lala.

The security captain led them to a nearby limousine, and in less than fifteen minutes they arrived at an enormous mansion that was obviously green, reminding Yuuji of another green-colored house where the president of a country usually stayed.

"Welcome to the Green House" the guard introduced it, having previously introduced himself in the limousine as Chris.

"Ooh, how pretty" Lala reacted.

"It is an honor" Chris nodded. "Please follow me inside"

Inside, Lala and Yuuji arrived at a room with double doors and a guard on the right who looked at them and nodded before opening the door. Chris, meanwhile, moved to the space on the left side of the door after saying goodbye to them.

"Yuuji, this reminds you quite a bit of Earth, doesn’t it?" Lala whispered.

"Yeah, although with some details" Yuuji agreed.

"Hohoho, it is quite an honor that the princess’s fiancé feels at home on our planet" a semi-elderly voice sounded once they entered the office.

There were many things there, but the most striking was the main setting, a dark wooden desk with several papers and a golden plaque with the name "Romeo".

On the floor in front of it was a huge circle painted on the ground with the symbol of three gears, and on top of it was a sofa.

And it was on this sofa that two adults with the appearance of people around 60 years old and a young woman around 25 were sitting.

"It is a pleasure to have Princess Lala in person here on QUI. My name is Romeo Shakes and I am the president of the World United Nation, ruler of the entirety of the planetary territory" introduced the black-haired man whose hair was already turning gray.

"Juliet Shakes, Romeo’s wife and First Lady of the World United Nation. It is a pleasure.

This is our daughter Alicia Shakes, Future President" introduced the woman of a similar age to Romeo with long, loose black hair.

"...A pleasure" said the young woman with black hair tied in a ponytail and light blue eyes with a formal smile.

"Likewise, a pleasure" Lala and Yuuji also said. "Thank you for having us here"

"Haha, it’s nothing, it is what someone of your status deserves, please sit down" Romeo smiled, dismissing it. "May I know if you are here for some official reason or if this is simply tourism?"

Yuuji and Lala sat in the chairs in front of them before speaking.

"About that..." Lala said, hesitating over whether she should ask directly. Despite her personality, being in a situation where everyone was so polite and formal made it somewhat difficult for her to be so direct.

"We have reliable information that Earth is going to be invaded, and QUI is the main suspect" Yuuji decided to intervene.

"...Your Highness, I swear on my own father’s life that we have no plan or intention of doing anything like that. I can grant you full access to all of QUI’s facilities if you wish so you can verify it yourself" Romeo was stunned for a second, but quickly controlled his expression and denied the accusation.

"May I know, Your Highness, where your information comes from?" Juliet asked.

"A vision of the future" Lala replied. Although her personality had quite a bit to do with it, Lala wasn’t simply saying that expecting them to believe such madness for no reason. The truth was that QUI was a species whose inhabitants had a certain degree of control over destiny, so to them, that kind of thing was perfectly believable.

Romeo narrowed his eyes upon hearing that, not because he doubted them, but because he was glimpsing the threads of destiny surrounding them both.

"I see, for the past few hours, destiny has been changing with its origin in you two. You are indeed changing a possible real future" Romeo nodded before standing and approaching Lala.

Before the confused gaze of the princess, Romeo extended both arms together toward the front.

"Your Highness, I truly do not know what will happen or your reasons, but I can swear to you that we have no intention of invading Earth or any other planet. Because of our past, we are a race that loves peace.

However, as president, whether for causing such a situation or for being unaware of your reasons, I deserve to be deprived of my freedom. I request that you arrest me and investigate the reason behind the vision"

"Father!"

"Husband!"

’Eh? Do we look like villains? How did this end up like this?’ Lala scratched her cheek awkwardly upon realizing it. "Eh... Ah... This... there is no need" she finally said, waving her arms in denial.

"There is no need to take it so seriously" Yuuji decided to intervene when he saw that Lala was overwhelmed by the situation. "Actually, it isn’t such a serious problem. After all, I am Gid’s heir and the fiancé of the first princess of the galaxy. The moment an alien fleet approaches Earth with those intentions, I can mobilize all of the Devilukean troops and annihilate them in seconds.

It’s just that Gid once told me to try negotiating before destroying them, so I thought I’d try to resolve this by talking"

Upon seeing Yuuji speak like a villain, Lala opened her eyes in astonishment, but the Shakes family was even more stunned.

"No, please forgive us, Lord Yuuji, I swear that..."

"As I said, I came here to talk, there is no need for apologies, arrests, and oaths. Just answer our questions" Yuuji interrupted him, emphasizing "and" instead of "or".

"Understood" Understanding his intentions, Romeo finally returned to the sofa beside his family and nodded without saying anything else.

"Is there any reason why you or QUI in general would want to invade Earth, something that could be useful to you there, something you need or simply desire?"

"Nothing, Lord Heir. We have investigated Earth before, and there is nothing there that would be useful to planet QUI or that we desire"

"Good, next question. Has any kind of strange situation happened recently? By this I mean any situation that, if you had told yourself about it in the past, you wouldn’t have considered normal"

"Something out of the ordinary if I thought about it in the past? Well, perhaps the reality earthquakes"

"What are those?" Yuuji raised an eyebrow at the name.

"You know that our species is capable of altering destiny to a small degree, among other abilities, right, Lord Heir? Doing this generates a special energy that we call destiny energy.

Until recently, this was unquestionably QUI’s main source of energy, but three months ago we discovered a new source of energy.

We discovered a dimensional spatial rift that appeared suddenly, and through it we can extract energy from another dimension. Although it has only been in circulation for three months, around one fifth of QUI already uses this energy source instead of the previous one. After all, to generate destiny energy, you need to constantly interact with destiny, while this new energy is as easy to obtain as paying for it.

However, extracting this energy occasionally causes spatial earthquakes. Fortunately, these aren’t dangerous, after all, space itself shakes, so it doesn’t affect anyone. It’s like moving a sheet with drawings on it, the drawing will move, yes, but it won’t actually be affected by it"

"Good" Yuuji nodded. "Last question, imagine QUI as a huge story unfolding right now. What do you believe is the most important foreshadowing?"

"This...story? What is a foreshadowing?" Romeo frowned and looked at his daughter. "Alicia, you read a lot of stories, do you know what that is?"

"It’s when an element that will definitely be useful later in the plot is mentioned or explained" Alicia explained. "They can usually be obvious or hidden, but since Lord Heir said ’the most important’, the hidden ones don’t matter"

"I see, I see" Romeo nodded in understanding. "In that case, I think it would be the Prophecy of Reversal"

"Prophecy of Reversal?" This time Lala was interested.

"Allow me to explain, Your Highness. I told you earlier that our planet is peace-loving, right? But what you may not know is the reason behind this.

Hundreds of years ago, our planet was facing a difficult situation, a situation called Monarchy. Of course, I know that with a competent king this can work out well. But on our planet, the king was nothing more than a puppet of the council of elders, those at the top of the hierarchy who saw all their citizens as nothing more than slaves who provided money and free labor. Because of this, there were many revolutions and uprisings, and QUI went through an era of war that lasted an entire century.

It was my ancestor, the king from 13 generations ago, who finally overthrew the council of elders, managed to earn the trust of both his followers and the common people, and created what we know today as Democracy.

That is why, after an entire century of struggle, QUI only wants to enjoy the peace that cost us so much to achieve.

But there is a reason why the council of elders ruled, thanks to their incredible control over destiny. Unlike today, where most of the planet has a similar control over destiny, a fairly basic one at that, back then those who were skilled were basically continental-level lethal weapons capable of dictating the life and death of thousands with a single gesture.

When they were overthrown, the council left a prophecy to the world, both a prophecy...and a curse destined to come true.

They said: History is doomed to repeat itself. Just as the monarchy fell today to give rise to democracy, one day democracy will fall to give rise to monarchy, and the world will return to an era of war like it has never seen before.

Therefore, if our world were a story, I believe the hero should be the one who manages to break QUI’s cursed destiny"

"...I understand, thank you for everything you have told us" Yuuji stood up with a sigh.

"...Is that all, Lord Heir?" Romeo asked, surprised that Yuuji had listened to that and not asked any other questions or shown more interest.

"Nothing else as far as the questions are concerned" Yuuji replied as he headed toward the door.

Before opening the door, Yuuji turned around. "We will continue investigating on the planet, so make sure to inform everyone and give us access.

Also, if any of the three of you disappear, make sure to let us know.

Goodbye, Mr. President"

With that said, Yuuji and Lala left the place.

Once outside the Green House, Yuuji finally allowed himself a sigh of relief. "Phew, that was difficult"

"Yuuji? Why did you suddenly start acting so cold back there?" Lala asked in surprise once she saw Yuuji return to his normal behavior.

"Although it sounded like a threat, I was only telling the truth. If we can’t prevent them from invading Earth, we’ll simply tell Gid and have him destroy their entire fleet.

As for being cold, I simply wanted to make sure they knew that I was willing to do it and that it wasn’t just a bluff. I needed them to know that, because the culprit is definitely one of them.

In fact, Mona had already investigated this planet and already knew most of what Romeo told us. The part about them being peace lovers is true, everyone is not only happy with the current state of things but also with their rulers. Even though the people can change their ruler and choose another one if they are dissatisfied, the Shakes family has remained in charge for thirteen generations already. What does that tell you?

It means the planet isn’t going to be taken over by rebels or something similar. It’s impossible for one to appear literally tomorrow and order their entire fleet to invade Earth. That being the case, the culprit can only be someone who already has the power to do it right now."

"That makes sense" Lala nodded. She wasn’t stupid, not by a long shot, she just didn’t usually think about those kinds of things, so once Yuuji explained it to her, she was able to understand and fill in the remaining gaps herself. "And what about the questions you asked?"

"About that, do you remember what Yui did two weeks ago on WARA?"

"When she said that everything around Rito follows a pattern, as if it were a story? Do you think that happens here too?"

"Well, if it happens around an ordinary human, I think it’s perfectly possible for it to happen on a planet that can interact with fate, right? Everything is destined and all that"

"I suppose that makes sense?" This time Lala was a little confused.

In reality, Yuuji had lied a little there. He didn’t merely think that was happening, he was completely certain.

After all, trouble followed Rito as if he were in a story, and every encounter happened according to a pattern, a pattern that even Yui, a person from this world, had been able to notice.

This was supposedly because he was an anime character, but once inside this world, what was the explanation for it? What was the reason for the plot correction? Why, even after he was no longer with Lala and his future had changed so drastically, did he still seem to be the protagonist of an anime?

Well, once Yuuji learned that Yui could also notice what was happening, he knew that it couldn’t really be some kind of plot correction, it had to be something from this world.

And after coming to this planet, Yuuji theorized that if fate was a real, tangible, and manipulable energy, then Rito was probably some kind of child of fate, someone whose destiny was too intertwined with destinies that should never have had anything to do with him in the first place, passively attracting random destinies and linking them to himself.

"Well, obviously we’re going to that dimensional rift to investigate, right?" Lala asked, pulling Yuuji out of his thoughts.

"Obviously" Yuuji agreed.

THRUMMMMM...

Those plans were interrupted when the space around them trembled. Just as Romeo had said, nothing was physically affected, instead, everything around them suddenly seemed to duplicate.

A second red reality seemed to overlap with this one with a difference of a few centimeters until they fit together, merging the colors into a deep yellow.

This color lasted only a few seconds before fading away, returning everything to its original green.

"Wow, that one was big" a nearby voice was heard.

"Yeah, and I’ve never seen the two colors fit together like that before. It was incredible" another replied.

Before Lala and Yuuji could process what had just happened, Peke spoke.

[Miss Lala, Young Master Yuuji, Romeo has just sent a message. During the spatial earthquake, Alicia disappeared and they cannot locate her]

"Looks like we found our culprit" Yuuji smiled.

...

In front of a rift only about five meters tall and three meters wide at its widest points, Yuuji and Lala watched with expressions of amazement.

Around it was a machine with five bronze rings rotating randomly and at incredible speed around the rift. Connected to the outer ring of this machine was an extra ring that did not move, and hundreds of cables were connected to it, each one leading to a different storage facility than the one containing the rift.

"Yuuji, should we try going through it? It doesn’t look like we’re going to find anything on this side"

"Wait a moment." Yuuji decided to be cautious. "Hey..."

"Luie" said the nearest technician, standing up when he was called. Unlike Yuuji and Lala, he was dressed from head to toe in a complete protective suit similar to those used for radiation.

"Luie, have you tried crossing this before?"

"Yes, but no one has come back alive. We theorized that it’s because there’s nothing there. It’s not another space, but another dimension"

"Is that so?" Yuuji understood. "Lala, can you handle it?"

"On it!" Lala said, having expected those words.

While Lala took out several detectors, Yuuji decided to continue gathering information.

"Is there anything you can tell me about Alicia, Romeo and Julieta’s daughter?"

"About Julieta? Not really. She’s been somewhat sickly since she was little, so she doesn’t go out much and we don’t know much about her. The most we know is that she likes books"

"Books" Yuuji raised an eyebrow.

"Narrative power!" Lala said behind Yuuji, putting her artifacts away again. "When the other side appeared, the fate energy on this side was replaced by highly concentrated narrative power"

"You know I have no idea what that is, right?"

"And you know it’s my job to explain it to you" Lala smiled. "You can consider narrative power an energy similar to fate energy and completely opposite to it at the same time. Unlike fate energy, which is created by interfering with fate, narrative power comes from high-level destinies. The closest thing you can imagine is a good story. When such a destiny exists, it creates narrative power.

Although this seems to be something different. Normally, narrative power is just a way of referring to what is technically fate energy of an excessively high level, but this seems to be a completely isolated energy that comes entirely from an artificially created narrative, and it even requires the influence of mental energy when it is created. This indicates that it has to be created entirely, unlike normal narrative power, which simply comes from altering or modifying fate"

Yuuji nodded, understanding the general idea, and turned his gaze toward the technician. "Is Alicia a writer?"

"Well... I really don’t know. But haven’t all readers tried writing something at some point? Maybe she has tried it?" the technician said, not really certain.

"That works. Does anything happen if you turn this machine off?"

"Nothing important. The rift is perfectly stable and we only extract energy from it. Do you need me to stop it, Sir Heir?"

"Do it, and if Alicia comes here, don’t let her touch anything"

"Miss Alicia? Of course" Although the technician didn’t understand, he obeyed as ordered.

After pressing a few buttons and lowering a lever on the control panel, the rings began to slow down until they finally stopped a few seconds later.

"Can we cross?" Yuuji asked Lala.

Lala tossed him a simple, small brooch, which he attached to his shirt, and then nodded. "Let’s go"

Meanwhile, as Yuuji and Lala passed through the rift, the technician simply watched in confusion. He had received orders to do whatever Lala and Yuuji told him, but he really wasn’t sure why they were acting the way they were.

"Forced narrative power, how fascinating" Even so, he didn’t waste any time. Lala was known as the number one genius in the galaxy, and her discoveries would save him years of research, so he immediately began writing down and organizing everything he had heard Lala say.

Seconds later, he was forced to stop when he felt the machine’s rings suddenly begin to move. No, the rings weren’t simply moving, they were going at full speed, so fast that they soon disappeared from ordinary sight.

At this rate of energy absorption, the rift and machine began to tremble, making the space around them tremble as well.

Slowly, a figure appeared at the center of the rings and the rift.

It was as if someone had perfectly cut a sphere in half vertically, or as if half of it were invisible, since the energy circulated as though the missing half were still there.

This completely red hemisphere of moving energy began growing larger and larger before the technician’s eyes until he finally snapped out of his daze and ran toward the control panel.

There, he found a girl with loose hair manipulating the controls without any care.

"Miss Alicia, what are you doing?"

"Malicia" the girl corrected with a smile.

Hearing this, the technician, who had been overcome by panic, finally noticed what was strange about the girl in front of him. She was wearing clothes in shades of red, and her skin was also slightly red.

"Y-you’re not Alicia. Who are you? No, where did you come from?"

Malicia ignored the technician, who had fallen flat on his face when he saw her approach, and looked at the growing sphere of energy with satisfaction.

By this point, the energy had grown large enough and the machine was beginning to fail.

Crack! Crack!

Boom!

The rings began separating one by one and shooting away. They pierced through the walls and crashed into other storage facilities, causing explosions because of the energy batteries inside them.

Malicia watched the sphere continue to grow larger and larger, no longer needing the machine, and gave a confident smile. "At this point, it’s impossible to stop it"

...

Meanwhile, on the other side of the rift, Yuuji and Lala had arrived some time ago. However, as soon as they arrived, both of them could feel themselves being pushed as far away from the rift as possible until they finally resisted.

Even from dozens of kilometers away, they could easily see a green hemisphere growing at incredible speed. They didn’t even have time to pay attention to the surroundings, which were almost exactly identical to QUI, but red.

"What the hell is that thing?"

[According to a basic analysis, that sphere contains spatial power, narrative power, and fate energy forcibly mixed together.

The sphere is consuming all the energy on both sides of the rift and forcibly fusing it inside itself. Once it reaches its capacity limit, it will explode, and the estimated consequences are as disastrous as they are unknown]

Yuuji remembered the image Mona had created based on those who would invade Earth and had a fairly clear idea of what would happen when it exploded.

"It seems like they want to forcibly fuse both dimensions" Lala said. "But the method is crude and will end very badly. Why would they do that?"

"Let’s think about that later. For now, we have to stop it" Yuuji said.

"Mona, investigate if you can do anything."

[Sir, apparently there is a machine identical to the one used in QUI to extract energy in this world. I have already taken control of it and all the technology from OTE and stopped it. However, the machine on the other side is still active, and I cannot stop it from this side.]

"Tsk" Yuuji merely clicked his tongue in annoyance and decided to approach and deal with the sphere directly.

"Mmm?" When he tried to move, Yuuji noticed that something was trying to stop him. It was the same force that had pushed them away from the rift before, but just like before, a little resistance was enough for him to overcome it easily.

Fwoooosh

"What?" Yuuji looked around in confusion. He was at the same distance from the rift as before, but this time on the opposite side. He had moved dozens of kilometers in the blink of an eye.

In another blink, Yuuji had returned to Lala.

"Yuuji, you’re amazing. Just like I thought" Lala said once she saw him return.

"You know what’s happening?" Yuuji asked.

"Of course" Lala said proudly. "Your narrative power is immense."

"My narrative power?"

"That’s right. Who could surpass a transmigrator with thousands of stories in his head that don’t exist in this world when it comes to power based on creating stories?

In reality, the brooch I gave you only uses your narrative power to protect me. You were also the one who resisted the force pushing us away earlier. I haven’t done anything since we arrived"

"So... this is narrative power" Yuuji murmured in surprise. He didn’t feel anything strange inside himself or any external energy, he simply felt thousands of times more powerful than normal, which in itself was incredible. "Although it’s a little difficult to control"

"Don’t worry, Yuuji. The main use of narrative power is to modify the narrative. If you can’t get there... simply bring that place closer. This entire place is made of narrative power, after all"

’That’s why I can’t feel anything’ Yuuji realized. ’Because everything itself is narrative power’

"Bring it closer..." Yuuji repeated to himself while placing his hands as if they were a frame around the sphere and zooming in.

All of reality around them moved at incredible speed, transforming into impossible-to-discern shapes. When it stopped, the sphere and a machine identical to the one on the other side of the rift were right in front of them, directly above a... castle?

"What are we doing in a castle?" Yuuji asked in confusion, but quickly shook the thought away and decided to concentrate. He pointed at the sphere and...

"Divide"

The sphere’s size immediately shrank by half, and since both halves of the sphere were actually one single enormous sphere, its size was reduced on the other side of the rift as well.

"No, no, no!" A shrill scream was heard nearby.

Alicia raised her hands and the entire castle transformed into countless bricks that were launched toward Yuuji.

"Stop!" Alicia screamed desperately.

Yuuji raised one hand and they both stopped in midair. He raised another, and all the bricks heading toward him turned around in the air and were sent back toward Alicia.

Alicia snapped her fingers, increasing the temperature around her by tens of thousands of degrees and melting all the approaching bricks. The ground dried out and cracked beneath her, and eruptions of lava rose from the cracks, transforming into gigantic Lava giants that roared toward Yuuji and surrounded him from every direction before attacking.

Thump Thump Thump

The ground trembled with every step they took. In fact, the ground shook so violently that it split apart and they fell into an infinite bottomless pit.

"Stop doing that, this is my kingdom! No one can defeat me here!"

"Seems pretty easy?" Yuuji mocked as a transparent construct surrounded Alicia.

Alicia looked at him in confusion before moving toward the boundary and hitting it, only to lose her balance when she hit nothing and then find herself directly behind it the next moment.

"What?" Unable to believe that they could actually trap her, Alicia moved upward this time, exiting through the bottom of the cube the next instant.

"No, no, no!"

Alicia conjured a sword in her hands and cut through the cube. But just like her, her attack disappeared, only to appear behind her a second later, forcing her to dodge it.

With Alicia trapped there, Yuuji simply continued using Divide over and over on the sphere until the remaining power was small enough for it to disappear.

"Yuuji!" Lala approached and high-fived him happily. "We did it! Lately we’ve been helping other planets quite a lot. Should we become the Guardians of the Galaxy or something?"

"No, that name is copyrighted" Yuuji refused. "Let’s figure out what she was trying to do instead"

Yuuji made a gesture with his hand and the cube containing Alicia moved closer to them.

"Will you tell us now what you were trying to do?"

"You, do you know what you just did? It was my chance to free QUI from its fate. And you ruined it!!" Alicia screamed furiously.

However, Yuuji had always felt that her emotions seemed somewhat fake.

"A chance that involved conquering Earth?"

"I wasn’t going to conquer Earth, I just... was going to steal some books... most probably" Alicia replied.

"You don’t seriously expect me to believe that, right?" Yuuji raised an eyebrow.

"I... fine, I’ll tell you everything" Alicia sighed with an expression full of annoyance.

"Wait, there are other people you should tell"

...

In the presidential office inside the Green House, Yuuji and Lala brought Alicia in, now restrained with handcuffs since narrative power did not work in this dimension.

"Alicia!"

"What the hell were you trying to do? That thing could have destroyed all of QUI’s space! Do you know what that means? It means death, for everything and everyone!"

While her mother showed concern, her father scolded her as soon as he saw her appear.

Alicia ignored her parents and looked at the girl identical to her but with opposite colors who was also there in handcuffs.

"So they caught you too"

"What did you expect? I can’t use narrative power here and I don’t have any fate energy" Malicia shrugged indifferently.

"Alicia, you’re going to tell us right now what you were doing, and I want the whole truth" Romeo reprimanded her.

"I was going to do that, you know?" Alicia complained, sitting on the sofa carelessly. She clearly didn’t really consider her parents a threat or the situation dangerous. Or perhaps she did, but simply didn’t care.

"Do you remember the gift you gave me for my fifth birthday?"

"The Ancestors’ Necklace, yes. It’s a treasure that has been passed down through our family for more than twenty generations and grants its user power in random situations" Romeo nodded.

"That one. Well, it wasn’t random. I discovered how it worked when I was ten while reading a story aloud. As long as you feed the necklace high-quality narrative, it gives you power"

"That... certainly makes sense. If it comes to reading books, a king or president usually doesn’t do it because of how busy they are, so they wouldn’t discover such a mechanism, at least not enough times to understand how it works. And you’re the first person to have it as a child, since we gave it to you so you’d know that we don’t care about the illness that makes you weaker and that we treat you like a normal person.

"But wait, Alicia, what does this have to do with anything?!"

"You’d know if you let me explain instead of suddenly interrupting me and starting to explain things as if a reader would need it, you know?!" Alicia complained angrily.

"Anyway, three months ago I was reading a very good book that they brought me from outside, and the necklace suddenly overheated and created a dimensional rift, the one you’ve been extracting energy from, and you haven’t paid me anything for it, by the way.

I think that because the quality was so good, the narrative power exceeded the limit and managed to touch the narrative power that made up the other dimension.

But here’s the main point. I think these two dimensions aren’t actually two dimensions, but one single dimension that was split apart"

"One single dimension split apart?"

"That’s right. You’ve never been there, so you don’t know this, but the other dimension only encompasses QUI and nothing else, although it’s called OTE there. Besides, they’re still a monarchy there, so I think that’s where the dimension was split. Perhaps by the council of elders, in order to weaken the power of future generations who dared to oppose them."

"I don’t see the connection between one thing and the other"

"Yes? It must be because you won’t let me finish talking" Alicia replied sarcastically. "Think about it. According to history, back then, those with more fate energy and better control over it ruled, but how is that possible if the only thing this energy is useful for is powering things? Not only that, but we have to interact with fate to obtain it, and even if we wanted to do something greater with fate, we couldn’t because we need fate energy.

How is it possible that we need fate energy to interact with fate and thus obtain fate energy in almost the same amount that we’re using, with barely any gain?

Well, my theory is that it’s because we’re using it wrong. Our powers were originally meant to create artificial destinies, the so-called narratives, and from these obtain fate energy that allows us to interact with real fate.

Of course, there’s one last point that convinced me that both dimensions are one, and that’s her?"

Alicia pointed directly at Malicia.

"Her?"

"Me?"

"That’s right. Do you know how hard it was to convince her to help me? Not at all. And not just her, if you look at all the people in OTE, none of them seem complete, as if they were merely weak consciousnesses. I think the people there are simply part of our subconscious because QUI and OTE aren’t actually completely separated.

Isn’t it great? Uniting the dimensions makes us more powerful and doesn’t hurt anyone"

"Actually, I think it makes sense, daughter. If you had told us about this before, perhaps..."

"It wouldn’t have worked" Yuuji interrupted them. "Look, these are the images from tomorrow’s vision.

If I’m not mistaken, the spatial earthquakes were you testing the waters, right? Seeing if you could fuse the realities, and the successful final result should have been today’s yellow.

But this was your result for tomorrow."

"Eh, so it didn’t work." Alicia looked at the images with superficial interest. "Well, that explains what I was doing on Earth. If everything went that badly, I probably would have tried to fix it using narrative power to modify reality"

"And why would you go to Earth for that?" Yuuji raised an eyebrow.

"You either create narrative power or steal it. Earth is the origin of the story that managed to overload the Ancestors’ Necklace and open a rift to OTE." Alicia replied with a more animated voice than she had used throughout her entire previous explanation.

This made Yuuji realize that a book mattered more to Alicia than the entire situation at hand. Alicia didn’t even seem remorseful or disappointed about failing, despite the fact that her objective had ultimately been quite noble.

’I really don’t understand her’ Yuuji could only think.

"You know you’re going to prison for this, right?" Yuuji asked.

"Can I read there? If so, that’s fine."

"About that, Lord Heir..." Romeo nervously interjected.

"You’re not going to tell me you won’t judge her because she’s your daughter or something like that, right?" Yuuji narrowed his eyes in his direction.

"It’s not that, of course not. It’s just that, you know how a trial works in a democracy, and given her good reputation, as well as the fact that she was acting for the good of all QUI, I don’t think she’ll be found guilty"

"Don’t worry, President Romeo" Lala interjected. "QUI may be a democracy, but it’s under Deviluke’s control, and Deviluke... is a monarchy."

"I see. Daughter. I’m truly sorry, but what you did put many people in danger" Romeo sighed. "I sincerely hope you reflect on responsibility and someday return as a welcome member of QUI, but not as its president"

Julieta, for her part, simply looked at Alicia with mixed emotions of sadness and disappointment and shook her head without saying anything.

"Tsk, I should have stayed reading books instead of trying to act like I was in one" Alicia complained, paying no attention to her parents.

With this, the matter of the invasion of planet Earth was finally resolved once and for all, but not the matter between QUI and OTE.

The fact that both dimensions had originally been one interested Lala, and she decided to merge the dimensions back together if Romeo and Julieta agreed. Something which, of course, they both accepted.

It couldn’t exactly be called difficult for Lala, but at least compared to how long it normally took her, it took quite a while, forcing the couple to stay there for another three days.

Once it was resolved, the now-called QUIXOTE became completely yellow, and all the citizens not only became more powerful but also became more lively and full of emotion, as if their personalities were now complete.

Curiously, the one who underwent the greatest difference turned out not to be in QUIXOTE at all, but in a prison on Deviluke. After investigating the reason, Lala discovered that both the illness that caused Alicia’s weakness and her apathetic personality and lack of emotions were most likely caused by her missing almost half of her subconscious, something inconceivable since most QUI citizens were missing at most 10%. This was also the reason Malicia was smart enough to help Alicia with her plan, while all the other inhabitants of OTE were basically NPCs.

After the fusion and becoming complete, Alicia finally began to experience real emotions and apologized every day to everyone around her, repeatedly asking to speak with her parents and saying how sorry she was while crying.

However, Yuuji, knowing that both Alicia and Malicia seemed to have problematic personalities, seriously suspected that Alicia hadn’t actually become a good person, but a true scheming villain who was pretending to be remorseful.

But leaving Alicia’s matter aside, which is destined to become a huge headache six hundred years from now when she escapes and Yuuji is forced to capture her, the most powerful people in QUIXOTE are now Romeo and Julieta, so Yuuji asked them for a favor.

He took Rito there and asked them to turn him into a normal person. Confirming Yuuji’s previous theory, they were shocked to see the infinity of destinies connected to Rito for no reason, before cutting them off and doing something to prevent him from attracting more.

Of course, they didn’t prevent normal destinies, simply, for some reason, Rito attracted destinies that shouldn’t have been linked to him. Those would no longer become linked to him for no reason.

With everything resolved, Yuuji and Lala finally left the place.

Inside the spaceship, watching QUIXOTE grow smaller and more distant through the window, Yuuji decided to read a book for the first time in a long while.

It was Alicia’s favorite book, something Romeo and Julieta had given him before they left. According to them, if it had been capable of connecting to another dimension, then it had to be very good.

Yuuji took the book out of the paper bag and looked at the cover before placing it on the table with a sigh somewhere between helplessness and resignation.

On the cover was a small black-haired boy wearing glasses next to a huge mechanical blue cat with a large white belly.

"Maybe I should also go get myself checked by Romeo and Julieta to see if I’m a Child of Fate" Yuuji sighed. "I really hope I don’t passively attract trouble too"

______________________________________

+10 Chapters in advance on Patreon.

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(just delete the hyphen)

80 power stones = 1 extra Chapter (cumulative)