2 September 2021

19:18, No Good Apartment

 

What a ride!

After I asked her to tell the story from the beginning, she stopped using the anonymous question form and just sent it through chat with a username: LittleSnow. (I inferred that she is a girl from the story she told me. No idea if that is the truth though.) And as if everyone was listening to her story, nobody typed anything in the chat at all while she was telling the story.

Well… my chat was usually incredibly quiet, so it might not be that accurate after all...

Anyway!

First, her story really reeked of Chuunibyou vibe. It was so much that it became extremely hard to understand.

To save time, I will try to summarize it as much as possible all while decrypting her story at the same time.

It appears that LittleSnow is currently a 10 years-old girl. She came from a family that seemed to have rather high background. Her mother and father sent her to a very prestigious school in the neighborhood.

At first, LittleSnow was doing rather well in her study and easily became the top of her class. Starting this semester, however, she seemed to become unable to adapt to her new class and her grade started to fall down.

The Straight-A student quickly became a Straight-F student.

With her friends began backing out after seeing her failed, LittleSnow became a loner. That was why she began to seek other enjoyment in her life. She started to believe that she was, in fact, a mage apprentice.

As for the question she had asked before…

After she had done playing in her fantasy alone, she must want something that most humans want, a social interaction. LittleSnow probably wanted to have some person that understood her, that is why she tried asking me—a seemingly Chuunibyou Vtuber—that question.

Well… At least she is not a troll. At least not intentionally.

But...

Sigh…

I could just tell her straight that all my live streams are me role-playing a character and encourage her to become “normal” again, but that is not really an option. As that would really make my professionalism as a Vtuber become questionable.

And if just telling her work then her family and teacher would probably succeed in making her change back to normal a long time ago already. A person hiding in her own shell, like her, would probably hide at the harsh cold truth at the moment she notices.

What I must do now is to accept her as who she is and play along until she is satisfied.

To do that, the first I must do is to understand her question.

Most of the time, when someone asked a question, they already had an answer that they had expected. The key to answering correctly lies in understanding the questioner and the hidden detail.

The questioner…

I would say now that although I am not too sure, I appear to be able to understand at least 90% of what LittleSnow thinks.

She is just that easy to understand.

What she wants is probably a sense of uniqueness. That is why she tried distinguishing herself from other kids in her class as a “mage apprentice”.

The thing that could make her very unique is very easy to make.

What would be more unique than “It seems that you have a unique physique!”.

Who would not want their own unique physique?

There is none!

Easy.

The tricky part here is after. It is what unique physique that she wants.

The answer to that lies in the second thing, the hidden detail.

Why would she write that long back story that nobody really wanted to read?

It was to hide her hidden thought! Like a sulked girlfriend that would not tell you the real reason no matter what but secretly left a clue for you to figure it out by yourself.

(Source: most girls in anime.)

Anyway, the key to knowing what to answer here lies in the detail.

After I gave another quick read of her story, I notice a rather important point. LittleSnow appeared to place emphasis a lot on the pain, especially the progressive pain part.

Hmm… Wait!

It was the same as last time.

The pain she felt this time was the same as last time!

Why is it not increasing when she wants to emphasize the progressive pain?

Why?

The key to her answer, in fact, lies in the detail after all. The way she was stressing the point about pain was essentially saying “Notice this! I am giving you a hint already, don’t you see it?”.

So, the unique physique she wanted probably relates with the condition of herself when she was making a breakthrough this time.

The difference between a normal school day and this time… was the fact that she was in the forest, with a pond and in the dawn…?

So, it is either wood, water, or darkness…

After I have come this far, the rest is pretty easy. All I have to do now is to come up with a name for her “unique physique”.

 

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2, Month Fall-Quatre, Year Elizabeth 402

06:20, Claude Mansion

 

After stated all her story, Alice looked at the stone tablet expectantly.

The experience of the hour ago could only be described as it feels like she was in a dream. After the countdown ended, the picture changed to become an avatar projection—it also looked like a drawing—of sage Khun. The avatar seemed to be a little unrealistic and rather limited in behavior compared to a normal human, only simple actions such as blink, talk, or turn his head could be performed. Still, that didn’t make the domineering feeling from him decreased at all, rather it became empowered.

It did not take long for Alice to realize that the projection was a real-time platform for sage Khun to interact with his followers, as she saw him talking and responded to the text that occasionally appeared on the right side of the tablet. What surprised Alice the most was that although both sage Khun and his follower were chatting in the language that she had not heard and seen before, she was still able to understand it.

It appeared that this tablet had been enhanced with a translation enhancement.

After playing around with the tablet some more Alice found that she could also type in the “Chat” box that all the followers interacted with sage Khun. The options included touching the button—with a character label—on the tablet screen to form a sentence or using the voice—seemingly called “Voice typing”—which not only made all her speech change into text but also translated it to the language that all of them have been using. As Alice did not understand the language, the only option she left with was voice typing.

She tried it several times only to delete it after. The first reason being she was shy of suddenly talking to strangers especially those that she could not see their true face. The other reason was because of sage Khun. He did not exactly come off as scary. He also conversed very politely with his followers, there was something that still made Alice apprehensive about asking him.

It was like he would understand anything about her just by looking at her with those eyes. Sage Khun seemed like those professors that have all the knowledge in the world. Even though Alice did not understand most of the questions—it seemed to be all about adult relationships—she could not help but felt awed by his mannerism and wisdom as he answered all the questions with ease. He was like a god but at the same time, it seemed like it may also be just a farce. The conflicting image of him made Alice did not know what to do.

What if he could help me?

That question popped in Alice’s mind several times, but she immediately rejected those thoughts every time it came up. She did not want to get her hope up only got it destroyed again.

But that changed around five minutes ago.

When he said that next would be the last question, Alice felt her mind going blank. Her hand moved toward the tablet and her mouth started to open on its own. After she came to herself again, her question had already been sent. Her desperation came through all the resistance she had in her mind.

There was nothing she could do anymore but waiting for the answer. She was like a little lost child, waiting for their parent to come.

To her surprise, sage Khun almost immediately read her question as if he was waiting for it the whole time, he even asked her a follow-up question to make a better understanding of her situation.

Alice reached out to the tablet once more. This time not to the question sending form but the chat. Before she could send an answered though, the tablet required her to make an “account” first. Alice followed the instruction that showed on the screen and chose her “username” as LittleSnow without much thought.

After reading the chatting that they made, Alice knew that the people shown on the tablet did not use their real name but a fake one. Not only that but there appeared to be a rule that was to not divulge their real identities that they silently agree on. So, Alice did the same and choose some random name without much association with herself to use.

And then there was only silence…

Sage Khun and his followers all read the story of her past three months in complete silence.

Alice suddenly became tearful. With the current stage she is now, there were only her family and her close friend that still tried to help her seriously. Others have long become numb to it—with some even scorned her. Having known that there were still people willing to help her made Alice's heart grew warm.

She could not help but become hopeful again.

“You have done well during this tough time, LittleSnow.” sage Khun said, his voice gentle. His clear eyes stared straight at her.

After listening to the unexpected compliment, Alice felt that her eyes become moist and her vision blurred. The tear that had been stopped immediately start again. This time was not from the sadness and despair, but something completely opposite. Now she felt that even if sage Khun could not help her, she probably would not feel much disappointment. Her action and suffering had already been acknowledged. No one had ever done that to her before.

But what come after shocked her even more.

“The solution to your question is actually very easy.” said the sage.

“…!?”

“In fact, the answer already lies behind you.”

“B… Behind me?” Alice whispered while looked back by instinct. There, the pond that was on the edge of the circle appeared before her eyes. Confused, she immediately sent another text into the tablet.

“It is… a pond?”

After reading her answer, sage Khun appeared to be deep in thought, his emotion unfathomable. It lasted about five seconds before he answered.

“It is but that is not actually the answer I was looking for, LittleSnow. What I mean is not what the thing is but what is the essence of it. The answer is not the pond but the water… the water essence to be exact.”

“…What?” Alice asked. Her mouth gaped from the shock that seemed like the umpteenth time of today.

“The truth is magic doesn’t come with a general guideline that everyone can follow and be able to achieve the same result.” He continued to elaborate. “Everyone has different body, aptitude, background, and preference so how can a single method be applied to everybody?”

Alice could not help but nodded at sage Khun's question. His answer seemed simple but at the same time profound. It struck at the heart of the matter.

“So, the reason I cannot breakthrough with a method other used is because I am different?”

“Indeed. It is because you have a different constitution compare to others, a unique physique if you want to be specific.”

“U… Unique physique!?”

“Indeed. And the unique physique that you have is…” sage Khun replied but did not continue immediately. Instead, he closed his eyes for a moment as if pondering about something. The pause made Alice slightly tensed.

What if it is bad?

That certainly seemed like a possibility considered how bad she could breakthrough.

“It is…”

“It is…?” Alice repeated vacantly. Her voice was hoarse, but her mind filled with anticipation.

“The water-ice twin head dragon physique.”

“The...w…water…what?”

“The water-ice twin head dragon physique... supreme grade.” said the sage coolly.