Chrono157

Sorry for this author's note after that cliffhanger from last chapter, but I wanted to do a poll for something. I'm thinking of making an Original Story. I have a general idea for what I want it to be. I want to make it a LitRPG and I have an idea for the main character's design, but other than that I have nothing. I am still planning. What I want to ask is if I should start posting that alongside this story or if I should post it after this story is completed. Note if you want me to start making posts after I have solidified the premise for the story and not before I finish this story, the updates to this story will be slower.

New Urgent Quest Available

- Overcome Trauma.

Urgent Quests Cannot be Decline

Accepting Quest…

Quest Accepted

Mio’s voice rang out.

Hearing her voice, I felt my body tense up again.

‘O-o-oh n-n-no. A-another u-urgent q-quest? W-w-what if i-i-it’s a-a-as i-impossible a-a-as the f-first o-one? W-w-what do I-I d-do?’

I brought my knees to my chest before wrapping my arms around my legs and I started trembling uncontrollably. I was scared of the quest and just wanted to return to the peaceful life I once had. More tears dropped out of my eyes, while I gently rocked myself back and forth in an effort to calm myself down, like how a baby does in a cradle. I felt completely defeated at that moment, nothing else mattered to me except wallowing in my despair.

‘What is the point of this desire for power and this journey as a whole if I can never get powerful enough to even do the simplest tasks? Why do I even bother with this in the first place? What purpose do my sealed memories even serve?!’ I depressively thought to myself before that depressive feeling turned to feelings of rage. ‘Why did my System make me go through that?! Isn’t it supposed to help me and not drag me down?! Then what is the meaning of this?!’ I asked while I took my arms off my knees and slowly sat up.

Soon my rage subsided and was replaced by a feeling of guilt and uselessness. ‘Sorry Miu, Mio for that outburst I had, my emotions got the better of me. I should just accept that I’m more useless than a rock. I haven’t managed to do a single thing correctly since I got here. Despite my desire for power, I’ve lost both the battles I have been in, and both times, my opponents weren’t even taking me seriously… Even a broken stick would be more threatening than I am. Why do I keep trying? It's obvious that I’ll never be able to accomplish my goal. Why do I even want my memories back in the first place? Surely I can live without them…’

Ayaka…

Miu started in a voice full of sympathy.

‘Don’t bother, there is no point to anything you say right now. Just let me despair in my inadequacies alone.’ I cut her off before she could say anything.

…

Miu was speechless by my response. Then I heard a crying sound.

Ayaka, please listen to me!

Miu yelled in a teary voice.

I felt a bit guilty hearing her voice, but I remained steadfast in my stance.

‘Save your voice, nothing will help me right now… What even is the point of my existence if I can’t do anything?’ I turned her down.

New Urgent Quest Available

- Talk It Out With Miu

Completion Reward: Authority Level Up 1

Failure Punishment: System Forced Sleep Mode - Duration: 1 Week

Urgent Quests Cannot be Declined

Accepting Quest…

Quest Accepted

I heard Mio’s voice announce.

My downtrodden feelings turned into unbridled anger this time. “What! Now you are forcing me to talk to you! Why are you doing this to me!? Can’t you just leave me alone!? Why are you always forcing me to do things I don’t want to do!?” I yelled in frustration.

T-trust m-me, i-it’s f-for y-your own good!

Miu yelled while crying.

“How is it for my own good?! You have the audacity to claim that after you made me experience that trauma!” I screamed back in frustration.

I-I c-can’t a-answer t-that r-right n-now.

Miu replied before she started fully sobbing.

W-w-w-we a-a-a-are d-d-doing e-ev-everything w-we c-c-ca-can to h-he-help y-you!

Miu added, her words broken and stuttery due to how much she was crying.

Hearing her crying, my feeling of rage slowly started to dissipate and I started feeling guilty once more.

‘*Sigh*. Why do I have to be like this… I made Miu cry for no reason even though she was only trying to help me. Miu isn’t even the one in charge of making the quests, and neither is Mio, yet I unleashed my anger on them. Why do I even exist in the first place? First Mom and Dad left me, and now Satori, Koishi, Orin, and Okuu have also left me alone in this place to suffer. Now Mio and Miu will want to leave me as well… I really don’t deserve them do I?’

I slowly wrapped my arms around my legs again and began to weep uncontrollably. ‘Everyone in my life leaves me, I’m all alone. It’s so lonely here. I want someone to help me, but nobody will because I am alone…’

That’s not true, Ayaka! Stop lying to yourself!

Miu again yelled at me in a hoarse voice, but this time she wasn’t crying while trying to talk.

“You two are going to leave me now, right? I said some terrible things to you and I am just utterly useless that going to literally anyone else would be better, right?” I depressively asked her, while still shedding tears from my eyes. My emotions were still all over the place. I felt lethargic, tired, and just completely broken inside.

No! We will stay with you! We will always stand beside you, even if we don’t have a physical body!

Miu firmly denied while trying to reassure me.

“Why? I’m just a nobody that no one loves…” I was shocked by her passionate denial but soon went back to feeling down again.

Because we like you! You are a fun person to be around! You are nice, you are thoughtful, you are playful! We wouldn’t choose anyone except you! You are loved by more people than you think!

Miu answered in a loud voice before saying something completely untrue.

“No way! My parents and everyone at the Palace have forsaken me. I have nowhere left to go.” I replied before a few tears fell from my eyes again.

No they haven’t! Your parents didn’t abandon you, you were forcefully separated, as for why, I can’t explain right now. The people of the Palace all love you and are waiting for you to wake up! Snap out of your depression already and look at the truth!

Miu told me with a hint of annoyance in her voice.

“You’re the one who’s lying, there is no way that they are waiting for me… They don’t care about me.” I refused her claim.

Do you want to keep believing that? Fine! I’ll prove it to you that they care!

Miu said, and before I could say anything, my vision was filled with white. I closed my eyes to avoid becoming blind due to the bright light.

After I felt the light diminish, I slowly blinked open my eyes. I looked directly upwards at the ceiling, and from that, I noticed I was laying down on a bed. I slowly sat up and looked around the room. I realized I was once again on the bed in the used bedroom in the royal chambers.

“Mhmm.” I heard a sound from the corner of the bed. I turned to the sound and saw Okuu laying her head on the bed, asleep.

I tried to move away from her in fear that she hated me, but my fumbling woke her up. She slowly lifted her body out of the slouched position she was sleeping in. She slowly rubbed her eyes before opening them. She then looked directly at me, keeping her eyes locked on me for a few seconds while showing a slightly shocked expression.

“You’re awake!” She shouted before running out the door. From the other side of the door, I could faintly hear her yelling “Everyone, she’s awake!”

A few moments later, Satori burst through the door followed by Koishi, Orin, and finally Okuu. When Satori saw me awake, she immediately ran towards me and caught me in an embrace. Unlike the other times when I had resisted getting hugged, I simply accepted it this time because it made me feel safe. Soon, Koishi joined the hug, then Orin wrapped her arms around the three of us, and finally, Okuu squeezed all of us into a tight embrace. Still feeling insecure about myself, I hesitated in whether or not to hug them all, but soon feelings of comfort and love flowed from each of them into me, causing me to wrap all of them in my arms. When I did this, I felt tears falling from my eyes, this time not from negative feelings, but from the relief I felt instead.

“Are you okay Ayaka?” Satori asked, noticing my tears.

“Everything good, lil sis?” Koishi asked while reaching towards my hand to comfort me.

“Do you need another hug?” Orin asked while spreading her arms wide and inviting me into her embrace.

“What’s wrong?” Okuu asked while slightly tilting her head.

“It’s nothing, I’m just glad you all don’t hate me,” I replied when the tears stopped.

See Ayaka, I told you so!

Miu proudly said. I imagined that if she had a physical body, she would have puffed out her chest when she said that.

‘Well, I guess you were right then.’ I replied to her now that I had come back to my senses due to the hug.

“Why would we hate you?” Satori asked, followed by a nod from everyone else, seemingly because they had the same question.

I hesitated on answering the question for a few seconds, still a bit scared that they might hate me after hearing my response. Despite this, I gathered my courage and opened my mouth to speak.

“Because I have troubled all of you so much. I have already fainted 3 times since I came here, I lost control of my emotions in front of Koishi and Orin, in fact, twice in front of Orin, and I failed to stop Marisa when she got to the Untamed Courtyard.” I replied in a quiet voice before closing my eyes, afraid of what expressions they were making.

While my eyes were still closed, I felt a pair of arms wrap around me again. They squeezed me tightly to their chest, which made me anxious that they were going to strangle me. However, they soon put less force into their arms and eventually unwrapped one arm from me. Moments later, I felt a hand on my head, rubbing the center of my hair before moving to my ears. A comfortable sensation overwhelmed my senses as the hand began to scratch my ears. I opened my eyes and saw that it was Orin who had hugged me and scratched my ears.

“Why would we hate you for any of those reasons? You are already part of the family, and it’s natural for families to take care of each other when they need it!” Orin replied while tightening her hug.

“Are you sure?” I asked in a hesitant mixed with a tiny bit of skepticism.

“Absolutely, come here everyone!” She directed, and before long, I felt three other pairs of hands start hugging me and patting my head.

An intense pleasure flooded me as more people patted my head and scratched my ears, but I resisted surrendering myself to it. Despite my best efforts, a few purrs escaped from my mouth and I felt the edges of my mouth curve upwards in a smile. This ‘torture’ continued for a few minutes before Satori asked me something. During this time, the despondent feelings had completely disappeared from me, leaving only feelings of relief, love, comfort, and joy.

“Could you explain what happened in the Untamed Courtyard?” Satori asked me while slowly retracting her arms, causing the rest of them to do the same. “That is if you are comfortable with it.”

“Sure” I answered, no longer fearing that they would hate me because of the love they had shown me. “I went to the Untamed Courtyard in response to a quest that was sent to me that simply requested me to stop the intruder. Once I was there, I waited a few minutes before a person riding a broom and wearing a witch hat appeared. She introduced herself as Marisa, the Ordinary Magician. We then talked for a few seconds before the battle began. Now that I think about it, I never learned her intentions for being there.” I retold what had happened before stopping for a few moments.

“Oh, she and another human were here to find me,” Orin told me while scratching her face.

“Why?” I asked.

“Well, Okuu was behaving weirdly after receiving a strong power from two other unknown people, and she started to make preparations for taking over the surface. I used my ability to control spirits to command vengeful spirits to move to the surface through a geyser that Okuu accidentally created. I was hoping that the spirits would cause some powerful youkai to begin investigating. When they did, I hoped to lure them down here so they could stop Okuu. To my surprise, instead of youkai appearing, two humans did. They were very strong though” Orin explained.

“She did all this without telling me first, so I was also surprised when I read the reports that two humans had intruded into the Underworld heading toward here,” Satori added when Orin had finished her story.

“Sorry about that! I completely forgot to! Nyahaha.” Orin laughed in a way I had never heard from her before.

“Anyways, could you continue your story Ayaka?” Satori turned to me and asked.

“Sure! We began to fight with our nonspells first. I used the same first nonspell as I did with Koishi, which I had modified a bit after seeing Koishi dodge it. She used her first nonspell which was a bunch of spirals of stars that slowly spread out. As time went on, we began to change up the patterns of our nonspell. I started to make the arcs of bullets spawn behind her, while she began moving more to spawn star bullets at different locations, creating a more complex bullet pattern. We traded hits for a while before the energy for her nonspell ran out. She then activated her first spell card which was named Milky Way. I tried to dodge it but slowly began to get overwhelmed. Soon the energy for my nonspell ran out and I activated my first spell card. Once again, we traded hits, but my energy was running low so I tried something to make my pattern harder to dodge, and it worked. I started to get more hits on her, but I also took many hits. After some time of this, both our spell cards ended simultaneously. Then I saw her preparing a second nonspell, so I surrendered because I had no more energy remaining. Afterward, I fell to one knee while she went down the hole. What happened with all of you?” I concluded my explanation before asking about their experiences.

“I just sat in my room the whole time because I didn’t know anything was happening!” Koishi energetically replied.

“I fought Marisa after she defeated you. I was doing fairly well against her before her partner showed up. It was a girl wearing a red and white shrine maiden outfit named Reimu. I continued to fight until the very end, but I ended up getting defeated after the energy in my last spell card ran out.” Orin told me.

“Both of them then went to fight me! We all used many spell cards, but I ended up being defeated by a combination of their two most powerful spell cards! Our battle caused a lot of damage to the nuclear reactor though, so I had to spend a little time repairing it.” Okuu informed me.

“I fought against Reimu first out of annoyance because she had just intruded into our house, but later, in order to test her because I had read her mind and found out what her intentions were. I used spell cards that I copied from her mind because she had trauma with them, but she managed to beat all 3 that I used, so I decided to surrender.” Satori explained. “When I surrendered, I offered to lead Reimu to the Untamed Courtyard so she could find Orin and ask her what her intention for starting this incident was. When we got there, you were unconscious, trembling, and crying. What happened then?” Satori asked me.

‘Should I tell them about the existence of the system? I know they are my family, but I’ve read fantasy books where the Host of the system receives a horrible punishment if they tell others about the existence of their system, no matter how close those people are to the Host.’ I debated internally.

No need to worry about that Ayaka! This system does not have any consequence involved with other learning of our existence, so go ahead and tell your family!

Miu said to me, clearing up my worries and solidifying my intent to tell them about it.

“Before that I should explain who requested me to go to the Untamed Courtyard in the first place. I have a thing called a system within me. This system allows me to grow stronger quicker, keep track of my progress by showing me what my exact abilities are, and provide me with information. The main way for me to grow stronger through the system is by completing the quests that the system assigns me. When I successfully complete a quest, I get something that makes me stronger or allows me to gain more information. However, when I fail a quest, I could receive a punishment. As I said before, I received a quest to stop the intruder, but as you can see, I failed and as a result, I had to receive a punishment. The specific punishment for that quest was the unsealing of one of my traumatic memories.” I started my explanation.

I purposefully did not tell them about my system’s ability to extract information about the past and backgrounds of people because I decided it was unimportant for the discussion. Admittedly, I was also a bit scared of how they would react if I told them that I had used it to know the past of each of them. As such, I decided not to tell them about it at this moment.

I began shivering while I continued my explanation. Before long, I felt both of my hands being held, which allowed me to regain my composure and continue my story.

“After the battle ended, I started to lose consciousness and fell to the floor. When I woke up, I was in a white space. The only thing there other than white and me was a sphere of darkness. This sphere then started flying toward me calling me its dinner. I ran as fast as I could, but I stumbled and fell.” At this point I was trembling a ton, my heart started pounding, my hands were sweating, and I felt shivers passing through my spine. Then I felt Orin begin to pat my back to comfort me, which worked as I was able to continue my story. “The sphere of darkness continued moving toward me despite my begging and when it reached me, it started to bite my arms and legs. I felt a tremendous amount of pain and cried uncontrollably.” When I got to this part of my story, I realized something and hurriedly checked my arms and legs. Weirdly enough, they had no injuries, and not even the faintest bite mark could be seen even though I had been bitten a lot.

Deciding to not think about that for the time being, I resumed with my story. “After a while, the biting stopped and the sphere of darkness completely vanished. Even though the sphere of darkness disappeared and the punishment was completed, I stayed in the white space regretting my existence and being in an extremely depressive state. I didn’t even listen to my system who was trying to help me recover and instead got mad at her. My rage-filled comments made her cry and I felt guilty again. I began to wonder why anyone liked me and started to believe that everyone hated me, even all of you…” I paused for a bit. “That’s why I asked if you hated me.” I ended my story.

As soon as I finished my explanation, all of my new family began to hug me again, making me once again feel loved and accepted for who I was. I sank into their embrace and tightly wrapped my arms around all of them. While we hugged, Satori and Koishi both made a request to me.

“Say, lil sis, could you call me sis instead of Koishi?” Koishi requested.

“S-sure, s-sis,” I replied, a bit embarrassed by addressing her as sis.

“In that case, call me older sis or big sis like Koishi does,” Satori added.

“S-sure b-big s-sis,” I said, still embarrassed at the new way of calling them.

“You know, now looking at your appearance, you have features of all of us. The cat ears of Orin, the black raven wings of Okuu, the closed third-eye of Koishi, and my open third-eye.” Satori big sis, informed me.

“I do?” I responded. After she pointed it out, I realized that what she said was true. From the appearance I saw in the mirror, I did in fact share a feature with all of them, well Satori’s big sis's and Koishi's sis's features were combined, but it still counts.

“Yes,” big sis answered while placing one of her hands on top of my head. She slowly started to move her hand and I closed my eyes. Soon I felt 3 other hands gently start to caress the top of my head and my ears.

This time, instead of feeling pleasure from the gentle caresses, I felt drowsy and yawned. Everyone noticed it and chuckled a bit. Orin then started to sing a lullaby that sounded very familiar to me, causing me to fall asleep almost immediately.

Before I did, however, I had one thought. ‘So this is what family feels like. I wonder if this is how I felt with Mom and Dad. The only way I will know is if I manage to unseal my memories.’

After an amount of time that I don’t know the quantity of, I felt a bright light appear in front of my eyes, causing me to rub my eyes before slowly opening them to find out where the white light had come from.

I found myself in the white space again, this time with nothing there, like the first time I was in there for the evolution process.

‘I wonder what I am doing here, well I should ask Miu to find out.’ I thought in my mind.

Before I could ask, a transparent window appeared in front of me and I heard Mio’s voice echo in the room repeating what the screen said.

Urgent Quest Completed

-Talk It Out With Miu

Reward: Authority Level Up 1

Granting Reward… Success

Authority Level has Increased by 1

Extra Condition Met

-Make a New Family

Reward: Family Bond |Chireiden|

Granting Reward… Success

Host Ayaka has Obtained the Family Bond |Chireiden|

New Family Bond Found

Integrating |Chireiden| Into Species Underworld Chimera…Success

|Chireiden| Has Been Integrated Into Species

Would You Like to Augment Species Now?

Then another transparent window appeared showing two options.

Yes No

I spend a little bit of time thinking about which option to select before deciding on selecting no for the time being. The screen then disappeared.

‘I want to ask Miu a few questions before I start that process.’ I affirmed my decision to myself. ‘Hey Miu, now that my authority level has risen, could you tell me why you showed me that trauma?’

Of Course Ayaka! This time your authority level is high enough for me to tell you! You already know that the main purpose of this system is to help you get stronger, right?

Miu asked me as part of her explanation.

I nodded in response.

Well, this is one way of doing that. You might be wondering how it makes you stronger, I’ll get to that. I should first say that your memories of traumas were sealed to prevent them from embarking on the journey to get stronger and regain your memories. If your memories of each trauma you have suffered remained, then you would never have begun your journey in the first place. The reason why they are unsealed upon failing a quest is for a few reasons. The first is to allow you to gradually overcome each trauma you have. Now this is a fairly important reason. Conquering your traumas is key to getting stronger. As the famous saying goes, first you must know thyself before you can triumph over an opponent. Knowing your traumas and therefore weaknesses and then overcoming them makes you exponentially stronger as you will no longer have any critical weaknesses. It doesn’t matter how strong a person is if they still have traumas. If an opponent knows what trauma you have, they can exploit it and triumph over you even if you are 50 times stronger than them. The second reason is to provide an incentive to not fail a quest causing a psychological phenomenon known as positive punishment, which causes you to use more effort in a task than you otherwise would or do something you otherwise might not. The third reason is to steer you in another direction that would inevitably cause your power to increase. When you finished the traumatic memory, you received another quest, did you not?

Miu concluded her explanation with a question.

Hearing Miu bring up the other quest, I remembered its existence.

‘Oh, that quest! I completely forgot about it because I didn’t want to think about it when it appeared. I should take a look at the details of the quest after Miu finishes her explanation.’ I thought to myself while nodding in response to Miu’s question.

That quest is specifically made to allow you to gain strength while overcoming the first of your traumas. The reward for the quest will give you more information about your family, while the punishment will be another traumatic memory. Don’t worry though, in terms of content, this quest is much easier than the first urgent quest. Well it is much easier in a vacuum, I guess the difficulty really depends on how well you can conquer your trauma. I recommend taking some time to prepare before trying to complete it.

Miu concluded her explanation with a piece of advice.

“Okay, thank you, Miu, and sorry for being so mean to you earlier.” I apologized to her out loud to show my sincerity.

It’s fine Ayaka, as long as you understand that what we do will always be for a reason! Also, it’s always a pleasure to help you!

Miu replied in her usual bright tone.

‘I should probably check that new urgent quest then. [Status]!’ A status menu appeared in front of me, showing the progress I had made with my skills, the new Family Bond that I had just obtained, and the new urgent quest. I clicked on the urgent quest and another window appeared.

Urgent Quest

- Overcome Trauma

Quest Details

Overcome your fear of the sphere of darkness and darkness in general by defeating the youkai of darkness.

Conditions: Defeat Rumia

Quest Completion Reward: Unsealing of 2nd Family Memory

Quest Failure Punishment: Unsealing of 2nd Traumatic Memory

Time Limit: 30 days

‘Rumia, the youkai of darkness? I-is that the i-identity of that sphere of darkness?’ I began shivering again at the thought of the sphere of darkness.

‘H-how do I s-stop myself from b-being scared of it? I-I’ll ask m-my new family about this.’ I decided to put off how to overcome my fear until later. Regaining my original calmness, I began thinking again. ‘First, I should take Miu’s advice and prepare. It’s never a bad idea to have more information. Mio, could you give me information about this youkai of darkness, Rumia?’

Affirmative…Analyzing…Analysis Complete

Rumia: A youkai with the ability to manipulate darkness. She is simple-minded and quite childish. She does not like excessive heat or sunlight. As such, she uses her power of manipulating darkness to create a spherical shield of darkness to avoid heat and light. She only uses her ability for support, preferring to use pure strength as her main method of attacking. Despite her childlike innocence, she eats humans, but she seems too lazy to do so excessively. She can control how much light enters the sphere of darkness, but most of the time, she prevents any, making it look like a solid ball of darkness.

Mio reported.

‘S-s-so, i-it r-really i-is the s-sphere of d-darkness.’ I shivered a bit before continuing my thinking. ‘A-at least s-she s-seems to h-have a few w-weaknesses, l-like h-heat and s-sunlight. I s-should ask i-if my family could h-help me make a spell card with b-both of those elements.’ I thought to myself

After a while of preparing a few countermeasures based on the information Mio gave, I felt my fear decrease a bit and I soon returned to my original state of mind.

‘Alright Mio, I’m ready to augment my species now.’ I told Mio in my mind.

Affirmative

Beginning Augmentation Process…

Augmenting Species Underworld Chimera with |Chireiden|... Success.

Species Underworld Chimera has Successfully been Augmented into New Species Chireiden Chimera (One-Tailed)

Mio responded.

As soon as Mio finished her announcement, I began to feel drowsy again. I felt a warm energy enter my body, as warm as the feelings of comfort I had received from my new family as they embraced me. I then started to lose my consciousness while thinking ‘This is the feeling I was missing for so long… The feeling that I am not alone in the world. The feeling that there are people who are willing to stay by my side no matter what I do. The feeling that there are people who will always support and help me, no matter what I do. The feeling of family…’

Status

Chrono157

A/N: Here is Chapter 10. Hope you all enjoyed it! Also yikes, the beginning of this chapter was quite dark, don’t you think? But then again, dealing with trauma is harsh and can frequently result in unstable and volatile emotions as it did for Ayaka. If you are dealing with trauma, having a person who you really trust and who loves you, like a family member or close friend, always helps. Remember that you are not alone in the world. There are plenty of people who have experienced something similar, and there are plenty of people who are more than willing to help you. It feels much better when you share your issues with people you trust than keep them bottled inside you. Anyways, on to the chapter review. In this chapter, we see how the trauma affected Ayaka, how her new family reacts to her story, why the system assigns punishments, and the true identity of that sphere of darkness. Next time, Ayaka will prepare countermeasures for fighting Rumia. Join her next time in Chapter 11 - Sun Sign [Red Giant]!