> Part 2 - Desolation

I was so glad that past me had left random cut marks on trees to mark my path. It made returning to the egg cave a whole lot easier. It also didn’t feel like it took anywhere as long to get back, probably because I actually had a clear destination in mind this time.

I’d passed several life ooze lakes on my way, and now that I wasn’t in a rush to find food, I couldn’t help but wonder where these had come from. Had something or someone created them? Were they natural? If so, how had they come to be? I could attest to the fact that the stuff didn’t rain from the sky during rainfall, so… what gives?

Maybe that was just the result of centuries of still lakes of water mixing with ambient Ether or something? It wouldn’t be the weirdest thing, honestly. Although, just how long had that taken…?

“Oh! We’re here, chat!” I exclaimed as I finally came close to the familiar small cave. “Man, it feels like it’s been forever since I’ve been here.”

trelipideliberitation: yeeeeeeee

RetconRanger: Is the egg still there?

bloopbooper: bloooop! ٩(^ᗜ^ )و ´-

“No idea. Let’s see…”

I climbed into the cave and sure enough, the half-cracked egg was still there, exactly as I’d left it. Granted, I didn’t quite remember the exact positions of all the smaller egg shards on the ground, but I had stream history now. I could easily check.

SpoOo0oOon: looks like the phoenix hasn’t come back

uptonMIKE: or it covered its tracks

I opened stream history and rewound all the way to the point where I’d left the egg last time to explore. Sure enough, everything looked more or less identical. I idly put a bookmark there, naming it ‘Leaving spawn #2’, and closed it again.

“Yup, I don’t think anyone else has been here. Unless the phoenix is mega sneaky.” I frowned at the egg for a moment. Then I shrugged, took off my backpack, opened it as much as I could, and approached the egg with it, intending to stuff the egg inside.

“Damn, I can’t believe I used to fit inside this… It’s so small now,” I murmured, once again realizing just how much I’d physically grown because of the blessing.

I stopped in front of the empty eggshell and gently placed my hand on it, feeling a strange pang of… nostalgia? Sentimentality?

It was really weird, considering I’d left it behind pretty much immediately after hatching. I hadn’t been nearly enough to get attached to it… But then again, I had no idea just how long I’d been inside that egg. Well, stream history went all the way to a few hours before hatching, but when I opened it up again to see what was there, I was pretty disappointed. Most of that time was just darkness and some muted rumbling sounds–

“Hold on…” I stopped in my tracks and frowned as I rewound a few seconds and strained my ears to listen better. “Is that… Is that someone talking…?”

trelipideliberitation: oh shit the phoenix

bloopbooper: boop?! ( ˶°ㅁ°) !!

RetconRanger: Oh, yes. It sounds like it is.

The voice was somewhat androgynous. Maybe leaning on the female side. It was honestly really hard to tell.

I kept rewinding the few seconds, but I just couldn’t make anything out, even after maxing out the volume on the thing.

SpoOo0oOon: is the phoenix talking to the egg?

SpoOo0oOon: like a baby in a stomach?

uptonMIKE: maybe just monologing like a villain

My expression warped at that. There was something so incredibly weird about that. Sure, I looked like a kid and sure, I had hatched from the egg that the phoenix supposedly made, but…“Yeah, probably just smugly telling me I’m gonna have a bad time or something.”

But then again, even if I couldn’t tell what they were saying, their tone didn’t sound antagonistic.

RetconRanger: Give me a moment.

RetconRanger: I will try to make sense of it.

“Okay…? Oh, are you gonna use your audio editing software magic?” I guessed while I sat down and went back to petting the eggshell.

RetconRanger: Yes.

“Alright! Thanks, Ranger!”

I sat back and while I waited for Ranger to come back with some results, I finally stopped rubbing the egg and awkwardly managed to stuff it into my backpack before picking up the pieces and taking them as well.

Then I sat back, found a relatively smooth part of the wall where I could lean, and looked out of the cave.

“I wonder what it’s gonna be…” I mumbled, as people in chat speculated.

Thinking about it, this could very well be my first lead to… well, everything. I still had no clue why I was in this world, or why I’d been reincarnated by a phoenix. But if we made out what they were saying, we might be able to glean some answers…

But then again, maybe the phoenix had anticipated that I would look back through stream history and there wouldn’t be anything useful.

But that was assuming the phoenix had known that I would get the Streamer racial skill. Which would mean that they had to have manipulated the system itself. Or at least predicted which racial skill I would get.

The system had said ‘calibrating’ before it had given me that skill, so I had to assume that there was a variety of different racial skills I could have gotten.

Or all of this theorizing was pointless because the phoenix was the one who had set everything up, including all the red herrings.

RetconRanger: Okay. So, it sounds like an adult woman and the tone is somewhat sorrowful. But she’s not speaking in English.

I groaned and rubbed my forehead.

“Of course, it’s not in English… Dammit. I guess it’s still something…? The phoenix is likely a woman and… was sad to reincarnate me? Probably why ‘I’m sorry’, I’m guessing…”

I deflated with a sigh.

FouxMoux: heya

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FouxMoux: what’s up?

“Hey, Foux… We just found out that there was someone talking to me while I was in the egg… But it’s hard to hear and it’s not even English. Can anyone figure out what language it is?”

trelipideliberitation: subtitles

trelipideliberitation: turn on subtitles

I froze.

“Oh my god! Of course! The subtitles! I’m so dumb!”

As an odd feeling of hope began to well up inside me, I quickly went to my menu, turned the subtitles on again, changed them to English, and rewound the stream history to the very beginning.

Then I sat back and listened.

The moment I heard the first signs of a muffled voice, the subtitles appeared in my vision, and I couldn’t help but breathe in in anticipation.

‘Hello, Nana… Ugh… I didn’t think this is how it would all turn out. I really should have expected this, but…’

Oh shit. The phoenix knew my name. Or rather, knew my Vcuber name and decided to call me that? Why…?

There was a long pause but I patiently waited as the supposed Phoenix found her words.

‘It’s strange… It’s been so long, but I can remember it so clearly. Back when… I was in your position.’

Hold on, what? My position? What was that supposed to mean?

I stared at the words as several different emotions boiling inside my gut.

Was this implying that someone had done the exact thing to her? The whole forcibly reincarnated in another world?

‘Sorry, I’m really bad at this, huh…? I guess I should give you a talk like the one I got.’

Oh god. That was exactly what she was implying here. What the hell?!

‘Hello, Nana. I am your mother… of sorts. A different kind of Mother.’

I clenched my teeth but didn’t dare to tear my attention away from the subtitles in front of me.

‘I… don’t really want to do this, but I think I have to at this point. I’m sending you on a grand adventure. It’s going to be hard. Very hard. So hard that you will want to give up many times along the way. Like at the limit breaks. Especially at the limit breaks. They are the absolute worst! The second one in particular… God, I hope you’ll make it out with your sanity intact.’

A chill went down my spine.

I’d subconsciously known that something would force me to do the limit break sooner or later, but if even my kidnapper talked about them like that, I couldn’t help but feel dread.

And she was implying that I definitely would have to do not just one of them, but all of them?

My hands tightened into fists.

‘But you can’t give up! I mean… I still don’t really know what the point of all of this is, but she told me it’s necessary. And sure, she could have been lying… She had been tricking me this whole time, after all, but well…’

What the hell? Had the phoenix been coerced into this whole scheme then? Why would it be necessary? Who was ‘she’?

‘I hate all this. I hate how I still don’t know what I’m supposed to be doing! I hate the Fate Weaver! I hate–’ The sentence cut off and there was silence for a while again.

The Fate Weaver.

Was ‘she’ the Fate Weaver? The one who forced the Phoenix to reincarnate me?

Who was the Fate Weaver anyway? Were they who I thought they were, or was it all a coincidence, after all?

The silence continued and I was about to speak up, thinking it was over, when the muffled voice came back, and with it, more subtitles.

‘Sorry, I’m just… frustrated.’

I could tell that much…

‘I know that you can hear me, Nana. I mean, you probably won’t understand what I’m saying, at least not right away, but just know that I believe in you. You can do it!’

Hold on, what? How could she possibly know that I would be able to understand eventually? Had she known about the Streamer skill, after all?

‘I’m sorry… and good luck!’

There was a muted swooshing sound and then silence.

I waited a good few minutes after that just to see if the subtitles would pick up anything else, but that seemed to be the end of it.

I closed my eyes, and took a shuddering breath, before opening them again.

“...Well! I guess I have another reason to avoid the limit break for now,” I said with a forced cheer. My trembling voice probably didn’t convince anyone.

trelipideliberitation: holy shit

trelipideliberitation: so fate weaver is the enemy not the phoenix

SpoOo0oOon: that poor phoenix

SpoOo0oOon: it sounds like they were coerced

bloopbooper: bloop…(⊙_⊙)

uptonMIKE: I wouldn’t jump to conclusions yet

FouxMoux: wow that’s a lot to unpack

I deflated, failing to retain my cheer, and sat there in stunned silence for a moment, thinking about everything I’d just heard.

“...Chat, I don’t know what to think. I feel like everything just got way more complicated. I got some answers but even more questions now.”

trelipideliberitation: some progress at least?

FouxMoux: maybe it’s some kind of inheritance thing?

“Inheritance?” I mumbled, still feeling a bit shell shocked.

trelipideliberitation: oh yeah like this is not the first time this happened

FouxMoux: from someone to phoenix to you to someone else again

FouxMoux: when you are done with your adventure

I cringed.

“What. You think that when I’m done with… whatever I’m supposed to be doing, I’ll be coerced to kidnap someone from Earth and reincarnate them here? And then they would go through everything and kidnap someone, and then they would kidnap someone, and so on?”

FouxMoux: yeah

SpoOo0oOon: that’s horrible

FouxMoux: maybe not earth

“That’s messed up… I don’t even know why I’m doing this. The phoenix didn’t know why she was doing this. Just that ‘she’, whoever the heck that was, said it was necessary.”

trelipideliberitation: I’m guessing that was the god

trelipideliberitation: fate weaver or whatever

uptonMIKE: maybe you’ll figure it out by the end

“Yeah, that’s what I’m assuming as well… Eh, nice that you believe in me, Mike, but I wouldn’t be so sure…”

trelipideliberitation: okay maybe that IS the point

trelipideliberitation: ur supposed to figure it out and then the cycle ends

“I mean, I guess? But that’s assuming there even is a cycle to begin with.” I shook my head with a sigh. “Either way, if there’s one thing that I took away from this, it’s that the Fate Weaver cannot be trusted. She’s said that the Fate Weaver had been tricking her all along, so…”

uptonMIKE: and that limit breaks are bad

“...And that Limit Breaks are really bad. Especially the second one, apparently.” I shuddered as I thought back on what the Phoenix had said. “I don’t know about you guys, but losing sanity doesn’t sound very appealing to me.”

trelipideliberitation: I still wonder what exactly they are

FouxMoux: weren’t there three of them?

FouxMoux: why is the second one worse than the third?

“Not doing it right now, Trelip. It didn’t win the poll.” I huffed. “No idea. And I’m not going to theorize about it. I don’t even know what exactly they are about.”

But obviously, I would have to do it eventually. Everything just beautifully pointed in the direction of doing the Limit Break. So much so that I was suspicious whether it was a plot by the Fate Weaver as well…

Ugh, I was becoming a conspiracy theorist.

“Okay!” I clapped my hands. “So in summary: The Phoenix needs a slap in the face for dragging me into this and then all the hugs for whatever poop she had to go through, and the Fate Weaver – if that’s who ‘she’ is – needs a good butt kicking and cannot be trusted.”

trelipideliberitation: lol

trelipideliberitation: good summary

uptonMIKE: I would be wary of the phoenix still

uptonMIKE: even if she didn’t want to she still did it

I pursed my lips and frowned.

“Good point, Mike. She might be… like a conscript. Unwilling, but still an enemy. Or something like that?”

uptonMIKE: yeah exactly

“Right…” I sighed. “Well, on that cheerful note, I guess it’s time to get going again.”

I took one last look around the cave, remembering the first time I’d woken up in this world, then got up and walked outside.

“Sooo… Which way should I go? If I remember correctly, the spaceship is that way–” I pointed in one direction. “–and the water park is that way.” I pointed in the opposite direction.

I looked up and squinted at the sky, trying to remember where the sun set.

FouxMoux: spaceship west waterpark east then

I hummed.

“Yeah. I guess there’s two more directions left to explore then… Let’s poll it! You decide, chat! Do I go north or do I go south?!”

I quickly set up the poll and then sat down. As I waited for people to get their vote in, my mind wandered back to what I’d read the Phoenix say.

Mother.

Hah. Apparently, I had crappy parents even for my reincarnation. How ironic. Well, at least the Phoenix was somewhat apologetic, unlike…

“Alright! What do we have? Hmm… Huh, looks like north is winning by quite a bit. Well, north it is then! Let’s go, chat!”

I stood up, turned north, and began walking.