The walk didn’t give me as much time to calm down as I’d hoped, with my house being only about ten minutes away from the battle, but the time to myself was relieving regardless. I think it had only been about an hour since I stumbled upon Ryuji, but it felt like it had been forever.

Forever since I had a moment of peace.

I guess it wasn’t really that peaceful, considering I was stuck in some sort of weird time spell, but it was the best I’d gotten in a while so I couldn’t afford to be too picky.

“Mom, I’m back,” I said, casually opening the door, as if I was just returning from a normal day.

I flinched when I realized she was standing right behind the door, when I slammed it in her face. She didn’t react, frozen in time.

“Shit, sorry mom,” I said anyways, even though I had no idea if she would feel it when time unfroze.

The sudden thought of whether time would ever unfreeze crept into my mind, but I brushed it away, not prepared to deal with a potential existential crisis just yet.

I closed my eyes and sighed heavily, as if the thoughts would leave me along with my breath.

When I opened my eyes again, I yelped when I saw that a blue panel had inexplicably appeared right in front of my face.

Tutorial: Valiant White Knight

By partying with his love interest, the [HERO] has unlocked the skill [Valiant White Knight]! Under certain conditions, this skill allows the [HERO] to rush to the side of their bonded party members, protecting them from certain death.

Whenever a bonded party member shouts [Save me] the [HERO] may activate this ability to instantly teleport to the party member’s side.

MP cost: 0

Cooldown: 30 days

I looked nervously around myself. The only time I saw these things, something bad happened, and I wasn’t confident enough to think that this time would be the exception. When a few seconds passed and nothing happened, I was still a little paranoid of the idea that the panel would burst into flames and incinerate both me and my mom, but nothing happened. Eventually, I mustered the courage to move away from the panel.

When it didn’t set me ablaze out of protest, I let out a breath I didn’t know I was holding.

I walked towards my room, intent on taking a quick nap. Maybe if I fell asleep, I’d actually come to wake up and realize this was all a dream. It was a long shot, but one I was willing to try.

As I crawled into bed, I realized that it would be difficult. Though I was definitely tired, my heart was pounding with anxiety and my mind kept turning back to the day’s events, leading up to and including the fact that everyone except for me seemed to be frozen in time for some reason.

I wasn’t sure I could ignore that well enough to fall asleep, but when the blue panel appeared in front of me, floating just above my head as I laid down in my bed, trying and failing to sleep, I could tell my anxiety would be the least of my worries.

Tutorial: Valiant White Knight

The [HERO] has unlocked a skill that allows them to protect their party members from certain death.

Whenever a bonded party member shouts [Save me] the [HERO] may activate this ability to instantly teleport to the party member’s side.

This skill is currently available for use.

Did the text change? I wasn’t sure since technically, I couldn’t actually read what was on the panel. Maybe it was just my interpretation of the text that had changed. After all, who was to say that I wasn’t just imagining that I could read these strange symbols anyways? Who could say whether I wasn’t just hallucinating? Who could say I wasn’t just imagining all of this, and that this wasn’t all just a dream?

I ignored the way that the blue panel pulsed with light, as if reacting to my thoughts. Unfortunately for the panel, that only supported the idea that it was just a figment of my imagination. The alternative was that it could somehow see into my mind, and wasn’t that just horrifying?

So I did what I could.

I closed my eyes and willed myself to sleep.

After a few minutes of silence, I gave up, though not for lack of trying. I actually managed to make it close to unconsciousness a few times, using my will to ignore my invasive thoughts and my eyelids to shut out the light of the mid-afternoon sun and the glow of the blue panel, but I was rudely pulled from my sleep each time by the chatter of the birds outside.

I grumbled as I stuffed my fingers in my ears, but I knew it was doomed. There was a reason why I didn’t take afternoon naps during the springtime. The songs of the birds in heat were always especially loud at this time of day, and only the most determined of people could sleep through them.

Maybe on a normal day, I would’ve been able to ignore them, but the combination of things that demanded my attention was just too much, and I lurched forward and out of bed, recognizing that I wouldn’t be getting any real sleep.

I tried to ignore the blue panels of light that had spawned in front of me, but I wasn’t actually reading the symbols in the first place. Apparently, whatever magic was injecting the meaning of the words directly into my brain didn’t seem to care if I would’ve had the time to read it. A glance was apparently enough.

Tip: Following Instructions

Love what you're reading? Discover and support the author on the platform they originally published on.

Not all instructions have to be directly stated! Sometimes, instructions can be implied!

Tutorial: Valiant White Knight

Whenever a bonded party member shouts [Save me] the [HERO] may activate this ability to save them from certain death.

This skill may be used right now.

I kept my face as neutral as I possibly could. I think I managed to succeed, but if the panel could read my thoughts, it was pointless.

Honestly, I didn’t know what to think. I was so shell-shocked at this point that I didn’t have the energy to react, so I was surprised when I felt a surge of annoyance at whatever the hell the blue panel was. Was it a good idea to get annoyed at the possibly omniscient object that seemingly had the power to subdue an Otherworlder like Ryuji? Probably not, but it was pure spite that drove me to punch the panel.

My fist went right through it with no resistance.

I grumbled in response, half disappointed that I wasn’t able to touch it half glad that it hadn’t incinerated me on contact. Thankfully, now that I knew it was incorporeal and seemingly harmless, I closed my eyes.

Unfortunately, those birds were still singing.

Usually, I wouldn’t really care about something as benign as birds just being birds, but I was at my breaking point.

“Shut up!” I shouted. “Shut up, shut up, shut up!”

I thought I heard a few startled squawks, but I knew that must have been my imagination. My voice wasn’t really all that loud, and the birds were used to the humans to the point where nothing but thrown rocks would bother them. Even so, the shouting alone was a great relief.

I don’t think I’d ever shouted like that before in my life, not that I’d ever felt the need. It felt surprisingly good to yell at the top of my lungs, not that I’d ever do that normally. If it weren’t for the fact that time was frozen, I probably would have felt too embarrassed to shout at those damn birds.

…

It took me a second to figure out why that thought bothered me so much. When I finally did, I rushed out of my room, and towards the back of the house.

“Mom?” I shouted.

My mom had her back turned to me, but I could easily tell that she was still frozen in place. Even though there were birds chirping outside.

The blue panels reappeared in front of me.

Tip: Tutorial Events

While Tutorial Events may temporarily pause the actions of any [Players] and [NPCs], the in-game clock will still progress. Any time based status effects, such as hunger and thirst, will progress as normal while the Tutorial Event occurs.

Tutorial: Valiant White Knight

A bonded party member may shout [Save me] to activate the effects of [Valiant White Knight].

Though I couldn’t begin to wrap my head around half the things that the panel was saying, it was clear that the panel was trying to tell me that I couldn’t just stay in this odd state of frozen time forever. Even if I hadn’t realized it a few seconds before the blue panels told me, the blue panels made it obvious.

Plus, the specific wording it used worried me. Was it trying to threaten me by holding the lives of the villagers as a hostage?

My eyes narrowed as the symbols on the first blue panel shifted imperceptibly, subtle enough that I might not have noticed if it were for the fact that I wasn’t actually reading the words on the panel. I was just understanding them, and the spontaneous shift of my understanding was a lot more jarring than seeing the symbols merge quietly into each other was.

Tip: Tutorial Events

While Tutorial Events may temporarily pause the actions of any [Players] and [NPCs], the in-game clock will still progress. Any time based status effects will progress as normal while the Tutorial Event occurs.

I didn’t know exactly why the mentions of hunger and thirst had disappeared, but I assumed the panels hadn’t meant to threaten me, and that they were trying to pretend like it had never happened. It also pretty much confirmed that the panels could read my thoughts, but that wasn’t as much of a shock as I assumed it would be. The fact that it could easily freeze the people in this village, one of them being an all-powerful Otherworlder, was a feat of much greater power, but I couldn’t help but feel terrified that something was invading my most personal thoughts.

But the stress of the day and the deep emotional exhaustion I felt, dulled that feeling letting my spite shine through instead.

Fuck you.

I hoped it read that thought loud and clear.

The blue panels didn’t change, though I did think it wavered slightly. Probably my imagination.

Staring at the lower panel, I let out a deep sigh and walked out of the house, making my way back to the site of the battle.

As I sat back down, underneath the path of the shadow weapon’s swing, I’m not ashamed to admit that the thought of leaving the villagers to die did cross my mind at one point. Unfortunately, just like how it had caused me to get stuck in this damn situation in the first place, my conscience couldn’t let me kill my friends and family just to escape the role of being Ryuji’s follower.

I knew what would happen after this. Once I did what the damn panels wanted me to, Ryuji would save me and defeat the rest of the demons. The Mayor would dip into the village’s emergency funds to give him a reward for saving the village, the demons being a convenient excuse to give him the funds necessary for basic survival, and send him off on his way to the nearest city, where a trained Crown Official would take Ryuji in and handle him from there.

But before Ryuji would go, he would ask me to come with him.

It was a common theme in many horror stories told by parents to keep their children in line. Do your chores or a big bad Otherworlder will take you as his Follower. Eat your vegetables or the Otherworlder will want to be your friend. Stuff like that.

While a lot of Otherworlders were notorious for “taking” Followers, the reason why they were called Followers instead of Abductees was because most Followers often had a “choice” in whether they would follow the Otherworlder or not.

In practice, it was incredibly difficult to turn down an offer from a person who could easily kill you and destroy your entire country on a whim, but there were ways to get around it, with the most common ones being to fake your own death. Claiming that you had an illness or family obligations wasn’t recommended in most cases, since an Otherworlder might be inclined to insert themselves into your life with an even stronger persistence, but it could sometimes work.

But I wasn’t sure if I had a choice in the matter. Ryuji had a power that he obviously didn’t have complete control over, and even if he did, it was clearly influenceable by outside parties. AKA me.

I had the power to unfreeze my village and save them from slow death by starvation. Would Ryuji’s power have frozen the village if I wasn’t there in the first place? Possibly not. Would it happen in the future if I didn’t follow along with Ryuji? Again, possibly not, but I didn’t think I would be able to live with myself if I didn’t follow Ryuji to keep an eye on him, knowing that I had the ability to dampen his destruction for some reason.

There was, of course, the option of faking my own death and just hoping that this would never happen again, but once again, the annoying little voice at the back of my head was just a little bit too loud to ignore.

I sighed. I wondered if there was a way to get my conscience surgically removed.

I took one last glance at the demon looming over me, mid swing. I was aware that if I managed to unfreeze everyone, but the panels were lying and Ryuji didn’t save me, the weapon hitting my head would be guaranteed to kill me.

I wasn’t sure whether I would prefer that fate to becoming Ryuji’s Follower, so I shrugged.

After a harrowing day, my voice was hoarse and I had no more energy in me to spare, but the blue panels had never said anything about emotion.

With my voice flat and my expression flatter, I just muttered under my breath.

“Save me.”