My Lord Who Is Being Prudent! [EN]: Chapter 160

§ 160 – Skipped Story

“Skipped story…?”

What is this?

Did I ever skip a story…

“Ah!”

Sian exclaimed, a memory suddenly flashing through his mind.

It might seem odd to skip a story, but Sian had skipped a story exactly once.

It was when he first discovered this smartphone.

“Back then, I think…”

Sian calmly retraced his memories.

It was when he was first appointed as lord of Ruben.

When he hid in an unknown cave to escape the goblins.

Sian first found this smartphone in that cave.

And when he first discovered the smartphone, Mobile Lord had shown something in the name of a story.

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《A thousand years ago, a great crisis struck the world: the invasion of demons. The world is burning from the invasion of powerful demons, and people are…》

‘What is this all of a sudden?’

At the time, Sian was genuinely puzzled.

So, Sian ignored the screen and voice and examined the smartphone.

Right then.

《Would you like to skip the story?》

‘Skip story?’

Do I have to press this to proceed?

Sian pressed the skip button, which looked similar to an install button.

At that moment.

《Too bad! This is a story the narrator prepared with a lot of effort!》

《But it’s okay! The story of the game is originally meant to be skipped!》

《But you can always rewatch the skipped story!》

《Please come back and watch it later if you’re curious!》

Ding!

With another notification sound, a fairly long notification window popped up on the screen.

『[Tutorial Quest] – ‘This is my territory…?’』

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.

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After that, he received the tutorial quest.

And now, he has come all the way to this secret archive in the Imperial Palace.

“It hasn’t even shown its face all this time?”

The problem was that, contrary to the claim that he could rewatch it anytime, he couldn’t view past stories in Mobile Lord.

After Ruben stabilized to some extent—to be exact, after receiving the story quest—he looked for the content but couldn’t find or view it.

Also, no related notification window had popped up until now.

So, he had forgotten about it.

But now, suddenly, a notification window popped up.

“Hmm…”

Sian pondered, but not for long.

Click.

〈Re-accessing the skipped story will cost 100G.〉

“······ Damn it.”

What’s with this Mobile Lord, where everything costs money?

Sian sighed softly and touched the ‘Yes’ button (Y button).

Click.

Then the smartphone screen changed, and what he saw was a desolate land and burning vegetation.

A strange voice was heard in between.

《A thousand years ago, a great crisis struck the world: the invasion of demons. The world is burning from the invasion of powerful demons, and people are…》

It was the same content Sian had seen before.

Sian focused on the screen and voice being played.

And.

“This is just the content of the myth?”

He could confirm that it wasn’t much different from the content of the myth—that is, the story of the demons’ invasion a thousand years ago, along with the exploits of the Arnaizes [a group of legendary heroes].

Well, there were some stories that were slightly different from the myths, but there was nothing particularly surprising hidden in it.

“And this costs 100 gold?”

Just as he was about to get angry, another new notification window popped up.

〈Playing the currently ongoing story.〉
The content on the screen quickly passed.

After some time, another notification window popped up on the smartphone screen.

〈799-190Z-020.12〉

“······ What is this?”

Sian blurted out without realizing it, because that was the end.

No video was playing like before.

No strange voice was coming out.

〈799-190Z-020.12〉

That was all there was to this notification window.

“What the heck is this?”

Sian was beyond dumbfounded by a notification window with an incomprehensible meaning.

At first glance, it seemed to represent some kind of arrangement…

“Arrangement? Ah. Could it be?”

Sian exclaimed with a flash of inspiration.

A notification window that seemed to indicate some kind of arrangement, and the place Sian is in now is none other than the Imperial Palace Library.

“Could this be referring to a catalog number?”

That seemed highly likely.

Why hesitate?

Sian immediately checked the arrangement of the archive, and he was able to confirm that the arrangement number written on the bookshelf was similar to the content of the notification window.

It seemed that it was indeed referring to the arrangement of this secret archive.

But.

“I have no idea where this is.”

He couldn’t find the location of that arrangement at all, whether this was an arrangement or a code.

He couldn’t figure it out at all.

At that moment.

Ding!

〈Using the location finding service will cost 1,000G.〉

“······ Screw this.”

Sian firmly pressed the ‘No’ button (X button) on the notification window.

#

“Here, this is the book I brought from the arrangement you mentioned,” the librarian said, and Sian snapped back to his senses.

He looked at the librarian standing in front of him, sweating profusely, and the old book in the librarian’s hand.

“I’ve been working as a librarian for 15 years, but… this is the first time I’ve ever known that there’s an arrangement space like this.”

At the librarian’s words, Sian’s eyes widened slightly in surprise.

The librarian, who had memorized all the arrangements in the vast Imperial Palace Library, didn’t even know about this arrangement?

‘No wonder I couldn’t find it.’

There was a reason why Sian couldn’t find it, and he could understand why Mobile Lord was trying to rip off 1,000 gold.

“Thank you.”

“It’s my job. Please let me know if you need anything else.”

The librarian handed the book to Sian and went back out of the secret archive.

Sian looked at the librarian, then turned his gaze back to the book—a book that was so old it was completely worn out.

The book, covered in dust, looked like it would fall apart with just a touch, and clearly showed the ravages of time.

The name on the cover was barely visible because it was so old and worn.

Sian wiped away the dust with his hand and tried to identify the erased letters as much as possible.

That’s how he identified the title of the book…

“Kai… l’s… Memo…irs…?”

That’s what it clearly said.

“Kyle’s Memoirs?”

Sian tilted his head for a moment.

At first glance, it might seem like a record written by Kyle. However, memoirs refer to a document that records the results of observing a certain event or person.

In other words, this was not written by Kyle, but a document recording Kyle.

So, Kyle’s Memoirs meant a document recording someone observing and recording Kyle.

Kyle, who walked a brilliant path as one of the six Arnaizes.

However, there are currently almost no records related to Kyle on the continent.

The other Arnaizes had their own stories passed down.

Charlotte could be seen in the history of the current empire.

The other Arnaizes each had stories passed down through their respective races or nations.

Also, even in the stories in mythology, the exploits of the Arnaizes were prominent, but Kyle was an exception.

Kyle’s name did not appear often even in mythology.

Even the stories passed down through oral tradition did not remain.

Currently, only two records related to Kyle are passed down on the continent: the fact that he was an Arnaiz, and the fact that he was the strongest Arnaiz.

However, the Kyle’s Memoirs he was seeing now was a document in which someone observed and recorded Kyle, and the only ones who could observe Kyle were the Arnaizes of a thousand years ago.

Furthermore, these memoirs were sleeping here in the secret archive of the Imperial Palace.

The documents in the secret archive of the Imperial Palace were only related to members of the Imperial Family.

That means…

“Charlotte wrote it.”

It could be said that these memoirs were written by Charlotte—that it was a memoir in which Charlotte observed and recorded Kyle, not as Empress Charlotte, but as Charlotte, the leader of the Arnaizes.

In other words, it was the record Sian was looking for, and it was a record related to the story defined by Mobile Lord’s system.

Sian very carefully turned the first page of the memoirs.

Rustle.

『The first time I met him was in a village filled with the thick smell of blood.』

The memoirs began from a first-person perspective.

The content was about a person called ‘I’ observing ‘him,’ and according to the previous guess, ‘I’ in these memoirs was Charlotte.

It was not difficult to know that ‘he’ was Kyle.

Rustle.

『The village was being brutally ravaged.

Amidst the collapsed debris, the villagers screamed and fled, but it was no use.

Monsters using terrifying dark power.

They were terrible beings that could not be explained by the concept of monsters—new beings that did not exist on the continent.

They appeared on the continent one day, suddenly, abruptly, unexpectedly, and began to destroy the entire continent using terrifying dark power.

People fell before their cruelty without even resisting.

People prayed to God.

Please, look down on us.

But God did not answer.

I will not argue about the existence of God, but God ignored the screams pounding the sky.

A God who stands by is no different from one who does not exist.

No, maybe… even God may have succumbed to that terrible evil.

Absolute evil that opposes God: Demon.

That’s how we defined them.

Everywhere I looked, there were corpses of people—men, women, old people, children.

The village was brutally ravaged without sparing anyone.

It was once a peaceful village; now, only the bitter smell of blood remained.

I couldn’t do anything in that terrible sight.

A demon approached with hideous teeth, but I couldn’t even think of resisting.

Approaching death, I was just a helpless being in the face of that death.

Just as death was approaching little by little…

Flash!

A streak of light flashed towards death.

Splat!

Crimson blood splattered all over my vision, and that was the blood gushing out of death, not me.

Dazed, someone walked towards my vision: a cold, handsome man with a cold impression.

His long, black hair was a look that could not be found on the continent.

He stood in front of me with a sword in his hand, and even in the blurry shape, the sword was shining in jet black.

The demons’ gazes were focused on his sudden appearance, and they screamed when they found the corpses of their kin that had been slaughtered.

Kieeeeeeeeeeeek─!!

Terrible murderous intent rose and threatened death.

My mind became faint, and I didn’t even have the courage to resist.

My legs gave way, and I just sat down, but unlike me, he just raised his sword in front of countless demons.

Soon, he slowly waved his hand.

At the same time, the sword is also swung slowly—just lightly, flick—at a speed that was neither fast nor slow.

And.

Crack!

With the sword strike, the space was strangely distorted, and the demons were swept away.

It was clearly a simple swing of the sword, but… But…

Rumble…!

I couldn’t understand that; I couldn’t understand that phenomenon.

That amazing power, that absurd force… I couldn’t understand it at all.

The black-haired handsome man was a man of similar age to me, but the power he had, the level he had, was not something I could dare to compare with.

The demons who were ravaging the village were swept away in an instant.

The absolute evil that no one could resist was swept away by one man.

He stood alone among the corpses of the demons.

Then, he began to walk away.

I didn’t know why he was here, and why he helped me.

If the demons craved destruction without any purpose, his help also had no purpose.

Looking at his back as he walked away, I shouted.

‘P, please tell me your name!’

At my cry, he paused.

He turned his head slightly and looked at me once.

Eyes meeting.

‘······’

He muttered that and left.』

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“Huh?”

Sian tilted his head for a moment because of the content written at the end.

“What did he write?”

I couldn’t understand what the letters were at all.

To be exact, I couldn’t tell if these were erased letters, or if this was a single letter in itself.

“It must be Kyle.”

Well, the name was clearly Kyle in the flow of the content.

From the beginning, the title of the book was Kyle’s Memoirs, but the letters written were not the name Kyle.

Besides.

“Kyle had black hair?”

Kyle was described as a handsome man with black hair, but the Kyle that Sian knew had silver hair.

Well, hair color could have changed; it wasn’t particularly important either.

“Hmm…”

Still, it was unfamiliar.

“Should I keep reading for now?”

Sian turned to the next page of the memoirs.

Rustle.

『Immediately after that incident, I left the village, because I couldn’t feel any more left.

The demons took everything from me: the villagers who lived together farming, the village friends who used to have a drink after work, the flower shop girl who shyly smiled every time I greeted her, my mother, who always nagged me, and my father, who was always scolded by such a mother, and my one and only tomboy sister, Leia.

I had nothing left.

The future of the continent where hope was turning gray.

The demons took everything from me.

Conversely, they also told me the reason to get up again.

That’s how I grabbed the sword myself for revenge.』

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“Charlotte thought Leia had died at this time.”

Charlotte’s village was ravaged by demons.

Charlotte was able to survive with Kyle’s help, but others were not.

Perhaps Charlotte thought she was the only one who survived.

It seemed that Leia also thought she had died with the villagers.

But Leia was alive and well.

It was unknown how Leia met Charlotte again later.

This is Kyle’s Memoirs recorded from Charlotte’s point of view.

“I should ask Leia about it later.”

Sian turned to the next page of the memoirs.

Rustle.

『I frantically searched the battlefield.

I didn’t hesitate when I heard the news that demons had invaded.

I fought demons while disregarding death.

Looking back now, it would be accurate to say that I fought to find death.

I didn’t have the courage to die myself, so I searched the battlefield to die.

And was it good luck, or was it bad luck?

I survived through countless crises.

As a result, I was able to help many people and build relationships: the Holy Maiden of the Holy Kingdom, Muriel; the forest keeper of the elves, Elodie; the blacksmith of the dwarves, Morcru; the chieftain of the beastmen, Noemi.

I became their companion and fought against the demons.

Before long, people were praising us as heroes.

That’s how we protected the continent from countless demons.

I believed that we would be able to save the continent before long, but before long, I was able to quickly realize that the thought was arrogance.

The six demon lords—six demons called demon legion commanders—with their appearance, the situation began to change rapidly.』

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“Hmm?”

Sian tilted his head without realizing it as he read the memoirs because of the phrase written at the end.

“Six demon lords? Not seven demon lords?”

That was different from what was currently known on the continent.