Chapter 2

Before I realized, I sensed a light at the end of the tunnel and…It was cold!!! Someone quickly wrapped me in blankets and I was asleep again.

When I opened my eyes, I still could’t see much. These baby eyes weren’t developed enough for that. But where is sis? I’m sure ?? would have made sure that we stay together.

Diana: Kara…I’m your sister Diana. I’m here Kara

Me: ?! waa..?

Huh? Is that sis? Why is she..? She is she so much older than me? I think she must be at least 4 years old if she can stand and talk like that. It took a minute to take in the scene a little more but I found myself in a large hospital room with a women holding me, wrapped up in a warm blanket. I think she’s my mom but damn she looks really hot. She didn’t look Japanese like dad. Instead she looked…Western European? Probably Swiss would be my best guess but she looked like a supermodel with her blond hair and bright blue eyes and perfectly shaped face.

It looks like we’ve been born into a wealthy family alright, in this day and age, even this much would be considered an excessive luxury.

Man: Kara, my daughter… she looks like you honey.

I think he’s my dad. I can’t really place it but something about him seems really familiar.

There was no way that was true. I know babies are ugly when they are born. Maybe I’ll start to look more like a cute baby in a couple of days but right now I should be all red and wrinkly.

I wanted to know more but sleep overtook me again as I fell asleep. Seriously, this was just so comfortable… wrapped up in a blanket and being cuddled.

It’s been a couple of weeks and I’ve found out what had happened.

Sis was brought into this world almost 5 years ago but she didn’t have any memories until the day of my birth. The moment I was handed over to her when we arrived at what I can only describe as ‘a mansion that shows how unequal capitalism can be’, she was hugging and cuddling me nonstop. For me, it was just a couple of minutes but I missed her as well. 4000 years of being together, even a moment of separation can cause some pain.

Apparently ?? wasn’t lying when he said he’ll throw in a couple of bonus in our lives for us. Our dad, ironically, was called Issho Fujitora and he looks like him as well. I’m guessing ?? switched out the original for our dad, but without the memories of us in his previous life. Despite this, we are still thankful for that. He means a lot to us.

There was another miracle, other than the fact that our family was filthy rich of course, was that it seemed dad’s company which was called “Soba Games” seemed to be developing a game called “Yggdrasil”.

Isn’t this too easy?

Well, I’m just hoping that dad would be the type that allows us to play games a lot. We’ll do our part as his daughters and the (probably) heir of his massive Fortune 100 Company but we really need the time if we want to properly prepare for the advent, or the transfer.

Five years passed in a blink of an eye and it was year 2125, just 1 year before they introduce the game to the public. For the last 5 years, dad has been boasting all over the place that we were prodigies and everything. While he wasn’t wrong if he went by his definition, we had 4000 years of knowledge and experience backing us up…and we still had to pretend we were ignorant and dumb as a baby. I guess that had its own right and benefits though. Even so, since we wanted to be involved in the Beta testing process for Yggdrasil, we had to contribute somewhat. For example, coding and few bits and pieces information from a world thousands of years more advanced in technology. The ‘random sputtering words of Fujitora’s daughters’ saved the company billions of dollars (which with inflation would be equal to maybe a couple dozen millions of dollars)

I’ve got to say that I look absolutely cute. Perhaps it’s because sis and I were born 5 years apart this time and not as twins but we looked very different already. Sis had the look of authority, but also stunningly beautiful already. She had slightly dark red hair flowing down to her shoulders. She was only 10 but she looked fit already, which was a question i had since we never had the opportunity to train our bodies since coming here…or well, for me.

As for me, I looked almost the polar opposite of sis. I had a very light blond hair, almost white flowing down onto my back. I had clear blue eyes but had an asian tan (from my father). As mother described, everything about me just screamed “Cute, Innocent, and huggable”. Using this time, I remastered the puppy eyed technique which earned me almost anything I wanted but also lots of cuddles.

They tried to put me in a separate room but I clung onto sis with all my might and sis did the same by not letting me go. In the end, our parents yielded and let us share a room. Sis never stopped cuddling me.

Emma: Kara, Diana. Wake up, it’s time for breakfast!

Diana: *yawn* umu…I’m up. Come on Kara, wake up.

Me: muu…just 5 more minutes

Diana: Breakfast will be gone in 5 minutes

Me: Then 4 more hours and I’ll wake up for lunch.

This was the pattern everyday. Perhaps it was this body of a child but I was always so sleepy. The opposite of what I was in my previous life. I just can’t seem to win against sleep. I’ve slept in almost every situation, even in class.

There was an incident in elementary math class that it was so boring that I just openly slept in class. Naturally, the teacher got a little mad and asked me to perform the problem…which I did. She put up another question, and I solved it again easily. What did she expect? This was elementary math. If she wanted to challenge me she would have to bring up something on the level of quantum physics. Actually, even that I would understand more than anyone on this planet right now…after all, I studied that subject carefully as it was very closely linked to my Devil Fruit.

This happened a couple more times. One time she actually brought up multiplication and decimals, just completely determined to make me embarrassed but she failed. After that, she just decided to leave me alone and math class became a nap time for me. I even bring a cushion to school with me now. I sleep in Math, Science, Japanese, English, and halfway in history…ok, maybe I sleep through most of school…but it was just so boring! I don’t think I learned anything.

I think I’m going to ask dad for homeschooling or another school where I can just skip my way to college and be done with it.

Regarding the planet itself…it was horrible. Beyond our little bubble we call home, life was horrible. The sky was never blue but filled with smog and toxic gasses. The news only repeated news about how the planet was doomed and how little the politicians from the past prepared for it. Unemployment was at an all time high as was crime mates and drug abuse. Overall, it was a dystopian society. I think the only reason I was fine with this was because I knew what would happen next. People only lived for a 100 years maximum. From what I’ve experienced, that is an incredibly short time. What comes after is judgement and reincarnation. In the end, people pay for what they did through their reincarnation cycle so I didn’t think it mattered much anymore. The only thing that concerns me was that criminals often commit crime that creates more crime. Well, I’m sure ?? will have a good explanation for this dystopian world.

Me: *grumble* fine…

Compared to that, I knew we were living blessed lives. With 3 delicious meals everyday with ‘real meat’ as father liked to emphasize. Of course, with his soul coming through it looked like he kept his love for soba noodles.

Emma: Come sit here Kara

*lift*

I was still too short to even sit on a chair so I had to be pulled up by mom.

Me: Daddy, when can I go outside?

Issho: Kara dear, the outside world is dangerous. There are bad people out there who wants to hurt you ok? It’s safer to be in here.

Well, he wasn’t wrong. In this day and age where people could literally be starving to death (ever since mono cropping failed and a single disease wiped out most of the food in the world), if I was ever found outside with no protection whatsoever, people would probably kidnap me and demand ransom. It’s actually happened a couple times to other wealthy families. But still…even if this house (or property) is massive, I still want to explore and see for myself what is out there. I’ve never left the boundaries of the house at all!

Me: ok…

Well, I guess I can’t say no to dad after all. It’s just that I’m so glad to see him again to begin with. I don’t want to do anything that’ll make him disappointed in me. Even if he can’t remember who we were or even who he was in his previous life.

As usual, dad was busy even during breakfast, talking over the phone about he development of the new release of Yggdrasil. I guess it’s in its final test phase now before it’s released to the public.

That night, sis and I stayed awake and discussed what we need to do.

Me: Reaching Level 100 is going to be easy. As long as we play enough and know enough about the mechanics, we are going to sail smoothly that way…but while we are still here we don’t have a way to really differentiate ourselves.

Diana: We need a method of becoming so strong in game…but also so crazy or hard that almost no one else will attempt it…or even do it.

Me: If we really have 12 years, then that’s going to be enough fighting to make at least a hundred level 100 characters… we need to store all of that experience somehow when we transfer. We can’t let it be lost to the mechanics of the game.

Diana: That’s our first objective then… we’ll find a way to store infinite amounts of experience. But we also need to make the method inconspicuous so others wouldn’t notice. This is also a backup method for when we accidentally die in game and lose some of our levels.

Me: There’s so much more to do…but I guess we’ll leave it here for today. We’ll need to talk with father a lot. We’ll need his authority if we want to abuse the crap out of the game.