[Complete] Ch 4.62 These Tragic Souls and a Sword Reborn in an Intergalactic Space Opera (Patreon)

These Tragic Souls and a Sword Reborn

in an Intergalactic Space Opera 

Story Intro: "Welcome! I'm an evil god, though not that evil of a god!" is what they woke up to. Join our heroes and heroines, having just met their demise, displaced by an extradimensional event.”

Story Starts

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Book 1 - The Empty Twin 

Ch 4.62 Depersonalization-Derealization

Syr sat on the hill overlooking the camp, the blank patch of land where they had first awakened now flattened into a training field. She crossed her legs on the grass, settling the large tub of ice cream between them.

Shirou had outdone himself. When Illya demanded chocolate, he had simply nodded and produced it. But when Syr mentioned the frozen packets of berries she remembered from the first night's inventory—strawberry, she had said, almost wistfully—he had returned with something far beyond a simple request. Vanilla base, threaded with creamed strawberry, marbled through with ribbons of melted chocolate.

Given her current condition, it was a godsend.

Below, Lefiya had Haruka and Haruhime running footwork drills across the flattened stretch of field.

Step, turn, guard. Step, turn, guard.

Thwack.

Lefiya's scabbard connected with Haruka's ankle, correcting her stance. The elf's ears drooped briefly before she reset her position.

At the field's edge, Sakura sat on a crate in the shade, watching. Her expression was difficult to read from here—but then, Sakura's expressions were difficult to read from anywhere.

Syr took another spoonful and left the spoon standing upright in the dessert, humming something tuneless.

The breeze was pleasant today. It carried salt from the distant shore and something green from the fields the centaurs and brownies had begun cultivating. She let it wash over her, trying to focus on simple sensations. Cold sweetness melting on her tongue. Wind threading through her hair. The distant sounds of exertion and instruction.

Crack. Crack.

Four figures materialised by the camp's portkey beacon—Ryuu, Rose, Shirou, and Marin, alongside their assigned brownies. Illya and Gabrielle had finally cracked the beacon problem while the others harvested the next biome floor. A beacon inside the dungeon still couldn't find a partner on the surface—the threshold severed the link, same as ever—but two beacons both inside the dungeon's subspace could find each other perfectly well. So the network ran in two halves: surface portkeys between the camps and the dungeon's island, and an internal beacon chain from the entrance hall down through the floors. They had placed one every few levels, with specific floors highlighted: 18, where the reviving aranea lurked; 19's antechamber; and Floor 20, with its own special marker.

The plan was to optimise the system further—teams of skrattes, brownies, and centaurs rotating through assigned floors in continuous harvest cycles. They just needed to get the timing right. Consistent draining of the dungeon mattered, even if the upper floors yielded little next to the lower ones.

Syr studied the returning party from her vantage point. Dusty. Lightly scorched about the sleeves. Upright, and moving without visible strain. That told her most of what she needed to know about how the respawned Weapon had fared.

So it spawned after a week. They had been checking the twentieth floor daily, wondering whether the Weapon would return or be replaced by a different boss entirely. Hermione theorised the delay was connected to the skrattes harvesting the entire stage—that blackstone material she and Rin found so intriguing. Illya had suggested dumping dead monsters on the nineteenth floor to accelerate repairs and respawn time, but that experiment was scheduled for later. After they secured enough food for when the stasis patients awakened.

Priorities.

Marin said something that made Rose laugh—bright even from this distance. Shirou turned to scan the camp, found the hill, found Syr sitting on it. He pointed her out to Ryuu, handed her a potion bottle, exchanged a word or two, and headed inside with the others. The spent portkey went into its designated box, to be renewed later.

The skrattes, centaurs, and sirens had their own camps now, their own beacons. Each team rallied on the island outside the Celestial Dungeon before taking the internal chain down to their assigned floor. A system emerging from chaos, piece by piece.

Ryuu climbed the hill, downing the potion as she walked. At the crest, she unlatched her belt and laid her wooden sword and both kodachi in the grass before settling down next to Syr.

Neither spoke immediately.

Below, Lefiya had transitioned to refereeing a spar between Haruka and Haruhime. The renard's movements were fluid, almost dancing, while Haruka's were far better than on her first day of dungeoneering. Aptitude skills didn't grant mastery so much as the ease of it. And Haruhime, who had spent her adventuring years as backline support—middle guard at most, when ambushes were likely—had trained under Takemikazuchi for a time before the One-Eyed Black Dragon attacked.

Syr offered the spoon to Ryuu.

The elf took it without comment, scooping a generous portion of the marbled ice cream. The charm one of the brownies had applied kept it perfectly frozen—cold enough that Ryuu winced immediately, pressing her free hand to her temple.

Syr chuckled at her longtime friend, then took a spoonful herself.

"You looked a little worse for wear coming back," Syr observed. "But not like last time. Was the Weapon replaced?"

From her peripheral vision, she caught Lefiya's scabbard connecting with Haruka's ankle again. Second correction. The stance was improving all the same.

"No. Still the Weapon." Ryuu took another, more cautious spoonful. "But far weaker than the first one we faced."

"That's good, I suppose."

"Marin was excited for more materials."

Syr could hear the wariness in Ryuu's voice. Everyone found it difficult to refuse their bubbly group member, despite the fact that her equipment designs all trended towards the revealing side. Syr had seen the sketches. She didn't mind them—quite appealing, actually. She might no longer be the goddess of beauty, but she still had her taste.

She chuckled briefly, then set the ice cream tub between them and drew her knees up to her chest. She rested her chin on her crossed arms, gaze drifting across the training field.

They stayed like that for a while. The spoon passed back and forth in easy silence, small portions disappearing one by one.

Syr sighed.

"I suppose the grass isn't greener on the other side," she said.

"Hmm?"

The sound was neither question nor agreement—just acknowledgement that Syr had spoken, an invitation to continue or not as she chose.

Syr didn't answer immediately. She watched Haruhime execute a sweeping strike that Haruka barely deflected, watched Lefiya call a brief halt to adjust something about Haruhime's grip.

"Being mortal," Syr finally said. The words came out flatter than she intended. "I thought... I don't know what I thought. I'd romanticised it for so long—the absolute free will, the agency to defy even fate. I thought playing mortal had already shown me what it was like. But I suppose larping as one—"

She could already feel the questioning gaze.

"Don't you remember Marin explaining it? It just means role-playing."

Ryuu was quiet beside her. Waiting. A small nod acknowledged the explanation.

"When I was—before—everything had weight, but the weight made sense." Syr's fingers tightened against her forearms. "Everything was a facet of Love. Lust, yearning, jealousy—I felt all of them, and every one was perfectly understandable, because I was Freyja. There was nothing wrong in any of it. The only question was ever whether I chose to act. And even when I lost something, the loss was inconsequential—because in the end, I was eternal, and whatever I wanted was only ever an inevitability."

She took a breath.

Below, Haruka stumbled. Lefiya didn't correct her this time—just waited for her to find her footing again.

"Now I wake up and I'm sad," Syr continued, "but I don't know why I'm sad—or I can point vaguely towards a reason but never pinpoint it. Or I'm angry, but the anger has no source. It just is, floating around inside me like fog, and I can't grab hold of it long enough to understand it. Or I'm happy—genuinely happy, watching everyone eat breakfast together—and underneath the happiness there's this... weight that shouldn't be there. This heaviness that doesn't belong."

She turned the spoon over in her fingers, watching light catch on the metal.

"How do you hold two things at once?" The question came out quieter than she meant. "How do you feel grateful for something and resentful of it at the same time? How do you care about someone and also—" She stopped. Swallowed. "Also feel something sharp when you watch them with someone else? Something that isn't clean jealousy—a goddess of love would have understood that, managed it, perhaps even used it—but this messy, contradictory thing that sits in my chest and doesn't know what it wants?"

The wind picked up briefly, scattering loose strands of hair across her face. She didn't bother pushing them back.

"I've been putting on a good face. Smiling. Making jokes. Stirring the pot, because that's what Syr does, isn't it?" She paused. "But what am I right now? If I'm no longer the goddess Freyja, then I can't be Freyja pretending to be a mortal called Syr either. And Syr—Syr is—" She stopped. Her hands moved, shaping something in the air, and caught nothing. "I can't explain it properly. I can't seem to grab what I mean and say it cleanly. I can't even describe it in my own mind. Something like... the only one left holding Syr together is me. And maybe you. Haruhime and Lefiya, to an extent. Argh—this is frustrating." Her voice dropped. "I'm just this entity that was born with a history she can no longer claim."

She let out a slow breath.

"Then this morning, when I woke up bleeding—when my body decided to remind me exactly how mortal it is now—all of it just... hit me. Every confused feeling I've been burying. Every emotion I couldn't sort into its proper category. They're all still there, Ryuu. They've been there. And I don't know what to do with them."

She turned to look at her friend properly for the first time since Ryuu sat down.

"When I was a goddess, everything I was rested on pillars. My domains held me up. Whatever I felt, whatever I did, there was always a structure underneath it, telling me what it was and what it was for. But mortals don't have that. You don't have pillars holding you up. You just... exist, with all of this chaos inside you, and somehow you're supposed to function."

She laughed, but it came out wrong—cracked at the edges.

"I used to think mortals were fascinating. All that passion, all that contradiction, all that beautiful mess. I loved watching it. Loved being drawn to it. Loved finding souls like Bell's, burning so brightly despite being made of nothing but temporary flesh and conflicting desires."

The laughter faded.

"It's just a mess. To say nothing of the fluids. The smell. The taste." She wrinkled her nose, and it wasn't entirely a joke. "As Freyja, everything I touched was tinted by my dominion. Now I feel as though I never really experienced life at all—or maybe this is just another pair of tinted glasses I'm being made to wear."

Silence settled between them.

The training session continued below. Haruhime landed a clean hit that made Haruka stagger. Lefiya clapped once—praise, apparently, though from this distance Syr couldn't hear the words.

Ryuu turned the spoon over in her hands, studying it as though it might contain answers.

"I don't know how to respond to this," she said eventually. "I've never been anything other than an elf. I've never had a before and after the way you do."

Syr nodded. She hadn't expected wisdom. She wasn't even sure why she'd started talking.

"But," Ryuu continued slowly, "I think I understand... something. About holding contradictions."

She set the spoon back in the diminished tub.

"When I discovered what Syr was—what you were—I felt betrayed." The words came out measured, precise. "Lady Freyja had charmed all of Orario. She had twisted the minds of everyone I cared about into her idealised vision. I was furious. I was horrified. I wanted—"

She stopped. Started again.

"But at the same time, I was worried. About my friend Syr. About the grey-haired girl who worked at the tavern, who teased me constantly, whom I trusted despite knowing she was hiding something." Ryuu's jaw tightened. "Even while I hated what Freyja had done, I couldn't stop caring about Syr. Couldn't stop wanting Syr to be real. To be separate. To be someone worth saving."

She turned to meet Syr's eyes.

"I held both of those things at once. Fury and concern. Betrayal and love. And I never resolved them—not really. I just kept moving. Kept making choices. Kept waking up each day and deciding what to do with whatever feelings happened to be present." A pause. "And that is what we did. We beat you, and we ripped away the illusion you had cast over everyone."

The wind picked up again, cool against Syr's cheeks—damper than she'd realised. She let out a chuckle, a short, bitter sound.

"Sometimes it's bad," Ryuu said. "Sometimes everything weighs too much and you can't see past the moment you're in. Sometimes you doubt whether any of it was ever real—the friendships, the connections, the people who claimed to care. You wonder if you were just a convenient fiction they told themselves."

Her voice softened.

"And sometimes it's good. Sometimes the confusion fades long enough that you can actually feel something clearly, and those moments are... worth the rest. Worth all the chaos in between."

She picked up the spoon again, took another small portion of the softening ice cream.

"In the end, everything averages out to just okay," she said. "Most days. You manage. Day by day. That's all anyone does, really—mortal or not. You manage, and you wait for the highs that make the low days bearable."

Syr didn't respond. She wasn't sure she could.

They sat together as the sun shifted overhead, passing the spoon back and forth until the tub was nearly empty. Ninety per cent gone, maybe more. The remaining dregs had begun to soften despite the preservation charm—or perhaps simply because of how long they'd been sitting here, letting time pass without marking it.

Movement caught Syr's attention.

Shirou and Rose emerged from the tent, brooms in hand. Rose spotted them immediately and waved, her red hair catching fire in the afternoon light. Shirou headed for the training field instead—spoke briefly with Sakura, still in the shade on her crate, then moved to stand beside Lefiya. He said something to the group that made Haruka's ears perk up. A question, from the way she tilted her head.

Rose strode up the hill, two brooms balanced across her shoulders.

"Do you two want to join us?" she called as she approached. "We're surveying the nearby lands—need to scout locations for proper farming operations. Hermione has a whole list of soil requirements." She rolled her eyes, but affectionately. "Apparently 'looks like decent dirt' isn't a sufficient assessment."

Syr looked at the brooms. Looked at Rose's easy grin. Looked at Ryuu beside her, still holding the mostly empty tub.

She thought about contradictions. About holding two things at once. About the mess of being mortal—the fog that didn't clear, the emotions that refused to sort themselves, the weight that sat beneath happiness and made it complicated.

She thought about Freyja, who had always known exactly what she wanted and pursued it with divine certainty.

She thought about Syr, who had been a mask, a game—something she'd once mistaken for actually living as a mortal.

She thought about whoever she was now. Neither goddess nor fiction, but something new and uncertain and terribly, wonderfully confused.

You manage, Ryuu had said. Day by day.

Syr smiled—not the bright, practised smile she used to deflect attention, but something smaller and more honest.

"I'd like that," she said, and grabbed the close-to-empty tub, scooped a large spoonful, and shoved it in her mouth.

She winced at the sudden rush of cold.

Shirou had climbed the hill by then, Haruka and Haruhime alongside him. Lefiya was below, escorting Sakura back to the tent.

"We'll wait for Lefiya—she's getting more brooms." Shirou looked around at them. "So. Any idea what your project's going to be?"

They'd already held a meeting about product ventures; developing the frontier planet was, after all, one of the thirteen's mandated tasks.

Everyone looked at each other. Syr adopted her coy smile, bumped her hip against Shirou's, and took the last spoonful of ice cream.

She winced again. "Ow—I want a strawberry field, a chocolate farm, and a grazing field for cattle."

She declared it through the brain freeze, turning the wince into a wink aimed in Ryuu's direction.

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End

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