In Another World with JUST MONIKA 36 Stories to Make a Little Girl Glad

Now that we could proceed to the capital at speed, there was no time to waste. Again, I was offered to ride inside the carriage with Sushie and Reim, and a companion of my choice, WHICH I WELL KNEW WAS A DECISION TRAP or a FLAG but fortunately all the girls preferred to stay at the wagon.

But now that I could think about it, I couldn't invite Linze anyway since as much as she might assist in interesting conversation, for sake of guard duty her options for magical bombardment would be strongly limited. Elze had little in common with Sue, and as much as I enjoyed her blithe company she would be more comfortable chatting with the guards.

Yae talking about the Far East could be interesting too, but we weren't really close to each other. It would be putting too much pressure on her dealing with foreign nobility.

/"I have [Amplified] the [Endurance] of the horses. They will be able to run for longer without tiring, but they will need to eat, drink, and rest more once we stop."/

"Thank you for your blessing, Lady Monika," Reim bowed.

Monika nodded back. Actually I did have a couple of projectors – even one of my power banks even had a built-in LED projector. It was just that 100 lumens was plenty useless for most of the day, and while Monika's smartphone body could run on ambient magic just fine all other devices still require 5V DC.

We actually had been projecting Monika at night over to the side of the wagon for our campfire tales, but we didn't have a chance to really introduce her to Yae yet.

The curtains were all used up in the field surgery, but we managed to cover up the windows using sheets and blankets. It was dark enough inside for Monika's screen projection to be clear and colorful.

"Lalah Sune sundress, Monika? Really?"

Monika flicked disdainfully at her brown locks again. /"It only seemed appropriate, Player. I want to support you. That's the only reason I'm here."/

I nodded. In the original Mobile Suit Gundam, Lalah Sune was the woman whose death forced both Amuro Ray and Char Aznable's personality, giving them a point of commonality and yet making them bitter rivals. She understood both of them in a way that transcended words, transcended souls.

Monika was my Lalah, the person who completely understood me and would not judge. When Lalah was killed, Char lost the only person who could ever pull him back from the brink. By having one person he could always be honest to, he could also remain honest with himself.

For Amuro Ray, pilot of the Gundam, it was a combination of physical attraction and someone who could perfectly understand the sheer trauma he was going through as a teenager thrust into combat. The inherent tragedy of being a NewType, that the evolved semi-telepathic understanding that could connect people was instead turned into an instrument of war instead of helping to end it.

While some may have disliked how Tomino made psychic voodoo magic of Newtypes the focus of the latter half of what had been since then a gritty, mainly realistic war story, for me it always introduced a deeper philosophical question of identity. In many ways, Neon Genesis Evangelion's quote about the hedgehog's dilemma, about how people get hurt when they get close to each other, is a refutation of the idea that all people ached to find someone who could understand them.

I sat casually, one arm over the backrest and with my legs crossed, forming a perfect right angle between my knee and my foreleg. I raised the little glass with magically conjured ice water towards Monika's projection in salute and took a small sip.

I smiled softly and spoke of Char's most notable lines, "One does not care to remember the mistakes of one's youth."

Monika lounged on her sofa and copied the motion. /"Ah. I can see time."/

Monika could conjure or render whatever she wanted within her operating system and desktop, but I wondered if she could simulate the taste of any of it. She did tell me much earlier that she could feel through her smartphone body… maybe also electromagnetic wave stimulation?

No, the problem was still making other feel what she was doing with her virtual persona overlaid onto real-world coordinates via haptic feedback or something.

Sue's eyes glittered with admiration. "So… so awesome!"

Monika and I laughed weakly as we remembered our circumstances. "Pardon…" I said, getting back to a more proper and respectful sitting position. "We may have gotten a little carried away there."

Since there was still at least a day of travel, we had to fill up the time with some conversation. Monika and Sue took to each other quickly. Sue was eager to ask and learn about everything, and Monika as a former literature club president was only too happy to comply.

"Why… why do you wear that on your face?" Sue eventually worked up the nerve to ask me.

"I am legally blind. Through this magic tool Monika allows me to see."

"Oh." The little girl looked downcast. "If even *you* can't cure that…"

/"What's wrong?"/ Monika asked.

It was butler Reim that answered for her. "Milady Sushie traveled in order to learn more about her great-grandfather's personal magic in the hopes that it could be rediscovered through the use of other elements, in order to cure her mother's blindness."

Sue began to whisper "Lady Monika…? Could you? Is that something that could help my mother?"

/"I'm sorry, but how I help Player is strongly specific to his case and why we're bound together."/

Sue nodded, sighing heavily. She kicked out her heels and slid back a little on her seat. "I figured. It wouldn't be that easy… Thank you anyway."

/"So this is what you meant about what magic could not fix with your mother?"/

Again, Reim answered for Sue "The Lady fell ill five years ago, and was left blind once she recovered. The doctors have tried all they could, but their magic could not heal damage caused by illness."

/"I must admit, I'm not very familiar with diseases that could cause blindness as an after-effect. Paralysis, permanent muscle injury, nerve damage… but nothing so specific as blindness. The eyes are very sensitive and easy to damage, but they're also largely insulated from the rest of the body's organs for that reason."/

"Is there really no hope? There's nothing anyone can do? It's not fair!"

/"You'll find the world is full of a great many unfair things, little Sue. But hope? Hope is everywhere. Don't give up just yet."/

To take Sue's mind away from her troubles, we started to tell stories. Sure, we could have been lazy about it and simply played some movies… but there was something magical about real storytelling, drawing images with nothing but words, allowing the listener to build the world inside her own imagination.

Monika could play the source material in a small window in my vision space, and it was something like a lit jam as we had to describe what was happening and make voice-overs. Monika could adjust my voice slightly, overlaying it with her speaker output. Enthusiasm was really more important than accurate copying.

Sue looked attentive, but didn't seem to enjoy very much the classics of Disney animated canon like Snow White and Sleeping Beauty. I suppose tales of princesses and princes were silly things to actual royalty and a world with actual dwarves and dragons in it. She was more invested when Maleficent cursed the whole kingdom and turned into a dragon, but it was more exciting than… marvelous.

Monika and I looked at each other, then at Sue, then back at each other.

And so we skipped ahead and began to tell her the story of Fa Mulan.

This one worked much better. There was a lot of dialog Monika and I could play off one another. She laughed gaily at the antics of Mushu. I was much more confident at being able to attempt Freddie Murphy's snarky little fire lizard rather than Robin William's incredible performance as the Genie.

And there was of course the "I'll Make a Man Out of You" song. (ʰᵗᵗᵖˢ://ʷʷʷ.ʸᵒᵘᵗᵘᵇᵉ.ᶜᵒᵐ/ʷᵃᵗᶜʰ?ᵛ⁼ᶻˢˢ⁵ᵈᴱᵉᴹˣ⁶⁴)

It certainly wasn't as powerful as "Exert Oneself to Be a Hero" theme from Once Upon a Time in China. (ʰᵗᵗᵖˢ://ʷʷʷ.ʸᵒᵘᵗᵘᵇᵉ.ᶜᵒᵐ/ʷᵃᵗᶜʰ?ᵛ⁼ᵂᶜᴹ¹ᴵᵇᵗᴿᴹʳᴱ) But the different voices made it funnier, and we painted a picture of a sorry lot exasperating their trainer, and Mulan desperately hoping she didn't get found out through it all.

Sue clapped happily. This was certainly a much more relatable adventure to her.

She listened attentively as we wove the tale of how she marched to war, how she collapsed the mountain on top of the enemy, and how she was found out. Her reward for saving their lives not to be killed for deceiving the army, and Sue cried out at the injustice.

Then the chase and infiltration of the Imperial City, and saving the Emperor's life, and Mulan returning home.

Sue raged that Mulan would only be a dutiful daughter from now on, after she accomplished so much, and then calmed down. If that was what she decided to be, that was fine too. As a noble herself… she understood that women had their own duties too. You can't be so selfish, you need to know what you are doing will also affect others.

And then she beamed happily at the ending, at Mulan finding true love and a man who really respected her. Sue regaled us with what she most enjoyed about the best parts of the tale until even that began to tucker her out. Sue fell asleep soon after, Monika whispering a slow lullaby while I idly fanned the insides of the carriage with a magic breeze.

Reim laid her out to sleep straight on the carriage bench, while he moved to sit down on the floor.

/"… Player, I never really cared as much as you about giving me a real body again, you know?"/ Monika said softly, staring down at Sue's peaceful sleeping face and her long golden hair trailing down the padded carriage seat. /"But more and more I really wish I had hands to touch with."/

She looked at me from the side, and clenched her fists over her chest. /"A waifu can never give you something a wife can. So, Player, someday I hope – sooner than later - you get bored of this game."/

"Monika, that's not-"

But she just left my view again, leaving me alone with nothing but my thoughts.

After a while I exhaled roughly, leaned back crossing my arms, and settled in to sleep as well.

(Why can't I just WIN the damn game, huh?)

Chapter end

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