Faraway scream

“We're meeting for the third time George. Tomorrow will be a full week since you’ve started usurping this body. Well, taking into consideration the progress you’ve made, maybe the word ‘usurping’ stopped being the most precise one, especially after the three big promises that were created on impulse. I love that part, but of course, you had to do something to counter it and thanks to it there was also a part I really hated.

I will leave them both for the end and start this phase in a loose reverse chronological order.

Death, die, danger, equals, trust, do you know what’s the common factor between all these words? Violet. You know well how dangerous this whole esper business can be, so you’ve started building a mental safety net in case something happens. Something that can provide you with a great source of excuses in case your younger sister gets hurt or... dies. After all, the more emphasis is put on the words trust and equals the more her status changes and the weight behind the remaining three words gains her approval. At the same time, you’re feeling guilty for trying to cut away the responsibility for your own sister, so you've increased the priority of providing her with protection. Contradiction, nothing new in your case. Don’t misunderstand! I’m not blaming you, no, no, no! This is a perfect hurdle for you to tackle in order to grow.

This girl has a great influence on you, she’s pushing you to fight against your inner coward. I will help her to overheat your grey matter and give you a few questions to reflect upon:

How to find the delicate balance between the aspects of death, equality, trust, and protection? Should you limit her actions and act as the more equal amongst the equals? Or give her more freedom and increase the risk that something bad will happen? The same can be said about trust. Why didn’t you tell her about the geas? Why did you check her phone? Where’s the border between being careful and paranoid? How much can she be used for your own personal gain before crossing the safe limit? On the other hand, how much you can emotionally attach yourself to her before it will start dragging you both down? Or maybe you will decide to cross the bottom line and go full throttle down the incest path? If you play it well, who knows, maybe it will turn into a sweet forbidden love story. But… I know that you’ve noticed the cracks in her psyche. Will you try to heal them at the risk or ruining the entire relationship between the two of you? Or will you accept Violet as she is and help her to further develop in this direction? Proper balance. I will say it again as it is important - PROPER BALANCE, and by it, I don’t mean balancing yourself well while sitting on the fence. Please put your whole heart into one of the possible solutions and go down that road with conviction.

I personally like her a lot, the underwear trick was nice, she has a good affinity with insects, you included, and makes my work of reforming your soul easier. I would love to invite her into my domain and talk about toothbrushes.

Other than that… you’ve run away with tail between legs four times and allowed some random guy to scam you for money. For a person who sometimes shows a glimpse or two of being smart, it’s all wasted as soon as you let the weak core turn you into a stupid coward.

Old lady screaming at you? Maybe you should fool her somehow to move behind the scope of her suspicions, or maybe pretend to be on her side, or maybe investigate the Nero guy by yourself, or maybe simply apologize and tell her that you were made an accomplice by accident... nah~, why bother, run and forget - the perfect strategy. At least you can run fast, with no balls weighing you down.

Then again, it’s not as your every decision to escape was wrong. The sweet situation in the park that gave me two free level ups was a perfect example of a proper risk management. Running was a good option and you did it well. Let me watch this memory again. Uwaa~, one personal demon with a dead esper, one personal demon with a fried brain esper, fantastic. Those two won’t be coming back into the game any time soon. Would be nice if you shot the bob cut guy before running away, but I guess that would be too much for you. I will give you a tip for showing me this spectacle. Basing on the way she moved her arms, gestures and the effect it caused, the small brown-haired girl probably has some kind of a telekinesis. Don’t get too close to her, its range should be heavily limited and she has to lock on to you with her hand first.

But that panic and running away in the shopping center was completely unnecessary. Heh, you’ve reached this conclusion by yourself. Yeah, that’s right, if you just stayed calm and ignored the flying bug it wouldn’t even realize that you could see it. However, now there’s someone out there who has you marked. What will you do about it? Run away I bet! Remember to join the track club when you will be back at school, it should help you in the future.

I will move the fourth instance of running for later and focus on the item trade scam.

Why do I call it a scam? Think George! Victor’s father wanted you to think outside the box, right? Then why you didn’t even try to check how much he would want for the information about espers? The things that Yuni guy told and gave you are totally basic level ones. Just imagine how much he had to laugh after finding a sucker like you. All the careful planning to meet with him was wasted the moment he shocked you with TET free tickets info, you simply stopped thinking at that time and established Yuni as ‘someone who knows more than I’, don’t do that again, keep your cool till the end.

Now, do you still want to simply wait for the Sunday's dinner to come or will you move your ass and gather some information about it first? You already have an inkling that it’s not as simple as it looks like.

Incidentally, the way you almost cooked yourself with a slime is hilarious. I thought only Xelioatre was capable of such things.

As for your question, ‘how long does it take for someone to change?’. Reflect back on everything you did this week and think, are you still the same George you were when you woke up last Friday? The answer is easy.

There are two more matters I want to talk about in the prelude phase. Like I’ve said, I love one and hated the other. It's not hard to guess which one is which.

‘I promise to become the leader of an esper group within three years. I promise that my esper group will have ten members within three years. I promise that every member of my group will honestly call me a 'great leader' within three years!’

Allow me to me expand the concept of the great leader you had in mind.

A great leader that won’t unjustifiably give in to anger and judge others too quickly! A one that will pay attention to understanding them and won’t simply do it for personal gain! A great leader only for the chosen few who will listen to him unconditionally! Oh, wait… I leaked one of your true goals in the last sentence. But it makes your promises a bit more real. It can’t be helped, after all, you’re still way closer to the ‘I’m a cowardly person’ side. What I want to tell you is that getting ten different people to honestly call you a great leader - will make you scream more than once at how impossible it is. Each of those people will have a different image of a great leader in mind... how are you planning to check that and merge them all together? How will you know that you’ve met that person expectations? How will you know that all ten of them honestly called you a great leader? Will you try to increase the number of people to increase your chances? Impossible, you’ve promised to have ten members, EXACTLY ten members. The best part is… that you’re included in those ten members! It’s you as the leader and nine other people together creating a group of ten. You will have to be able to honestly call yourself a great leader! Oh boy, oh boy, this is going to be a wonderful show.

Yeah, this is the thing I love and I have to admit that...

... it was a perfect usage of the geas! That’s what I call a true reformation and that’s a proper long-term goal, a grand, magnificent one. Just don’t get cold feet now! The number of promises you've made has dropped significantly after that point. You NEED them to change yourself. You NEED to take the risky way. You NEED to struggle. You NEED to suffer. You NEED to lose important things. Otherwise, you will really die in three years, if not sooner. Nevertheless, from now on, I will start calling you Victor.

And the thing I hated…

Hey, look! I’ve got my hands on a thing that can get my ass out of many impossibly hard situations and I can easily get rid of the negative effects later! What should I do with such item? Stupid question! I will throw it away to escape from the big scary mate!

You know why ‘hated’ and not ‘hate’? Because I don’t hate it anymore. It had such an unexpected consequence that even I was honestly surprised it could be used that way. You’ve made a promise to retrieve the vessel from their hands, at the same time my geas was linked to it creating a perfect eavesdropping device. That’s right, it looks like I’m receiving live audio feedback from a small area around the things you’ve got an active geas working on.

I’ve recorded the most interesting part for you, listen to this:

[*SCREEEAAAAAAAAKKKKKKKKK*

‘Loud! Loud, it’s loud! Screamming and screammming, will it ever shut up?! Stupid phone, ugly phone! Adam kill it now!”

*SCREEEAAAAAAAAKKKKKKKKK*

‘Sorry Rora! I’ve tried to! But it’s not working!’

*SCREEEAAAAAAAAKKKKKKKKK*

‘What do you mean ‘not working’?! Dig it a grave! Make it a cross! Or is this phone religion different?! Shall we call a Buddhist monk to do the rites?! But it was in a grave with a cross once! Right?!'

*SCREEEAAAAAAAAKKKKKKKKK*

‘W__t ____t ta____ it b___ to the ______ard?’

*SCREEEAAAAAAAAKKKKKKKKK*

‘Aura louder! I can’t hear you!’

*SCREEEAAAAAAAAKKKKKKKKK*

‘What about taking it back to the graveyard!’

*SCREEEAAAAAAAAKKKKKKKKK*

‘Let’s do that! Adam! Silence it!’

*SCREEEAAAAAAAAKKKKKKKKK*

‘I bro____ _ ____ ___’]

After that, they’ve put it into some kind of a box or something, suppressing the sound from the outside. I can tell you that their plan to place it back into the original grave won’t work no matter how long they keep it there since the vessel has a new DOLL inside. They would need to know her name first to be able to kill her. Luck was really on your side in this case. Try rubbing against Viktoria next time you see her, maybe more of it will transfer to you.

Thanks to it I’ve got an offer for you.

The more geas bound items you will make and spread around, the more I will be able to spy for you. But, this one was an exception, I refuse to help if those geases won’t have something to limit you, like a time limit or other condition increasing the pressure. Also, you will have to retrieve them first and visit me later to get the report. In other words, placing a lot of coins with a geas promising to get them back without specifying a precise date by when that will have to happen - won’t pass. What do you think about it, Victor?

We will end the prelude stage here.

Let me introduce myself again. I’m the 35th demon of reflection Votroadan, you may call me Votr. I’m your soul reformation judge and guide in this world. I hope that our prelude phase still had the proper mood despite Xelioatre silly attempt in the beginning. You’re the first human she has ever seen and curiosity got the better of her.”