The cat-girl avatar was cute, but many of their abilities were capped at a lower level than the fully human avatars. They were seen as handicaps in terms of fighting power, so they were rarely chosen by co-op players in particularly difficult areas.
I think Harold mentioned that he had been even more surprised at her skill because of that… Amy realized as she probed her own hazy memories.
“But you didn’t want to change your avatar, right?” said Amy, urging Yasmine to continue.
“Well—no! It was cute!”
Amy laughed.
“Totally understandable!”
The two girls laughed together, their attempts at maintaining aristocratic formality quickly vanishing.
“Hal was the first person who played with me without judging me based on my avatar. He called me ‘Yasmine’ like we were old friends, and we had so much fun… I always wished that our video game world was real… Not that I think I was reincarnated because of that, though,” Yasmine added.
She went on to detail her life so far as Maria Clifford.
Maria was born fatherless, and her mother died when she was a very young child. After that, she was raised by her grandfather living in Wallum. She had remembered the memories from her previous life a little sooner than Amy had, when she was just nine years old.
She couldn’t believe her eyes when she saw Harold and his twin blades during the kraken hunt—he fought just like the ‘Hal’ from her memories.
When Maria’s grandfather died, an aristocrat suddenly visited her, claiming to be a relative of her father. Just when the man was about to forcefully take her away, Maria suddenly discovered her magical power.
Maria escaped, and along the way, she met an adventurer magician. She asked them to teach her about magic, and that was how she became a hunter.
Her teacher acted as her guardian and looked after her throughout the rest of her childhood, but she had become totally independent since coming of age this year. Almost immediately after, she met Harold’s party and Harold invited her to join them as a permanent member.
“What?! You’re already of age?”
“Yes.”
Amy would be coming of age on her next birthday, but that was still some time away. After some probing, Amy learned that Yasmine’s birthday was much earlier than hers. Although they would have been in the same year academically, they were almost a year apart in age.
Now it made sense why Yasmine seemed so mature compared to Amy.
Be that as it may, Yasmine was the illegitimate child of an aristocrat and was born with high magic power—she fit the heroine template for otome-game-themed novels perfectly… But she didn’t even seem to be aware of it.
On the other hand, since Yasmine had regained her past life memories and awakened to her magic power, she seemed more focused on finding out how to recreate the playstyle of her monster-hunting video game. Although she may have looked like a heroine, deep down, she was probably more like Harold.
From what Amy had heard, Yasmine seemed to hold Harold in quite high regard—both in this life and the last.
“I heard that Hal had become an adventurer, so I thought that if I honed my skills, we could hunt monsters together again, just like we did in our past life.”
“I see… Um… May I ask you a question, Yasmine? Uh… Are you…dating my brother?”
“Huh?! Wh-What— Why would you— What?!”
“I was just wondering if you guys were boyfriend and girlfriend.”
A wave of red flooded Yasmine’s face up to the rim of her eyes, and she frantically shook her head and both hands all at once.
“B-B-Boyfriend and girlfriend— D-Dating?! No, I-I just want to catch up to Hal’s level!”
“It just seems like you guys are together a lot, and I heard he was pretty pushy when he tried to persuade you to join his party…”
“Th-That was just because I…I wasn’t confident my abilities would be up to his party’s level…”
“Even though you can do all that stuff?!” Amy asked, remembering Yasmine’s illusions from the tournament. She couldn’t believe her ears. “That’s impossible!”
Yasmine shook her head again.
“My skills are nothing compared with what I could do in the game, but Hal told me it was fine… I never thought we’d be able to play—I mean, hunt together again, so all I can do right now is try to improve my skills.”
What am I going to do?! Such a courageous, hard-working girl, saddled with taking care of Harold… I’m so, so sorry, Yasmine!
Amy had been slightly off the mark with her dating assumption. Right now, at least, Yasmine and Harold seemed bound by comradery more than anything else.
Amy felt so guilty that Yasmine was at her slightly feckless, free-spirited brother’s beck and call, she blurted out: “I’m really sorry for any trouble Harold has caused…”
“No, not at all! I’m actually the one dragging him down! I can’t even break rocks.”
“You don’t have to break any rocks!”
“And the recovery potion I’m developing is the worst tasting thing in the world… It’s got such a bad reputation, people say it restores your strength but zaps away your willpower to go on.”
“What on earth does it taste like?! Wait—recovery potions exist? I’ve never seen one!”
“Well…that’s still a trade secret!” Yasmine boasted excitedly, bursting into giggles.
Then, suddenly, she started crying again.
As Amy flew into a confused panic, Yasmine chuckled softly with watery eyes.
“I’ve always…wanted to talk to somebody like this… I’m just so beside myself with happiness… I’m sorry for crying again.”
When her tears subsided somewhat, Yasmine eventually explained that for a while after she had remembered her previous life, she had been so confused and affected by her memories that she ended up alienating the friends she had made in this world.
“I was so happy that I could move around freely because I hadn’t been able to exercise or anything like that in my past life. But then I remembered it hadn’t just been my mind that was sick, but my entire body… After remembering that, even though nothing was wrong with me, I got a fever, my body started to hurt all over, and I suddenly couldn’t eat… For six months, I couldn’t even sit up properly.”
“That must have been awful…”
“It’s not that I didn’t know what triggered it—I just couldn’t tell anyone about it. Even after I felt better, everyone was so afraid I’d get that weird illness again or suddenly collapse, so it was hard for me to readjust to this world. So instead, I just distanced myself from everything and everyone… Only Grandpa loved me unconditionally, but I couldn’t even tell him about my previous life.”