Your past

"So, Verdi, I know this is late, but my name is Tomoko, this is Alkadabuki, you can call her Alka, Ruya, and Elmeria. We're Citrinas' friends!" Tomoko said cheerily as you nodded, her blessing infused voice rattling in your skull and burning you like lava. You want to just stand up and run away, but you need to convince these heroines to leave you alone. You had to bite the bullet and endure the pain.

"Verdi." You say, introducing yourself as Tomoko raises her hand in the air.

"Are you sure you aren't hungry? I have more than enough omurice." She offers, summoning another plate of food out of nowhere. You'd envy her ability if your Humanity skill didn't do the same thing with the gallons of potions you store in your body.

"Pass." You say, half expecting the food to be blessed with holy magic. She smiles as the food disappears from her hand in an instant.

"So, Verdi, tell me, how'd you end up at this mountain?" Tomoko asks as you think over your words carefully. You couldn't lie, but you were also having trouble focusing due to her passive instant kill voice ability. Even with Angelic Blessing and Status effect active, your insides were scorching as you spoke, using all your willpower to sound neutral.

"Er... I was always here I guess." You answer as Alkadabuki stares at you, the Amazonian genuinely impressed by your answer.

"Your parents must be quite formidable to live here. Even hardened soldiers would have trouble surviving in such a place." She noted, thinking back to Rohan and his men.

"Yes, they were." You say absentmindedly, only for Tomoko and Elmeria to wince. Ah. Lie detector skill. Did you even have parents in this world? You assumed Melanoche and Carnachias would count, but it seems you were wrong.

"I... I see." Tomoko says awkwardly, unwilling to call your lie out as Elmeria listened in on your conversation. "So... Verdi... When did you first arrive to this mountain? I think I missed your answer earlier." She asked nervously as you feel half your organs shut down. Had it not been for your absurd regeneration, you'd have died from the first sentence that left her lips. Of course, that didn't mean just being near her didn't hurt like hell.

"A while ago." You answer, unwilling to give anymore distinct answers with your mind in such a haze.

"Um... If you don't mind me asking, what city did you come from? Perhaps we could find some relatives of yours. The church has many ears." Elmeria offers with a worried expression. You feel something inside you rot as you clutch your stomach to stifle the pain. A double dose of instant kill was agony, but you were strong. You will prevail.

"Not sure." You answer while trying to seem casual. Even you could tell your voice sounded ****.

"I... See. Do you have any memories of the world outside this mountain?" Elmeria asked with growing concern. You try to think of a proper answer to her question, but the pain from her voice has reached your brain.

"Perhaps, but nothing specific comes to mind." You answer, trying to think of a better answer.

"... I see." Elmeria says, noticing the pained expression on your face and backing off from the topic.

"So why become an alchemist?" Ruya asked while studying you, giving you a moment's reprieve to let your body heal. You hum and haw for a moment to buy time before snapping your fingers.

"It was a useful skill." You answer flatly. Your potions were your lifeline. The ability to use your own body as a reagent made you second to none when it came to production, and your fighting style was focused on attrition.

"Have you thought about leaving this mountain?" Alkadabuki asks between chews, extending her hand to Tomoko as the hero handed her another omurice. With the pain no longer ravaging your body, you can give her a real honest to God half answer.

"No. I like it here. I hope to stay here. If you could convince Citrinas to let me go, I'd be much obliged." You admit, thinking back to your dungeon. You still enjoyed the status buffs of pure land and dungeon core since your original body was there, but you preferred having your daughters and minions around to help you. You also wanted these heroines FAR away from you. As you feel a wave of relief from the sudden silence, Tomoko speaks up.

"Do you at least have any friends out here?" She asked with a worried voice as you shrug, her voice now gnawing into your soul. Why was the instant kill effect getting stronger? It was taking everything in you to not pass out then and there.

"I don't get lonely out here. Plenty of stuff to do." You admit, relieved to see they didn't flinch at your words. Nailed it. Speaking of nails, it felt like one was being driven into your ballsack.

"Such as?" Alkadabuki asked.

"Fighting monsters and mixing potions." You answer.

"Oh, so you're fighting them on a regular basis. I see that you're quite an adept fighter if you haven't been injured by them." She says as you regain your composure.

"Oh yeah. It's easy to survive out here. I rarely get hurt by the monsters." You say casually as Elmeria and Tomoko flinch. Right, you tend to get torn apart by monsters. You only win by healing faster than they can kill you. "But when I do get hurt, I usually heal up good as new pretty quickly." You explain as they nod, unwilling to call you out on your previous lie.

"How are you gathering the ingredients for these potions? I don't see any plants around here." Ruya chimed in as you shrugged your shoulders.

"Oh, there's plenty of resources here. You just need to know what to do." You say as Tomoko and Elmeria flinch. Does your own body not count as a resource?

"Still, you must go through a lot of potions then." Ruya continued as you finished regenerating whatever organs Tomoko and Elmeria vaporized with their voices.

"I use them when I need to." You answer truthfully.

"You shouldn't be too stingy about using potions. Hate to see someone like you get hurt." Tomoko says as you resist the urge to whimper as several blood vessels pop in your neck. When is this meal going to end? You need to find a way to avoid this OP voice instakill skill one day.

"Don't worry, I rarely get injured to the point where it's life threatening, and I do use potions when my life is in danger." You answer, you mind swirling as you tried to stay conscious. Suddenly, you see Tomoko stop eating, a tear rolling down her cheek as Elmeria pats your shoulder, both of them flinching at your response. You were telling the truth! You've been in only one dangerous fight, and that was day one with Asriana. After that... You spent your time... Getting the Final Form skill... By fighting opponents stronger than you and nearly dying... Several hundred times...

Shit.

"You poor thing." Tomoko says softly, continuing to cry as you resist the urge to cry yourself from her voice. The nail you feel slamming into your balls has now turned into a power drill.

"The mountain isn't that bad when you are used to it. Please, don't cry." You try to look cheery, but the physical pain from hearing Tomoko's voice left you with a crooked smile. Your head feels like someone let a ferret on cocaine go wild inside your skull. She shakes her head, continuing to barrage you with a stream of horrific pain she calls words.

"How can I not weep after hearing how tragic your life has been until now?" She asks indignantly.

"What is so tragic?" You ask, genuinely puzzled. This only serves to make her cry harder. Elmeria suddenly hugs you, also crying as you feel her tears literally burn your skin. You heal quickly enough to hide the scalding flesh, but every tear she sheds is eating away at your very core.

"It's okay. You're fine." The elf says, confusing you further.

"Yes, that's right. I am fine." You say, your smile now **** by sheer willpower alone. The tears, they burn like acid! "It's fine. So why are you both crying?" You ask, only to make them cry harder. The tears, they're seeping into your clothes! The burning won't stop!

"You've survived alone in this barren world for all your life, scavenging in a hell that would kill a veteran ranger in days, fending off monsters far beyond your power without so much as a parent to rely on. You've been injured repeatedly, but you couldn't treat your injuries because you couldn't afford to waste what little resources you had, and you think that's fine?" Tomoko asks, piecing together your shoddy answers, your data from God's Eye, and your half truths into some tragic story. You've lost control of the situation.

"It's not as bad as it sounds." You try to talk, but the pain is too much. The tears burn your skin, their voices curdle your blood, and their cries are destroying your organs. "I have a lot more resources than you think." You say as Alkadabuki squints her eyes.

"And yet, you decided to give up whatever you scavenged to Rohan the day you saw his men." She notes as you bite your lip.

"Yes, it was no trouble at all. He needed them far more than I did." You say quickly. Both girls flinched at your first statement. Saving them was troublesome for you, considering it kick started this chain of events.

"Citrinas said you had a battalion's worth of potions stored away. It must have taken time to amass that many reagents in a place where nothing grows." Ruya adds, the dragonkin far too perceptive for her own good as the heroines formed their own backstory for you. Instead of being a reclusive hermit on a mountain, you were a lone orphan living in the harsh mountains scavenging random plants and getting assaulted by monsters while giving up what little you had saving complete strangers out of the kindness of your heart. What a great backstory, if only it were true.

"I'm a fast worker. It was no trouble at all." You say quickly.

"Even in times of peace, that would have been worth a fortune. Why didn't you ask for payment?" Ruya asked.

"I... I did receive payment." You answer after a moment of thinking, calming Tomoko and Elmeria for a second.

"What did they give you?" The dragonkin asked.

"The promise to not talk about me to the world at large." You answer quickly, alarm bells in your head screaming at ending this conversation now. You asked for two things from Rohan. The first was to keep his trap shut. The other...

"Your face tells me you asked for more from him." Ruya said as you cursed your human form yet again. It had been months since you had a human body, so facial expressions were still hard to conceal. "What did he give you?" You can't lie. You can't answer around this, your mind was in too much pain to focus. You'll have to say the truth.

"I... I also asked him to tell me about the world outside the mountains." You say nervously as one of your arms outright rots off your body at the shoulder, the holy power surrounding you now causing you to break down piece by piece. Before the limb can fall to the ground, you reach over and grab the dismembered limb by the elbow with your remaining arm, making you look sheepish rather than in unfathomable pain. It's at this point all 4 girls look like they want to cry, hearing your request from Rohan and making your already depressing backstory worse.

"But it's nothing really. The world seems dangerous outside the mountain." Rather than dissipate their worries, you found even the emotionless Ruya staring at you like you were some beaten puppy.

"It's much safer out there than it is here." Alkadabuki says as you shake your head. It was safer here than it was with them, but you can't just say that. You need an excuse... Something to justify staying here... Oh!

"I know there's a demon king roaming about terrorizing the continent. At least here, he will never attack me." You add quickly. Soon everyone stares at you, astonished by your words. Were they insulted by the implication they were failing to stop the forces of darkness? Good. Nobody wants a rude teammate. Out of the bunch, Ruya seemed the most devastated by your words, the stone cold dragon girl now visibly ashamed and furious.

"You're hiding here because of him?" She asked softly, her monotonous, neutral tone now one laden with cold fury.

"Is it so wrong to want to avoid such a monster?" You counter, giving her a half answer. Rather than call you coward for hiding, you watch her clench her fist and grit her teeth, unable to even speak at your answer. Good! She's pissed! Keep it up and you'll probably have them begging to keep you away from them. As you prepare for her to spit in her face, she looks down at her feet and speaks to you, her face sunken as she too begins crying. Oh no.

"I'm so sorry. You've had to suffer so long because of that monster." She said quietly, as though she had somehow personally exiled you to this mountain. Rather than being angry at you, she seemd angrier at herself. "He's gone now. It's okay." She says as you curse yourself, realizing too late what happened.

The demon king right now was a woman. You misspoke and kept saying he instead of she. From their point of view, you were now an orphan directly impacted by the previous demon king's reign of terror and cowering from him out of trauma. AKA, Ruya's father. From her point of view, she was an indirect architect for your misery. The truth was far different, but it's not like you can outright say the truth without being vaporized.

"I don't need to leave. This mountain has and always been my home. I'm happy here." You reassure, your words doing nothing but evoke more pitied looks in your direction. Alkadabuki even pats your head at your proclamation.

"You've been strong to stay here for so long, but it's alright. The world is safe now." The Amazonian reassures, still not getting your message.

"I really am fine here!" You snap back indignantly, only for Ruya to shake her head.

"I see the pain in your eyes when you talk about your past. You believe you are weak and must hide in the shadows, but you are anything but that. You were strong to survive in this world after all you've had to endure." She says as you snap at her, your temper getting the better of you. That wasn't pain from a sad backstory, that was physical pain from having your entire body blasted with a double dose of holy instant **** and then washing it down with holy water! Your organs were rotting, your limbs were falling off, and your skin was burning! They just need to realize you don't want to be near them since their voices sting like knives!

"I am weak! This place is the perfect place to be, and I don't need to leave! I don't want to go with you, and I don't want to go with Citrinas, so tell her to leave me alone!" You shout angrily, your voice tinged with the unfathomable pain of holy magic eating your body. Instead of sounding assertive or furious, you sounded like a child on the verge of tears. You soon regret your answer even more as Tomoko and Elmeria show no signs of detecting a lie. It was the truth, after all. You might be the strongest thing on the mountain and more robust than most humans, but you were still pathetic compared to these freaks of nature. Of course, the fact that this was the truth just made you seem that much sadder and mentally unwell in their eyes. Just when things couldn't get any worse, the tent flaps behind you opened as Citrinas entered.

"Verdi! I was looking for you!" She said while looking to her compatriots, not noticing Tomoko and Elmeria wipe their eyes as she entered. "Oh, you met everyone! How was breakfast?" She asked as Tomoko gave a **** smile.

"It was fine. Are you hungry?" She asked, conjuring another plate of food.

"No, I actually want to ask you all something." Citrianas says.

"What is it?" Elmeria asks as the accursed Arch-imago grabs your arm.

"I really want Verdi to come with us. He wants to stay here, but I believe he needs to leave this mountain and-" before she can finish, Tomoko speaks up.

"I approve of taking him with us!" She said without hesitation.

"As do I." Ruya said.

"He should come with us. He would do well to learn there's more to the world than ice and suffering." Alkadabuki says as Elmeria looks away from them.

"Normally, I wouldn't accept some random nobody into joining us, but you seem to like him a lot." She said arrogantly. "So, I'll let him join us for your sake."

"I object!" You add in as Alkadabuki walked over and tussled your hair.

"Overruled." She says as Tomoko extends her hand to you to shake.

"Welcome to the party, Verdi." She says as Citrinas leans close and speaks into your ear with a hushed voice.

"This is for yesterday." She said, confusing you as she suddenly flipped you over and grabbed you by both cheeks. Before you could ask her what she was doing, she closed her eyes and kissed you on the lips in front of everyone. All 5 girls turned beet red at the sudden show of dominance as Citrinas let you go.

"Thank you guys." She says, red faced before running out of the tent in a panic. Meanwhile, you've collapsed in your chair, in a daze at your atrocious luck. You came here to sway these heroines to ditch you, not drag you along for their adventures! The fact that Citrinas managed to salt your wound by getting the last laugh and kissing you only made your defeat that much worse.