Yao Sui is faced with two pieces of good news and one piece of bad news.
Good news: Konnosuke is real, and invites her to join the government, become a Saniwa, and reach the pinnacle of life.
Another piece of good news: The government has recovered the account she lost years ago. The citadel on that account is real.
Bad news: Six years have passed since she lost her account on the channel-specific server.
Oh, and Konnosuke has another piece of bad news: This Saniwa seems a little difficult to deal with.
Yao Sui: So you want me to leave behind the super-cool game room I worked so hard to decorate, the barbecue shop by my apartment complex, the KFC and McDonald's a street away, and all the bubble tea and dessert shops, and go shut myself in a citadel with no internet alongside a bunch of guys who haven't been in touch for six years, so we can fight to save the history of other worlds? No way. Get lost.
Konnosuke: QAQ Aren't you worried about your swords?
Konnosuke: Your swords are incredibly loyal to you. They've had plenty of chances to be assigned a new Saniwa over the years, but they turned them down every time. They said they'd keep waiting until they were broken or rotted away along with the whole citadel. Can you really bear to do that to them?
Yao Sui: ...
Konnosuke: Think of the Tsurumaru Kuninaga, Kogitsunemaru, and Gotou Toshiro on your account... Oh, and now there's also Hakusan Yoshimitsu. Have you seen Hakusan Yoshimitsu's profile? He's a white-haired, expressionless pretty boy! Take a look at this video! Hakusan Yoshimitsu is very hard to obtain. If you agree to take the job, we can apply to give you one Hakusan Yoshimitsu as compensation!
Yao Sui: Wow...
Yao Sui: But I refuse!
-
A citadel that had lost its Saniwa finally found her again after six years.
For tsukumogami in the form of swords, who are hundreds or thousands of years old, six years might pass in the blink of an eye.
But...
But from the time they were awakened to the time they lost their master, they had experienced no more than two years.
Being "abandoned" had already taken up three quarters of their lives as humans.
They only gained hearts after taking human form, and only then could they feel fear and loneliness. They were different from the cold objects they had once been.
Cold moonlit nights and warm days, every waking moment was torture.
Yao Sui: You're all still too young.
I used to think a long life was a burden too. Emptiness, boredom, unchanging scenery, stories that played out again and again, the humans I liked and disliked dying one by one, while I stayed in the same place day after day, forming bonds and saying goodbye over and over...
Until I encountered...
The sword boys: Who? Who stole our master's affection?!
Yao Sui: Of course, manga, anime, games, TV, movies...! The new things humans have invented in the past two hundred years add up to more than everything from the previous two thousand years. They're so much fun!
-
The sword boys: Fighting, laundry, cooking, warming your bed (?), covert assassination (?!), leave it all to us. We're really useful.
Yao Sui: No need, no need. Just sit down. Let these machines handle the chores. Xiao ○, start the robot vacuum.
Strange talking speaker: Okay.
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# Reader's Guide
+ As mentioned earlier, this Saniwa isn't human. She's a long-lived species, an otaku with a thing for white-haired characters.
+ The Saniwa is friendly toward humans, and ranks high among nonhuman species in how humanlike (?) and agreeable she is, but her way of thinking still differs from that of humans.
+ She has a reason for not going to the citadel. It's not just about eating and drinking.
Theme: Technology changes lives
