Beginning of Act 2, Part 1
(This chapter returns to Eliza's point of view.)
I believe that games, books, manga, anime, TV shows, movies, all these things created solely for entertainment purposes are basically so that we can obtain some sort of catharsis. As an example, in my previous life, due to my younger sister's recommendation, I tried a certain otome game.
Helping other people from the heroine's perspective, improving your character by raising your level and stats, and enjoying the drama between the characters.
You can romance handsome, high-spec boys, or even, during that process defeat your love rivals.
With it, you obtain a sense of superiority and satisfaction.
In a medieval European fantasy setting, made of fluffy images, the heroine is able to meet male capture targets filled with various female ideals, although this was all very lacking in realism. Once again, this must purely be for entertainment purposes, as the characters' archetypes were rather exaggerated and very shallow.
The otome game was quite detailed, and it felt deeper than most stories. Just like the original meaning of the word catharsis, it might have been intended to purify the emotions of pity and fear through art.
However, all I know is that it wasn't the case for me.
The heroine was someone that had come from the neighboring country, to go to noble school and look for a husband candidate from among the students, and she would romance them, that was the story.
It didn't depict anything about the brutality and filthiness of human beings, there was nothing in it obstructing people from obtaining catharsis.
I looked around at the earth which was stained with blood. Dead bodies which were unrecognizable, were piled up like garbage.
Military forces between countries had fought here. Humans had caused so much death and destruction.
Why had they fought, why were so many lives sacrificed, the dead would obtain nothing.
There was nothing such as celebration wine to be seen around here.
This was another side to the game world where the heroine was the neighboring country's archduke's daughter and had come to noble school to have fun and find romance. This type of scene had never appeared in the game, yet there were indeed pools of blood everywhere.
There's no such reason like people attempting to obtain catharsis here, there was only people killing each other, and dying. Or, there's no story-like qualities here, only people fighting with all their strength.
People aren't very principled, it's a world where people attack others based on their feelings and desires.
Even though I know that, still, this world is nothing like the game settings at all, only the stage is the same while a war began, I got the ridiculous idea wondering if this was reality at all.
I was simply scared.
Is this world real or fake? Am I just dreaming?
Indeed, my feelings of memories of a past life were fading.
Why did I kill people for, I wonder. Why do people die, I wonder.
Are people's deaths meaningless, I wonder.
I wonder if I would have been happier had I not recalled my past life's memories. If I didn't know the game's story from my past life's memories, would this war have not started, I wonder.
Even if I think about it, I have no answers. That's all I understand.
I just keep telling myself that it's probably for the best that I don't understand anything.
Is this world just a game world from my previous life, I wonder.
Or, is this reality with breathing, living people, I wonder.
I can't decide if this is reality or not, even though technically this isn't supposed to be something that I can just leave undecided.
That's why, maybe I have no choice but to accept, that I can't make a choice between the two.