Gacha Kingdom Building

I didn't know my parents. Their names, their faces, or what they were like. I didn't know anything.

In a random alley off a busy street, I was abandoned.

A few children looked at me, but they didn't speak a word.

The same for the people on the street.

They would rather not look at us, and whenever they did, their expression would briefly turn to one filled with disgust before they turned away and ignored us.

That day, I did nothing but stand in a corner, scared to look at either the people on the street or the children in the alley.

But when the night came, the cold forced the children to approach each other, unnoticeably at first, but soon enough, undeniably.

By the time the moon and stars had risen above the buildings, they had all huddled together, their skin pressing against each other, sharing their warmth.

And I... was no exception.

When the morning came, I felt my stomach hurt.

Although I didn't remember well, it had to have been a while since I last ate.

I searched around, but I could find no food in the alley.

Until three kids appeared.

Slightly older than the rest of us, but still in their early teens, they carried one basket with them.

Inside it, there was bread and a few fruits, which they shared with the others.

Without understanding their words, I was unsure if they would let me eat or not.

But then, they pointed at me, calling me closer, and I joined their meal.

Soon after eating, the kids dispersed, but before the sun had set, one by one, they all had returned.

My only meal that day was the small loaf of bread and the piece of fruit I had in the morning.

For about three years, I'd only eat when someone brought something, and my meals were rarely any fancier than the first.

Slowly, I learned about the place we were in, the names of the kids, what they did, and...

And why, sometimes, they didn't all return.

This was especially true for the older ones.

They were the ones who brought in the most, but they were also the most frequent faces to change.

Every winter, the number of kids huddled beneath the half-collapsed wooden shack at the back of the alley shrank.

Before long, it was just me and four others, and I had become the oldest one...

When the morning came, and reality hit me, I decided to venture out.

The other kids had taught me a lot, but I wasn't the smartest. Or the prettiest. Or the quickest. Or the strongest.

????: "...!"

I was too anxious, too desperate.

It was the first time I had tried stealing anything, but it wasn't the vendors' first time being stolen from.

Almost immediately, I was caught.

For the first time, I regretted the words I was taught.

The threats filled my heart with fear, and no matter how much I wanted to escape, there was nowhere to run.

They told me to let go of what I had stolen, but I knew I couldn't.

No matter how much they hit me, I refused to let go.

Even when they threw me to the ground...

I tried my best to crawl away.

But when they kicked my back, instead of feeling my face hit the ground, I felt myself falling into the dark, until it was all I could see.

????: "Ack... Argh..."

Strangely, I wasn't dying.

The shadows around me weren't exactly comfortable, but they weren't hurting me either.

More importantly, it was just me and the food I had managed to grab.

After a few minutes of stumbling around confused, I learned how to move inside the shadows, and after glimpsing outside and confirming I was alone, I took the opportunity to run back to the alley.

That day was a close call.

The next day, again.

Every year since, no matter how accustomed to it I became, it never got any easier.

Still, I survived.

And with time, the number of kids I had to take care of increased.

The responsibility had never been heavier, but at the same time, I started to feel a happiness I had never felt before.

I still couldn't understand the people outside the alley, and why they looked at us the way they did, but I stopped thinking about it.

Unfortunately, this lifestyle couldn't last forever.

I had missed every opportunity to leave it, worrying about the ones who'd be left behind.

And one day, I bit more than I could chew.

It was the same as always, in a place I had not gone to in a long time.

But my name was already known.

My abilities were already understood.

After so many complaints, they sent someone who could deal with me.

A knight with the magic that allowed him to control the shadows.

Whenever I jumped into one to flee, he quickly isolated them.

I was left exposed.

The only saving grace was that I knew the streets better than my pursuers.

While making my way to the kids, I led them astray into dead ends and narrow streets.

The basket in my hands had never been so full.

It was slowing me down, but I couldn't afford to bring less.

I couldn't afford to let go, no matter how much I bled.

Only three streets away from them...

Only two streets away from them...

Only-

Suddenly, the world started to spin, and I was

Three streets...

Away...

I couldn't feel my legs, so I could only rely on my arms to pull myself forward.

With each passing second, the falling snow clung to me, making it harder to breathe and move forward.

It had been the warmest winter yet...

But the white and the cold bothered me so much.

I wanted to see the kids again... I was so close...

But I never reached them.

When I closed my eyes, the darkness was there to welcome me again.

It wasn't the one I wanted. It wasn't as warm, and I couldn't leave it.

I was trapped for what felt like an eternity, and strangely, a single moment.

And then... I woke up.

Surrounded by unknown people, in a room I didn't know.

Their eyes were filled with suspicion, and beside me, there were other women, all of whom seemed as confused as I was.

But among the suspicious ones, there was an obvious leader.

His eyes were striking.

They reminded me of what I used to see in the older kids when I was young.

This bothered me, and I-

I woke up.

Miwen: "Haah... Shit."

First Daughter: "...Who was it this time?"

Miwen: "...Lana."

Almost as if forcibly ejected, my body slowly emerged from the darkness of the "Infinitesimal Border", the place I had followed the First Daughter into.

From what I understood, this was a type of fabric that connected everything within the same cycle of creation.

The First Daughter's first attempts at explaining it to me were too technical and involved concepts Earth's greatest minds had not yet grasped, but after she compared it to the void between atoms, I understood it a little better.

Of course, its purpose wasn't to track others, and almost no living beings had business interacting with it, but precisely because of those properties, the Endless could use it as they pleased.

In this case, the First Daughter made a bridge out of it, ensuring we would reach the ones we wanted.

As for our opposition...

They decided to torture me with it.

For every step of mine, I'd fall into the darkness, forced to live through the lives of my [Citizens] before they joined their Kingdom, following the order of their recruitment.

I was made to experience their feelings and thoughts, their entire lives through their perspective, as if I were the pilot behind the wheel.

Except I couldn't control their actions at all.

Even though I knew what they would lead to, my consciousness would erode almost, and only after their story ended would I remember my own identity.

One after the other, I could only watch and experience their lives.

After so many decades, I had lived more as someone else than myself...

First Daughter: "You still remember who you are... Right?"

Miwen: "This much is not enough to make me go insane."

It was maddening, and after every step, I had to take some time to recover my sanity, but...

This wasn't enough to stop me.

Miwen: "...How many more?"

First Daughter: "Wanna head back?"

Miwen: "That's not what I asked."

First Daughter: "Right... Well, Lana was the twelfth, so you have about seven hundred left."

Thankfully, this place was "beneath" the layer of time, or something like that, so I didn't have to rush and could rest and recover as much as needed before the next step.

If not for that, I wouldn't have been so confident about not losing my mind.

Still, even with all the time in the world, I couldn't fully recover from something like this.

Some of the lives I had experienced were difficult and tragic, and my mind was a little messed up, like Licia's, but even those had a few good years in them.

Lana's was the first to be so... Hard.

It was a desperate, fruitless struggle with no brightness to it, the only other life remotely comparable being Angelica's.

But at the very least, Angelica had meaning, purpose.

She knew who she was, that she was loved, and that it was unfair.

Lana never got to understand anything.

All she had was the innate desire to survive and a small community that almost disappeared before her eyes.

From beginning to end, there was no-

First Daughter: "Here."

Miwen: "...Really?"

She threw a snack my way.

First Daughter: "You don't have to eat if you don't want to."

Even though I had eaten at Isabella's, I was feeling hungry after going through Lana's life.

And after experiencing her world, I didn't feel like refusing food.

Miwen: "Do you have any idea why they are doing this?"

First Daughter: "They want to hurt you. It's not just about making you experience pain and tragedy. You take pride in building trust and having your [Citizens] open up to you when they feel more comfortable, so they are destroying that for you."

Miwen: "Isn't this a little too petty?"

First Daughter: "It is..."

I couldn't tell how much time I had spent with the First Daughter at the Border, but we had grown a little closer.

My opinion of her wasn't the greatest when I first laid eyes upon her, but I already considered her a friend when I first left the Infinite Hotel.

She also tried to warn me before all of this, so I felt like she also thought we were on good terms.

Surprisingly, for someone of her position, she was more human than I thought.

Although the more we talked, the stronger I felt about her loneliness.

No matter how much she denied it.

Miwen: "Don't take it the wrong way, I'm not complaining or giving up, but... Can't you do something about this? Like, if they redefined this place to torture me, can't you undo that? Or at least close the distance?"

First Daughter: "We can only reach them because they allow us to. And I think the only reason why they are allowing us is because they get to make you suffer through it."

In other words, it would be a meaningless, probably endless game of tug of war between them.

It was probably better to just keep things this way, but I couldn't help but be concerned.

Miwen: "What happens if at the last step, they decide to just... Change things?"

First Daughter: "In that case... I would have to respond in kind. However, we are not supposed to change concepts willy-nilly, especially those we had no part in creating. If the others notice... If he notices..."

She seemed deep in thought.

For a moment, I thought she was going to do something, but...

First Daughter: "I don't know! I think it's best not to worry about it since it's not in anyone's interest to turn this into a bigger mess than it already is. But sincerely, I have no idea what the others would do. It's been too long since we reunited for something like this."

Miwen: "I see..."

Since there was no escape for me, I decided to take another step.

With the First Daughter's blessing, and her assurance that she'd be there to welcome me back, I once again fell into the dark.

When I woke up, I was a small child.

It wasn't the first time I had opened my eyes, but it was the first time I was conscious.

And so, in a small village, my life began.